A University of Betrayal (The Blairville Legacies #2)

Chapter 47

Miles

Change is in the Air

RealTunesStudio

“You can’t tell me that if you find parts of a diary that you don’t want to know where the rest of it is. Especially not if the owner disappeared and people close to you were connected to her.”

Bayla Adams, the girl with the two different eye colors, the shoulder-length brown hair, and the nonexistent smell was debating wildly.

It had started yesterday when we had been on our way back from Professor Copeland’s office and had analyzed his behavior. Bayla hadn’t said anything at first, but then it had all burst out of her... and she wasn’t afraid to talk to me, even though she knew what I was. It felt unfamiliar, but because of Larissa, I had to get used to it.

“He won’t understand you,” Larissa said, exhausted, because she had wanted to argue with me the whole time yesterday. I’d taken her to her house and had involuntarily gone back with the Senseque guy. We hadn’t said a word to each other.

I was supposed to hate him because he was a Senseque. But he didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in my presence, except for the tension he radiated because he probably didn’t trust me anyway.

But then there had been that conversation between him and Emely. They had seemed so familiar... and yet so divided.

I had been curious, eavesdropping eagerly to find out more about them. The tension inside me was enormous and by now, any information about them was worth its weight in gold. Because I would need information to know where her sore spots were.

In any case – unlike Julian – I hadn’t entered the accommodation full of Senseque, but had returned to the library and started a law study marathon before coming to pick up Larissa half an hour ago.

“Miles doesn’t like adventures,” Larissa continued jokingly beside me and I raised one of my eyebrows.

“Thanks, but I can speak for myself,” I began. “To be honest, it sounds like fun and I admit that you’ve piqued my interest.” Then my gaze became more serious and I looked at the two of them. “You just shouldn’t let the wrong people catch you guys together.”

I hadn’t expected her to be there yesterday. She was the last person I would have expected to be anywhere near a Quatura. The Senseque had countless problems with them, which was especially noticeable with her brother and Vivienna.

And yet Emely had been there and everything about it had… felt strange. At first, she had wanted to blow our cover, but after this Bardot guy had spoken to her, her behavior had completely changed.

Who was he that she was doing him this favor?

“You’ re walking to campus with us right now,” Bayla snorted and Larissa grinned widely.

The two of them were a good match, sometimes complementing each other, as Bayla seemed more relaxed when Larissa had too much electricity flowing through her wires.

“From where I’m going to disappear straight to my brothers,” I corrected her.

“Are they really your brothers? And if so, are they your brothers too?” Bayla asked with serious interest in her voice, eying both of us. She was interested in our species. Another thing that confused me.

“No, that’s just what we’re called. We are a blood brotherhood,” I explained to her. There was no reason to make her feel stupid or not answer the questions she asked. As long as she did no harm to me, I would do no harm to her and simply label her as my sister’s weird friend.

“Interesting...” Bayla said, lost in thought.

We walked through the portico and finally entered the campus.

“I’ll keep an eye on your little project. Don’t get our clan into trouble.”

Larissa gave me a slightly annoyed look, but at least she didn’t argue with me.

“Well, if this continues, soon half the campus will know about our mission,” Bayla sighed.

“I think half the campus is busy with something else right now,” Larissa laughed and pointed across the meadows to the place where a lot of students had gathered. It was the parking lot.

“What’s going on there? Are some shirtless Senseque playing made-up games again?”

Bayla’s comment made me grin unintentionally, but my curiosity about what was going on there gradually grew.

“Hardly in the parking lot,” Larissa said. “Come with me, Bay. I have to see this.”

I followed the two girls across the meadow, not too close, because there could be other Quatura around here who saw me as a threat, and then Bastien would get into trouble, for which I would have to justify myself again. I had little desire to do that.

“There’s always something going on on this campus, isn’t it?” I heard a girl with blonde curls ask Bayla, who joined the two of them to head toward the crowd of students.

“It’s because of the people who go to university here,” Bayla joked, and the girl jumped right on it.

