Nocticadia: A Dark Academia Gothic Romance

What?

I stared down at my first entomology exam, trying to make sense of the grade that’d been populated into the computer.

Forty-five points out of eighty, which equated to a fifty-six percent. I hadn’t received a fifty-six percent on an exam since middle school.

Scrolling through the document that I’d submitted showed pages and pages of red notes alongside my essays, and at first, the grade almost seemed legit for all the red … until I scanned over them. The notes marked ridiculous technical errors, like a comma that should’ve been a semicolon, a paragraph that Gilchrist felt should’ve been new, except that the information had related to the previous paragraph, and I had apparently not tabbed over enough on my bullet points, to her liking.

Cheeks red hot, I held back the urge to cry as I waited for the class to end. I’d have loved to compare grades with another student, but the only other person I knew was Spencer, who hadn’t bothered to show up, and I had no interest in interacting with him after the events at the gala. Although he’d attempted to call me since then, I’d ignored him.

Once class ended, a small line formed, as other students waited to speak with Professor Gilchrist, and I patiently waited my turn, in spite of wanting to crawl out of my skin right then. When I finally reached the front, I stepped forward, my hand shaking with the anger that had blossomed over the last hour.

“How can I help you, Miss Vespertine?” Her voice held an air of boredom that only goaded my frustration.

“My grade … it seems content-wise. All of my essays and multiple-choice responses were correct?”

“Mmm-hmm. And?”

“I received a fifty-six on grammatical and formatting errors? You never specified the importance of these issues and how much they weighed on the grade.”

The unbothered expression on her face didn’t waver with my complaint. If anything, it grew smugger. “It’s a college course. You should be well-versed in how to format a proper essay.”

“I understand, but … fifty-six? I mean, I got every answer correct. I understood the material, and you had no comments on the composition and content of my essays.”

Shoulders rolled back, she rested her elbows on the desk, entwining her fingers. “Tell me, do you intend to conduct research someday?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.” Her brows winged up with a smile that was both pitiful and condescending at the same time. “And so, grant writing is a huge part of funding for those research projects. If you can’t format properly, well, you’ll look inept.” She threw her hands up dismissively. Dismissively doling out a grade that weighed heavily on my cumulative score.

“That would make sense … if this was a grant writing class.”

“Please tell me you’re not one of those students who feels a sense of entitlement based on your circumstances.”

“Excuse me?” I cleared my throat, the shock of her words rendering me stupefied.

The haughty tip of her chin told me I hadn’t misheard her, nor misunderstood the meaning.

“I’m not trying to be difficult,” I added. “I’m just concerned what this will do to my overall average.”

“It’ll certainly bring it down, which is a shame. It seems the underprivileged aren’t meant for a proud and dignified institution like Dracadia. I was wrong about you.”

“How so?”

Her finger tapped on the lid of her black coffee cup. “I saw you glancing over at Spencer twice during this exam. You’re lucky I didn’t fail you for cheating.”

Cheating? Cheating!

The accusation struck me like a punch to the throat. I’d spent hours studying for that exam.

“I do not cheat, and if I ever thought of cheating, it certainly wouldn’t be off Spencer.”

On a mirthless laugh, she shook her head. “You are an arrogant little thing, aren’t you? So smug and full of yourself.”

“What? I’m not …. I don’t understand. I swear to you, I never cheated. I wouldn’t cheat.” I hated that my voice wobbled with the threat of tears. “I want to do well while I’m here.”

“I’m sure you do. And I’m sure your manipulative behaviors work on some professors here at Dracadia, Miss Vespertine. But I’m not one of them.” The arrogant smile that followed sank into my gut like a rusty fork. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an important meeting. The grade stands.”

A cold despair stirred in my chest, as I exited her class. I’d planned to get lunch at Cavick, but decided the best thing for me to do was head back to my dorm to sleep it off. Exhaustion and anger weighed heavy on me, and I still had two more afternoon classes to get through.

