Dark Days: Semester 1

by Liz Meldon

  Of how unprofessionally I’d acted—again.

  “Okay,” I whispered, headed off to triple-check the badminton nets before the start of class. Palms clammy. Throat tight. Panties damp.

  And my inner wolf whining suddenly, loudly, in Calder’s absence.

  12

  Emma

  Dear Bean,

  Happy Thanksgiving! The gang’s all here—wishing you were too. It’s so ridiculous that that school of yours wouldn’t give you the time off to fly home and be with your family.

  Love you!

  Mom

  Seated at the end of my bed, pantyhose-clad legs crossed at the ankles, laptop on my knees, I stared at photos of the pack’s Thanksgiving celebrations. It was the same as always: they had rented a local rec hall and filled it with wolves and food and harvest decorations and general obnoxious merriment.

  Mom would have made her pumpkin pie, a recipe she swore had been passed down through the women in her family but really came from a cookbook we got her for Christmas as kids. My brothers would have gotten drunk and arm-wrestled. They’d have played with the pups, maybe made a scene—all in good fun, of course. And my dad—my dad would have stood up at the end of the night and made the annual alpha Thanksgiving toast. Tears would have been shed. Glasses would have been raised.

  I used to play the piano on Thanksgiving, accompanying the pack’s choir as they belted out tunes that got raunchier and more incoherent with every drink. The food was everything, a pack legend, with every family unit contributing something to the feast. It was the best day of the year for the pack as a whole, one without gossip and bickering and, most of the time, matchmaking.

  I loved Thanksgiving with the pack.

  But as I studied the photos Mom had sent me, probably from the rec hall mid-celebration, too tipsy to write one of her usual mammoth emails, I just felt… hollow. Gang’s all here. It screamed subtext.

  Look at what you’re missing.

  Another attempt to lure me back to Maine with the promise of a wholesome family experience.

  I pressed my lips together tightly, my inner wolf whimpering somewhere deep inside, her cries soft and desolate, as I continued to scroll through the images. My pack dancing, singing, toasting. My brothers and cousins, laughing. My parents holding each other, the alpha pair, fated mates idolized by all members of the pack. My dad’s kickoff toast, the whole clan watching, utterly transfixed. Beyond his deep, booming voice, the recreation hall would have been silent enough to hear a pin drop.

  She must not know. There was no way my mom could have known about the fight dad and I had—about the horrible things he said to me just before I left for Norway.

  Don’t come back.

  You aren’t my daughter if you walk out that door.

  You’re selfish, Emma.

  The pack is your responsibility.

  I hate you. He hadn’t come right out and said it, but the look in his eye that day was unlike anything I had ever seen. As the alpha’s heir, walking away to pursue my own goals, my own dreams, had been the ultimate betrayal to a wolf as traditional as my dad. At this point in my life, I was supposed to be married with one heir popped out, a spare on the way.

  I hadn’t wanted that. I still didn’t.

  But looking at photos of my family, my real family, made my heart ache. It stole the breath right out of me, made me unable to speak, to move. Everything felt so heavy, my body weighed down with guilt, with grief. Most of the time I could suppress it. I could do my job, enjoy my students, live in this spectacular environment as a real wolf should.

  It was always harder during the holidays.

  It was harder to remember why I had thrown my whole life away, when I could have been there, in that rec hall, surrounded by my pack.

  Blinking hard, I slammed my laptop shut and tossed it onto the bed. For the first time in a long time, I had actually been on track to be early to a school function. I’d been ready for the last hour, rocking a pair of grey stockings and the second of two formalwear dresses I owned: black with elbow-length sleeves, fitted, a sweetheart neckline and a hem that cut off just above my knees, a two-inch slit in the back. A long side braid trailed over my shoulder, tied off with a maroon bow. My lone pair of heels sat by the door of my suite, waiting.