“If you mean Nash Copeland and his guys, they’re pretty hot.”

“You better stay away from them if you don’t want trouble,” I laughed and the girl looked back at me, blushed and immediately the smell of sweet blood hit my nose. Her blood type was AB. And I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. Normally I would have been in the Receptum by now, getting my morning workout and a half liter of blood.

But hey... What didn’t you do just to look after your sister?

The blonde girl turned around again, and I widened the gap a little more so that Larissa and the other two arrived at the other people before me. Larissa’s eyes widened, and she immediately looked at me. This was the moment my alarm bells rang.

I had parked my car there. Exactly where everyone was standing.

Gives You Hell

The All-American Rejects

Concerned, I rushed forward and when people saw me, they stepped away or jumped to the side. Some laughed, some seemed to look at me with pity.

And then my car came into view.

My eyelids twitched involuntarily. My jaw tensed with violence.

My matte gray Lamborghini should have been standing in front of me. What was actually in front of me was a completely blackened Lamborghini with a gray-white wolf’s head on the hood, baring its teeth. Underneath was green and red lettering.

The wolves are coming for you.

Anger lit a fire in my chest.

“There’s nothing to look at here!” David shouted, appearing out of nowhere.

“And certainly nothing to film, you morons.” In the corner of my eye, I spotted Adrian snatching the phone out of one guy’s hands, who tried to protest, but then received Adrian’s icy death stare.

The crowd reluctantly dissolved, but it didn’t just let my anger fizzle out. It was boiling inside me right now, and I almost kicked my own car because it was ruined. It had been bloody expensive and...

Calm down, Miles... calm down.

“Whoever did this is going to burn for it!” I gritted out with slight aggression and in the corner of my eye I saw Bayla, who was still standing with Larissa, flinch.

“I’d say you brought the problem on yourself,” David said, walking around the vehicle. “Oh, that doesn’t look good at all. Someone’s even gone over it with their key.”

“What?!” I rushed over to him and stared at the scratched-in message, my pulse quickening.

Don’t mess with my sister again!

I took a deep breath... and ended up kicking my own car, leaving a huge dent.

Around me, more students turned toward me.

David stepped back. “Relax.”

“No, I’m not going to relax now. Can’t you see what my car looks like?” I snapped at him more aggressively than usual.

It was rare that I could be irritated and pushed to my limits, but my car was my fucking limit!

“It’s not going to get any better if you kick it.”

David didn’t seem to realize that it was as good as destroyed. That dent was right in the spot that needed replacing anyway.

“That’s what you get for challenging those bastards to a game.”

Adrian had stepped up beside us and read the writing that could only come from one person. Nash .

“They didn’t just humiliate you. They humiliated us.” Adrian looked angered. Although it wasn’t even his damn car, which looked like it had been left in the craft area of the kindergarten.

I was too angry to say anything, so I went back to the car hood and looked at the wolf... Then I spotted something else. Another lettering further down, where once a license plate had been visible.

Point for me, Milliam.

“That dirty grin. They don’t even try to hide it.”

I looked up, at Adrian, who was looking directly at the biggest oak tree on campus, and I turned my head.

The pack must have just arrived.

And the way they looked... grinning with hostility, all of them, especially Nash Copeland, who was standing there – his hands in his pockets – whispering something to the African-American guy.

But it wasn’t Nash Copeland, or any of his idiot friends, who was bothering me. It was her . The whole time it had been her ....

I stared at the girl and she stared back. Her grin was so cheeky, felt so bitter.

The realization hit me like a fist to the eye. I could literally read her words from her far too pretty lips: Point for me, Milliam.

This was all her doing!

My brow narrowed, although it didn’t stop her from grinning.

Someone came up to her. It was the Russian Senseque... And she turned away from me.

Emely Copeland had gone too far .

Anger shot through my veins and I kicked the license plate. It fell to the ground with a clatter and the noise made more students look in our direction.

“Miles! Pull yourself together. We have a reputation to uphold.”

