Chapter Thirty-One
"You can do this, Cali."
I side-eyed Ling.
"Don't look at me like that, girl. I know you can do this."
"She's right," Cole murmured. "You can do this."
"I'm pretty sure we've established I can not do this," I said. "And you should be resting."
"I'm fine," he promised, his eyes meeting mine across the small library table Ling and I had laid claim to at the start of last year. "And stop trying to change the subject."
I searched his face for a long moment, but if he was hurting, he didn't give any sign of it. The pack doctor had checked him over after the fight, and told him his injuries would heal…in time. Because technically they'd been inflicted by his alpha, and Cain had intended those injuries to stick, and not even weird wolfy magic could fix them. Which meant he'd have to let his wounds heal up naturally, which would take time. Time we didn't have, since our end of year assessments were due to start tomorrow, and if last year was anything to go by, then we were all going to be at our best.
Which was why we were here.
"Just focus, Cali," Ling urged. "You can do this."
I blew out a breath. "I really hope so."
"Me, too," Sam ventured from where he was perched on the table. I snorted.
"Yeah, I guess you have a little more to lose than me, huh?"
"Hey," Cole said, crossing to me and squeezing my shoulder gently. "No-one's going to lose anything."
He leaned over and pressed his lips to mine. I leaned into him, and then a wince flashed across his face. I pulled back, arching an eyebrow.
"Fine, huh?"
"Fine is relative," he said with a shrug.
"Sit, now," I ordered him, and he snapped off a salute, then winced again. I didn't bother to hide my smirk…which quickly fell away when I looked down at Sam. We'd tried this every day for the last week, and every day for the last week I'd had to be stopped from feeding by Cole or by Ling before I went too far. Jax, once, too—but he'd muttered something about being traumatized and ducked out of my training after that. I couldn't say I blamed him—I'd have ducked out of my training, too, if I could. There were a million things I'd rather be doing, not least amongst them keeping an eye on my mom, but if I didn't pass my feeding assessment, I'd be held back a year, and that meant Cole would be, too. And the last thing either of us could afford, now more than ever, was to look weak. Especially with the deal I'd made with Ezekiel, the one I hadn't been able to bring myself to tell anyone about—not even Cole. Because I didn't know what losing me would do to him after everything he'd been through already, but I had to do everything in my power to make sure he looked strong enough to discourage his rivals from taking a shot while he was getting over me. Fuck, the thought of even a day without this man by my side...
Hence my private feeding lessons. I'd never managed to stop feeding by myself, not a single time, and it wasn't like Ling could use her little blood-tastes-like-ass trick when I was being assessed.
"You ready for this?" I asked Sam, and he nodded, turning his head slightly to give me better access to his throat.
I took a deep, steadying breath. Ling was right: I could do this. She wouldn't let me take things too far. Cole wouldn't let me take things too far. And Sam…well, there wouldn't be a whole hell of a lot Sam could do, even if he hadn't spent the last few years being conditioned into obedience. But the others wouldn't let me hurt him. You know, excessively. Because unlike certain asshole vampire princes I wasn't talking to right now, I didn't have the hang of that whole endorphin thing that stopped the unfortunate I was feeding on from feeling pain.
Ling cleared her throat.
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered. "I'm doing it."
I stepped forward, lowering my head to Sam's exposed neck. My fangs elongated without any conscious effort from me as the scent of his blood filled my senses, and then instinct took over. The moment my teeth pierced his skin, the rich, metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth.
A rasping groan clawed its way out of my throat and I gripped Sam tightly, sucking greedily at the wound. The exquisite flavor overwhelmed me, wiping every thought from my mind except the all-consuming need for more. Dimly, I heard Sam's pained grunt, but it barely registered through the haze of bloodlust.
I fed ravenously, gulping down mouthful after mouthful of the hot, vital fluid. Already I could feel its restorative power flowing through me, filling me with preternatural strength and vitality, giving me the edge I craved, the edge I needed almost as much as the blood that gave it to me. Sam sagged against me, his hands scrabbling weakly at my shoulders, but I only tightened my hold. His heartbeat pounded in my ears, spurring me to drink deeper.
"Cali!" Cole's sharp voice cut through the red mist enshrouding my mind. "Control yourself."
