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My iPod also stored books—I kept dozens on the thing—and I was able to read and reread my favorites under the covers, pretending I was a regular girl in a regular dorm with a regular roommate.
I gradually got into a routine, and things started to feel fairly normal and uneventful. If uneventful meant finding a box of extralong matches, a gold Zippo, lighter fluid, and various other incendiaries in your roomie’s drawers, and normal was a word you could ascribe to a vampire-ambassador training academy-cum–charm school.
I headed to phenomena class, thinking just how much I was beginning to doubt the ambassador part of that equation. With all the brutal gym classes, I sensed that a Watcher was less an attaché than an agent in the 007 sense of the word.
I cringed, spotting a clique rounding the corner on the path ahead. Apparently, my hatred was strong enough that just thinking about Lilac summoned her out of thin air. She and one of her high-class gal pals were headed straight for me.
But they were with Josh.
They were looking cozy, too, him with an arm around each girl. Was he just being friendly? Didn’t he know they were evil incarnate? Who was flinging themselves at whom?
Rumor had it that he’d joked he’d eventually make his way through all the Acari. Yasuo couldn’t confirm it, so I didn’t give it much credit at the time, chalking it up to girls getting the hots for the cute Aussie.
But seeing him now, remembering how that naughty-boy leer had flickered in his eyes, I wouldn’t put it past him. I’d thought he was, I dunno, interested in me. But apparently, Josh was interested in everyone.
Disappointed, pissed, flattered, relieved . . . I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
Lilac’s laugh trilled across the quad. Either she was really amused by something he’d said, or she was just really working it. My money was on the latter.
Double-oh-seven indeed. Who better to be cast as Bond girls but Lilac and her sleek, slutty friends? Her crowd seemed especially interested in Josh, and I couldn’t figure out why. He was supposed to be a Harvard guy. What would a bunch of dimbulb girls see in him? I mean, Josh was cute, but so was pretty much every other guy on campus.
They got closer, and instead of making room on the path, I stood my ground, striding toward them with my head held high. I would not step aside for Lilac.
She and her friend glowered, but Josh greeted me with his usual wide smile. The glint in his eyes made him look like he had a secret.
He pulled away from the girls, moving to the side to let me pass. “Looking lovely today, Drew. ”
His voice was slow and intent, like there was some private subtext. And who knew? Maybe he was trying to communicate a message to me. Or maybe he was just flirting. Maybe this was how all guys acted.
Well, no, thank you.
I listened to Lilac’s laugh and Josh’s sexy Australian lilt fading in the distance. Theirs was effortless flirtation—something that was completely foreign to me.
I thought of decorum class, and how even that was difficult for me. Knowing when to smile coquettishly and when to avoid a man’s eye. When it was proper to stray from formal titles, when to serve soup and with which spoon. Charm, poise, courtesy . . .
I gave a little shudder. If there was one thing to clear Lilac and Josh from my mind, it was thoughts of Alrik’s decorum seminar. I’d hoped it’d teach me things like Martini Mixology or Baccarat 101, but I’d been sorely mistaken. Instead, we had to endure things like couples’ ballroom dancing. Ballroom, for God’s sake. I despised it, just as I’d known I would.
And the instructor, Master Alrik Dagursson?
Creepiest. Teacher. Ever.
He’d taught me three things thus far.
1. I hated couples dancing.
2. Some teachers were vampires.
3. Not all vampires were hot.
So much for the Twilight worldview.
I suspected that Alrik—or Master Dagursson, as we lowly Acari had to call him—was one of the old ones Ronan had mentioned. The name alone proclaimed him of Viking stock, though he’d lost the trace of any accent long ago. Instead he spoke with contrived, faux-classical inflections. Imagine Keanu Reeves delivering a speech while pretending to be a Knight of the Round Table, and you had the velvet sounds of Master Dagursson.
As for his looks? Maybe they only made cute vampires now, but this dude looked like he might’ve been an aging rocker before being frozen in time.
All in all, my vampire count was up to three. Headmaster Fournier. Master Dagursson. And the mysterious monster from the path.
I unzipped my parka and bounded up the stairs to the science building. I smiled. Thank God it was Tuesday. Tuesday meant Tracer Judge’s phenomena class, not decorum.
I loved phenomena. And I adored the teacher, too. I’d come to realize that people like Tracer Judge were rarities on this isle. He was supersmart in an always learning, inquisitive sort of way. And though he was disciplined, he was thoughtful and forgiving, too. The good news was, he said if I stayed after class a couple of times a week, he’d teach me the basics of hacking Linux servers.
