A Kiss So Deadly (Ivymoore Vampires Book 1) by Sylvie Wrightman (1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A KISS SO DEADLY

By Sylvie Wrightman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Sylvie Wrightman

All rights reserved.

 

First Edition, March 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“To what shall we compare the mortal-made? Their mutated species would be far better categorized amongst the apes or arachnids than amongst rational vampirekind. Extensive and conclusive research on the topic has led the foremost vampiric scholars to agree that warmbloods are of base intelligence, given wholly to animalistic impulse. Their purpose on earth is no better than that of a bovine’s: to eat, mate, and die.”

 

- The Silent Scourge: On the Dangers and Depravity of Mortal-Mades

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

Ambition

 

Snow covered the stone courtyard, crisp and untouched. It was late, far too late for me to be out of doors, but I sat beneath the frozen willow tree that my grandfather had planted upon purchasing Onyx House. This tree, this stone bench—they had always been my refuge. But tonight, my refuge was devoid of comfort. The tree’s reeds were bowed under snow, and ice drops hung from their ends like frozen tears. Wind shuddered through the courtyard, biting through my thick wolfskin coat.

 

I was crying, but I didn’t know why. Something unthinkable, something devastating had occurred, only now I couldn’t remember what it had been. All I knew for certain was the agonizing ache that bloomed in my stomach and spread through my cold veins.

 

Then I heard it: a solitary chirp. I looked up. Perched on the willow branch above me was a linnet, colored the shade of brass. Atop its head was a strange, golden-colored tuft. I had never seen a bird like this in the family gardens. The linnet chirped again, then tilted its head curiously down at me. Its chest rose and fell rapidly.

 

He must be so cold, I thought, and without knowing why, I raised my hand out to the linnet. It chirped again, and then there was a fluttering of wings.

 

Then nothing.

 

Darkness. Only darkness. And in the darkness, I heard—

 

“Linnie!”

 

I gasped, my eyes fluttering open. The unidentifiable ache was gone, and the snow-covered courtyard had vanished, replaced by the amber glow of a ferry cabin. I was not home, at Onyx House, in England. I was on the Pale Maiden, crossing the Irish Sea, bound for the Isle of Man. Clarissa, my younger sister, was leaning over from her seat, her cold hand on mine and her pale blue eyes wide with concern.

 

I swallowed hard at the sudden change in realities. Then I refocused.

 

“I’m fine,” I told my sister, slipping my hand out from hers.

 

“Azazel, Adaline Aldridge. They make draughts for that kind of thing.”

 

My gaze flicked to the new speaker—Vance Carrington. The tall, blond vampire sat beside Clarissa, his muscled arms crossed and expression dispassionate.

 

“Draughts for what?” I asked, straightening my posture and fixing Vance with one of the haughty stares that we Aldridge sisters are so well known for. “It was only a nightmare.

 

“Yeah, but Clarissa said you’ve been—”

 

Vance's words were cut short by a swift kick to his shin, courtesy of Clarissa. She cast him a venomous glare.

 

Meantime, I was casting my own similar glare at Clarissa. I didn’t know why I was surprised, honestly. Clarissa told everything to Vance these days. Loyalty to the Family Aldridge was not of much value, it seemed, when Clarissa was so set on becoming a Carrington. It wasn’t that I disliked Vance. He was arrogant, yes, but he had the money and privilege to justify his pride. He had a reputation in school for being a prick, but what mattered to me was how he treated my little sister, and in that he was faultless.

 

Vance was kind and attentive to Clarissa; I never once doubted that his affection was genuine. His union with my sister would be a smart match, of course, and both the Aldridges and the Carringtons approved. That he and Clarissa actually loved each other was a rare and welcome happenstance in our aristocratic circle, and I wasn’t about to begrudge them that happiness. All the same, I would have preferred if Clarissa didn’t go blabbering every detail of our family’s private lives to her boyfriend. Especially the detail of my recent bout with insomnia.

 

“I’m only worried about you, Linnie,” Clarissa said. “You haven’t slept well all summer holiday. I’ve heard you at night. I’ve . . . heard you screaming.”

 

“Clara,” I growled. “It’s not your concern, and it’s certainly not his.”

 

Vance merely shrugged and picked up his folded copy of that day’s edition of The Sanguinary Sentinel. He didn’t look particularly pleased to have been drawn into this fight, and he studied the newspaper intently, clearly set on leaving us sisters to it.

 

“What if it’s a curse?” Clarissa pressed me. “If you would only tell Mummy and Daddy about it, they could—”

 

“It’s none of their business either,” I countered. “So I’ve been having nightmares. It’s most likely owing to the deluge of exams I’ve got to worry about this year. It’s final year stress, that’s all. You’ll understand soon.”

 

Clarissa sniffed. “Only I won’t be bothering with academics next year.”

 

I was well aware of this fact. It was a sore sport between me and Clarissa. My little sister didn’t see the point in taking her university classes or exams when she already knew that her future was as a wife and mother. In fact, my entire family—both immediate and extended—was of the opinion that an Ivymoore degree was useless to its female members. Lenora, my older sister, hadn’t troubled herself with one. Neither had my mother, Hortense, nor my Aunt Judith, nor any Aldridge woman that had preceded me. Not only were university degrees pointless for a woman whose sole job was to marry and procreate, they entailed a certain vulgar display of earnestness and work ethic that was unbecoming to any blueblooded aristocrat. I had heard such lectures ad nauseam from my mother and aunt. This was simply the blueblood way. But one Aldridge I had never heard such words from was my father.

 

“Listen to me, Adaline,” he had told me on a December night eleven years earlier, when I was only nine.

 

I had been sitting in his study, on the chaise lounge in the corner, reading a worn copy of The Silent Scourge. I loved my father’s study, all aged books and mahogany shelves and flickering firelight. I especially loved peeking up from my book and watching the great Mortimer Aldridge work at his desk. He wrote with studied flourish, covering reams of paper with green ink. But on this particular night, he had set down his pen and called me to his side.

 

“Listen to me,” he said. “You’re smarter by far than your sisters.”

 

My eyes had widened in shock. “Me? But Lenora is so very—”

 

“So very clever?” Father supplied. “Yes. Your older sister is extremely cunning. She is ambitious and she is sharp-tongued, as any good blueblood ought to be. But she is single-minded, too, and she possesses a propensity for cruelty that blinds her to the better part of knowledge. In her haste to gain personal satisfaction, she misses the wisdom and the beauty of things. Your younger sister, too, is endowed with excellent qualities. Clarissa is observant, and unlike Lenora, she is good-tempered.”

 

“And,” I said, “she’s so pretty.”

 

“She will have no trouble making a good match,” Father conceded. “She will most certainly become a beauty, just like your mother. However, neither her beauty nor Lenora’s cunning are a substitute for a mind like yours.”

 

“What’s so special about my mind?” I whispered, blinking steadily up at my father.

 

“You see the details, Adaline. You see the beauty. That is an extraordinarily rare quality. I want you to make use of it. I especially want you to make use of it at Hogwarts. Do you understand me? Apply yourself. You are capable of great things. Do not waste that capability. Make me proud.”

 

My father had never told me in so many words that I ought to study hard, to ask questions, to turn in extra credit, to meet with my professors outside of class—all actions that earned me stink eyes and teasing giggles from the other aristos at secondary school and, later, at Ivymoore. But he had never told me not to do these things. Unlike other members of my family, he had never once reprimanded me for my desire to take the top exams at Ivymoore, never once demanded I shut up when I talked about potential careers other than homemaker and socialite. And though he never spoke to me again on the subject of that December night, every so often, I would catch him looking at me with a calm, steady gaze that I knew was pride. My father was proud of me. Mother could chastise me for being unladylike in my academic achievement. Lenora could call me a brown-nosing goody-goody. Clarissa could giggle and call my study sessions in the library “cute.” But none of that mattered if my father was proud and, more importantly, I was proud of myself.

 

Even so, I often wished I could change Clarissa’s mind, explain to her the value of an Ivymoore education. Her throwaway comment made my heart sting fiercely. It reaffirmed that my little sister would not bother with upper-level coursework. She would squeak by in her general education classes, she would marry before she obtained a degree, and she would produce perfect little aristo vampire children. This plan may have been exactly what my sister wanted, but I couldn’t help but feel like Clarissa deserved better.

 

“I’m sorry I snapped,” I told her, my gaze softening. “I know you mean well.”

 

Clarissa sighed. “Vance was only suggesting you try some sleeping draught, is all. He thinks it might be helpful, and so do I.”

 

“That’s very kind,” I said, turning to Vance and playing nice once more. “Thank you.”

 

“Don’t mention it,” Vance replied, as though he had done me a great favor. “Anything for my Clarissa’s favorite sister.”

 

I chose not to mention that even the most carefully concocted sleeping draughts could be highly addictive. For me, at least, they were not worth the risk. I could brave the nightmares without help.

 

Clarissa was beaming at Vance. “Isn’t he the best?” she asked me, before snuggling against Vance's shoulder, her blond locks cascading across the collar of his velvet cape. If I hadn’t been Clarissa’s sister, I would’ve grown violently ill at how sickeningly sweet this little tableau was. As things stood, I was only queasy.

 

To spare myself further sickness, I looked out the cabin window. The once blurry shoreline of the Isle of Man—home of Ivymoore Vampiric University—had now grown clearly defined. Stark cliffs and rolling green hills cut across a blue sky. The ferry was slowing, nearing the end of the voyage that transported young English vampires westward, to their yearly academic pursuits. Already, I could hear students clattering about in the passageways, hauling their suitcases along so they could be the first ones to disembark. I didn’t have to worry on that score. Desmond had promised to meet me at the dock and carry my belongings, like a proper and attentive boyfriend. He had arrived at Ivymoore a week early, for student government training, and it had been a full month since I’d seen my boyfriend of nearly two years.

 

I was trying not to worry about the fact that, during this month of separation, Desmond’s absence had not affected me in the least. I hadn’t missed him; in fact, I’d felt a certain relief that, for those four weeks, I hadn’t had to dress up and do my hair a certain way.

 

But of course I would be overjoyed once I saw him, in the flesh.

 

Surely.

 

Desmond Prescott was my destiny.

 

Abruptly, I stood and slid back the cabin door.

 

“Where are you going?” Clarissa asked, alarmed. “You aren’t just going to run off with Desmond and leave me all alone?”

 

“All alone?” I paused in the threshold, smirking. “Don’t be silly, Clara. You’ve got Vance. I’m the one who hasn’t seen my gentleman in weeks.”

 

“Go let her and Prescott have their fun,” Vance said, pulling Clarissa even closer against him, “and we’ll have ours.”

 

I made a face at Vance and stuck my tongue out at Clarissa. “Farewell, lovelies. See you on the other side.”

 

Once the ferry had docked, I watched out the corridor window as dozens of eager first years poured onto the gangplanks, shouting and gaping like newborn puppies. They were so young, so innocent; I could hardly believe I’d really been that small when I’d first arrived at Ivymoore, three years ago. Now I was in my final university year—twenty years old, a bright future ahead of me.

 

So long as I didn’t fuck it up.

 

“Poor little lad looks like he’s on the verge of a breakdown.”

 

A finger came into my view, pointing against the glass toward a slender ginger boy with over-large glasses. He did, in fact, look like he was about to start hyperventilating. I wasn’t concerned about the boy, though. It was the voice that had me worried—warm and low, and distinctly lower class in accent. Its edges lilted up, as though its owner was perpetually on the verge of laughing. In short, it wasn’t a voice that belonged to any of my fellow blueblooded classmates.

 

Slowly, I turned to face the speaker. He was barely taller than me, and he was uncomfortably close. Still, I could clearly make out his features: dirty golden hair, mud-brown eyes, freckles, and day-old stubble; broad shoulders, pale skin, and a white t-shirt. I recognized him almost immediately. He was a final year, like me, and the captain of Ivymoore’s nightspeed team.

 

He was also a common warmblood. And god damn, he was smiling at me.

 

I stared blankly back. The best thing to do in this situation was to say nothing and calmly evade any further contact. So I tilted my chin high and pushed past him, down the corridor.

 

“Oi!” the warm voice shouted behind me. Even then, he sounded like he was going to burst out laughing. “Classy, Aldridge. I haven’t got the pox, you know.”

 

I should have kept walking. I knew that. Desmond was waiting for me on the dock. But for some insanely stupid and inexplicable reason, I turned back around. The young man was leaning easily against the train window, arms crossed, still smiling serenely at me.

 

What was his problem?

 

“Fuck off,” I said crisply.

 

“Okay,” he said, shrugging.

 

I was now remembering his name. I’d heard it shouted during nightspeed matches: Sargent. Something Sargent. Jude? Jake? Jack?

 

It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he was a warmblood stupid enough to talk to me, Adaline Aldridge. I wanted to walk back there and slap that idiotic smile off his face. What was so funny?

 

“Talk to me again,” I growled, “and I will curse your ass to kingdom come. Got that, Sargent?”

