Page 39 of The Devil We Crave
Either way, I need to get running so I can put some distance between me and my dark, swirling thoughts involving Achilles Drakos.
It’s darkened from twilight to night when I finally take off at an easy gait. I skirt the woods around Morvaine and take thegravel path down to the ruins of Hawthorne Hall. From there, I run across the campus itself, past Roche Lecture Hall and the glowing lights of Ravencroft Library. I cut through the beautiful main campus green and make a loop around the gorgeous, Notre Dame-inspired St. Aldric’s Chapel, which was here before Knightsblood was even founded.
Past the faculty cottages, I finally turn onto the main path that runs the length of the huge cliffs towering over Connecticut Sound below.
As always, the rhythm of my footsteps moving in time with my pulse puts me into a calm, Zen-like headspace. I listen to the gravel crunch under my sneakers, and revel in the sheen of sweat over my neck and back that makes me shiver a little as the night air teases over my skin.
A low crescent moon gleams over the ocean to my right, and I inhale the salty sea air mixing with the pines on my left, letting the rest of the world fade away.
At least, that’s the goal.
But something is stopping me from achieving it.
Not just me still brooding over Professor Halbertson’s grudge against my family. Notjustthe dark, venomous, all-consuming fantasies of Achilles pinning me to the wall and wrapping his strong, veined hands around my throat, his knife glinting in front of my wide eyes as he slips his fingers into my panties.
The feeling persists, creeping up my spine until it’s impossible to ignore.
I’m being watched.
My breathing loses its cadence as I quickly glance behind me. But there’s no one there, even though I couldswearI felt eyes on the middle of my back. I try to regulate my breathing again, legs and arms pumping, feet eating up the path.
The feeling comes back.
I whirl with a choked gasp, my breathing wild and erratic, tendrils of my hair plastered to my forehead. My skin erupts in goosebumps and a nervous tremor ripples up my spine as my eyes stab into the darkness of the path behind me.
Nothing there.
Nobody chasing me. Nobody watching me. Nobody hunting me.
Just the trees off to the side and the soft crash of the waves against the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs.
Maybe Iamderanged.
Or maybe running alone,at night, was a way worse idea than I thought.
I’m still glancing warily back at the path behind me as I launch myself forward back into my run…
…Andimmediatelygo crashing into a broad, muscled chest.
I scream as I lurch away from it. The heel of my shoe skids across some loose gravel, and I gasp sharply as my center of gravity shifts and I start to topple back.
A veined, muscled, tattooed forearm jerks out, and an iron fist grabs the front of my hoodie in its tight grip. My body spasms as the arm keeps me from falling onto my ass, jerking me back upright as my heart leaps into my throat.
“What the fuck?!” I blurt, my voice shaky. I try to swallow, but it’s like my throat has forgotten how to work. Same as my feet have forgotten how to stand, and my heart has forgotten how to beat at a regular, even tempo.
My eyes snap up, and my pulse skips as I find myself staring into Achilles’ dark, devil eyes.
Right now, wrapped in shadows, the golden boy doesn't look so golden. The darkness almost visibly throbs around him. The moonlight which was so romantic and serene a moment ago now feels cold and grim as it glints off the bulging lines of his broad, muscled shoulders straining the black fabric of his hoodie. The rest of him is clad in black jeans and black boots, and that same scent of mint, clove, and masculine spice fills my nostrils.
But it’s not just all that which has me seeing anythingbutthe “golden prince” of Knightsblood. It’s the fact that, same as last time, on the path near the woods, I’m not looking at Achilles Drakos, Para Bellum president, captain of the football team, darling of the Drakos family.
I’m looking at a devil.
A captivating nightmare.
Venom, poured into a gorgeously shaped vessel.
And I get the impression that this is a side of Achilles that no one ever sees.
