“That so?” He starts down the stairs, one step at a time.
“Needing blood to keep your demonblood magic going.”
“Blood and sex,” he says, “so maybe I should sample what you were sampling back there with Mia?”
Heat rises to my face. “Keep your fucking mitts off her.”
“She doesn’t belong to you.”
“Maybe she doesn’t belong to anybody, ever think about that?” I ask. “No, right? Because you vampires think the world belongs to you, because you think you can enslave—”
“What are you talking about?” He’s still taking the stairs one step at a time, probably just to piss me off more. “If you think that I—”
“I think nothing. Forget it.”
“Jax—”
“I said forget it,” I say. “Where the hell are we going? Where are Emrys and Sindri?”
“Want to see them?” After an eternity, we reach the bottom of the stairs. “I thought you weren’t into the boy band idea.”
“God dammit, Ash—”
“Listen...” As I blink at him, my mouth still open to continue my tirade, he goes on, “Can we stop arguing for a minute? I can’t…”
He stops and I stop, too, frowning at him. When he grabs at me, I step back. “The fuck is wrong with you, D’Aube?”
“…need to sit…” His face is white like paper.
Fuck.Blood is running down his thigh, bright red, and I know I did that; I reopened his wound when I slammed him into the wall, and I shouldn’t care.
“Jax,” he breathes, swaying on his feet.
I have a stake to kill vampires with, dammit. What do I care if he bleeds to death or if he can’t take another step? I could walk away, leave him here to bleed out. One less vampire in the world would be a blessing. Though he probably won’t die, someone will find him and—
“Motherfucker,” I grumble, mostly to myself. I’m already by his side, wrapping an arm around him, holding him up. “Come on.”
No fucking clue why I’m doing this. I don’t give a shit about Ronan Ashton. We always went our separate ways and until Mia arrived, we’d barely exchanged ten words in our years here. I knew he existed, obviously, and my wolves clashed many times with his vamps, but that was all. I was aware of him.
Very aware, but that means nothing. It wasn’t the way I’m aware of him now, the thick padding of powerful muscle in his arms and torso as I help him limp along the path toward our dormitories, the scent of his skin, cool water over rocks and wintry spice.
Since when do I notice how a guy smells, how a guy feels?Jesus fuck. And why does it feel similar to the way I was aware of Mia as we kissed?
I’m not into guys. Fuck to the no. Never was and never will be. The hard-on I’m still rocking is because of kissing Mia. That’s all.
No, noticing Ashton means nothing at all.
Other students’gazes follow us across the yard as I drag Ashton’s sorry ass toward the boys’ dormitories. “Christ on a stick, Ash. Tell me how the fuck to help. Except for letting you bite me. Not letting you bite me, are we clear on that?”
“Crystal,” he grinds out.
“Good, as long as that’s out of the way.”
“But I need to feed—”
“Goddammit,” I growl. “What did I just say?”
“—because yeah, vampires run high on demonblood and blood demands blood.”