“We all have demons.”
“Good, then I’m here to—”
I snorted, smirking when he couldn’t even hide his rage I snorted at him. “Yeah, you want to listen to all my demons. I caught that. So you followed me out to the middle of the forest. That’s just weird and if I need to talk, I’ll talk to my boyfriend or my friends. I’ll skip talking to the random man who I don’t know and is taking an overenthusiastic interest in me.”
“She is way more distrusting than people say. She is a bleeding heart and open to everyone. There’s no way she’s seen through my act. No woman is intelligent enough to figure me out and certainly not this fast.”
Oh, this fucker was pushing it. Really pushing it.
“You’re not as good of an actor as you think. Your agenda is fairly clear, and given you came in the same time as all the exchange students, I don’t need three guesses as to what your goal probably is.” I clapped my hands and took out a tree several feet away from where he was standing. “Does that clear up whatever you came out here to learn, or do we need to chat some more?”
He glanced from me to the tree, swallowing loudly. “You are severely misunderstanding my intentions, Tamsin.”
“Ms. Vale,” I corrected, pissing him off again. “You’re my teacher, and we are not friends. I never gave you permission to call me by my first name as the school rules require last names, but go ahead.”
“Of course, Ms. Vale,” he bit out. “I assumed by you not calling me Instructor McGrath, you were being informal with me.”
“Yes, but I didn’t call you by your first name—which I don’t even know.” I shrugged as if it was inconsequential. Man, he was fun to fuck with.
“I understand your abusive and problematic past leads you towards paranoid thoughts and tendencies—”
I threw back my head and laughed, going on when I saw the steam practically coming out of his ears. “So now you’re my shrink? Man, you go right up there with Campbell deciding what’s best for me, and like you know all about me without ever having a real conversation with me. My file here is seriously thin.”
I bit back a smile as his thoughts told me that the council had hired several human and supe private investigators to pull everything they could on me, including as much as they could that Geiger had erased from the system. Wow, they were really going all in.
Too bad they sent another idiot in as their spy who I was getting more from than they were from me.
“It’s only paranoid if wrong, Instructor,” I purred. “And I have yet to be when it comes to people thinking they’re predators and I’m prey in this world. Hell, in the human world too. You’ve clearly looked into me, and there is no reason for that without some sort of intentions I won’t like. Plus, your eyes do not match your words ninety percent of the time.”
That made him flinch, but I didn’t give him time to respond.
“If you know even a fraction of my history, you know I’ve spent a lot of time around monsters and predators. I’m exceptionally good at spotting them and the funny thing is, they always have something in common. They underestimate others. They’re always smarter, better, and look down on those they hunt. They never see the reality of those who stand before them as their sickness warps their minds.”
“She can hear me. She can—she said my mind. No, no, I’ve always worn the charm. There was that one time. She—there has to be—she must have heard something that one time the charm fell off. That must be the reason she went on guard. That can be the only explanation. There is no other way. Women aren’t capable otherwise.”
I shut off my telepathy, not wanting his bile to set me off. I honestly couldn’t handle it. Part of me wanted to call Ray and fully bust this asshole on how many of us had easily called his bullshit… But that would sort of defeat the purpose of a woman being able to stand toe-to-toe with him.
“Your telepathy blocking charm might keep me out of your head, but your tells are far from under control, so I suggest you find other prey before I stop finding your circling me like a shark amusing and decide to react,” I warned. I clapped and took out a tree much closer to him before throwing up a barrier and hiding myself from him completely.
And then took it down when I was directly in front of him, smirking when he yelped at a higher pitch than most men his size could make.
“You think you’re the predator here. You are mistaken.” I walked off laughing, wondering if I should use a water rune to put out the flames of rage coming off of him.
“That was not the plan,” Ray reminded me when he fell in step with me closer to my dorm, wearing only shorts.
I put a barrier up so no one could hear us. “No, but I got something from him today, and it’s the first useful thing in a while. However, he’s in a prime spot to do more damage. He needs to be handled, and soon.”
“You have an idea of how to do that?”
“Already going.”
“Tell me what you found.”
So I did. He was not happy, but it was information we needed. It was a problem to handle later, and I was already on top of because I’d gone out to the woods to deal with the situation I’d created with Hudson.
And I