 

“Is that a promise?” His smile only grew.

 

Of all the fanger gall. . . . I clenched my fists, feeling the charmwork buzzing in my blood. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I wasn’t about to let—

 

“There you are!”

 

I gasped as a heavy weight suddenly pressed against my stomach and a hot breath tickled against my ear.

 

Desmond.

 

My boyfriend was there. He must have boarded the ferry and crept up behind me without me knowing. Now he was wrapping his arms around me from behind, and his lips descended on my neck, hot and dry. Welcoming the sensation, I shut my eyes.

 

You did miss him, I told myself—though it was more of a command.

 

“Don’t ever leave me alone again that long,” Desmond said roughly, into my ear. “I was on the verge of madness without you.”

 

I squirmed against the tickle of his breath. “Desmond, quit it,” I said, though I was smiling. “We’re in public.”

 

“Mhm,” Desmond agreed. “So imagine what my welcome’s going to be like behind closed doors.”

 

I opened my eyes. This was not a display of affection I wanted that imbecilic warmblood to witness.

 

He was no longer looking, though. He was walking soundlessly down the corridor, his back to me.

 

Desmond, clearly unaware of my wayward gaze, turned me to face him. “Now then,” he said, tilting up my chin. “Let’s fetch your things and be on our way. I hear they’re serving a fine blood pudding tonight.”

 

Hand-in-hand with my boyfriend, I disembarked the Pale Maiden, sparing only one final thought toward that impudent warmblood. I wished a silent curse upon his ass. Then, with a radiant smile on my face, I stepped onto the shore, ready for my final year at Ivymoore.

 

 

 

2

Draughts & Doubts

 

“Adams, Edwin.”

 

“Present.”

 

“Aldridge, Adaline.”

 

“Present.”

 

I raised my hand from my desk and, with pride, made my presence known. There was nothing in the realm of academia that I loved so much as the first day of school. First days of school meant new fountain pens, fresh paper, unopened textbooks, and all the anticipation of the year to come. Nothing compared. And I had worked three long years to arrive at this first day in particular. I had finally made it to Advanced Bloodraughts.

 

This was where things got very difficult. And very interesting.

 

I watched intently as Professor Whitechapel paced the floor. His stride was firm and determined as he called off each name from the roster, and I like the confidence he exuded. He was not an old man, like Professor Flavius in Intermediate Bloodraughts had been, but somewhere between forty and fifty. His eyes were a strange, bright shade of violet; it was rumored that his mother was a direct descendent of Azazel himself.

 

“Rollins, Marcus.”

 

“Present.”

 

I had worked hard to get to this classroom. I had always excelled in Entrancement, Charmwork, and Concealment, but Bloodraughts were my crowning achievement. I’d received nothing but glowing marks from each of my Ivymoore professors, and I had studied with a calm intensity that had earned me a place in the prestigious Sanguine League. Some of the nastier bluebloods liked to joke that my sisters got all the beauty, while I only got worthless brains. But none of those snide-mouth idiots were currently sitting in a selective top-level class like me, now were they?

 

“Sargent, John.”

 

My pleasant reverie was suddenly broken at the sound of those two words.

 

Sargent.

 

John.

 

Sargent?

 

Without thinking, I whipped around in my front-row seat. There, sitting three seats behind and one row over from me, was this John Sargent in the flesh. His dirty golden hair was ruffled as though he’d just rolled out of his bed. His white button-up was wrinkled, his black tie sticking out, askew, over his school robe.

 

This was the man who had so unceremoniously tried to talk to me on the Pale Maiden the day before.

 

His name was John Sargent.

 

He was an utter mess.

 

And what was far worse, his eyes caught mine as he said, “Present. Though I prefer Jack, sir.”

 

“Ah! Jack. Duly noted.”

 

I quickly turned back around. How had I not noticed a warmblood’s presence in the room before? Was it simply because he was a mortal-made and therefore so . . . forgettable? How on earth did a fanger even make it to Advanced Bloodraughts, anyway? Had he cheated? Had he bribed a professor?

 

I had been looking forward to a year of studying with only Ivymoore’s elite, the cream of the crop. Now it looked like they let just anybody in. I tried to swallow down a surge of bile as Professor Whitechapel finished the roll call with Woolrich, Hector, and then, without hesitation, launched into his first lecture: Concocting Libido-Killing Draughts for Succubi.

 

Soon, my disgust at Jack Sargent's presence was forced to give way to pure concentration as I scribbled down extensive notes, raised my hand at least half a dozen times, and quickly wormed my way into the affection of Professor Whitechapel. I was always the teacher’s pet in my Ivymoore classes. Always.

 

By the time the school day was done, Jack Sargent was the farthest thing from my mind. That night, in the dormitories, I gushed in excitement about the coming school year to Clarissa and to our roommate, Lilith Spencer.

 

“God, Linnie, you’re such a little dork,” Lilith said affectionately, winding back my long, brunette hair into a perfectly crafted French braid. “Though I don’t see why succubi are so important for a girl to learn about. They seduce men, don’t they? So there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

 

“Anything dark or dangerous deserves study,” I said. “Anyway, just because it’s not immediately applicable doesn’t mean it isn’t still fascinating.”

 

“Fascinating to you,” Lilith muttered. “What’s far more fascinating to me is Xavier Eddleton’s ass. Yum.”

 

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” said Clarissa, wrinkling up her nose as she finished up the topcoat to her cherry-colored toenails. “Xavier is dishy, admittedly, but you could do much better. Didn’t you know his uncle was put away for dark charmwork? A compulsion charm. He’s serving ten years at the Liverpool Vampiric Penitentiary.”

 

I winced at the mention of dark charms. The very idea of them never sat well with me—perhaps because there were rumors that my own extended family indulged in less-than-legal charmwork on occasion. It wasn’t unusual to find bluebloods who thought they were above the law, and there were certain illegal dark charms that were rather expedient. The compulsion charm, for instance, was a charm as old as time, first used by our ancestors to compel mortals to do their bidding—which usually entailed offering up their jugulars for feasting. With practice, the charm could also work on fellow vampires.

 

The possibilities of such a charm were endless, but of course, they were also dangerous. Its use against fellow vampires had been outlawed during a meeting of the High Vampiric Council in 1403. Then, centuries later, when we vampires struck a peace with mortals, the compulsion charm was outlawed entirely, earning itself a spot on a rather long list of dark, not-to-be-practiced charms.

 

“That case was sticky,” Lilith informed me and Clarissa. “Very unreliable witnesses, all circumstantial evidence. And anyway, Xavier’s uncle isn’t Xavier. He had nothing to do with it. I will admit that he isn’t mind-blowingly wealthy, but I have enough of an inheritance on my own. And when money’s taken care of, you can be picky about the more important things. Like sex appeal.”

 

Lilith giggled wickedly, Clarissa produced a scandalized gasp, and I just rolled my eyes.

 

“Don’t give me that high and mighty look, Linnie!” Lilith said, addressing my reflection in the vanity mirror. “Haven’t you and Desmond done the dirty by now?”

 

Clarissa gasped louder and smacked Lilith with a pillow.

 

“What?” Lilith raised her hands innocently, letting my hair drop onto my shoulders. “I’m calling it the way I see it, that’s all. And I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Linnie. Like he wants it.”

 

“Maybe he does,” I said, picking at a hangnail, “but he knows he won’t get it until after we’re married.”

 

“SO YOU’RE ENGAGED?!”

 

“Calm down, Lilith! Of course I’m not. Don’t you think you two would be the first to know if I were engaged? Or if I’d fooled around with him?”

 

Lilith tapped her nose suspiciously. “I dunno. You can be so quiet. I don’t know what’s going on in that mind of yours.” 

 

I sighed. “I think it’s going to happen soon. I overheard him in the sitting room, talking to the boys. He told them . . . he’s bought a ring.”

 

There were two instantaneous squeals.

 

“What?” demanded Clarissa, grabbing my hands. “When do you think he’s going to do it?”

 

“How should I know?" 

 

Lilith snorted. “For a girl about to be betrothed to her true love, you don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

 

I remained silent, wondering if I had the nerve to voice the heavy weight that had been on my mind. After a long moment, I decided to brave it.

 

“Maybe,” I said, “it’s because he isn’t my true love.”

 

Clarissa’s eyes widened. “W-what? But Linnie, you two make such a precious couple. I assumed—”

 

“You’re perfect for each other!” squawked Lilith. “How can he not be the love of your life?”

 

“I just. . . .” I gestured ineffectively with my hands, trying to grasp at words just out of reach. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not like I hate him or anything, but—but I don’t miss him when we’re apart. I don’t particularly enjoy his company. He’s nice and attentive, and Azazel knows he’s a good kisser. But he can be so dull at times. And sometimes . . .  I think we want different things. Very different things. Like last night. He—he—”

 

I hadn’t meant to bring up the previous night. The thought of it still made me bristle. Though Desmond and I had been seeing each other since the end of our second year at Ivymoore, I sometimes felt as though he was a stranger to me. And since my return to Ivymoore that year, the feeling had only intensified.

 

Clarissa’s eyes were nearly entirely made up of pupils. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Linnie,” she said. “Did he force you to—?”

 

I made a choking noise. “What? No! I mean, yes, he wanted to take things further than I did, but I told him no, and he always stops. That’s normal. It isn’t that. It’s just, we were talking about the future, and he made it very clear that his career is going to take precedence. That he wants to start having children right away.”

 

Lilith blinked at me, nonplussed.

 

“Sooo,” said Lilith, “what’s wrong with that?”

 

Clarissa cut in before I could reply. “Linnie doesn’t want children right away. She has this silly notion of having her own career first. I've tried to reason with her. Once you have children, Linnie, you won't feel that way. Everyone says so." 

 

“Yes,” said Lilith. "Think about it. Anyone can get a career. What’s a real feat is landing a blueblood husband like Desmond. Do you know how many girls are gaga for him? He’s a catch. Far and away the better Prescott brother.”

 

I thought unwillingly of Alistair Prescott, my sister Lenora’s husband. Like his younger brother, Alistair was undeniably handsome. But he was also cruel and—I thought—borderline psychotic. A perfect match for my older sister, perhaps, but I didn’t particularly like him as a brother-in-law. And I didn’t like to think of how much more closely bound I would be to the man should I marry his brother.

 

I sighed. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. Forget it.”

 

“It’s normal to have doubts,” Clarissa said softly. “Second guessing, that’s all it is. It will fade.”

 

“Yes,” I said, pensively. “Perhaps.”

 

“Just wait and see,” said Lilith, who had regained her usual gutsy tone. “In a few weeks’ time you’ll be back to being madly in love with him. The moment he pulls out that ring, I guarantee you won’t have any doubts then.”

 

3

The Request

 

“Miss Aldridge, may I speak with you for a moment?”

 

Advanced Bloodraughts had dismissed, and I was putting away my books when Professor Whitechapel called my name from his podium. His demeanor was calm, as always, and his violet eyes intent.

 

“Of course,” I said with a respectful nod, latching my satchel. I folded my well-manicured hands across my desk and looked up at Professor Whitechapel in anticipation.

 

This could only be good news. I’d been hard at work in class for two months and had proven myself to be an exceptional pupil—which was even more admirable feat considering I was still struggling with the occasional insomnia. In the end, my resolve had wavered, and I’d decided to make a little of my own homemade sleeping draught. The draught had helped with the nightmares, but I didn’t want to take it regularly for fear I’d become too reliant. Still, in spite of my disrupted sleep pattern, I’d received nothing but top marks from Professor Whitechapel on all of my assignments. So surely, I reasoned, he was taking time after class to congratulate me on my hard work.

 

“You’ve proven to be a marvelous addition to this classroom, Miss Aldridge,” Professor Whitechapel began. “I’m sure you know by now that I'm extraordinarily pleased with your work. I consider you to be one of the finest students I’ve ever had the honor of instructing.”

 

I beamed. I couldn’t help it. This sort of praise was what I lived for. It was what made all the teasing and long nights of study worth it.

 

“Thank you, Professor Whitechapel,” I said.

 

What was he going to do now? I wondered. Pin a ribbon on me? Offer a letter of recommendation? Inform me that he had written to tell my family what an excellent middle child they had? How would my mother respond to that?

 

“That is why,” Professor Whitechapel continued, stepping down from his podium so that he and I were on eye-level, “I’m presuming to ask a rather significant favor of you.”

 

My hopeful expression faltered only a fraction. “A . . . favor, sir?”

 

“Yes. You see, I’m afraid not everyone in this classroom has the same aptitude as you. One student in particular has been struggling with the more recent assignments, and he approached me last week about earning extra credit or even, perhaps, receiving some form of tutelage.”

 

“Tutelage.” I knew I was annoyingly parroting Professor Whitechapel, but I still didn't understand what he was trying to communicate.

 

“What I’m asking, Miss Aldridge, is if you’d be willing to tutor Mr. Sargent throughout these coming months.”

 

Still, I didn’t register the words. “I beg your pardon?”