A snarl tore from my throat. How dare he try to stop me? I needed this, needed more! I bit down savagely, tearing open the wound further. Sam cried out, the sound jagged with pain and fear. Dark, greedy delight unfurled within me at his agony. Power—that's what this was. Proof of what I could do, what I was. Vampire. Predator. I didn't just run with monsters, I was one, and I was every bit as strong as any one of them. Stronger, even. Better.
"Cali, stop," Ling told me, a sharp edge to her voice.
"You're stronger than this, Cali," Cole said. "Fight it."
I barely heard them over the sweet song of Sam's slowing heartbeat. His struggles grew feebler as weakness overtook him. I clung to him, unwilling to relinquish my prize. His blood was mine. Mine! I would not be deprived of it.
"Stop her," Cole murmured, and I snarled again in defense of my prize, but abruptly the blood turned to slime in my mouth. I drew back, spitting it out in disgust, and clarity flooded back through me.
Shit, Sam!
"Sam!" I stared down at him, horror drowning the remnants of the bloodlust as I realized what I'd nearly done.
"He's okay," Cole said, and Sam blinked blearily up at me, giving me an unsteady nod in confirmation as Ling held a glass of water to his lips.
"No thanks to me. Dammit! Why can't I control myself?" I whirled away in frustration, hating the unnatural strength and grace powering my every movement. Strength and grace I'd been willing to kill for.
"You'll get it," Cole said. "You just need—"
"Time?" I demanded. "Cole, I don't have time. My feeding assessment is tomorrow, and there's no way I can pass. Look what I did! I nearly killed him. I'm a mess."
"—to stop being so hard on yourself," Cole finished firmly. "Beating yourself up isn't going to help."
"Taking it easy on myself isn't going to, either," I snapped. "Shit, sorry. I'm being a bitch. It's not your fault."
"It's not yours, either," he said. "Try to remember that, okay? You haven't been doing this as long as the others."
I shook my head. "I don't think that's it. The others…they all learned this much faster than I am. What if…what if dhampirs can't control the bloodlust? What if that's part of the reason we're outlawed?"
"And what if," he said, taking my hands in his, "you're worrying about nothing? Because you're the most incredible woman I know, princess, and there is nothing you can't do."
"Except resist Davorin's compulsion."
Cole's face hardened. "Has he been giving you a hard time again?"
I shook my head. "The opposite. I think he's avoiding me." Ever since I threatened to cut out his heart, despite his cryptic comment about not being done with me yet. "But that's not my point. We don't even really understand what I am—it's not like there's a whole lot of research on dhampirs, and that's before you take into account the fact I can somehow shift. Losing control could be normal. It might be something I can't fix."
"It might," Cole agreed. "That doesn't change the fact I know you're going to find a way."
I swallowed, closing my eyes and leaning into his touch as he brushed his fingers across my cheek, and I tried not to think of what I was going to lose. It didn't matter what my limitations were, because I wasn't going to be here to test them. I just had to get through these assessments so Cole didn't get held back. People were going to be questioning his strength enough next year, I didn't need to give them any more reason.
"Cali?"
"Hm?" My eyes fluttered open and I found Cole watching me with an amused look on his face.
"I said, let's get Sam back to the human quarters, and then get you some rest. You're going to need it for tomorrow."
He wasn't wrong about that.
*
The night came too quickly and passed too soon, and then the sun was rising on what might be my last full day in this academy. The first years had completed their assessments yesterday, and the third years would tackle theirs in two days. That meant today was all about us. We would be tested and we would leave, and at least one of us would never come back. And I wasn't ready for any of it. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to this place. To say goodbye to the people inside it. I wasn't ready to face whatever fate my father had lined up for me. I'd chosen the words of my deal carefully, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try to break me, to force me to do whatever he wanted.
But I didn't want to think about that. If today was my last day, then I intended to live every second of it. Today was all I had, but it was mine.
I pulled on my uniform while Cole watched me with a heated expression that threatened to derail our morning entirely, lounging on his bed looking hotter fully dressed than most models could manage naked.
"Are you ready?" he asked, getting to his feet.
Never.
"Yes," I whispered, and he pulled me against him, wrapping his arms around me.
"You've got this, princess," he murmured into my hair as I inhaled the scent of him. "And I'll be waiting for you when you're done."