  Rather than heading out to the dining hall for the school’s annual Thanksgiving feast as soon as I was ready, I had decided to quickly check my personal email. And it had been all downhill from there. Tears clung to my dark blonde lashes, and I stood with a sniffle, off to fix them in the bathroom. My movements were jerky, my limbs stiff, my stomach in knots. I tidied up my smudged mascara with a crumpled bit of toilet paper, then added a nude lip and redid my bow. Back in the bedroom, my phone’s alarm went off, a reminder that I was now just about late for the dinner.

  With another sniff, I zipped around, turning off my alarm, grabbing my unnecessary winter jacket and slipping into it, then shoving my feet into the heels. They protested as they always did, and I was even wobblier than usual as I hurried out of the suite, locked up, and power-walked into the great blustery outdoors.

  While I could have taken the tunnels to the dining hall, stepping outside and breathing in a lungful of the crisp, cold air seemed preferable. Necessary, almost. Darkness blanketed the world outside the four campus walls, thousands of stars glittering across a pitch-black sky. Although less frequently used during the winter, the exterior walkways connecting all the grey stone buildings had been cleared, and my heels made muffled clicks as I strode along.

  Warm yellow lamplight kept the snowy landscape bright and comforting—another tactic employed to fight the winter blues. It was a very real issue so far north, half the year shrouded in darkness; we worked hard as educators and stand-in parents to keep the students active, mentally stimulated, and happy.

  It was honestly why we had a thousand mandatory dances during the year, along with countless other clubs and movie nights and board game tournaments. While only about half the SIA population was American, the academy hosted a huge Thanksgiving dinner annually, because right now, as darkness started to overtake the light, the kids needed it. Up to their eyeballs in exam prep and assignments, unable to leave campus for a breather whenever they wanted, they needed anything we could give them to boost their mood.

  If only the tactic worked on homesick teachers. Arms crossed, I took in my surroundings as I followed the familiar path to the dining hall. About two feet of snow had built up around the walkways. While it had been a cold and snowy November, the wind and occasional mild days had kept the drifts from getting out of control, which meant it was more wet than white lately.

  Still, seeing the pines dotted with snow, the conical rooftops steeped with sloping drifts—it was nice. Soothing.

  Naturally, that faded away as soon as I neared the hall, the stained-glass windows illuminated, and a chorus of over a hundred different voices greeted me before I’d even stepped inside. They had the heat cranked high as I hurried through the building’s main doors into the foyer between the hall and the auditorium. Students popped in and out of the dining hall with friends, chatting as wafts of turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes drifted along with them.

  Even though the auditorium had no place in tonight’s festivities, the support staff were acting as a coat-check service before the meal began, hanging extra layers, mittens, and scarves inside so they wouldn’t take up space at the long tables. Usually people cycled in and out at mealtimes; we were seldom all in there at once, filling every available seat, and as I handed my black coat over, one I hadn’t bothered to zip up, I could already feel the tension headache starting behind my eyes.

  “Do you know if they’re letting us drink this year?” I muttered as Eve, one of five secretaries in the main admin office, hung my coat on a rack just beyond the auditorium doors. She glanced back, the skin around her thin mouth crinkling when she smiled.

  “I heard Foster approved it.”

  “Oh, than
k god.”

  “Term’s almost over, Emma,” the woman said, eyes twinkling. “Nearly there.”

  I forced a chuckle and stepped aside as a squad of seniors in dangerously high heels sauntered over, peeling off their coats to reveal very elegant gowns. I smoothed a hand down my old familiar dame, feeling a bit awkward to be so dressed up yet somehow also completely underdressed in the same breath. Resisting the urge to fiddle with my bow, I turned, ready to dive headlong into the noise and clamor, only to pause when I spotted Calder stepping through the dining hall doors and into the foyer.

  Wait.

  What…?

  What the hell was on his head?

  I squinted, even though he was only standing about ten feet away. Was that—? Yup. Calder Holloway, uptight vampire, was, in fact, wearing a giant turkey-shaped hat made of construction paper. A hat so insanely detailed that its enormous bird sported a dangling red wattle under its beak. When our eyes met, I clapped a hand over my mouth and doubled over, positively dying, struck with a case of the giggle-snorts that felt oddly cathartic.

