by Liz Meldon
If either of us drew a deep breath, the kind that filled your lungs to bursting, we’d touch—the tips of our noses, my breasts to his chest. Dark lashes caught my eye, midnight black and too lush for a man like Calder. They flickered down, and my lips parted as I sucked in a shallow breath.
“Get out of my face, Calder.”
“No.”
This was too much.
I couldn’t—
I couldn’t breathe.
So, I pushed him—hard, slamming my palms against his chest, against the marble statue of a man standing in front of me. The blow caught him off guard, forcing him back a few paces, and I pitched forward for the follow-through. Calder righted himself quick, and before I knew it, he had me shoved back up against the wall, his hand at the base of my throat, bearing down on me with a snarl.
The heat flared again, scorching my core, pooling between my thighs.
It had been a long time since anyone physically overpowered me. As the alpha’s daughter, his heir, my strength surpassed most of my pack members, even seasoned wolves greying around the ears. It was instinctual, natural, innate.
Calder handled me like it was nothing.
And I didn’t hate it—not like I should.
It made me want to fight.
It made me want to—
The back of my head ached; a human skull would have cracked against the concrete. I grabbed his wrist with both hands, tugging, yanking, fighting, but Calder held firm at the hollow of my throat.
Though the twitch of his right eye suggested this wasn’t a cakewalk for him either.
“Tell me we have an understanding, wolf.”
I sucked in my cheeks with displeasure. This sanctimonious, pretentious, arrogant, uppity vampire jerk—had a point.
After digging into his background and finding nothing, my behavior made me no better than them, those fanged assholes who judged an entire species on mostly outdated, albeit occasionally warranted stereotypes. Calder hadn’t tried to kidnap me. None of our students had bite marks—beyond the garden-variety hickeys, of course. He could always have an ulterior motive, be playing the long con. I’d be an idiot to let my guard down completely, but all this passive-aggressiveness, and sometimes full-on aggression, only made my work life, my home, more stressful than it needed to be.
Still. He was an ass. An ass with his hand digging into my throat, pinning me to the wall, making my breathing labored and my heart thunder.
A hot, grumpy ass.
Made even hotter when he was all flustered, his dark brows furrowed, lips in a snarl, eyes flashing with emotion—not the calm, cool, collected guy who smirked down at me all the time.
I liked seeing him unravel. I enjoyed it way more than I should, way more than was good for me.
So, against my better judgement, I held his stare and craned my head forward, mouth a breath away from his, the rest of me still thrust up against the concrete, then offered my best Calder-esque smirk.
“Get bent, vampire.”
His hand shot up my throat, eyes flashing dangerously as they bore into mine, then dropped to my lips. They parted with a breath, torn between lifting into a snarl of my own, snapping at his lower lip, or just seizing his mouth in a searing, fiery-hot—
Down the hall, the metal door handle squeaked. We sprang apart, Calder flush against the opposite wall, mouth set in a rigid line, expression unreadable. I straightened as Karen stomped in, clipboard in one hand, walkie-talkie in the other, her cheeks splotchy.
“Miss Kingsley,” she whined, voice wobbling, “the kitchen says they have no idea about our appetizer menu. Like no idea. Like they don’t even have the ingredients, and apps set the tone for everything!”
I stabbed a trembling hand through my hair. “They know about the appetizers, Karen. I talked to Felipe yesterday.”
“Well, then someone isn’t telling the truth, because they literally just told me—”
“Okay, okay, let me go sort it out.” I crossed my arms as I hurried stiffly down the hall toward her, something unwelcome tingling between my thighs, churning, burning in my core. Karen seemed totally oblivious to what she had walked in on, scratching at her head with the walkie antenna as she panic-read her spreadsheet.
“And Mr. Holloway, they’re having trouble with the photo booth setup, and no one can find Mr. Renard. I think he went to get snacks, and the tech stuff just isn’t working without him—”
“I’m really the last person to help with tech, Karen, but I’ll give it a go.”
“Breathe,” I said, my smile forced as I swept her under my arm and led her back through the doors. “It’s going to be fine.”
Advice I really ought to follow.
Calder’s clipped footsteps followed us, and while I didn’t look back, I could feel his gaze scorching across my body, branding me with a mark no one else could see.
Even after the door swung shut between us.
Even after I left the building, off to sort out the kitchen mess.
Even hours later, curled up in bed alone, the storm battering my window, one hand clasped around my throat—and the other between my thighs.
October
7
Emma
“Okay, so Teams Awesomesauce and Red-Five will be playing the first round, and then—”
“Hi, Mr. Holloway!”
I looked up from the list of this afternoon’s dodgeball plays on my clipboard. While I hadn’t worked with the junior teams yet, they’d been really intense about my dodgeball league last year as sophomores, and I had no doubt that would carry over into this year as well. A little less unclear, however, was why Calder fucking Holloway was strolling into my gymnasium, a dusting of fat snowflakes on his shoulders, wearing a long black coat and dark jeans so crisp he must have ironed them.
Someone was in his casuals today.