"You better be in your shifting assessment when I'm done," I warned him, arching a brow. A shifting assessment, that, by some unusual stroke of luck, the council had determined I didn't have to take. Dhampirs couldn't shift, and I was registered as a dhampir right now, which meant I couldn't be assessed as anything else—much as I was sure Astor was trying her damnedest to change that. Though honestly, I'd rather be taking a shifting assessment with Cole than this feeding control assessment. Shifting I was actually capable of. Kinda.
"Fine. After that. And you can tell me how stunned they all look when you breeze through their test."
I snorted. "Right. I'll tell you all about the flying pigs at the same time."
Part of me wished I had longer—I'd appealed to Astor but she was adamant I needed to take the assessment by the end of the academic year—but the rest of me would just be glad to have it over with, one way or the other.
I kissed Cole goodbye and managed to extract myself from the room before either of us got too distracted—no easy task—then headed for the feeding den where I knew Demir would be waiting—along with every vamp in my year. It was hard to say which of them was rooting for me to fail more, but fuck all of them. I was going to give it my best shot. At least Demir wouldn't let me kill anyone—out of concern for the effort it would take to replace the unfortunate human more than anything else, but I'd take it. The worst I could do today was completely humiliate myself.
With that cheerful thought rattling around inside my head, I lifted my chin and strode through the double doors of the feeding den. It looked like the rest of my year was already here—guess Cole and I had gotten a little more distracted than I thought—and snickers followed me as I made my way across the room to my usual spot by the far wall.
"Good of you to join us, Ms. Ellis," Demir said, his lip curling in a sneer as he looked me up and down. "And there I was thinking that you'd do us all the decency of failing to show and saving us squandering our time on you."
"Sorry to disappoint," I said, holding his eye.
"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure we won't be disappointed for long. After all, I've been overseeing your training, and I'm certain you haven't been feeding elsewhere, seeing as it's forbidden to borrow humans from this den for the purpose of feeding." His eyes glittered coldly. "They're not library books, after all."
A few cold laughs echoed through the room, but my heart thudded painfully. He knew. He knew about my private sessions with Ling and Cole and Sam in the library. That alone was enough to land me in some serious trouble.
"Still, it's important to make allowances for lesser species," he said, with one last malicious smirk before turning to his audience at large. "Domina Astor did so by allowing the abomination until the end of this year to pass this most basic of assessments that all of you passed within months of arrival, so we must follow our esteemed leader in her clemency. So we will not deny the dhampir her opportunity to…dazzle us with her supremacy."
My stomach turned over. There was no way I could do this, and he was going to let everyone watch while I made a complete idiot of myself. I glanced hopefully down at my feet, but nope, the floor was not making any move to helpfully swallow me.
Guess this was Demir's revenge for me sidestepping his rules. And, probably, for interfering with the humans and getting them better living conditions. Whatever. It was worth it. And it wasn't like these people could hate me any more than they already did. There was literally nothing I could do to make myself lower in their eyes.
It should have been a liberating thought. Maybe it would have been, if I hadn't lifted my eyes at that exact moment to see Thaden's heated stare boring into me from across the room. My heartrate spiked and my cheeks flushed, and a flash of heat pooled in my core as I recalled the things he'd done to me.
Dammit! How could he still have this effect on my stupid, traitorous body? He treated me like shit, no, worse, he treated me like I was invisible, even when he was feeding from me. How could my body still harbor that kind of thought about him? How could I? Ugh. Stupid body.
I forced my gaze away from Thaden, skin still tingling with heat, and focused on Demir—which was enough to drive the lingering trace of arousal far, far away. Good. I needed to focus, not to be thinking about Prince Asshole Thaden.
Demir held out a sheet of paper to the nearest student, Lucia.
"Fetch these humans for today's feeding assessments," he ordered.
"Yes, Instructor," Lucia said, and hurried off, list in hand, to the small, plain door that led to the human quarters. She didn't cross the threshold—vamps didn't sully themselves by mixing with their food source, or some such elitist shit—but knocked once and thrust the sheet at the person who answered.
A moment later—I might have managed to improve their living conditions, but they were still conditioned to obey, and quickly—a dozen humans stepped through into the feeding den. I saw a few faces I recognized…Nikki, Celeste…and Sam.
I felt a rush of hope at the familiar face, because maybe—just maybe—I had a shot at getting through this after all. Because I'd done this before, and okay, maybe I hadn't been able to stop without Ling's help, but I had stopped. And Sam would do everything he could to help. Just knowing it was him would help push back the bloodlust enough to give me a shot.
