Page 55 of Marked By His Hunger
There it was.
The question.
I didn’t have a clean answer.
So, I shrugged.
“Not sure.”
I tugged at my coat, aware of my thighs rubbing as we descended. The sixth-floor dorm placement felt like an ironic cosmic joke.
Sapphire winked. “You’ll get used to the stairs.”
“Yeah, not with these thighs,” I mostly joked.
Honestly, I had short legs and thick thighs. So, me and stairs?
Yeah, we had a hate-hate relationship.
The girls were already gossiping like besties when two male students joined us.
One moss-skinned, yellow-eyed, sharp smile.
The other gray, angular, carved from stone like a cathedral gargoyle.
Dietrich and Olaf.
Apparently, Monsters here were aggressively attractive and had oddly stuffy names.
I was not prepared for either detail.
“You’re Serena? So, what are you, then?” Dietrich asked.
“What?” I asked, taken aback by his inquisitive nature.
“She doesn’t know,” Ursula cut in sharply.
He shrugged.
“Wasn’t being rude.”
He absolutely was.
“No worries, love, we can figure it out over a pint,” the green one said and winked.
We headed toward the village below the Institute—lanterns flickering gold against wet cobblestones.
Asgarheim felt medieval and modern at once.
Mud brick beside rune-lit steel.
Ancient beams carved with glowing sigils.
The sea crashing violently below black cliffs.
The storm hadn’t left.
It had simply settled.
