by A. K. Koonce
“Miss Castillo, if you would please give our studies on the history of the Dark Genocide a rare moment of your time, the entire class would be appreciative.” A mocking but monotone voice calls back to me.
My head snaps up and I’m met with those protruding eyes. “Yes, Mr. Toad.”
His thin lips curl back from his crooked teeth. “It’s Professor Moore.” His beady glare alone is writing up a detention slip as we speak.
“Right.” I nod. Smile. Nod. Smile one more fucking time before he finally turns his insulted attention back to his lesson.
And then my gaze slips to Saint all over again.
I just can’t believe how well he fakes it. He acts like he understands everything, like he has the entire world in his deadly palm.
He’s just as lost as I am.
These terrible, frustrating, powerful men I surround myself with, are just as broken and confused as I am.
I wish I could say my endless questions have simmered some since first period.
They have not.
“So can you eat food?”
Saint sighs with exasperation. “Yes, I can eat food.”
My barrage of questions doesn’t stop. But really, what did he expect when he confessed the truth? That I’d just nod and say, “Oh, you poor dear.”? I’m not his fucking grandmother. And I’m curious.
I need answers.
Like does he have his own blood? Does it pump through his veins? What’s supporting that erection I saw when we first met?
These are all vital questions that need answers.
“Prove it.” I shove my lunch tray in his direction, pointing at whatever concoction the lunch ladies brewed today in their cauldron. It looks like a strange mixture of oatmeal and beans with fatty chicken slices. I don’t fucking know. “Take a bite right now. This stuff here, eat the bean porridge, Saint.”
He shoves it across the table back in front of me. “Are you trying to poison me? God, woman, leave me alone. Phoenix, tell your girlfriend to leave me alone.”
A weird feeling tingles through me at being called his girlfriend.
Irrational hormones that need to calm their ass down. That’s what those feelings are.
At my side, Phoenix’s lips twitch into the beginnings of a smile. I think he’s amused by the whole conversation. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but by the time lunch came around, both Phoenix and Saint were waiting for me. Saint with a smile of greeting and Phoenix with an intense glare in his eyes, followed by a possessive hand slipping around my waist, where it’s been ever since.
His fingers slip ever so slightly under the blazer, under my shirt and press into my warm skin. I wonder if that’s all just for show or if he actually likes the feel of my skin against his.
It threatens to drive me to madness.
Is there a spell someone around here could bibbity-bobbity-boo on me to get these fucking hormones back on a steady track?
“No,” Phoenix muses. “You’re on your own, Saint.” I swear I hear emotion in his voice.
“But you’re a vampire and you need blood to survive, so what do you drink?” I pin my attention back on the vampire seated across from me.
“Synthetic.” As if he’s proving a point to me, he waves around a can I’d assumed was some special hipster concoction Malek made him. The drink is fizzy and I can smell the poison from across the table.
“Junk food for vampires,” Phoenix sneers distastefully at it.
So I’m not the only one who thinks so.
“Hey, synthetic blood has the same taste as feck blood, just without the added diabetes and possible diseases,” he defends.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a vampire who doesn’t drink blood. Most vampires in this place are likely here because they crave it too much.
“Without the nutrients, too,” I mumble, picking up my fork to toss the contents around.
I’m not going to touch this stuff and seeing it just makes me hungrier for real food. At this rate, they won’t need to kill me for being Prodless, as I’ll likely starve before that. So I play around with the food, creating Mr. Toad’s double chin with a pile of brown beans.
“I’m what my family calls a vegetarian vampire.” Saint crushes the can in his grasp.
I despair at the sight. I may not have my paints, but I could’ve made a tin sculpture with that thing. My fingers are craving art like my stomach craves my dad’s cooking. It’s an ache I can’t ignore.
“Sounds like you jumped out of a Twilight novel.” I use the chicken fat stuff for Mr. Toad’s eyes and a pack of sugar for his wisps of hair.
Phoenix’s nails dig into my skin. It’s not painful, and I think he’s trying to hold himself from laughing. I sneak a peek at the sharp angle of his face. His red hair falls over his forehead just slightly, making him look a bit boyish despite his bulky frame. I reach out and push it away.
The simple brush of my fingers causes him to still, his eyes go that dangerous, demonic dark color I should fear, but don’t. It’s so easy to forget this is fake. With his arm wrapped around my waist and the three of us chatting like we’re actually friends. Maybe, in a strange way, that’s what we’re becoming.
Friends.
I pull my hand away but he stops me by grabbing my wrist. It’s held tensely there between us as we stare at one another. My mouth opens as I start to apologize but I never get the words out because a moment later, he’s pressing his tongue to my fingertips in a way that’s all too sensual, suggestive.
Fuck. How is this erotic? It shouldn’t be. But my thighs quiver as he takes a finger into his mouth and sucks it deep. A tingling sensation starts at the tip of my finger and races through every single nerve ending before pulsing right through my clit and the entire feel of it pulls a rasping moan from my lips.
“Jesus Christ, you two, you’re in the fucking cafeteria, for crying out loud.”