 

“I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence, mind. I don’t make it a regular habit to discuss the progress of my students with their peers. However, I believe Mr. Sargent is a very talented young pupil, and I would hate to fail him out of this class before Christmas simply because his performance is not quite up to par. As I understand it, his busy schedule on the nightspeed track has led to his less than satisfactory academic work.”

 

“Jack Sargent,” I said dumbly. “You want me to tutor Jack Sargent?”

 

Professor Whitechapel removed his glasses from his nose. He squinted down at me with a quizzical expression.

 

“Is that a problem, Miss Aldridge? You seem distressed.”

 

“No!” I nearly shouted. I swallowed, and then, with more calm, continued. “No, I’m not distressed. It’s just an . . . unexpected request.”

 

That was putting it mildly.

 

“Ah,” said Professor Whitechapel. “Admittedly so. Though it’s certainly not unheard of, and I think that your insight would greatly benefit the young man. I wouldn’t ask you this favor if I did not think you were entirely qualified.”

 

“Yes,” I said, “but surely someone else would be better suited for the job? Couldn’t you tutor him, sir?”

 

Professor Whitechapel narrowed his eyes. “I am afraid you underestimate the myriad duties and busy schedule of a professor, Miss Aldridge. Would that I could, but I’m thinly stretched as it is. As for his fellow classmates, I can think of no one so well qualified as you. You are, after all, top of this class.”

 

“Right. Me.”

 

Why couldn’t my mind operate? Why now, of all possible times, had it shut down so entirely? Surely there had to be a way out of this. I had to come up with an excuse. Tutor Jack Sargent? Spend time with a dirt poor, warmblooded fanger? Professor Whitechapel couldn’t possibly understand what an obscene request that was. He must not have subscribed to the Aristocratic Code, or he would never have asked this of me. But now he had, and I could think of no way to refuse the favor that would not lower me in my professor’s estimation. And I couldn’t let Professor Whitechapel think that I was rude or unhelpful or lazy. So at last, I spoke the words that would seal my fate:

 

“Of course, sir. I’d be happy to help.”

 

❧

 

Lilith had been right about Desmond.

 

Right, but also wrong.

 

He and I did spend more time together over the months of September and October. We ate together in the dining hall, just the two of us. We spent upwards of hours snogging in the darker corners of the North Wing sitting room. On Halloween, Ivymoore’s most bombastically celebrated holiday, we snuck a bottle of marrow mead to the rooftop, where he and I watched red and orange fireworks explode over the sprawling countryside.

 

In writing, everything seemed perfect. We were doing all the things a boyfriend and girlfriend ought to have been doing—aside from having sex.

 

We’d come close. Desmond had done his fair share of groping, clasping my breasts beneath the blouse and digging his fangs so deep in my skin to leave bruises. Each time I felt his cold fingers begin to fiddle with my clothing, though, I stopped him. Each time his hand wandered to far down my thigh, I pulled away. I wasn’t being a tease; I had told Desmond up front that I would sleep with him until we were married. If there was one order my mother impressed upon me even more than the order to find a husband, it was to guard my virginity until I was well and truly a man’s wife. There was no greater asset for an aristocratic girl to possess than her virtue, and the moment my reputation was even the slightest bit tarnished, I could kiss my chances at an exceptional match goodbye.

 

Not that those exceptional matches weren’t sleeping around. Male bluebloods—heirs to titles and fortunes—could indulge in sexual escapades all they wanted. Lilith called this a double-standard, and my mother’s rules outdated. But Lilith was the only child of very wealthy parents; she could afford to tarnish her own reputation without any detrimental consequences. I was one of three daughters of a highly respected family, but a family that had fallen on hard financial times. I was expected to marry a man like Desmond Prescott—a man with a less respected surname but a far greater fortune. But if I wanted to secure that match, my mother informed me over every school holiday, I had to guard myself.

 

“Bats won’t marry when they’re sucking the blood for free,” she’d told me when I was only nine. And she continued to tell me so for over a decade.

 

I had been a good Aldridge girl in that respect, but I wondered sometimes if my chastity was the reason for the detachment I felt when I was with Desmond. Or perhaps, I told myself almost nightly, I was overthinking it. I was being neurotic, overly-anxious, trying to produce what I thought love felt like, when really, how could I not be in love with Desmond? He told me all the time that he thought I was sexy, and he had stolen that marrow mead for us to drink on Halloween night.

 

I’d been so certain that night that he was going to propose. Instead, he’d ended up falling asleep on the roof, drunk, and I’d been forced to shake him awake when I got too cold.

 

It must have been the pre-proposal nerves that were getting to me, I told myself. Of course I loved Desmond. How could I not? He was everything I’d been taught to want in a husband. All I had to do to put things into perspective was to think about the worst kind of match.

 

Imagining a warmblood like Jack Sargent in that respect was preposterous. Nauseating, even. Self-respecting bluebloods would never consider a union with a mortal-made. There was an insurmountable difference between our kind.

 

Mortal-mades like Jack Sargent were made into vampires, not born that way. Even though the High Vampiric Council had made it strictly illegal for any vampires to turn new humans or to drink live hosts’ blood, there were rogue criminals who lived outside the law. These were the kinds of vampires who created people like Jack Sargent, turning them from mortals into mortal-mades. Warmbloods were called that because their blood was only half-cold; centuries of vampiric breeding had not yet turned their veins icy. They could still eat mortal food, and their lifespan was often shorter than ours—only an average of eighty years to our one hundred. There was still too much human in them; that was the crux of the matter.

 

Many bluebloods believed that mortal-mades shouldn’t have been considered vampires at all. The Ivymoore administration had a different opinion, though; they called their mindset progressive, and since 1955, they’d allowed warmbloods into the university’s sacred halls. My father believed it was all about the tuition money; warmbloods did only make up a quarter of our student population, but a quarter wasn’t insignificant, and Ivymoore needed funds to keep up its lush green lawns and its fifteenth century stonework and flying buttresses.

 

We high-minded bluebloods simply had to ignore the warmbloods that crossed our paths at school. Most of them knew to stay out of our way.

 

Most, but not all of them. Jack Sargent was certainly an exception. Not that I thought about him often. Not that I thought about him at all. I may have seen his face every weekday in Advanced Bloodraughts, but that didn’t mean I wasted time remembering my strange encounter with him on the Pale Maiden.

 

Certainly not.

 

I did, however, allow myself to consider what an absolute horror of a creature someone like Jack Sargent was, and how utterly perfect Desmond Prescott was by comparison.

 

It worked.

 

I told myself it worked, anyway, and that made it so.

 

And as I left Professor Whitechapel’s company, panicked by what I’d just agreed to do, I had to remind myself extra hard of what I knew to be true: I was Adaline Aldridge, of the House of Aldridge. I was at the top of my class. I would marry a blueblood catch, as all Aldridge women had done before me. And some no-name fanger wasn’t going to change any of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

First Impressions

 

“I hate you.”

 

They were the first words out of my mouth as I slammed down my satchel on the library table. Jack Sargent, who’d been oblivious to my approach, jumped a good inch out of his chair, dropping his copy of Advanced Mixing Techniques to the floor.

 

“Shit,” he said, stooping to pick up the book. “Was that necessary?”

 

“None of this is necessary,” I snapped back in a vicious whisper. “I can’t believe you had the nerve to beg Whitechapel for me to tutor you. I don’t know what sort of sick game you’re playing, but—”

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jack raised his hands like an innocent bystander. “What are you talking about? I never asked Whitechapel for you as a tutor.”

 

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Yes, you did. You purposefully contrived to get me alone with you!”

 

“Why the hell would I do that?”

 

“Because you fancy me, of course! Why else would you be stupid enough to talk to me on the ferry?”

 

Jack’s brow furrowed, as though he were trying to conjure up a long-lost memory. “Oh. Oh, that was you, wasn’t it? That dare was months ago. . . .”

 

My breath caught. “Dare?”

 

What the hell was he talking about?

 

“Yeah,” he said easily. “My nightspeed mates and I dared each other to go rile up a real coldblooded aristo on the train. The one who came back with the least battle scars won a month’s supply of bloodsicles, courtesy of the losers.” He leaned in closer, patting his stomach. “Guess who won?”

 

I gaped at him. “You made a dare about me?”

 

Jack looked at me as though I’d grown a third eye. “Azazel, Aldridge, you’ve got an ego the size of the giant squid. It wasn’t about you. None of this is.”

 

I faltered. Since yesterday afternoon, when Professor Whitechapel had asked his “favor”, I’d just assumed that Jack Sargent had been behind it. It was obvious from our encounter on the Pale Maiden that he was attracted to me. Why wouldn’t he be? I was smart, pretty, blueblooded, wealthy, and an aristocrat—all the things he wasn’t.

 

Well. He wasn’t half bad to look at, I’d grant him that. But I’d never doubted for a moment that Jack was responsible for forcing me into tutoring him, just so he could attempt to make a move on me.

 

I had to clarify. So I asked, “You didn’t ask Whitechapel for me specifically?”

 

“This may come as a shock,” said Jack, returning his gaze to his book, “but you’re not irresistible.”

 

It was there again, in his voice—that tension, like he was laughing. Maybe he was laughing at me.

 

“Then why did you—?”

 

“Look,” Jack said, without looking up, “I just so happen to want to make good marks in Whitechapel’s class. I asked if he would recommend a tutor. I didn’t expect him to ask you, or I would’ve kept my mouth shut.”

 

I deflated. I guessed I should be happy about this revelation, but if Jack hadn’t schemed to get me here, did he really not like me after all? Did Jack Sargent, a bloody mortal-made, not find me sexually attractive? He had to be gay.

 

Slowly, I sank into the chair opposite Jack. His eyes flickered up to mine from over the top of his book. He was laughing at me. I knew it for sure.

 

“I still hate you,” I informed him, in case he’d forgotten.

 

“Yeah, I think we’ve established that. Why don’t we move on to new territory. Like how to extract fang venom for medicinal purposes, hm? That’s the paper I had the most trouble with.”

 

Jack ducked under the table and emerged a few seconds later with a bent and battered stack of papers. “Here’s my essay. Whitechapel slaughtered it. I know I could’ve done better, but the Halthorpe game was Saturday, and I didn’t have time to—”

 

“Are you gay?”

 

Jack stopped short. Slowly, he said, “I am monumentally straight, Adaline Aldridge.”

 

I just stared at him. Jack produced a nervous smile. He rubbed the back of his neck uneasily.

 

“Why? Do I give off a metrosexual vibe or something?”

 

“No,” I admitted. “You don’t dress nearly nice enough for that.”

 

“Uh-huh. Look, no offense here, but I don’t want either of us wasting our time. Do you think we could actually do some tutoring?”

 

“Sure,” I said, taking the parchment from him and unrolling it for perusal. I had barely gotten a few lines into the sloppily written essay when I glanced up again. Jack had gone back to reading his book.

 

How could he not care who I was? That I was sitting across from him? This was probably the closest he would ever get to a member of the House of Aldridge. And he was choosing to read?

 

“You know who I am, don’t you?” I asked.

 

“You’re Adaline Aldridge.” Jack turned a page of his book, not looking up. “You’re a final year, and you’re top of your entire class. You’re a blueblood, and you come from an insanely wealthy family. You’ve got two sisters, one older, one younger. You’re going to marry that Prescott asshole and pop out a dozen or so perfect little blueblood kids. It’s a shame, since you’re so smart and talented, but that’s the way with you Aldridges.”

 

He lifted his gaze for a split second. “Sound about right?”

 

I had lost my voice. I stared mutely back at him.

 

At last, I regained the power of speech, and when I did, I said something without thinking, something that I would instantly regret.

 

“I don’t want kids.”

 

It was as though a weight, heavy and unforgiving, had been tied to my ribs. And now, suddenly, the weight had come loose and smashed into the ground, leaving me hollow inside. Hollow, but somehow free. I had just told the truth—my deepest secret—to a perfect stranger. To a fanger, no less.

 

Jack didn’t answer. He was looking at his book so intently that I began to think he hadn't heard me after all. But then, slowly, he lifted his eyes to meet mine.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

 

“I don’t want your pity.”

 

I don’t want kids. Azazel, why the hell had I told him that?

 

“You’re twenty,” Jack said. “Who wants kids at twenty?”

 

“Plenty of people. All my friends. My sister. Most aristo girls. You’d be surprised. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

 

Jack frowned. “Doesn’t it?”

 

“No. What matters is cleaning up your abysmal essay on fang venom so that you can at least score halfway decently on next week’s exam.”

 

“Wow. So we’re finally doing the tutoring thing.”

 

“I suppose we are.”

 

With that, I delved into my work. I read carefully over Jack’s essay, which had already been heavily critiqued by Professor Whitechapel. Jack had command over the language. He had good rhetoric. What he was missing was the textbook knowledge. He clearly hadn’t done his reading, and I guessed that nightspeed was to blame.

 

“Cycling keeps you busy?” I asked nearly a half hour later, setting down my pen on a set of notes I’d made for him.

