Page 11 of Escaping Hallow Hill Academy
My chin lifts as though I’m not strung up before him. As though I’m not terrified of what he could do to me in this position. Without my magic, I’m fucking helpless.
My tongue slides over my painfully dry lips. “Are you playing therapist now? Why don’t you save your fucking brilliant advice? You can’t be the assailant and the savior, sorry to break it to ya.” My eyes adjust to the darkness and I can see his tragic features better from his new unwanted closeness. My breath fans my hair between us, and a single thin piece of my inky locks flicks against his lips, but it doesn’t distract his brooding gaze.
His chin dips low, and I feel his warm breath against my ear as he speaks so quietly, it’s like he really is trying to help me.
If only his words weren’t laced with so much venom, I could choke on it.
“That’s good. That’s really good, little Sekar. Keep pretending you’re not afraid. Keep pretending. Because false confidence, that’s all that’s going to keep you alive in this place.”
My toes press against the freezing cold stones, and I arch up to lift my head to him even more, stretching myself so I meet him more at his impressive height.
“I’m not fucking afraid of you.” My voice doesn’t break, despite how tight my throat feels. “And I’m not faking anything.”
That warmth between us is a blazing heat that burns through me as he steps even closer, until his thin shirt brushes across my chest, and it just sparks even more intensity through me.
A smile slices across his full lips, and that starlight in his eyes shines even more. “Then why is your heart pounding so hard right now, it sounds like it wants to leave you behind entirely?”
Smug satisfaction is all that he gives as I, too, become aware of how harshly my heart is slamming against my ribs.
Fuck him.
My knee comes up hard and fast, and he goes down just as quickly with a violent groan.
Fucker.
“Hasn’t anyone told you that anger and fear sound the same?”
“Fucking bitch,” he seethes, and though I can’t see him, I hope he’s holding his jewels like they’re the last petty inheritance he’ll ever own.
The cunt knocker.
“I’m a little busy here, if you hadn’t noticed. Was there something you wanted?” I ask, tipping my chin up.
“You’re such a pain in the ass, and I barely even know you,” he growls from his low spot in the ground.
“Yes, well, I only get better with age.” I half-shrug, half pull my arm out of the damn socket, but I remain impassive to his annoyance.
“Your list came in.” His voice lifts back to its normal gravelly, delicious state.
Not that I’ve noticed. Not that my wet panties have noticed.
Nothing. His voice doesnothingfor me.
“List?” I ask carelessly.
“Yeah. You have assignments here. Pre-assignments before you can even attend class with the others.”
“Like a test of sorts?”
“Yeah. If you can call killing people a test, then yeah.” His breath fans my cheek, and I try to focus on his words rather than the minty taste of them.
I lean into him, so he can feel my words against his tongue, just like I can his. “Killing people is easy, Sialen. It’s living with them that’s hard.”
The silence that slips in between us is magnified by the broken look in his iron eyes. He doesn’t know I can see him through the scratchy fabric. That’s clear in the way his attention openly shifts slowly over my face. So slowly, I feel it like the brush of a finger dragging over my temple, my cheek, my lips.
“She collared you.” His voice is this heartbreaking sound that hurts to hear. I have no idea why my soul squeezes like that for him. “She wanted to break you.” Then the feeling in my chest drops. I’m suddenly all too aware of the slicing pain that cuts into my flesh along my neck. “It’s laced with belladonna. It’ll inject into your bloodstream if you piss them off. Don’t piss them off, Emmera,” he growls, and it’s such a delicious, gravelly sound across the syllables of my name that I have to whisper “Fuck you,” at him before I accidentally call him daddy. His head shakes slowly. “You’re going to be such a pain in my ass,” he whispers once more.
“First of all, you’re stating obvious facts that I figured out on my own, so thanks for wasting my time with that little fucking speech of yours. Secondly, you’re not my babysitter, Sialen. You’re my nothing. And I’ll be the same to you.” I shift then, and I feel the pressure between my thighs suddenly as he dips in and lowers his lips along my ear.