I jolt, pulling my hand from Phoenix’s grasp and turn sharply as Malek appears, slamming his tray down next to Saint. The vampire makes room for him at our table, staring with that amused sparkle of mischief in his eyes like he’s the devil pulling strings on his two favorite puppets.
Like he knows something fun is about to happen and he’s eating it up.
Malek glares between the two of us, glasses sliding slightly down the ridge of his nose.
Holy fucking gods in heaven, is he good looking. He’s all scruff along that prominent jawline, his long hair pushed back into a short ponytail. He’s perfectly put together and carrying, of all things, a book in one hand.
The werewolf fanfic girl in me squeals into a puddle of desire.
Pounding energy spreads slow and torturously through me. I think the incubus can literally smell the shift in my emotions, because he emanates a low warning growl and tugs me closer, the gesture possessive.
Like he owns me.
The line between fake boyfriend and jealous real boyfriend is... gone. It’s completely gone, I think.
I don’t understand it at all.
And a part of me, can’t help but test him just to see what’s real between us.
“You look good today,” I compliment Malek as he takes his seat.
His eyes slash over me, assessing damage, and there’s something equally possessive about his stare that I can’t help but to relish in. I feel like a total Prod tease, but I can’t bring myself to care when three deadly Prods of Academy of Six are staring at me like I’m the last glass of cold water in the desert they’ve been traveling through for days.
Malek looks back up to me, and somehow I can tell he’s remembering the night before. Maybe because I’m remembering it, recalling the feel of his arms wrapping around me, the comforting lilt of his singing voice bringing me back from the darkness.
“So do you.” He smiles and my panties nearly melt to the floor.
They’re academy panties so I don’t really need the cheap material, anyway.
“What do you want, mutt?” Phoenix asks flatly.
Malek dismisses my fake boyfriend with half a glance. It’s like he gives no fucks what he has to say and directs all the attention of his heated gaze to me. “I brought you something.”
My body straightens and I smile at the prospect of a gift. My fingers grasp the book he passes my way. It’s binding is leather, the pages frail and wrinkled. It’s certainly not new. The paper smells crisp and worn, like an old library that holds the secrets of adventures. I open it and turn the delicate pages. The inside is scrawled in bold ink and detailed pictures of demons and angels, God’s horsemen, of creatures so grotesque it hurts to look at them. They move across the page in swirling ink like art themselves as they depict stories and facts. History come to life on the thinnest parchment within the oldest bindings known to man.
It’s beautiful.
“It’s a book about the rare Prods. I thought it might help you figure out what you are.”
Be still, my little Prodless heart.
He cares. Malek really does care about me. Whatever happened last night, and the images are a bit blurred, all I know is that I fainted into darkness just as the memories started to surface, just as they brushed across my fingertips, something changed between us.
This is friendship. Real friendship, not fake. I can feel the difference.
And that’s care in his gaze. Even when he pulled away last night and encased himself in a shell, he cared enough to find me this book, something that would help me control the beast inside, defend myself, and likely not get killed by the academy.
Emotion threatens to close tightly within my throat.
“Thanks,” I whisper, closing the pages and hugging it close to my chest. This gift, it’s perfect. Malek is perfect in a way that somehow is completely endearing.
He gifts me with a lopsided smile that’s filled with warmth that I imagine tastes like home and safety and everything in between.
“That all, Kibbles?” Phoenix’s low voice is a testing sound. “You can fuck off now.”
Malek slashes a glare at Phoenix but he doesn’t linger. The precarious moment that lay between us is broken the moment my fake boyfriend speaks. Malek’s walls rebuild as quickly as they quietly fell down and, a moment later, he’s standing, pulling his tray with him. “See you in gym.”
And then he’s gone.
My head turns so slowly to the man still holding me against his warm side.
“God, you’re such a dick.” I pick up my fork, tearing it through my temporary food masterpiece. I jerk from him so his hand falls away from my skin. I hate to admit that I miss his touch, that I crave it the way beautiful wolves miss the moonlight.
Phoenix Rutherford is blatantly bad for me, and I still want him.
“He was eye fucking you, in case you didn’t notice, baby.” He sounds jealous now.
Saint passes a glance at his best friend, a smirk tilting his lips, but he doesn’t comment.
“So what?” My shoulders pull up in a shrug that’s so tense, I have to force them back down.
“So, you were eye fucking him back,” he says coldly, wild darkness eating away at the pretty green in his gaze. It’s like ink running across a page. The black color starts from his pupils, consumes the irises and doesn’t stop until it’s darkening the thin veins beneath his eyes.
Saint’s attention darts back and forth between us, a smile widening his mouth like he’s watching the best fucking play he’s ever seen. Phoenix is making a scene. As if it matters to him one way or another who I eye fuck. He hates me.
And we’re nothing. We’re a fake relationship that’s so fragile it can’t even make it two full days.
“So what?” I ask so slowly, so pointedly.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Phoenix’s jaw tighten as his white teeth grind together, like he’s barely holding in the rage he wants to unleash. The veins around his eyes start to pulse and bulge now. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the soulless incubus feels something.