He flashed the thirty-two students present a beaming smile, my four teams of eight immediately enraptured. I also wasn’t sure why the vampire was such a big hit with the academy’s students. Even if they weren’t in his higher- or standard-level history classes, they all clamored for his attention everywhere he went, no longer giving him the cautious space that I’d seen during the first few days of the term. I had caught a glimpse of him in teaching mode a few times, and Calder at the front of a classroom with his archaic chalkboard was basically the same creature he was the rest of the time: grumpy, pretentious, and patronizing.
But here they were, greeting him now like the prodigal son returning, guys and girls alike. I’d seen it before—teachers playing hard to get. Not being the warm, bubbly, chatty one who the kids considered a friend. It made them work harder for his time and attention.
I, on the other hand, had been working very hard to not get his time and attention. Ever since our heated exchange in the corridor outside my office, I’d steered clear. Something had come over me that day—something I had to fight, ignore, swallow. Because I’d liked his hand on my throat. I’d liked his fire, his wrath. Our bodies gravitated toward one another, and when I should have been shoving him away, scoring his cheek with my nails, I yearned to drag him closer and mark his back instead.
Dangerous territory.
Giving him space, leaving the teachers’ lounge whenever he strolled in, had been my best plan of defense so far. Yet now, he had broken the unspoken accord between us: besides helping with the homecoming dance setup—a dance that had been a roaring success, Karen crowned queen by her peers—Calder never set foot in my gym. I might not have been able to claim Solskinn as a whole, neither the academy nor the nearby village it was named after, but the gymnasium belonged to me. Situated next to the rescue dog kennel, my scent drowned it, seeped into the walls. This big square building, ugliest on campus, was mine.
Well, mine and Walter’s, but he had already expressed his preference for the weight studio—so technically, all mine.
And it was supposed to be a vamp-free zone.
I swallowed hard, biting the insides of my che
eks when they tingled with heat, and then forced a smile as Calder unbuttoned his coat and greeted most of this afternoon’s players by name.
“Mr. Holloway,” I said, fighting to keep the sharpness out of my voice, to keep it as light and breezy as I normally did, like his presence meant nothing to me. “Is everything okay?”
Because why the fuck else would he be here unless Foster had issued a state of emergency?
The vampire’s bright blues darted my way, his smile unflinching. “Oh, fine, Miss Kingsley. I’ve just been hearing such wonderful things all week about the dodgeball league from my students, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about.”
“Oh.” Death-gripping my clipboard, I stood a little straighter, held my head a little higher. Of all the faculty-run clubs, my dodgeball league had the highest number of participants. It had been a raging success last year, and I attributed that to the fact that we spent the first semester practicing and having fun.
Second semester was when we kept score, and each team was allowed to debut their own uniform in January—so long as they met the academy’s decency requirements—and jazz it up with war paint and bandanas. Unlike many of the other organized sports clubs, I tried to keep the league as entertaining as possible, opening it up to all skill levels. Even students who opted out of physical education in the IB program came back to play. Dodgeball wasn’t about athleticism—at least my league wasn’t. It was about comradery and sportsmanship and hilarious uniforms.
Last year, roughly half the students at the academy signed up to play. This year, the number rose to about 75 percent, with nearly the entire junior class standing in front of me right now.
“I’ve never played before,” Calder admitted, speaking more to the players than me. “And since some of you won’t stop haranguing me about it, I thought I could maybe join one of the teams—just for today.”
Before I could get a word in—no, preferably fuck no—the four teams erupted in a chorus of competing voices. Their overall message, however, was clear: they wanted Calder to play. I let out a long sigh, hugging my beloved league clipboard to my chest. Of course they did.
And they were already bickering over which team he would play on.
“Okay, okay, guys, settle down.” I waved my clipboard to bring the focus back to me, only to be met with thirty-two pleading sets of eyes. I let out another little sigh. “It’s just… it doesn’t seem fair that Mr. Holloway join a team.”
Given he was stronger and faster than everyone in this room, myself included, the playing field was hardly even if we stacked one team with a vampire.
“You can play too, Miss Kingsley. Then each team has an extra player.”
Thank you, Kenneth. “I don’t know—”
An onslaught of please, come on, Miss and just for today amongst the rest of the garbled teen chatter erupted in front of me. When I glanced at Calder, he just stood there, hands in his pockets—a vision of innocence, except for the smirk. Usually, I wasn’t a pushover in the gym, although I could be a little laxer with rules and formalities for the league. Still, my gut instinct told me to put my foot down and just kick Calder out.
My brain, however, flashed back to that moment, pinned up against the wall, trapped between concrete and vampire—that one fleeting moment where Calder had actually made some sense.
“Okay,” I conceded softly, my smile ballooning at the surge of excited energy from the teams. “Okay, fine. Mr. Holloway and I will play for opposing teams, just to keep things”—I caught his eye—“even. But don’t think I won’t still be reffing, even for the team I’m on.”
