Nightworld Academy: Term One(Nightworld Academy #1)(26)

Pupils sit at desks arranged in a U shape around the room with a large oak table covered in a deep red cloth at the front. Andrei and his perpetual frown sit with a tall guy whose dark hair has the same style, and who's chatting to a girl beside him. Katherine and Clive sit opposite, heads together as they talk. They make no secret of their closeness. Is it as taboo as Theodora hinted?

The man at the front turns around and my breath is knocked away as if I'd walked into him. He's tall, dressed in clothes similar to Andrei, but his hair shorter and swept back. Like Katherine and her vampire friends, his looks are captivating. I can't put my finger on what particular feature draws me in. Is this part of their ability to mesmerise others? That they've been created as something a human would find hard to resist?

He doesn't look old enough to be a teacher. Please let him be a Petrescu head boy.

The guy scans the room and when his blue eyes alight on me, my body turns to jelly. Thank god I'm sitting down. He approaches and my stomach flips as his attention focuses on me.

"You must be Maeve. I'm Professor Whitlock."

A voice inside screams an anguished "no" as his words stomp on my growing romantic fantasies.

"Yes. Hello."

"Please, call me Tobias." His voice is smooth and cajoling and I feel as if I'm the centre of the room.

"Okay," I half squeak. Why does he look this young? It's unfair.

"Everybody else does."

Behind him, Katherine chuckles. "I told you she was more human than supernatural. Don't be mean, Tobias. Can't you see she's crushing on you?"

My cheeks heat and I swear they're bright red. He cocks his head. "I wouldn't be able to use mental magic on Maeve."

I'm relieved when he turns back to the girl rapidly becoming my nemesis.

"Oh. That's worse. She's hot for teacher." Katherine's friends join in the hilarity at my reaction to the guy.

Tobias shakes his head. "Katherine. Maeve is facing a lot of challenges today and I feel you should be kinder. As the teacher in charge of pastoral care for Petrescu house, I advise you to remain friendly to all students. Don't you remember what happened last time I had complaints about you?"

His words silence her, and I can't help a smug smile of my own.

"Most girls and some guys have that reaction to him at first," whispers Amelia. "He's a pneuma vampire as well as being hot as hell. Some of what you feel is him drawing your energy into his."

"Omigod," I breathe out. "A what?"

"Don't worry, he's not doing it deliberately but if you have strong emotions, he'll pick them up to uh..." She rubs her head. "For sustenance."

I pull a face at her euphemistic word. "Do you mean he feeds on people's energy?"

"Emotions, mostly." A guy whose name I don't know, a friend of Jamie's, adds. "At least it doesn't hurt."

Well, that makes everything better.

I shift in my seat. "How does he... feed?"

The guy looks away.

Professor Whitlock, who everybody does seem on first-name terms with, now perches on the edge of a desk at the front. Confident. Elegant. Effortlessly good-looking.

An energy-sucking vampire. A teacher. Not boyfriend material.

Get a grip, Maeve.

"Now, who succeeded with last week's practical task?" he asks and picks up a sheet of paper from the desk. He gestures at the guy sitting beside Andrei. "Lucian. You were assigned a visit to town to quash a rumour brought about by your indiscretions."

I shudder to think what an 'indiscretion' is for a vampire.

"I was drunk," he muttered.

"When you went back?" Tobias frowns.

"No, when I bit the chick."

The room lurches. Whoa. Okay.

"And did you succeed in mesmerising her the second time?"

He nods.

"And you're positive her mind is now blanked?"

A surprised noise escapes my lips and Tobias turns to me. "Maeve?"

"Sorry, am I right in thinking Lucian bit somebody and then made them forget?"

"Well, his victim wouldn't want to remember someone sucking the blood from her," snarks Katherine.

"She was not a victim," snaps Lucian. "She was into the idea."

"Of you sucking her blood?" I can't help my horrified reaction.

Tobias folds his hands on his lap. "Maeve, there are many things you have to learn about our world. Sometimes we make mistakes that need correcting and have ways to do this."

"Such as brainwashing humans? That's wrong."

The class turns silent at my outburst. Tobias steps down from the desk and walks back over to me. "These skills are necessary. The use of mental magics is to protect humans and to protect us."

His beautiful features have filled with a darkness I don't want to be on the receiving end of.

"If we're discovered, it's harder to stay out of the human world," says Jamie quietly. "Most witches can stay hidden, but sometimes things happen to us all we'd rather nobody remembered."

"Listen to your friend." Tobias nods at him. "I am 150 years old and even though I was not around for the Purge, I know this would be repeated should the supernatural world reveal itself again."