“So, my girlfriend won’t be eye fucking a mutt right in front of me.”
“Maybe not behind you either, right?” Saint suggests but his amused words go unheard.
I sigh and push the tray away. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite for food art. “I’m not yours, Nubbie.”
“Nubbie?” the demon echoes incredulously.
Saint bursts out laughing, a crackling lingering sound, but still goes ignored.
I cross my arms over my chest when I face Phoenix. His gaze strays to the tightness of the shirt against my chest that the parted lapels of the blazer reveal. He can look all he wants. Boy is getting no action except in his incubus dreams if he continues to act like a piece of shit.
And honestly, I’m going to start avoiding his sleep schedule because he cannot be trusted.
“Malek is nice. He’s my friend, and you can’t tell me not to have friends when you don’t even like me.”
Phoenix snorts, and I know he’s holding emotions in, pushing it down deep in his obnoxiously broad chest but it just pulses back up in every black throb of his veins and dilation of his pupils.
“Friends don’t get wet for other friends.” He leans closer between our chairs so our chests are pressed against each other. One hand goes to my bare thigh and skims up to the hem of my skirt, lifting… “I could touch your pussy right now and feel how wet you are for that mutt.”
I want to jerk away from the crudeness of his words, I want to push his roaming fingers away from me, but they’re drifting higher and higher, and a part of me wants him to touch where he promises, to feel his fingers against my folds, but a bigger part of me can't let this challenge go unanswered.
My thighs part dauntingly.
“And you care, why? Don’t forget…” I drop my voice to a whisper, lift my leg just so his fingers fall even closer to my center. It’s a dare and a threat rolled together. “This relationship is fake.”
My words seem to cut through him. He yanks his hand back as if my body branded him. I hope it fucking did. I hope he feels my touch at his fingertips and aches for the feel of my skin until his cock explodes from need like it should have when he stupidly downed a pallet of Viagra in an attempt to fucking feel something. I want him to walk away from me knowing he can’t have me, can’t control me, no matter what deal we strike or how hard we pretend.
I want him to want me and not be able to do a fucking thing about it.
Phoenix stands stiffly, impatiently. His eyes are packed with hatred, his nostrils flaring. He’s unreadable. But I don’t need to read him to know that I've won.
“See you in gym,” he growls and whirls away.
I watch him go with a sad smile on my face.
“You’re a cruel, cruel woman, Izara Castillo,” Saint whistles appreciatively.
I have to be in this place where niceties scarcely exist and cruelty is power and punishment. I’ll embrace it in all its savage, darkened form.
If only to survive this fucking joke of a school.
As well as my friends.
Fourteen
Saint
The anger in his eyes is hard to look at. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. I’ve seen it there since we were kids.
And I hate it now as much as I ever did then. He was always the one thing that made me feel steady, like I wasn’t falling when my father beat me an inch from my life or kicked me out in the dead of night to really straighten me out.
Phoenix was always there. And that’s why I’ll always be there for him. Even if he fucks up day in and day out.
The bedroom door closes behind me and I just stare at him as he glares up at the rotting boards of his bunk. He ran right here like I knew he would.
Those fancy Academy of Six ankle bracelets don’t exactly give him too many hiding spot options. Or maybe I just know the incubus too well, knew he’d come here to mope and rage, get lost in the confusion of his own lack of feelings after that mess with Izzy.
A sigh pushes from my lungs just looking at him.
It isn’t that he hates Izzy. He just... he hates everyone.
She doesn’t stand a fucking chance. But I hope she tries.
Fuck, I hope they both try, for his sake.
My quiet steps lead me to him but his gaze refuses to meet mine even as I settle at the edge of his mattress. My palms splay low, sliding down the hard planes of his abs, stopping right at the line of his dark briefs peeking out above his jeans. Sweat dampens his skin and I’m surprised he isn’t naked in this hellhole.
“I know she can help you. And you can help her. If you just calm down,” I whisper, my teeth extending just from feeling his warm skin against mine, it’s hard to swallow when I touch him. Hard to form basic thoughts even.
“I am calm.” The growl of his words shouldn’t make me instantly hard, but I just fucking can’t help it.
“That’s not calm.” As I lean forward, my head dips, my lips grazing his jaw line, wishing like hell the brooding man had a pulse.
If he had a pulse, I’d know how he felt about me.
But he doesn’t. And I don’t.
We’re both a mess.
“This is calm.” When my teeth move ever so lightly across his perfect skin, the tension falls from his shoulders, the only indication he’s ever enjoyed what we are together.
My fingers slip lower and his silence is a daring thing. There’s no groans or gasps, there’s no lust within Phoenix at all, but he’s always fucking hard.
That constant quiet fucking kills me. His emptiness slices up my heart, hurting me as much as it hurts him.
My mouth trails lower just as my hand does, palming his thick outline over his jeans.
Whatever god is out there, he’s a cruel fuck for giving Phoenix a cock this big, but never letting him enjoy it.
A total waste.
My head dips lower, my kisses and words getting lost in his body. “I can calm you.”