Furious, I turned to Adrian. “Fuck the reputation! She crossed a line!”

Adrian raised an eyebrow. “She’?”

“Emely Copeland,” Larissa laughed with realization and Adrian’s expression grew worried.

“Are you sure it wasn’t her brother?” David laughed and stepped up next to Adrian.

I was sure, but I didn’t necessarily need to extend the conversation now. This between me and the wolf girl was nobody’s business.

“That girl is the main problem, not her brother,” I growled tensely.

“You’re letting a female Senseque take you down?”

Did Adrian have to bring this up now?

“I...” I began, but Adrian had already turned away from me, toward Bayla Adams.

“What’s this girl doing here?”

Bayla blushed a little and stared at Adrian like he was a threat to her existence.

“I was just leaving,” she barely managed to get out and nodded at Larissa, who apologized to her with a look.

“What did I tell you?” Adrian asked with a very tense look directed at Larissa.

“Leave me alone, Adrian. You shouldn’t give a shit about my life.”

I was only aware of their discussion in the background, far too focused on my broken car.

How could she have gone this far?

I wanted her to pay for this, wanted her to regret this, with every cell in her body, wanted to tear her apart, drive her into the corner of the nearest hallway until she stood in front of me, out of breath and with nowhere to hide, pressed against a wall....

The mere image whipped adrenaline through my body.

No. I couldn’t let it get that far...

I looked at Emely, but someone was blocking my view.

It was Tristan.

War

Christopher Tyng

“What is he doing here?” I growled, staring in the direction he’d come from with Bastien.

Until a minute ago, I wouldn’t have thought that I could feel more resentment for someone than I did for the Copeland girl. But it was none other than my father strolling alongside Bastien, with his long black coat, a fucking black-gray suit, and that stupid triumphant look.

He was the last person I wanted to see here! The Vanderwood had been the one place where I hadn’t had to think about him and where he couldn’t confront me with his presence. Now he just walked around campus like he belonged here.

“Someone should tell him,” I heard David mumble, and it sounded like someone had fucked up and was trying to keep it from me.

“ Tell me what ?”

Adrian was the only one who had an answer for me. “Tristan is being used by the DUIO at Vanderwood as a surveillance professor in the economics department. Bastien wants to make sure someone is keeping an eye on us.”

“Just because of the four of us?” Larissa sounded irritated and a quick glance at her told me that she didn’t like that sick bastard showing up here either and...

I realized a little too late what Adrian had just said.

How could they let him come here? To a place full of humans. Him? He had broken the rules. The rules of the goddamn blood law. This man had no business in a place like this.

“That will change soon,” Adrian whispered and Larissa eyed him suspiciously. Her head seemed to be working. Had no one told her that more Ruisangors would soon be coming to Blairville?

The two men approached us. They both looked at us and I couldn’t look that asshole in the eye, so I looked at Bastien, who for once wasn’t wearing the black sunglasses.

Why had he let that happen? Tristan DeLoughrey was dangerous. He was a cold-blooded monster.

Pain, anger, hatred. All of it mixed together in my chest, pooled like a ball and just burst out of me as soon as the two men arrived.

“What are you doing here?!” I shouted and stepped threateningly close to him.

“Miles,” Adrian grumbled, because I had the attention of half the campus on me. And – as always – I didn’t give a damn. I had always tried to shit on the opinions of others, and right now it was working flawlessly.

The man in front of me was the problem, not me.

“Milliam, please, don’t be a fool,” he said, as if I was an annoying fly to him.

He looked around and nodded to the passing students with a smile. He nodded to humans. Smiling.

My jaw had never been so tense.

“Larissa. Maybe I’ll have the pleasure of talking to you here more often, now that you’ve decided to avoid me, which of course I can understand.”

“He doesn’t. He doesn’t even know you,” I laughed bitterly and saw the unsettled look on Larissa’s face.

She should be warned. Not that he was taking advantage of her just as carelessly as he had done with me.

Then my professional uncle finally found his words again. “Miles. Please come with me.”

