Page 13 of Wicked Bonds (Serpentine Academy #1)

Twelve

Lucien

I detest summons, especially ones that come before dawn, when the world still belongs to the monsters and the dead.

Headmistress Wickersly’s request arrives in the form of a black cat with an attitude problem who glares at me until I rise from my alcove and follow it through corridors that gleam from the tireless efforts of the academy’s compelled cleaners.

Ignoring the way the cat flicks its tail at every landing as if to hurry me along, I make the trip to the administrative wing.

Wickersly’s door is open, her silhouette dark. She stands behind her desk, arms crossed, the silver in her hair catching what light there is. I close the door behind me, but remain standing. I am not, despite what some might believe, a dog to be called or sent away at her leisure.

“Lucien.” Her voice is cool. “Sit.”

I do not. “You requested my presence.”

She studies me with the gaze that has cowed generations, but I refuse to wilt under it. Her hands rest lightly on a file folder, thick with notes and photographs. Rose’s name is scrawled across the top.

“We have business,” she says, “regarding the new girl.”

Of course. Everything is about her.

“She is unstable,” Wickersly continues. “More than we anticipated. The binding her mother used was an abomination, but it held for years. Now it fractures by the hour.”

I already know this. I have watched the cracks widen ever since she arrived. “You want me to monitor her.”

She lifts a brow. “I want you to do what you do best. Protect the academy. Protect the Accord.”

“And that requires what, precisely?”

“A gentle hand. A guiding one.” She slides the file toward me. “You are to befriend her.”

The absurdity hits me so hard it almost makes me laugh. “You think she’ll trust me? A vampire?”

She sits, finally, in her high leather chair. “You are to gain her trust, learn her nature, and report to me directly. Discreetly.”

“She is not what you expected.”

“The bloodmark is behaving unusually. Professor Winn reports it’s unstable. Aggressive. I need your assessment.”

I think of the way Rose looks at me, guarded and wary. She isn’t fooled by performance.

Her gaze sharpens. “You’re not to get involved. You observe, you befriend. Nothing more.”

There is a deliberate pause, and I understand what she means. “I will do as the Covenant requires,” I reply, voice flat. I’m a weapon on loan, beholden to the Coven. I can do nothing else.

Wickersly ignores the implication, that my loyalty is to the contract and not to her. She moves her hand to the file, opening it with deliberate slowness. “The Coven is watching this one.”

“They always watch,” I say. “Then they devour.”

Her gaze slides up to mine. “You’ve been with us long enough to recognize why this is different.”

I stay silent.

“She’s already had contact with the specter.”

“Drake is harmless,” I reply. “He’s more likely to scare himself than anyone else.”

“Even so, I’d prefer she not be distracted by ghosts with vendettas. Or by incubi with no sense of boundaries.” The file includes a report on Soren’s activities last night. The ink is barely dry.

There’s a long pause. The cat winds around my ankles; I ignore it, and it bites my shin in protest.

I crouch, level with the animal, and bare my fangs. It hisses, claws out, and then bolts under the armoire. Wickersly does not react. I allow myself half a smile.

“She needs a friend,” the headmistress says, as if reading my mind. “Not a handler. And certainly not a lover. Be her friend, Lucien. Get her to trust you.

“And then?” I ask.

Wickersly raises her chin. “Then we will see what the Accord does. But I want your full attention on the girl.” She leans forward, and the desk lamp catches her eyes, making them gleam. “She is not just our lifeline. She is also a threat, Lucien. The Accord depends on her compliance.”

She dismisses me with a wave of her hand.

As I leave, the cat reappears and spits at my heels for good measure.

The door clicks shut behind me. In the corridor, I pause and consider what it is to be required to ‘befriend’ an unpredictable, untrained witch who would sooner see me burning to ashes than confide in me.

I close my eyes and replay the conversation, turning over every word. Wickersly is asking a wolf to watch a lamb, but not to taste.

I slip through the corridors. I do not sleep.

Sleep is a luxury for the living. Instead, I walk the halls.

Hunting will come later. As the years go by, it gets easier and easier to go days, even weeks without needing to feed.

There is no shortage of willing partners here, either.

But I don’t have a taste for them tonight.

At the fourth floor landing, I see her. Rose. She sits alone on the windowsill, chin drawn to her knees, hair loose. She stares out at the night, and her hand is cupped around her forearm, like she can squeeze the pain out by force of will.

I watch for a minute, unnoticed.

If this were a different century, a different continent, I’d have known exactly what to do. I would have taken her into my household, clothed her, trained her, protected her from every enemy until she transformed into one herself. But the world is smaller now, and the enemies are harder to name.

Her breath steams up the glass, and she writes a word with her fingertip, then smears it.

Backing away I chuckle silently, because I saw what she wrote.

Fuckers

Wickersly may live to regret finding this one.