“But I don’t care about any of it,” he said, cutting off my thoughts and interjecting before I could say anything. “I have no ill feelings toward your parents or you. The past is the past and if he has anything to say about it, I’ll tell him just that.”
I hoped it would be that easy, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t.
Chapter 34
Bouncing my leg with anxiety, Zyacus and I waited in Madison’s office. She wasn’t around when we showed up and since we’d get in trouble for wandering the halls during class time, we decided to hang out in here.
She was instructing a class no doubt but I’d bet she would show soon, given that I was sure Professor Tessam would contact her about my leaving class and giving her an order. Zyacus browsed the bookshelves, picking up little trinkets here and there. He turned over a crystal ball in his hands and then set it back down.
The quiet creak of the cat door made me turn and in strutted my little white fluff ball Atticus. “There you are,” he said, his green eyes going from Zyacus to me. “People are looking for you.” He sauntered over and hopped onto a stool. “Oh and there will be a knock at the door right about—”
Knock knock knock
“I am good, am I not?” Atticus was clearly pleased with himself.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Bindy.”
Of course it is. When I tugged the door open Bindy strode in and folded her arms. “I’m here to protect you, and yet you keep doing shit that makes my job harder.”
Her brown eyes fell to Zyacus and she nodded. “You skipped classes together, then went outside after an attack and after Senica sent you that note? And gave a direct order to a professor.”
“What note?” Zyacus asked curtly.
Bindy put a hand on her hip and gave me the death glare. “He sent her a note a few days ago.” She pulled it from her pocket and tossed it to Zyacus. “Your mother and father are here. Professor Tessam wrote a letter.” She turned to Zyacus. “Your father is here as well. I suggest you find them.”
My gut twisted, Zyacus didn’t seem worried but I hurried out of the office. Oh I was in so much trouble.
No pranks or rule-breaking I’d ever done made me that nervous to face the consequences. It was dish duty or running, mucking stalls perhaps, something of the like but I’d never truly liked a boy before. Never introduced anyone, let alone Prince Zyacus to my parents as someone I was more than friends with. And I was nervous about this.
As we stood outside the double doors of the headmaster’s office where Bindy said they waited, Zyacus tried to take my hand and I pulled away. His brows drew closer and his lips formed a hard line but he didn’t say anything. I wasn’t ready to march in, holding his hand and throw it in my parents’ faces. He should understand that.
The doors opened from the inside and their conversations stopped. The way my father’s jaw hardened when he looked at Zyacus and I walking together, made me ill.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Zyacus said with all the confidence in the world. I was shocked he didn’t wither under my father’s piercing gaze, all the other boys our age did. I hadn’t even dared to look at King Enden yet, knowing what he thought about me. “There’s going to be another attack on the academy and the vampires plan on taking the youngest.”
Headmaster Jace paled, putting a hand over his mouth and my mother looked like she might rip someone’s head off right now. The talk of our less-skilled students being taken, changed the atmosphere in the room and the spotlight was no longer on Zyacus and I. More important matters were at hand, and they were demanding to know the details. We told them all we had heard. More guards, more protective enchantments, the same suggestions were made, but I said, “I want to go and hunt them down. We should make a move before they do.”
“When we hunt them, academy graduates—soldiers will be the ones to do it,” Father said. “Not you.”
It was hard to miss that King Enden had a disdain for me that wasn’t there before. I wondered if Zyacus noticed too. “I think the hunting should take place tonight. When these disgusting people, if we can even call them that, will be out,” Enden said.
“Since hearing about what blood drinkers are and what they are capable of but also their weaknesses,” Mother said, tapping her fingers against the hilt of her sword. Her tight black pants and long-sleeved top lined with white fur made her look regal, unlike me in a uniform that everyone else wore. “I think we find their hiding spot and kill them during the day. They’ll be confined since they admitted to hiding in a cave.”
“Going into an enclosed area with them is risky,” Enden said, tapping his foot. “They could trap our forces inside and tear us to pieces.”
“I could kill them all myself,” Mother said. “With one massive blast of a sunlight spell.”
With her magical power, I didn’t doubt it. But not all of them were confined to the dark, we’d seen the five during the day and Senica was a daywalker, if he had been enrolled here. All of us looked to my father. My mother may be the most powerful but my father, the famous Boaden Exavior Veilspar was the strategist, the best warrior in Delhoon.
“You’ve both brought up good points,” he said slowly as if still processing everything. He looked to Enden. “You should have brought your wife, she knows more about them than any of us given that she is Collweyan.
