Chapter 9 Ground Rules
POV: Carly
Professor Swanson didn't even look up from her papers when Carly reached the desk.
"Professor Swanson." Carly kept her voice even. Respectful. She was always respectful with her. "I need to talk to you about the partner assignment."
"Carly." The professor acknowledged, still reading. "What do I owe the pleasure."
Carly licked her lips. "I respect you. You know that. I would never question your judgment under normal circumstances but I genuinely think pairing me with Mister Monroeson is a mistake."
"Mister Monroeson." A familiar voice landed directly behind her left shoulder. "So formal. You'd think we were strangers."
Of course.
Of course he followed her down here.
"I have to say Professor." Niko stepped up beside Carly, close enough that she could feel the cold radiating off him. "As much as it pains me to agree with her, she's right. We are a terrible idea."
Professor Swanson finally set her papers down and looked between the two of them with the expression of someone who had seen this exact scene play out too many times to be surprised by it.
"And why is that exactly." She folded her hands in her lap.
Carly gestured sideways. "Did you not witness what just happened up there? He made a comment in front of the entire class directed at me. Imagine what three weeks of working together actually looks like."
"Pot meets kettle." Niko said under his breath.
"Excuse me?" Carly turned on him.
"I'm just saying, you're not exactly easy to be around either."
"Because you make it impossible to be around you!"
"Okay." Professor Swanson raised one hand. "Are the two of you done or should I step out and give you some privacy for this?"
Both of them went quiet.
The professor looked at Carly first then at Niko then back again. She leaned forward slightly in her seat.
"When I was a student at this school it was the exact same story. Everyone in their lane. Everyone with their own kind. Nobody crossing the line nobody drew." She paused. "And I swore to myself when I started teaching that I was going to be the one class where that stopped. That is why I teach general education. So that I get every kind of student and more importantly so that every kind of student gets each other."
Niko crossed his arms. Carly crossed hers.
"Vampires and witches have never gotten along. I know the history. I have read every book on it and watched it play out in these hallways my entire career." She stood up from the desk. "I do not care. Whatever you walk in here carrying, you leave it at the door. You need each other more than either of you is willing to admit."
Carly scoffed before she could stop herself. "I highly doubt I will ever need him for anything."
Niko laughed once. Short and humorless.
Professor Swanson looked at them both with an expression that was somewhere between exhausted and deeply entertained. "Here is what is going to happen. You can be partners, do the work and guarantee yourself a passing grade. Or you can refuse, fail the assignment, fail the class and not graduate this semester." She shrugged like she was commenting on the weather. "Entirely up to you."
The silence that followed lasted about four seconds.
Neither of them had a response to that.
"That's what I thought." She picked her papers back up. "See you both Thursday. Close the door on your way out."
They walked out side by side without speaking.
The hallway outside the lecture hall was mostly cleared out by now, the last few students filtering toward the stairwell. Carly was two steps ahead of Niko and intended to keep it that way. She had nothing left to say to him. They were partners because they had no choice and that was the full extent of it.
Niko's shoulder clipped hers as they both reached the doorway at the same time.
His skin brushed hers and the cold of it shot straight up her arm. She pulled back sharply.
He didn't acknowledge it. Just kept walking.
"Watch where you're going." He said it without turning around. Low and sharp, like she was the one who had walked into him.
Something snapped.
Carly turned on her heel and walked after him until she was directly in front of him, close enough that he had to stop or walk through her.
He stopped.
"Let's get something straight." She held his gaze. "We are partners because we have no choice. That is it. That is the whole thing. Outside of this class and this assignment we do not talk. We do not interact. We are not friends and we are never going to be."
Both of Niko's eyebrows lifted slowly. He looked at her for a long moment like he was deciding something.
Then he nodded once. "Understood, love."
Her eye twitched. "And another thing. The pet names stop. My name is Carly. That is what you can call me."
Niko's mouth curved. Slow and deliberate. That specific smile that meant he was about to make her regret starting this conversation.
He took one step toward her.
Then another.
Carly held her ground.
Another step and she was backed against the wall before she fully registered it happening. Both his hands came up on either side of her head, not touching her, just there. Caging her in against the drywall like it was nothing. Like he did this all the time.
Her breath caught.
Up close he was even harder to look at directly than usual. The scruff along his jaw. The dark curls falling slightly forward. Those eyes that kept shifting between blue and something deeper depending on the light.
The warmth of her own breath bounced back off his chest onto her face because he was that close.
"I'll play by your rules." His voice dropped low enough that it was just for her. "But let me be clear about mine. I don't take demands from anyone. Especially not from someone who has had a problem with me since the day she met me without a single reason that's actually about me." He held her gaze. "So your attitude gets one pass. Just the one."
She moved.
Her hand came up fast.
Niko caught her wrist before it reached his face. His grip was firm and cold and completely still.
Carly's breath went shallow.
His eyes had shifted. That deep red bleeding in from the edges. The dark veins threading faintly under the skin near his jaw. He wasn't all the way there but he was closer to it than she had seen outside of a direct confrontation.
He held her wrist in the air between them and neither of them moved.
Down the hallway footsteps rounded the corner.
Two junior wolves came around the bend mid conversation and slowed slightly when they registered what they were looking at. Carly felt it like ice water. Niko's back was to them but her face was fully visible, pressed against the wall with his hand around her wrist.
One of the wolves looked twice before they kept moving, heads turning back once before they disappeared around the next corner.
Carly felt her stomach drop.
Niko released her wrist slowly.
His features pulled back. The red faded. He stepped back and the air between them returned and Carly pressed herself against the wall because her legs needed the support.
He looked at her for one more second.
"I wouldn't try that again." His voice was quiet. Not a threat exactly. More like a fact.
Then he flashed.
One second he was there.
The next the hallway was empty and Carly was alone against the wall with her wrist cradled against her chest and her heart pounding so loud she could hear it in her own ears.
She stood there for a long moment.
Those two wolves had seen her. Had seen all of it. Seen her backed against a wall by Niko Monroeson in an empty hallway with nobody else around.
She didn't even want to think about what that was going to look like by dinner.
She pushed off the wall, smoothed her hair back with both hands and walked in the opposite direction.
She was fine.
Everything was completely fine.
Author's Note:
Those wolves saw EVERYTHING. Black River Academy's rumor mill is about to go absolutely feral and Carly knows it. Drop a like and tell me in the comments, was that almost slap justified or was Carly asking for it? Add us to your library because Chapter 10 is Niko's world and we are finally going inside his head properly!