Girl Meets Evil

Chapter One

"Are there any other questions?" The guest speaker asked, tapping a stack of papers lightly on the podium while his eyes roamed the class. He was tall and good looking, features that no doubt had him being scouted on the street on a daily basis, but there was something about him. Something that set my nerves on edge. My heart hadn't been able to stop pounding from the moment he walked into the classroom. It wasn't the same excitement my fellow students felt. 

The boys were excited because we would miss our lesson and the girls elated because he was attractive. My heart raced and thudded in my chest from fear. A fear so deeply ingrained that I didn't know what else to do but sit mutely in my seat, staring with large eyes at his every move.

A girl in the front of the class raised her hand, waving it slightly back and forth in her eagerness to be noticed. The man inclined his head and she immediately started talking. "Can a hybrid mark or mate with a human?" She demanded. I couldn't tell from the slight inflection of her voice is she was frightened by the idea or excited by it. 

The man raised his eyebrows at her bold approach and then nodded. "It rarely happens," He said, his deep soothing voice floating over the room like a warm blanket on a winter night. It felt suffocating and wrong to me, I shivered and flinched when his eyes flew to my face for the millionth time. "Humans are fragile, prone to disease and injury. Mating or marking for a hybrid isn't simply deciding to marry someone and then figuring out you don't like each other later and divorcing. When a hybrid marks his mate, he is tying their life force together. While that benefits the human, it weakens the hybrid. But as mates are destined and out of the control of the hybrid, it has been known to happen in the past."

Another girl raised her hand, her eyes and movements sharp and determined. "Can a human be marked without their knowledge or against their will?" She asked, her tone as measured as her movements. 

I felt a chill run down my spine as the man's eyes locked on me once more. Something dangerous slept behind his soft hazel eyes, it only made my heart race faster. Then his strange gaze flicked to the speaker and he nodded his head gravely. "This is a harder question to answer, young lady." He smiled warmly at her, breaking her composure and causing her to blush and look down. She peeked back up him at him through her lashes as he continued to speak. "Meeting a mate is a once in a lifetime event for a hybrid, nearly as rare as two falling stars crashing in the sky before they hit the ground. To force the bond or make it without the other's knowledge has a history of backfiring."

He sighed and came around the podium so he was standing closer to us, leaned his butt against the edge of the desk and folded his arms over his chest. I felt even more fear crawl from the cold floor to wrap around my legs and travel swiftly all over my body. I didn't realize him standing behind that podium made me feel safe, but I knew as soon as he moved that I was in mortal danger. The urge to run, to flee as far and as fast as I could nearly overwhelmed me and I had to grip the edge of the table in front of me to keep my body from raising and doing just that. My knuckles were white and my fingers ached with the strain as I tried to sooth the fluttery panic of my heart with empty words. This is all in your head, Yoojin. I tried to convince myself.

"For normal hybrids this action usually results in the loss of life for them both. As I said before, a hybrid links their life force to the person they claim as their mate and marking is doing that, laying claim. Forcing the bond causes something of a block, an insurmountable obstacle that keeps them separate. The human will die rather quickly at that point, without help or recourse. The hybrid is left to linger up to a few years after the death of his mate but make no mistake, he will die as well."

"That's horrible." The first girl said, her doe eyes watering slightly as she looked mournfully at the man. Her pity made a tight ball of anger form in my stomach, she wasn't saddened by the loss of a human life, she was upset at the idea of the hybrid dying.