Chapter 54

VALERIA.

I hear the faint click of the necklace lock from the back of my neck, and suddenly I just feel cold. Chills are running down my spine but I don’t think it’s from the romance of the gesture.

Where is this feeling coming from? Is my body simply rejecting it because it knows that Auric is not my mate and it’s only yearning for Stefano, even after everything that happened? Could it be that I’m just generally uncomfortable with the way things are going?

I turn around to face Auric, and he’s just smiling down at me sweetly. “It looks so beautiful on you.”

And it does. The necklace is intricate and wonderful, and a big part of me feels like I don’t deserve anything this pretty. It feels odd sitting at the base of my neck. I swallow hard and try for a smile, but it just won’t come through.

“Now we will go to the dance together.” He leans in and mimics a waltz with me, putting my hands on his shoulders and his hands on my waist. “Maybe we can go out on the weekend and pick out a dress for you. What do you say?”

“I would love that,” I blurt out, not wanting to be impolite. Still, something is not right and I won’t go forward without at least addressing it. “But Auric, I feel like everything is moving too fast and I need to--”

The rest of my words get drowned when he takes my face with both his hands and presses a kiss on my lips.

The shock that invades my body makes me freeze all over. I just stand there with my eyes wide open as he starts to move against my lips, pulling me closer to him and filling my nose with his scent.

I thought that maybe inhaling his scent would do something for me, but it doesn’t. All I can focus on is how different it is from Stefano’s, and how wrong it smells to me.

I put my hands on his chest and push him away from me gently, so as not to hurt his feelings that much. His eyes flutter open and he looks at me with confusion, so I hide the look of distaste from my face and just stare back at him with all the gentleness I can muster.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his face crumpling as he frowns. “Did I do or say something wrong? Was the kiss not good?”

I don’t know what to tell him. What if it’s all the above?

“Auric,” I begin, but that’s when someone appears in the corner.

We both turn around, only to see that it’s Eden, and she looks distressed.

Since that weird night in the dorm, she hasn’t even looked me in the eye, but now she’s coming to me with urgency in her movements. Her eyes are wide with worry and she looks like she’s on the verge of tears, so even though she might be uncomfortable with me, I hold her shoulders and keep her in place.

“What’s wrong, Eden?”

“It’s Celeste,” she says, and finally, the tears brimming her eyes start to fall. “She had an accident. She was hanging one of the props and she fell… and they’re taking her to the hospital right now.”

My heart drops inside my chest. “What? I need to come see her.”

I push past Eden and try to run, but then Auric grabs my arm and stops me. I try to pull my arm back from him, but he holds me in place. “Don’t go. You can just come see her like that.”

“And why not?” I demand.

“Because it could very well be a plan to get you to talk to her and Stefano.” He frowns. “Have you forgotten what they did to you?”

I snatch my hand and look at Eden, and my chest constricts with disappointment when she just runs away at Auric’s word, almost like she’s guilty as charged.

* * *

STEFANO.

“Where is Celeste? Where did they take her? Is she going to be okay?”

Eden’s shrill voice is filling up the entire headquarters, making my head hurt. The rest of the members have already moved out because of her constant pestering, and even though I already told her seemingly a thousand times that I have no clue, she still keeps asking me the same things over and over.

And I’m getting real tired of it.

“Eden, I really don’t know.” My voice gets thick with emotion when the scene of Celeste falling replays in my head. “We called the nurse as soon as possible, and she came down with other nurses and got her on a stretcher. She called the hospital and I haven’t seen her since. I have not heard anything from her, and it’s been hours. So I have no idea what you want me to say.”

Eden finally stops, her mouth closing and opening as though she’s a fish out of water.

“What do you want?” I ask. “Why are you still here?”

As soon as I ask that, her whole mood changes. Her eyes begin to look sharp, and she stares at me with this kind of probing precision that makes me feel uncomfortable, especially when she sits on the chair in front of me.

“I just need to know some things,” she says. “About what you think about Valeria.”

I frown at her, wondering why the conversation has steered into this. I open my mouth to ask her that, but she speaks ahead of me and cuts me off.

“Do you...” She hesitates. “Do you think she’s a vampire?”

“I don’t know,” I just say, frowning at her. “Do you?”

She doesn’t answer right away. “It would be worth investigating though. Aren’t you already doing that, investigating? What have you found out so far?”

The complete shift of her line of questioning throws me off. How the hell does she know that I’m conducting my own investigation about this? I don’t think Valeria ever told her, and I don’t think even Auric mentioned it. I know for sure that Celeste would never.

But instead of asking Eden where she got the idea and confirming it indirectly, I say, “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, head out now. I still have work to do.”

She gets up like she’s going to challenge me, but in the end, she just sighs and gets out of the headquarters.

When she’s gone, I can’t help but think about how weirdly curious about everything she was. How persistent she was in knowing these things. She wasn’t even ever involved in any of those moments. She can’t be showing interest out of nothing, not when I know she’s been talking to Professor Blossom about something.

Is she planning to expose all of us?

My pulse hammers with nerves. I can’t let that happen. I need some kind of leverage, as fucked up as that sounds.

And the only vulnerable point I can take from her is Jake.

I take out my phone and call Priestess Lilith.

She answers after a couple of rings. “Stefano. Have you found the old Luna?”

“No,” I say. “But we already have a plan in motion for that. What I need now is for you to find Jake Watson, a student of the School. He’s been taken to a mental institution due to a vampire attack. What other institutions in Society could he be staying at?”

I wait for her to say that she will be on it, but I only hear her laugh from the other end.

“Jake Watson?” Priestess Lilith echoes. “My boy, he’s being kept in a human hospital. Like a prisoner.”