He ignores me and terror swamps me. He can’t do this. He can’t—

Suddenly, I lurch forward as my hand and arm slide right through the mental barricade that Jaxon erected.

“What the fuck?” Flint breathes from beside me, but I’m too busy trying to get Jaxon’s attention to respond. Or pull back.

“Jaxon!” I all but scream his name this time. “Stop. Please.”

I don’t know what’s different—if it’s because I somehow pierced through the barrier or if he’s reached the same conclusion I have. Either way, whatever psychic grip he’s been using on Cole disappears. Now standing under his own power, the shifter nearly falls to his knees even as he drags loud, painful-sounding breaths through his abused throat and into his air-starved lungs.

Relief sweeps through me—and the room. It’s finally over. Everyone is still alive. Some are more than a little worse for wear, but at least they’re a—

Jaxon strikes so fast, I almost miss it, fangs flashing and hands grabbing onto Cole’s shoulders as he leans forward and sinks his teeth into the left side of his throat.

Someone screams, and for a second I think it’s me, until I realize my throat is too tight to make a sound. Seconds pass—I don’t know how many—as Jaxon drinks and drinks and drinks. Eventually the shifter stops fighting, goes limp.

That’s when Jaxon finally lets him go, lifting his head and dropping Cole into a limp heap on the ground.

The guy’s pallor is frightening, but he’s still alive, eyes wide and frightened, blood trickling from the fang marks on his neck, when Jaxon looks out over the room and hisses, “This is the only warning you get.”

Then he turns and walks straight toward me, without so much as a backward glance.

And when he takes my elbow in a grip that is as gentle as it is unyielding, I go with him. Because, honestly, what else am I going to do?

   47

The

First Bite

Is the Deepest

Jaxon doesn’t say a word as he escorts me down the hall—and neither do I. After what I just saw, I’m too… I don’t know what. I want to say “shocked,” but that’s not the right word. Neither is “disgusted” or “horrified” or any of the other descriptions—any of the other emotions—that someone who’s an outsider might expect to feel.

I mean, watching Jaxon nearly drain that guy wasn’t what I would call pleasant, but he is a vampire. Biting people’s necks and drinking their blood is pretty much par for the course, isn’t it? It feels hypocritical to freak out now just because I got to see it up close and personal—especially when Jaxon obviously had a reason for what he did. Otherwise, why go on a rampage like that? And why announce to the whole school that this is the only warning they’re going to get?

I’m more concerned about finding out why he felt the need to issue the warning than I am about what he did. Especially since I’m terrified that it has something to do with me and his fear that someone is trying to hurt me.

I don’t want to be responsible for Jaxon getting into trouble—and I definitely don’t want to be responsible for Jaxon hurting someone…or worse.

Not for the first time, my hand goes to the marks at my throat as I wonder what would have happened if Marise hadn’t stopped. If she had bitten me for a purpose other than to help heal me. Would I be as laissez-faire about Jaxon’s treatment of that shifter if I had nearly died the same way?

I don’t know. I just know that right now, I care more about Jaxon’s state of mind than I do some boy I don’t know. Some boy who, if Jaxon is right, wants me dead.

As for the rest? The telekinesis, the absolute control Jaxon exerted over everyone in that lounge, including me? The obscene amount of power he wielded with just a wave of his hand? I don’t know how I feel about all that, either. Except, like the violence, it doesn’t scare me the way it probably should.

He doesn’t scare me the way he probably should.

My injured ankle twinges a little as we round a corner—more than likely all the running I did on it earlier—but I bite down the cry of pain that wells in my throat. Jaxon’s moving fast, I assume because he’s trying to get us somewhere we can talk before the consequences of what just happened catch up to him.

I mean, yeah, this is a supernatural school and the rules are probably different than what I’m used to, but I have a hard time believing it’s okay for one of the paranormal species to start chowing down on another one in the middle of the student lounge.

No matter how much he might deserve it.

Which is why I don’t complain about the pace Jaxon sets as we quickly make our way down several hallways to the back stairs. It’s as we start climbing that I realize where he’s taking me. Not to my room, as I half expected, but to his. And judging from the look on his face—the blank eyes, the tight jaw, the lips pressed into a firm, straight line—he expects me to object.

I have no intention of arguing with him, though. Not until I know what we’re supposed to be arguing about. And on the plus side, I’m pretty sure no one will be crossing Jaxon again any time soon, which means maybe I can make it through a whole forty-eight hours without any near-death experiences. Not going to lie, that counts for something, too, even though I feel a little Machiavellian just thinking it.

The second we make it to the top of the tower steps, Jaxon lets go of my elbow and puts as much distance between the two of us as can be had in his little reading alcove. Which leaves me…adrift.

Nothing has changed since I was here a few hours ago. The window is still boarded up, the rug still missing, the book I tried to read while I was waiting for him still sitting in the exact same spot.

And yet it feels like everything has changed.

Maybe because it has. I don’t know, and I won’t know until Jaxon opens his mouth and actually talks to me instead of standing there next to the fireplace, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes everywhere but on mine.

I want to start the conversation, want to tell him…I don’t know what. But everything inside me warns that that’s the wrong approach to take. That if I have any hope of navigating what’s going on here, I need to know what Jaxon is thinking before I open my mouth and say something that ruins everything.

And so I wait, hands in the pockets of my hoodie and eyes nowhere but on him, until he finally, finally turns to look at me.

“I won’t hurt you,” he says, his voice low and rusty and so empty that it hurts to listen to it.

“I know.”

“You know?” He looks at me like I’ve grown another head…or three.