Chapter 5
MAISIE
Ninety-four.
I stare at the red ink at the top of the page for five solid seconds, half expecting the numbers to rearrange themselves.
They don’t. It’s an actual, honest-to-god ninety-four. Right above a little note in red pen from Professor Perkowinski that says Excellent improvement, Maisie!
A ninety-four. On my first Creature Bio paper six weeks ago, I got a forty-six. I basically paid tuition to have my self-esteem publicly executed. And now I’m holding an A.
I don’t even pack up my bag. I whip my phone out, lay the quiz flat against the wooden lecture desk, snap a picture, and fire it off to Boone before I can overthink it.
Maisie: [image attached] LOOK AT THIS. LOOK AT IT.
He responds so fast his phone must’ve already been in his hand.
Boone: That’s my girl.
My stomach does an immediate, stupid little flip. Before I can recover, three more texts roll in back-to-back.
Boone: I’m framing this. Getting it laminated. Hanging it in my living room.
Boone: Maisie, holy shit. I’m so fucking proud of you.
Boone: I could throw a bench right now.
Maisie: Please do not throw campus property
Boone: I’m in the varsity weight room, they have plenty of benches.
Boone: We’re celebrating tonight. I’m taking you out.
Maisie: Pretty sure celebratory dinners aren’t covered in the peer tutoring guidelines, Kinkaid
Boone: I don’t give a shit about the guidelines. 7:00. Wear something warm, we’re doing the fall festival.
I burst out laughing right there in the middle of the quiet lecture hall. The human guy next to me jumps in his seat, and Perkowinski glances up from her podium with an arched eyebrow.
“Sorry,” I whisper, turning bright red and shoving my phone into my pocket.
I practically float through the rest of the day. When I meet Delilah at the dining hall for lunch, she takes one look at my stupid grin and sets her sandwich down.
“Alright, what happened?” she asks. “You’re glowing like a cheap luminary.”
“I got a ninety-four on my Creature Bio quiz.”
“Hell yeah.” She grins and raises her hand for a high-five.
“What about your practical?” I ask, even though I already know she’s been nervous about it all week.
“I passed my threshold-ward practical,” Delilah says, her voice bright with barely contained excitement. “The coven approved the ritual for the next level.”
I actually shriek. Several people at nearby tables turn to stare, and I don’t care one bit.
“Delilah, that’s incredible!” I reach across the table and grab her hand. “You were so nervous about the pressure-hold. You must’ve practiced it like fifty times in our room.”
“Forty-seven,” she corrects, but she’s grinning so hard her cheeks have to hurt. “And it held. Under full pressure, it held.”
“Of course it did. You’re brilliant.” I squeeze her hand once more, genuinely proud. This is Delilah’s thing—her magic, her future. “I’m so proud of you.”
She squeezes back, her expression softening. “Thanks, Maisie. That means a lot.” She picks her sandwich back up, then glances at me with a knowing smile. “Okay. The ninety-four explains some of that face. What’s the rest?”
“And Boone asked me to celebrate with him tonight,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
Delilah’s smirk turns into a full grin. “Oh, so it’s a date.”
“It’s not a date. It’s just—he wanted to celebrate the grade. That’s all.”
“Sure it is.” Delilah takes a bite of her fry, completely unconvinced. “You’re seeing the wolf tonight to celebrate a ninety-four.”
“Yes.”
“Uh-huh.” She points the fry at me. “Have fun on your non-date, Maisie.”
CU starts Halloween a week early with the annual Fall Festival, basically the warm-up act for the actual Halloween bonfire next Friday.
It is entirely, undeniably a date. I know it the second I stand in front of my tiny dorm closet for twenty minutes, agonizing over which sweater doesn’t make me look like a lumpy potato.
And Boone definitely knows it, judging by the fact that he shows up outside my building wearing a dark flannel that fits his broad shoulders entirely too well, his brown hair styled just enough to look effortlessly hot.
“Hey,” he says, his amber-brown eyes lighting up when I push through the glass doors.
“Hey.”
Neither of us says the word date. We just start walking side by side across campus toward the old quad, our shoulders brushing every few steps.
The fall festival is packed. Creature University goes all out for Halloween. String lights hang between the historic stone buildings, casting a warm gold glow over the crowded brick paths. The air smells incredible—cinnamon, woodsmoke, roasted corn, and fried dough.
The creature side of campus is out in full force.
Over by the biology hall, two spider-shifter students casually weave intricate, shimmering cobwebs between the lampposts for decorations.
