Page 46

Professor Nicholson had a little miscalculation with his teleportation spell, landing us in the lap pool at the Academy.

On any other day, it would have been hilarious, but in Harper's white dress shirt and a pair of cheek-bearing panties, it was a nightmare in the making.

Harper helped Professor Nicholson out of the water; the Wizard wasn't a strong swimmer at his age.

I treaded water in the middle of the pool, watching as he helped the aged Wizard from the pool area. I motioned for him to go because I was fine, and was just going to hang out there for a while.

The truth was too embarrassing to admit aloud.

"Ariadne, are you well?" Viggo called out, swimming over to me.

"Don't come any closer," I pleaded.

"Are you injured?"

Injured? No.

Completely humiliated? Yes.

"I have a problem," I tried to explain.

Once he heard the word problem, he quickly closed the distance between us.

Damn it.

"What is it?" he asked, his eyes moving over my face many times before they moved down to the water.

"Look at me!" I snapped at him.

Viggo's eyes snapped to mine, even more concerned than he was before. "What is it?" he asked. "Were you injured?"

There was so much wrong, but having to be healed by a Madame of a Blood Brothel because of a mass murder at my school was the least of my problems at the moment.

My biggest problem at the moment was that Viggo looked almost surreal in the water and ambient pool light.

The dim pool lighting illuminated the water, making it appear shimmering blue from the tiles. His dark, long hair was slicked back and floating around him in the water, eyes sparkling like emeralds, his pale skin flush from the teleportation and painful landing.

The way he licked his overly full top lip before biting his bottom lip when he's eying me, which is amusing since he doesn't realize he does it...

Somehow, Viggo looked even more handsome when wet.

"Your shirt, I need it," I said, my eyes moving over him as we treaded water.

"Why do you require my shirt?" he asked, confused.

"Mine is, um, leaving nothing to the imagination," I whispered. "And you have seen me naked enough for one day."

Viggo didn't question it, and he pulled his shirt off and handed it to me.

That didn't help the whole he looks even better when wet problem.

I've always liked tattoos, Zane said it was because I had a thing for bad boys, but that wasn't it at all. There was something beautiful about body art, and the fact that Viggo was adorned with tattoos made him even more attractive in my eyes.

And the way he was looking at me, biting his bottom lip, as if waiting for me to say something...

I wanted to feel his lips against mine so badly that I had to do the next best thing.

I stopped treading water and allowed myself to sink to the bottom of the pool with his shirt in hand in an attempt to get away from Viggo!

If I didn't get away from him, I would do something stupid like try to kiss him.

Viggo's full lips were pale pink demonic pillows of seduction that I kept finding myself wanting to succumb to their spell, and he had to have known it.

I pretty much told him and everyone else all of the disturbing things I wanted him to do to me while the salve tried to kill me, even if I was incoherently babbling when I did, more than just my brother, best friends, uncle-in-heart, and Viggo heard the slightly graphic list of things I wanted him to do to me.

You would think that would have made it more than apparently clear that I wanted him?!

I sank to the bottom of the pool and sat, once again wishing that I had some type of magical ability: teleportation, invisibility, smoke screen, anything!

As much as I tried to deny it, and regardless of what I kept telling everyone, it was obvious that I liked Viggo, liked him a lot.

Most likely that was why his aunt threatened to kill me.

A Mundane wasn't good enough for her crown-wearing nephew...

Which was true.

It didn't matter that Viggo was half-Vampire, a Prince, is sometimes a bossy jerk, was overly smug most of the time, and was keeping something from me, even if he said it was not intentional... There was something about him that made me feel safe. I like being around him, I like how it feels when he's around me, and when he's not there I miss his company.

What did that say about me?

I wasn't good at this type of thing, not like Zane was. There was a reason I'd never had a boyfriend or even kissed a guy before. It just wasn't something I was interested in! No one caused any type of emotional response in me...

Nor did they turn me on with simply a small smile or the caress of the back of their finger against the back of my hand in a completely non-sexual, not intimate physical exchange that was the most intimate thing I had ever experienced with another!

And never did a guy effortlessly turn me on when he did a low, menacing, animalistic growl in my ear when frustrated with me...

A growl that vibrated his entire chest, which in turn vibrated mine and made me feel as if every nerve in my body was a livewire all of a sudden, and that at any moment I was about to explode!

Not until Viggo.

Only Viggo de Babineaux could cause me to, quite possibly, go insane!

This is the textbook definition of insanity, it has to be!

San Yarbrough Bay, here I come!

It wasn't possible. I didn't like a Prince...

Then again, from the first moment I saw him I knew he was different and that I was in trouble.

What do I do?

Viggo was of one of the first Five Houses, and that means he had an arranged marriage since his older sister was killed. Usually, only the eldest has an arranged marriage, from what I understand, but knowing my lack of luck, he most likely had one as well.

Viggo said there wasn't much for a stripped-of-crown Princess to do, that meant Majandra was a Necromancer Princess, so that means Viggo's mother was a Princess, too!

Damn it!

Not one crown, but two?!

I didn't even know Necromancers had Royal Houses any more.

But it wasn't as if Viggo was interested in me like that though. He repeatedly commented that I wasn't beautiful whenever someone asked him what he thought of my looks, and every time we were alone together he pulled away from me or ran.

The attraction wasn't important, but that was all I had going for me since I was a Mundane.

Why was it that when I finally meet someone that I feel something towards, they don't feel the same way towards me?

That is how the story always goes, I suppose, when a girl has her first unrequited crush it always ends in heartache and disaster...

And a body count in my case.

To save myself from any more embarrassment, I'd just stay at the bottom of the pool for a while.

I could hold my breath for a decent amount of time, so hopefully Viggo was gone by the time I resurfaced.

I was kidding myself if I believed that.

At least the pool was peaceful and a good place to die from embarrassment.

I liked swimming and it was a great exercise.

This particular pool was tiled with iridescent aqua-colored tiles that blended with sapphire, causing the water to appear to swirl on the surface and the bottom to disappear in the dark. The water was in a constant state of motion because of the water inlets and returns. Fiber optic lighting dotted the bottom of the pool giving it the appearance of twinkling stars in the sky when the overhead lights were dimmed.

For being an indoor pool, the water was colder than it should be, or maybe it was the fact that I was sitting on the bottom of it nearly naked, the white dress shirt I wore appeared transparently thin and showed everything underneath, and the black panties I wore were riding higher than they should.

Viggo's black long-sleeve shirt was in my hand, I could easily pull it on before anyone saw anything embarassing, but I just didn't care anymore.

And of course, speak of the devil.