Chapter Six #4
Soaring across the room, Tristan crashed into the skeleton sconce and brought it and himself smashing to the floor. Standing in the spot where Tristan just was... was him.
I sighed, all the air leaving my body, and carrying away my soul.
Beautiful...
Long, ebony waves fell around thin, almost delicate shoulders.
He wore a tight black tank top that clung to every inch of his ropey, muscled frame...
and exposed the rest. Large, twisting dragon tattoos wined around his biceps and up his back until they met in a fiery, flaming battle at the nape of his neck.
It was as though he inked his skin in hopes of drawing attention away from his face, but there was never going to be any chance of that.
Thick black brows shadowed bright silver eyes, fighting desperately to hide their otherworldly glow.
A long Roman nose guided your journey down to his full, pouty lips—so soft-looking for all that they were blue and bloodless.
His very cheeks and broad jaw were sculpted personally by the hands of Zeus, and then kissed with perfectly strokable stubble.
I may have believed that Adonis himself was standing before me if not for the fact that no depiction of Adonis I’d ever seen had him in a tight tank, slouchy cardigan hanging off his arms, ripped jeans barely clinging on to his backside, and beat-up sneaks.
It was only after my eyes absorbed all that was him that my mind was able to comprehend how he came to be in Tristan’s place, and Tristan came to be on the other side of the room.
Did this guy... grab and throw him? But how? When? How could any being move so fast?
“This is my class, mutt,” the stranger drawled, shooting my brows up.
“The last thing you’re going to do is have it reeking of putrid demon blood.
Calm yourself the fuck down.” He hissed, baring terrifying fangs.
“And clean this mess up.” He made clear what this mess was by delivering a vicious kick to Kazuya’s ribs.
It was a wonder if that guy was still alive.
Tristan roared to his feet, shedding his human wrapping. A half man, half wolf burst through his clothes—ripping his shirt to shreds and leaving his jeans straining to cover his middle. Eyes lighting, jaw elongating, legs shifting—he charged.
“Gonna get yourself expelled for attacking a professor? Tsk, tsk.” The vampire stood in the path of Tristan without blinking an eye. “And thus ends the return of the great alpha, Tristan No-Name, Slaughterer of All But One. You’ve let your pack down already, and you don’t even have one.”
Tristan ground to a halt. Growling fit to rattle the manor off its foundations, he stopped his charge... and shifted.
Slowly, achingly, his claws retracted, his fur shed, and the vicious wolf was replaced by the breathtakingly handsome man I didn’t know at all.
Scowling, Tristan spat at the professor’s feet. “Nah, man, you don’t have to worry. Your ass kicking isn’t coming today.” He crossed the distance, getting in the vampire’s placid face. “But I will do you a favor”—he snatched up Kazuya—“and take the trash out for you.”
I didn’t know what to do as Tristan piled the unconscious demons on his shoulders and carried them out as though they weighed nothing.
Absolutely no part of me thought he was skipping them down to the infirmary, but what was I supposed to do?
If he intended to keep wailing on them, how was I supposed to stop them?
I only appeared to be a demon. I didn’t have the strength of them, and most importantly, those three did have demon strength, and they were no match for him.
But that doesn’t matter. I rose to my feet. I can’t let Tristan get carried away and kill those guys because they were trying to get a rise out of me by provoking Tristan.
“Anyone else who leaves,” the professor drawled when I took a step, “will be marked absent.”
I stopped. Swallowing hard, I flicked back to him, and landed on his thoroughly disinterested expression. Missing one class is all it takes to get booted from this place. You can’t get thrown out...
I slowly sat back down.
...and abandon Dora.
“What was that?” I whispered. “What just happened with Tristan?”
“If you had asssked me before, I’d have said I did not know, but now that he has been named Slaughterer of All But One—I know him well.”
“Tell me,” I asked, staring at the door where Tristan disappeared.
“A year ago, news spread through hell of an alpha leader who fought off nearly one hundred vampires single-handedly,” she hissed. “Werewolves are under constant and relentless threat from vampires. They must live in complete secret—hiding their pack’s location from all.
