Page 18 of Mortal Blood
“Ever. So like it or not, your blood is still mine.”
“Right now I’d have to go with not,” I ground out.
“Tough. Actions have consequences.”
“Yeah, like the day you first decided to pin me against a wall and take what wasn’t yours.” I glanced around us meaningfully. “I’m so glad you’ve managed to move on from that, by the way.”
“Fuck!” He slammed his palm against the wall, inches from my face, and I flinched, but there was no amusement in his expression. Just pain.
“Attention, everyone, now,” a voice called. “If I have to ask a second time, you’re all barred from my feeding den for a week. Where’s my newest…student? Ah, there she is. Thaden, stop hogging her, I’m sure the rest of the class want a good look at the abomination Domina Astor has seen fit to thrust into our midst.”
With one last glare at me, Thaden curled his lip in derision and then pulled his arm back from the wall, turned sharply,and stalked away. My eyes flicked anxiously from him to the newcomer—the instructor.
His face was all sharp angles and pale skin, cheekbones like knives. He had the kind of bone structure models would kill for, if it wasn’t for the scowl that looked like a permanent feature. Even in a crisp modern instructor’s uniform he looked like some kind of old world warlord. Just being in the same room as him sent a chill down my spine—and that wasn’t me being dramatic. Everything about him screamed danger, and there was a cruel menace in his dark eyes as they swept the room
“You. Dhampir.” He snapped his fingers. “Come here.”
Reluctantly, and with every eye in the room—save Thaden’s—following my every move, I shuffled across to the instructor.
“I’m Instructor Demir,” he said. “Let’s be clear about something. I don’t want you here, and I resent being forced to waste my time on you.”
“That’s new,” I muttered under my breath, and his expression tightened from disdain to anger, then his lips twisted into a mocking smile.
“Good. Keep giving me excuses to punish you, and see what happens.”
Yeah, that seemed like a really bad idea to me. I didnotwant to find out what punishments a pissed off vampire instructor could come up with.
“Sorry, al—sir,” I said, quickly dropping my eyes to his feet and hoping no-one had noticed I almost called himalpha.
“You’re not running with wolves now, girl,” he said, eyeing me coldly. “Turn the fuck around so everyone can see you.”
Stomach sinking, I turned slowly to face the watching class.
“This, class, is what an illegal halfbreed looks like,” Demir said over my shoulder, and I was pretty sure I didn’t imagine the cruelly amused undertone in his voice as he invited everyone to stare at me. “You all know why such abominations are outlawed, yes?”
The students nodded, some of them raking speculative looks over me, others staring with undisguised hatred. Thaden stood at the back, ignoring me completely.
“You have tongues,” Demir snapped. “Use them. Why is this…creatureillegal?”
“It’s unnatural,” one female vamp—Juliana, I think—said, sneering as she looked me up and down. “A vampire allowing a human to carry our offspring.”
“Like mating with cattle,” another—female again, I noticed—added. A few of the vamps nodded their agreement.
“What else?” Demir said.
A couple of the students glanced Thaden’s way, but he ignored them, his arms folded across his chest in a way that made his biceps bulge, which I was most definitelynotnoticing, because he was an asshole.
“Their blood is tainted,” a darkhaired vamp—male—said.
“Yes, good,” Demir said, while I stood there trying to ignore them discussing all the ways I was less than them.
“They don’t have our strength,” someone said.
“Or our speed.”
“Or our senses,” another added, canting his head a little as he took me in, his upper lip curling back.
“Yes,” Demir agreed, circling me with piercing eyes. “A pretty poor specimen, I think we can all agree. Pointless. Useless.”
