Chapter 26

Julie

When I entered the molecular biology seminar room in the west wing, the first thing I noticed was the many girls excitedly whispering to each other in the best seats.

At Blairville High, I had always been the only girl in science classes.

What if I had ended up in the wrong room?

I backed up to check the sign outside the entrance to make sure I was in the right place, and when I read molecular biology , I stepped back into the room, shaking my head and trying to ignore the horde of girls.

It didn't slip my mind that they were all human. Among them was Penny Bexley, the little sister of reporter gossip Jenny . Penny had been in my year at Blairville High and, even then, had shown little interest in her family's radio station and more in biology. A wonder she had managed to minor in biology. As far as I knew, the sensationalist Bexley family had forced their youngest into majoring in media, just like Jenny, who seemed to be completely absorbed in it.

When Penny spotted me, she smiled shyly. Quickly, I looked away.

I let my gaze wander around the seminar room.

The course, including me, consisted of just thirteen people, and I was unusually late because Grace had tried to talk me into combining economics with law at the last minute.

I had already given up my passions when I chose economics as my major, giving up computer science and chemistry.

And over my dead body would I find myself squeezed into a lecture with even more Copelands and DeLoughreys.

My spirits plummeted when I spotted Amber Smith and Kelly Hepburn at the very front of the second row of seats. You'd think they'd be less toxic without Vivienna, but Amber was the walking devil personified, even nastier than Vivienna, in my opinion, and the reason Vivi had become that way in the first place. And Kelly was the epitome of annoying. Her pink Barbie outfit was just icing on the cake.

I didn't know how Amber, of all people , could care about biology, but she did. Maybe it was due to her element: Earth .

But Kelly ? I knew why Barbie was here. Because of Amber.

When Amber spotted me, she stopped her banter and eyed me condescendingly from the side.

Again, I quickly looked away, trying to calm my pulse, and looked around for an empty seat.

Great . Three seats were still available. One was the one in the very back next to Noah, a brown-haired Senseque who was already inspecting me like he wanted to end my life, one was next to Amber and Kelly, and the last one was the seat next to the second and last guy in this seminar: David DeLoughrey .

Amber demonstratively placed her Michael Kors bag, studded with obsidian-colored rhinestones, on the chair next to her, and my inner tension grew immediately.

I was screwed.

While the Ruisangors didn't hate us as much as they hated the Senseque, they didn't trust us. And neither did we trust them. They didn't just want a piece of the pie, they wanted to buy up the whole town. And we wanted them to leave the city because their existence was a threat to humanity.

Mutual distrust described our relationship perfectly.

But sitting down next to Noah, the gruff Senseque guy from Nash's goon squad, was definitely the worse fate.

With growing panic, I walked past Amber and eyed the platinum blond Ruisangor. One of the three who were now studying here and just reeked of trouble.

This one was the quietest of the three, the one the others were least afraid of, but none of them knew that quiet people were actually the more dangerous ones.

He stared around the room, eyeing the modern high-tech board with his blue eyes, as if the obviously absent professor had written something on it.

Strange guy.

"May I?" I dared to ask, pointing to the empty seat next to him.

David broke free of his creepy stare, and his sharp gaze met mine.

Awesome . How had I even come up with the idea of addressing him?

He eyed me briefly, raised his chest as if he were annoyed, and looked back at the blackboard.

At least that wasn't a no ... So, I carefully pulled back the chair and sat down before unpacking my bag with shaky hands.

God , that damn shaking. Couldn't it just stop?

I felt David's gaze on me, but when I looked at him, he was already staring around the room again.

Ruisangors were odd. I wondered if they really only fed on blood donations, or if one of them was behind the missing persons cases in Fogs Forest.

"I hear he's super-hot!" Amber gushed, as if she were talking about the Vanderwood human football players again.

"But he is our professor."

I looked up in confusion at Kelly, who was staring at Amber in shock.

" No one here cares about that," Amber hissed, waving it off with an eye-roll. "Or do you think these bitches are here to learn?"

I followed her gaze to the human girls around us.

Inside me, it was working.

Had they just been talking about the prof?

I flipped open my laptop and clicked through the lists of courses on the university website. I quickly found the Introduction to Molecular Biology 2 course I was sitting in.

Clicking on the profile of the instructor, Professor Rufford , I raised my eyebrows and looked back at Amber. I stifled a gleeful grin.

Amber and the other girls would be floored when the professor walked into the room. Or they all had daddy complexes and were into men in their sixties with full beards.

My cell phone buzzed. Warmth crept to my face and I knew I had red spots on my face. Amber's annoyed look confirmed it and made me hastily turn off my phone's notification tone.

I saw who had texted me. Erik .

Normally, I would have smirked, but right now, I just felt the adrenaline spreading through me.

I still hadn't quite gotten over the shock of Erik being able to walk around here somewhere.

First, I had suffered a mental breakdown, finally fleeing to the bathroom, locking myself in, and trying not to hyperventilate. Next, the phase of euphoria had broken out over me and I had pranced around the bathroom like a jittery high school girl. But then I had realized that I couldn't tell him I was here either.