“No,” I said with complete control. “There’s no need to talk.”

Bastien’s expression remained unchanged.

“Do as he says,” Adrian growled behind me, and I would have loved to turn around and give him my fist.

Because they wouldn’t take my word seriously. My opinion was either funny or nobody cared.

For what must have been the ten thousandth time, I allowed Bastien’s influence on my sanity to be greater than the truth. Too often, I pulled myself together because he wanted me to.

Bastien squeezed my shoulder and walked past me so that I had to follow him. He stopped for a moment and looked at the car, then he looked at me, and I laughed peevishly.

It was a bad joke how generous fate had been with me.

Bastien pulled me along, shaking his head, until we were standing in the shade of one of the oak trees.

“Please don’t tell me it was you.”

I laughed again. “What do you think of me?”

Surely I was painting my most valuable possessions, and then I was doing it in such a tasteless way.

Bastien looked at me apologetically. He didn’t do that often... Because I often was the person who deserved his lectures.

“Look at the hood, then you’ll know who did it,” I snorted.

Bastien immediately looked at my car and when he looked back at me, his expression was even more serious than before.

“You seem to have a lot of people against you, kid.”

I laughed dryly.

Bastien came closer and forced me to look at him. His eyes were as gray as Nicolaj’s, only not as icy, so sometimes I wondered what his human mother had looked like. Had he inherited his dark blond hair from her?

“Promise me that won’t be a problem I’ll have to take care of again.”

“No, it’s fine, I’ve got everything under control,” I said reassuringly and looked at Adrian and the others, who were still standing with Tristan.

“I can see that,” my uncle murmured.

I just wanted to leave.

“Good. Are we done now?”

I reached for my car keys almost automatically, which made me laugh at myself the next moment.

“Miles, I understand you’re angry, but I had no choice.”

I wheeled around. “You always have no choice when it comes to your brother!”

Tristan looked to us, his face so unreadable. I turned demonstratively to Bastien so I didn’t have to see his ridiculous face, and lowered my voice. “You keep giving him a chance!”

Bastien looked around with a grim expression, but then came even closer. His voice rarely sounded emotional. But at that moment, it was. “Maybe you should start doing that too. He’s changed.”

Everything in me resisted Bastien’s words. He would never change.

“You’re just wishing he would.”

Without warning, I left the parking lot, avoiding the other Ruisangors and making my way to my next lecture.

Of course, everyone stared at me. My car had been ruined this morning, and now so had my life on this campus. I was ruined.

My thirst was growing. I needed to drink something, soon. Not that I was doing anything no one here wanted to happen. Anger and hunger were a dangerous combination.

I quickened my pace as I passed the Senseque. I could feel them scrutinizing me. And with all my strength, I managed not to turn to face her. Even though it was her gaze that I felt most clearly.

Litt Up

Christopher Tyng

The day had seemed like an eternity. Boring lectures, frontal teaching and English. I felt drained and could have been on my way home by now, and yet here I was, in a completely messy art room that I was supposed to clean up thanks to the wannabe director.

I hadn’t had the strength to fight this form of detention I had to endure because of the uniform violation thing. I was too fucked up about my asshole father. I had enough problems. He was my biggest one.

I was hoping to distract myself with this task when I discovered who was waiting for me in the room.

“Come on. Do you have to be everywhere I am?” I asked, annoyed, trying not to look at her as I entered the room. I failed miserably.

Emely was frozen into a pillar of salt. She seemed taken by surprise by my appearance. And I also tried not to think about what I had planned to do to her in my rage this morning. Which I would still be doing if I wasn’t so exhausted from all of this bullshit.

“Yes, surprise. I’m coming to Professor Wannabe’s punishment work.” Gesticulating, I raised my hands, but nothing about her expression changed. “I just didn’t expect you to be here,” I snorted. “Although you deserve it.”

Rebecca Harlow hated us both.

I strode across the room and grabbed one of the brooms. I realized I’d never held a broom in my hands before.