Near the student union, a booth run by vampires sports a huge banner reading WORSE THAN THE REAL THING, GUARANTEED while they sell boxes of cheap plastic fangs to laughing freshmen.
A group of human guys walks past wearing furry wolf ears and painted-on whiskers, oblivious to the cluster of actual werewolf football players ten feet away.
The werewolves are wearing the exact same cheap plastic ears and mercilessly roasting each other’s form.
Up on the stone archway of the arts building, three harpy students perch along the roofline, preening their dark feathers and tossing roasted nuts down to people below.
A couple of gargoyle shifters run a stone-carving booth where they chisel detailed runes into granite pumpkins with their bare claws, while the campus witch coven sells cups of steaming spiced cider with neon warning labels.
CAUTION: MAY CAUSE MILD LEVITATION OR TEMPORARY HONESTY.
Across the path, a demon-kin student with curled horns wanders around wearing a white halo and feathered angel wings, looking thoroughly pleased with the irony.
Boone buys us cups of non-enchanted cider before I can even pull out my debit card, then adds a massive, warm soft pretzel coated in coarse salt.
“I’ve got it,” he says easily, holding the pretzel in one hand and both ciders in the other. He breaks off a chunk of pretzel and offers it to my mouth.
I take the bite from his fingers. “Your system is ridiculous.”
“My system ensures you eat food and don’t spend your scholarship money.” He bumps his shoulder against mine. “It’s a great system.”
We walk past the old library, the noise of the crowd humming around us.
“So,” I say, chewing on the pretzel. “This whole place. It really was the first one, right?”
“The original.” Boone nods, looking up at the ivy-covered stone towers.
“Generations ago, this was the only campus in the world where humans and creatures could actually live and study together without a riot starting. Now there’s about a dozen CU campuses worldwide, but this is where my great-grandparents came. Where my dad came.”
“That’s a lot of family history.”
“Yeah.” He looks down at me, his gaze softening. “It is. But I like it here. Especially lately.”
My pulse kicks up a notch. We drift away from the main crush of students, following a quiet gravel path into a small clearing at the edge of the old quad.
It’s tucked beneath a canopy of massive sugar maples, their red and gold leaves drifting down through the crisp night air.
In the distance, the festival lights glow through the trees, casting soft shadows across the grass.
We sit down together on a low wooden bench near the trees.
“You know,” I say, wrapping my hands around the warm cider cup, “you completely hijacked my tutoring schedule. We haven’t looked at a single textbook tonight.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Just making an observation.”
Boone sets his cider down on the bench between us. He turns toward me, leaning an arm along the back of the bench. The playful look drops from his face, replaced by something steady, intense, and completely serious.
“Do you want this to be a date, Maisie?”
My breath catches. It’s so direct. No games, no teasing deflections. Just Boone, sitting two inches away in the autumn dark, waiting for my answer.
“I...” I let out a nervous laugh. “I mean, statistically speaking, based on the pretzel-to-homework ratio—”
“Maisie.” His voice is low and quiet. “Stop deflecting.”
“I’m nervous,” I admit.
“Don’t be.” He reaches out, his large, warm hand covering mine where it rests on my knee. “Just tell me what you want.”
I look at his hand over mine, then up into his face—the strong jaw, the steady warmth in his eyes, the way he looks at me like I’m the only person on this entire chaotic campus.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I want it to be a date.”
A small, relieved exhale leaves him. His whole posture shifts, all the tight restraint in his shoulders easing just enough for him to lean in.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Come here.”
I don’t hesitate. I reach out and fist my hands into the front of his flannel jacket, pulling him down.
He meets me halfway.
The first press of his mouth is soft, careful, giving me room to back out. But I don’t want room. I part my lips with a quiet sigh, and the second I do, a low, rumbling sound vibrates through Boone’s chest.
His hand slides from my knee straight up to my waist, his long fingers gripping tight through my sweater as he pulls me flush against him.
Holy shit.
He kisses me like he’s been starving for it. Deep, firm, and thoroughly devastating. My brain completely short-circuits. All the anxiety about my grades, my scholarship, my entire life—it all dissolves into the heat of his mouth and the cedar-and-warm-spice scent of his skin.
Before I can process what’s happening, Boone shifts. His hands lock onto my hips, and he lifts me effortlessly off the bench and directly onto his lap.
I gasp against his mouth. I’m straddling his thighs now, my knees bracketing either side of his hips, looking down at him in the dim light. I can feel the solid, heavy ridge of his erection pressing right against my center through our jeans—hard and unmistakable.