by Liz Meldon
“Calder.”
“Robert.” I mirrored his smile, barely feeling a thing when he clapped an enormous hand on my shoulder. “Just came down to see what all the noise was about.”
The man frowned. “Noise?”
“All that barking—”
“Ah, yes, the dogs,” he mused as we strolled along the corridor, headed toward the pinnacle of the V-shaped building. “We love having them around. Emma introduced the program last year, and it was a huge hit. She thinks it sold her interview, but I’ve always told her it was just the cherry on top. Nearly seventy percent of the senior class applied to be part of it, since it counts toward their community service hours.”
“I can see the appeal. I suspect the dogs are quite therapeutic during a stressful final year.”
“It’s a symbiotic relationship,” Robert insisted with a nod. We paused at the main doors, peering through the glass at the group. “See, the students get service hours, something new and interesting to add to their university applications, and then, of course, the fun of working with dogs.” The man’s grin returned, and he chuckled when the giant fuzzball nearest to the door nosed at its handler’s knees. “But they’re all rescues, you see. We adopted out nine of the sixteen last year, so a good percentage of them are new. Emma has the kids train them, socialize them, and promote them on their personal social media. The administration loves it.”
I could see why; it was great PR given the way animal sob stories trended virally these days.
“I haven’t seen them yet.” I moved in closer, watching as the group went through a sit, down, stay routine. “Haven’t really heard them either.”
“They’re well-fed and exercised. Last term the dogs will have the option to sleep in the dorms, given their students collectively maintain a certain grade point average.”
“Hmm.”
“Well, come on.” Robert shoved open one of the main doors, nodding for me to go through. “Why not get better acquainted? Are you a dog person?”
“I, er…” Not really, but that didn’t seem to matter. Robert bustled on ahead of me, and I had no choice but to follow or look like a complete twat. Or, worse, appear frightened of the creatures, something I didn’t need either. So, with another slurp of my blood drink, I sauntered out after him, remaining at the top of the stone stairs as I watched the group work. No one paid either of us any mind, even with Robert chuckling and waving whenever a panting dog glanced his way.
Well—until the breeze changed course. Suddenly, Robert and I were upwind of the dogs, and in an instant, the scene devolved into chaos. As if sensing a predator in their midst, all sixteen dogs erupted into barks and howls of varying pitches, some deep-chested and fierce, others high-pitched and panicked.
Damn it.
Besides humans, most creatures reacted as Emma had to a vampire’s presence. They knew, innately, that we were a threat. It was just the way the food chain worked. However, I had hoped, maybe, with all the students around, and a wolf shifter leading the motley pack, I might get a different response this time.
“Oh, what’s happened?” Robert stepped up the stairs, standing one down from me yet still almost half a head taller, as the students tried to wrangle their dogs back under control. Emma stalked across the roundabout, arms up, baying for the teens to calm them down, distract them, give them a command. She paused in the middle, surveying the breakdown of her carefully cultivated order, not moving—until her gaze landed on me.
Then she was off like a shot, boots clomping from pavement to cobblestone. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, a hand on the railing, her smile warm for Robert and, well, all things considered, polite for me.
“Didn’t mean to upset the dogs, Emma,” Robert insisted. “Sorry about that.”
She waved him off. “It’s fine. They need to learn how to deal with distractions, and this is a good challenge. It…”
The shifter trailed off with a slight frown, her nostrils flaring ever so slightly. With Robert distracted by the still-howling hounds, her gaze slid up to me, lingering on my face, then down to my drink.
The blood.
Visibly uncomfortable, she must have caught the sweet, metallic fragrance of my AB-negative. I gripped the can tighter, flicking a brow as I lifted it and sloshed the liquid around inside.
This is how I feed, you suspicious little—
“I’m not sure what happened,” Robert said, his deep baritone, that impressive gravitas, startling both Emma and me out of the moment. He then reached back and smacked at my arm. “Probably just need a bit of warming up to new people. Don’t take it personally, Calder.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Emma crossed her arms, slowly backing away toward the roundabout. By now, most of the students had pulled their dogs to the other side, and the added distance seemed to settle them. The wolf shifter shrugged, then offered a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “My dogs are usually a pretty good judge of character…”
Did she just—?