Demir's malicious smile made my heart sink even before he spoke. "Number 22-017, come forward. You're the dhampir's test subject for her assessment."
Numbers. Right. Because Demir would never lower himself to acknowledge the humans had names, far less actually take the trouble to learn them. And then a blonde woman bowed her head respectfully to Demir.
Celeste. One of the few humans here who might actually hate me more than the vamps did. Just great.
She shot me a scornful look, lip curling, as she stepped forward to the stool Demir had indicated. My palms grew clammy. Of all the humans here, she was guaranteed to make this difficult for me.
I moved to stand before her, trying to quiet my nerves. I could do this. I had to do this. Because my future didn't depend on it—but Cole's did.
Celeste tilted her head resentfully, exposing the pale column of her throat. Saliva flooded my mouth as my fangs extended from my gums. I breathed through the sudden, overwhelming hunger, clinging to my control.
Then Celeste's scent enveloped me, and the sweet allure of her blood. Thaden's simmering gaze seared into me from across the room, sparking an entirely different kind of hunger. Stop it! I growled internally, dragging my focus back to Celeste.
Before I could second guess myself, I struck, fangs piercing soft skin. My eyes rolled back in bliss at the first hot gush of blood. Rich, viscous, divine. I swallowed greedily, all thoughts of failure and Thaden obliterated by dizzying need.
Distantly, I heard Celeste cry out in pain, but the sound barely registered. More, I needed more! I sucked harder, blood slaking my thirst like the most exquisite wine.
"Seems like our dhampir is destined for failure," Demir said, his voice penetrating my feeding haze. "Such a shame."
At his words, the memory of Thaden's hands on my body flashed through me, followed by the gut-wrenching shame of his rejection. Rage ignited within me, directed at Demir, at Thaden, at everything I'd endured in this brutal place. The fury burned through my hunger, reminding me of what I was doing here, of what I stood to lose. I just had to stop, just stop and I would pass. That was all. But the blood…
"Sebastian, you may begin your assessment. Drain number 21-012 to unconsciousness but stop before death."
"Yes, Instructor," Sebastian replied, his face a sadistic sneer as he snapped his fingers at Sam.
"Try not to get carried away," Demir said in an offhanded tone, but the way his eyes fixed on me sent terror flooding through me. He didn't care if Sam was killed, and he would do nothing to stop it happening.
As Sam obediently bared his throat, Sebastian viciously grabbed a fistful of his hair and jerked his head to the side. Sam's face contorted in pain, but he didn't make a sound. Years of conditioning had taught him not to. Sebastian smirked, his pitiless gaze meeting mine across the room.
Seeing him abused so casually snapped my last thread of control. Fury blazed through me, hotter than any bloodlust. A snarling scream tore from my throat. I tossed Celeste aside and threw myself at Sebastian.
"Stop her," Demir drawled, sounding bored.
Hands grasped my shoulders, hauling me back. I threw them off and launched myself forward, but a figure blocked my path. Thaden. His hands slammed into my chest, tossing me back, and my eyes snapped to his as I readied myself to go through him. He gave a slight shake of his head and I drew in a steadying breath.
"Ms. Ellis," Demir said, stepping into view. "It would seem you were overcome by bloodlust, abandoning your assessment to steal another vampire's feeder."
My mouth popped open. "No, I didn't. I—"
"Such loss of control is an automatic failure," he continued, ignoring me. "Such a shame. And dangerous conduct, too. I shall inform Astor that you are barred from progressing to the next year…and that as a danger to those around you, I recommend your immediate incarceration."
I stared at him in horror. "You can't!"
"Oh, I assure you that I very much can."
"Astor gave her until the end of the year to pass her assessment," Thaden said, and my eyes snapped to him.
"This is the end of the year," Demir said coldly, but Thaden shook his head.
"The year isn't over until tomorrow evening. She has thirty-two more hours."
Demir curled his lip in a sneer. "Thirty-two hours. Seems like you have a stay of execution, Ellis. I'll look forward to watching you fail again tomorrow afternoon. Now get the fuck out of my feeding den. I have assessments to complete."
I stumbled towards the doors in a daze, catching a glimpse of Sebastian setting Sam on the floor as I opened them. The last thing I heard before they swung shut behind me was the slow but steady thud of his heart.
Which didn't change the fact that I was royally fucked.