Slowly, I start to walk again, following her to our dorm. From this moment on, I had two goals: keep Esmeray safe and make her love me.
I was used to being a protector, but charming a woman? Hell, I was in trouble.
5 Esmeray
The light fae named Harold leads me up three flights of stairs to the top floor in a dorm room near the back of campus. I use my new key to unlock the main door that opens into a little living room. To one side is a doorway that opens into a tidy kitchen. Four closed doors line the other side of the room.
“This one is yours.” Harold points to the second door.
I move around the couches, casting a glance to the pool table in one corner, and use my key to open the bedroom. I’m actually surprised by how much I instantly like the room. On the left is a large bed, on the right is a closet next to an open door into a tiny bathroom, and by the huge windows is a desk. Everything is painted white and looks clean, and out the window are trees filled with green leaves. It feels like I’m living inside a garden.
Tossing my bag onto the bed, I move to the window and look out into a small garden. Down below are benches and various plants and flowers.
“What do you think?” he asks, and I can feel nervousness radiating out of him.
I already know that I’m going to make these fae nervous. Most fae don’t hide their emotions. They allow their overwhelming happiness and excitement to radiate off them with a nauseating lack of control. They sample each other’s emotions, feeding themselves, without thought, because happy emotions are almost limitless among their kind.
Someone like me will set them off. They’ll reach out to sample my emotions and find them locked away. Not being able to read me will be like losing one of their senses. They won’t know what I’m feeling, so they won’t quite know how to react.
The smart thing would be to slowly cipher any good emotions I have out to them, to cloud their judgment, but I don’t desire such a thing. It would silence any rumors about my dark fae powers, and I want there to be rumors.
If people fear me, maybe they’ll give me the space I so desperately need to find my brother's killers and destroy them. Anything else is just a distraction.
“I know it’s a little small,” Harold continues.
I cross the room toward him, and I know he watches my fluid movements like prey watching a predator.
Unable to help myself, I put a hand on his chest. His heart races beneath his white, silk shirt. A longing unravels inside me to touch him, to make him come for me, and I hate that I know what’s behind my sudden desire.
Bron. Seeing him had made it even harder to keep my emotions hidden away. He looked so damn good, like a delicious banquet in a sea of nothingness. Bron was unlike most light fae. His difficult childhood meant his emotions raged and varied in ways most light fae couldn’t fathom. And although he too was careful about keeping his emotions hidden, I could taste them in the air. They cloaked the sexy man in a way that made my hunger grow in all ways.
Harold swallows slowly. “So…you like it?”
I tilt my head and lick my lips. “I like you, Harold.”
His gaze moves to my mouth, and I wonder what he’s thinking. His parents no doubt warned him about women like me, about my kind. I know for a fact that most men find me attractive. And I know how to dress myself and work my body to draw them to me. But will his logic win out over his desire?
“I—“ He leans his head down, as if to sample the wares I offer.
Suddenly, I hear a door hit against a wall.
“Damn him,” someone mutters.
Harold springs away from me like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I need to go,” he says, then races from the room.
I move slowly to the doorway of my bedroom and freeze. Dwade is storming through the living room. He barely casts Harold a glance before his gaze skids across me, then back, freezing. The warpath he was on momentarily before tearing across the room has stopped. Instead, his eyes widen and his entire demeanor changes.
“Hi, Dwade,” I say, leaning against the doorframe.
Harold is out the door in an instant, and Dwade’s eyes sweep from my booted feet, up my legs, then lingers on my breasts, before stopping at my face. “Esmeray.” He says my name like he’s been waiting to say it all his life.
“Welcome to my dorm,” I say, keeping my tone light and trying not to betray the fact that I have no idea how he found me so fast.
“Your dorm?”
So he didn’t know I lived here. “Yes. I’m a new student.”
He points a finger to the fourth door. “That’s my room.”
Every muscle in my body clenches. How the hell am I supposed to figure out who killed my brother with Dwade watching my every move? “You’re kidding.”
He shakes his head, and I hate that my eyes roam over the muscles in his neck and down his massive body. Dwade was always a big boy. A giant dwarfing even my brother and their friends, but here, alone with me, he seems even bigger. But more than that, there’s something strangely appealing about seeing a light fae with neatly shaved black hair and pale brown eyes. It almost makes me imagine that he’s got a little darkness inside him.
I wonder if I could corrupt the rest of him.
“Well,” I say, choosing my words with care, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m a bit of a night owl.”
He shrugs those big shoulders of his.
Taking a deep breath, I close