My character was not—
Would she rather I drink from students? Wasn’t it preferable that I paid for my blood, from reputable sources? That I didn’t attack the locals? Feed from the custodian? Fuck, slurping down the ice-cold stuff from a can—I was practically vegan.
Scowling, I held her gaze as I took another stiff sip of blood, making sure to lick my lips and smirk after. Emma rolled her eyes in turn, equally obvious, before strolling back to her flock and their baying hounds.
“Well.” Robert clapped his hands together, the sound like thunder, and cast a quick look between Emma and me. Perhaps we had been a touch too noticeable; both of us tried to keep our little thing subdued around the rest of the staff. Mercifully, whether the giant Canadian saw something or not, he kept it to himself. “Never mind, then. Come on. They’re serving veal chops tonight—and if we ask real nice, they might even break out the good wine.”
“Yes, sounds delightful,” I muttered. My fingertips dug into the can, its metal exterior creaking in protest, and I stepped aside to let Robert pass. Before I followed him through the door, probably to cut through the building and carry on to the dining hall together, I cast one last look over my shoulder. Emma stood in the middle of her students, holding them in her thrall as she spoke. Even the dogs appeared to be completely focused, each one staring at her, ears up, mouths closed—alert.
And as I trailed after a chattering Robert, it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t mind Emma’s bark, her bite, her blatant impertinence, as much as I should have.
In fact, I found it rather exhilarating.
Horrified, I paused halfway down the corridor. First the physical attraction, and now this? Something sharp and visceral twisted in my gut. Brow furrowed, I hastily downed the rest of my drink, crushed the can, and slammed it in the nearest rubbish bin.
6
Emma
“Miss Kingsley, I appreciate your effort, but this drink menu really doesn’t scream A Night in Paris to me.”
I offered the head of the student council a blank look, then, with a deep breath, the kind that reminded me not to rip a teenager’s eyebrows off even when they deserved it, accepted the sheet of paper thrust upon me with a thin smile.
“Karen, you’re not getting champagne or wine, so this is your best bet to stay on theme,” I told her for the thousandth time today. “If you can come up with more exciting names, then we’ll change the menu signs before we print them tomorrow, but Principal Foster already approved what we have.”
The seventeen-year-old flipped her frizzy auburn locks over her shoulder with a huff. “Well, can we at least eliminate mocktails from the menu title? This is supposed to be a classy event.”
Do not hit a child. Do not hit a child.
“It’s your homecoming, Karen. We can do whatever you want.” I folded the sheet of paper with the list of drinks we’d be serving at the dance tomorrow night, aptly titled Sidecar Sundays, Mimosa Mondays, and White Lady Wednesdays—three mocktails inspi
red by drinks literally invented in Paris. “But if you have a problem with something this late in the game, I suggest you come up with a solution too.”
“No offense, Miss Kingsley, but I’m pretty sure that’s your job for the next, like, forty-eight hours.”
We flashed each other a pair of equally strained smiles before Karen O’Connor, student body president, shoo-in for homecoming queen, and royal pain in my ass, marched off with her clipboard and walkie-talkie.
I used to love homecoming as a teen. The parties, the spirit days, the big dance at the end of the week. However, back when I was in high school, the dances weren’t this elaborate, we were all content with canned sodas and whatever alcohol we could sneak in, and our teachers wouldn’t be caught dead taking orders from any of us. Things had changed, and from the tense atmosphere hanging over my commandeered gymnasium this Friday evening, I wasn’t sure if it was for the better.
Still, despite the stress in the air, my gym looked completely transformed. Black fabric hung from the walls, laden with little white lights that would give the illusion of a starry night. The shop class had constructed a ten-foot-tall Eiffel Tower replica out of metal, which sat in the middle of what would be the dance floor; Phyllis and her art students were in the process of painting it and handmaking roses to weave through the grates.
