Chapter 3

3

NIKO

"Oh, my Medusa, not fucking Taylor Swift," I mutter into my cup. I've been irritated since the second I showed up, and now my annoyance has shot through the roof.

I hear someone yell, "Oh, hell yeah! I love me some Taylor Swift!" and I glance over in their direction. He looks like the typical frat bro human. He's wearing basketball shorts with a sleeveless tee and a backwards cap. I watch as Vanessa sidles up beside him and they start dancing together. Actually, it's more grinding than dancing. I roll my eyes and take a sip of my water. Vanessa is going to try and get her perfectly manicured claws into every human here. Seems as though she's found her first one of the year.

And no, I'm not bitter about my ex dancing with a human . Breaking up with her was the smartest thing I've ever done. She was so needy and demanding. Vanessa was always getting upset whenever I couldn't spend time with her–or rather, I couldn't spend tons of money on her. She seemed to have forgotten that she met me while I was working at the university library last year, not on Wall Street.

Turning away from them, I take in the party around me. This used to be my safe space. I loved the past two years starting off the school year with the bonfire.

It's different now.

There's humans everywhere, and the amount of stares I've gotten tonight are ridiculous. I've lost count at how many whispers and snickers punctuating the air around me. I get it, I’m different–I’m the only student with vipers on their head, but it's still fucking annoying.

Mateo emerges from the woods, heading straight for me. "I've been looking for you everywhere."

"I've been in the same spot since we got here."

"Come on, Niko. You're not even trying to have fun." He's fucking right, and I know it. But I don't know how to relax. Even with all the monsters milling around, most of them have shifted into their human form to blend in.

"Okay," I say to placate him. “I guess I can try. But I'm not dancing." I wiggle my finger at him, and he laughs stupidly.

"Yeah, I didn't think you would."

We abandon my hiding spot by the tree and walk closer to the bonfire.

"Hey, Niko!" Summer yells as she walks by. Summer is a tall, brunette Succubus who works at the library with me.

I wave occasionally, greeting other students I know. Okay, maybe this isn't too bad. I snatch a beer out of the ice chest and pop the top. I take a quick sip, then walk over to a group of people.

They wave me over when I’m close enough. "Hey, Niko. It's awesome to see you. Are you ready for the year?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

We spend the next few minutes talking about what we did over the summer. I tell them about how I was able to head down south to the beach. Mateo recounts camping for the full moon and getting to run wild for a few days. I know it was a great experience for him, and he talked about how he learned a lot about himself. After catching up, Mateo and I break off to see what else is going on. We're standing off to the side when Milo walks up to us.

"Hey," he says to us. I acknowledge him with a head nod, waiting to see what Mateo will do. Milo is his ex, and from what I understand, whatever they had was over. Or maybe not, judging the way they're eyeing each other. "Wanna dance?" he asks Mateo, and he surprises me by saying 'yes.'

Mateo gives me puppy dog eyes, and I roll my own. "Fine, just leave me here, all alone," I joke. I can't begrudge him, because if I was in his shoes, I would do the same thing.

I make my way back to my hiding spot, debating whether I should just head back to the dorm. It's still pretty early, but there's not much here for me anymore. A giggle catches my attention, and I see Vanessa and her frat bro out by the tree. I watch as he leans in for the kiss.

Ew.

Not wanting to see that, I walk farther down trying to find a new spot to hide. A group of students walk past me before doing a double take and coming back.

"Woah, man. Those are fucking cool." One of them reaches out to my head, and I flinch, my snakes going into defense mode. They hiss, but otherwise don't react. I've trained them well and unless I give them permission, they don't actually attack. They might act like it, but they won’t.

"Oh, shit!" one yells, his eyes wide. Glancing at each of them, I see the fear in their eyes I was worried about. This is one of the reasons I didn't want to be around humans. Not only the stares and whispers, but the fear. The panic that I'm going to hurt them. The terror of someone that's different from them.

Not wanting to get into anything with them, I walk away.

Maybe I shouldn't have come out tonight.

While lying in bed, I flip through Ghouloo, trying to find something to watch. Mateo hasn't made it home yet, and neither has our mysterious new roommate. I only know he's moved in because all his shit is everywhere.

And I mean everywhere .

For someone who only moved in this morning, it's a mess. He has clothes on his bed, shoes thrown all around. It looks as though he was in the middle of unpacking when he ran out of here. I probably shouldn't have peeked into his room, but I was curious. While I'm not the cleanest person, I do understand that you have to be more considerate living with others.

Which he obviously is not.

And no, it's not because he's a human. If his messy ass was a monster, I would be thinking the same thing. Maybe. Probably.

Not knowing what to watch, I press play on some reality show and toss the remote onto the bed. When I got home from the bonfire and saw no one was here, I went straight to my room to hide. Apparently, that's what I always do. Hide away from my problems or what’s affecting me.

I stay up a bit longer, waiting to see if anyone comes home. Grabbing my phone, I look up my course syllabi on the university website, double checking I have everything I need for Monday. After that, I scroll on Fangstagram. Every picture on the app is of people at the bonfire, so I quickly exit out.

I give up on waiting for anyone to get home, so I turn off all the lights and crash for the night.

I blink open my eyes from the sunlight and flinch when a crash comes from the other side of the door, followed by a whispered, "oh, shit." Curious as to what's going on, I toss the blankets off my body, snatch my glasses off the dresser, and put them on before I run out of the room.

My eyes greedily take in the perfect ass bent over directly in my face as I exit my bedroom. I tilt my head to the side, glancing around him to see he's dropped a full box. I could help him, or I could go back to admiring his ass.

Straightening up, I look at his backside again, encased in basketball shorts that hug everything so perfectly. While clearing my throat, I wait for him to turn around. However, once he does, I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes.

You have got to be kidding me.

Standing in front of me is the dude-bro frat guy that was grinding with Vanessa last night.

"Uh, hi. Who are you?" I ask.

"Um. Hi. I'm, uh..." His voice trails off and his eyes go from scanning my body to stopping on my head. Patting my head, I realize I forgot to put my beanie on, and my snakes are wriggling wildly.

I mutter, "Fuck," before turning around and heading back to my room to find a beanie to tug on. Coming back out into the hallway, I notice he's missing, so I try to see if I can find him.

I skid to a stop at the end of the hallway when I see he's standing by the couch with Mateo. He’s pretty tall, at least six feet. Dark brown hair peeks out and curls up under his baseball cap. He’s wearing one of those sleeveless tees, and when he moves to the side, I can see a sliver of tan skin from his chest.

"I am so sorry. I was moving my stuff, and the bottom of the box gave out on me and everything fell to the floor. I didn't mean to wake you up. Also, I'm King. It's nice to meet you. I'm your new roommate," he chirps with a huge smile on his face.

"I'm Niko." Mateo glares at me from behind King's shoulder. Rolling my eyes, I stretch out my hand. "Nice to meet you, too."

"Sorry about staring earlier. When I saw the snakes, the first thing that ran through my mind was Coach Mahone. He has similar snakes on his head."

"Ah, well, he's kind of my dad."

"No way. That's awesome! Well, maybe… I don't know yet. Living with my coach's son could be awesome. Maybe." He rambles on, and I find myself getting annoyed. "Anyway, it's nice to meet you. I was just telling Mateo we should go get some breakfast or something. We can all get to know each other."

As much as I want to say no, I don't. First, Mateo would kick my ass, and second, King's right: we need to get to know each other since we'll be living together for the next year.

"Fine, sounds good. Let me get ready."

Out of the corner of my eye, Mateo gives me a subtle thumbs up.

Ugh, whatever.