Page 25 of Forged in Blood

I figure she must glance at Xavier and me because Kai assures her we’ve probably fallen asleep and that we aren’t listening. Whether she believes him or not, she answers. “She was kind of a bully. Scratch that, a lot of a bully.”

“Just to you or to everyone?” Malachi probes.

She pauses, then drops her voice to little more than a whisper. “Mostly to me. I grew up in foster care, so I moved a lot. There were always established friend groups at whatever school I went to. It was hard to fit in, and because I didn’t have cool stuff, I guess it was easier to single me out.”

“Sounds tough.”

“Yeah, but I usually made a friend or two, you know? Except at Caulfield High. It was… I dunno. Penelope took a dislike to me on my first day when I accidentally spilled a smoothie on her new white sneakers. She demanded that I pay for new ones, but my foster parents didn’t have that kind of money. I offered to save up and pay her back, but she said that wasn’t good enough.” She’s quiet for a long moment, but just before I tell Kai to get her to keep going, she continues. “After that, she made it her mission to make my life miserable. She was queen bee, so nobody dared to risk being my friend. And I guess I could have lived with all of that, but…”

She stops talking, and the scent of her despair fills the space around her.

I open my eyes and watch Malachi put a hand on her arm. She shivers at his touch. “But what, Ophelia?” he asks.

“Then I got the part of Lady Macbeth in our high school production, and she wanted it. I guess I didn’t realize how badly until opening night, when she humiliated me in front of the entire school.”

The wave of shame that washes over her is so palpable I can taste it. I glance at Xavier, and he frowns like he felt it too.

“And after that there was a fire and they accused me of starting it and I got expelled and had to go to therapy and live in a group home.” She vomits the words like she can’t wait to be done with it all.

Malachi lets out a low whistle. “No wonder you hate her.”

Ophelia sniffs and swats a tear from her cheek. “I never said I hated her.”

“Then I’ll hate her for you,” Malachi says with a wink.

I roll my eyes before closing them again. He is so fucking soft for her.

Chapter

Fifteen

XAVIER

“So, you wanna come hang out at my place?” Floss giggles, fluttering her fake eyelashes at me and pressing her perky tits against my arm.

I nicknamed her Floss because she smells like the sickly-sweet strands of cotton candy and has a voice to match. Plus I can never remember her actual name despite having fucked her and fed from her several times in the three years she’s been at Montridge.

But I’m not in the mood for cotton candy. I could maybe go for a cupcake though. I lick my lips, and Floss giggles harder, probably thinking I’m imagining eating her instead of the freshman with pink hair and vibrant blue eyes. Who, for some reason, I’m not allowed to bite.

I shake my head. “Can’t. Got too much to do.”

Her lower lip juts out. “Are you hazing the new Ruby pledges? We could hang out after! I’m supposed to be studying, but I…”

Ronan King, one of the commanders in charge of pledges for Onyx, walks by, following a girl around the side of the library. I tune Floss out, but it isn’t Ronan I’m interested in. The girl he’s following is Penelope Nugent, Ophelia’s school bully. What the fuck does she want with him?

I brush past Floss, and I’m vaguely aware of her yelling after me as I jog toward the other side of the quad to get a better view of Ronan and Penelope. When they come into view, I find a space behind a tree that’s safe distance away.

Penelope leans on the outer wall of the library, Ronan’s hand planted beside her head. She’s smiling, her head tilted to the side, and although I can’t see his face, over two hundred years of studying body language tells me they aren’t flirting.

If anything, I’d say they’re conspiring. Are they talking about my cupcake? I strain to read Penelope’s lips, but Ronan’s stupid forearm is in the way. Her eyes crinkle at the sides and her nose wrinkles, like she’s super fucking pleased with herself. What the fuck are these two up to?

Axl scowlsas I fill him and Malachi in on what I saw between Ronan and Penelope.

“Do you think it’s a coincidence? Or something we need to worry about? If Ophelia is on the professor’s radar, maybe she’s on Onyx’s too. And you know he said we can’t let anyone else bite her either,” Malachi says.

Axl shakes his head, his scowl deepening. “She’s not our concern. We’re supposed to monitor her, make sure other people stay away, doesn’t mean we have to worry about her. We warn Ronan off if we have to, but we just keep doing what we’re doing. Make sure she goes nowhere but classes, the library, and then back to her dorm. It’s not like she’s going to go looking for trouble at Onyx.”

“We are talking about the same girl who barely flinched when she stumbled upon three vampires feeding from one of her classmates,” I remind him. “The same girl who willingly walked into this house and has more questions than Alex Trebek.”

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