He would want to meet me , maybe look for me . And the fact that he was human didn't make it any better. We would never be able to be friends without the friendship we had built up so far falling apart. Especially here , in Blairville .

Currently, I tried to convince myself that it was better to pretend I never knew he was a student at Vanderwood. But with each step I took , with each young man I passed , the uneasy feeling in my stomach grew.

He was here , somewhere. And the urge to find out who he was and what he looked like was driving me crazy.

Now I did have to smile because Erik was in his element. In his philosophical blog, through which I had gotten to know him, he had often referred to Greek literature and recommended books, all of which I had read. Thanks to him, I have had a period of studying Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle day and night, and had even begun to learn Greek.

"Good morning," a pleasantly deep male voice said, forcing me to look up from my laptop. "I'm sorry. I got held up."

I followed the gawking gazes of the girls who had stopped their conversations and lingered on the object of their eager expressions.

A tall, athletic man with broad shoulders and a small waist, dressed in gray leather Oxfords; gray chinos; a white shirt; and a gray vest, tailored to fit around his waist; strode across the room and placed an iPad and some documents on the modern wooden table.

The girls he passed either stared after him or turned to their seatmates to continue whispering excitedly.

"But now that I'm here, I'd like to get right to it," the man declared, turning away from the table toward the course.

I held my breath.

His short wavy hair was champagne blond, almost as light as mine, but it didn't seem that cold. Instead, it had a barely noticeable golden hue and hung slightly down his forehead.

His eyes, probably the most memorable thing about his appearance, reminded me of peridots, a bright, warm green, which I associated with spring.

His features were angular, sharp, and masculine, and the three-day beard did the rest.

This man was the embodiment of what was called Adonis .

How old was he? Late twenties? What was he doing here? Was he a master's student? And where was the professor?

The man began to roll up his shirt sleeves in concentration, and almost by itself, my attention slid to the veins that stood out on his forearms – like a damn work of art – and extended to the back of his hands.

"And because I don't want to overwhelm you right away, I'd say I'll introduce myself." He leaned against the table behind him and crossed his arms. "And if you want, feel free to ask me a few questions."

I blinked in confusion and tore my gaze away from his arms.

Wait... this was supposed to be the professor ?

Around me, six arms immediately shot up in the air, and I flinched in shock.

The professor smiled at the girls with raised brows. "Okay, let's have it nice and in order."

"Is it true that you're only twenty-eight years old, Professor Tiberius?" the blonde in the minidress next to Penny asked. "I mean... when did you graduate?"

Now, I raised my eyebrows.

Tiberius?

Confused, I turned back to my laptop and typed Tiberius into the server of Vanderwood University. Indeed , results popped up.

Quentin Tiberius. Professor of molecular biology and... mythology?

Curious, I clicked on his professor profile and went through the information on his background. Astonished, I read that he had already started his first studies here at the age of sixteen.

"I got my PhD here two years ago," the professor confirmed the information on his profile.

"Is it true that you are part of the Vanderwood football team?"

While the girls around me bombarded the professor with more irrelevant questions, I somehow ended up on the website of DLSC , the DeLoughrey Science Center , where he apparently had a research position and was working on a genetics experiment with a certain Dr. Diana Adams .

The name Adams rang a bell, and the woman also looked familiar, however I was missing some pieces of the puzzle.

I clicked through to the DLSC website, but nothing more about him could be found there, as the DLSC website was very discreet with information about its collaborators.

I clicked back to the publications by the professor.

Molecular biology and ancient myths: A bridge between past and present ;

Mythology reinterpreted: Reviving Ancient Stories through Molecular Insights;

Mythological Biotechnology: Genetic Manipulations in Ancient Legends .

What the...? First, he had studied molecular biology and minored in history . After graduating, he had completed a second degree: antiquity , ancient history and mythology with a minor in archaeology .

I looked up, startled again at how handsome this strange professor was, and regarded him thoughtfully.

He was leaning there, arms folded as his biceps pressed against his shirt.

I tried to feel any supernatural signs.

We Quatura sensed elemental energies from other Quatura. And while a certain darkness radiated from Ruisangors, a different kind of vibration could be felt near Senseque.

This man was human. There was nothing supernatural about him. But then why were all the alarm bells ringing at his combination of disciplines?

Professor Tiberius nodded to another girl. Kelly.

"Why didn't you become a model?"

Amber next to her took a deep breath like she was annoyed, and a few other girls laughed, however they all looked forward eagerly to the poor guy who certainly wasn't here to be Vanderwood's sex object.

He laughed and put a hand on the back of his neck, which emphasized his trained upper arms way too well.

Goddamn , he was hot. Not to mention tall , way too tall compared to a small and delicate girl like me.

"I'm committed to science." He smiled. "But I'll take that as a compliment."

Which I'm sure the guy was showered with.

I couldn't help it as my arm shot up in the air.

And by the time the professor looked at me, it was too late to change my mind.

"What gave you the idea to combine molecular biology and mythology?"

I looked at him skeptically, perhaps a little too skeptically, because his gaze lingered on me and his smile disappeared for a split second.

Had I said something wrong? What did that expression on his face mean?

