Page 13 of Savage Sacrifice
Maybe it’s just the memory loss playing tricks on me, but there’s something about her, something that I can’t put my finger on. Maybe it’s just because she’s the first person I saw when I woke up.
“Thank you,” I finally state, and she nods, hightailing it down the corridor without a backward glance.
I take a deep breath before I turn to face the others—two guys and a girl. We’re all wearing white tees and jeans. I hope we don’t do this matching outfit thing too often. Deciding that one of us needs to clear the air between us, I smile. “Hey, even though we’re supposed to know each other, I think we might need to reintroduce ourselves or something.”
The girl rolls her eyes, folding her arms over her chest, while the guy to the right with the messy brown hair smirks back. “I think that’s a good idea.”
The second guy scowls, eyes piercing as he takes me in, but he eventually shrugs. “I’m Foster.”
“Foster,” I breathe in acknowledgment. “I’m Polaris.”
“That’s a pretty name,” the other guy says, and I blush. “I’m Benjamin.”
All eyes turn to the girl in the center, who flicks her long hair over her shoulder. “I’m Bianca, now can we get the fuck out of here already? It’s giving me the creeps,” she grumbles, visibly shuddering, and Ben throws an arm around her shoulder, his smile somehow growing wider.
“Agreed. Let’s go home.”
5
BLAZE
Dusk creeps up on us too quickly. In the blink of an eye, Lincoln’s office is no longer draped in sunlight through the window behind him, instead drenched in darkness and shadows cast by the moon.
Time is running away from us, which only serves to add more distance between us and Polaris, narrowing the sliver of hope we’re all clinging to.
We don’t know where else to turn. Minnie and Lincoln are bickering like their lives depend on it; Asher is still pacing back and forth, trapped in a loop of his thoughts; Tatum is as solemn as ever, tucked away in the corner while Wylder tends to his busted knuckles; Bryony disappeared on the way back to the dorms, something to do with her coven, and I didn’t give her a backward glance. The mention of a coven, like the one I belong to, cut straight through me.
I need to get out of here.
We’ve only been back a handful of minutes, but I need to breathe and think—two things I can’t do in here.
“I’ll be back soon,” I mutter, wiping a hand down my face as I rise to my feet.
“Where are you going?” Lincoln grunts, and I wave him off.
“None of your business.”
He huffs. “Everything we do is each other’s business now, vampire,” he barks, and I consider turning all of my anger in his direction, but deep down, I know it’s pointless. Unless I kill him, he’ll still be as irritating as ever, but Polaris would be sad if I did, and I can’t have that.
Instead, I reach the door, grabbing the handle before I peer back at him. “You should appreciate the fact that I was announcing my exit instead of just leaving. We might be in this together, but you’re not my alpha. You’ll do well to remember that.”
I’m slightly impressed with the calm evenness to my tone, but the way he frowns tells me he’s not going to let it rest, so I hightail it out of there before I do something we’ll all regret.
Thankfully, I make it outside unscathed, the moonlight washing over me as I lean back against the building for a moment. Running my fingers through my hair, I can’t help but acknowledge the differences between us all right now. Well, between me and them, at least.
Vampires and wolves.
The latter wants to huddle together and work as a team so much that they clash on occasion, but they’ll always be there for one another. Meanwhile, vampires… well, we want to do the opposite. If we’re overwhelmed, you’d better give us an extra ten-foot-wide berth because we’re even more irrational, and irrational vampires usually end in deaths—lots and lots of deaths.
Sighing, I pinch the bridge of my nose, searching for a sense of calmness, but nothing comes. Slightly defeated, I push off the wall and take the wood chip trail to the main path before I opt to aimlessly head toward the main academy building.
Maybe some food will help, a snack or two, and if I can tame my solitude, I might grab some for the others too.
We probably should have grabbed something on the way back from the medical center, but we were all a little preoccupied, to say the least.
We knew our first task was to find Polaris’s body, but we came up short immediately. As a group, we headed to the medical center, hope springing in every step we took. However, the moment we arrived and were told that she wasn’t there, all Hell broke loose.
Lincoln screamed and shouted until his voice grew raspy, Minnie sobbed until her heart ached so much that she collapsed to her knees, and Tatum retreated even further into himself. Managing all their emotions on top of mine was too much to bear, so I joined Asher and Wylder in trashing the place in a fit of rage.