I split us up, consulting the clipboard, penciling Calder onto the two teams that historically played least aggressively of the four. The other two didn’t need the extra muscle. With Team Awesomesauce getting set up on the far right wall of the gymnasium, strategizing, I sent Red-Five and Calder to the left, then arranged all the red rubber balls—four blockers, two stingers, differing slightly in size—along the center court line. Fortunately, the preset divisions across the vinyl created the boundaries for us: two sides, plus a neutral zone in the middle.
I played strictly elimination rounds during the first semester; a simple elimination session made the matches go by quicker, which allowed everyone to get as much practice as needed. For now, all eight players were permitted on the court at one time. Come next semester, there would only be six in play per team, with two subs on the bench, and the gameplays would become more complicated.
When I spotted Calder standing just outside his team’s huddle, I waved him over. My hands settled naturally on my hips as he approached, and I hastily crossed my arms instead, going from offensive posturing to defensive, to show I’d been listening to his stupid, sexy rant.
“Did they give you a rundown on the rules?” I asked, leaning back when he stopped about a foot and a half away, both of us standing inside the center circle, a bright red ball between our feet. He’d ditched the coat at some point, the sleeves of his black cardigan tugged up to his elbows, his obsidian locks slicked back—hauntingly blue eyes trained squarely on me.
“A jumbled version,” Calder mused, nodding. “I suppose I’ll learn the nuances once you blow that whistle of yours.”
I resisted the urge to tuck the whistle hanging around my neck into my shirt. “Well, you get hit, you’re out. Hit other players, eliminate the opposite team. You can block an incoming ball with these larger balls. You can’t throw in the neutral zone.” I motioned to the lines. “And you can get a player out by catching their ball. No head shots.”
The vampire flashed a somewhat unsettling predatory grin. “Like I said—nuances.”
“Okay, well.” I kept my gaze moving around the gym, purposefully avoiding eye contact, because the few moments of it had already made my cheeks warmer. “When I blow the whistle, they will run for the balls in the middle. We won’t. And no…” I cleared my throat, voice dropping. “No supernatural abilities. Make it fair.”
Calder’s grin faltered, and he shot me a narrowed look. “Emma. Really. Did that need to be said?”
“Well—”
“Do you think my ego so insatiable that I’d come down here just to outplay a bunch of human teenagers at something that’s barely a sport?”
“Okay.” I held up my hands and stepped back, clipboard shield sitting next to the ball bin, forgotten. “Fine. Whatever. Just play at like two percent of your actual ability.”
“Same goes for you, Miss Kingsley.”
I clamped down on the insides of my cheeks again when a handsome smile creased the corners of his mouth—another flashback to that moment, the tips of his fangs poking out beneath his top lip. Heat flashed in my belly, my inner wolf rumbling to life, and I turned away, distracting myself by calling for spectators to be seated on the benches on either side of the court and for players to place one hand and one foot against their back wall.
“On my whistle!” Each word echoed, a hush settling over the chatty teens. “Three, two—”
At the shrill screech of my whistle, footsteps thundered across the vinyl, both teams launching themselves toward the balls in the middle. Calder and I hung back, and I nodded, pleased that he was at least listening to me while he was in here, even if he didn’t take dodgeball all that seriously.
Balls started flying, bouncing off the floor, off students. Players called out to one another. I ducked, dodged, and weaved, avoiding a few well-aimed projectiles as I kept an eye on the proceedings. Any ball that came near me I passed off to my team, preferring to monitor. These guys were good at adhering to the rules; this year’s freshmen class, who I’d worked with on Monday, must have thought I was blind given all the bullshit they tried to sneak by me. Little did they know just yet, but I missed nothing.
Except for the ball that slammed into the side of my hip, appearing out of nowhere and ricocheting off toward the back corner. Stunned, I looked down at the offending area, then back up—and found Calder grinning impishly at me from the other sid
e of the court. The teams seated on the benches giggled and cheered.
“Oooh, you’re out, Miss Kingsley!”
“Yes, thank you, peanut gallery,” I called back, holding Calder’s gaze as I stalked to the side of the court. He shrugged, still grinning, as I shook my head. “Right. I see how it is. I’m coming for you in the next round.”
Bring it, wolf, he mouthed back, and more giggles erupted from our spectators when I pointed two fingers up to my eyes, then across the court to his. Back and forth.
I’m watching you.
Predictably, the students loved my rivalry with Calder, and it kept the next several rounds light and fun—to the point where no one argued with me when I made a ref call, nor was there much of the usual trash talk between opposing players. While I still continued to scan the court for rule breaking, I actually played in the matches that followed—and Calder was my only target.
The vampire seemed to have shed his grumpy exterior this afternoon; I’d never seen him smile or laugh this much, dodging balls, occasionally catching them, and hurling them back at me with way less power than I knew he was capable of. I held back too, aware that a student getting in the way of a ball thrown full force by either of us could result in a broken… everything.
Unfortunately, with Calder and I focused exclusively on each other, neither of us got the other out. We were both too quick, too light on our feet, to make any of the balls land. We were also both high-value targets from members of the opposing teams, which meant occasionally we were distracted. In one such moment of distraction, I finally managed to get Calder out on a fumble, although I had a feeling he’d dropped the ball on purpose.
