Series: Lords of Rathe Series by Meagan Brandy
Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I grin. “I know.”
Creed tips his chin at her. “Dorm. Now. And if you see a blade on your way, don’t pick it up.”
“Terrible advice,” she says, brushing past him like a storm in a stolen jacket.
I let her shoulder hit mine as she goes. Let the bond yank. Let the heat rip. Let the hunger kick my ribs open from the inside. I don’t follow, because I want her to feel the space I leave behind like a hand at her throat. She doesn’t look back, of course, but rounds the arch and vanishes from sight.
I stand there, smile still cutting my face, and hate how empty the corridor gets without her.
Creed watches with an expression I can’t quite place, but when he speaks, it’s not full of anger like a moment ago. It’s lower, laced with something that sounds a lot like concern. “You keep pushing like that and she’ll tear the campus apart just to spite you. That is drama we do not fucking need right now.”
“I know,” I say softly, thinking of blood on black stone, of a smear at the corner of her mouth that wasn’t mine. “I’m just teaching her to enjoy it.”
He shakes his head as if at a loss. “Dawn. Don’t be late.”
He turns away, coat whispering secrets to the floor.
I’m left with the taste of someone else’s blood and the certainty that the next time I touch her, I won’t stop until the whole damn university wears my fingerprints.
She thinks she’s not affected.
She thinks she can starve the bond out.
Sweet little liar.
Keep pretending, baby.
I can wait an hour.
Maybe two.
The silence stretches thin as wire, and I realize I’m still standing here like some lovesick fool, breathing the air she left behind. Pathetic. I rake a hand through my hair and turn toward the east wing, where my room waits with its four walls and the kind of quiet that used to feel like peace.
Now it just feels like waiting.
My footsteps echo wrong in the empty corridor, and the bond writhes under my skin like a Lycan who hasn’t had a meal in weeks.
I know sleep won’t come easily tonight. It hasn’t since I brought her back. My mind is weighted, like a cloud of demonic smoke settled there, pressing against my conscience.
Suddenly too tired to call a portal, I reach the tapestry that hides one to my chambers. I press my palm against the woven threads, recognizing the royal blood that flows in my veins.
The portal opens, a mouth of darkness that tastes like home, but now there’s this pit of emptiness that follows.
I step through, let the magic fold around me like a familiar coat, and emerge into my bedroom where moonlight cuts silver bars across the floor. The portal seals behind me with a whisper that sounds almost like her laugh.
I strip off my jacket, let it fall where it wants, and sink onto the edge of my bed. The mattress dips under my weight, and I can still taste her defiance on my tongue, still feel the ghost of her shoulder against mine.
Dawn is hours away.
Too many hours.
I lie back and stare at the ceiling, where shadows dance like memories of what I almost had. What I will have. What she can’t run from forever.
The bond purrs in my chest, patient as a lion for once.
Let her sleep.
Let her dream.
Let her pretend she doesn’t feel this thing between us clawing at her ribs the way it claws at mine. That it doesn’t leave an absence in her she can’t name even when she’s near.
Chapter Thirteen
Haide
Roomie doesn’t stop fucking talking.
As if waking into a horror scene this week wasn’t enough, I’m stuck with a roommate who won’t shut the fuck up.
Roomie stares at me, eyes wide, mouth slightly parted. Did she ask me something?
“What?”
She rolls her eyes and goes back to applying the color over her lips. “I said, you’re coming to a party.”
Part of me wants to throw her against the wall to see if her head splits on impact for thinking she can tell me what I’m going to do. But the other…
I swing up onto my bed, legs dangling over the edge. “What kind?” Hesitation has me asking questions first, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned when it comes to these students it’s that they’re disappointing. Honestly. Send me back to Exile.
The clasp of her makeup case snaps closed as she meets my gaze in the mirror. “The kind where we can get messed up on Fae party favors and you can pretend you’re not going to fail. No offense.”
She meant offense.
I slide off the bed, bare feet hitting cold stone. “Where?”
“The Depths,” she says, like that means something to me. When I stare at her blankly, she sighs. “Underwater caverns beneath the campus. Magic keeps the air breathable, the pressure from crushing us, and all that fun stuff.” She waves her hand dismissively. “It’s where they hold all the good parties because the professors can’t hear us scream. Plus, after the explosion of the Dragon Lair just before the school closed last time, it’s one of the few places we’re left with.”