About sixty tables had been dug up from storage, which would be covered in short white linens and scattered around the space. Karen had demanded we order custom chairs for the event, but, unsurprisingly, Foster had nixed the idea. The academy had a sizeable budget for all the yearly functions, as they considered an active life outside of the classroom essential for fostering a strong sense of school community, but there just wasn’t room for the kind of chairs Karen had been lusting over. This wasn’t one of her mother’s insane charity galas. This was a high school dance.
Across the enormous space, a space that no longer looked anything like my usual kingdom, the double doors leading directly outside opened, and I watched, teeth gritted, as a group of junior boys carried in the long buffet table that would serve Parisian treats all night. Outside, the storm that had been hammering campus all day raged on, lightning streaking across the grey veil of rain, maybe even a little sleet. The area was forecasted for snow this weekend, but I hoped it held off; students wanted to take pictures in their dresses and suits outside amongst the greenery, not underground in our concrete tunnel system.
The wind blew both doors shut as soon as the boys were in, and I resisted the urge to snarl about my once pristine vinyl floors. Not only were people traipsing all over them in regular, everyday shoes, but the floor was going to be covered in glitter for weeks after this thing.
The only reason I hadn’t completely lost my cool, beyond that fact that I was a professional, even in my jeans and schlubby SIA tee, was because the entire faculty had been roped into helping. Same as last year, every one of us needed to take charge of a certain element. Some found their roles easily, like Phyllis and her art, whereas others, like me, were shoved into whatever was left—like catering. I’d be in charge of the food and drinks table tomorrow night, along with Gwendolyn Bishop, who taught IB chemistry, and needed to ensure there was smooth communication between the student council and the kitchen staff. So far, things had been going fine—until this drink menu snafu.
My least favorite staff member had been assigned as a floater, helping wherever he could. Calder had shown up this afternoon the most dressed down I had ever seen him, sporting a pair of dark jeans and a plain white T-shirt, just fitted enough to contour the muscular outline of his figure. I blamed Casual Friday, the last day of our homecoming spirit week, which had also included Crazy Hair Day, Crazy Hat Day—the works.
Predictably, there had been a squabble over where the vampire would be placed, groups of teenaged girls bickering with one another until Calder graciously offered to share his time between everyone. I’d just rolled my eyes and done my best to ignore him, but he was kind of difficult to ignore with all that muscle on display, normally hidden beneath a three-piece tweed suit.
I couldn’t blame the girls for fighting over him either. The guy was gorgeous. They just didn’t know he was a vampiric ass beneath that shiny, hunky veneer.
After giving my precious gymnasium a once-over, the transformation making my inner wolf grumble, I folded the sheet of paper in half again and made my way to the far back corner, toward the door that would open to a hallway, my hallway, at the end of which sat my office. Hopefully the internet would have a suggestion or two for “cooler”, more “authentic” on-theme drink names.
Never mind that the student council had come up with these ones in the first place.
One of the major items out of place during homecoming dance prep were the chairs. Stacked some fifteen high, they sat bunched together in the back corner between the door to my hall and the doors to a small corridor housing the change rooms and underground tunnel entrance. A crew of seniors had been moving them in all afternoon, lugging the large black and gold chairs up from the storage room one or two at a time. As I neared the towers, my first thought was that they were stacked too high, that it wasn’t safe.
A suspicion proven correct when someone on the other side of the chair wall tripped, their shoes squeaking out a familiar cry, followed by the clunk of chairs colliding with chairs. The row on my immediate left teetered, stacked too precariously tall, and I staggered back, tensed, waiting to catch the damn things, then pretend it had hurt me to do so.
Only the stack never fell.
Because some gorgeous vampire dick stopped it.
Calder appeared out of nowhere, his back to the stack, catching and righting it again in the span of about five seconds. It was a risk, using his speed around all these people, but the music faintly whumping from the AV club’s speakers carried on, as did the chatter, the clatter of furniture, like nothing had ever happened.
“You okay?” I called, Calder and I no more than a foot apart, my heart in my throat as he stared me down, neither smarmy nor smirking.
