LOGINAviva
The meeting hall is crowded from wall to wall. I hug one of the walls, my back pressed flat against it as I try to blend in with the dark stone. Everyone is merry as they walk between tables laden with food and drink. Everyone in attendance has worn their finest fabrics and beads. Many of the single, of age, young women have truly gone all out, in fact.
I cross my arms under my less-than-ample breasts and tap my nails against the long gold chains loopin
AlexSkye doesn’t turn around. I slide my phone free from my pocket, noticing the three missed calls from Toby and the dozen other notifications from my horrified colleagues, but I ignore them, taking three steps and setting my phone on my desk. I look at Skye, taking in the way her hair shimmers in the lamplight when she turns to watch me move. Her eyes gleam like polished amethyst, swirling with power so different from mine. She’s right. I’ve been weak. I’ve kept myself weak. I’ve kept her at arm’s length even though everything I want is right in front of me, and for the first time in my life, I considered risking someone’s safety to have something for myself. “I haven’t been honest with you.”“I know,” she snarls–trying to look furious. But tears shine along her lower lashes. “I understand this is confusing. It is for me, too. And I hate that you feel like I’m gaslighting you about how I feel, but I’m looking at this through the lens of… I want you. I like you. I respect you, a
SkyeThe lecture hall in the psychology department is big enough to hold every single faculty member and the entire university administration in one place at one time. But I’ve never seen everyone gathered like this before, and the undercurrent in the room is so thick with unease I can taste it. Dr. Gerralde parts the aisle where I’m seated, sidestepping in my direction, and his pale face and uneasy eyes make my heart leap when I rise to my feet. “Sit down,” he says under his breath. “What’s going on?” I ease back into my seat. Everyone else is tittering nervously as well. Murmured conversations lift to the ceiling, but the podium remains empty. “The president is meeting with the board and the deans as we speak,” he says under his breath, glancing around the room before leaning in to continue. “A student is dead.”“What?”The door to the lecture hall bursts open before I can process the impossible news I just heard. An echo claps through the crowd in its wake, abruptly quieting ev
SkyeA network of skybridges and elevators leads to a handful of warming rooms and airlocks directly on the surface of the ice. The main one is quite large and houses a row of lockers, as well as changing rooms for men and women, and separate outdoor entrances for both. I hang my coat in a locker, fiddling with my padlock, then walk into the women’s changing room, where steam creeps across the floor, and several shower nooks spray warm, wet air, the entire space almost suffocated with humidity. I change out of my clothes and fold my pants and sweater neatly before donning the robe I brought from my condo. It took me an hour to find it, seeing as I’ve barely started the process of organizing my clothing after moving into my new place, but now it’s almost midnight, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sleep until I burned off some energy. It’s a balmy negative sixty when I shove open the door to the airlock and close it with a crunch behind me. Wind rattles the thick, frosted glass
SkyeI adjust the thick scarf worn around my neck and square my shoulders, careful of every movement I make while Abby picks at the plate of food on the tray in front of her. The cafeteria around us is quiet at this hour, full of students snacking in silent solitude over laptops and stacks of books, and professors and postdocs finding scraps worth of a meal after a long day of research and lectures. My last lecture of the day wrapped up less than an hour ago without the drama or fanfare I expected. Most of my lectures are math-heavy, which seriously irks my more experimentally leaning students. I spent the entire lecture with my back turned to the podium, making sure my scarf and turtleneck stayed in place, ignoring the groans and murmuring behind me. Now, the bruise is hard to ignore. It pinches with every move I make, and the scarf is definitely overkill. I’m sweating under the weight of it. “What’s up with you?” Abby asks, looking just as uncomfortable and as exhausted as I am.
Skye“Chin up.” I tilt my chin, my vision taken up by the serious but strangely devoted look painting shadows across the planes of Alex’s face as he zips me into a bright yellow parka, all the way to the neck. He’s careful, far more gentle when touching me than he was only half an hour ago, when I was breathless on his lap, and he sucked a bruise so deep I can still feel it throbbing. He’ll barely meet my eyes as it stands. In all honesty, I can barely meet his. Whatever that was felt… less like I was offering him the sustenance he desperately needed and more like something totally, completely, out of control and overtly sexual. I flush with heat just thinking about it, a small, involuntary squeak leaving my lips when he grips my fingers and reaches above my head to dig through a bin of gloves. We’re chest to chest, and he smells… amazing. Like everything male, dangerous, and delicious. Like things I can’t possibly place because this is the first time I’ve ever wanted–“These should
AlexVampires generally don’t need sleep. By sleep, I mean the deep, vulnerable kind that allows dreams to fade into focus and a body to go slack. Vamp kids, sure. They sleep all the time, but once our biological clock starts to slow, once necessary things like sleep make less of a difference in our overall performance, we generally don’t do it. A light rest? Sure. I’ve needed one of those for a long, long time, which is why, when I open my eyes after an hour on Skye’s couch to find her sitting on the coffee table in front of me, our knees touching, her eyes open wide and full of so much excitement she’s trembling, I wish on whatever gods are listening that I could, in fact, just shut my eyes and let the entire world fade to black, even just for a few more hours. She’s gripping a notebook for dear life, her eyes holding on mine expectantly. “What time is it?” I ask. Deciding not to move an inch and pretending to be in some kind of blood coma might work in my favor when it comes to
*Isla*The village is exactly how I’ve imagined it in my mind, though it is also nothing like my hometown. The main village for Willow pack is called Ernestown. It was changed a few years ago when Alpha Ernest became Alpha. Before that, it was just called Willow Village. I guess our Alpha wants every
*Maddox*I run down the hallway, frantic, my eyes wide with terror as I pray to the Moon Goddess above that my own stupidity hasn’t cost me again.How could I have been so stupid? To have gone back to my room thinking that there was no one else Zabrina would want to kill!Once again, I feel like my own
*Isla*I am sitting at my table in my room, eating lunch, trying to get what happened the night before out of my head while Poppy talks about life at the castle and hangs up new clothes she’s gotten for me in my closet. I try to pay attention to her, but mostly I am lost in thought as I eat my salad.
*Isla*Poppy gently washes me down the best she can while I sit in my bed, my head still swimming. Mystica is here, too, but she’s not washing my body. She’s checking my vitals and insisting that I try to swallow down some broth, saying, “You’ll feel better once you have some food in your stomach. It







