by Liz Meldon
“Now.”
The remaining freshmen girls scattered, exchanging uncomfortable glances with one another as they slunk off. With the seas parted, I strode right up to the shifter, snatched her elbow, and then hauled her unceremoniously to the far-right corner of the gym, to the door that opened into the corridor we’d had our last little chat in. Emma put up a fight—I’d expect nothing less—but not with her full strength, not so much as to cause a scene as we skirted the edge of what was otherwise a successful secondary school dance. Instead, she stomped along beside me, failing to wrench her arm free when she tried, and stumbled briefly when I pushed her through the metal door with two glowing skeletal faces on it.
Inside, a pair of lip-locked seniors sprang apart—Madison and Abdullah, two of my higher history idiots—but they too scampered off when I barked at them to return to the gym. Heads down, they scuttled by, not daring to cast an eye to either Emma or myself in passing.
“Calder, get your fucking hand off—”
“Shut up, wolf,” I snarled as I dragged her down the hall, headed straight for her office, for the privacy it offered. Emma’s shoes skidded along, her feet planted but useless, and when I found her office unlocked, I thrust open the door, threw her inside, and slammed it shut behind us.
I even locked it, just for good measure.
This was my first experience in her private quarters, and its bookshelves cluttered with nets and deflated balls, her desk lined with empty water bottles and crumpled paper, clothing strewn over the two chairs tucked into the corner on either side of the door—none of it surprised me. Her mess didn’t surprise me, but the return of that fucking smile had me seeing red.
“Have you lost your mind?” I hissed, hands in fists, exceedingly short nails slicing into my palms. Emma rolled her eyes, and it took every ounce of restraint in the goddamn universe not to grab her and pin her up against the door, and then—
“Can you tone it down a thousand notches? It’s not like they know vampires are real. To them, vampires are just sexy bad boys on TV—”
“Have you been drinking?” I wrinkled my face at her. While I didn’t smell liquor on her breath, no other explanation made sense for her absurd choice of costume.
“By drinking at a work function, I assume you’re referring to Foster’s terrible witches’ brew? Nope—avoided that like the plague.” She crossed her arms and huffed at me. “Hard liquor, also a no, though I could do with a few shots so I could actually stomach being around you.”
Oh my god. I threw my hands up and stormed the width of her small rectangular office space, stopping again in front of the door, still at a loss. All this hostility had to come from somewhere. The woman was ridiculous on a good day, but this was something else entirely. Maybe in September I would have let this attitude fly, but not after the last few weeks. Not after she let me fetch her fucking tea.
Emma’s gaze followed me, jaw set until her little pink tongue wet her lips, the motion revealing her recent dental work.
“What the hell is in your mouth?” I demanded, fighting to keep my voice even—to not shout at her, to not storm over and shake her as I pried the truth from those lush lips.
“Oh, you like ’em?” Emma smiled, framing her face with her hands, going so far as to flutter her dark lashes. “I had them custom made and shipped here this week. Picked them up yesterday. Cost me like a grand to do it, but I wanted my costume to be authentic.”
“I’m so flattered,” I said tightly. She stroked a reverent finger down her left canine, that leering smile no longer reaching her eyes.
“Yeah, I can tell. Real touched, I’m sure, by my attention to detail.”
“It’s quite the improvement from your usual approach to things.”
Her eyes widened a fraction, as if taken aback by my honesty, by the sting of each word, only to narrow to near slits when I grinned. We had very different styles when it came to organization and preparedness—and clearly she recognized mine as superior.
“You know,” she started, less teasing, her tone sharper, “I got these off this website for vamp groupies—something I’m sure you’re very familiar with.”
“What?” My brows knitted. Groupies? When the fuck did I ever have groupies? Unless she was counting the handful of senior girls who liked to sit in my empty classroom during their study hall and chat with me about nonsense, but that was a stretch.
“Groupies,” Emma remarked flatly, as if saying it again explained everything. “You know—groupies. It’s your thing. I see it now. Your shtick.”
I scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“No, you manipulate everyone around you into seeing what you want. You trick them into liking you. Oh”—she pressed a delicate hand to her chest, a chest that was practically bursting out of her white button-down—“I’m just a bumbling little Englishman”—Holy god what was that accent? Was that supposed to be me?—“who likes to espouse Kant and Hobbes in everyday conversation because I’m so cultured, but what is technology? Someone show me how to use the Wi-Fi even though I’m perfectly capable and am just pretending to be a charming, inept moron.”
I blinked back at her, torn between laughing at that atrocious English accent and parroting the exact same thing to her. Mind you, my American accent always sounded forced. Best take the high road. “Really, Emma.”
She pointed an accusatory finger at me, her other hand in a tight fist. “You make them believe you’re unassuming with this shtick.”
“We all do it!” I shook my head, incredulous that she felt the need to lecture me about supernatural assimilation. “We all do it to survive in a human’s world. I’m no different than you.”
“We are not the same.” Her lips parted as she sucked in a heated breath, her eyes screaming for me to go screw myself. Or maybe screw her, under the right circumstances. I swallowed hard, hating that even now, mid-fight, I noticed how perfectly fuckable Emma Kingsley was. Her personality was a nightmare, of course, but that mouth would look beautiful encircling my cock.
And the sheer smug satisfaction I’d get from making this obnoxious little shifter scream my name as she—
Well, never mind.
“Emma,” I managed, forcing myself to speak and not just stare—not just stand there like a halfwit imagining what excellent hate sex we could have, “what the fuck is your problem with me? Beyond the obvious—I had started to think you weren’t that petty a creature.”
“I don’t have a problem with you, Calder.” Her jaw clenched briefly when I snorted. “I know exactly what you are, who you are. I’m the only person here who does—a sanctimonious, stuck-up, manipulative dick.”
Rage darted through me, and I tore my gaze away from her face, from her flushed cheeks and her hateful eyes, only to notice something about the tweed jacket, with its sleeves rolled up around her wrists, like it was too long. How it sat funny on her, ill-fitted and too large, while her dress shirt was clearly too small, her tie looped in a poorly executed Windsor knot. But that jacket, the pattern, the leather patch on each elbow—
“Is that my fucking jacket?” It had gone missing from the staffroom a few days ago, but I thought I’d just misplaced it. Emma gestured down to herself with both hands.
“Authenticity.”
“You’re batshit crazy. Do you know that?” I seethed, ticking off each statement with my fingers. “Messy, loud, rude, paranoid—and clinically insane.”
And now that jacket was going to smell of her, no matter how many times I washed it. Stink of the lavender, of the woodsy yet floral sweetness of her natural scent.
“Cleary, I am insane, because I fell for your shit, Calder.” Her voice caught when she said my name. “I don’t have a problem with you. I have a problem with me. I was starting to think, you and me…”
The rose blush of her cheeks brightened, a sudden rush of blood blooming beneath her skin. Emma looked down and clapped her hands over her cheeks, whispering a barely audible fuck as she massaged them. Had this bee
n any other day, any other situation, I might have been smirking when she straightened. I might have offered something suggestive, just to see the blush sharpen. Tonight, I merely glowered back, because this woman had well overstepped her bounds, and I was starting to think all this was because she had made assumptions when she walked in on Marte and me.
And that was just so painfully boring.
“But now I see,” she said with a nod, words softer but no less venomous. “You want us all to think you’re this stand-up guy, but I’ve seen you. Before the homecoming dance, slamming my head against the wall. Grabbing me tonight. I see you for what you are, and I don’t know why I ignored it. The dodgeball match—jumping in, using how much the kids like you to lower my guard… To disarm me.”
My jaw tightened, aching as I ground my teeth together—hating that she had hit the nail on the head. Hating that my ploy had been so obvious. I had done it to get on her good side, but it was as simple as that. I wasn’t the malicious bastard she was making me out to be.
Not anymore, at least.
“You’re delusional, Emma Kingsley,” I muttered, arms crossed stiffly as I leaned back against the door. “Fucking delusional.”
