Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“You—!” Slicing myself off, I took a deep breath before Sabrina squeezed it out of me. Meeting his eyes, I beamed in his face. “You’re right, of course you shouldn’t have to waste your time with his lies. But...” I heaved a sigh. “It’s a shame the leech will get the last laugh.”
Ronin paused turning away.
“Yep, yep, yep,” I said mournfully, “he’s going to make all us demons look a right damn fool.”
Eyes narrowing to slits, Ronin turned back. “Explain.”
“Well, every test and assignment is going to demand his lies as the correct answer. And if we refuse to give that answer, it gives him the perfect excuse to fail a class full of demons on the subject of their own history.” I shook my head. “Bet he’ll enjoy it too.”
Ronin’s lips peeled back from his teeth. Flicking off me, he glared at Radu who was kicking back in his desk chair with his hands behind his head—smoking his afterlife away.
Radu looked back at him... and winked.
“Rewrite it,” Ronin demanded, smacking my notebook against my chest. “Every word.”
“Of—”
Ronin strode away.
“—course.”
I dropped my smile the second he hit the door. “Jerk.”
Gathering my stuff, I glanced at the schedule I copied in the front of my book, and then glanced at my watch. As suspected, Radu let us out way early—which gave me some time to continue my search for Dora.
I touched my cheek. “Goodness, this smarts.” I drew my hand back. “And I’m still bleed—”
“Don’t!”
“—ing.”
“You fool!” Sabrina cried. “Say you’re not bleeding! Say you’re not—!”
Wham!
A force like a pickup truck slammed into me, blowing me off my feet.
I crashed spine-first into the table behind me and crumpled on the floor, my back singing with pain. Wha— What was—?
The force of Radu’s hit sent him tumbling head over heels over the desk and crashing into the chairs. Snarling, he thrashed against the wood and chair limbs—furiously tearing at the tangled cardigan that entrapped him. Through the chaos, our eyes met—
—and I screamed.
White eyes dyed pure, soul-sucking black turned his orbs into mirrors. Angry purpling veins cut fissures in his once perfect, unmarred skin. Dripping, dagger-tipped fangs sprouting from a maw of razor-sharp teeth. It was right then I knew that I’d been tricked. Lucifer could not be what the legends and stories described... because the true face of the devil was before me.
“Say it!” Sabrina shouted.
“It— It’s not—!”
I blinked, and his shadow consumed me. Balancing hands and feet on both tables, Radu bore over me like the winged specter of death.
“It’s not—!”
Another blink and he was on me, crushing life and breath out of my chest. Panic blotted out my senses as he grabbed my head and shoulders, and snapped them apart—exposing my neck.
“—b-blood,” I wheezed. “I’m n-not... bleeding!”
He stilled.
“I’m not bleeding,” I screeched—heart pounding in my ears. “I was just k-kidding— Please... let me go.”
Radu stared at me. The inky blackness that flooded his eyes the second he went on the attack, reflected my sweating, terrified visage. “But... but you said...” His voice was a low, dreamy hiss as if he was coming out of a trance. “You said you were... bleeding,” he growled. “And for a second you smelled so...” Radu salivated, dripping burning saliva on my face. “Good.”
“But I wasn’t!” Throwing out my arms, I knocked him off and scrambled away.
He followed my retreat like a hunter tracks a deer.
“It— It was just a joke, like I said,” I huffed out, still scooting back. “You know us demons.” I forced a shaky laugh. “Joking about bleeding around a leech? Too funny. Just too—” I blinked and he blurred. A sob clawed up my throat as he stuck his face in mine. “—funny.”
“Are you sure?” Drool soaked his chin and dripped onto my pants. Radu fixed on my inky-black-blood-covered face with pinpoint focus. “You can’t be sure— We must be sure—” he whispered, reaching for my cheek. “Let me taste, just in—”
“No,” Sabrina blared. “What he’s seeing and smelling is just an illusion, human! If he tastes it, he’ll know it’s real blood, and you’ll be dead before you can scream.”
Terror punched through the sob, and released my voice. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I blurted. “We both know vampires aren’t loved around here, and if I had to guess, you fought tooth, nail, and fang to get this position. So what’s going to happen if it gets around that you’re preying and perving on a demon student?”
His slim, seeking fingers froze in mid-air.
Emboldened, I scooted back farther. “You’re not going to throw everything away just to confirm the putrid sludge leaking out of my body really is putrid sludge, so let’s just...” I slowly got to my feet. “...end this here.”
I took another step, then another to the door.
Radu didn’t follow me, but I didn’t take my eyes off of him—not even to blink—as I ascended the stairs and reached behind me for the door.