 

Jack dog-eared his book and set it aside. “It’s a priority,” he said.

 

I nodded. “Well, schoolwork is going to have to become more of a priority. The skill you need, you have. You’re a good writer, despite the awful penmanship. What you require is the actual book knowledge, and that means studying. You don’t need me to explain these concepts to you. You just need to read them for yourself.”

 

“You mean I have to do all the work myself? What kind of a tutor are you?”

 

I opened my mouth in indignation and was about to give Jack a scathing retort when I realized he was laughing at me again. The idiot.

 

“You’re impossible,” I said. Then, as an afterthought, “You’re a fanger, aren’t you?”

 

Jack’s laughter stopped. A look crossed his face that I couldn’t identify. It was some sort of mix between disappointment and pride. “Fanger” wasn’t technically a word used in polite society. Less-than-bluebloods might call it a slur. I had been using it to describe warmbloods for all my life.

 

“I have mortal parents,” Jack said evenly, “if that’s what you mean. I was bitten when I was twelve.”

 

I gave a stiff nod. “I suspected. A good deal of the poorer students are, after all. Fangers, that is.”

 

“A good deal of aristocrats are bigots,” Jack replied. “Looks like we both just proved the rule.”

 

I flushed. “I’m not a bigot.”

 

“Purist, then. Does that suit your delicate vocabulary? Most aristocrats are purists.”

 

A wave of confusion washed over me. I had never spent this much time with a warmblood, and I had certainly never heard one bring up the topic of purism. I had always been taught that they were too dense to even understand the concept.

 

“I come from a noble lineage,” I said stiffly. “Centuries of vampires. There’s no reason to not be proud of that.”

 

Jack studied me for an uncomfortably long silence, as though he were waiting for the punch line of a joke. At last, he shook his head. “You’re dead serious, aren’t you?”

 

“Of course I am.”

 

“Huh.” He stood up. “Well, this has been a real treat, Miss Aldridge. Thank you for condescending to help a peon like myself. I’d say I’d love to do it again sometime, but . . . I really wouldn’t.”

 

He slung his satchel over his shoulder and made to leave, but as he passed my side of the table, I caught him by the arm.

 

Azazel, he was fit. His forearm was taut under my grip, and I could feel the rise of veins and muscle underneath his warm skin.

 

But of course he was fit. He was Ivymoore’s star nightspeed player. As captain of the team, he’d been almost single-handedly responsible for leading the Ivymoore Ravens to victory over our Welsh rivals, the Halthorpe Crows, for the past three years in a row. I shook that fact from my mind, though, when I found Jack looking down at me with an expectant expression.

 

“That’s it?” I managed. “You’re just going to . . . leave?”

 

The expectancy in Jack’s face turned to confusion. He looked at me as though I’d spoken to him in Romanian.

 

“I thought we were done here. Unless you charge a fee or something. Though I warn you, all I’ve got is”—Jack rummaged around in his jacket pocket—“two pounds, by the feel of it. There may be chewing gum attached to one. . . .”

 

I curled my lips downward in disgust. “I don’t want your money. Don’t be so utterly crude. I just . . . I mean, it’s only that. . . .”

 

I realized that I was still holding his arm. Quickly, I let go.

 

“Just that what?” Jack pressed.

 

“I’ve . . . never really talked to someone like you.”

 

What was I saying? Of course I’d never talked to someone like Jack Sargent. We Aldridges made it a point not to talk to anyone out of our social circle, and certainly not out of our blood pool.

 

“Someone like me,” Jack repeated, looking unenlightened.

 

“You know. A—a—”

 

“A fanger?” Jack supplied.

 

I had no idea why, but the sound of "fanger" rolling off of Jack Sargent's tongue was terrifically unpleasant. It made my insides jolt in discomfort.

 

I tucked a strand of my long, thick chestnut hair behind my ear—a nervous tick I’d had since I was a child. “Yes,” I said. “That.”

 

“What, do you like talking to me?”

 

“Of course not!” I said quickly. “You’re just not what I expected. I thought all fangers were stupid as rocks.”

 

“Who said I’m not stupid?” he countered. “You are tutoring me, after all.”

 

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I read your work. You’re a good thinker. Brilliant, even. You wouldn’t be in an advanced class at Ivymoore if you weren’t smart. And the way you talk—your accent’s lower class, but your grammar isn’t. You think things out. You express them well. Better than any of the boys in my year.”

 

“I’m in your year.”

 

“Yes, but I mean bluebloods. People like you don’t count.”

 

Jack laughed again. It was a short, breath-packed laugh, and he turned away from me as he released it.

 

“God,” he said. “Just listen to yourself.”

 

“What?”

 

“Right,” he said, leaning his weight against the table. “Much as I’d love to be your token warmblood lapdog, I’ve actually got a life to get back to. I’m sure you’ll forget about what a scintillating conversation you had with a fanger as soon as your head hits the pillow, and you’ll go right back to thinking of me as a mindless, walking piece of filth. Till then, have a nice night.”

 

And with that, Jack was gone for good. Our tutoring session was over. I watched him as he left, his book bag jostling against his side, and his jeans—damn, he had a nice backside. I couldn’t help but admit that to myself, and I was beginning to understand what inspired Lilith to go on and on about Xavier Eddleton’s ass.

 

Whoa. At last, my common sense kicked in. Calm down, Adaline. If there’s any boy’s backside you should be thinking about, it’s your boyfriend’s. Desmond Prescott. Remember him? The man with the engagement ring? Focus.

 

I collected my things and stuffed them into my satchel, willing myself to think about other topics: my Charmwork exam the next morning, Lilith’s new gossip, and—most importantly—Desmond’s lips on mine.

 

In the end, though, nothing did the trick. Jack’s voice kept ringing in my ears, a loop of words played over and over again:

 

It’s a shame, since you’re so smart and talented, but that’s the way with you Aldridges.

 

 

 

5

Indiscretion

 

“Another round, Hortense, please and thanks!”

 

Lilith’s face was pink with alcohol-infused blood, but she still downed the next shot of blood liquor as soon as Hortense—the stink-eyed bartender—plunked it down on the counter. When she was through, she wrapped Clarissa into a headlock and squealed for about the twentieth time that night.

 

“ENGAGED. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe how romantic the whole thing was!”

 

Clarissa was glowing, her blue eyes brimming with joy. She had never looked more beautiful than she did tonight, and for Clarissa, that was quite a feat. Even in the midst of the dark, musty, crowded interior of the Mahogany Coffin bar, she looked like an angel. Vance had proposed to her the night before, and even I had to admit it was a very romantic setup. The scheme had involved roses and poems and protestations of love and the first snowfall of the school year. Afterward, she and I spent the whole night giggling under the covers and taking turns marveling at the enormous diamond ring Vance had placed on her finger.

 

I was overjoyed for my little sister. I really was. But after Clarissa had drifted off to sleep that night, I had been left alone and awake, staring at a four-poster canopy as an unaccountable wave of emotion washed over me. I was . . . sad. Why was I sad?

 

Was it just jealousy? I wondered. Maybe I was a little jealous of Vance, who was stealing away my sister and closest confidant. There would be no more lazy summer days at Onyx House, just me and Clarissa gabbing and doing each other’s hair. Once Clarissa was married, she would live with Vance at Carrington Manor, or at his London penthouse. Not with me.

 

Was it impatience? Clarissa was a full year younger than me, yet she’d been proposed to first. I could understand Vance's motives: He was a final year, and he would want a commitment from Clarissa before he graduated and took up a job. But didn’t Desmond have even more incentive to propose? It was November, and it only made sense that he and I should plan for an early summertime wedding, to take place right after our graduation. That would make for the most natural transition into married life.

 

Why, then, was Clarissa wearing a diamond ring before I was?

 

I was sad, that was certain. But I wasn’t exactly disappointed. If I were absolutely honest with myself, I’d admit that I didn’t desire a wedding. A gorgeous white dress, certainly. A diamond ring, of course. But when I thought of kissing Desmond in front of hundreds of aristo guests, of leaving Onyx House for good and taking up residence in the Prescott’s labyrinthine country house, the only emotion I felt was dull dread.

 

Pre-proposal jitters—that’s all that was. But I had to ask myself, why had I been having jitters for two months straight?

 

The answer to that was to take another shot of blood liquor.

 

Today, it was Lilith’s turn to squeal over Clarissa’s engagement, and, notorious party girl that she was, Lilith could think of no better place to celebrate than in Port Erin, the quiet seaside town that was only a twenty-minute walk from Ivymoore’s rural campus. Though the town was largely mortal, there were certain establishments that catered exclusively to the seasonal vampiric population of the Isle of Man. According to Lilith, the Mahogany Coffin was top of its class. I could think of much classier, cleaner, and safer places, and it was clear that prim Clarissa felt uncomfortable in the dirty bar. However, once Lilith set her mind to something, she stubbornly saw it through, no matter how poor her judgement was. An engagement like this called for some wild living, she claimed. She was taking us Aldridge sisters to the Mahogany, so help her, and she was going to buy us three whole rounds of blood liquor shots.

 

I had watched in amusement as Clarissa discreetly got rid of each of her shots by tossing them into a nearby potted black orchid. But with a head full of those terrible questions, I didn’t have any qualms with the liquor. I downed each of the three rounds alongside Lilith. Then a fourth round. And as I threw back my fifth, I began to forget the reason for that pang of sadness in the midst of the celebration. Blood alcohol didn’t affect me much. At least, I didn’t think so. That was why I was so surprised when, as I slipped down from my barstool to make my way to the toilet, I lost my footing and would’ve wiped out completely had Lilith not steadied me by the shoulder, giggling wildly.

 

“Watch it!” Lilith laughed. “Don’t take a tumble!”

 

Without knowing why, I found myself giggling too. A pleasant warmth was spreading through my usually frigid body, from my gut to my chest. Tonight was a beautiful night. I was with friends, and Clarissa was engaged to Vance Carrington, and all was right in the world.

 

Except for that sliver of icky feeling in my stomach. . . .

 

I had to take care of that.

 

I pushed through the crowded bar, growing warmer and more nauseated as I went. I needed to get to a toilet. I felt terrifically unwell. With great effort, I broke through the crowd of bodies, only to find that I’d run into a booth table, where a group of Ivymoore students sat drinking marrow meads. They were also eating mortal food, and that could only mean one thing: They were warmbloods.

 

The smell of rust tickled up my nostrils, and my stomach turned a full flip. And then, without any further ado, I vomited the bloody contents of the day's lunch on the table.

 

A collective shout of disgust rose from the booth.

 

“Oi! Someone get this retcher away from our table, eh?”

 

“That is foul.”

 

I clung to the table’s splintered edge, my head spinning, heart pounding, my mouth filled with the taste of sick.

 

How utterly mortifying, thought the remaining sober shred of my mind.

 

And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I opened my eyes to find one of the seated diners staring straight at me.

 

It was none other than Jack Sargent. A pool of half-digested blood sat on his plate, forming a sea around his fish and chips.

 

“Oh no,” I whimpered, stumbling back, only to lose my balance.

 

Instead of hitting the hard bar floor, though, I felt myself fall into a firm grasp. Jack had rushed out of his seat to catch me.

 

“Hang in there,” he said against my ear, his voice low and calm. “Let’s get you to the loo, eh?”

 

I thought about protesting as he lifted me into his arms. I thought about smacking him in the face, telling him to get his filthy fanger hands off of me as he pressed through the crowd with unyielding urgency. But I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I rested my head against his firm shoulder, hoping he’d make it to the toilet in time, because I felt another wave of nausea coming on, and I really preferred not to spew all over him.

 

We passed into a cooler, darker space, where the shouts of the bar patrons faded, only to be replaced by the echoed, claustrophobic sound of my ragged breathing.

 

“I’m going to set you down now,” came Jack’s voice, and I felt myself lowered from his arms, my feet touching solid ground. “Come on, kneel down with me. That’s it. You’re all right."

 

As I knelt, I felt Jack’s hands on mine, guiding me toward something cold and hard. I’d never been so happy to see a toilet in my entire life. I didn't even have the presence of mind to consider how dirty this stall was, or how the floor was covered in an unidentifiable sticky substance. I heaved, and I was only vaguely aware of calloused fingers pulling back hair from my face as I emptied the remaining contents of my stomach into the toilet, turning the water there a scarlet red. Then I slumped back into a dark, confused state, where time had no meaning.

 

“You’re all right,” Jack repeated, and somehow his hand was on my back, rubbing it in slow circles. “It happens to everyone at some point. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

 

I nodded blindly against something warm at my cheek—Jack’s chest. He wore an awfully soft shirt. I clung to it with steely resolve, worried that at any moment, the urge to vomit would return. I could be humiliated about this later. I could rail against Lilith for having convinced me and Clarissa to visit this miserable excuse for a bar. Right now, however, all I could think about was feeling better.

 

The warmth shifted beneath me, and I gave a mewl of protest, gripping harder at Jack’s shirt. “D-d-don’t leave me!”

