Page 59 of Mortal Shift
It sounded more appealing with every reluctant step I took. There were books in the library, and no people, and that was about all the incentive I needed. Best of all, no-one seemed to have worked out I spent most of my free time there, which meant I could basically hide there indefinitely without anyone finding me. Least of all Cole, who—
…Who was going to be waiting for me in my next lesson, and pissed as all hell that I’d made him look stupid in front of the pack at last night’s hunt. Fuck. Yeah, he was going to kick my ass for sure. If no-one beat him to it. Maybe they’d draw lots to see who was going to get to be the one to murder me.
So, yeah, going to class was looking like a worse idea by the moment. And my little hidey hole seemed more appealing by the second. If I just turned left instead of right ahead, then I was quietly confident my chances of surviving the day would at the very least double.
“Watch where you’re going!”
I bounced off the figure and blinked up into her face in time to watch her eyes narrow in recognition.
“Oh, it’s you,” Thessalia sniffed.
“Oh, it speaks to me.”
“Watch your tongue, human, or I shall remove it for you.”
“Yeah, yeah, take a number.”
She sneered at me. “I don’t have to take a number. I am royalty. Not that I expect a pathetic creature like you to understand.”
“If I’m so pathetic, then why does your brother keep wasting your time on me?”
She laughed, and the malicious sound raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Oh, how sweet. You think my brother using you means he holds some kind of affection for you. Perhaps you get sentimental about your meals, but my kind does not.” She bent her head closer to me. “You’re nothing but a walking, talking hamburger to Thaden, and when he loses his taste for you, he’ll toss you aside.”
“Great. If you want to tell him to hurry up and get bored of me, that’d be great.”
“Oh, is that so? Because rumor has it you rather enjoy his attentions. Perhaps you’ll pay a visit to the feeding den before long, offering your throat to anyone who’ll taste you. Oh, wait, you already did that, didn’t you?”
“That isnotwhat happened,” I snarled, my hands bunching into fists at my sides.
“Sure it’s not,” she said, raising one hand and tracing the air an inch from my face. Her voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Beg me, and I’ll give you what you crave.”
I backed away, swatting at her hand. “What is it about you freaks and begging? Guess you all have some kind of god complex.”
She snatched my hand mid-air, and yanked me back toward her.
“Iama god. And you are nothing. I could kill you right now, and not get so much as a dark mark on my record. You’d do well to remember that, human.You do not want to give me another reason to test my restraint.”
“Why do you hate me so much?” I asked, yanking my hand from her grip.
She eyed me with derision. “That you have to ask insults even your own intelligence.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m just a dumb human, not fit to walk through Darkveil’s hallowed halls. That’s the party line, right? Only, I’m not buying it. That might be why the rest of them hate me, but you? No. It’s always been more than that with you. So why don’t you just get it off your chest and then move the hell on? Come on, what’s got your back up so much?”
“You understandnothingof our world. Go ask your mate, perhaps he’ll explain it to you.”
“I know enough to know that you’re over-reacting. And I’m not asking him, I’m asking you.”
“You dare make demands of me? You? You’re nothing. Less than nothing. I could snuff you out easier than a candle flame. You’re alive purely out of respect for your mate.”
I frowned. That didn’t make sense. Not the first bit, of course, because that made perfect sense, and was, annoyingly, mostly true. But the second part…
“I didn’t think vamps and wolves played nice together.”
At least, not any of the vamps and wolves I’d met. Tolerated, maybe, and mostly because they had no choice, but that was as far as it went. Or at least, I’d thought so.
“Why am I not surprised that yet again you are showing your ignorance, human?”
