Blood of Zeus (Blood of Zeus #1) - Meredith Wild Page 0,1
setting the bar high enough to inconvenience my classmates has always been an added bonus.
Except I came here for Dante. Until now, I assumed the professor of English celebrated for his otherworldly looks would be a gentle giant—intellectual and deep but soft-spoken and forgiving, a stark contrast to his notable physical presence. I was fabulously wrong. The masochist in me sends down a dark prayer that he’s a hard grader too.
“I will not be your only teacher in this course,” he continues. “I’m your professor, but you can think of me more generally as a guide, pointing out themes of note. But if you rely on my interpretation alone, you are robbing yourself of the education inherent in the work, a circle of knowledge drawn by Dante himself. The poem is a journey of the self.” He pauses a moment, his mouth drawn into a thoughtful purse. “Journey being the operative word.”
He frowns a little and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“Moving on. How many of you have already been introduced to the Comedy through your other courses?”
Almost every student raises his or her hand. I don’t.
My skin heats a little when his scanning of the room stops on me, but it’s a brief pause.
“Since this is a seminar and I will be relying heavily on your contributions to drive our conversation, we’ll begin now. I’d like to know, regardless of your familiarity with the text, what draws you to Dante.”
Somehow the class grows even more silent, as if people have ceased breathing lest any movement draw unwanted attention to them. I smirk, because just as easily as I can hear words that aren’t meant to be heard, I can pick up on the inherent discomfort of humans, from little pricklings of fear to full-on panic.
The professor’s gaze lands on the blonde in front of me. “How about you? What brings you here?”
She lets out a breathy laugh and tucks her hair behind her ear, lifting her shoulder coyly as she does. “I don’t know. I guess I heard good things about this course.”
“Ohh, Professor Maximus,” a falsetto voice sings out from the crowd, prompting a wave of laughter throughout the hall.
The golden corners of the professor’s lips quirk up slightly. No doubt, his presence alone could fill a room with students more fascinated by his looks than his literary insights. He quickly collects himself, lifts his chin, and our gazes meet.
Blood rushes to the surface of my skin.
“You’re new to Dante. Why spend the next four months dissecting the Comedy?”
The air grows thick with anticipation. The anticipation isn’t mine, but I recognize the shift in the mood of the room. After a moment of prolonged silence, he arches an eyebrow and cocks his head, prompting me to say something. Anything.
“Dante’s journey through the underworld is uniquely fascinating to me,” I say, which earns some predictable snickers from the audience.
The professor slides his hands casually into the pockets of his dark slacks, drawing my attention to the way they barely contain his thighs. For being an academic, he’s remarkably fit.
“Which part of it holds your fascination? The journey through the dark, or the journey to the light?”
I blink and meet his eyes again. I curl my fingers around my notebook as I contemplate his words. His question feels too personal, like somehow he knows something—maybe that one thing—about me he shouldn’t.
“That’s an odd question.” I can’t hide the defensiveness in my tone.
He winces briefly. “Is it? It’s just that I find some people are drawn to dark themes for the sheer ugliness of them. And there are others who are invested in the exaltation of reaching the other side of it.”
I’m locked in my own silence, unwilling to tell him what I really think. That he has no idea what he’s talking about. That contemplating the allegory is like reading a bedtime story compared to the reality. At least from everything I’ve been told. He may look like a god, but I’m pretty sure my sources on the subject of hell are better than his.
“Spit it out, Valari,” someone shouts out.
My nostrils flare.
The professor frowns in the direction of a boy slouched in the second row. “Excuse me?”
“She’s just doing her research, Professor. She’s a Valari,” the boy says with a cocky laugh. “You know they’re all going straight to hell.”
The room erupts with laughter. My skin heats fiercely as I contemplate ways I can send him directly there.
“Get out.” The professor’s sharp command slices into the