 

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware of how desperate and stupid I sounded. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted safety and sanity, and Jack seemed to be doing a pretty good job of providing them both.

 

“I’m not leaving you,” he said gently. “I’m just fetching you some water, okay? I’ll lock the door so no one bothers you. You need to hydrate. I’ll be back in one minute flat. You can time me if you'd like.”

 

With that, Jack left. I fell against the stall’s hard tile wall, my head spinning. I felt cold, so much colder than I had when Jack had been there.

 

One minute. He said he’d only be one minute.

 

I began to count but lost my way when I reached “seven.” In the end, I stopped the attempt and waited in silence.

 

Then, true to his word, Jack returned, locking the door behind him and kneeling at my side. Though my vision had begun to clear, my thoughts were still murky, and I fought hard to form words.

 

“Why’re you hup—helping me?” I groaned, taking the cold glass of water he placed in my hands.

 

“Drink the water,” Jack said, tipping the glass to my lips.

 

With an irritated sigh, I did as he requested.

 

Something had begun tickling at the back of my mind—a disquieting worry. Clarissa. Lilith. They had to have noticed my long absence by now. They were probably worried about me. Looking for me.

 

I shoved the glass back at Jack and struggled to get to my feet.

 

“Whoa!” he cried. “What do you think you’re doing?”

 

“My seeser. Lilaaath. They’re gonna worry.”

 

Jack caught me just as I slipped and went careening toward the ground again. “Your sister? She’s here?” Then, in an aside I was pretty sure Jack only meant for himself, he muttered, “Well of course, you idiot. She wouldn’t come into a bar by herself.”

 

“I need to fine ‘em!”

 

“Okay. We’ll find them, but I’ll help. You don’t seem to be able to stay upright for more than a second at a time.”

 

“I’m really, really happy for my sister,” I confided in Jack, patting his chest as he helped me up to my feet. “She’s engaged, y’know. To Carrington. Nice fellow. Very, very nice fellow. I’m gonna be engaged soon, too. Deshmond has already picked out a ring. But I dunno if it’ll be as big a diamond as Clara’s.”

 

“That’s fascinating,” said Jack. “But why don’t we spend a little more time walking and a little less talking?”

 

I nodded doggedly and followed his lead as he brought me out of the bathroom and into the bar. Through the blur of bodies, I caught a glimpse of platinum blond locks.

 

“Clara,” I mumbled, gripping Jack harder and nodding toward my sister. “That’s Clara there.”

 

Jack nodded back and led me through the crowd, toward the beacon of blond hair. After a mighty struggle, we arrived at the bar proper, where Clarissa was looking around frantically, tears brimming in her eyes. When she spotted me, slumped unceremoniously on Jack’s shoulder, she shrieked and came running toward us, arms outstretched.

 

“Darling, there you are! I was so worried. Lilith is positively sloshed, and then I couldn’t find you, and then I was so scared. I don’t like being alone in this place, and—Linnie? Goodness, you smell foul.”

 

For the first time, Clarissa glanced up, acknowledging Jack’s presence. “What’s wrong with her? What did you do to her?”

 

“I didn’t do anything,” Jack said. “She’s drunk.”

 

Clarissa narrowed her eyes. “Ladies of the House of Aldridge do not get drunk.”

 

“Okay, whatever. She’s . . . inexorably tipsy. Whatever you want to call it. She just puked out a veritable cauldron’s worth of blood, though, so I suggest you get her someplace warm and safe where she can rest, huh?”

 

There was a sudden jostle of movement then, as I was transferred from one wrangler to another. I fell into Clarissa’s arms, even as she said, over my head, to Jack Sargent, “I’d like nothing better than to get out of this filthy establishment.”

 

With me slumped on her shoulder, Clarissa attempted to make her way toward the door, but with very limited success. There were too many drunken bodies, all of them packed far too close, and none of them were listening to my delicate sister’s feeble pleas that they move. I was so far gone, I was even less help. All I could do was watch in mute shock as, from nowhere, Jack stepped in front of us and, with a sudden flourish of his wrist, shot a burst of scarlet sparks into the air.

 

“Get out of her way!” he shouted into the crowd.

 

Heads turned. Bodies shuffled. The patrons made way.

 

My sister looked at Jack with a half-shocked, half-curious expression. Then, shaking her gaze away, and without a word, she led me through the newly cleared path, toward the door.

 

“Clara?” I moaned hoarsely, finding myself capable of speech. “Clara, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a disgrace.”

 

“Nonsense,” said Clarissa. “It was Lilith who shouldn’t have taken us here in the first place. It's an absolute hovel. The Port Erin vampiric population really needs to invest in higher quality restaurants.”

 

“But I shouldn’t have drunk so much,” I groaned. “And of all the people to . . . wait. Where did Sargenth go?”

 

“Sargenth? Who’s Sargenth?”

 

We had crossed the threshold of the bar, stumbling out into a darkened, winding road that led down to the shore. Clarissa frowned severely at me in the lamplight, just as a soft snow began to fall.

 

“Who are you talking about?” she asked. “You mean the man back there?”

 

I nodded weakly. “The fah—fanger.”

 

Clarissa opened her mouth wide. “A fanger? Is he really? And he was touching you like that. The presumption. Darling, if you knew he was a fanger, why would you let him—”

 

I interrupted Clarissa by bending over and hurling a final round of bloody vomit into a nearby shrubbery.

 

“That’s it,” said Clarissa, when I was through. Even in my stupor, I could see she was arching her chin angrily, in the Aldridge way. “That is the last time I allow Lilith to determine our agenda for girls night out.”

 

It was at that moment that the front door of the bar flew open and Jack Sargent emerged, looking flushed.

 

“Thank God,” he panted, approaching us. “You’re still here. She dropped this.”

 

He held out a jade colored scarf—a present that Clarissa had given me for my fifteenth birthday and that I’d somehow lost between blood liquor shot number two and that very moment. 

 

Clarissa now eyed Jack with haughty distaste, like he was a cockroach to be squished. Then, as though it were the most tremendous effort, she yanked the scarf from him.

 

“Do not come near my sister again,” she said icily. “Filth like you shouldn’t even presume to look at someone like Adaline, let alone touch her.”

 

Jack stared. “You have to be joking.”

 

“Do I look like I’m joking? Just stay away, or I’ll tell Vance and Desmond precisely what sort of liberties you took with my sister tonight, and I promise you, they won’t leave you looking the way they found you. Now leave us alone.”

 

Somehow, I was aware that Jack was looking at me. “I wanted to be sure she was all right.”

 

“LEAVE US ALONE!”

 

I gripped Clarissa’s shoulder, blinking heavily, fighting for some semblance of conscious thought.

 

Jack. Jack was leaving. He was walking away, through a swirl of snow.

 

“What’s going on?” I murmured, desperate for equilibrium.

 

“Nothing,” Clarissa answered, holding me close. “There was a nuisance, but he’s been taken care of. Now, let’s get back to Ivymoore.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Occasionally, a mortal-made will exhibit some weak and corrupted traits resembling, to the untrained eye, the behavior of a charmed vampire. These traits are, without question, only genetic flaws, and should be promptly trampled out. Should such mutations be allowed to flourish or, far worse, to procreate, an entirely new, corrupted breed of vampire will soon mingle amongst our people, masquerading as bluebloods when they are, in fact, abominations deserving of the strongest contempt.”

 

- The Silent Scourge: On the Dangers and Depravity of Mortal-Mades

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

Damage Control

 

I woke in a cold sweat, my breath coming out in short and uneven hitches. I wiped the perspiration from my forehead and slowed my exhalations in an attempt to calm myself down.

 

Just a dream.

 

Onyx House was not on fire, and the walls had not been coated in blood. Clarissa had not been motionless, the vampiric life drained from her ocean-blue eyes. The gold-tufted linnet had not died, and its small and lifeless body had not fallen from the willow tree and into my outstretched hands. None of those things had occurred. I was safe in my bedroom in the North Wing of Ivymoore Hall, and all was well.

 

Almost.

 

I hadn’t forgotten what had happened the night before, at the Mahogany Coffin, and even though my head was pounding as though an ice pick were chipping away at my skull, I had to get up and face the morning. It was still a school day, after all, and I had a mess to clean up.

 

That afternoon, I caught Jack in the corridor as we were both leaving Advanced Bloodraughts.

 

“We need to talk,” I said, tugging him back into the now empty classroom and closing the door behind us.

 

Clearly surprised, Jack turned to face me, his brown eyes wide.

 

“Talk about what?” he asked. “If this is about the assignment, I appreciate an offer to help, but like you said, it’s really just a matter of me studying mo—”

 

“No, of course this isn’t about the assignment!” I snapped. “It’s about . . . last night.”

 

Jack raised a brow. A smirk notched up his face, and his voice deepened. “About last night?”

 

He said the words like they were deliciously sensuous, filled with innuendo—and in no way how I meant them.

 

“You think this is a joke?” I demanded.

 

Jack shrugged. “Honestly? I didn’t think you’d remember anything that happened last night. You were pretty damn blitzed.”

 

“Ladies of the House of Aldridge don’t get . . . blitzed.” I frowned. I wasn’t entirely sure what “blitzed” meant, but it sounded uncouth and therefore definitely didn’t apply to me.

 

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. Look, a simple ‘thank you’ will suffice, okay? No need to make this unduly awkward.”

 

“Thank you?”

 

“Mhm.” Jack hitched up a seat on the edge of Professor Whitechapel’s desk, swinging his legs easily. “Thank you. Have you heard of it? It’s an acknowledgement that someone else has done you a kindness.”

 

I glared at him in half-shock, half-outrage. “What kindness? You utterly humiliated me!”

 

“No offense,” said Jack, “but I think you did that all on your own.”

 

“So I was a little tipsy!” I admitted, throwing up my hands. “That didn’t give you any right to go carting me around by force. Maybe I didn’t want to go in that stall with a fanger. Did you ever think of that? Did you think about what a story like that would do to my reputation? For all I know, people might already be spreading rumors!”

 

“And Azazel forbid your precious reputation be damaged,” Jack said pleasantly.

 

I was overcome by a sudden urge—violent and unexpected. I slapped Jack across the face. Hard.

 

Jack didn’t respond. He only touched his fingers to the red welt already forming on his cheek. Then, he raised his eyes to meet mine.

 

Dry panic rose in my throat. “I—I didn’t mean to—”

 

Pride gripped me before I could go further: Yes, you damn well did mean to, Adaline Lyra Aldridge. He deserves it.

 

“Well, it’s your fault!” I spit out. “You act as though you don’t understand how wrong your behavior was.”

 

“My behavior,” Jack repeated slowly. “You mean, I should’ve let you pass out on the bar floor in a pile of your own sick? Fine. I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.”

 

“You are so dense,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t realize what a high status I have to maintain in this school. Or you do, and you’re purposefully acting daft. I can’t be seen with you, Sargent. The way you behaved in Port Erin made it look like we were . . . involved somehow. That we somehow knew one another. That isn’t acceptable.”

 

"Sorry," said Jack, "but if you're so dead set on maintaining a good reputation, you shouldn't be visiting a place like the Mahogany Coffin in the first place."

 

"I'm well aware of that now. But this is about your behavior. You need to—to cease and desist!”

 

“Fine,” Jack said. “So long as you cease and desist the practice of spewing all over my supper. How’s that?”

 

I gritted my teeth. “Fine. Just leave me the hell alone.”

 

Jack swung his legs off of the table, landing on his feet and shouldering his satchel. For the first time, I noticed the black ink tendriling out from the collar of his shirt and running over his exposed collarbone. A tattoo. I found myself wondering what shape it formed beneath the fabric of his button-up. Then I silently cursed myself for wondering.

 

“I’m going to say one last thing,” said Jack, and I realized in a shock of fright that he wasn’t leaving the room, but walking toward me. He only stopped when we were mere inches apart. I could hear him breathing, see flecks of blue in his deep brown eyes. “Sometimes people are altruistic. Sometimes they don’t do things for ulterior motives, or to try to ruin reputations or start rumors. Sometimes, they’re just trying to do the decent thing. So for the love of all things good, Adaline Aldridge, stop thinking that everything I do is about sodding you.”

 

I caught my balance on a chair as he left, and once he was gone, I sank down, releasing a shuddery breath. With sudden clarity, a realization pierced my brain:

 

Jack Sargent thinks I’m an arrogant bitch.

 

And most startling of all, I found that, for some reason, that thought bothered me.

 

It bothered me more than words could say.

 

❧

 

By the time I joined Lilith and Clarissa in the dining hall, they were already halfway through their dinner of blood broth. As usual, they had saved a seat for me. Years earlier, when Lenora had been at school, she had been the one to save seats for me and Clarissa. Lenora had held impressive sway over her classmates, and when she wanted something—even if it meant seats at the head of table for her first and second year sisters—she got it. The favor didn’t come without a price, though. Those first couple years, I had been forced to endure Lenora’s endless diatribes on the stupidity of her classmates and how Ivymoore had gone to the dogs since the days our parents had attended.