  Oh my god, did he ever look miserable. Even through my lashes I could see he wanted to kill—something. Me. Himself. The group of seniors sniggering at him as they swished by in their heels and gowns. I straightened up, still plagued with the giggles, and wiped under my eyes. It was difficult to admire how gorgeous he looked in that suit—another three-piece wonder, light grey with a plaid dress shirt and a deep orange tie—with that thing on his head.

  Honestly, the guy had zero vampire street cred after he’d started working here. Zero.

  As I continued to giggle, my titters setting off Eve in the auditorium doorway, Calder merely shoved his hands in his pockets and glowered, jaw clenched and cheeks sunken. I hadn’t seen that expression directed at me in ages, not after we decided to engage in some mutually beneficial screwing that day in the gym. Unfortunately, the last few weeks had all been duds. Although I couldn’t stop fantasizing about how awesome the sex could be, I had also told him I didn’t want to do anything when there were students around.

  And when you lived at a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, students were around all the fucking time.

  So, beyond a few stolen kisses here and there, a bit of aggressive groping in dark corridors on midnight patrols, things had reached something of a stalemate between us. Calder kept asking. I kept refusing, insisting on a rain check. As fantastic as we were together physically, I also valued this job—a lot—and I wasn’t about to lose it over a bit of hate sex.

  Still, there was a lot of pent-up energy humming between us, and I wasn’t sure when Calder would pass the point of no return and just give up. Where would that leave us then?

  “I’m sorry,” I said, finally forcing myself to calm down, cheeks aching, eyes wet with unshed tears. “You just look so miserable.”

  “And you find that amusing, do you?” he asked tightly as I closed the distance between us, the foyer finally empty. Even Eve had disappeared inside the auditorium. I stopped about two feet in front of him, unable to look away from that horrific thing on his head.

  “Uh, yeah. This whole thing is pretty amusing…” As soon as I poked at the dangling wattle, I was gone again, head thrown back in full-blown cackling laughter. Calder exhaled my name softly, his annoyance hardened, and I held up my hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop. I’ll stop. But—what the fuck is on your head?”

  “Swear jar,” Robert Howard said, appearing out of nowhere, passing us by like some enormous ship in the night on his way to the dining hall. I rolled my eyes, waiting until he disappeared, and then lifted a prompting brow at Calder. The vampire huffed, gaze darting around the foyer.

  “We all have them. It’s not just me.” Stiffly, he adjusted the hat, as if to make it sit better. I pursed my lips and refrained from telling him that the only way to make it sit better was to take it off completely.

  And then burn it so it couldn’t hurt him ever again.

  “And why do we all have hats?”

  “The freshmen art class made them for us this week,” Calder said with a sniff. “Each one is personalized. Some sort of humiliating punishment for, I don’t know, being teachers, I suppose.”

  “Fantastic.” To be fair, Phyllis had probably given her students this assignment with the best of intentions in mind. Still, I couldn’t imagine why she’d thought any of us would want to wear stupid festive hats during a formal event. Considering the monstrosity on Calder’s head, maybe it was a punishment.

  The vampire gestured toward the dining hall. “Shall we?”

  I nodded, still wiping under my eyes as I headed for the doors, all the while wondering if he had come out here looking for me. Even if we weren’t having all the glorious hate sex, I’d noticed Calder gravitating toward me more over the last few weeks. If we were both in the dining hall at the same time, he settled down next to me in silence, pushing food around his plate—food that I eventually ate, on top of my own sizeable portion. We sat next to each other during Sunday-night staff meetings, worked alongside each other in the library, patrolled the dorms at least once a week, and rode the same bus to the village to chaperone student trips.

  It wasn’t like we had been sharing our life stories. In fact, we usually didn’t talk at all, unless he was in the mood to ruffle my feathers—or for sex.

  But I had a suspicion that what he said in the gym, about not needing to pretend around me, influenced him more than either of us cared to admit. He didn’t need to put on a show for me, because I saw right through it. Calder Holloway, vampire, could just be.

