Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
F ox
Once upon a time, nights at the academy were the highlight of my entire short-lived existence. A chance for fun and frivolity that was seriously lacking in the mundane and misery of Slate Quarter.
That was a long time ago, though. It’s been years since my nights could be considered anything close to fun or entertaining.
Perhaps tonight will be different.
Because tonight the girl is due here for her detention and, despite everything, despite the dangers, a sense of anticipation builds in the pit of my stomach. Another sensation I haven’t experienced in a long, long time.
I wait at my desk, an unread book open on the surface, my gaze focused on the door, my ears alert for the sound of her tread on the steps, for the first hint of her scent. The anticipation in my stomach builds, and my hands ball into fists on my knees, my short nails pinching into my skin.
This is dangerous.
What was I thinking telling her to meet me down here alone? Where no one would find us. Where no one could stop me.
I screw shut my eyes.
I am being pessimistic. I am in control. I will maintain control.
For a moment, I believe it, and then I hear it. The first distant slap of her shoe on the stone.
With my eyes still closed, I inhale, deep and strong, sucking the air through my nose and into my mouth.
I groan as I catch the first taste of her and my tongue slides automatically along my lower lip.
The smell of her is even more potent today than before. More metallic, more raw. It has my aching stomach moaning in pleasure and in torture.
If only I could …
The footsteps quicken as if she’s trotting down those last few steps, and then there’s the inevitable knock on the door.
My eyelids snap open.
“Come in,” I boom.
The door creaks ajar, and she hesitates in the doorway, her eyes adjusting to the gloom.
“You know it’s really bad for your eyes to be reading in the dark like this,” she mumbles, spying the book on my desk.
“My eyes are perfectly fine, Miss Storm.”
Perfectly fine because I can see the flush in her cheeks, the brightness of her eyes and the pulse dancing in her neck.
She steps inside the room and her scent follows in with her. It flies up my nostrils and smacks me right in the center of my brain; my stomach pangs more aggressively; my fists so taut now my nails cut into my flesh.
I hold my body in place and when I speak again, my voice sounds strangled in my throat.
“Take a seat.”
She does as she’s told, lowering herself carefully onto a bench, groaning under her breath as she does. The Edward professors had the students running circuits this afternoon. I imagine a wisp of a girl like her is feeling the effects.
She nibbles on her lip and waits for my next instruction. She’s nervous. The majority of students are scared of me – not that they could tell you why. I’ve never warranted that fear. Unlike Madame Bardin, I don’t mete out punishments left, right and center.
What does she expect I’ll do to her? I very much doubt she suspects the one thing I want to do. The one thing I can’t.
“What is this detention going to involve?” she asks with a little suspicion.
I rise to my feet slowly, and her head drops back and her gaze follows me upward. Casually, I stroll around my desk, trying my best not to betray the tension in my body. I pick a textbook off the top of the pile on the edge of my desk and toss it towards her. She reaches out and catches it between her hands.
“You can catch up on the lesson you missed.”
“That’s it?” she says with a relieved little giggle. “School work?”
“Miss Storm, I suspect you’d rather be elsewhere and not in a dungeon with me.”
“Well,” she says, smiling as she flips open the cover of the book, “it’s not like I had anything better planned.”
“Not partying with the Princes tonight,” I hiss.
She ignores that comment, making a show of pretending to be very interested in the first page of the textbook.
“Don’t you have something better to be doing yourself, Professor Tudor?”
I snort. “Anything would be better than this,” I lie, because there isn’t a single place I’d rather be than in her company, basking in her delicious scent, “so you’d better not skip my class again.”
She runs her finger down the first page, pretending to read the text.
“We’ve covered that material already, Miss Storm. You need to turn to page twenty-two.”
Blood rushes up to the surface of her cheeks, and my stomach moans silently.
She flips to the relevant page.
“Restrainments,” she reads out.
“Yes, using shadow-weaving abilities to restrain another person.”
“I don’t have shadow-weaving abilities,” she says, coldly.
“Doesn’t mean you get to skip my lesson.”
“It’s a waste of my time and yours.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” I lean back against my desk. “Read the text aloud to me.”
She fidgets on her seat and then begins. Her reading is a little stilted and I can’t decide if that’s because she’s nervous or because the education system back in our Quarter is horseshit.
