figures beneath the eaves to the left of the door.
“Eloise?” calls one.
“Yes?” The word barely escapes my lips before a third figure slams into me from behind. I reach out to steady my arms on the wall but I’m too late as my head cracks against the stone.
Someone seizes my hair and yanks my head back. My vision is black from the knock to the head, ears ringing, as I focus on the face. One of the girls who watched the incident outside Francesca’s classroom sneers down at me. I wince as her grip grows tighter.
“Let go,” I breathe out.
A second girl. Then a third. I don’t know their names and can barely make out who they are. I sense that they’re vampires. I saw the face of the one who grabbed me—a hemia who I’ve only seen once. One kicks my legs from under me and I yell in pain as falling forward pulls my head back and scalp tighter. The girl releases my hair but my relief turns to a scream of agony when someone kicks me in the side with a heavy boot.
I instinctively try to curl into a ball as blows rain down on me from feet and hands, each kick and hit jarring my body with pain. Dull voices are muffled by my hands wrapped around my head in protection as they laugh and jeer at me.
“Where’s your magic now, trinity witch?”
“She’s pathetic. Doesn’t even fight back,” sneers a second.
Someone peels my hand from around my face and deep brown eyes filled with hatred meet mine. “Don’t fuck with Dorian Blackwood.”
The sickness from the blows grows at her words.
Dorian orchestrated this.
The girl’s angular face is twisted by a cruel smile and I suck in a breath against the pain wracking my body. Pulling my head back, I slam my forehead into her nose.
The girl howls as she reels backwards and I chuckle then wince as my action turns the agony up a notch. Boots thud across the tarmac, and through my watering eyes I see a figure spring from the shadows.
“What the fuck are you doing to her?”
The unfamiliar voice growls, low and inhuman, the way mids sound.
But this isn’t a mid.
“Get the fuck away or my claws will forget you’re girls,” snarls out Zeke.
Claws?
I push my hair from my face with a shaking hand and look up. The girls shrink back into a protective group but stand tall against the guy facing them. The fear in their expressions wipe the sneers from their faces.
His rasping breaths are unusual, but Zeke’s appearance is obscured by the shadows too. I nervously look down his silver-scarred, bare arms to his hands.
Claws.
Almost two inches long, each extend from the ends of his fingers, his fingers splayed by his sides as he hunches over the girls. The height difference and intimidation should send them running, but instead they hold up their hands in surrender.
“She ain’t a shifter. Why are you so bothered?” asks one, voice cracking with nerves.
“Because she’s defenceless. You’re fucking cowards. Three of you on her. Why do this?” His voice still doesn’t sound like Zeke and I squeeze my eyes closed as the pain builds. “Fucking Dorian, I’ll bet. I hope you enjoy your time in solitary for this.”
“No.” My voice is faint but draws attention from all of them. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”
“They’re beating the crap out of you.” Zeke turns and I fight a gasp. His amber eyes are slit with a cat’s-eye black pupil, but his face hasn’t changed.
“They want trouble,” I croak out. “I don’t.”
His feline eyes narrow and he flicks his head back round, lifting his hand until the points of his claws rest on the girl’s chest.
“Touch Eloise again and I’ll come for you. I don’t hurt girls, but you’re not a girl. You’re a fucking animal.”
“No. You’re the animal,” says another girl in a quavering voice. “You’re partially shifted. How?”
He jerks his chin. “I don’t know, but next time I might shift all the way. Then you’re in fucking trouble, because I won’t think before I act.”
I wipe my face and see blood on the back of my hand. I’ve bled from a blow to the face in the past, thanks to my betrothed, but shock still hits me at the sight.
The door slams as the girls leave. I need to stand. Leave too. Brushing away tiny stones embedded in my hands, I struggle to push myself upwards. Zeke appears by my side and I shrink away