Page 65 of A University of Betrayal

The person I collided with hit me with such force that I lost my balance, grabbed onto whoever it was out of reflex and pulled his body to the ground, while loose sheets of paper whirled through the air around us.

I was lucky that I landed softly on top of him.

However, all it took was that stupidly good smelling citrus note to make me jerk my head up and stare into the peridot-green eyes beneath me.

The soft daylight fell through one of the gothic windows next to us, shining directly into his eyes so that I could make out every little detail of the fibers of his irises weaving around his pupils like multidimensional spindles.

It only took one blink of his full eyelashes and my heart stopped beating completely.

Inadvertently, my hands clawed tighter into the gray vest beneath me, and immediately I felt the warmth of the man’s chest against which I was lying pressed. Memories of Erik’s warmth flashed through my mind.

Inevitably, my gaze slid to the vein on his temple, the champagne blond strands hanging down his forehead, the light stubble on his evenly shaved chin and finally to his slightly parted lips.

He had been holding his breath, staring just like me, and caught my gaze again.

“Julie...” he uttered hoarsely, as if he had forgotten for a few seconds that he had threatened me the other day, completely unsettling me.

However, I somehow managed to push myself away from him.

“I’m sorry, I...” I managed to say as I got to my feet, but interrupted myself.

I didn’t want to apologize to him.Hehad run into me. He was my enemy. A person who knew about some of my magic.

Adrenaline shot through my body, but I didn’t know what to do.

I stared at him like an idiot as he propped both hands on the ground behind him to get to his feet without taking his eyes off me.

Warmth came into my cheeks as I discovered the chaos of parchment sheets, written protocols and loose pieces of paper around us.

I immediately bent down to pick some of them up, just like the last time I’d messed up his work.

“Leave it,” Professor Tiberius murmured. I looked up and reminded myself not to let him out of my sight. “Go inside…”

Unsteadily, I straightened up with some protocols in my hands and stared at him, unsure of what to do next.

His jaw was working hard and as I felt more heat in my cheeks, I noticed his gaze traveling across my face.

I unintentionally pinched my lips together as the heat threatened to travel all over my body, but somehow managed to give him the protocols before turning away and storming past him toward the seminar room.

Office Talk

Christopher Tyng

Once in the room, Amber spotted me and looked at me like I was a leper, but I just walked past her and sat down next to David.

I tried not to look at the door, but as Professor Tiberius rushed through the seminar room and placed his disorganized papers on his desk, something inside me forced me to look at him.

His straight hair was still a mess, his vest rumpled where I’d clawed into it, and his shirt slightly out of place underneath.

“Your heartbeat, Quatura.” I looked at David as if he were a ghost. “Did he do something?”

His gaze moved from me to Mr. Suspicious.

“No...” I barely managed to get out, trying to regulate my breathing. “I’m just late...”

A bad lie, but David didn’t say anything else, just continued to stare ahead at the professor, who rolled up his sleeves as usual, looking at one of the protocols in front of him. Only his working cheekbones made me doubt that he was really concentrating on the documents’ details.

“Good morning,” he mumbled absent-mindedly, tidied up the loose documents on his desk and began to pass them around the rows. “Your performances could be better, but I have faith that with a little more dedication in the lab sessions, each of you will pass this seminar.”