Page 117 of Storm of Shadows
I examine her face, noting her shoulders relaxing just a fraction as my shadows slide away. I walk closer to her, drawn by my unquenchable fascination.
My proximity makes that pulse in her throat dance even more beautifully for me, and it’s so damn hard not to lean down, press my lips there, and …
“Do I scare you?” I whisper.
“A little,” she confesses. “But I think maybe everyone in this place does. I don’t think there is anyone I can truly trust.”
I nod my head. That was the mistake I made. I was too trusting and look where the hell it led me. “You can’t. You can’t trust anyone.”
“Not even you, Professor?”
I take another step forward and another and another until I am staring right down into her eyes. “Especially not me.”
She’s so beautiful. So eager. So hungry for everything. She reminds me in so many ways of myself – the way I once was. If I met her then, would it feel this way, or would it have been different? Would I even have noticed her? The quiet girl from Slate Quarter trying her best to hide how pretty she is, trying her best to survive.
I can’t help myself. This close I see how fragile her skin is, how thin the tissue; I can see the veins knitted beneath the surface, can almost hear her heart beating frantically in her chest.
I inhale. The scent of her blood is so pungent, I swear. My eyes flash. I stumble away.
“Leave,” I mumble, leaping back into the shadows where she can’t see me, where I belong. “Leave now.”
“Wh-wh-what?” she says.
“Detention is over. Get out.”
She frowns. Then gathers up her belongings and, with a final peek over her shoulder, opens the door and steps outside.
I hold my breath until the door slams. Then I gasp, collapsing over my desk.
That was close. Far too close and far too dangerous.
And now I’m no longer hungry, I’m ravenous.
I fetch my dark cloak, fasten it around my neck and slip out into the night.
Chapter Fifty
Briony
Why does every one of my encounters with Fox Tudor leave me bewildered, confused and flustered? My heart is racing like a runaway train and all because the man stepped within a few centimeters of me. He didn’t even touch me – not with his hands anyway. He did touch me with his magic. It was different again from Beaufort’s and Thorne’s. It was almost like it wasn’t restraining me but holding me – holding me like he would if he were going to kiss me.
I knock my hand against my head. What the hell is wrong with me? One bit of fingering and all my thoughts have turned spicy and a little unhinged.
There is no plane of existence in which Fox Tudor would want to kiss me. Especially now he is a professor at the academy and would most definitely lose his job, his reputation and his livelihood.
Yet, no matter how many times I tell myself that, I can’t shake that first instinct away and I can’t stop imagining what it would be like to kiss a man like Professor Fox Tudor.
Intimidating probably.
Perhaps there’s some god watching and judging my smutty thoughts, because I’m halfway back to the tower when the killer cramps start, forcing me to double over and groan. It’s a really bad one – probably worsened by that torturous exercise session today. Muriel tried to convince me once that physical exercise helped lesson cramps but I’ve long suspected that was just another of her sadistic lies.
Clutching my stomach and bending double, I hobble across the remainder of the campus, up the stairs and collapse on my bed. It hurts too much to even attempt to remove my clothes and climb into my nightwear. Instead I pull the covers over me and pray for death. Fly isn’t even across the hallway, to call for help and beg for painkillers. I’ve no more of my own.
After a few minutes, I hear the tower bell clang eight o’clock and I’m vaguely aware there’s no way in hell I’m making it over to the Princes’ tower tonight. I couldn’t give less of a shit. There is nothing they could do to me that is worse than what my own body is currently doing.
I roll up into a ball, my teeth clattering and close my eyes. I do the thing I always did when the pain was too much. I take myself away. I close off my body from my mind and I disappear, somewhere my sister is, her arms around me, her soft voice whispering to me.
“Storm!”
