Chapter 17: Forged in Blood: Chapter 15

“So, you wanna come hang out at my place?” Floss giggles, fluttering her fake eyelashes at me and pressing her perky tits against my arm.

I nicknamed her Floss because she smells like the sickly-sweet strands of cotton candy and has a voice to match. Plus I can never remember her actual name despite having fucked her and fed from her several times in the three years she’s been at Montridge.

But I’m not in the mood for cotton candy. I could maybe go for a cupcake though. I lick my lips, and Floss giggles harder, probably thinking I’m imagining eating her instead of the freshman with pink hair and vibrant blue eyes. Who, for some reason, I’m not allowed to bite.

I shake my head. “Can’t. Got too much to do.”

Her lower lip juts out. “Are you hazing the new Ruby pledges? We could hang out after! I’m supposed to be studying, but I …”

Ronan King, one of the commanders in charge of pledges for Onyx, walks by, following a girl around the side of the library. I tune Floss out, but it isn’t Ronan I’m interested in. The girl he’s following is Penelope Nugent, Ophelia’s school bully. What the fuck does she want with him?

I brush past Floss, and I’m vaguely aware of her yelling after me as I jog toward the other side of the quad to get a better view of Ronan and Penelope. When they come into view, I find a space behind a tree that’s safe distance away.

Penelope leans on the outer wall of the library, Ronan’s hand planted beside her head. She’s smiling, her head tilted to the side, and although I can’t see his face, over two hundred years of studying body language tells me they aren’t flirting.

If anything, I’d say they’re conspiring. Are they talking about my cupcake? I strain to read Penelope’s lips, but Ronan’s stupid forearm is in the way. Her eyes crinkle at the sides and her nose wrinkles, like she’s super fucking pleased with herself. What the fuck are these two up to?

Axl scowls as I fill him and Malachi in on what I saw between Ronan and Penelope.

“Do you think it’s a coincidence? Or something we need to worry about? If Ophelia is on the professor’s radar, maybe she’s on Onyx’s too. And you know he said we can’t let anyone else bite her either,” Malachi says.

Axl shakes his head, his scowl deepening. “She’s not our concern. We’re supposed to monitor her, make sure other people stay away, doesn’t mean we have to worry about her. We warn Ronan off if we have to, but we just keep doing what we’re doing. Make sure she goes nowhere but classes, the library, and then back to her dorm. It’s not like she’s going to go looking for trouble at Onyx.”

“We are talking about the same girl who barely flinched when she stumbled upon three vampires feeding from one of her classmates,” I remind him. “The same girl who willingly walked into this house and has more questions than Alex Trebek.”

Malachi snorts a laugh.

“Fuck,” Axl grumbles. “So not only are we babysitting the pyromaniac, we need to keep an eye on Ronan and this Penelope bitch. Like we don’t have enough to do babysitting pledges.”

“How about one of us bites her?” Malachi suggests. “Then at least we can keep track of her emotional state. If she’s planning something, there’ll be a spike of anxiety or excitement or whatever.”

Axl shrugs. “She’s hot, right?”

“You can’t fuck her though. Ophelia would be really upset,” Malachi warns him.

Axl’s eyes glint, and I lick my lips with anticipation. What better way to mess with Cupcake than to fuck her nemesis? This could actually be a whole lot of fun.