Tatiana slid into the seat beside me during physics, and my stomach tightened. No one had ever chosen to sit with me in this class, and if Rostova had deigned to do so now, it could only mean trouble.
For the first half of the lesson, she was uncharacteristically silent, which only wound the tension at our table tighter. I tried to focus on the teacher's voice, but his words slipped through my mind like water through cupped hands. My eyes drifted, again and again, to the empty chair where Nikita should have been.
I could only hope he was all right. And yet… it was strange. My feelings for him seemed to shift the moment he was no longer in sight. Without Nik nearby, there was only a sort of gentle fondness; but when he touched me, my temples would throb, my heart would race, as if trying to prolong that dizzy sweetness. In the classroom, even replaying our first kiss in my head felt oddly hollow, stripped of longing.
It was as if someone deep inside me was flipping a hidden switch—swapping tenderness for something darker. All the warmth was smothered by the cold dread that came when I remembered the crimson flare in his eyes. Was that the real face of a vampire?
The memory of his fist slamming into the railing still made my skin prickle. What if, one day, it wasn't the railing but me in his grip? No matter how gentle Nik always was, that thought slithered into my mind and chilled me. I tugged my sweater sleeves as far over my hands as they would go, but it wasn't enough. Leaning forward, I breathed into my cupped fingers, trying to warm them.
"Cold?" Tatiana's voice finally broke the silence.
I nodded, keeping my eyes on the teacher, who was balancing an open textbook in one hand while scribbling equations on the board.
"You know," she began, her tone light but edged, "it's not very fair—flirting with two of the most popular guys in school at once."
Her words blindsided me. I turned, searching her face for any sign she was joking.
"What are you talking about? I'm only dating Nikita."
She rolled her eyes in open disbelief. "Oh, please. You've got a thing for Edik too. You're giving him false hope."
"And how exactly am I doing that?"
"Seriously? What was that in the cafeteria? You were clearly flirting with Smirnov."
"I wasn't flirting," I said quickly. "I just… agreed with your idea."
Tatiana's brow arched. "Agreed with it? You invited him to dance."
"I didn't invite him," I insisted. "The dance number could've included all of us."
I couldn't tell her the truth—not without handing the school's biggest gossip the kind of secret that would never stay buried. And if Ksertoni had known about vampires for years, I would've seen the signs. This wasn't something to risk.
"So, it was just his idea?" she pressed, skeptical.
"I thought you'd like it," I said smoothly. "Help plan it, come up with the choreography. You're great at pulling people together."
She studied me, lips quirking into the faintest of smiles. My flattery had landed.
"So, no interest in Edik at all?" she asked.
I raised my left hand, palm out, and traced an invisible cross over my chest with my right—straight from every teen movie oath ever made.
"I swear on my heart."
Tatiana smirked and turned back to the board, but her elbow jabbed into my ribs a moment later. I followed her gaze—
The teacher was standing at the front, arms crossed, eyes glinting ominously beneath the rim of his lowered glasses.
"Anastasia Chernaya," his bass voice rolled through the room like distant thunder, "to the board."