Page 24 of Satanic Shadow

I don’t look up at the familiar voice. “No.”

Valin, hushed and present, doesn’t speak again until my heart rate decelerates and my sight gradually clears. We listen to the water lapping the shore, the wind gusting, and the trees nearby shivering as the leaves rustle.

Finally, he talks. “You seem down. Anything you want to get off your chest?”

Shaking my head, I hug my knees. “I don’t belong here. That’s all.”

“None of us belong here, little Seraphine.”

I raise my head to look at him. “It doesn’t matter anyway. My partner seems to have vanished into dust, and my second task is due tomorrow. You know more than most that every single part needs to be completed.” I nudge him with my shoulder, trying tolighten the mood. “You’re going to be stuck with me for an extra year.”

“I can’t help you with Dane. He always disappears for weeks at a time. Show me your list,” Valin says, reaching out his hand.

I sigh and pull it from my satchel. “Everyone has the same. Task two is to be completed by noon tomorrow.”

“I could help you with some of them, if he doesn’t make an appearance.” He stares at the scroll, eyes flitting from side to side as he takes in each line. “I’d be more than happy to assist.”

I frown. “But you’re a professor.”

He winks. “An off-duty professor. Besides, as I’ve pointed out before, there are no rules.”

“Did you even read task two?”

He nods, blue eyes flashing. “I certainly have.”

“I’m only twenty.”

He grins. “And I’m only thirty-four.”

I stare at him. With his young features, the thickness of his hair and the contours of his cheeks and jawline, he could pass for a model in my world.

But he’s a professor.

“You wouldn’t get into trouble?”

He laughs, standing and reaching his hand out. “Come. Let’s go to your dorm.”

Despite the uneasy feeling rolling through me, I take his outstretched hand and follow him. Something within me is telling me to get away. To run. But I can’t let go. Something is wrong. Something doesn’t feel right.

He knows where my dorms are, the exact corridor, and ignores the stares from students as he walks with the mortal.

His thumb rubs over my skin, and I frown because I don’t feel anything. Before, when we were sparring and he was teaching me fighting stances, I was affected. Yet now, as he unlocks my door and ushers me inside, I feel nothing.

He looks around as I close my door; I lean against it while he touches everything. The silhouettes on my walls are hiding, nowhere to be seen.

Valin turns to me, a twinkle in his eyes. “Come here.”

I take a few steps without meaning to.

His fingers trail up my arm, and he studies me, the bare legs and thighs revealed by my uniform, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “You are fascinating. You always have been.”

Unfastening the top button of my shirt, he carefully keeps his eyes on me. Another. And another. Still, there’s no rippling need to rip his clothes off. When he does the last one, he slides the material over my shoulders, and the shirt pools on the ground.

I tense all over as he reaches for my bra strap. “What are you doing?”

Softly, like a purr, he replies, “Task two.”

“It states not to do anything sexual.”