Chapter Eleven
Of courseshe’s in my fucking class.
I should have expected this. I don’t have the luxury of assuming that anything as simple as good luck could ever befall a guy like me.
Her name is Lia Morgan, a freshman. Undecided major, but she likes dance. No surprise there. I don’t get to learn anything else during that first class session because Winters dives straight into the material as soon as we’ve each briefly introduced ourselves. The old professor’s rambling is almost ridiculous enough to be interesting.
But my mind refuses to let go of Lia. The way she looked at me—the way she looked into me—I can’t move on from it. Not until I find a way for it to make fucking sense.
And my mind isn’t the only thing fixated on her, either.
Her voice is as sweet as her face. Outside of the dance floor, she seems a lot less confident—she keeps doing that thing with her hair, twisting and adjusting it. I hate how much it grabs my attention; I can’t stop wondering how soft it would feel between my own fingers. How hard I could pull before she cried out.
Does she know what I’m thinking? Can she tell that I’m imagining how it would feel to pin her against the stone walls of one of the castle’s back corridors, hands diving beneath her red plaid skirt, carving marks of my unwavering possession into her thighs?—?
I can’t tell. I can’t fucking tell, because she won’t look at me.
She watches the professor, takes notes in lines of small, neat cursive. Raises her hand. Asks questions. All with my eyes burning into her.
Is she just oblivious? No fucking way could that be the case. Not after the moment on the dance floor.
Unless I imagined it all—unless I’m finally cracking. Feeling—even fearing—things that aren’t there.
Whatever the case, I’m going to talk to her. I’m going to understand what the fuck is happening to me by any means necessary.
“I’m not fond of traditional homework,” Winters declares after an interminable lecture that I should have been appreciating. “Instead, I’d like each of you to come next week prepared to talk about one of your favorite works of art.”
She’s wrapping up the class, which means that it’s time for me to say something—and though I’ve been running various words through my head the whole fucking time, I still haven’t decided just how I want to approach Lia. When the rest of the students begin to pack their things, I hesitate?—
And that fucking hesitation is enough for her to slip out of the room, leaving her friend scrambling after her. Shit. I can catch up, though, if I just?—
“Ryker Pendragon.”
Damn it.
“Professor,” I acknowledge, dragging my gaze away from Lia’s vacated desk and towards the softly smirking old woman who stands beside me, her eyes glittering with a knowing look that I don’t like one bit.
“I was happy to see your name back on my roster,” she says, “though I can’t lie—you seemed rather distant today.”
“There’s a lot on my mind. Start of the year and all that.”
“Well, I hope you won’t allow that to distract you from your studies. Your final paper last year was remarkably insightful.”
“Professor, I really need to get to my next class.”
“It’s that girl, isn’t it?”
Jesus fucking Christ. I’ve been taking classes with Moira Winters since the second semester of freshman year, and I still find myself underestimating how quick-witted she is.
“What girl?” I ask, keeping my face blank.
She’s not fooled. “She reminds me of someone. An old student of mine… when you’ve been teaching as long as I am, you start to see patterns, you know. Like old souls….” She shakes her head and flaps a hand towards me. “You don’t want to listen to the prattling of some old woman. Go on, get to wherever you must. I’ll see you here next week—and I hope you’ll have a bit more attention to spare by then.”
I half-jog down the stairs from the room—maybe Lia’s lingering in the corridor—but I’m out of luck. She could be halfway across campus by now.
Still. I have a name. And a name can get you a long way when you know the right people.
I take the library route back to the frat house. The panes of the tall windows are splattered with rain, but it’s stopped falling by the time I slip out the back door. The sodden grass squishes beneath my feet as I loop around the field, avoiding the GODs soccer practice noisily taking place at its center. The distinct bark of team captain Charlie Cochran hurts my ears even from here. He’s a legacy, of course—I can’t imagine anyone else would care enough to put so much time into something as useless as intra-campus sports. Cochran’s been pushing for Crimson Elite to take them more seriously, but the rich parents paying tuition would never dare to open up the possibility of national sports. As far as they’re concerned, their precious heirs need to be kept safe and secure on this isolated little campus.
Safe and secure, yeah. What a fucking joke.
Inside, the house isn’t much quieter, thanks to someone deciding to blast a profanity-rich rap album up on the second floor. Judging by the direction of the noise, Roy Noble is the one responsible. Another legacy kid who thinks he has the run of the place.
Bunch of useless dicks, and more of them joining the frat every goddamn year. At this point, there are only a handful of guys that I select of my own accord—they’re the most important ones. The ones who I can trust to stay by my side, even when the day comes to end my bastard father’s reign.