  And I could appreciate that, now that I knew he wasn’t here to sell me to some government lab.

  At least, I was 99.9 percent sure of that. He could always surprise me, and it wouldn’t be the first time.

  Fighting a small smile, I stepped through the doors, immediately greeted by a warm and cheery dining hall bursting with happy, smiling faces, a sea of students who I was so accustomed to seeing in sweaty uniforms now dressed to impress. Hair. Makeup. Perfume and colognes all clashing with the delicious aromas rolling out of the kitchens. Most were seated at this point, the four long tables for each grade decorated with gourds and fake fall leaves, an elaborate cornucopia setup in the middle.

  It was lovely, of course. Festive. Welcoming. Inclusive, whether you were from a country that celebrated Thanksgiving or not.

  And it made the knots in my stomach tighter, the ache in my chest deeper.

  Standing at the far end of the hall, fiddling with my fingers, I felt it again.

  Guilt.

  Self-doubt.

  Longing—for my pack, for the familiarity of it all.

  Tomorrow would be easier. So would the next day, and the next, easier each day to remember why I was here—until Christmas hit in just a few short weeks. The school allotted us time off, same as the kids. I planned to stay here and look after the dogs.

  And drink. ’Tis the season, or whatever.

  Tugging at my arm, Calder steered me toward an enormous table that usually made up the buffet for regular meals. Tonight, however, it was covered in decorations—and hats. Well, one hat, mine, name cards with glittery letters scattered about, showing where the rest of the faculty gifts once sat.

  Thankfully, no one had made me a horrendous giant turkey. Instead, the freshmen art students had built a harvest crown, constructed of orange, red, and yellow paper leaves, along with twigs that stuck out in all directions. I grinned, pleased with the choice, and hoped I wouldn’t put someone’s eye out at dinner.

  “Oh, I love it.”

  “Why does yours actually look good?” Calder grumbled as he picked it up, handling it with all the care one might give to a priceless artifact, and then set it on my head. I peered up, wincing as he adjusted it—even snapped a few of the far-reaching twigs off for good measure. He chucked the broken bits back on the table, scowling. “Why did I get this abomination?”

  “Bitter looks bad on you,” I told
him, patting his chest with a patronizing smile. My gaze then drifted up again, and I let out a snort. “Yeah—it’s terrible.”

  But somehow Calder in a hilariously awful turkey hat made this shitty day just a little bit better. I gave his chest one last pat, resisting the urge to mess up his perfectly knotted cashmere tie, and turned away with a sigh. Making fun of the resident vampire might have temporarily lifted my spirits, but if we were allowed to drink, I intended to get blitzed—after the students had gone to bed—so I could sleep away my day off tomorrow and forget all about those pictures.

  Gang’s all here.

  Biting the insides of my cheeks, I dove headlong into the Thanksgiving festivities, Calder at my heels, counting the minutes until I could guzzle down a very full glass of wine and devour a whole turkey leg like a true northern wolf.

  13

  Calder

  Holy fuck, that was good.

  After several hours surrounded by mountains of food I could no longer comfortably eat, inundated with smells, forced to nibble here and there while my stomach roiled, a full-bodied B-positive was just what I needed. Seated at the meticulously organized desk at the front of my classroom, the room dimly lit by the antique Victorian gas lamp on the corner, I nursed a mug of blood I had microwaved in the empty staffroom downstairs. While everyone else had toddled off to bed, drunk on a different sort of red delicacy, I had retreated here to grade papers.

  It wasn’t like I could sleep, anyway.

  Since Halloween, I hadn’t been able to close my eyes for one damn second without seeing Emma—her blood-stained skin, her pouty lips, her cognac-brown eyes heavy-lidded and wanting. The only cure for such fantasizing was the physical; I’d thought if I could just fuck her out of my system, my concentration would improve. However, since she had put her foot down about keeping things above board around students, the fantasizing, the reminiscing, the desperation had only gotten worse.