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“Summer! Just wait!” Connor calls, running after us. I don’t stop, not even looking back. My stomach twists with anger and something else I’ve never felt before. I’d actually allowed myself to start tolikethat feather-brained prick. This is why you haveyour rules, Summer. This is why you don’t allow feelings to get involved. You know better!

Connor grabs my arm, and I whirl on him. Alice snarls. She doesn’t interfere but stays close, ready to step in if needed. Blood is trickling from Connor’s nose, no doubt thanks to my vampiric roommate.

“I didn’t know.” Connor searches my eyes. His expression is soft, apologetic, and beseeching.

The anger builds inside me, the video playing on a loop in my head along with the words about his own personal species cup. I yank my arm free. “Leave me alone. You got your fae. Congratulations, asshole,” I snarl at him.

Connor shakes his head and steps forward. I step back, maintaining the distance between us. “No! That’s not… I didn’t want that. I didn’t even know about that,” he says beseechingly.

“Whatever,” I snarl at him before turning and walking away. Alice is hot on my heels, but I can also hear Connor following. I throw a basic shield up, a skill I learned in my latest combat class.

“Fuck off!” Alice sneers at him over her shoulder.

I barely register the walk home. Not even the lights lining the path can pull my attention from the betrayal of a guy who owed me nothing. What does it even matter? He deserves no more trust than any other stranger. When we get back to the dorm, I go straight to my room and slam my door. I climb into bed, desperately wanting to cry, but there are no tears. There are so rarely tears anymore. I once believed I’d used up all my tears as a child, that I drained my ducts dry, and now they are as barren as the barest of desert plains. It used to be a relief, yet at this moment, I wish I could cry. Maybe it would release some of the fury within me.

Alice keeps her distance for almost an hour but comes to my room when someone, presumably Connor, starts slamming onthe dormitory door. She wordlessly climbs into bed with me and just lays there.

I throw up another shield, making the room soundproof and drowning out the noise of Connor’s useless apologies.

“Sum?” Alice eventually says into the darkness of my room.

“Hm?”

“Sorry,” she whispers, then surprises me by cuddling into my side.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Alice nods and throws her arm over me, holding me tight and offering comfort in the only way she knows how.

The anger curdles in my stomach, pain threatening to overwhelm me. I stare up at the ceiling, hoping for sleep to take me.

15

Summer

The sun creeps up on the darkness, eating the shadows of the night. My body is tired, yet my mind is so painfully awake. I hate this feeling. I hate that I feel hurt and used. Alice sleeps soundly next to me. She’s weirdly warm for a vampire. I thought they were meant to be cold, but she’s like a small heater. I climb out of the bed, trying not to wake her. Though it seems that while she may be warmer than I expect a vampire to be, she sleeps like the dead.

I grab a pair of yoga pants and a sports bra before going into my bathroom to change. Running will make me feel better. It always does. The wind in my hair and the burn in my lungs is oddly soothing.

The spandex hugs my curves, and I turn, looking at myself in the mirror. I don’t know why I’m checking myself out. I’m hideous today, like a worn-out shoe. Yet, while the pants are navy and as bleak as my mood, my ass looks amazing in them. The matching sports bra is my most comfortable and gives great support. At least physically, I don’t think anything is going to bolster me emotionally today.

I pull my hair into a high ponytail and return to the bedroom to slide on my running shoes. My lips twitch as I look at my roommate. Alice hasn’t moved, still out like a light with her mouth open a little and her chest barely rising as she sleeps. What a little weirdo.

Grabbing my dark gray hoodie, I pull it on and zip it up as I leave my room. I fling open the door, desperate to get downstairs for that first draw of fresh morning air, but I step back in surprise when a large mass of muscle falls into the entryway. Connor Morningstar blinks up on me. His eyes are red and the bags under them are just as purple as mine are. Did he sleep at the door?

“Summer…” he sputters and sits up. I sigh heavily and step over the heap of him slumped on the floor. He’s surprisingly nimble and quick even with all those muscles, so I take off down the stairs and burst from the building, kicking into a run the second I step over the threshold. I’m not a sprinter, but I can definitely get a good pace going. I’ve barely made it to the coffee cart in the middle of the quad before his large hand wraps around my wrist.

“Summer.” His voice is sad, but it does nothing but inflate my fury. How dare he be sad when I’m the one that’s been used?Humiliated. Used.

The growl that rips from my throat surprises him enough that he loosens his grip, and I yank my arm away from him. “Leave me alone, Connor.”

Connor grabs my arm again and pulls me around to face him, his other hand wrapping around my biceps. “I didn’t know, Summer. I wasn’t…” He hesitates, but I don’t even look at him. I can’t look at him. “This was all news to me!”

I’m about to reply, to tear into him with words sharper than any dagger when an icy cold voice beats me to it. “Mister Morningstar.”

I tense at the sound of that voice, at the roiling presence behind me. He wasn’t there a moment ago, but now his intimidating aura permeates the air. How had I not felt his power until now? Can he conceal that menacing energythateffectively? What a terrifying thought.

Connor’s body goes rigid, and he raises his gaze to the looming being at my back. “This is a personal matter, headmaster.”