Fear twined through me like cold smoke in my veins. I didn’t need Masha to flay me when Headmaster would do it for her. I’d seen him do it my first day here, gutting an Acari up the middle with as much emotion as I might show while cracking open a can of Coke.

His eyes swept over the lot of us. I couldn’t imagine what went through his head as he noted every last detail—who held what, who stood where, and next to whom. His flat gaze settled on Masha. “What is happening here, Guidon?”

“I am attending to a”—she cast a beady eye at me—“discipline problem.” Damned if she wasn’t biting back a smile.

But that smile faded at Headmaster’s tone. “You have a peculiar way of enforcing our laws. Unless your intention was to create this…carnival atmosphere.” He surveyed the room once more, disgust playing on those handsome features. “Assez regrettable. Tell me, Guidon Masha, was this carnival your intention?”

“No, Headmaster,” Masha said meekly.

“I will take it from here. Guidon Masha, we will discuss this later.” He stared down the crowd. “All of you, go.”

Acari, Trainees, and Initiates scattered like mice from the hall.

I bent to scoop up my bag with pretty much the only parts of my hands that weren’t bleeding—the fingertips of my left hand.

“Stop,” said Headmaster.

I dropped the bag, bolting to a rigidly upright position. I knew that would’ve been too easy. Emma and I were the only ones left in the hall, and I wished I could’ve seen her face.

“You and your peer must suffer some penalty. What say you, Acari? Should your punishment be corporal or custodial? Or perhaps a touch of each?” He seemed almost bored now, his gaze skipping between us as if we were a couple of tiresome adolescents. But his eyes hardened as he came to a decision. “Acari Emma, you will come with me.”

My heart clenched for my friend. Would this be their opportunity to get Emma back for bowing out of last semester’s Directorate Challenge? Would I ever even see her again?

“And you.” Headmaster’s eyes pinned me, and I flinched, my heart exploding into double time. “Acari Drew, you will report to Master Alcántara for your punishment.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Scared shitless just about summed it up.

Crass, yes, but it was the only way to describe how I felt as I walked across the quad to Alcántara’s office. I imagined the experience was not unlike, say, heading to the gallows. Or walking the plank.

Actually, no. It was worse than those things.

I slowed as the sciences building came into view. It was a squat stone structure, and if the teachers inside hadn’t been vampires, it could’ve been mistaken for any academic building on any campus in the Northeast. All that was missing was some ivy crawling along the outside.

I chafed my arms, wishing I’d worn my thick parka instead of the lighter navy trench. Summertime, my ass. It hadn’t been above fifty degrees in a week. Stupid Isle of Night…more like Isle of Crap Weather.

I was happy I’d dared the quick detour to my dorm to change. I may not have had time to shower, but I did feel a little less vulnerable having traded gym shorts for my gray uniform tunic and leggings.

I slowed my pace even more, trudging up the stairs.

At least it was heated inside, the radiators pinging and knocking as though it were fall term already. The lights were dim, though—not many kids had independent studies in science or math. The remedial topics all seemed to be physical in nature, whatever that implied.

Alcántara kept his office on the second floor, and I headed to the stairwell at the end of the corridor, passing a row of darkened offices and my phenomena classroom on the right, and a library on the left.

“You have found me.” Alcántara emerged from the shadows.

I jumped, putting a hand to my pounding heart. “Jeez. You found me.”

It’d been a nervous statement made without thought, but he responded with a low, husky laugh as if I’d said something witty, maybe even suggestive.

“So it seems,” he said with a smile on his face, and his demeanor threw me. As I took in his shaggy dark hair, the form-fitting black sweater over his taut body, his casual pose leaning in the dimness of the library doorway, I became acutely aware of the true and total sexiness of Master Hugo Alcántara.

A shiver rippled over my skin. I might have been a virgin, but I knew sexiness led to sex, and sex was something I’d never have with a vampire. I mean, technically they were dead—did all their boy parts even still work?

I cleared my throat, trying to clear the thought from my head. Unfortunately, it was replaced by an even creepier thought. “How did you know I’d arrived?”

“I caught your scent. Only this time, it held something fresh…anticipation perhaps? It told me you were coming.” A slow grin spread across his face. “To me.”

He let the statement hang, and that shivery sensation of a moment ago became infused with an alarming warmth. I held my breath, fighting a woozy, must-fall-into-his-arms-like-a-limp-rag-doll feeling. Even as my body was susceptible to him, my mind shrilled, No, no, no.

