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“Get off me,” I muttered to the two Drakes still clutching my arms.“I need to talk to it—to him—or we’re all going to die.”

What I said seemed to get through to them, because they let go of my arms and started slowly backing away.I wished to the Goddess that I could do the same, but the impending sense of doom was still thick in the air and the threat was still immanent.I had to do something—only I didn’t know what to do.

“Saint,” I said, stepping towards him though every single cell in my body was screaming for me to run the other way instead.“Saint, look at me.”

He turned that burning gaze of his from Coach Vasquez to me and I had to swallow hard before I could continue.I saw madness in those eyes—a burning hell of misery and confusion and pain.A never-ending rage that reached out to encompass everything it saw.

And all of it was currently aimed at me.

“Saint,” I said again, daring to put my hand on his arm.

Under his white, long-sleeved uniform shirt his muscles were rock-hard with tension and his skin was burning hot, as though he had a raging fever.

“Saint, you have to calm down,” I told him.“You have to de-escalate.”

“Hurt,”he said to me and there was an odd double-echo in his voice like someone was speaking through him.It was his Drake, I realized, and had to work hard not to flinch when he brought one burning hand up to brush my wounded cheek, which was tender where Juan had punched me.

His fingers had started to turn too—long, black claws were sprouting where his fingertips had been.But though they were razor-sharp, I felt nothing but the gentlest brush when he touched me.

“Hurt,”he said again.

“Not so much,” I said, trying to smile and make light of my facial injuries—though the right side of my face was throbbing like a rotten tooth.

“Hurt,”Saint’s Drake insisted.“They hurt you.”He glared malevolently at Juan and his cronies and then switched his faze to Coach Vasquez.“She LET you be hurt,”he added, which showed that he was much more perceptive than one would expect a huge, cursed, demonic beast to be.

I could see where this was headed—if he kept focusing on my attackers and on the teacher who had allowed the attack to happen in the first place, his rage was going to build again and then the shit—and probably a whole lot of dragon fire—was going to hit the fan.

“Hey, no.Look at me.Saint,look at me.”

I dared to reach up and cup his chin—his skin was almost too hot to touch—and turn him to face me.Those burning eyes met mine again and it was like looking into the pits of Hell—but I didn’t look away.

“Look at me,” I repeated.“Concentrate on me—onAvery.I’m all right, Saint—I’m fine.It’s all right to let your Drake go back now—it’s okay to relax.I’m okay.Everything isokay.”

Little by little, I could feel my tall, dark roommate relaxing.Slowly the tension left his shoulders and his skin began to cool.The immense black wings shrank and folded out of sight.At last even the burning eyes became no more than embers.But before Saint’s Drake left, he had one last thing to say to me.

“Mine,”he rumbled, cupping my cheek with a hand which had fingernails again instead of claws.“Avery is mine.”

And then, finally, he retreated completely and I was left standing there in an extremely awkward position with my roommate cupping my cheek and staring intently into my eyes.

“Avery,” he began, in his normal voice but he didn’t get a chance to say anymore than that.

“Both of you to the Headmistress’s office,now!”Coach Vasquez hissed, giving us a venomous look.“And if I have my wish, you’ll both be expelled before the day is out!”

5

AVERY

“Now what’s all this about Mr.Santiago allowing his Drake to emerge in the middle of gym class?”

Headmistress Nightworthy was a tall older woman with pure silver hair cut in a sleek cap that molded to her head and feathered around her temples.Her age was impossible to guess—she might have been forty or she might have been eighty—but whatever age she was, she had impeccable taste.

Her slim body was sheathed in an elegantly cut black dress and she wore sky-high stilettos to match.As always, her makeup was perfect with blood-red lips pulled back to show very long, sharp canines—the mark of an angry Nocturne, as I well knew.

“Headmistress, it wasn’t Saint’s fault—” I began but Coach Vasquez—who had marched us all the way to the Headmistress’s office herself—interrupted.

“It most certainlywas.Anytime a Drake comes out, it is because the male in charge of himlethim out.Santiago came into my gymnasium and deliberately terrified my students with his Drake for whichhe should be expelled immediately!”

She was full-on shouting in her bullhorn voice by the end, which works great for frightening kids in gym class.However, it didn’t appear to be working on the formidable Headmistress.