“Yeah, I’m good,” the culprit on the other side called back, and I caught his shadow moving beneath the chair legs, marching back and forth, walking it off. “Tripped over my own feet.”
“These are stacked too high,” I said, still holding Calder’s gaze, unable to tear myself away, my stomach flip-flopping. “Cut them down by half so they don’t fall on someone.”
“Yes, Miss Kingsley.”
Calder smelled earthy today. Sandalwood. Oakmoss. Musk. My cheeks peppered with heat the longer I breathed him in, and when he eased away from the tower of chairs, I took a sizeable step back, crinkling the paper in my hand.
“I could have caught that,” I muttered, then ducked my head down and made a beeline for the door. The metal handle squeaked when I gripped it, but the brightly lit corridor on the other side was mercifully silent. As soon as the door closed, the chaos outside disappeared. His scent vanished. Smoothing a hand over my loose waves, I dragged in a deep breath, then exhaled it slowly, making my way by the trio of closed and locked grey doors, behind which was all my equipment. Balls. Netting. Rackets. The final door, way at the end of the hall, offered me guaranteed sanctuary, a private place to quiet my hammering heart.
The handle squeaked again, and I whirled around at the sound. Calder stalked in, letting it slam shut behind him, and I turned away, unable to withstand that dark, brooding look for a second longer than necessary. If he wanted a proper thank-you for doing something I honestly could have done myself, he’d be waiting a long time.
I hadn’t made it more than two steps closer to my office when his hand snapped around my elbow, and my inner wolf snarled when he yanked me back and shoved me against the wall. Hackles up, my lips peeled back as the folded-over menu fluttered to the ground, forgotten at our feet. Calder caged me in with a hand on either side of my shoulders, his face ducking down to meet my eyeline.
Swallowing hard, I stood straighter, elongating my spine, lifti
ng my neck, refusing to shrink despite the way his scent flooded over me. Hours from now, it would linger on my clothes, my T-shirt, fused to the cotton, even if he never touched me.
“We’re going to have a chat, you and I,” Calder hissed, his expression stony, his voice low and rumbly. I felt the heft of it dancing across my skin, his breath warming my lips. Before I could stop myself, my gaze dropped to his mouth, to the tightness along his jaw, the tremble of its muscles.
Color warmed my cheeks again. My eyes flashed back up, and I hoped, for my sake, that they read indignant yet unfazed by this display.
“Do we need to be standing this close together to do it?” I growled back. My voice had lowered too, dangerous, a whispering hint of the beast inside. I couldn’t be sure, but from the somewhat intense way he stared into my eyes, they might have changed too. Only a shade—I was nowhere near shifting, but occasionally a flicker of my wolf’s eyes, yellow like the harvest moon, reared during heightened emotions. Anger. Desperation. Joy.
Arousal.
“We do,” Calder murmured, inching closer, “because apparently this is the only way I can get your fucking attention.”
I fought back a grin, tilting my head to one side. “Swear jar, Mr. Holloway.”
The nearer he drew, purposefully crowding me, the sharper the flames licking up my body burned. Slowly, the fire that had started in my cheeks spread, unchecked, unhindered, threatening to consume me. The hum of his aura tingled, danced across my skin, buzzed in my lips; I licked them, concentrating on slow, even breaths to quiet my heart—a heart that shouldn’t be racing, yet Calder Holloway had a knack for spurring it on. I had called him a dead man the first time we met, but even without touching him, he didn’t feel dead now. Not this close.
Not when he was on top of me either.
Heat flashed, this time in my belly, flaring and twisting.
“You’ve had your fun.” That growl—it could put a wolf to shame. Not bad, for a vampire. My eyes dipped down again, catching a hint of fang beneath his top lip as he spoke. “You’ve given me the business, but enough is enough. Emma, I’m here to teach, and I’m not going anywhere. If you don’t like me, fine, but keep it professional. I’m sick of your snarky little attitude, especially when I haven’t done anything to deserve it beyond the fact that I exist.”