“But that night, the pack and their home were discovered,” she said. “It’s said that their alpha fought and killed almost every ssssingle one of them—an incredible feat considering a vampire’s speed. And it was that speed that prevented him stopping the final vampire who struck from above.
“It hid in the shadows that obscured the ledge, callously watching his coven die, until Tristan defeated who he thought was the final one. Thinking himself victorious, the wolf turned his back to return to his pack, and was pounced upon and bitten.
“He was able to rip him off and kill him before he could be drained, but what was done was done,” she continued.
“It is an ironclad law of the packs that anyone who falls prey to the bite of a vampire is to be cast out. And because the name of the pack is the name of them all, he went from Tristan Hamapa... to Tristan No-Name.”
My lips trembled, expressing what I couldn’t let show through tears. “That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever heard. He saved them. He saved them all. Who the hell cares if he got a single nip on the neck for it? Why would they want any other pack leader but him? He’s more than proved himself.”
The strange feel of her adjusting around me raised the hairs on my arms. “It doesn’t work like that.
Werewolves are the only real source of food for vampires in this place—albeit a proof substitute.
Shifter blood can never whet their appetite like pure mortal blood can, but still, a starving man will eat whatever he can get, and the more the wolves deny them that sustenance, the hungrier and more violent they become in pursuit of blood.
“An alpha must be perfect in their protection against the vampire threat, and the scar of a vampire bite on one’s neck does not invoke that confidence.
” She stuck her head out of my sleeve. “I assume that is what brings him here. He needs to prove his strength, and convince his wolfish brethren to follow him again.”
The door flew open. I twisted around hoping it was Tristan, and locked eyes with Ronin Belphe. He took one look at me, and came straight for me.
“There you are,” he said, towering over me. “You did well to keep my seat warm, but for future reference, I sit in the back.”
I stared at him. I heard all the words he said, so why didn’t they make a lick of sense? “I beg your pardon?”
He stared right back—the cold disinterest on his face rivaling my new vampire professor. “Get up.”
My brows shot up my forehead. “What do you mean get up? I was sitting here first and there are literally a dozen free seats in this row. Sit somewhere else.”
Everything stopped.
Half the class couldn’t give a fig about Tristan beating Kazuya to death, but now they were all still, they were all gaping, and they were staring. Even the professor stopped messing with the papers on his desk to raise a delicate eyebrow at me.
I turned away. “Look, I get that you’re a big shot around here, but I’m doing my own thing and trying to mind my business. Why don’t you do the same?”
“What are you doing?!” Sabrina hissed. “Did you come all this way to have the ceiling painted with your blood? Do not upset him!”
A shadow fell over me. I didn’t have a chance to think before his fist slammed down on my notebook, jerking me back to feel his other hand grab the back of my seat and yanked me around. My eyes narrowed as his handsome, shadowed face closed on me and... he laughed.
A low, humming chuckle rippled from his lips, dragging my eyes up even higher. “Big shot? Mind my own business? That’s funny,” he said, smirking away. “Well done. I like funny servants.”
I blinked. “Servant?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
My brain went offline. “What... are you saying? I’m not your servant.”
“Of course you are.” He snapped his fingers and an invisible force yanked me up by the pants and deposited me yelping onto the seat to my left.
Ronin plopped down in mine, reclining back with his arm slung over the chest in a move so effortless and cool, he must’ve practiced it.
“I was assured that if I agreed to come to this dump, servants would be provided for me. You were the one who had my badge—”
“My badge!”
“—you were in my room—”
“My room!”
“—and you were waiting to greet me in the mess hall this morning.”
“I was being murdered in the mess hall this morning,” I shrieked, straight goggling at this nutcase. “None of that had anything to do with you. I don’t even know— Ugh!”
“Will you shut up, human!” Sabrina flipped out, constricting tightly around my rib cage and choking the air out of my lungs. “Of course you know him, everyone knows him! If he says you’re his servant, you’re his servant, now, be quiet!”
I heard the fear in Sabrina’s words and hisses loud and clear, but I heard the smirk on his rotten face even louder. I hated guys like this. The ones who believed that just because life blessed them with good looks, they didn’t need to bother with a good personality.