I could pound on his door, but it’s not worth the trouble. Instead, I make straight for my own room and throw on a pair of headphones—not playing anything, just muffling the rest of the world enough to give myself room to think.
My room’s not the cleanest, but it’s pristine compared to someone like Freddie’s. Rumpled gray comforter on the bed, couple of empty soda cans on the desk next to a sleek computer monitor, a small pile of discarded T-shirts on the floor beside my black dresser. All of my important stuff—mask and robe included—is locked in the closet. My position in the Order’s no secret to anyone who lives here, but you can never be sure if someone’s drunk hookup might come stumbling upon something that isn’t meant for her eyes. It’s happened before. Things get messy.
I drop into the swivel chair and boot up my desktop. Sure, my phone’s got internet, but I can never shake the feeling that my dad’s found a way to track it. The computer, bought and installed by me without his knowledge, feels more secure. And secure is what I need for something like this.
Facebook’s the easiest to check, since it uses real names. Lia Morgan brings up forty or so results—none of their profile pictures match the golden-haired girl who shines so vividly in my mind’s eye. Over on Instagram, I discover that her friend Harper is following the Omega Phi account. Go figure. I comb through Harper’s followers, then do the same on her linked accounts—she has just about every form of social media known to man. Half an hour later, I’ve got nothing.
A chronically offline girl in this day and age? Just my luck.
I lean back and kick my feet up on the desk, pondering my options. I don’t want to wait for next week’s seminar to talk to her again. Dixon could root something up if I asked him, but I don’t want to get other guys involved. Can’t chance them wanting her for themselves. Some guys don’t mind sharing. Not me. What’s mine is mine.
Lia Morgan included.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
God, I want her satin-smooth waist trapped between my hands again. I need to make her moan. That untethered innocence—I need to eviscerate it. She’s too sweet. If I don’t destroy her, someone else will.
I’ll have to be delicate. Not something I’m used to—but something I can enjoy, maybe, if I approach it the right way. Play my hand carefully, coax her into cracking open that fragile veneer… and once I do, whatever lies beneath will be mine for the taking.
Tuesday morning, and the rain is back. Fucking great. I’ve got the day off classes, but the relentless pounding against the window is enough to ensure that I’m not getting any extra sleep. It’s just past seven. From the gloom outside my window, it may as well be midnight.
I head downstairs to the kitchen, not bothering to throw on a shirt. It’s a big room, old-fashioned, complete with an iron stove and a row of veneered redwood cabinets. A few of the guys are lounging at the circular table by the window—Dixon, Cochran, and a senior that everybody calls TJ, a real player of a guy with the build of a lanky leopard. I give them a nod on my way to the cabinets.
“If you’re looking for rocket fuel, you’re out of luck,” TJ warns me.
I pause, my hand inches from the drawer where we keep our coffee grounds. “You’re fucking joking.”
“Get real,” Cochran scoffs. “Who would joke about serious business like that?”
I am really not in the mood for his bullshit right now. “Quit lazing around my kitchen. Don’t you have a practice or some shit to attend?”
“In this weather?” He gives a broad grin, showing off his chipped front tooth in all its glory. Alongside his shaggy blonde hair, it’s enough to make him look like the school bully in some 2000s cartoon. He’s just as harmless, too. “Just ’cause I’m an athlete don’t mean I’m a swimmer.”
He probably thinks he’s clever for that. “Whatever. There’s no way we’re out of coffee—didn’t Freddie pick some up yesterday? I swear I asked him.”
“If so, he’s hoarding it,” TJ says with half a shrug. “Fuckin’ Shane just about emptied us out. I barely managed half a cup, myself.”
“Early bird wins every time,” Dixon says, not looking up from his phone. “Cry harder.”
Their fucking prattling is enough for a headache to twinge at my temple. That’s only gonna get worse the longer I go without caffeine. If we’re really out, my only option is the student union. All the way across campus.
Fantastic.
“If anyone sees Freddie, tell him he’s a dead man,” I grumble. As soon as pledge week’s over, I’ll have a bevy of fresh pledges to take care of the grunt work, all of them scrambling to be the first to impress me. Can’t come soon enough.
“Aye-aye, Cap.” Charlie Cochran gives an elaborate salute.
I resist flipping him off. Barely. Instead, I drag myself back upstairs, grab a deep red T-shirt and dark jeans, and take a second to scowl out the window. Storm’s not letting up anytime soon. Guess I may as well get it over with.
