At the age of 18, every dhampir can decide when their heart stops, but not all of them can choose their allegiance. Melissa Sault is one of these dhampir, a half-blooded immortal whom attends a secondary school built for students just like her--stud...
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I couldn't breathe. Like roots sprouted from my palms and heels into the brick behind and beneath me, I couldn't move either. The blood in my veins slowed. Everything except the vision at the window dotted with stars.
Though my lungs stopped before my weak heart, I might as well have forfeited my soul early.
His eyes, two golden eclipses, held attention to my chest.
Terror wrapped a hand around my throat and threatened to drag me under, but I also hovered over the dormant coil in my center, the second heartbeat that leapt to life at the scent of danger. As though sensing it, his gaze met mine, a bolt of lightning zapping my body, spreading from my nose to the back of my head, blazing all the way to my fingers and toes like an explosion under the skin. It left me breathless, but it also left me stripped. As though somehow it shed a layer of my skin, of me.
But I wasn't the only one that felt it.
His fangs retracted, lips parting anyway. His white shirt scooped low enough to show the top of his chest and more than enough view of his neck where black ink blossomed into branches, pathways under his skin. He clamped a hand over it, those golden irises darkening and a part of his face curling into a snarl.
Was he in pain?
He fought something as his jaw clenched, but he still mustered the strength to growl, "It's yours now."
That was all I needed to see.
A vampire broke into my suite. He'd bared his fangs at me. And his utterance of finally tore through every veil of diplomacy. As his hand fell from his clean neck, my body released paralysis too. I snatched the doorknob, my nails almost tearing it from its place as I threw the door open.
Running on just two feet wasn't fast enough. Nothing was fast enough. I barreled through the empty hall, the carpet beneath me seeming to cling to my soles like quicksand. This time, I did not dare sneak a glance behind me. Rather, with two white-knuckled fists I shot into one of the main halls, searching for a face, for anyone. The more the word crossed my mind, the more my nerves jumped over one another.
Vampire.
But I couldn't lead him to a main population of students, not without endangering more than just me, and if I couldn't do that then I left my luck of finding a school guard up to chance. The seconds dwindled down as I neared the end of the corridor.
Left or right?
You or them?
I skid into a sharp right, away from the masses, away from the classrooms--and into a solid, yelping wall. Limbs tangled with mine, the hardwood floor knocking the wind from my lungs. Flashing white panic blurred beneath my eyelids, my scream guttural as I clawed my way up despite the grunting beneath me. Except it was too feminine to be left behind, and it caught my elbow in an iron grip.
