My pulse pounds against my sternum, I’m certain he can hear it. His defined face fixes into a scowl, his jaw working as he traces his eyes, those treacherous grey eyes, over my face. The blade pushes into my pulse point, he teases it, releasing and increasing the pressure with each breath I take in.

But we’re not quite there yet, so let’s take it back, shall we?

I breathe in the scent I’ve missed endlessly—pine trees and lavender, courtesy of Miss Mercury’s insistence that the students be surrounded by Floristry. While I fully support her claims that it increases well-being, the constant sneezing of others has begun to drive me insane.

I have science first. At Schwartz for the supernatural academy, they believe even the undead need their basic education.

Though Science means more than microbiomes and mitochondria, it means, the time it took for venom to work its way to each cell.

I slip my clothes on, appreciating that the girls here could wear trousers, but today, it felt like a skirt day, and with the work I put into these quads? You better believe I’m going to be showing them off.

I nod at Marissa and Bill guarding the science block. The academy has been under much tighter security lately, and the witches have cast protection shields around the entire perimeter.

Humans have found us, hunters specifically, though we live in harmony, with no deaths to count dating back twenty years and our blood supply coming from hybrid vampires, and blood banks, they still loathe us. The age-old hatred.

I slink into my seat, searching for my cheerful little—her words—sidekick.

“Okay class, so as you know we covered cell division last week. Based on feedback from a few of you, we’re going to delve a little deeper to prepare for end-of-year tests.”

“Hey Mina, how are you feeling?” Sarah asks, slotting in beside me.

“All good, these witches have this on lockdown, we’ll be fine.”

Her brows scrunch, “You didn’t hear? Miss Pelova was.” She looks around to see if anyone is watching—pointless—at least five vampires are surrounding us. “Staked, on school grounds.”

My immediate gasp draws the attention of everyone in the room, including him. His mere glance my way sending my non-existent heart on a rampage.

Nate Harwick.

We grew up as kids together, he lived in Ravenmoor my hometown. We’d been so close, getting our first fang together, our first kill.

It was my fifteenth birthday, a special one as a young female vampire.

I’d invited Nate to the castle, I waited for hours that night. He never showed. And when we returned to school, he stopped talking to me entirely.

I confronted him, asked him what I’d possibly done wrong, given the fact that we’d never once argued. I was met with silence, a coldness I’d never received from him and one that froze my heart from that day on. It’s been five years, and we haven’t spoken since.

His eyes haze over with something I recognise, something I hadn’t seen in a long time.

Break begins as it reaches midnight and down the hallway I catch a couple of hushed voices coming from Mrs Drevana, and Mr Fenrick.

“We can’t, it makes us just as bad as them.” Mrs Drevana shrieks in a tone she only uses when she’s furious.

“So you want us to just sit back and allow these kids to be staked? We don’t have the manpower. Do you know how many of them there are now? Over 2000 of them came over from Thornstead. These aren’t teenagers these are Marines.”

“I’m aware Carl, but I’ve known some of these kids since babies, I couldn’t do that to any of them.”

“I won’t argue with you anymore. It ends tonight.”

There’s silence and my pulse thumps harder in anticipation.

“You step a foot out of place and watch what happens, do not test me.”

Ice trickles down my spine, the two voices becoming muffled. Smoky amber seeps towards me. I don’t have to turn.

Nate.

He moves in front of me, darting towards the door. He tilts his head, honing in on the conversation inside. Why is he listening? He’s never bothered himself with the drama of the academy before.

My eyes skirt to the vein in his neck, prominent and protruding, we’ve evolved as vampires, we don’t have hearts but a wiring system that pumps the venom around our bodies. His is rampant. The wrath radiating off of him reaches me.

I find his gaze and with that a look I can’t decipher within it, his usually clear grey eyes now stormy, troubled. My eyes move to his chest, his thermal compressing the muscle beneath it, what has him this ramped up? What does he know? His father Vincent is a board member at the academy. I’d go to dinners and his father was always secretive about everything, I doubt he would even tell Nate’s mother a word of what was going on.

At least a foot taller, he looks down at me, his grey eyes penetrating, and unforboding.

“What do you know, Mina?” His voice is lethal, and my stomach churns in warning to retreat immediately.

“What?”

He remains expressionless, unimpressed.

I feel my temper increasing. This is what he says to me? Really? After five years of cutting me off without even an explanation.

I turn on my heel, untrusting of myself to be in such proximity to him. I reach the ladies and no sooner is he in front of me before I reach the door.

“Answer the question.”

“This isn’t the gents, sunshine. Back off, I owe you nothing.” I spit.

My words have no effect, his steady gaze intact, he folds his arms across himself, an act of defiance.