Lightning greets me as soon as I take a step outside, followed by a drumbeat of thunder loud enough to mask the sound of the door closing behind me. I’m drenched in an instant. The air’s warm-ish, at least, and the smell of soaked soil from the sports green is intoxicating—but that doesn’t stop the slog towards the quad from being miserable. The other students that I pass aren’t enjoying this any more than I am—they zip from building to building with raincoats pulled over their heads. Even those who have thought to bring umbrellas don’t bother to stop and chat.
Some asshole, I discover as soon as I’ve descended the steps into the student union, has made the brilliant decision to put the air conditioning on full blast. My shirt is plastered so tightly to my chest that it may as well be painted on, and excess rainwater runs in rivulets down the back of my neck. Jesus. Can this morning get any fucking worse?
At least there’s no line at the coffee machines. I fill a mug and swallow half of it in one gulp, grimacing when it scalds my throat. This stuff is worse than I remember it being, and that’s saying quite a bit. I top off my mug anyway, then turn around to scan the room for an empty seat. Crowd’s pretty dense—it’s not like anyone is hanging out on the quad—but I spot a single empty table off to the side.
…Almost empty.
She’s there.
Her hair veils her face, but I know it’s her. She’s got a tight crimson blouse on today, accentuating the curve of her slim shoulders as she leans over a heavy-looking book.
Well. Maybe I’ve got an ounce of luck today, after all.
I cross the room with a few long strides and set one hand on the chair opposite her. “Mind if I take a seat?”
Her eyes snap up. There it is, that strangely bright hazel. Her heart-shaped face is fresh, clear of makeup, and her naturally dewy skin warms to a deep rose hue as she processes the sight before her. Processes me.
“Oh,” she says, hastening to mark her place in the book. “No. Not at all.”
I’ve already settled down and taken a slow sip of my coffee. Her scent hits me, clearer than it was at the party or in the classroom. Roses, their sweetness cut by a tang of absinthe. Rich and unspoiled. My fingers tighten around the handle of the coffee mug.
“You’re with the GODs,” she says. “Aren’t you?”
With them? “I am the GODs, as far as you’re concerned.”
Her eyebrow raises slightly, giving me a pointed look as her smile widens on her face. “You… the party…”
“What about it?”
Her only answer is the tip of her tongue darting quickly over the pearl pink of her lower lip, still holding my gaze with an almost defiant intensity. Most people are open books to someone as well-trained as me, but I can’t seem to get a read on Lia Morgan, and it’s pissing me off more by the second.
“I’m going into the city tonight,” I decide aloud.
“Oh… sounds fun?—”
“You’re coming with me.” I rake my eyes down her body, tracking the way that she reacts—a quick breath swelling her chest, an uneasy tightening of her shoulders.
“Me?” she repeats.
I take another drink of my coffee and wait for her to realize how stupid the question sounds. It doesn’t take long.
“… Why?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
Her smile falls slightly, her uncertainty clear..
“I’m not particularly eager to go on blind expeditions with strangers,” she says, “especially in cities I don’t know.”
So she wants to play hard to get? Fine. If I have to flirt, so be it. “I wouldn’t ask just anyone to come with me, you know.”
“It doesn’t sound like you’re asking at all.” Despite the small smile playing on her lips, her words remain calm and even. “Maybe I don’t want to.”
“I have trouble believing that.”
“Do you?”
“You don’t need to pretend.” I lean in over the table. “I saw the way you looked at me. At the party.”
“What way? I’m sure girls look at you all the time.”
That’s not what I mean—and she knows that, surely. I’ll play along. For now.
“Not from people like you.”
“And what kind of person am I?”
What’s her problem, firing off questions like I’m at a fucking job interview? Any normal girl would be on her proverbial knees by now. I should take this as a red flag, brush her off and leave the matter alone—but even the prospect of that disgusts me. I don’t give up—it’s not in my nature.
Her eyes are wide. Expectant.
“I don’t know.” My own honesty surprises me. “But I want to find out.”
She swallows, the motion bobbing along the smooth bronzed-olive of her throat.
If I grip this mug any tighter, I might break it.
“I need to think about it.” Her words carry an unmistakable finality. Fine—if that’s the closest I’m getting to a yes, I’ll take it.
“I’ll be outside your tower at six. Come hungry.” I down the rest of my coffee and get to my feet.
“Ryker?”
The sound of my name in her voice chains me in place. There’s a strange, unfamiliar fluidity to the way she pronounces it. My father has always articulated those two syllables sharply, as though they sting his tongue. From Lia’s lips, they sound almost gentle.
I turn back. Not speaking, just waiting.
“Why me?”
The answer comes easily.
“Because I like the way you dance.”