“Do you think Harlow forgets what we did?” Emely said in a serious tone, watching me put the broom back down.

“Do you think I’m forgetting what you did to my car?” I looked at her with reproach.

Her cheeks reddened, forcing me to stare at her high cheekbones.

“I...”

“Don’t deny it,” I interrupted her.

“I wasn’t going to deny anything!” she snapped at me. “I just wanted you to learn a lesson.”

She actually made me grin after a day like that. “For what? For my honesty?”

Her eyes filled with impatience. “For your entire behavior, Miles!”

“Oh, now I’m the guilty one?”

Of course. I was always the stupid one. For everyone.

“You’re an idiot!” she snorted, crossing her arms like the grumpy little spoilsport she was.

I slammed the broom on the floor and came toward her. Emely flinched and stepped back, but bumped into the table on which countless art posters lay unsorted.

She eyed me, every little movement. Was it my arm, which was propped up against the table so that she couldn’t escape so easily, or my head, which came closer so that she could hear my next words clearly.

“I don’t want to spoil your fun, but I don’t feel like fighting with Emely Copeland today .” I said it clearly, but more calmly than usual. When I was angry, I often sounded exhausted. “I need a break from this,” I added, disbelief mingling in her gaze. “Even though I’d love to make you pay. That was my favorite car.”

Her face finally quirked. Was she trying to suppress a grin?

Suddenly she pushed away from the table and made me go back.

“How sweet, your favorite car. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Her smile was exaggerated.

She was actually making fun of me.

The impatience from this morning returned.

She didn’t want to challenge this...

“I can’t just be canceled or paused like a subscription.” She turned and walked around the table, grabbing a few posters. “You started it, now live with the consequences.”

I snorted and stepped up to the table to grab a few posters as well, as if I had any idea what to do with them. Emely started making piles. But what was she sorting them by?

This stupid task helped distract me from wanting to take my frustration out on her... for the moment.

Emely looked up. A few of her long waves fell forward, framing her heart-shaped yet sharp face with its high cheekbones, the angular jawlines, her straight nose and the slightly almond shaped eyes.

Then she laughed. “What on earth are you doing?”

“The same thing you’re doing. Sorting the crap here by color.”

She laughed even harder, which sent a strange tingle through my stomach.

“We’re supposed to sort them by date . Some of them are old, some are new and need to be re-hung.”

“I knew that...” I lied badly and Emely grinned with amusement.

“Better sweep the room,” she finally said, rolling her eyes.

Even when she did that , there was something cute about it. I just couldn’t take her seriously.

“I don’t like being bossed around,” I said, lowering the posters.

It bothered me that there was a rather large table between us that I couldn’t just lift up and put aside. She had deliberately made sure there was enough space between us. Too much. She didn’t take me half as seriously from this distance.

“The order didn’t come from me. It came from where you broke in without restraint yesterday.” It still sounded like she was making fun of me, but now something else resonated.

“I wasn’t planning to break in there. I was only there because of my sister,” I corrected her and reluctantly grabbed the broom, and of course I noticed the small triumphant smile on her lips.

Tense from her presence, I dragged the broom across the floor until the dirt formed a pile. It wasn’t that difficult.

“Miles, that’s not how you sweep.”

“Good Lord, how then?” I threw one arm up in the air, gesticulating, earning a disapproving look from her.

“ That look exactly.” I pointed a finger at her. “That’s the one you’re best at.”

“I can only return that,” she sighed, obviously annoyed. The right corner of my mouth moved upwards at her words. “Exactly like that! Your grin widens as soon as I attack you, as if you like being treated like that!”

“You call that an attack?” I laughed dryly and changed the way I swept to the one people on TV always used. Sweeping briefly, then sweeping again and moving in one direction. “Weak.”

“I’m only defending myself because I have no other choice!” She sounded annoyed again.

Had she forgotten who had spray-painted whose car?

“The wolves are coming for you... how creative of you, Copeland.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, to which Emely just snorted and didn’t even give me a glance.