Alrighty, then. It appeared Ronan wasn’t the only one on this island with the power to control the impulses of others.

Except likening Ronan to Alcántara would’ve been ridiculous—talk about comparing apples to oranges. Ronan was Ronan, and I’d come to feel a sort of odd affection for him that I mostly tried not to think about.

Whereas Alcántara…

Hugo Alcántara was a centuries-old, undead, bloodthirsty creature of the night that I’d do best to fear above all things—to put it mildly.

The disturbing moment ended when he spied my split lip. His eyes narrowed in speculation. “I heard something had come to pass. A skirmish with an older Guidon.”

My belly went queasy. He’d sure gotten that news quickly. I braced for the punishment that’d come at any moment.

But he read the panic in my eyes as something else, and he clarified. “There is no concealing such news. All who are Vampire know when, and why, blood has been spilled.” His gaze drifted to my bloody palms and he stiffened. “But I see this skirmish was not…insignificant.”

I fisted my mangled hands. There was enough vampire blood in my system that the healing had begun already, and by that point the stickiness was annoying me more than the pain. “I’ve had worse.”

Actually, if I had a problem, it was where Dagursson had split my lip—it was only a tiny gash, but bothersome, like a paper cut. I pressed my lips together, but it drew Alcántara’s eyes to my mouth in a way that made me intensely uncomfortable.

“Regardless, I beg you to come.” He took several steps backward, retreating into the library. Naturally, he didn’t trip or stumble. Instead, he was all regal grace, sweeping his arm in welcome as if he were the man of the house and I’d come calling. “I will tend to you.”

I went on high alert. Why was he being so gracious? I’d come because I was in trouble, and here he was, looking ready to offer me a spot of tea. I followed him inside, and wariness made my movements stiff and hesitant.

He reached past me to shut the door, his body very nearly brushing mine. I locked my knees to keep from trembling. What kind of punishments would I endure behind a closed door?

“Are you nervous, Acari Drew? Or are you merely in pain?” Alcántara stepped back and scanned my body, lingering overlong on the bloody bits. There were just a few—and really, I’d had much worse—so why did it feel as if I were standing there in a string bikini?

Nerves or pain? How to answer that one? With the truth, I thought. Alcántara was too smart for anything but some version of it. I confessed, “I’m not certain how to answer that.”

He startled me by laughing. “A lovely reply. As usual, I find your verve refreshing.” His grin faded as he studied me. “Nerves,” he said. “Nerves, not pain, have you suffering so. I remember enough of what it was to be human to imagine that, if you were in pain, your jaw would be tighter. Speaking through gritted teeth, yes?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“You are nervous that you’re in trouble?”

I gave the merest nod, hoping desperately that I wasn’t making any missteps on this very strange conversational minefield. Then again, maybe this was my punishment. I’d get the crap scared out of me until my heart failed from the stress.

“Come then, and I will take your mind from these nerves.” The overstuffed sofa creaked as he sat. The leather was the color of burgundy…or blood. He casually perched an arm up along the back edge. “I was reading when you arrived.”

I assessed the scene, which didn’t take long, seeing as I spent as much free time as possible in this very room. There was dark furniture, a fire blazing in the hearth, and towering bookshelves all around.

My choices were to remain standing, to sit on one of the armchairs facing him, or, the most unsettling option of all, to simply sit next to Alcántara on the couch.

He patted the cushion beside him. “Come, come. We have much to discuss.”

I swallowed hard. Next to him on the couch, then.

“I must examine you. But first, something to take your mind from your troubles.” The glint in his eyes sent chills up my spine.

I had no idea what he could possibly bust out that’d take my mind off this freaky scenario, because I sure seemed to be facing some pretty deep troubles.

The leather creaked as I sat, sounding overloud in the room. I wondered what my punishment was going to be, and when it would begin. By that point, I just wanted to get it over with—all my speculation was shaping up to be quite its own torture. I was stiff and chilled, my body in a state of panicked readiness.

But I’d learned that vampires adored their theatrics, and so I forced myself to roll with it. I tried to get comfortable and feel normal, adjusting my tunic and leggings, and willed the fireplace to warm me.

Alcántara surprised me then. Instead of probing my wounds, or beheading me, or whatever creative gruesomeness he had scheduled, he simply ignored me and reached for a book.