Page 6 of Mortal Blood
“And I hear,” he said, pushing himself off the wall, “that not dying is about to get even more challenging for you, what with your status change.”
“What big ears you have, Grandma,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. And then I frowned. “Wait, why’s that going to make people want to kill me?”
“More than usual, you mean?”
I just stared at him until he continued.
“The illegal creation of a fugitive from justice, daughter of one faction but bound to another? No, I can’t imagine why.”
Fuck.
“It’s going to be an interesting year. Which will make a nice change, because watching a bunch of useless students grappling with the basics is not my idea of entertainment. But watching you try to get through the year in one piece? Well, that just might be.”
“So good to know I can count on you for your support, Instructor.”
“I’m not here to take sides. Wouldn’t want to impede your education.”
“Right. Of course not. Can you at least tell me which dorm I’m in this year? Assuming that wouldn’t mess with myeducation.”
“Same as last year.” He snapped his fingers, and a key materialized in his hand. He held it out to me. “Try not to get your mate arrested and almost executed this year, Ms. Ellis.”
“No promises.”
I took the key from him and pivoted on my heel before I could say something to land myself in really hot water. Zane wasn’t, strictly speaking, out to make my life harder—he just didn’t have a vested interest in making it easier, either. And making an enemy of him on my first day back would be bad form, even for me.
I thrust the key in my pocket and started down the corridor, making it exactly three steps before Zane’s voice followed after me. “Forgetting something, Ms. Ellis?”
I paused, and glanced back at him over my shoulder before shrugging. “Nope, don’t think so.”
“The shifter dorms are that way,” he said, jerking his chin in the opposite direction.
“Yeah, I don’t think so. I might not have a shifter appetite, but a girl’s still got to eat. And apparently they don’t serve breakfast at the council holding center.”
And with that, I continued on my way through the deserted corridors until I reached the canteen. There was, much to my disgust, no sign of the fully laid out breakfast buffet that you might ordinarily find at Darkveil, apparently on account of the fact that the semester proper hadn’t started, and most of the students wouldn’t be arriving until this afternoon. Still, I was able to swipe a foil wrapped breakfast roll, and I figured that was better than nothing. I didn’t much fancy sitting in the empty canteen to eat, so I decided to head to my favorite place in the academy—which wasn’t, in fact, my dorm room, despite all the fun times Cole and I had shared there last year.
The way to the library was encoded in my muscle memory, and it was no time at all until I found myself pushing open the door and stepping inside. Aside from this being the one place that I could pretty much guarantee to get some solitude—despite it allegedly being a public space—this was also my best chance to learn more about what I was.
A dhampir.
I shook my head. It was going to take a while to wrap my mind around that one. This time last year, I hadn’t even known the supernatural existed, much less that I would be attending its academy. It had taken me long enough to come to terms with that. But finding out that I was one of them…and an illegal creation of that? Yeah, that one was hard to swallow. And Zane was right, much as it pained me to admit it. Surviving in this place had been hard enough as a mortal. But as a half vampire living amongst the wolves? I was going to need every advantage I could get, and that started with knowing everything there wasto know about my dual nature. Of course, being the highly illegal creation that I was, it wasn’t as straightforward as that. Shocker, right? It wasn’t like the academy taught a whole lot about half vampires. But they couldn’t bury every reference to them, either. And that meant, somewhere in these books, was a trove of information just waiting for me to stumble across it. Good news: I had pretty much unrestricted access to the library, all hours of the day and night outside of lessons. Bad news: that was barely enough time to scratch the surface of all the books that have been accumulated here throughout the centuries. And I knew, because I’d spent half of last year hunting through these books. Still, I might get lucky and happen across what I was looking for in the very first book I picked up. A girl could dream, right?
“I hope you’re not planning on ruining any of these books with that disgusting concoction in your hand.”
I twisted round, and found a petite Asian woman leaning over an open book at what had been my customary table last year, and a slow smile crept onto my face.
“Ling! Great to see you. But, uh, what are you doing here? No one else is getting here until this afternoon. Don’t you have someplace better to be?”
“Apparently not,” she said wryly.
I bit off the questions that begged me to ask before they could make it to the tip of my tongue. Ling was a closed book, and she preferred it that way. She was also my best friend inside of these walls—and outside of them, too—and if she wanted her privacy, then she wouldn’t get any argument from me.
The slur against my sandwich, however, was vicious and wholly unnecessary. I glanced down at it to check it was not, in fact, in danger of dripping egg onto any ancient tomes.
“I’ll have you know this is the breakfast of champions,” I told her.
“It’s a heart attack in a bun.”
“Yeah, but it tastes so good…” I took a bite of it to underscore my point, and she rolled her eyes, then narrowed them.