She describes the means by which a shadow weaver can use their powers to capture and restrain another person. The different ways it can be done and how it can be used.
When she finishes the section, she looks up at me.
I fold my arms over my chest. “Any questions, Miss Storm?” She shakes her head. “Then give it a try.”
“There’s no point.”
“Do you really want to argue with me? This punishment is a light one. I can make it tougher if you’d prefer.”
She glances towards the chains hanging from the walls and for the first time in forever I nearly burst into laughter. Is that what she thinks I would do? Chain her to the wall?
The idea has my stomach growling and I close my eyes and focus on breathing through my mouth.
When I open them again, she’s staring at me with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity.
“Did you discover your abilities in one of these classes?” she asks me.
“No.”
“So you already knew you had them?” I stare at her, unblinking. “I don’t have the ability. I’d know if I did. I’m just an ordinary girl. There is nothing special about me.”
The way she smells, the way that anticipation gurgles in my gut, tells me otherwise. She is special.
“Stand up, Miss Storm.”
Reluctantly, and with some obvious discomfort, she rolls up onto her feet.
“Lift your hands and search for the shadows, beckon them forward like you’ve been told.”
I watch her try. Nothing happens. I am not surprised. She’s special but not like that. No one is. Not even me. All the crap they have me teach is bullshit. In the years I’ve been here, not one of my students from another Quarter has possessed the shadow-weaving ability.
It’s just something they say. To give them hope.
I can’t tell her any of this and my own frustration has me picking at the girl instead.
“You’re not trying hard enough, Miss Storm,” I taunt.
She drops her arms and glares at me. “I am.”
“You’re not. All you have to do is reach for the power and …”
I raise my hand and the shadows slip from my fingers, racing across the space towards her. I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted – and I don’t. I want the excuse to touch her – even if it is only like this. My magic curls around her wrists, twines around her waist, slithers around her throat. The binds hold her in place and her emerald eyes widen in horror.
It would be so easy to close the distance between us, to close the distance and …
But I’m not like her. I refuse to be.
“See,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. Her skin against my magic is soft and smooth. I can feel her pulse. I can feel how very alive she is. “It’s easy.”
“For you,” she says, holding as still as she can and refusing to struggle against my binds, that passive expression falling over her face.
She’s so obviously a fighter, always champing at the bit to argue every opportunity she can. And then every so often she sees she is beat, that she is too weak to win, and that curtain falls over her face, all that fight hidden behind it.
It’s the very opposite of provocative. It has shame creeping through me and my shadows retreating.
Where did she learn to do that? And more to the point, why?
I examine her face, noting her shoulders relaxing just a fraction as my shadows slide away. I walk closer to her, drawn by my unquenchable fascination.
My proximity makes that pulse in her throat dance even more beautifully for me, and it’s so damn hard not to lean down, press my lips there, and …
“Do I scare you?” I whisper.
“A little,” she confesses. “But I think maybe everyone in this place does. I don’t think there is anyone I can truly trust.”
I nod my head. That was the mistake I made. I was too trusting and look where the hell it led me. “You can’t. You can’t trust anyone.”
“Not even you, Professor?”
I take another step forward and another and another until I am staring right down into her eyes. “Especially not me.”
She’s so beautiful. So eager. So hungry for everything. She reminds me in so many ways of myself – the way I once was. If I met her then, would it feel this way, or would it have been different? Would I even have noticed her? The quiet girl from Slate Quarter trying her best to hide how pretty she is, trying her best to survive.
I can’t help myself. This close I see how fragile her skin is, how thin the tissue; I can see the veins knitted beneath the surface, can almost hear her heart beating frantically in her chest.
I inhale. The scent of her blood is so pungent, I swear. My eyes flash. I stumble away.
“Leave,” I mumble, leaping back into the shadows where she can’t see me, where I belong. “Leave now.”
“Wh-wh-what?” she says.
“Detention is over. Get out.”
She frowns. Then gathers up her belongings and, with a final peek over her shoulder, opens the door and steps outside.
I hold my breath until the door slams. Then I gasp, collapsing over my desk.
That was close. Far too close and far too dangerous.
And now I’m no longer hungry, I’m ravenous.
I fetch my dark cloak, fasten it around my neck and slip out into the night.