"I mean, a natural science based on principles combined with a cultural science centered on invented myths..." I continued as his warm green eyes began to inspect me. "Isn't that a bit abstract?"

The professor leaned further back. He smirked, and a damn dimple appeared on his right cheek.

"Aren't all scientific concepts abstract?"

He was right. But it felt like he was avoiding the core of my question.

"But what exactly motivated you to write your publications on the interdisciplinary level of these two subjects?"

The smirk did not disappear. And he continued to look at me. Thoughtfully.

I was getting warm.

"What's your name?"

I got even warmer. I just hoped I didn't have red spots on my face again.

"Julie," I said quickly, my gaze lingering on the champagne-colored strands in front of his forehead that made him look more cunning. "...Blair."

Something flickered in his gaze.

"A Blair," it escaped him in surprise, and he raised his brows. An uneasy feeling spread through my stomach, as if I'd given away too much of myself. "What a surprise."

Great . What did that mean now? Did he have an opinion about the mayor's family or was he just trying to make me feel insecure?

In any case, the girls around me were having fun with it or looking at me strangely.

"Miss Blair," he continued, pushing himself away from the table. "Do you know that there are actually a lot of interesting overlaps in quite a few disciplines that, at first glance, seem like they have nothing to do with each other?" He began pacing the room without breaking eye contact and goosebumps spread up my arms. "Poetry and math. Two creative, structured, and aesthetic forms of expression. Religion and biology each deal with the origin of matter in which we coexist with other living things. And there are by far more overlaps." He stopped in front of my table. And when I realized that I had not broken eye contact until now either, my goosebumps intensified. "What distinguishes these sciences is the approach . And, among other things, credibility ."

He fixed my eyes, lowering his voice as if he were just talking to me.

"As soon as you look at a controversial subject like mythology in a scientific way, it gains respectability. And maybe it's just in my interest to give a certain subject more respectability."

He propped himself up on the table in front of me, and I was grateful that this table existed, because it hid my hands, which were clawing into the fabric of my gray-blue skirt, from the professor's gaze, and prevented me from being completely exposed to him.

"Miss Blair," he began quietly, as if we were alone in the room. "Do you believe in conspiracy theories?"

Confusion rose in me because all I understood by conspiracy theories were the things human residents told each other about Blairville, the founding families, or the woods. And they were all true.

"No," I pressed out in concentration.

His gaze inspected mine, searching for the lie behind my unstable facade, and I wondered how readable I was to this man.

Then, unexpectedly, he pushed himself off the table.

"Neither do I," he replied dryly, spinning around to walk back through the rows of seats to his table. "I believe in facts." He walked around the table and picked up his iPad. "And this may surprise you, but mythology involves a lot of provable facts."

He looked around the table, and I had a feeling he was intentionally avoiding my gaze.

Amber turned to me and eyed me, shaking her head, as if she thought I was paranoid. Maybe I was.

The guy was so weird that I was still sitting there in my shock stupor, staring at him like he was a dinosaur skeleton that had gotten lost in the Louvre .

"How exactly we can link mythology to molecular biology is something I'll get into with you another time."

I looked at David, who was staring at my open laptop.

Quickly, I closed the web page to the DLSC.

David looked at me, eyed me suspiciously, then the Prof.

"He's human," he finally said so quietly that only I could hear him.

I gritted my teeth.

Of course he was human. But why did this guy seem anything but human? And what kind of prejudice did he have toward my family?

"He works in your family's research center," I returned insecurely.

David eyed me as if I had said something clever. Then he looked ahead to the Prof.

"Trust me, Quatura, he's just a curious person."

I followed his gaze to the professor, who opened a PowerPoint presentation on the whiteboard.

"Today, however, I will first give you an overview of the course." He cleared his throat and pointed to the whiteboard, and around me the other students began opening their laptops and notebooks. My gaze lingered on his prominent Adam's apple. "We only have a few months, which is why this course will only cover the basics of molecular biology: DNA, gene expression, transcription, replication, translation, gene regulation, mutations..."

I listened to the professor and tried to push aside the strange feeling.

He was probably just some highly intelligent fanatic. I didn't even know what mythologies he was dealing with... Why did I immediately see him as a threat? Maybe because he jumped at my question?

"The subfields we will discuss are genetics, genomics, epigenetics, transcriptomics, proteomics, molecular genetics, molecular immunology, structural biology, molecular oncology, and molecular neurobiology."

I forced myself to look at the laptop instead of the professor and focus on getting my shaking under control.

Probably, I really was too paranoid.

I shook my head and started typing.

"And, depending on what else you're studying, you'll each delve deeper into the topics we're discussing here in the coming semesters."

It wasn't long before my gaze slid back not from the whiteboard to the laptop but to him, and our eyes met.

Again, I held my breath, trying to reassure myself that he was looking at me by maintaining eye contact. Something I had a hard time doing with any other person, but with this unrealistic-looking man, it was like making eye contact with a ghost.

He was no longer smiling. And the intensity of his green eyes made me shudder inside.

He looked away to the whiteboard and continued.

And I took another breath.

"I think you've made an enemy, Quatura," David said from beside me.

And how right he would be.