I swept on silently and tried not to think about her being here for a few minutes. But my thoughts kept wandering back to my father, and I unintentionally let out an annoyed sigh.

Confrontation

Christopher Tyng

The corner of my eye caught Emely looking up, and I began to sweep faster.

“Who would have thought it. Miles DeLoughrey doesn’t have his own life under control.”

I kept sweeping, ignoring her innuendo.

She must have overheard the scene at the car. And damn it, I had made myself vulnerable.

“Your father is young...” she began, bringing back all my anger.

“I hate him. And if you don’t want me to hate you the same, then you should leave me the fuck alone now.”

Emely’s breathing hitched, and she looked at me as if I had thrown one of my knives at her... and brushed her with it.

It had been a warning.

“If you’re waiting for me to leave you alone after all you’ve done, you’ve cut yourself, Miles,” she pressed out with a serious tone, no trace of scorn in her voice.

I grabbed the broom in the corner and approached her, a six-foot-wide table between us, propping myself up on it to finally give her a piece of my mind.

“Do I get bonus points for pretending to care?” I looked at her challengingly. “Hate me for all I care, get on my nerves, keep annoying me... But today, I just want my peace!”

Instead of accepting my words, she also propped herself up on the table.

“We’re both here involuntarily, so relax the fuck out of it and keep your fucking distance!”

Emely stared straight at me. Her eyes had started to glow yellowish and a few veins were popping out of her blouse.

“Remember when I asked you for your opinion?” I narrowed my eyes further and further. “No?” Emely didn’t respond, just mirrored my expression. “Me neither.”

I had pushed Emely to her limit to the point where she groaned angrily and threw her arms in the air, breaking our eye contact.

“I don’t understand what your problem is!”

“People like you, who have what they want but still want more,” I snapped at her. Her eyes were full of anger, just like mine. “You’re the Alpha’s daughter, but you’ll never be Alpha. You can do whatever you want, enjoy your life, no one expects anything from you. But what are you doing instead? You’re wasting your time, pretending to be something better,” I blurted out, louder than I intended.

She had this privilege and no father who constantly wanted her to be better, or worse, to become like him.

“Why do you care so much about what I do?” she yelled back.

“Because you have everything I want!”

That had been so honest that I startled myself.

Emely looked at me with her yellow glowing wolf eyes, distant, confused, angry.

“You think I have everything, but I don’t. I have obligations, responsibilities and not a choice like you think I do! I’m getting married soon. You bloodsuckers don’t have anything like that!”

My face unintentionally filled with concern.

I knew something was going on, but I hadn’t expected it to be this serious.

“Go Miles, go get drunk in bars, have fun at the wildest parties on the continent, sleep with as many women as you want in your infinitely long life, enjoy it to the fullest, get lost. But remember that other people have real problems that they can’t just walk away from.”

Her words hit me harder than ever. Why did she think so superficially of me? And why did she think I had all the freedom in the world?

“I’m bound to a clan. I can’t just go and do what I want. We have rules too!” I banged my fist on the table, but she didn’t flinch. “You can say No to that idiot!” Now she looked at me as if I had thrown a knife at her again, and not just brushed her with it. “You know, on the field, for a second I had the urge to punch that Russian asshole in the face so he would choose his words more wisely next time!”

Emely’s eyes widened. And my mouth just spoke on its own, although I would have preferred not to tell her that. But what was the point? It was too late anyway. She could go ahead and know what I thought of him.

“He doesn’t consider you an equal. If that’s how it works with you guys, why does a self-confident woman like you support that crap?”

My fist banged on the table again, which began to splinter.

Emely looked at me, stunned. She didn’t answer me.

Her cheeks had turned redder than I’d ever seen them before. Perhaps I had been too loud, had unsettled her too much.

There was no euphoria that gripped me, no feeling of triumph.

I was done for the day, couldn’t take any more. I had to get out of here.

Turning around in frustration, I left the room.

Pompeii

Vitamin String Quartet