Chapter 33 #2
“It’s a rare but powerful gift,” Callum agrees, “but it’s also one you do not possess.” He turns his head and stares directly into my eyes, sending chills through my body. “Alistair is proof of that.”
“You can’t see me,” I whisper, my heart suddenly racing. “No one can see me.”
A small smile curves on Callum’s lips, but he masks it quickly and turns his attention back to Sienna.
But I can feel his presence in my bedroom, the faintest hint of his scent lingering despite him not ever having set foot in here.
I toss the Sensing Stone to the foot of my bed and sever the connection.
My heart races, and I gasp for air as pain tears through my skull.
Shifters aren’t meant to use witch magics for long, and tapping into multiple senses at once has consequences.
Rubbing my temples, I bend my knees and rest my forehead against them.
If I could get the nausea to stop—
There’s a hard knock on my bedroom door.
“Alistair!”
Then a fist pounds against the wood, its echo bouncing around my skull. Hiding the Sensing Stone in my bedsheets, I force myself to my feet and pad over to the door. “Go away, Sienna,” I hiss, kicking the door. I sense her annoyance, and I curse under my breath. “Get out of my head!”
“You’re the one eavesdropping, asshole!”
“Oh, you finally noticed?” Snorting, I slide to the floor and lean back against the wall beside the rattling door. “Took you long enough.”
“I didn’t know you could do that!”
I roll my eyes then wince from the pain. Fuck. “Then you’re in the wrong academy, baby. Magic’s everywhere.”
“So I’ve been told,” she grumbles, yanking on the door handle. “Open the fuck up. I need to talk to you.”
“Go away.”
“You know that’s not possible.”
It is if she gets expelled.
I roll the idea on my tongue until I taste the bitterness hiding beneath its initial sweet flavor. I don’t like the idea of getting the fuck away from her forever, but it would do me a damn lot of good to get some space. I shouldn’t even be here. I need to get to class.
“C’mon, Alistair,” Sienna whispers, the drag of her claws against the door frame making me flinch. “I just want to ask you something.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”
Growling, I jump to my feet and pull the door open so fast that Sienna stumbles into my arms. Her scent hits me before she does, and that’s when I finally realize why she smells like she bathed in Callum’s crypt.
She drank his fucking vamp blood. His scent is bleeding from her pores. My chest tightens. How fucking dare she ask me for a favor when she smells like another man—like a vampire.
Gods, and the worst part of all is that in some sick, twisted way, I actually fucking like it. There are layers to her scent that I can’t describe, like she rolled around in windswept fields and walked away smelling like the salt of the earth after a rainstorm.
“You can’t help yourself, can you?” My grip tightens on her arms. “One mate isn’t enough, huh?
You want two? Three?” I laugh, but it’s a bitter, broken sound that echoes inside my chest. I wish I could hate her.
There’s nothing redeemable about a woman who’s clawing her way inside my heart without my consent. It makes me want to fucking scream.
Because this fated mate bullshit?
It has to end.
“I reject you as my mate, Sienna Ashburn.” The words taste like venom that I can’t hold back.
I don’t even know if they hold any weight—but she recoils like I’ve slapped her, and it feels fucking good to finally make her hurt after everything she’s done to hurt me.
“I will not help you heal another man, no matter how much you fucking beg. I will not mate with you. I will not fuck you. I don’t want to be around you, or think of you, or dream of you.
” My heart aches with a longing so deep that it cuts, the pain so sharp that my voice cracks. “Stay the fuck away from me.”
I slam the door in her face and grab the Sensing Stone from my bed.
With a scream, I toss it off my balcony and watch as it hurls through the air and crashes into the earth, disappearing the instant it sinks into the snow.
Then I shove my belongings into a bag and wait for her to leave.
She’s frozen to the spot until someone comes to grab her, but I don’t care anymore.
As soon as she’s back inside her room, I bolt, running down the hallway with such speed that I barely register where I’m going until I’m walking through the door.
Veronica’s cloyingly sweet scent dulls Sienna’s, and it’s a blessed reprieve from her constant presence.
I drop my bag and shove Veronica onto the bed, quickly crawling in after her.
She purrs seductively, but I barely hear it over the drum of my own heartbeat—no, of hers.
It’s pounding so loud that I can hear it despite the distance between us.
Fuck. Everything about Veronica feels wrong, from the sharp lines of her hips to the pant of her hot breath in my ear, but I shove every frazzled nerve in a box and do everything I can to break my bond with Sienna.
I do not want her.
I do not want her.
I do not want her.