Page 56 of SINS & Riley
Zver. As a filthy headmaster.
So wrong. So hot.
But—
Wait. A. Damn. Minute.
My brow pinches as my brain scrambles to catch up. “You… you read my journal.”
“You came into the East Wing,” he says smoothly, leveling the ruler at me. “Call it even.”
My breath stutters. I drag my tongue across dry lips.
“I just want…”
The words die when his hand slides into his pocket.
Jesus. Is it getting bigger?
“Tell me what you want, Pom.”
Pom.
My world tilts, dizzy and disorienting.
He called me Pom.
Dante’s nickname for me. The one I’ve scrawled hundreds of times across my journal pages.
I still, and look closer. Too close. Into Zver’s eyes, two pools of endless black, dark and devouring.
They’re nothing like Dante’s cold, ice-blue gaze.
But they hit just as hard.
Steel. Fire. An inferno roaring behind the mask.
Is it?—
Stop.
This is madness. He’s not Dante. Dante is gone.
Dante wouldn’t have abandoned me for two months. Wouldn’t have cut me off from my sister.
And if I ripped back Zver’s sleeve, I wouldn’t find a serpent coiled in black ink. I’d find a skull. Roses. Proof that he’s not the ghost I want him to be.
I blink hard, pushing past the fog and the tears threatening to break free. I won’t let them fall.
Dante is dead.
And Zver… Zver is the enemy.
I square my shoulders, shaking off his mindfuck. “I want to know if the doctor is alive.”
“And I want to know when you’re finally going to get it through your stubborn head that you don’t call the shots, Pom.” He spits my name like a curse. “So either you’re here for your well-deserved punishment, or leave and let me work.”
Leave?