 

As if you would know, I used to think in irritation. Lenora may have been older, but that didn’t make her all-knowing or all-powerful—which is always how she acted. I would never admit it to anyone, but I had been secretly happy when Lenora had graduated, married Alistair Prescott, and left me and Clara to our own devices. Our dining table had developed a distinctly more pleasant air in my older sister’s absence.

 

That is, it had a more pleasant air when Lilith and Clarissa weren’t quarreling, which they currently were. Clarissa still hadn’t forgiven Lilith for taking them to the Mahogany Coffin the night before.

 

“It was dangerous,” Clarissa was saying when I took my seat. “It was reckless. And above all, it smelled like mortal food in there. I can’t believe you would subject me and Linnie to that sort of uncouth behavior. People are nasty when they’re drunk.”

 

Lilith was rolling her eyes and blowing bubbles into her marrow mead. “Come off it, Clarissa,” she said, coming up for air. “If you didn’t have a prudish stick shoved so far up your ass, you might learn to have a little fun. You and Linnie are the same, both too afraid to get your hands dirty.”

 

Lilith had a point, of course. We Aldridge girls had been raised to be neat, prim, and meticulous, and we’d come to expect a certain refinery in society. There was no crime in that. The real trouble was that Lilith was an absolute slob who didn’t mind frequenting unsavory bars.

 

“I’m not a prude!” Clarissa insisted, her upper lip quivering as though she were on the verge of crying. “I just can’t believe you would take us into a place that serves warmbloods. Father said that the Mahogany was a reputable establishment when he was our age. Now it’s turned sour, and you knew that when you took us.”

 

A “reputable establishment.” What Clarissa really meant by that was that the place had once only allowed bluebloods in its doors. Now, the food industry seemed much more welcoming of mortal-made patrons. Warmblood money was still money, after all, and the vampiric economy was in a recession. Not that Clarissa would want to hear those reasons; she found all detailed talk of money to be distasteful.

 

“Xavier likes it there,” said Lilith, unaffected by Clarissa’s flirtation with tears.

 

“Xavier hangs with warmbloods,” Clarissa shot back, “which makes him an aristo traitor.”

 

Lilith snorted. “Well, if none of us were traitors, we’d all end up marrying our cousins, now wouldn’t we?” She then produced a salacious smirk. “Like your Aunt Judith and her husband, isn’t that right?”

 

Clarissa shot daggers at Lilith. “Shut up, bitch.”

 

Lilith gave a mock gasp and went right on smirking and spooning blood broth into her mouth.

 

I had nothing to contribute to this conversation. I despised quarrels, and I endured enough of them back home without having to listen to my two closest friends claw at each other’s throats. Anyway, what Lilith said was true: It was common knowledge that we Aldridges intermarried. It happened more often than not in blueblooded circles. That was simply the way of it.

 

Tears were lining Clarissa’s eyes, and I was pretty sure I knew why. This tiff was stealing the spotlight away form more important thing things—namely, Clarissa’s engagement. I eyed my sister’s flashing diamond ring in my periphery. I’d barely had time to process the news. Really process it. Clarissa had called our parents the night before, and she’d received an enthusiastic reply that morning in the form of an express delivery of a giant box of chocolates. My mother was overwhelmingly proud of Clara, though I could feel the unspoken accusation in her voice over the school’s rotary phone: Why wasn’t I wearing a ring yet? Acquiring a diamond was, after all, my most important duty while at Ivymoore.

 

Instinctively, I glanced down the table to where Desmond, Vance, and their usual gaggle of friends sat eating and downing drinks. The girls didn’t usually segregate themselves from the guys, but there was a big nightspeed match the next day—Ivymoore versus Marshlands—and that was currently the only topic their significant others seemed capable of talking about. Neither Lilith nor us Aldridge sisters took any interest in the sport. I thought it an absolute waste of time.

 

Nightspeed was little more than a game of polo on speed cycles and a slick racetrack—“Fancy Man’s Polo,” as Lilith often disparagingly referred to it. Teams of five cyclists competed against each other, knocking a puck about the track with long, metals poles, attempting to wrest control from the other team to score a goal in their half of the inner track. All this, they had to accomplish without losing control of their cycles and careening into the stands. It was a brutal, stupid activity. It was also all the rage in the vampiric world. The introduction of cycles in the 1980s had turned the sport into an international sensation. Before that, the players had used chimeras, but then the Vampiric Animal Rights Organization had gotten involved. Overnight, the sport turned into a technologically-minded one.

 

It seemed to me that fellow vampires were much too crazy about technology. Perhaps we were drawn to it because of the forbidden element. Certain mortal contraptions were incompatible with the vampire physique. Our kind couldn’t handle the modern computers, laptops, or mobile phones that mortals so mindlessly carried about and consulted; it had something to do with wireless signals interacting poorly with our physiques. The upshot of it was this: When it came to “modern” forms of communication, all we had at our disposal were old-fashioned rotary phones and the ever-reliable Vampiric Postal Service. I was content with that, but others were not. There seemed to be endless symposiums and guest lectures at Ivymoore about the intersection of the vampiric lifestyle and mortal tech. And one of the greatest gifts the mortal world had given us was the almighty speed cycle.

 

I may have known the bare bones rules of nightspeed, as well as Ivymoore’s impressive recent win record, but I certainly didn’t wish to talk about those things nonstop. Neither did Lilith or Clarissa. There wasn’t any reason for us to willingly subject ourselves to chatter about statistics and projections, so it had become an unspoken rule between us and the boys that we ate separately on nights before game days.

 

That night, I could see a light in Vance's usually cold eyes, and I knew it wasn’t just owing to all the nightspeed talk. He was happy about his engagement. Truly happy. I knew that without a doubt. Vance could be a frigid asshole to acquaintances . . . and he usually was. But there was a tenderness that existed between him and Clarissa that was almost—did I dare think it?—magical.

 

“He loves you very much, doesn’t he?” My question interrupted yet another squabble between Clarissa and Lilith.

 

Clarissa started for a moment, then flushed pleasantly when she figured out who I was looking at. “Yes,” she said, her voice cracking on the word. “I really think he does. I’m a silly little schoolgirl about him, I know, but he treats me like royalty. The only terrible part of this whole arrangement is that I’ll have to wait so long to really marry him. But I plan on talking to Mummy over Christmas break, and I’m sure she’ll see my point of view. There’s no reason for me to finish school when—”

 

I dropped my spoon. It clattered loudly into my pewter soup bowl, sending up a splash of blood. “What do you mean?” I asked, very slow. “That you’d skip final year entirely?”

 

Clarissa said nothing, but she didn’t need to. I could see the resolve in her eyes.

 

“Clara, education is important. . . .”

 

“Maybe to you it is,” Clarissa said, with an airy wave of dismissal. “But darling Linnie, some of us have different priorities.”

 

There was no point in arguing. I knew that. Still, I ached inside in an entirely new way. Clarissa would give up a completed education, her Ivymoore degree, all for love. I thought about that. I thought about how I would never do something like that for Desmond. In fact, I couldn’t think of much of anything I would give up for him.

 

I reclaimed my spoon and mustered a feeble nod. “You’re right,” I told my sister. “I suppose we do. I’m . . . I’m just happy that you love him so much.”

 

Clarissa knew what I had left unsaid. We could both feel the unspoken words between us: unlike Lenora. It had been clear from the start that Lenora had no real love for Alistair Prescott. It had been her duty to marry him—their two families had practically arranged the union—and so she had. Sometimes I felt sorry for Alistair; he obviously felt more for Lenora than she did for him. Then again, Alistair was also a borderline sociopathic who had enjoyed terrorizing first years at Ivymoore as a pastime, so my sympathy didn’t extend too far.

 

And if I were fully honest, I would admit to my sister that my greatest worry was that I might repeat that same exact loveless scenario with Alistair’s younger brother, Desmond.

 

What’s wrong with you, Adaline? demanded my common sense. Your mind has been completely out of sorts this school year. Desmond is different. He cares about you, and you care about him, too. Soon, he’ll propose and all your stupid fears will be gone. Mother will stop breathing down your neck about marriage, and all will be as it should be.

 

Except. . . .

 

I hadn’t spoken or thought the words since that night in the library with Jack Sargent, but they came back to me now, unbidden:

 

I don’t want kids.

 

“Linnie. Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”

 

I looked up to find Lilith and Clarissa looking down at me.

 

“Um,” I said, stupidly.

 

“Clara and I are going back to the North Wing,” said Lilith. “Are you coming or not?”

 

Pushing aside thoughts about deep, dark confessions to warmblooded strangers, I nodded and hurried to collect my things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

The Sanguine League

 

“I still don’t see what makes you so much more special than us.” Lilith sat cross-legged in front of the vanity mirror, brushing her deep auburn hair. “Ivymoore should base club membership on looks. Clarissa and I would be shoe-ins.”

 

“I’ll be sure to mention that to Professor Rhodes,” I said, spritzing my neck and wrists with perfume, then checking my eyeliner in the mirror one final time.

 

“Why do you have to be so fancy?” Clarissa drawled from the bed, where she lay on her back, studying her perfectly manicured nails. “Not that I disapprove, of course. Every day is a new chance to overdress.”

 

“It’s the Sanguine League’s annual Christmas party.”

 

“But it’s November,” said Lilith.

 

“The professors don’t want the party to interfere with end of term exams." 

 

“Sanguine League,” snorted Lilith. “What a stupid name.”

 

“It wouldn’t be stupid if you were part of it,” pointed out Clarissa, who was still throwing the occasional barb at Lilith, even though their spat had officially ended a few days ago. “Then again, Vance says the meetings can get rather tedious.”

 

“I don’t think so,” I said, smoothing out the lines of my satin emerald dress. “The members are plenty interesting. The ones that aren’t too conceited to see past their own noses, that is.”

 

“What do you expect from a bunch of high-achievers?” asked Lilith. “Groveling humility?”

 

Clarissa scooted to the edge of the bed, eyes sparkling as she looked me over. “You look pretty, Linnie. That dress color really suits your eyes.”

 

I smiled shyly, glancing down at the deep emerald gown; I’d bought it expressly for this school year over the summer. “Think so?”

 

Clarissa nodded earnestly. Lilith gave a deprecating snort.

 

“Better watch yourself,” she said. “Those high-achieving boys will be salivating all over you, and then there’ll be a duel involving Prescott.”

 

“Very funny,” I said tonelessly. Then, out of nowhere, my mind brought up the image of Jack Sargent holding my hair back in a dirty toilet stall. I batted the memory away.

 

Lilith smirked. “Have fun for the two of us with your fancy friends, hm?”

 

I gave Lilith a wink and, with that, slipped out of the dormitory. I was running a little behind, but I was sure that Professor Rhodes, Ivymoore’s advisor to the Sanguine League, wouldn't mind. Due to my academic prowess, I had been a member of the Sanguine League since my first year at Ivymoore. Vance, too, was an esteemed member, as were the other top five percents of our classes . . . and a handful of other students with important parents who worked on the High Vampiric Council. At Ivymoore, the occasional nepotism was unavoidable.

 

Most of the league members were already gathered in the South Wing assembly room by the time I arrived. A warm, cinnamon scent wafted around me as I walked into the party. A few of the club members turned their heads and gave me polite nods. Vance caught my eye from the corner of the room, where he was chatting with two fellow members, and smiled politely; there was no doubt we’d meet up later. 

 

“Ah! Adaline, dear! There you are. I was beginning to despair. Thought you might have had better plans.”

 

Professor Rhodes came barreling toward me with hands outstretched from his expensive velvet robes. He had taught me Entrancement in both my first and second years, and naturally, I’d been his star pupil. He now beamed proudly at me over his spectacles. Though he still had a full head of jet-black hair, it had begun to thin and streak through with white. I smiled affectionately back at him, taking his outstretched hands in mine.

 

“What better plans could I possibly have?” I said cheerily. “You know it’s always an honor, professor.”

 

Professor Rhodes laughed appreciatively; this was clearly the answer he’d hoped for.

 

“You may notice that we have some new additions to our little party,” he said, nodding to a lithe, brown-haired boy by a darkened window. “Over there is Malcolm Rhys. Positively brilliant knack for entrancement. A veritable prodigy! And then, of course, you may be familiar with the chap there, by the fireplace. In your year.”

 

I followed Rhodes’ pointed finger toward the fireplace. Then I wished I hadn’t. My eyes locked with the young man standing there, and I instantly felt as though I’d been run through with an icy blade. It was a cruel cosmic joke. Would he keep showing up in every single crevice of my life?

 

Jack Sargent ripped his eyes away first, turning them instead to the punch in his hand. He murmured a monosyllabic reply to his conversation partner—a prettyish third year girl named Georgiana Harper who was rumored to be a complete minx. She was certainly living up to her reputation, chatting up Jack as though it were her profession.

 

Slag, I thought angrily, though not entirely sure of where that anger had come from. What did I care if a floozy was flirting with Jack Sargent?

