Page 17 of Escaping Hallow Hill Academy
A silent smile pulls at my lips as his head nuzzles against my neck.
“Who would’ve guessed the only friend I’d make here is someone who can’t say a Goddess damn word,” I whisper to myself.
My tired head tilts to the side, and there’s a long moment where we’re just holding one another up.
“I fucking hate this,” I whisper to him. There’s something about confessing things to animals that’s easier than saying them aloud to anyone else. “I hate this Academy. I hate the other Sekar. I hate . . .myself.” The last word barely slips out, but it does come.
I hate myself for killing those people, a sensation that fills me belatedly. Strange I should feel that now when I’ve spent my entire life sacrificing criminals to my Lady. But that’s just what they were. Criminals. I don’t know what those people did. I didn’t bother to look into it further. Not that Krist would have let me. I’d done it to survive, and I don’t regret it, but it still leaves an ache in my chest, and I have nothing to show for my freedom except blood dripping down my skin and metal attached from the base of my neck, down my spine, stopping just at my lower back.
A little whine echoes around us from my new best friend.
Before I drop further into my hate hole I’m digging, I shove up off the ground and stride out of the shower stall. Water flings around my feet and over the corridor tiles as I make my way back towards my room. It’s cold, and my nipples are the first to tell me just how incredibly cold it actually is when I pass a guy whose chin and throat are covered in blood. His pupils are so big, they’re like wells of power, and he settles that intense stare on every inch of my nakedness.
“I like your dress,” he says with a crawling smile and a voice that sounds like sweet apples dipped in sin. The undercurrent of an accent laces his words, but I can’t quite place it. French? European?
I bet that pick-up line would work for him most nights.
Not tonight.
“I’d give it to you, but it’s not your size. You’d never fill it out.” I lift my hands to emphasise my lack of care about my nudity and really give him a sympathetic look when his dark brows lift high, his smile widening to reveal two perfectly sharp teeth. Don’t need to be a genius to know what he is. Darkness surrounds his pupils along with smokey red, like blood.
Vampire.
His big body is distracting, though. Normally vampires are lithe, wraith-like creatures with unhealthy skin that clings to their protruding bones. This man is a different sort of vampire. I can tell with a single glance.
He’s healthy, with dark mahogany skin that stretches over a tall, muscled body. Thick dreadlocks are tied behind his neck, revealing the trademark silver collar that most of us prisoners wear in this hellhole.
I open the door across from him to room 120, and my new best friend brushes against my leg and slips inside before I even get a chance. I’m still holding the dark gaze of the dangerous vampire across from me. I can’t look away.
“You’d be surprised how much I could fill,ma chère,” he says on a low, suggestive drawl.
His confident, crawling tone almost makes me smile as I close the door with a quiet click. It almost makes me forget the breakdown I nearly had in the shower and all the feelings still clouding my chest.
Fuck those feelings. I can start over here in this place. I’ll be safe here. I can live safely here. And I won’t let anything tarnish what I’m building.
Not even myself.
Chapter Six
The closet in my dorm room is filled with all of the clothes from my apartment. I hate the fact that they magically whisked them here. It feels like a violation, but I’m glad to at least have something of my own. I’m warm in my T-shirt, shorts, and blankets for less than five minutes when the door bangs open. It jars into the wall, and the hinges cry a sad little tune that I feel deep in my tired soul.
Bright light flicks on and blinds me for a single instant.
I’m up with a weapon drawn in the blink of an eye. Said weapon just happens to be a bedside lamp. The wolf at my side emits a long growl that hums along my skin from where he stands poised at my side.
“Lower the lamp. This was my room first,” the girl says, striding past me without even blinking an eye at my makeshift weapon gleaming in the harsh overhead light.
I stare at her, dumbfounded, as she starts shoving notebooks into a bag and tying back her blonde hair that’s clumped with mud.
Then it hits me.
“You’re the cum girl,” I state, slightly groggily. “The Gavin fucker,” I add. “Dragon bitch.” For maximum effect.
She has many names.
None of them are very good.
“Wow, you are just super sweet, aren’t you?” She shakes her head at me and hikes a heavy book bag over her shoulder. Her nose looks bruised from where I smashed it in with the heel of my foot, but she doesn’t act like it hurts her at all. “You’re also going to be late.”
