through glass with their intensity, despite the fact that I’ve tucked myself into the back row again. After everything we did the other night…after everything he saw I was capable of, I couldn’t bring myself to sit any closer.
I couldn’t bring myself to skip class either. I guess masochism really must run in my veins along with the demonic DNA—and the other unique cells of my chemistry. The ones that need to be near this man, even if it’s under these conditions.
So here I am. Here we are, our gazes locked once more, having a silent conversation for two in a room of fifty.
“Miss Valari,” he says, his voice deep and clipped. “You’re familiar with Cerberus, aren’t you?”
He speaks with a degree of certainty that has a fresh bloom of heat creeping under my skin. Not the lust-inspired kind, but an aggravated flush that reminds me I need to keep all my emotions and reactions in check—something I failed to do after Maximus gave me that earthquake of an orgasm.
In hindsight, while I’ve beaten myself up for the slip, I’m not surprised by it. The intimate moment was a Richter-shaking blast, forever altering the landscape of my body, my mind, my senses. And I haven’t thought of much else since.
I thrum my nails over my notebook, determined to banish all those thoughts for at least the duration of class, hard as it may be.
“Sure.”
He smiles tightly. “I thought so. Why don’t you tell us a little about this ravenous beast that Dante meets in the third circle?”
I stare down at my notebook and the random scribblings there. The storm in my bloodstream is overshadowed by dread. Of all the times I’ve sought his attention and the chance to prove myself right, this is one instance where I’d rather not. But the silence stretching through the room presses me to speak. I clear my throat and keep my gaze cast downward.
“Cerberus…is a three-headed wolf who guards the gate to the underworld.”
“And what’s his purpose there?”
I close my eyes. “He allows all to enter and none to escape.”
“None to escape.”
I lift my head at his statement. It definitely isn’t a question. In fact, it feels oddly like a challenge, which his unflinching stare almost confirms.
I swallow over the tightness in my throat. “That’s the general idea, yeah,” I say, hoping I sound more unaffected than I am.
What the hell is he getting at? Or is he just singling me out in class as payback for running out on him? He may think he’s playing some stupid mental games because his ego’s wounded, but nothing about this is playtime. But how the hell do I tell him that without telling him?
He can never know how closely he’s skirting my family’s sick truth.
He purses his lips and answers with a quick nod before opening the book again.
“His eyes are red, his beard is greased with phlegm,
his belly is swollen, and his hands are claws
to rip the wretches and flay and mangle them.”
He snaps the book loudly shut. “Dante describes Cerberus as a bearded beast. That gives him a human quality, no?”
My hands start to shake. I grasp my pen and scribble more mindless designs along the margins of my notebook. “I don’t know,” I mumble.
“You don’t know? I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”
Bastard.
Screw trying to save him from my family’s savagery. I’m going to kill him myself.
In the space of two weeks, he’s gone from protecting me in class, to trying to kick me out of it, to this.
The subtle snickers across the room are like gasoline on the flames of my fury. I lift my gaze up to his, not caring if it’s searing with a blaze for all the class to see.
“I. Don’t. Know.” I all but growl the words, daring him to push me further, to test my knowledge on a subject he should be grateful to know so little about.
His lips part and his eyes soften—the first glimpse of remorse he’s shown for tempting me into this spectacle. And that’s about what it’s become. I’m fully dressed, but I may as well be in my bra and underwear here. Or less. He’s exposed me in return for protecting him from dark and dangerous truths.
He breaks our connection, swiftly returning to the text to pick up where he left off. For the rest of the class, he explores less exciting territory—one of Dante’s political prophecies. I watch the clock, preparing myself to bolt the moment he dismisses us. But the hefty