 

More importantly, though, why was Jack Sargent even here?

 

As though he could hear my thoughts, Professor Rhodes supplied the answer.

 

“Phenomenal nightspeed racer, that one. I hear he’s received offers from some of the best professional teams out there, including the Dublin Hawks. Offers so early in the school year! And he’s a good student, to boot. You see, the university administration wanted a well-known athlete to join the league, as a sort of . . . facelift, you might call it. Some students have complained about the elitism of the club, you understand. We wanted to demonstrate that even star cyclists can make the cut.”

 

I nodded distractedly. “Mm, of course.”

 

“My, my. You look positively famished, my dear! Why not help yourself to some punch and hors d’oeuvres? Only the best the Ivymoore kitchens have to offer. We’ll just be mingling about. Make yourself at home.”

 

With that, Rhodes moved on to greet Jacob Nash, a third cousin to Quirinius, the Lord of the High Vampiric Council. I could think of no more reasonable course of action than to make my way to the refreshments table and load up a silver plate with finger foods. Vance met up with me by the punch bowl, offering to pour me a cup. I gratefully accepted the offer, my eyes drifting back again toward the fireplace, where a pretty raven-haired girl had joined the conversation with Georgiana and Jack. "Conversation" was a very polite word for it. The girls were practically throwing themselves on him. And why? He wasn’t well shaven; his golden hair looked like it had been blown back by a typhoon before he showed up; and his suit was wrinkled and clearly cheap.

 

Why? Because he’s still damned gorgeous underneath the muss. Admit it. I gulped, my hand shaking as Vance gave me the punch cup. Observant, he turned to see the cause for my distraction.

 

“Foul, isn’t it?” he said in a low voice. “It’s clear that Ivymoore prioritizes certain qualities over blood status, but I hardly think that the ability to stay atop a cycle should be one of them.”

 

“You think that’s the only reason he’s here?” I asked, still processing all that Professor Rhodes had told me earlier. “Because he’s the captain of the nightspeed team?”

 

“I don’t see how else, do you? He can’t be that good at academics. You were forced to tutor him in Advanced Bloodraughts, weren’t you?”

 

I grimaced. Professor Whitechapel had told me that, under normal circumstances, Jack was an excellent student. He had a good mind, and even I had seen that for myself while reading Jack’s paper. You simply didn’t make the prestigious Sanguine League unless you were an excellent student or had ties to power. And since the latter certainly wasn’t true of Jack. . . .

 

Yes, he was a good athlete, and Rhodes had as good as confessed that Jack had been handpicked for that reason. But Jack also must have done better in his other classes than he did in Bloodraughts.

 

From a distant place, I felt myself hoarsely repeat Vance's assessment: “Foul.”

 

“I’m only glad it’s a mingling party,” he said, “and not a roundtable dinner. Azazel forbid if we’d been sat next to the scum. Look at the fellow. Doesn’t even know how to properly dress himself. I wager his parents are peasants. Grind rocks for living, no doubt.”

 

I downed my punch in one go. I really wished it was spiked.

 

“Clara says she may go home with you for the holidays,” I said to Vance, desperate for a subject change. “I’m terribly jealous, you know. You can’t take her away like that, when you’ll have her for the rest of your life.”

 

I spoke with a light, joking lilt to my voice, but the truth was, I was in earnest. I was jealous of Vance. Soon, Clarissa would love him more than she loved me, her own sister. It was a plain but painful fact. Perhaps it had already happened. Clarissa was, after all, intent on spending Christmas with Vance, not the Aldridges. 

 

Vance studied his punch. “Is it too much of a crime to want the rest of my life to start now?”

 

“Of course it’s not,” I said softly. “It’s very sweet. It’s just that I miss her company when she’s not at Onyx House. I—I sleep better when she’s around.”

 

That was something of a dirty move, but it was true.

 

“Are you still having the bad dreams?” Vance asked, raising a brow in concern.

 

“The sleeping draughts help a little,” I said. “But I still get the nightmares at least once a week.”

 

Vance's brow furrowed. “Perhaps Clarissa was right: It could be some sort of curse.”

 

“No, it isn’t that. Believe me, Vance, I know charmwork well. I would be able to tell if it was a curse.”

 

“Then it’s the stress.”

 

“Must be. Except. . . .”

 

“Except what?”

 

I thought better of it. I shook my head.

 

“Nothing.”

 

Except that the dreams are the same. Except that a most curious golden-tufted linnet bird makes an appearance in every one of them.

 

Vance grunted in reply. Then he waved to another final year across the room.

 

“Would you excuse me?” he said, though he didn’t wait for me to respond. He was halfway across the room before I could open my mouth.

 

My gaze drifted around the room. All other league members were engaged in conversation, twittering and laughing and swapping stories. I could join any one of them if I wanted, but I’d suddenly lost the stomach for socializing. I eyed the balcony that led off of the assembly room, where a gentle snowfall had begun to tap against the glass doors. I looked around the room a final time before opening the balcony door and slipping out.

 

Cold wind rushed about me as I crossed to the stone railing, but I didn’t mind that. Like most proper vampires—true coldbloods—I preferred winter to summer, chill to warmth.

 

Stars shone bright overhead, allowed their full radiance by a new moon. I had always found comfort in looking overhead at night. To me, the Aldridge family seemed inextricably tied to the heavens. My father had told me long ago, when I’d been a very small girl, that Aldridges long dead and gone now lived up amongst those constellations, looking down on them. I wasn’t silly enough to believe that anymore, but it didn’t mean I didn't still find comfort in looking heavenward on moonless nights like this one.

 

Suddenly, the thick silence that had settled over me was rudely interrupted. The balcony door swung open, and the tall silhouette of a man appeared. The door slammed behind him, and I squinted to make out his features, but it was clear that he’d made out mine first.

 

“Shit. Of course it’s you.” Jack ran his hand through his impossibly messy hair. “Right. Before you charm my ass into oblivion or whatever, just calm down. I’ll leave.”

 

He turned around and made for the door.

 

“Wait.”

 

Jack’s hand stilled on the door handle, and he glanced back over his shoulder. I could barely see his face in the darkness. Perhaps mere curiosity was the reason for my suddenly generous mood.

 

“You don’t have to leave,” I said. “It isn’t like I own the balcony.”

 

“You sure about that?” Jack turned to face me fully. “The way you act, you’d think the Aldridges own the entire Isle of Man.”

 

I defensively crossed my arms. “I’m not a complete bitch, you know.”

 

Jack scratched at his cheek, and I noted with mortification that it was the same cheek I’d slapped only a few days ago.

 

“Or maybe I am,” I muttered, sinking down to the solitary stone bench on the balcony. “Not that it matters around you.”

 

“Mm. Yes. Because I don’t count.”

 

I studied Jack’s shadowy features. “What were you coming out here for, anyway?”

 

“Escape.” Jack puffed out a long breath. “I feel a little violated. It’s impressive how those two girls have mastered the art of eye shagging.”

 

I felt myself smiling, quite against my will. “I noticed. Found yourself a date for tonight, then?”

 

Jack crossed to the railing and leaned his forearms across it in a lazy sort of way. “Not my type.”

 

I had never thought of mortal-mades having types before. Didn’t they just have to accept what came at them? The leftovers that no one else wanted?

 

A long silence passed between us, minute turning into minute. I studied the rings on my fingers—one jade, one emerald, both heirlooms from my great-grandmother. I knew I should go back inside. The others would begin to wonder where I was. But everything within me rebelled against subjecting myself to small talk tonight, even if my company out here was none other than the odious Jack Sargent.

 

“Little underdressed for this weather, aren’t you?” Jack asked.

 

I glanced down at my thin-strapped dress and bare shoulders. I shrugged.

 

“I like the cold.”

 

“I bet you do.”

 

It was back in his voice—that laughing undertone. Jack straightened and backed away toward the balcony door.

 

“Well, it’s been a pleasure as always, but as I’m sure you’d prefer, I’ll make my exit.”

 

“Sargent.”

 

Jack froze. “Yeah?”

 

“I . . . I think I’m sorry.”

 

“You think you’re sorry?” Jack folded his arms, still standing on the threshold. “For what?”

 

“For slapping you.”

 

What are you doing, Adaline? screamed a tightly coiled part of my brain. He doesn’t deserve an apology. He’s nothing but filth, scum, a dirty fang—

 

I shut the voice up.

 

“Yes,” I said, with more certainty. “I’m sorry that I slapped you. It was unladylike of me and completely unprovoked. I should have behaved with more . . . decorum.”

 

“Uh. All right. Cheers.”

 

Jack made for the door again, but I let out an impatient, squeaking sort of sound. Jack stopped, this time with a loud sigh.

 

“What exactly do you want, Aldridge? I forgive you for your psycho outburst, okay? Does that assuage your guilty conscience?”

 

I bit my lower lip, frustrated. What was wrong with me? Why didn’t I want Jack to leave? Didn’t I want to be alone? Didn’t I want to never set eyes on this stupid warmblood again?

 

“Not really,” I said, weakly.

 

“Then what? Do you want me to give you a reason to slap me?”

 

“I don’t know,” I said, dropping my arms and getting to my feet. “Maybe I do.”

 

It happened in an instant. One moment, I was standing by the bench and he at the door. The next, he was crossing the balcony in long strides until there was a sudden, alarming lack of air between the two of us. And then his hands were on my bare shoulders, and I could smell the scents of fresh ink and of musk.

 

I was having trouble breathing. Most likely because idiotic Jack Sargent was sucking in all the surrounding oxygen supply.

 

“So, something like this? Is that enough to warrant a slap?” Jack inched his unnaturally warm pinky across a portion of my ice-cold shoulder, sending a tremor through my arm.

 

“I hear nasty things happen when mortal-mades touch bluebloods,” Jack went on. “Allergic reactions. Rashes. Fits. In extreme cases, sudden death. I’m exposing you to the most acute danger right now.”

 

I gritted my teeth. “You’re mocking me,” I said, my voice more unsteady than I would have liked.

 

“How forbearing you are to even remain in the same vicinity!” Jack went on. “I’m surprised that you and your friends haven’t started a little club to have all of us warmbloods rounded up and booted off this island. Or would you like for us to work as your servants? But no, not even the kitchens would be good enough for us. Wouldn’t want to risk food contamination.”

 

“Don’t be so utterly ridiculous,” I said. “I’m not afraid of you touching me. The only real danger comes from—”

 

I faltered.

 

Jack’s gaze probed mine—deep brown and curious. Despite the chill, his hands were warm on my shoulders, just as they had been that night at the Mahogany Coffin. They were rough, too, no doubt from handling a cycle for years on end. Clarissa and Lenora would be traumatized if they saw me like this, so close to a man like him.

 

So why wasn’t I moving?

 

“The only real danger,” Jack repeated. “It comes from . . . what? If you say from snogging, Adaline Aldridge, I’m going to laugh for an hour straight.”

 

Anger flashed through me. “You think it’s all a big joke, don’t you? That’s your problem, Sargent. You’ve no reverence for tradition, for bloodlines, for a right or proper way of doing things. Don’t you see it? The fundamental difference between you and me? Or are you willfully arrogant?”

 

The wind picked up, swirling flecks of fresh snow in our direction. Jack smiled the smallest of smiles. He brushed a forefinger just above my eye, and I attempted to rein in yet another tremor.

 

“Snowflake in your eyelash,” he explained, drawing his finger away. “And please, explain to me this fundamental difference. I’ve never been up close and personal enough to a purist to hear a proper dissertation on the subject.”

 

“I was born a vampire.” The words came easily to me, as natural as a recitation of my full name or the mailing address of Onyx House. They were just as practiced, and just as factual. “Generations of vampires preceded me, and their cold, vampiric blood runs through my veins. But you’ve been made. Bitten by one of the unregistered vampires. You’re the product of an outlaw’s unchecked appetite. You’ve no history, no valor, no nobility to claim for you own. Really, you’re just a mistake. A fluke.”

 

“So,” Jack said softly, “you think it’d be better if I never existed.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “It sounds crude when you put it that way, but . . . yes. I suppose it would have been better had you not been born.”

 

Jack stepped back, away from me, and a sudden cold rushed into my bones. I hadn’t realized how warm his hands had been keeping my shoulders until now.

 

“It’s pure and simple fact,” I said, unsure of why I felt suddenly panicked. “I don’t say it to hurt you. In fact, I daresay I’m not so bad as you think I am.”

 

“No,” said Jack. “You really do believe it. I see that now.”

 

“Of course I believe it,” I said. “I’m not a sophist. I wouldn’t support ideals that I didn’t believe. Though there are some difficulties. . . .”

 

Jack arched a brow. “Difficulties?”

 

“Well, you, for one. I’ve always understood that mortal-mades have subpar levels of intelligence, but I’ve seen your work. You’re intelligent. That’s why you’re here, at a Sanguine League party. And I know that warmbloods should have inferior physique, but I’ve seen you ride a cycle at nightspeed matches. No one else on the track can control a cycle like you can. It can be . . . difficult to reconcile those facts with what I know to be true.”

