Fallen University: Year One

“Only the classic battles,” Xero said softly.

“Right. Am I supposed to know about the non-classic battles yet?” I was getting a headache, and I blamed Kai and Kingston, specifically and personally.

“He went over them in class briefly, but we weren’t supposed to study them yet, I don’t think. Were we?” Hannah directed her question at Jayce.

He shook his head. “The test is just on the classics this week. Piper, are you okay?”

“I used to be better at this school crap,” I grumbled. “Solid 3.2 GPA from kindergarten to my senior year. 3.0 first year of college. Now I’m flunking magic school.” I hissed a breath through my teeth.

A student I didn’t know walked by with a cup of sweetened ginger tea and I snapped. The spicy smell of the ginger was too much to bear. Its scent was almost right, like a cappuccino-flavored vape pen when you were in dire need of actual coffee. I launched myself off of the couch and stalked out of the library.

Fuck this. Fuck patience. I’m done.

“Piper?” Hannah called after me.

All I could do was wave as I kept walking. I’d explain it later. I sensed Jayce getting up to come after me, but I waved him back too. I needed to do this, and I needed to do it alone. I trusted him to understand, just as I trusted Xero not to care too much. I headed upstairs toward the dorms.

The problem, I realized when I got to the second floor, was that I had no idea where Kai’s room was, or even if he was in it. That wasn’t going to stop me, though. I breathed deeply through my nose, reaching out with my senses—the same ones that always clawed desperately toward the men, dragging me toward them.

If he was up here, I would find him.

You’d think that walking one long hallway after another would be enough to burn off my temper, but it wasn’t. I caught his scent after ten minutes of deliberate, systematic searching, and then I ran that scent into the ground. I found myself in the very center of the big building, a place where the rooms couldn’t possibly have any windows, staring down an intricately carved door.

I knocked on it. Well, banged on it with the fleshy side of my closed fist, really. He didn’t answer. I banged again, hard enough to make the door shake.

“I know you’re in there, Kai! Open up!”

Still no answer. Motherfucker.

Outraged, I slammed my shoulder into the heavy wood, using the extra strength demons were known for. The door burst inward, and I stumbled inside. Kai sat in his desk chair, facing the door with one arm draped over the back of it and one knee crossed over the other. His expression was cold and disdainful.

I exploded. “What the hell is your problem?”

“Problem? Singular?” He chuckled, but it wasn’t friendly. “Let’s see. I’m living in a place I never wanted to come to. I’m bound to a woman I never wanted to be involved with. I lost everything to a stupid mistake. Shall I go on?”

I paced the room, clasping my hands behind me so they wouldn’t shake with fury. “Okay. I get it, Kai. You never wanted any of this.”

“Correct.”

“See, thing is,” I breathed a desperate little laugh. “The thing is, Kai, I don’t think you understand me. I don’t think you understand what it’s like to have your power, your life, your very existence depend on the presence of another person. Do you have any idea how helpless that makes me feel?” I whirled on him, fighting the tears that had sprung into my eyes.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

That surprised me into silence. Kai stood up and walked toward me slowly. “Do you know what I am, Piper? Do your senses give you any hint at all?”

I inhaled, but all I could smell was sweet, spicy sex. Sex I’d been craving since our first kiss. He took another step toward me, and the room spun. I was starving. His lips glistened in the soft, unnatural light. I wanted to drink them in.

“Look closer,” he said in

a whisper that was almost a growl. He let his jaw drop open as he ran his tongue over his teeth. As he did, they began to change. His canines grew and sharpened. His eyes changed, the pupils lengthening into the eyes of a night hunter. Infused in his erotic essence was a bloodlust so intense it made my own stomach clench.

“Vampire,” I gasped.

“Precisely. So you see, I do understand your predicament quite well. To be so wholly reliant on the charity of others, if only so as not to turn into the monster you are destined to become.”

“I don’t want your charity,” I hissed.

“Bullshit. That’s exactly what you want. You want to feed on me, don’t you, succubus? Well, I wanted to feed too. I was so hungry… she’d been gone for so long…”