Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
I pressed a kiss to his neck, then dragged my nose across his skin and inhaled.
“How you like to torture me,” he groaned.
“You torture me every day in class when I have to see you, but I can’t touch you,” I countered, and a smile touched his lips.
I kissed his neck again, then gently sunk my fangs into him. He practically hummed with need when I pierced his skin, my sharp fangs slicing through. Immediately, the potency of Peter’s blood intoxicated me. I could taste the magic melded with his feelings for me. It entered my body like a rush, and I was swept away on a high like no other.
It was a good thing I’d been trained since childhood to have willpower when it came to blood. I knew how to stop before I took too much. And even though Peter’s was the most wonderful blood I’d ever tasted, I always knew when enough was enough.
I released him, licked the excess from his wound, and before I knew it, our hands were everywhere. His inside my pants, mine up his shirt. Our mouths and bodies collided in a hungry, eager dance.
I was so lost in him that I almost didn’t notice the spidery sensation across the back of my neck. I tried to ignore it, but the sensation persisted, finally drawing me away from Peter. Frowning, I peered around the dense, dark forest. If I trusted what my eyes were seeing, we were alone, but another, more primitive sense told me otherwise.
“What is it?” Peter whispered. He’d grown still, too, clearly having sensed my wariness.
I didn’t answer, just continued to scan the forest. All was still, and then, I thought I saw the shadow of a person in the distance. It was too dark to make them out, but there was definitely someone there. Was it a peeping Tom, a classmate spying on us, or was it something more sinister? My mind immediately went to one person. Over the last few months, he was the one I thought of whenever something even remotely suspect occurred in my life.
Vasilios.
“Do you see that?” Peter asked quietly. He’d spotted the shadowy person in the distance, too.
“Yes,” I replied just as quietly.
The shadow didn’t move, and before I could think of what to do next, Peter stepped away from me, his hands moving in a circular motion as he magicked up a ball of energy. It grew from a tiny ember into a blazing, magical fireball.
“Show yourself,” he called to the shadow, wielding the fireball in the air like a threat.
The shadow remained, and Peter prepared to shoot his magic across the forest when I held up a hand to stop him. “Wait,” I said, then darted through the trees. By the time I reached the spot where the shadow had appeared to be standing, our mystery spy was gone.
“They’re gone,” I called out to Peter. He was already moving through the forest toward me. I inhaled sharply, smelling something acrid and out of place. Someone had definitely been standing in that spot, but they didn’t smell like a human, nor like any supernatural creature I was familiar with.
When Peter reached me, his eyebrows were drawn together as he studied the space. “Someone was here.”
“I know,” I replied. “I can still smell them.”
His eyes met mine. “What do they smell like?” As a warlock, Peter didn’t possess my enhanced sense of smell.
I inhaled again, trying to pick up on the last remnants of their scent. “Like rotten eggs and burning.” I expanded my senses farther, tapping into my heightened hearing to see if I could locate our spy. The only sounds I picked up were the animals and wildlife that inhabited the forest. There was no trace of whoever had been there. It was almost like they’d magically teleported, but they didn’t smell anything like a witch or a warlock.
Peter’s expression grew more serious. “We should get out of here.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, approaching him and taking his hand. “Let’s get back to the Games Night.”
We left the forest, but suspicion and worry mingled within me. I had a feeling we hadn’t seen the last of who or whatever had been spying on us.
3.
“Are you two coming to the funfair tonight?” Sophia asked Peter and me as we stood by our lockers at school. It had been a week since the weird encounter in the forest. Nothing unusual had occurred since, so I was trying to put it to the back of my mind.
I glanced at Peter, who wound his arm around my waist. “I’ll go if you will,” he said, his eyes tracing my features before his attention fixed on my mouth.
“Sure, I’m in,” I replied, a shiver trickling through me at the look in his eyes. A part of me would much rather skip the fair and spend the night alone at his place, but we’d been doing that far too often lately. We needed to make an effort to be more social and spend time with our friends.