Page 10 of Dragon Unleashed

“What, no—”

“Well, it won’t work. You can flirt and fuck however many other students or professors you want, but don’t ever pull that crap on me again.” My chest heaves.

Chano wraps an arm around me again and tucks me into his side.

“So that’s how it’ll be?” he asks. “You three on one side, Lorelei and me on the other?”

No one responds.

“Hellfire, youidiotas! The goddesses grant you what you sow.”

Chapter Five: Lorelei

I hesitate outside our room. Naeve’s in there. I can feel her heartbeat pounding through the closed door.

Holy hags. This has to stop.

I run the tip of my tongue over my teeth. My fingers itch to open the door, make sure she knows how angry I am with her, but bursting in there and lusting over her blood isn’t going to help anything.

With a deep breath I push the hunger down. I focus on the energy in my core, focus on anything but the need for blood.

Only once I’m sure I’ve tamped it down deep enough do I throw the door open and stride in. Immediately my feet tangle in yards of wool and I grind to a halt, steadying myself against the wall.

“Satyr shit, Naeve! Are you trying to kill me?”

She looks up, startled. “Oh. I’m knitting winter Solstice gifts this year, thought I’d get an early start.”

It’s the end of summer. Mabon hasn’t even been yet. Rolling my eyes, I kick balls of yarn out of my way.

“Careful,” Naeve mutters. “I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow.”

“Well, here I am. I can’t go to Chano’s because of the Virrey’s stupid rule, and there’s no way I was staying with Farrell for longer than I had to. Although…” I pause to scowl at her “…I’m not sure coming back here to share a room with you is all that much better.”

Naeve carefully places her knitting needles to the side.

“Look, Lorelei, I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t. You spent last year worming your way in, saying you wanted to be my ?bestie,’ and all along you were hiding something this big? I should have known better than to trust you, any of you.”

“Don’t say that.” She wrings her hands. “You have every right to be angry, but we’re still friends, right?”

I open my mouth to reply, but I can’t think of a single thing to say. Somehow, she’s completely missed quite how much we are not friends.

“I didn’t tell you because I trust Farrell. He’s a better man than his father. He wanted to wait.”

Red-hot anger releases me from my stupor. Fucking Farrell. How the hell he instills such loyalty I have no freaking clue. He’s nothing but an arrogant asshole. I step carefully over Naeve’s stupid wool and dump my bags on my bed. We have to stay vaguely civil. We have to live together.

“You can’t honestly like what the Angel King is doing?” Naeve whispers behind me.

“No, but—”

“We have a chance to make a real change.” Her voice drops further. “Haven’t you thought about your heritage since you discovered you’re part vampire? You’re a powerful supe. You could be so much more. We could change history.”

Sighing, I throw myself onto my bed. “I’m not a hero, Naeve. I look after myself. It’s not like anyone else is going to. For a while I thought the allegiance…”

Of course, the allegiance wasn’t going to have my back. They were too busy having Farrell’s.

“It’s a suicide mission. One I didn’t even know existed. I certainly wasn’t asked if I wanted to play a starring role. And I really don’t appreciate my supposed best friend keeping me in the dark. So, to answer your question, no. We’re not friends.”

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