“Am I?” She took a step forward. “Did you make Grace fall too? Use your supersonic vamp speed to break her nose, tip her over, make my heart hurt so you could play the hero—”
“That”—I shot up, stalking toward her, not missing the way her body retreated but her feet stayed planted—“is too far. Using a student of mine against me is—”
“Well, it worked.” Under the intense white light, I could have sworn her eyes glistened, but one blink and it was gone. “You got me, made me think—our conversations, walking with me for patrol duty, working on schedules together in the teachers’ lounge, bonding with me over Foster’s micromanaging. Congratulations. You fooled me.”
“Shockingly, my world here, as small as it is, does not revolve around you, nor would I ever want it to.”
Emma stepped back, nodding, briefly exposing her fanged tips as she smiled. “Yeah, don’t worry. I see that now. I see where I fit in your grand scheme. You had to get me on your side so nobody’s watching you anymore, right? If I’m just like all the rest of them, sucked into your crap, then you have zero accountability.”
I pointed a rigid finger at her again. “Delusional.”
Enough of this. I hated that she read me so well—but what I hated more was that she extrapolated, went on to see the absolute worst, the base desires of a con man. A vampire must have done irrevocable harm to her in the past, because I couldn’t understand where all this hatred came from.
Unless it really was about her, about disappointment and frustration with herself.
Emma had seen a piece of the puzzle, but she had acted on her own prejudices and run right off the rails. What happened to the benefit of the doubt? In the vampire community, shifters were mindless animals—thick-headed and hot-tempered. Simpletons. I hadn’t assumed that about her the moment I sensed her.
Not entirely, anyway.
I lifted my gaze back to her. Faintly, the distant pounding music broke through the terse silence hanging between us. There were a thousand things I could say, but why bother? The stubborn creature was likely set in her opinion of me. Any attempt to change that—reason, logic, a gentle tone and a kind smile—would read as further manipulation.
So, I settled for anger instead. I sunk into my own frustrations—with her, with the way our relationship had spiraled, with the fact that despite everything I still wanted to bend her over the desk—and then nodded to her lips.
“Take—those fucking things—out of your mouth.”
She flicked her tongue over the sharpened tip of her right fang. “No.”
“Take them out right now, Emma.”
“No.”
“You did it,” I snapped, arms out in surrender. “You ruffled my feathers. Got a rise out of me. Showed me how clever you think you are.” Another few steps forward had her retreating, toned thighs nudging against her desk. “Maybe you want to make me lose my temper again by being a petulant child. Make the big bad vampire show you what you think are his true colors, so you can lot me in with all the rest of them. Prove your ridiculous theories true. Well done.” I gave her three sarcastic claps. “You’ve pissed me right off. Take out—those—fangs.”
She swallowed hard, her throat rippling. Over the dull roar of Halloween festivities a whole world away, her heart thundered. Just for a moment, I allowed myself to listen, to relish the steady thrum between my ears. Emma’s pulse seldom raced, not even when she ran during dodgeball. I thought it intrusive to listen in on something so intimate, but I couldn’t help it with her. Hearing it race, like she was gearing up for an attack—it brought me more satisfaction than I cared to admit.
Satisfaction that shot straight to hell when she motioned to the door, jutting her chin out, and met my eye. “Get the fuck out of my office.”
Fine. She wanted to be like that—fine. Clearly a bit of manhandling was the only way to get through that thick skull of hers.
I crossed the space between us in an instant, relying on supernatural speed to take her by surprise. She cried out when I clamped down on her forearms, then thrust her back onto the desk, easily slipping between her thighs.
“Let go,” Emma growled, teeth bared as she fought me, shoved me, ripped at my suit. The fabric might tear, but I wasn’t going anywhere. In this form, the little wolf shifter was no match for my strength, and when her eyes flicked to mine, the edges of my mouth lifted, daring her to do something about that. Shift. Right here. Expose herself just as she sought to expose me.
