Xero sighed. “You should listen to Jayce. If they think you’re hiding anything, they won’t hold back. It would be a lot easier if you just cooperated.”
“I’m not a fan of easy,” Kai snapped. “I’m going to go back to my room. Have fun.”
Damn it. I shot a subtle glance at him out of the corner of my eye, already dreading the moment when he would break away from our group to return to his dorm room. A little piece of my soul would go with hi
m, and I hated that fact.
My relationship with the moody vampire was complicated as fuck. He didn’t want the bond between us, and because I hated being bonded to someone who barely even liked me, I tried not to want it either.
But it was hard to separate what my mind wanted from what my soul needed.
We were ten feet from the fork in the hall where we would part ways when Sonja and her cronies stepped out in front of us.
“Oh, look, the criminal crusade has been released. I thought for sure they would have hanged you all by now.”
The big girl on her right and the little blonde on her left smirked at us. The morose girl with the mirror-gray eyes simply looked on, blank-faced.
“Get out of our way.” I gritted my teeth, my blood pressure spiking immediately.
Sonja stepped forward and exploded into her demon form. Mottled gray and red skin stretched over bulging muscles, twisted black horns broke through her fiery hair, her teeth extended into long black fangs, and the whites of her eyes went dark as night. Fire danced over the claws on her fingertips, ready to fry everything in front of her. Even her friends backed up a few steps, glancing at her warily.
I grinned. Shifting into my own fire-engine red demon form, I met her toe-to-toe. She swung first, her flaming hand sketching a comet trail in the dim light.
Bring it, bitch. My muscles were already bunching, preparing to launch toward her, and I didn’t even bother to raise a hand to block the blow. I wanted her to hit me. I wanted her to trigger an uncontrollable burst of pure rage.
But she never connected. At the last second, I was tossed aside by a massive gray and purple form.
“Damn it, Xero!”
“It’s not worth it,” he said firmly as he picked me up around my waist and flung me over his purple shoulder. “We’ll go the other way.”
“That’s right, cowards!” Sonja yelled, her voice raspy and deep in her demon form. “Run away! You’ll need the practice after Toland dumps your ass in a fallen-infested swamp!”
She and her friends cackled as Xero carried me down the hallway. The other guys kept pace with him as I groaned and shifted back into my human form.
“Is this absolutely necessary?” I asked his back. My loose, dark-brown hair hung in a curtain from my upside-down head, sweeping side to side gently as he walked.
“Apparently,” Xero said wryly. “We’re trying to stay out of trouble, remember?”
“Ah, damn it. But I want to kick her ass,” I whined.
“Later.” I could feel the rumble of his voice in my chest and stomach. “After you’re no longer under suspicion for treason and murder, maybe.”
“Ugh. Fair enough.” I glanced from side to side, trying to get a good view of the hallway. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. There are stairs up ahead, and I think we’ll be able to get to the library’s second level if we go up. And Kai can make it back to his bedroom if he still wants to.”
“He does.”
I couldn’t see Kai’s face, but I could practically hear him rolling his eyes.
“What’s with you lately?” I asked Kai, craning my neck to look at him. “You’ve been pissed off all day.”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Why? Did you already forget where we are? Fuck this place.”