Page 3 of The Professor (Seven Sins MC 5)

“I mean, I did get to be eighteen, though,” I said.

“Did you?” she asked, brows raising. “You were, what, three years into college at that point? Having lived alone like an adultsince you were fifteen. How many eighteen-year-olds can say that? Most of them are still trying to figure out how to use the washing machine and do a keg stand at eighteen. But you will figure it out. If anyone can, it’s you,” she added before moving off to continue to re-stack books.

I was nose-deep in a book—realizing I was so engulfed in the content to remember I was supposed to be planning a lesson on it—when I felt a strange, prickly sensation on the back of my neck.

It wasn’t something I was familiar with. But, quite frankly, I’d read enough books to know what that usually meant.

That you were being watched, and some part of you sensed it.

Curious, my head lifted, and everything went blurry for a couple seconds before I remembered to pull my reading glasses off my nose so my eyes could adjust.

But when they did, I didn’t see anyone.

That was part of the reason I chose the part of the library I did. It was a niche, hardly-ever-used section on the second floor in a back corner. I could see everyone, but really no one could see me.

The only people I ever saw most nights were the librarians themselves, the custodians, or the occasional couple looking for a private corner to indulge in a public places kink.

I saw no shadowy figures as I looked around.

It was just the typical late-night crowd.

The big study groups had dwindled to the most dedicated of them, or the ones who needed to lift their grades the most.

I saw a younger version of myself alone by a back table in the main area. She had her slight body wrapped in black leggings and a giant camel-colored sweater to ward off the chill that you could reliably find in the library. She had two stacks of books in front of her—actual books and notebooks.

A couple table downs was a guy I’d never seen before, wearing a hoodie for the sports team he was on, burning the midnight oil to try to keep his scholarship.

There were a smattering of other people, but everyone’s gaze was either on books, on their phones or laptops, or on nothing at all because they’d fallen asleep at the desks.

No one was looking my way.

Still, there was no stopping the hair on the back of my neck sensation.

Shaking off the strange feeling, I grabbed my sweater and slipped it on, figuring maybe I was just cold, then getting back to work.

Eventually,—like I did many times in the past—I joined the ranks of the others who fell asleep at their desks.

It was right there, in that place, several hours later, when I startled awake and found someone standing there like they were waiting for me.

And he just so happened to be the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen in my life. Tall, fit, with a square jaw, dark green eyes with flecks of some other color that he was too far away to make out, and hair the darkest shade of red possible before it appeared black.

Yes. Gorgeous.

Supernaturally beautiful, if you will.

Even if there was no such thing as the supernatural.

CHAPTER TWO

Bael

No one would typically call me a go-getter. At least not on this fucking insufferable human realm.

Back in Hell, in my homeland, in the place I thrived, yes, I was a hard worker. I was the type to go above and beyond when it came to duty.

My brother, Daemon, was the family slacker. Both in hell and on this plane.

I never thought someone would compare me to him, but there was no denying that I’d been lazier than ever since being forced out of hell against my will, then getting stuck on the human realm.

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