Page 95 of Alluring Darkness
Connor knows that I came here to protect him, so he doesn’t hate me anymore. And Eli is no longer targeting Connor, so I don’t have to worry about his safety. I also don’t have to keep blocking out my feelings for Eli. He’s no longer the enemy, so I don’t have to keep pretending that he doesn’t set me on fire every time he so much as looks at me. I don’t have to keep ignoring the way his messed-up soul calls to mine. The way my heart pounds erratically whenever his hands are on my skin. Now, I can just feel it all.Takeit all.
I can’t go back to the teacher program. Partly because I’ve already quit and would have to wait another year to reapply. But mostly because I simply don’t want to be a fucking chemistry teacher. I’m done trying to hide how unhinged I am. I’m done pretending to be normal.
I have no idea what I want to do instead. I will never be a good hitman, and I’ll keep failing basically all of my classes here, but I will finish out this year at Blackwater. And then, I’ll take it from there.
However, even as that elated feeling sweeps through my chest, a seed of worry sprouts. There is something that I’ve forgotten about. Something dangerous. Something that I should have been prioritizing instead of thinking about ways to get Eli to fuck my brains out against the nearest wall.
But as Eli’s lips ravage mine, the thought evaporates and I slide my fingers through his soft black hair instead as I kiss him back.
36
ELI
My gaze drifts across the canteen again. Even though I know that all first-years have been out on the fields doing training exercises all morning, which means they arrive later for lunch than the rest of us, I still can’t help but look for her.
Raina Smith.
I did not see this coming. At all. When she first keyed my car and inserted herself into my life, my only plan was to play with her like a doll until she broke and then throw her aside.
But she never broke.
She saw all the violent and vicious and downright fucking monstrous parts of me, and she just grinned like a goddess of death and met me on the same level. Never flinching. Never backing down. Never allowing me even a second to purge her existence from my system like the drug it is. Instead, she just kept coming and coming. Battering at my walls and breaking them down until she is all I can see, all I can hear, all I can feel.
And yet, I have never felt more calm and in control in all my life.
After telling Raina about what happened, and after sleeping through the night with her by my side every day, I’m starting to feel like I can finally breathe again.
I never thought that someone would understand me and all the dark and fucked-up things I crave. But she does. And she not only followed me into that alluring darkness, she also carved her name all over it.
“Incoming,” Rico murmurs from the chair opposite me.
His gaze glides to someone coming towards us from behind my back, but I don’t turn around to look. If it had been a threat, Rico would have made that clear. Kaden, who is sitting next to me, just keeps eating as well, but Jace tracks the person with his eyes from where he’s seated beside Rico.
A few seconds later, a girl with dark brown hair pulled up in a tight ponytail stops next to our table. She’s wearing a tight-fitting black outfit and proper boots, and she looks like someone who can hold her own in a fight. I’m pretty sure she’s a second-year, but I don’t know her name.
Leaning back in my chair, I slowly turn to face her fully while flicking my gaze up and down her body nonchalantly. “Are you lost?”
“No,” she replies in a surprisingly calm and steady voice.
My eyebrows shoot up as she casually pulls out the empty chair on my left and slides into it. I cast another assessing look over her. She’s ballsy at least, I’ll give her that.
“I don’t remember inviting you over, Shelley,” Rico says, his tone the epitome of lazy arrogance.
One exchanged look between us confirms that he said that for my benefit, so that I would know her name.
“I know,” Shelley replies. Shifting in her seat, she turns so that she is facing me directly. “But I have a proposition that I think will benefit both you and me.”
I arch an eyebrow at her. “Oh?”
“The tournament is this weekend.”
“I’m aware.”
“Which means that this is the last chance to make changes to any teams.”
“Why would I want to make any changes?”
She gives me an incredulous look. “Because you have Raina Smith on your team. Look, I’m not a first-year, but even I know that she’s the most unskilled person at this entire university. She can’t shoot. She can’t fight. She can’t climb. She can’t run. Hell, she can’t even hide properly.”