Emma lifted her knees instead, attempting to push back across her desk, perhaps squirm out of reach. I bore down, threading a hand into her rat’s nest of a bun at the crown of her head, her hair thick and unyielding when I wrenched back. Throat exposed, Emma exhaled sharply, eyes wide, lips parted. One hand shot to my wrist, trying in vain to rip it free, while the other beat ineffectually at my chest, barely a foot of space between us.
As I reached for her mouth with my free hand, my concentration fumbled, my cock swelling to life as it pressed against her, snug between her thighs.
Against her heat.
I blinked. What was I— Fangs. Right.
The left canine came off without a hitch, snapping free from her actual tooth and clattering noisily when I tossed it on the floor. I then curled my fingers around her throat, thumb over her racing pulse, the long, slender column still wrenched back in a lovely arch. Emma snarled, the sound lifting in pitch when I tore my hand from her hair and went for the right canine. It surrendered as easily as the left, held in place by some gum-like substance that clung to the fake fang, even as I crushed it between my thumb and forefinger and scattered the remains across the linoleum.
Emma pressed her trembling lips together, glaring up at me with gold-flecked eyes, cheeks flushed, chest heaving with every panting gasp. Slowly, I settled one hand on her desk, palm to the wood, fingers splayed as I took a few barely controlled breaths of my own. Fingernails, sharp as claws, sunk into my wrist, both her hands attempting to rip mine off her throat. I held firm, tighter even, her windpipe compressing beneath my fingertips. My jaw set, my gaze like flint—yet she refused to cower.
She fought, not physically, but with an inner strength that just wouldn’t back down. I could see it in her eyes, in the wolf staring back.
This woman was so infuriating—and probably the only creature on the whole damn planet who could look this breathtaking under fluorescent light.
Fuck it.
No more arguing. No more sniping back and forth. No more thinly veiled threats.
No more imagining what magnificent hate sex we’d have.
No more.
With a snarl, I slammed my mouth to hers.
10
Emma
I wasn’t sure what had happened. Not really. Not in any way that made sense.
One mome
nt we were fighting, literally clawing at each other, and then the next we were tussling with our mouths, a battle of wills, of tongue and teeth and lips, each of us desperate to come out on top.
Each of us desperate to win.
But how did you win this?
The second his mouth found mine, harsh and unforgiving, we had both lost this fight.
And, honestly, as he nipped at my lower lip, as I ripped the top three buttons of his shirt clean off, I’d thought we would have killed each other before it came to this.
My inner wolf was howling, keening some agonized, desperate cry—but not in anger. I’d never heard the sound before, pumping through my veins, slicing across every limb, boiling up my throat as my lips parted for him, as Calder’s tongue flicked at mine. You’d think a vampire would taste of blood, of metal, of filthy iron, but Calder was like an arctic breeze, cold and crisp. Minty, the kind that scorched down your throat and burned with every breath. Like his hands, his kiss was the frozen wastes of the north, the bitter chill of winter.
And as I yanked at his wrist, to pull him off, to drag him closer, the vampire’s frostbite made me feel alive.
When his hand finally left my throat, I knew it wasn’t because of anything I’d done. Stronger than me. Taller than me. Broader, firmer, harder, in this form I couldn’t make Calder do anything; heat flashed in my core, settling between my thighs. It wasn’t the thought of helplessness that aroused me—it couldn’t be—but perhaps the idea of a worthy adversary.
The alpha’s line burned brighter, ran faster, fought harder than the rest of their pack.
No one had ever been able to outshine me, no one outside my immediate family.
Yet now, as our mouths clashed, two titans pounding against one another in a great eternal battle, Calder’s hands had their way with me. Long, slender fingers smoothed under the jacket I’d stolen from him, then shoved it off my shoulders, ripped it down my arms. I let him, because I knew I couldn’t stop him—and bit his tongue the next time it dipped into my mouth. The vampire snarled, returning the favor with a sharp snap at my lower lip. Now I tasted metal. Calder kissed me harder, sucking my lip as my pulse raced, as pain stung and pleasure teased. My heart stuttered. My stomach turned over and over, but not in that tight, awful way—not in the way it had when I spotted Calder and Marte in the village.