 

“How difficult, indeed.” Jack was smiling at me in a very particular way. Unlike most of his smiles, this one had no humor in it. “Meanwhile, you’re your own little paradox. You’re as bigoted as you are brilliant.”

 

I started. “You . . . think I’m brilliant?”

 

No one my own age had ever called me brilliant. Clarissa called me a silly workaholic, and Lilith warned me that one should always choose looks over books. Once, a few months into dating, Desmond had informed me that intelligence was not an attractive quality in a female. We had quarreled over the remark, and though we had later made amends, I knew that Desmond had not changed his opinion on that matter.

 

“Brilliant, egotistical, gorgeous, prejudiced, independent,” Jack counted the adjectives off, finger by finger. “I think all apply.”

 

I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to slap Jack a couple more times for calling me egotistical. But gorgeous? No one called me that either. Clarissa was the gorgeous one, all flowing blond locks and porcelain skin and stark blue eyes. Lenora was sensually beautiful—thick black hair and a perpetual sultry smile. I had always been the passably pretty one. Like my sisters, I’d inherited a patrician profile, all aristocratic swoops and angles. But my face never seemed to swoop and angle quite enough to qualify as beautiful, let alone gorgeous.

 

Suddenly, something occurred to me: “You’re flirting.”

 

Jack smiled serenely. “That’s a definite possibility.”

 

“You can’t.”

 

Jack squinted. “I think I just did.”

 

“No. You simply can’t.”

 

“Why can’t I? It isn’t like Prescott owns you.”

 

“Of course he doesn’t,” I snapped. “But even if he and I weren’t perfectly happy, you still couldn’t talk to me that way. It’s so utterly preposterous.”

 

“I like preposterous,” Jack said. “Preposterous is fun.”

 

I could feel my cold heart speeding up—thumpity-thump-thump. “No, it isn’t. I don’t know why I’m even still talking to you.”

 

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know why either. Maybe you think it’s fun too.”

 

“God, you’re impossible,” I groaned. “I’m going back inside.”

 

That was when reality hit me like an unforgiving slab of iron.

 

Why hadn’t I thought of it before? There was no possible way that Jack and I could walk back inside now without raising suspicions. It had been just the two of us on the balcony. People would talk.

 

How could I have been so stupid as to let him stay out here with me this long?

 

“No,” I groaned. “Oh, no, no, no. Oh fuck.”

 

Jack stared uncomfortably at me, scratching behind his ear. “Something wrong?”

 

I touched my fingers to the eyelid Jack had brushed moments earlier. Then I retched, as though I’d just ingested a piece of mortal food.

 

Jack shifted his weight, looking more uncomfortable than ever. “I don’t have any communicable fanger diseases, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

 

He laughed a short laugh, but it was unsteady and frayed. Was it possible? He sounded . . . nervous. He even sounded sad.

 

But I had more important things to worry about.

 

“I’m screwed,” I moaned, pounding a fist to my forehead. “I am so screwed. Don’t you get it?” I gestured helplessly toward the doors. “We’ve been gone for practically hours! They’re bound to have noticed.”

 

“Oh,” Jack said, after a quiet moment. “You think someone will realize we were out here.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Together.”

 

“Of course that’s what I think!” I whisper-shouted. “That’s what everyone will think!”

 

“For fifteen minutes.”

 

“What?”

 

“We haven’t been out here for more than fifteen minutes. What kind of damage will people think we’ve done in a quarter of an hour?”

 

I glowered. “Plenty of damage! Ten minutes is enough for anything to happen. Enough to snog, enough to—shag even!”

 

Jack made a face. “Azazel, what an uncomfortable place to shag.”

 

I was fuming. How could he be so utterly unconcerned? He wasn’t doing anything to help the situation. He was just scratching his stupid, perfectly formed ear.

 

“Aren’t you listening to me?” I growled. “This is a real problem!”

 

“Look,” said Jack. “I doubt much of anyone was paying attention when either of us stepped out. People can assume I left the party for good. You, meanwhile, have been out on the balcony for some stargazing. Alone.”

 

Jack fiddled with something at his wrist. Then I felt something hard and heavy in my hand, and I realized that Jack was handing me his watch.

 

“The only catch,” he said, “is that you return this to me tonight, after the party’s over. Meet me outside the South Wing dormitories?”

 

“What the—?”

 

“I can transform my clothes, but not my belongings. Idiotic rules, but I don’t make them.”

 

“W-w-what rules?” I sputtered, utterly confused.

 

Jack winked at me. Then he was gone.

 

I shrieked.

 

He had vanished. Simply vanished.

 

He couldn’t have duskstrode; students were not allowed to do so on Ivymoore grounds. Had he drunk an invisibility draught? No. That was impossible too. I’d been watching him this entire time.

 

“Miss Aldridge?”

 

I staggered back as the balcony doors flew open, and Professor Rhodes emerged with a handful of students behind him.

 

“Heavens!” Rhodes cried, clutching at his necktie. “That was a ghastly shriek. Are you quite alright? Or are the cellar bats causing a ruckus? They’re particularly rowdy around the holidays.”

 

I shook my head. “N-n-no.” Then I thought better of it. How else was I going to explain my shriek? “I mean . . . yes. Yes, it was some cellar bats. They gave me a terrible fright, but I’m perfectly fine now.”

 

Vance stepped out from behind Rhodes, offering me his arm. I accepted it distractedly; my mind was still a whirl, wondering how Jack Sargent could’ve possibly vanished into thin air.

 

It wasn’t humanly possible.

 

It wasn’t vampirically possible.

 

Then again, I wouldn’t have thought it would be possible that I, Adaline Aldridge of the House of Aldridge, would ever let a no-name fanger brush a snowflake from my eyelash.

 

Impossible things did happen.

 

 

❧

 

 

“Surprisingly keen student, Malcolm Rhys, once you get past the surplus of facial acne. Did you have a chance to speak to him?”

 

I’d attempted to finish out the Christmas party with as carefree an attitude as I could muster, but I had a feeling I wasn’t all that convincing. I was grateful when, before the last of the students left the assembly room, Vance offered to escort me back to the North Wing dormitories. On our way, Vance prattled on about the night’s events, while I nodded and smiled occasionally, supplying answers when they were absolutely necessary. It was moments like these that I wished Clarissa were around so that Vance could dote on her instead. I didn’t want to talk about a second year Entrancement prodigy; I wanted to dive under the covers of my four-poster and try to sort out exactly what had passed between me and Jack Sargent on that balcony.

 

How in Azazel’s purgatory had he vanished before my eyes?

 

“Adaline.”

 

“Hm?”

 

I looked up to find that Vance and I had reached the North Wing sitting room. Vance looked slightly irritated with me.

 

“Sorry,” I said, blinking rapidly. “I haven’t been all there tonight. A lot on my mind.”

 

Vance nodded, but considering he already looked bored with my apology, I didn’t take the trouble of elaborating.

 

“I’ll let Clara know you’re back,” I said, before disappearing down the tapestry-lined hallway that led to the dormitories.

 

❧

 

“Vance is waiting for you.”

 

Clarissa leapt off her bed the moment I made the announcement, casting her gothic novel aside as though it were little more than scrap paper. She gave me a brief peck on the cheek before flying out the door and down the hall. Lilith chortled and returned to filing her nails.

 

“Have fun with the brainiacs?” she asked in a singsong voice.

 

“Ever so much,” I muttered. “I’m tired. Going to bed early.”

 

Within ten minutes, I had settled under the covers of my bed and drawn the curtains shut so that I could better think. Jack had asked me to meet him after the party, outside the South Wing dormitories. I wasn’t about to do that, though. I was . . . tired. That, I decided, would be the excuse I gave Jack the next day in Advanced Bloodraughts: I’d been too fatigued to meet up.

 

He could do without his wristwatch for one night. What I couldn’t do without was sorting through precisely what had transpired on that balcony.

 

Jack Sargent had called me gorgeous. He had called me brilliant, independent. He had called me all those things even after I’d vomited blood on his fish and chips, after he’d held back my hair in a toilet stall, after I’d chewed him out and threatened him with dark charms on multiple occasions.

 

Why?

 

A strange chill rattled through me at the remembrance of the way he’d said those words—and in that atrociously uncouth accent. He hadn’t had an upper class upbringing, whoever his mortal parents were. It was clear that he was from somewhere northern. Yorkshire, most likely, by the sounds of it. His vowels were rough around the edges, not rounded and well-formed like a proper aristocrat’s. The way he had said “independent” made it sound so commonplace, so prosaic, so—

 

Sexy.

 

I shot up in bed, my long, thick hair straggling into my eyes. I brushed it back impatiently, shaking my head as though mere force could rid my mind of the word it had formed.

 

Whatever he was, Jack Sargent was certainly not sexy.

 

Oh, come off it, Linnie, said a taunting voice in my head. You can at least grant him that. Pretending you didn’t notice how well built his arms are, or the way his abs peeked through his stupidly unbuttoned shirt, back in that Advanced Bloodraughts class in September. And what about the tattoo of his? You wonder what the rest of it looks like. You wonder how many more he has covering his body, in all the places you’re not allowed to look. You won’t even admit that his eyes are the color of cocoa.

 

You know how much you love cocoa. . . .

 

“No,” I growled. “His eyes are the color of dirt!”

 

“Talking in your sleep, Linnie, sweet?” called Lilith.

 

“Mind your own business,” I snapped, falling back against my pillow, wiping fiercely at my eyes.

 

What was wrong with me? How could a stupid boy like Jack Sargent affect me so much? He’d probably been toying with me for fun, out on that balcony, and here I was obsessing over him like a schoolgirl.

 

All the while, I had a boyfriend.

 

Desmond.

 

Yes. Yes! Desmond, think about him. Remember him? Your boyfriend of over a year? The one you’re going to marry? The one that’s already bought a ring?

 

The one who’s taking ages to propose? The one who doesn’t want me to have a future outside of his country estate? Who thinks my brains are my least attractive feature?

 

I really had to stop thinking like this. What I needed to do was spend more time with Desmond. That was the solution. I needed to remind myself why I was very happy with Desmond Prescott, and why Jack Sargent was some bizarre, temporary hormonal fixation. I would return Jack’s watch in class tomorrow, Desmond would propose soon, and that would be the end of it.

 

Thoughts finally sorted, I let out a sigh of determination. Then I closed my eyes.

 

That night, for the first time in a full a week, the nightmares returned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8

Secrets & Stipulations

 

The snow caught in my lashes, clinging stubbornly, as I looked up to an ink-black sky. I could hear the song of the linnet—slow, sure, and sweet—but I could not catch sight of its golden feathers.

 

At my back, a clock began to chime the midnight hour.

 

Clang.

 

I continued to squint into the snowy sky, desperate. I had been gripped by an unshakable conviction: If I did not find the linnet before the clock struck twelve, a horrible fate would befall both it and me.

 

Clang.

 

But the snowfall was so dense and the night so dark.

 

“Where are you?” I cried out.

 

The linnet sang on.

 

Clang.

 

“Where are you?” I called again.

 

Clang.

 

I wiped away the snow that had gather upon my face.

 

Then I looked to my hands.

 

And that was when I saw: they were not wet with snow, but with blood.

 

❧

 

Jack wasn’t in class that morning. I glanced back at least three times during Professor Whitechapel’s rather bleak lecture on restorative draughts, expecting each time to find that insufferably unkempt hair in my sightline.

 

I never did.

 

It wasn’t unusual for Jack to arrive late to class—a trait I found exceedingly obnoxious—so I hadn’t been bothered at first. It was only when Professor Whitechapel assigned our next big paper and dismissed class that I began to worry.

 

But no. “Worry” was the wrong word. I wasn’t worried about Jack Sargent. I just wanted to be rid of his wristwatch, and he was making the task far more difficult than need be by not showing up for class.

 

At lunchtime, on my way to the dining hall, I could feel the outline of the brass watch face and leather straps in my pocket, pressing against my side, as though it were burning a veritable hole through the fabric. It was dreadfully inconvenient to be carrying around something that wasn’t mine and, Azazel forbid, if anyone found the watch on me, the questions they would ask. . . .

 

“Aldridge.”

 

A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, and I yelped, even as the hand gently gripped and drew me into a dimly lit alcove in the corridors. My heart sped up, my throat tightened. Azazel, how did my hair look?

 

It wasn’t Jack, though.

 

I found myself staring up at a face I didn’t recognize: blunt features, curly red hair, a scar running up his cheek. He was a tall, burly man that I would have pegged for a third year at least. And there was color in his cheeks—a dead giveaway that he was a warmblood.

 

“Sargent said you had his watch,” he said. 

 

I must have taken too long in answering, because the redhead snorted in impatience and held out his hand.

 

“His watch?” he pressed. "I said I’d get it back for him. Believe me, I don’t want to be talking to you any more than you do with me. So just hand it over, and we’ll be done with this little transaction.”