“We’re sorry, Grace.” Marc speaks first. “That was totally uncool of us. We didn’t mean to scare you.”
I don’t say anything, because I’m sure as hell not going to tell them what they did to me was okay. And I’m not brave enough to tell them to go to hell, even with Jaxon acting as my shield. So I do the only thing I can do. I stare stonily at them and will their farce of an apology to be over so I can finally go back to my room.
“Yeah, you know.” Quinn waves a hand at the ceiling. “The moon is doing its thing, so…”
That’s the best they’ve got? The moon is doing its thing? I have no idea what that means, and honestly, I don’t care. I’m so over this place and everyone in it. Except Macy and Uncle Finn and—maybe, just maybe—Jaxon.
“I’m going to bed.” I turn to leave, but Jaxon’s hand is back on my wrist.
“Wait.” It’s the first word he’s spoken to me since the whole debacle from earlier, and it halts me in my tracks more surely than his hand around my wrist.
“Why?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns back to Marc and Quinn and says, “This isn’t over.”
They nod, but they don’t say anything else. His words must be a dismissal as well as a threat, though, because they take off down the hall, running faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move.
We both watch them go, and then Jaxon turns to me. For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything, just looks me over from head to toe, his dark eyes cataloging every inch of me. Not going to lie. It makes me a little uncomfortable. Not in the same way that Quinn and Marc made me uncomfortable, like they were looking for a weakness to exploit. It’s more a wow, did it suddenly get hot in here and why oh why am I wearing my oldest, most raggedy pair of pajama bottoms kind of uncomfortable.
Too bad I have no idea how I feel about feeling like that.
“Are you okay?” he asks quietly, his fingers finally releasing their hold on my wrist.
“I’m fine,” I answer, even though I’m not sure it’s true. What kind of place is this where people try to shove you outside to die as a prank?
“You don’t look fine.”
That stings a little, even though I know he’s not wrong. “Yeah, well, it’s been a crappy couple of days.”
“I bet.” His eyes are serious as he looks at me, his expression grave. “You don’t have to worry about Marc and Quinn. They won’t bother you again.” The I’ll make sure of it part of that statement goes unspoken, but I hear it all the same.
“Thank you,” I blurt out. “For helping me, I mean. I appreciate it.”
His brows go up and, if possible, his eyes go even darker in the dim light. “Is that what you think I did?”
“Isn’t it?”
He shakes his head, gives a little laugh that has my heart stuttering in my chest. “You have no idea, do you?”
“No idea of what?”
“That I just made you a pawn in a game you can’t begin to understand.”
“You think this is a game?” I ask, incredulous.
“I know exactly what this is. Do you?”
I wait for him to say something else, to explain his cryptic comments, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just stares at me until I can’t help but squirm a little. I’ve never had anyone look at me the way he is right now, like he can’t decide if he made a mistake rescuing me from imminent death.
Or maybe it’s just that he can’t decide what to say next. In which case, join the freaking club.
In the end, though, all that brooding silence is for nothing, because he simply says, “You’re bleeding.”
“I am?” My hand goes to my cheek, which aches from where Marc’s shoulder banged into it when I was trying to get away from him.
“Not there.” He lifts his hand to my mouth and gently—so gently I can barely feel him—brushes his thumb across my lower lip. “Here.” He holds his thumb up, and in the dim light, I can just see the smear of blood glistening on his skin.
“Oh, gross!” I reach to wipe away the blood. “Let me—”
He laughs, cutting me off. Then brings his thumb to his lips and—holding my gaze with his own—sticks his thumb in his mouth and slowly sucks off the blood.
It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I don’t even know why. I mean, shouldn’t this be totally creeping me out?
Maybe it’s the way his eyes heat up the second he tastes my blood.
Maybe it’s the little noise he makes as he swallows.
Or maybe it’s the fact that that swipe of his thumb across my lips, followed by that lift of it to his own lips feels more intimate than any kiss I’ve ever shared with another boy.
“You should go.” The words sound like they’re being torn out of him.
“Now?”
“Yeah, now.” His expression feels intentionally vacant. Like he’s trying too hard not to share with me what he’s really thinking. Or feeling. “And I strongly suggest that after midnight, you stay in your room where you belong.”
“Stay in my—” I bristle at what he’s implying. “Are you saying I’m responsible for what happened tonight?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m not. They should both have better control.”
It’s a weird way of saying they shouldn’t go around trying to murder people, and I start to ask him about it. But he continues before I can figure out how to phrase it. “But I warned you before that you need to be careful here. This isn’t like your old high school.”
“How do you know what my old high school was like?”
“I don’t,” he says with a smirk. “But I can guarantee it’s nothing like Katmere Academy.”
Jaxon’s right—of course he’s right—but I’m not about to back down now. “You don’t know that.”
He leans forward then, as if he can’t help himself, until his face, and his lips, are barely an inch from mine. And just like earlier, I know it should make me uncomfortable. But it doesn’t. It just makes me burn. And this time, when my knees shake, it has nothing to do with fear.
My lips part, my breath hitches in my chest, my heart beats faster. He feels it—I can see it in his blown-out pupils, in the way he goes wary and watchful. Can hear it in the sudden harshness of his own breath, sense it in the slight tremble of his body against my own. For a second, just a second, I think he’s going to kiss me. But then he leans in farther, past my mouth, until his lips are all but pressed up against my ear. And I get the strange sense that he’s smelling me just like Marc and Quinn had, although it has an entirely different effect on me.