Page 24 of Coveted

I want to know if he was talking about the locket, but demanding answers feels risky.

I’m safe here in front of my classroom though. Even he can’t hurt me in public.

“I enjoyed nothing. Don’t flatter yourself, Lucan.” With my books in my arms, I stand straight. “You’re talking about the night your cousin lost his life. You know that, right? Why does everyone care about his death more than you do?”

His energy shifts like someone flipped a switch, his usual smug aloofness replaced by a lethal venom. Anger radiates from him like ice from a snowstorm.

My flicker of daring evaporates.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything about Parker. Maybe Lucan will hurt me for mentioning the crime.

His jaw and nostrils twitch, like he’s on the verge of defending himself or maybe denying it.

But then he shakes his head and looks away, exhaling hard through his nose like he’s disgusted.

As I sidestep around him, believing he’s done taunting me for now, his hand lashes out. He snatches my notebook from the top of my book pile.

“Hey!” I say. “Give that to me.”

I try to take the book from him, but he whips it behind his back.

My shoulders sag, because I know I’ll never be able to wrestle it from him.

“Lucan, please.” I put out my hand. “I have to get to class.”

The hallway empties as the last students file into their rooms. I imagine my professor inside, putting a black mark next to my name.

His eyes narrow. “Say that again.”

“I have to go!”

“No,” he says slowly, dragging out the vowel. “The other thing.”

“What?” I huff. “Lucan, please.”

His eyes glimmer with something darkly primal, like when he held me against the tree. “Begging suits you.”

“You’re disgusting.”

He brings my notebook to the front of his body. I make another grab for it, but he holds it away from me.

To my utter horror, he opens to a page and reads one of my poems aloud.

Anger and frustration bubble in me, tightening my throat. I want to kill him. Actually kill him.

He recites the verse in a monotone, making it sound as soulless as he is.

“I was not made for gentle seasons.

The wind, my enemy, recites my faded fables.

It tears through my ribs each winter

hungry for the small bright sliver I hid like summer’s finest sin

and never tasted again.”

While his focus is on the page, I make another desperate swipe at the notebook. He flicks it beyond my reach without even looking up.