While You Were Creeping - Poppy Rhys Page 0,11

know me.”

“Ah, no.” His intense stare followed me back to my seat, making me highly aware, as if it touched on every part of my body, and I fought the urge to squirm. “You don’t act that way around me.”

Now I did squirm. My chair was too uncomfortable, and my sweater was too warm. “You’ve known me for two seconds.”

He rolled a broad, furred shoulder. “That wasn’t a denial.”

I didn’t have to take this. “I think this meeting is over. Back to your prison. My students will be here any minute now.”

“I’ll be back, Holly.”

The static increased, and Kye disappeared.

When the first student burst into my classroom, my pulse still hadn’t normalized. I didn’t know if Kye’s words were a threat or a promise, but I didn’t care...

I just hoped he was telling the truth.

SEVEN

KYE

What am I doing?

This was my time for revenge. Stick it to the witches who put me in this prison and tortured me every year.

A strong wind blew, kicking up flakes of snow, but I hardly noticed. I acclimated to this freezing desert long ago.

Instead, I mostly focused on Holly’s voice as she went over lesson after lesson, instructing her students on the history of her planet.

She claimed she wasn’t a witch but Dor Nye was exactly where the last two berchtas, who’d been in possession of my prison, had lived.

What game was she playing? Did she think I’d fall for it?

Tough luck for her. I knew the trickery of her kind.

I had to stay vigilant. This witch was a little different, I could tell. The feigned ignorance aside, going through her storage room gave me some insight.

That human, Principle Huckle, had been important to Holly. She still had a couple holo-disks with short vids tucked into a small box. I know because I snooped while I was locked in there last eve.

It was different now. In the vids, she gazed at him like he hung the fucking moons. It was nauseating.

I brushed aside the shard of me that wondered what it would be like to have someone look at me that way.

Never going to happen.

That wasn’t my future. Just this. This pointless existence. Maybe I deserved it.

Anyway, I was surprised she hadn’t banished that guy to a pocket dimension like her kind was known to do if they were slighted.

Made me wonder what he’d done to earn Holly’s frosty glare.

“Kye?”

Holly’s voice pulled me out of my head and I looked to the sky. She peered into my prison as if searching for me.

“Yes?”

“You can... come out if you want,” she hedged. “School’s over.”

I held off for a moment, not wanting to seem as eager as I was. No idea what that was about, but I was damned ashamed to admit I was looking forward to physically being in the same room as Holly again.

****

HOLLY

The static in the air made my scalp tingle and stray fly-away hairs momentarily stand up before I smoothed them down.

That was an altogether strange feeling.

“Where are we?” Kye rumbled, sitting on the wide, cushy transport bench beside me. He was so big, his furry arm brushed against me and his bone-colored horns nearly kissed the ceiling. It was like the guy sucked up all the space in the vehicle.

Is it too warm in here or just me?

I reached forward, dragging my fingers against the operational screen to adjust the temperature.

“My transport. I’ve gotta get to the Evergreen Queen’s meeting. Speaking of,” I side-eyed him, “we need to talk.”

“Hmph,” he grunted. “Nothing good has ever happened when a female claims, ‘we need to talk’.”

That made me purse my lips to hide a smirk. “You have a lot of experience with women saying that, huh?”

He turned his eyes on me then. The pupil thinned horizontally, like a dash, so much different from a human. “I’ve enough. And what’s an Evergreen Queen?”

“It’s a yearly Tinsel pageant.” I shrugged, for some reason feeling embarrassed that I used to love it so much. “Women compete in various themed categories and, by the end, a winner is chosen. The Evergreen Queen.”

“What does that get you?”

“A pretty crown, a sash, an everlasting bouquet, the town’s adoration—”

He snorted, interrupting. “Sounds like an unfair deal.”

“We also get a lifetime of free hot cocoa from the Reindeer Bowl Café. Which, honestly? Worth it. Just for that.”

“We?” His chin dipped toward me and, in a fluid movement, he slid his arm along the back of the bench, taking up even more room. “You’re an Evergreen Queen?”

“Yes.”

He tossed back his head and laughed.