Page 88 of Demon of Dreams

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. I knew he was the kind of guy who jerked off in a public restroom. I knew he got off on being told what to do.

Ugh. No. I wasn’t thinking about that night again. I’d already decided that.

Cory, Felix, and Ash were at the back of the crowd, waiting for other students to jostle through the bottleneck at the front doors. If I just waited for them to leave, I wouldn’t have to give him the jacket…but I would have to explain that to Isaac later.

Fuck me.

“Cory,” I barked. His head whipped around, surprise painted on his face. “Come here a sec.”

I kept my voice as gruff and neutral as possible.

Cory’s face was wary as he made his way across the gym. I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t been kind to him this past week. His brow was furrowed, and he was chewing on his lower lip again.

God, I want to run my finger across that, pull it out from under his teeth. Taste it for myself and—

No.

I turned and walked to the far corner of the room, where I’d set his jacket. I didn’t turn around again until I could feel him behind me, only two feet away. I exhaled, attempting to empty my body of emotions, and turned to face him.

Even so, Cory’s presence startled me. He was just soclose. It felt like my skin was humming, or maybe that was the air between us. I felt taut as a bowstring, ready for release. Except I couldn’t get any release, not where he was concerned. And not just because I wasn’t sure who his father was.

“Here.” I pushed the bundle at him.

His arms folded around it, and I pulled my hands back quickly. I couldn’t risk my skin touching his. If I was this sensitive just breathing the same air as him, I didn’t even want to think about what skin contact would do.

“What’s—” Cory began, but I didn’t give him a chance to finish.

“The dean gave it to me. Yours, apparently. Next time, don’t leave your shit lying around. I’m not your errand boy.”

His face went from curious to hurt in an instant, and I cursed myself mentally. I’d been shooting for indifference, but I’d ended up in asshole territory. Which would be fine—it’s not like I wanted him to like me. But implying I disliked him implied that I thought about him at all.

My business is my own, I thought bitterly.Nothing to do with you, no matter what powers you have.

“But I—” Cory began again, but I looked away. I didn’t want to see the pain, the indignation gathering in those stormy eyes.

Which was why I saw the trouble by the door sooner than I might have. An eddy ran through the students clustered up front, like a rock thrown into a pond. A shape appeared—something I couldn’t make out yet, but somethingwrong.

Then the screaming started.

The cluster of students broke apart, and the unfamiliar shape resolved into three shapes. Suddenly, they shifted into focus, and my eyes made sense of the confusion.

Moraghin.

Three tall, shambling, gray-green bodies, their too-long limbs bent at unnatural angles, lurched and lunged at the crowd of students. Their jaws, protruding from painfully elongated snouts, opened hungrily, then snapped shut, as they anticipated attacking their prey.

One of them turned suddenly, and a chunk of flesh fell from its arm, exposing sinew and bone beneath. I was too far away to see the boils and blisters that covered their rotting bodies, but I knew that the stench would be overpowering.

What the ever living fuck? How were there moraghin here? Vesperwood was warded. They shouldn’t have been able to get past the front gate.

But I was wasting precious seconds asking questions. I sprinted across the gym towards the group by the door. A body hit the floor. I couldn’t see whose yet. Double fuck.

“Get back,” I yelled at the students, who seemed frozen in place as the moraghin attacked. “Spread out. Don’t make it easy for them.”

About half the class started moving, but the other half just stared. At me, at the moraghin, at their classmate on the ground, who could be just as dangerous to them now as the moraghin themselves.

I shoved two students to the left as I reached their clump, to get them moving, but also to get them out of the way. Two of the moraghin were circling Rekha, Adenike, and Meredith, while the third had bent low to inspect the body on the floor. Now that I was close, I could see it was Erika.

I didn’t hesitate. I reached to my waist to draw the two daggers that hung there. I whipped one at each of the creatures circling Rekha’s group, hitting one in the gut and the other in the upper thigh.

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