Void(62)

Ignoring him, I turned back to look at Gritt. “You never should have taken my amulet off without Banner here.”

Gritt stood up too, so that I had to crane my neck to look up at him. “You and him got something going on?” he growled.

I couldn’t believe this. How dare he think that he had any right to even ask. I jabbed a finger against his chest. “Since I’m not your mate or your girlfriend, that’s none of your business,” I snapped. “And it has nothing to do with that, anyway. You could’ve gotten hurt. Unleashing my Void powers without a neutralizer present was dangerous. I could have wiped out your powers just like that,” I said with a snap of my fingers. “Or worse.”

“But you didn’t,” he pointed out smugly.

“But I could have,” I argued back. “And you also had no right to do that while I was half unconscious. I wasn’t even in control, Gritt.”

“I was right, so why does it matter?”

“It matters because you can’t take stupid risks. Not with the Void.”

Gritt took a step forward, crowding my space completely, and shocked the hell out of me when his hand came up to grip the back of my neck. “My animals could feel your pain,” he said quietly, his eyes searching mine. My mind flicked back to the damn book in his dorm room, and each impending step in the mate bond.

“Well, I apologize for the inconvenience.”

Pain and worry flashed through his gaze. The way he was looking at me was so different from how our first introduction had gone. He’d been wild with feral fury before, touching me for the sole reason of attacking me. But now, he was holding me like he needed to reassure himself that I was okay. I didn’t know how to process it. My emotions were going haywire.

“I need space,” I whispered. I didn’t want to believe that Gritt could actually care about me. Hope was a useless emotion, and allowing myself to have hope in someone like Gritt would just get me burned. His reaction to me this morning, and the way he was being now—hell, the way all four paragons were acting...this was all too new, too strange; I needed space. I needed time to process and figure out what I was thinking and feeling.

“You need to rest,” Quade interrupted, cutting off my face-off with Gritt. “You’re still weak. Why don’t you sleep here for a little bit? Or you can come to my room.”

“She’s not staying in your fucking room, elemental,” Gritt snapped.

“Yeah, she could just stay here in mine,” Render spoke over him.

Gritt’s hold on my neck tightened.

“No need. I’ve been having some zombies fix up the feral shack since the bobcat shifter left this morning. Devi can just go back to the cabin,” Hyde said with glee before spinning around to catch the flying beetle in the room and crush it in his palm. Such a weirdo.

I shook my head, trying to sort through all the conflicting emotions, deciding to address Hyde’s remark first because it was the easiest to handle. “I thought I told you no resurrecting forest animals to clean my cabin?” I wasn’t actually angry about it, but it was better than confronting the jealous shifter, confusing elemental, and oddly protective vampire.

“I couldn’t help myself. They were just begging to recreate that Snow White scene. I even choreographed a musical number to really make it something special.”

“Of course you did,” I mumbled. “Okay. I’m going to my cabin. Alone.”

I took a step away, making Gritt’s hand drop, but Quade intercepted me. “I’m going with you. At least to make sure you get there safely.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. The Void had replenished me some, and Render had helped to close all the puncture wounds, but I’d still lost a lot of blood. I wanted a shower to wash off the assault of the vampires in class, but surprisingly, the fact that Render’s saliva was coated over my skin didn’t bother me at all.

“Here,” Gritt said, whipping his coat and shirt off. Before I could protest, he’d shoved his dark button up dress shirt into my hands.

“Thanks,” I said quietly.

He grunted out some sort of unintelligible response and then held up the blanket so that I could slip his shirt on over my naked body without flashing everybody. I hadn’t even had time to process the fact that they’d all seen me naked while I was unconscious, but my cheeks burned at the thought. “What happened to my clothes?” I asked as I buttoned up the shirt.

“They were shredded and bloody,” Render answered. “They fell off you when I carried you up here.”

“Oh.”

The next time I saw Blaire, I wanted to punch her right in the tit and then suck power from her until she was drooling on the floor.

When I was done getting dressed in Gritt’s shirt, he dropped the blanket, and his eyes swept over me with male satisfaction. I avoided his gaze as I thanked him once more.

Render walked over and opened the bedroom door for me. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”

“Okay.”

I dreaded going to another class tomorrow, but I had no choice in the matter. Unless I ran away, which was feeling more and more appealing by the day.

When we exited Render’s room, Quade led the way down the stairs. Good thing too, since I had no idea which way to go. Thibault Academy was huge, and I had barely scraped the surface of the different rooms and wings it housed. We were obviously in the wing for the vampire dorms, the fanged emblem hanging on the deep red walls.