Jealousy

plush carpet. “Kir. Milady.” His lip all but curled, sarcasm dripping from the word. Then he half-turned and looked at me. When he spoke again, it was a respectful murmur. “Milady.”

How he could say the same word so differently each time was beyond me. He bent forward slightly, a tiny bow, and I did the same thing before I could help myself. Hey, man, when in Rome, right?

He smiled as he straightened. “Exquisite manners, young one. I regret my lateness. Forgive me.”

I was about to say no problem, but Kir almost choked. Anna’s face was smooth and smiling too, but something glittered far back in the depths of her eyes. Her boots hit the carpet and she rose gracefully from the chair, silk whispering as her dress fell in choreographed folds. The table held her reflection lovingly, but distorted it oddly as she moved. She passed behind Kir’s chair, and I could swear the slim redheaded young man flinched as her shadow drifted over him.

She came to a halt at the end of the table, and I squared my shoulders as we sized each other up. The taste of waxen oranges faded, and I smelled her warm spicy perfume.

Her baby blues dropped to my feet, came back up. Measuring me all the while. When she spoke, it was as if we were the only people in the room. “I’d like it if we were friends, Dru.”

“Me too,” I lied, with feeling. If they think you’re stupid enough to be taken in, you can get enough running room for escape.

Always let your enemies underestimate you. Dad taught me that. I wasn’t sure if she was an enemy or just one of those antimatter girls. She was another djamphir and a svetocha to boot. She was in just as much danger from the suckers as I was. We should stick together, at least as far as we could while being on different ends of the social spectrum.

My chest hurt. I realized I was holding my breath, and exhaled. The touch throbbed inside my head, but everything in the room was so tense and mixed-up I couldn’t tell where the current of . . . what was it? Fear? Bloodhunger? Rage? But nobody looked even remotely upset in here. Just uncomfortable. Kir’s face had gone pasty. His freckles stood out, glaring.

I thought of the flash of red I’d seen down the hall. Benjamin had thought it was a svetocha, and I’d been sure it was Anna, but both she and Christophe smelled like spice.

Would Christophe be messing at my door, though? Or maybe it had been the traitor. A djamphir I’d never seen, but who smelled like them?

“Good.” She held out one slim white hand, her nails perfectly manicured and coated in candy-apple lacquer. It matched her lipstick, and her eyeliner looked professionally done.

I could never in a million years have that high gloss. As soon as I put my hand out and touched hers, bracing myself for whatever the touch would tell me, I felt dirty. Like I’d just come in off the playground, covered in muck, and was now standing in the middle of the adults while I hoped they wouldn’t notice the smudges and scrapes.

The touch rang like a gong inside my head. Whirling images, none of them pausing long enough to be absorbed. She gave my hand one limp shake, then drew back with a patient smile. That smile, by the way, was directed up over my shoulder.

At Graves.

The back of my throat turned rough and dry. I made a sort of hrmph noise, clearing it, and Anna glanced at me again, this time amused. Don’t you look at him that way, I wanted to say—and I probably would have, if I hadn’t had to keep my mouth shut.

Because my teeth were tingling. I felt the subtle crackling in my upper jaw as my canines extended.

Call them fangs, Dru. That’s what they are.

But I couldn’t. I could just stand there, keeping my mouth closed tight so nobody around me would see teeth turning into sharp little points. The warm-oil feeling of the aspect didn’t slide down my skin, though. I hoped my hair wasn’t doing anything weird, decided it didn’t matter. Because nobody was looking at me. Every eye in the room, including my own pair, was on Anna.

She swept by, sliding past motionless Hiro with a half-mocking little pirouette, her skirt brushing his knee. I heard her murmur something at the door. Footsteps going away—probably she and the djamphir in the shoulder holster and red T-shirt.

Did he put that on to match her? Jeez. And I thought “I’m with Stupid” shirts were pathetic. I breathed deeply, searching for calm.

The crackling in the air went away. Now all the touch could bring me was a complex, hot wash of feeling from Kir. I couldn’t even name it, it was so messed up. He coughed and pushed himself up from his chair. “So.”

“Orientation.” Hiro folded his arms. “I think it’s best I tag along. You don’t have any objection, do you, Kir?”

The redheaded djamphir smiled. It was an animal’s baring of teeth, and I almost took a step back. “Of course not, brother.”

Whoa, wait a second. “You’re related?” I blurted out, and I sounded totally horrified. Graves exhaled another long stream of cigarette smoke. It touched my hair, and I made a face, too.

“No.” Kir’s face wrinkled up again, like he tasted something sour. “It is the traditional mode of address between Kouroi. To remind us that we are all—”

“—connected,” Hiro interrupted smoothly. “And all equally at risk of being murdered by nosferatu. Some do tend to forget it.”

“No shit,” I muttered and stuffed my sweating hands in my pockets. I suddenly resolved never to be in a room alone with Kir if I could help it. “Can I just go look around on my own?”

“You may if you wish. But the loup-garou may not, and before you attend classes you will have to endure orientation in our company.” Hiro folded his arms, as if I was Being Difficult. “Milady.” This time he said it like the syllables meant please.

I wanted to figure out how he did that.

“It was a rhetorical question. So what’s first?” I rubbed my palms, trying to get the dampness off, and decided he wasn’t so bad. Graves muttered something uncomplimentary, but very softly, and mixed with the smoke besides.

“First, we allow Mr. Graves to extinguish his cigarette.” Hiro didn’t even blink. “Then we will go over safety rules and take a tour of the school.”

“Great.” I tried to sound excited, failed miserably. And the whole time, I knew Kir was watching me.

I could feel it.

CHAPTER TEN

“We should go to Nordstroms,”Benjamin muttered for the fiftieth time. Leon’s mouth actually twitched, like the was holding back a smile. The two blonds were out in the parking lot on a gorgeous spring afternoon, probably both sleepily leaning against the SUV Benjamin had signed out at the parking garage in the south corner of the Schola’s property.

That was eye-opening, the way Benjamin had just casually said, It’s for the svetocha, and the dark-haired djamphir with the sign-out sheet had stared at me like I had something stuck on my face before he fell all over himself pointing out different cars. Being sandwiched in the back of an Escalade full of pretty djamphir boys and Graves was a new experience, too.

I rolled my eyes. “There’s nothing at a Nordstroms I need or want. Overpriced junk that’ll fall apart.” I folded up another pair of jeans and stuck them in the red cart. Even under fluorescents the djamphir boys looked like models gone slumming. It was hard to pick stuff out with them hanging around looking gorgeous and bored.

When Benjamin said shopping he meant Nordstroms at the very least. I guess he had some weird idea I wanted couture or something.