Page 4 of Taste of Thorns (The Firestone Academy #3)

Chapter Three

F ox

As soon as I return to my room, I know there’s someone in there. The magic I use to secure my door shut has been tampered with and there’s a disturbance in the air.

I open the door cautiously. There’s no one in the classroom and I unfasten my cloak and fling it over my desk, then I march through to my quarters.

That’s where I find her, perched on my bed, leaning back on her hands, legs crossed, very little fucking clothing, what there is of it is black and lacy.

“Get out!” I growl.

“That’s not a very polite way to welcome a guest, Fox. Are you falling back into your old Slate manners?”

“I said get out,” I say, remaining by the doorway. Her presence is like poison hanging in the air. Something I do not wish to inhale, something I want to stay far far away from. “In fact, I never invited you in here in the first place. You’re not welcome.”

She curls her tongue behind her teeth, her fangs extended, sharp and dangerous, and her dark-red painted lips stretch into a smile.

“Yes, but you know the rules have never applied to me.”

I frown. Yes, I learned that the hard way.

“Get out,” I repeat for the third time, “or I will throw you out.”

She uncrosses her legs, the skirt of the camisole she’s wearing slipping up to flash a strip of suspender. She curls up seductively onto her feet.

“But I’m hungry, Fox,” she moans, “come hunt with me. Like you used to. It’s no fun on my own.”

I shake my head. “I don’t like the way you hunt.”

“Oh,” she says, gliding her tongue over her teeth and down to the sharp point of her fangs, “I think you do. I think you’d like nothing more than to hunt that scrawny little girl and sink your fangs into her throat.”

“Don’t!” I warn her, my heart pounding in my ears, my fangs tingling.

“It’s only natural, Fox.”

“I don’t feed from humans, Veronica.”

“That’s a shame. Such a ripe little thing I’m sure – blood sweet and warm. Skin tender and warm. Imagine how she’d taste.”

I screw up my eyes.

“Imagine pinning her down and sinking your teeth through her soft flesh, letting her warm blood run into your mouth, across your tongue and down into your belly.”

My stomach moans. I ball my hands into fists.

“No? Maybe I’ll go hunt her then. See what all the fuss is about.”

My hand is around her throat in an instant and I’ve lifted her up off her feet and slammed her against the wall.

It’s a trap. One I’ve walked straight into like a fool, because her eyes roll back in pleasure and she writhes in delight.

“Just like it used to be,” she whispers.

I release her throat in disgust, but I force myself to stand my ground.

“You’re bound by a sacred promise not to hurt her,” I remind her.

She narrows her eyes.

“That wasn’t your magic in the maze. Do you kn–”

I don’t let her finish. “You stay away from her or I will kill you.”

“I’m immortal, remember, darling?”

“There are ways to kill a vampire,” I say.

“Was she helped again today? Did you help her?”

And now I see. The real reason for her visit. The reason for the outfit, for the invitation to hunt. She wants something from me. Information.

“I didn’t help her. No one did,” I say, schooling my face and choosing my words carefully, sticking to the facts.

“And yet she achieved maximum points,” Veronica says, with more than a hint of annoyance. “That scrap of a girl from Slate.”

I’m not able to hide my astonishment this time.

“Briony did? Briony?”

“Yes, that girl,” she spits. Then she cocks her head to one side, and examines me. “There’s something strange about her. Something different. She’s caught your attention for starters.”

“Maybe what attracts me to her, Veronica, is she is the exact opposite of everything you are.”

“Oh, I’m sure she is,” she laughs, “a novice in bed. Cold and frigid. Like a dead fish when you fuck her.”

I try to suppress it, but I guess something flickers across my features.

Veronica laughs even harder. “Don’t tell me you haven’t even had her yet, Fox?”

“I’m her professor,” I point out, with a look.

“I doubt her drunk of a father would make a complaint. I’m sure he’s dying to be rid of her.”

I turn away from her, stride back to the doorway and hold the door wide open.

“This conversation is over.”

She strolls towards me, retrieving the cloak she’s left draped over the end of my bed. She hesitates as she passes me, reaching out to trail a long fingernail down my chest.

“Things will never be over between us, Fox. We have too much history.”

“There is no ‘us’, Veronica. You disgust me,” I spit. “You make my skin crawl.”

She snatches her hand away from me.

“There’s something going on with that girl.

I’m not stupid, Fox.” She narrows her eyes at me.

“You understand that if you know something – anything – it is your duty to report it. That was the condition of your appointment at the academy. Why else do you think we have you teaching that silly little class? You’d be wise to remember that, Professor Fox Tudor.

Wise to remember what happens if you don’t fulfill your duty. ”

I hold her threatening gaze. “I am aware.”

She flings her cloak around her shoulders, and then she’s gone in a swish of dark silk.

Her words linger, echoing around my mind like a bad dream long after she’s left the dungeon.

Veronica’s sour scent hovers in the air too. If I’d been able to smell it better as a human, maybe this mess would never have happened.

Then again, if it hadn’t, would my path ever have crossed with Briony’s? She’s twelve years younger than me. By the time she went off to the academy, I’d have been back in Slate, married, settled with kids, struggling with too many mouths to feed. But maybe I’d have been happy.

I shake my head. I wouldn’t have been. There would always have been something missing. Something I was searching for. I just didn’t know what.

Who.

Now I do.

Briony Storm.