I was still smiling when I swooped into the room, plopping into my usual spot next to Yasuo. Still smiling, I looked to the lectern. But my face drained when I saw him.
It was the monster from my night run, and he was staring right at me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“We have a guest lecturer today. ” Tracer Judge stoodtoto the side of the podium, his usual easy manner replaced by stiff formality. “He’ll be discussing topics in mathematics, and I think you’ll find his qualifications beyond reproach. ”
Even though it was Judge who was speaking, I couldn’t drag my eyes from the vampire. Though I hadn’t seen clearly in the dark, I knew without a doubt it was him. The one from the path. I felt it in that penetrating gaze—in his very presence, an energy that hummed like a giant magnet.
“Without further ado”—Judge took a step back—“I present Master Alcántara. ”
“Thank you, Tracer. ” His eyes swept the room, and I could’ve sworn they came to rest back on me.
I sucked in a breath.
He gave a gracious half bow. Aimed in my direction. “I am Hugo De Rosas Alcántara. ”
Hugo De Rosas Alcántara . . . it rolled off his tongue, low and accented, sounding as smoky and seductive as a snifter of Spanish brandy. Every female jaw in the classroom dropped open.
“I was born in the fourteenth century in Madrid. ” He let the shocking statement hang, and a collective gasp filled the room. His response was a wolfish smile, curling one corner of his lips.
I felt Yasuo shift in his seat, maybe trying to catch my attention, but I couldn’t pull my eyes from the vampire. I was mesmerized. He looked like he was about nineteen, and I focused on that fact, ignoring his impossible-to-fathom real age, which must’ve been six hundred–something.
“My grandfather was one of the original Knights of Alcántara. A chivalric order of the Middle Ages. ” Though unfamiliar to me, the way he’d said it implied something dark and dangerous. Sexy, even. Not unlike like him.
“But I was a precocious child. And a precocious boy yearns to make his own way. ” He shook his head ruefully, a quiet laugh rumbling in his chest.
His black hair was longish and wavy, and so thick it seemed permanently tousled. He raked a hand through it, leaving him looking like a rock star who’d just carelessly pulled a shirt over his head. “I forsook my family’s militant ways. The wars I longed for occurred in the space of my mind, waging battles of words, ideas. Of formulas and numbers. ”
He began to stroll about the room, and his movements reminded me of a panther. Exquisite, but something that could kill you in a heartbeat.
“Mathematics is a particular passion of mine. It is precision. But it is poetry, too. I traveled to the royal court in Castile, seeking like minds. King Peter was young, like me.
And, like me, he was a man smitten with new ideas. Soon I was appointed court mathematician. This was the greatest of honors, not given lightly by a man whom the peasants called Pedro el Cruel. . . . ”
He stopped speaking, and it was like he’d become a thing carved of marble. Impossibly beautiful and utterly still.
My heart kicked up a beat. And then I worried, wondering if he could hear my heartbeat. Did vampires scent fear like other predators? Did a being like Master Alcántara perceive me as prey? To him, I was likely a brief flicker of consciousness and flesh that could be snuffed out in an instant.
He clicked out of his trance, his anima firing vitality back into those dark eyes. “But this is a story for another day. Today we speak of mathematics. ”
His tone of voice had become light again. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped breathing.
“Some of you are quite familiar with mathematical concepts. Others, not as much. I ask that you all open your minds. Mathematics is all around you. The pattern of a poem, the shape of a leaf, your pop music . . . ”
Master Alcántara strolled back to the front of the classroom, casually leaning against the top of the teacher’s desk. Was it a trick that made it seem like his eyes were aimed straight at me?
My cheeks burned. Why did he stare at me as he mentioned music? I hoped mind-reading vampires were just the stuff of books, and that he didn’t, in fact, know about my hidden iPod.
“You’ve become acquainted with crude infiltration and reconnaissance techniques—locks, wiretaps, hacking. Now, tell me: In what way can the most basic mathematic principles be applied to espionage?”
His eyes didn’t waver from me. But there were other kids in the class. He was staring at me—I was sure of it now. But why?
Everyone else was silent. Were they looking at me, too? Was the question directed at me? I couldn’t tell—nor could I bring myself to look away.
“Acari Drew, is it?” Master Alcántara gave me a half-lidded smile. “A spirited name. I like spirit. Tell me, Acari Drew, do you need to decline the question?”
My eyes felt locked to his. Like he’d hypnotized me.
“Yo, D. ” Yasuo’s voice was a harsh whisper at my left side.