Page 42 of Demon of Dreams

“What business is it of yours?” I said instead.

“My business?” He laughed. “Cory, don’t be cute. It’s notmybusiness. It’s everyone’s.”

“Why?”

“Because we need to know if we’re going to have to put you down someday. Like a rabid dog.” His tone was flat, all false jocularity gone.

I glanced at his eyes and shivered. He’d meant what he said. I opened my mouth to respond and found that I couldn’t.

The blond guy didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he took my silence as no more than his due. He paused for a moment, then leaned in even closer and—was hesmellingme?

“Now, I don’t scent anything wrong about you,” he continued. “Nothing obviously unnatural. But considering the company you’ve been keeping today, I have a right to be suspicious.”

“The company I’ve been—okay, fuck you.” Forget irritated. I was downrightangrynow. “I’m new here, and Ash and Felix are the only two people who’ve been nice to me. You’re not going to convince me there’s something wrong with them just because you have some irrational prejudice.”

“It’s not prejudice. It’s a statement of facts. And it won’t seem so irrational when those creatures threaten you and your family. When Hunters are the only thing standing between you and torture, or enslavement, or worse.”

Another capital H. I wondered what it meant. But only idly. I was far more consumed with anger.

I didn’t know much about the magical world—or, okay, anything—but I knew my gut, and my gut trusted Ash and Felix. Besides, I had no reason to think well of this guy, who hadn’t even introduced himself before issuing threats like some kind of would-be dictator.

“Well, I’ll be sure to let you know when that happens,” I said, using my most saccharine customer service voice. “But until then, I have somewhere I need to—”

“I mean it, Cory.” The guy interrupted my planned kiss-off and pushed me against the shelf of trays. He put a hand on my shoulder to pin me there.

I glared up at him, angry and indignant and—oh Christ, was I turned on? Was it happening again?

It was. I was getting hard. Fuck, fuck, fuck. In the cafeteria, of all places? What the hell was wrong with me?

Well, I knew what was wrong with me, I supposed. But I couldn’t do anything about it until the dean’s special lessons started, whenever that would be. And none of that was any help right now.

“It might seem like a joke to you,” the guy said, “but it’s not. I don’t care how nice they are to you, how harmless they seem, how much they swear they’re nothing like the rest of their kind. Paranormals can’t be trusted. Vesperwood’s sole reason for existence is to teach and train the witch resistance—it doesn’t matter who they’re letting in now or what feel-good values they try to preach. When it comes down to it, it’s always going to be witches against paranormals, humans against non-humans. The sooner you understand that, the less it’ll hurt.”

He stared at me, like he could bore his message into my brain with his eyes.

Holy fuck. He really believes that. He actually thinks he’s helping me.

What the hell would he say if he knew what I really was?

His eyes were a rich brown that would have been pretty if they hadn’t been filled with so much hatred. They held mine for another moment before he finally stepped back, letting my shoulder go.

“Just think about it, all right?” he said, as though we’d been having a quiet chat about the merits of Buffalo sauce versus ranch for my chicken strips. “And don’t be afraid to come to me, if you need anything. Especially if it has to do with paranormals. I’m Sean, by the way.”

With a final look, he turned and walked away.

I took a deep breath. I felt like he’d been holding me hostage for hours instead of minutes. What a creepy guy. Even creepier because he truly believed the crap he was spouting.

With a shudder, I stepped forward and rejoined the line for food. But by the time I got back to Ash and Felix, I’d decided not to say anything to them about the conversation. I hadn’t learned anything new from Sean. My friends had already told me about the tensions between human witches and paranormal beings, and I didn’t want to ruin their lunch by repeating Sean’s words to them.

Plus, there was the fact that so far, everyone thought I fell on the human side of that divide. I guessed my human half was enough to stop Sean from smelling—and Jesus, that was weird—my paranormal half. Even Ash and Felix seemed to think I was just a regular witch.

It wasn’t that I was afraid to tell them I was paranormal, exactly. A fallen angel and a changeling weren’t going to have an issue with that. But thetypeof paranormal I was…

Dean Mansur had said that incubi were rare, which meant that probably, neither Ash or Felix had met one before. But if they knew what incubi were, and what incubi did, would they be so eager to be friends with me? If they knew I could slip into people’s dreams and have sex with them?

It was all well and good for the dean to say that I couldn’t technically make people do what they didn’t want to do—he wasn’t the one doing it. I didn’t want my friends to think I was some kind of creepy, manipulative abuser. My stomach twisted at the thought.

Besides which, it was embarrassing. Even if they didn’t think I was evil, I didn’t want them knowing that my magical powers were sex-related. Especially when I was the least sexy person who’d ever existed, in the real world.

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