Chapter 25

Adrian

I didn't know how David knew about this room, but I didn't really care either. I was glad that there was a place here at all where one could communicate undisturbed.

The only unusual details were all the pictures on the wall and the bright sunlight coming in through the big windows.

I felt the infernal burning on the back of my hand and watched Miles avoiding the light as well. We both didn't bring our black moonstones.

There were advantages and disadvantages to using our powers during the day. And like with all of us, it was my skin that was affected. Even if the Legacy Ruisangors had a clear advantage and didn't have to walk around with a moonstone all day, as the Changed had to.

Actually, it should have stopped long ago, but the burning had already occurred regularly for half an hour as soon as UV radiation hit my skin.

I joined Miles in a corner where no light entered, and David followed me.

"Is it still burning?" David finally asked. He knew it wasn't normal.

"Yes," I replied curtly, because I wanted to get to the point. "But it will go away soon."

When I had manipulated the girl's memories earlier, it had been different than usual. It had felt like I was fighting a certain resistance. And then her look, which had been different from the others. Instead of horror and emptiness, it had been curiosity. As if she had enjoyed it before I had taken away the rest of her memories of the conversation. Almost as if she had enjoyed every bit of it. There had been a strange gleam in her eyes. A glow I neither knew nor could place. And then that smell...

I remembered a few other of my prey bodies that I had slept with before. Their eyes had been empty. No gleam, no curiosity, nothing. And they had never smelled like a goddamn feast.

"That's what happens when you don't use your powers often enough."

Miles patted me on the shoulder, laughing.

I looked at him in annoyance, even though he was right.

"Unlike you , I don't use them to bang random girls and plant false images of me in their minds," I countered unenthusiastically.

"You just erase their memory afterward. How boring..." Miles waved off, and I raised my brows.

"When was the last time you drank from them?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

Miles's expression darkened. I had hit his sore spot. Point for me.

"Hey, focus now," David murmured. "These topics have no place at Vanderwood."

"Don't get jealous. After all, you can pretend to be a witch if you ever get in trouble."

David raised both brows in response to Miles' words. Normally, he always reacted pissed off in regards to such teasing. Even though he was very much in control of his emotions. The way it should be and not the way it was with Miles .

We'd probably teased David too much about the telekinesis thing, so that perhaps he no longer cared.

"At least I don't treat women the shameless way you do."

That had more than sunk in. And as expected, Miles jumped at David's argument.

"Not everyone knows how to live life to the fullest."

At that, he looked at me as if he were making some kind of reference. I knew what he was getting at.

"Don't confuse recklessness and unbridled sexual drives with fun ," David returned. "Bastien taught you – and by that, I mean both of you – that you don't play with your prey or take advantage of your superiority over it."

This time, he looked at me.

"Bastien wouldn't be Bastien if he could take a joke," Miles laughed.

There was mockery in his amusement. I don't know if it was directed at Bastien, the rules, or the whole Ruisangor ruling system, but one thing was clear. He handled it differently than we did.

"Can we please stop wasting our time on this subject?" Miles finally murmured.

"It's in our nature, though," I replied dryly. He couldn't run away from it forever.

"Maybe it is, but we're not like the wolves or the..." Miles stopped mid-sentence. I knew exactly what he had been trying to say.

"What are you trying to say?"

I took a step toward him, and his expression darkened.

"Adrian, Miles..." David began impatiently, but I had really gotten into it for the first time in a while. I took another step.

"Are you saying I'm one of them ? One of those out-of-control monsters?"

They were like us. Genetically speaking. Other than that, we had nothing in common. If we killed people like they did, we would automatically be one of them. But mere drinking was harmless. When was he going to accept that?

If he knew the whole truth, he would never speak a word to me again.

"Yes, damn it, I'm saying you're acting like someone from the Tenebris Order!"

His eyes turned a threatening red and I would have loved to do like that rude mutt in the bar, but I reminded myself to be reasonable. We ruled our emotions, not them us.

"Miles, enough is enough..." David began again.

"The Order of Tenebris is doing exactly the same thing you are!" Miles looked at me angrily. "And we have a way of not living like those lawless bastards, and yet you're still doing it." He banged on the table, and a loud crack sounded. "I'm sure Nicolaj encouraged you to do it – or he did!"

I felt the anger boiling over. "I do it because I can control myself!"

I had gone too far. At least for Miles, who sped toward me and pinned me against the wall. His eyes glowed menacingly.

"Miles! That's enough! That wasn't our plan," I admonished placatingly, pushing Miles backwards and walking with my hands in my pockets to the window through which the sun was still shining. But I stood so that it reached just to my covered chest level.

" No one here is a member of the Order of Tenebris . You should hear yourself talk. It's unbearable!" I added annoyed, knowing that there were far worse things than being a part of the Order .

Miles didn't say anything more, and I knew he was struggling with his emotions right now. As usual. And gradually I was getting fed up with it.

"Let's focus on other things instead. Miles, I'm sure you've got a plan to really kick some mutts' butts..."

This time I wondered about my words, since I tried to avoid such problems on principle. But it seemed like a welcome distraction from the life I had outside of this campus.

I felt Miles start to move and appear next to me within a split second.

I didn't have to look over at him to know that he hadn't finished discussing the matter. On the contrary. The fire of aggression was blazing inside him. Something he had definitely inherited from his father.

"Do you have a plan?" David asked with interest, and when I turned around, he was leaning casually against a table on which colorful pictures and posters lay neatly sorted.

This room had to belong to the Faculty of Arts.

I caught myself staring at the pictures for too long, as if they were calling out to me. And then I wondered what my life would have been like as an art student – a thought I quickly dismissed because I wasn't . I had duties and tasks that set me apart from the others. There was no place for such things in my life, just like all the things Miles wallowed in every day.

"I mean, we could just cut down their oak tree..." Miles suggested.

"And have her entire pack stuck to our cheek with it? Hardly ."

David was right. That would have been too obvious. And sooner or later, Nicolaj would find out. Something my blood brothers shouldn't have to deal with.

"Now comes a boring Adrian version, I'm sure."

Even if it didn't sound like it, Miles really tried to keep himself under control and forget about the conversation from before. Because even though it was just us here, we had to function flawlessly out there. Anything we screwed up here , sooner or later, we wouldn't be able to manage in front of the clan either. Emotional outbursts of any kind were a disgrace for every Ruisangor. Because feelings meant weakness.

Bastien and Camille often tried to look past it, reasoning that he was the youngest of us at twenty and that I should keep an eye on him at the age of twenty-six. I obeyed, even though I had better things to do than babysit Miles . He would never grow up, even if he had eternity to do so. It would take a miracle for that to happen, and I didn't believe in such things.

I sighed.

"Maybe we should just leave it alone. We would get nothing but stress with such provocations. And besides...don't you think we should stand above things?" David finally said, and normally I would have agreed with his opinion, but this time I had my own objectives. And as long as we let those miserable dogs make us look stupid, no one here would show us respect.

"Good one, David," Miles laughed with his hands up. "This place is boring as hell, and the dogs really need to be walked. So, get your shit together and defend our honor."

"I think I have an idea." I was too quiet, even if they could have heard me through ten walls.

David shook his head. "I still wonder why Bastien had the glorious idea of letting you come here."

Miles eyed David suspiciously, braced his hands at his sides, and turned to me energetically. "And that idea would be?"