“It’s in your best interest to be truthful, trust me.”

You would question if I’m a witch not a vampire with the cackle that erupts from me. ”Trust! Trust you? Okay, you’ve lost it, get out of my way Nate, I mean it.”

I’m baffled, What does he possibly think I know? And why does it matter if I do know something?

My curiosity begins to outweigh the need to cut him off just as harsh and brutal as he did to me. It doesn’t help that a stupid, idiotic, and insane part of me misses him. But that feeling can stay shoved down deep.

I somehow manage to twist around his abnormally large frame, and slot into the first cubicle.

“You think I won’t come in there?”

“Dunno, do you have a shred of decency left within you?”

By some witch magic, that he probably bedded for the info, he manages to undo the lock.

His steps toward me are purposeful, the sound amplified by every marble surface surrounding us.

“I don’t have time for this, tell me the

truth.“

“I only got there halfway through the conversation. Just that Stella ‘couldn’t do that to us’ and that Carl said they ‘didn’t have a choice’ .That’s the truth.”

“That's all you heard?” He questions in disbelief.

I nod my innocence and with that, he seems to have what he needs, he turns sharply out of the stall.

I sense Sarah, by both emotion and scent, her strawberry milk perfume is a welcome comfort. I veer round the corner to find her stunned expression. “You have no idea.” Shaking my head I grab her hand to lead her to the dorms.

“Girl what? What do you think’s going on?”

“I have no clue but it’s far from good, I could feel both of their fury, but the fear, nearly choked me. Something bad is happening, soon.”

Sarah’s worried expression squeezes my heart and I grasp her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

“Worst comes to worst we have each other's backs, we’ll protect each other. And if we have to run we just run, I know you love it here, but no turning back.”

I wake up groggy, feeling as though yesterday’s events were something my mind had dredged up in some pathetic attempt to rehash the past.

Something itches the back of my neck, and I know that when my other senses awaken I'm not alone, I force my gaze to the armchair in the right corner of my room.

My, at this point, nemesis.

His gaze is stormy once again, conflicted.

“Why are you here?” I question with coldness, a stupid part of me feeling bad for using the tone with him, but five years, yeah. I hold the right to be a little snappy.

“What did you dream of?” His voice is softer than yesterday, a gentleness that almost disarms me.

“That kind of question is reserved for people who are close to me.” I channel every ounce of rage so that he feels it.

We have good eyes as vampires, even in the dim lighting, I could still see his ridiculously handsome face clearly. His lips twitch and I believe my wrath stuns him for a moment.

He lifts from the chair, moving achingly slow towards me. Why is he suddenly talking to me now, What’s changed?

“I have to be careful, I can’t-.” He moves to kneel by my bedside , glancing around the space as if someone is here with us.

There’s a gentleness in his expression that just about erases everything I’m angry at him for, damn him and that face.

“Can’t what?” I almost whisper, beginning to share his fear that we’re being listened to.

“Hold on.”

He steps out of the doorway, I hear a few footsteps before he comes back in, locking the door behind him quietly. He surveys the gardens out of my window, satisfied we’re alone he retreats to his previous position.

“Mina I can’t begin-“ he looks away, immensely ashamed.

“Okay, I can’t explain to you why I stopped speaking to you that day. If you know, Mina, you’re dead.” He stops to survey my face, for what I have no idea, how could this make sense to anyone?

“Something has to happen, and at that point, I’ll tell you everything. But you’re safer not to know. Please, this is a big ask, but trust me.”

I nod wordlessly, not knowing what else to say, assuming anything more that he said, would endanger us both.

He leans closer, his body warmth reaching me in a way my triple plush duvet on a winter's night, could never. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” His face is inches from mine, his scent turning my limbs to liquid. I can’t be this weak for him, not this soon, he’s barely uttered a few sentences to me and no sooner am I at his feet.

A thundering crash sounds in the hallway, alarmed, my head whips to the door, though what’s more alarming is the calm on Nate’s face, what’s he done, has he been planning this the entire time? Disarming me with his gentleness and then attack?

He grabs my face to get my attention, his hold firm and grounding.

“You have five seconds to process everything that’s about to happen. I need you to play the victim, trust that everything I’m about to do is for you, okay?” His words are hushed and he looks at me with such sincerity, I don’t take another second to consider it.

“Okay, but if you betray me, Nate, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

He smirks and it melts any fury I have left for him, ”Good, good to be consistent.”

He leaps up, swiping a knife from his back pocket, I have to swallow the urge to fight back when he gently backs me up to the wall, knife resting at my throat.

The crashing stops and his father barges into my room. “I trust you.” I mouth to him, his, blink and you’ll miss it, nod confirming I was right to.