Page 16 of Cloak of the Vampire
I gritted my teeth as I felt the rage climbing up my body, lighting my nerves on fire. I wanted to throttle his thick neck. I wanted to kick him in the groin. I wanted to dig his heart out with my bare hands.
I tried to force some words out, but my entire body was tense, ready for action, and I couldn’t speak. I wanted only to act.
He took a few steps until he was merely inches away. “Well?”
His proximity shot lightning through my spine. I schooled my face before my eyes had a chance to widen in response. “You were talking about me,” I blurted; though, when I thought about it, they hadn’t mentioned my name. And yet who else could it be?
His eyes narrowed. “Eavesdropping is not tolerated in my League, Henderson.”
I took a step forward until only an inch separated us. “I would think Imprinting on someone against their will would be the most important between the two,” I said quietly, not averting my gaze from his, “but I guess we have different priorities.”
His hand was suddenly around my neck. He wasn’t suffocating me, but his hold was resolute, and the touch, the warmth of his hand, elicited a gasp. “What am I to you?” he asked in a deep growl that made the hairs on my arm stand on end.
“Someone who forced this whole bullshit on me,” I hissed through gritted teeth.
His hold tightened just enough to be a warning. “I’ll give you one more chance.What am I to you?”
I knew what he wanted me to say, and for a moment, I debated spitting in his face instead. But his eyes were suddenly neon blue, and as if he turned on a switch, I felt him emitting that terrible,terribleaura that made my heart kick into high gear, and my brain urged me torun, run, RUN!
Everything in me screamed at me to flee, but I couldn’t move a limb. I was frozen with sudden irrational fear, and the two contradictory urges made my muscles tighten and my throat dry, making me feel caged in my own body, claustrophobic in my own skin.
You won’t win,a voice of reason told me.You’re not strong enough yet. He can tear your head off with his mere hand if he wants to. You have to give up.
I swallowed hard, closed my eyes, and, trying to ignore the horrible fear he incited in the very core of my being, I said, “My Lord.”
His lips brushed against my ear, and I shuddered in barely contained rage at my defeat. “Don’t you ever forget it.”
He was gone by the time I opened my eyes, taking that terrible, overwhelmingly intimidating air with him, snuffing it into thin air as if nothing ever happened. My hands traced my neck, following the ghost of his touch.
CHAPTER 6
According to my schedule, I had two weekly classes, each four hours long. The thought of having to sit in a classroom with only one ten-minute break made me break out in hives. There’s a reason I dropped out of high school.
But I needed all the information about vampires I could get so that I would have as much ammunition ready as I could for the time I chose to act against the man who’d given me the Imprint without my consent and who seemed to be doing so consensually with everyone else.
When my suitemates and I entered the classroom, it was already half-full. Zoey broke away from Tansy and me and went to sit with a group of people who were already chatting enthusiastically and greeted her with hugs and smiles.
Tansy headed to a quiet corner in the back of the room, pulled a book out of her backpack, and started reading. I took a seat in the middle row, next to the wall. I wished I had a book with me, too, so I could’ve at least pretended to be doing something other than feeling the discomfort of being in a classroom again.
More new vampires entered the room. Almost everyone seemed to be in their midtwenties, but a few looked as young as me. None looked as young as Tansy, though.
My concerns rose to the surface when I overheard a couple of men talking in the row in front of me.
“Gotta say, I’d already given up on receiving the Imprint by the time our Lord came knocking,” one of them said.
“Why?” the other asked. “You must’ve known that once you signed the contract, you were going to get the Imprint eventually. There’s nooutclause.”
“Of course I knew that, dumbass.” The first guy rolled his eyes. “I was just saying, five years on the list is a hell of a long time. See that girl in the corner?” They turned to look at Tansy. “Rumor has it she was only on the list forone year.”
“Some people are lucky bastards,” the second guy murmured bitterly as they turned back around.
Everyone had been on this waiting list, it seemed.
Where the hell was Cassidy? She was a newbie, too, wasn’t she? She should be here in the Comprehensive Newcomer Three-Month Course. I really needed to see her, too, so she could confirm to me that she hadn’t been on that damned list. That she hadn’t even thought of such a thing. That everything that had happened had been pure coincidence.
Perhaps something had gone wrong with the Imprinting process. What if she hadn’t survived? What if she’d died?
If Ragnor’d killed her, he would regret the day he’d been born.
