Alastor Shaw has no intention of letting us go that easy.
“Cole!” he says, his booming voice cutting through the pounding music. “I thought I’d see you here. I heard you got some new student. Is this—”
He peers over Cole’s shoulder, trying to get a good look at me amidst the smoke and streamers and dim purplish light. The sight of me causes him to break off mid-sentence.
The strangest flow of emotions passes over his face:
First, shock.
Second, mounting disbelief.
And finally, what looks like pure glee.
“There she is,” he breathes.
Cole drops my wrist, breaking the bond between us.
“She’s just renting a studio in my building,” he says.
The grin only spreads across Alastor’s face. He looks unutterably happy, for reasons I can’t understand.
“I bet she is,” Alastor says. “I heard you’re mentoring her.”
Cole is silent.
I don’t know what the fuck is going on. He’s never seemed embarrassed of me before. My face is burning and I want to speak up, but the tension is so thick that for once I keep my mouth shut.
“She’s nothing to me,” Cole says, so quietly that I can’t actually hear him. I watch the words form on his lips and carry across to Alastor, slashing me deep along their way.
Now it’s me who takes a step back from Cole, my heart cold and dead in my chest: a steak tossed in the fridge.
Alastor only laughs. “You brought her here,” he says. “You’re wearing matching costumes.”
Now Cole’s jaw tightens and he steps between me and Alastor, putting me directly behind his back. He stands face-to-face with Shaw, almost the same height, one slim and dark, the other broad and blond.
“Alright,” Cole hisses. “She’s my student. And she only learns from me. So stay the fuck away from her.”
“You’re so territorial,” Alastor growls. “You need to learn how to share.”
“Never,” Cole snarls back at him. “Keep your distance. I’m not fucking around this time.”
Grabbing my wrist once more, Cole drags me past Shaw, always keeping his own body between us.
He hauls me all the way outside, into the cold October night. He won’t release my wrist until we’re several blocks away.
“What the fuck was that?” I demand.
“What,” Cole says.
“Don’t even fucking try that. Don’t try to pretend that was anything close to normal.”
“I loathe Shaw, you know that.”
“I’ve seen you interact with plenty of people you despise. That was different. You were stressed. He upset you.”
Cole wheels on me, angrier even than he was with Alastor.
“I’m not upset,” he snarls. “I don’t give a fuck about Shaw.”
“Or me either, apparently,” I say sarcastically.
Cole raises his hands in front of my face. They tremble with the desire to throttle me.
He points one finger at me instead.
“You stay away from him.”
The order pisses me off. I wasn’t trying to buddy up to Alastor Shaw—in fact, I find him obnoxious. But Cole has no fucking right to tell me who I can and cannot speak to, especially in the art world. He wants to be the only one who can help me, the only one who can influence me.
“Why?” I murmur, my eyes locked on Cole’s. “Afraid he’ll teach me something you can’t?”
Cole’s hand twitches. I know he wants to grab me by the throat.
“I’m not fucking joking, Mara. He’s dangerous.”
“Oh, he’s dangerous?” I sneer. “Like YOU?”
I’m facing him down. Daring him to admit what he’s hinted at a dozen times. Daring him to say it out loud.
Cole’s face goes still and smooth. Bleached by the last remnants of paint on his skin, he looks pale as a skull.
As I watch, he removes the last mask. The last vestiges of humanity.
He shows me his real face: utterly devoid of emotion. No life at all in those pitch-black eyes. Teeth white as bone.
Only his lips move as he speaks.
“You think you know what you’re talking about?” Cole hisses. ”I filet people with precision. This guy does what I do BADLY. You have no fucking idea what I’m capable of.”
The air freezes all around me. Sweat turns to ice on my skin.
I can’t speak. I can’t draw breath. I can’t even blink.
He could kill me in this moment . . . I’m too scared to move.