Page 320 of Blood & Betrayals

Connor chuckles. “Well, I wasn’t sure if you’d rip my dick off in that state.”

“The headmaster is a cunt,” I grumble. “No wonder your dad hates him.”

Connor laughs again and presses another kiss to my head. “Well, you’re not wrong.”

I sigh and pull back to look up at him. “Hi.”

Connor smiles that perfect smile. “Hi, babe. Alice is waiting for you upstairs. She’s set up camp in our bed.”

I pull back and run upstairs, jumping on Alice, who is lounging on Connor’s bed, watching a movie. Alice squeals when I land on top of her and smother her in kisses. “I missed you. I missed you. I missed you.”

Alice swats at me. “Get off!”

I keep kissing and nuzzling into her, and then I pull back, looking down at her. “Have I thanked you for not dying yet?”

Alice rolls her eyes. “I did die. It sucked.”

“Okay, well. Thanks for having multiple lives.”

Alice’s lips twitch. “Thank the gods for my lineage. I suppose. Never thought I’d be saying that.” She shoves me off, and we sit up. “So, back to more important matters. How much mourning was there for me?”

“Everyone seems pretty put out. There’s a shrine for you by the Dracula statue, but I didn’t visit it. Also, there’s a rumor that I’m the one that killed you, so that’s fun.”

“Getting all the glory again, I see,” Alice tuts.

Connor comes in with snacks and slides onto the bed beside me. I crawl into his lap and nuzzle into his neck.

“She had a screaming match with the doom master,” Connor says, rubbing my back.

“Hold up, you what?” Alice asks, staring at me aghast.

“Yeah,” I say, clinging to Connor’s shirt as if trying to hold him to me.

“Though she’s not told me why yet,” Connor adds.

“He’s a dick,” I say nonchalantly.

Alice rolls her eyes. “We all knew that already.”

“He’s a bigger dick than I anticipated.”

Alice grabs a nail polish bottle from Connor’s bedside table, and only now do I understand just how much she’s integrated herself into his room. She starts painting her toenails. “Tell us everything.”

“He told me I was shit at acting when, really, he’s fucking dire. It’s like he’s never seen an emotional reaction before.”

Alice snorts. “Okay, well, are you shit?”

“No!” I exclaim, offended for the fucking second time in the last twenty minutes.

Connor kisses my head, soothing me again. “So why did he say you were?”

I shrug. “I guess he didn’t think I was believable in my role,” I grumble, but then my voice raises. “But I fucking was!”

Alice snorts again, concentrating on painting her nails. “Man, he got under your skin good.”

I feel myself practically vibrating in rage again, and Connor cups my cheek, tilting my head up. “Babe.”

I look at him, his calming blue eyes like a sea of tranquility, nothing dangerous or hard in them.

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