As I rounded the building, past the small alley, something grabbed my arm, and a hard yank had me stumbling backward into a solid surface. I opened my mouth to scream, but a hand smothered it, and my body was dragged backward, toward the alley. Once there, the hard stones of the building smashed into my spine.

Spencer stood before me, one eye swollen and purple, both eyes red with deep, black circles beneath. His body shook, his lip downturned as if he would cry.

I let out a scream, and he pressed his hand harder, his jaw clenching with frustration.

“Please! Listen to me! Just for a moment. I’m begging you.”

My heart hammered in my chest as I stared back, wondering what he would do. Was he crazy enough to strangle me? Angry enough to punch me?

“I know you think that I tried to … hurt you … that night. And I swear to you, Lilia. I didn’t. I wouldn’t hurt you. Ever.” His voice was shaky, as if he were on the brink of cracking. “There are things you don’t know about … people who … are very bad here. And Professor Bramwell is one of them. Do you understand?”

I didn’t bother to shake my head, or nod at his comment.

“He beat the shit out of me that night. He did this to my fucking eye.” At that, I did try to shake my head, and he pressed into me, lip snarled up in rage. “Yes, he did! I fucking saw him. He took off that fucking mask, and he beat the ever-loving shit out of me. And no one believes me. Not Langmore. Not my fucking father. Not even you.” He lowered his gaze, eyes shining with tears. “Did I have intentions that night? No.” Eyes screwed shut, he shook his head. “Yeah. How could I not, with how you looked in that dress? But I did not drug you. I wouldn’t do that. Not to you.”

I kicked my head to the side, and he lowered his hand from my mouth. “Did you drug Mel?”

His brows came together, and he let out a huff. “Yes. But it’s not what you think. I was just trying to find out what she knew about Jenny and Bramwell. I just needed her to relax a little.”

“Did you try to have sex with her?”

“I flirted. Tried to kiss her, is all. Again, it was just trying to get her to talk to me.”

“She was telling the truth, then. You really are a scumbag.”

Fingers curling into my arms, he held me tighter. “I didn’t do this shit because I wanted to. I did it because I had to.”

“What the hell does that even mean? Your dad put you up to drugging her?”

The expression on his face blackened, and a cold brush of alarm palmed the back of my neck. “I told you. There are bad people at this school. Some worse than others.”

“I saw you with Gilchrist. I saw her … touch you.”

A look of shame crumpled his brow, and he lowered his gaze from mine.

“You kissed her.”

“She threatened to fail me, if I didn’t–” He grimaced and exhaled a shaky breath, the repulsion crimping his lips.

“If you didn’t what?”

Tears shone in his eyes as he shook his head.

“Spencer, if you didn’t what? Was it Gilchrist who put you up to all of this?”

He looked toward the mouth of the alley and back to me, his hand frantically stroking my hair. “I like you, Lilia. A lot. Too much. I can’t stop thinking about you, and it kills me to know that you hate me right now.”

“I don’t hate you. I just really need you to tell me the truth.”

“If you care for me … even the slightest bit … even as a friend, you’ll stay away from Bramwell.”

“What are you talking about? He’s my professor.”

“I see him watching you sometimes. You don’t even realize how much he watches you. He’s followed you to class. He’s probably watching you now, for fucks sake. The guy is nuts.”

Undoubtedly wearing the confusion that clouded my brain, I shook my head.

“Yes. He does. Watch yourself, Lilia. In fact, fucking leave this school. You’re better off.” Placing a palm at my throat, he didn’t squeeze, only stroked the column of my neck with his thumb. His face pinched, as if he might cry right there. Instead, he darted off back down the alley.

Astrange vulnerability settled over me, as I walked down the cadaver tunnel toward Professor Bramwell’s lab. Even though I’d spent the afternoon convincing myself that Spencer was wrong, that I had watched Bramwell enough to know that he hadn’t been watching me like that, his arguments still left me confused. Spencer clearly had it in for Bramwell, and while his friend being kicked out seemed reason enough to suspect he might harbor some animosity toward him, to what extent would that animosity go? That he would frame Bramwell as an attacker? Make him out to be a total creep who followed me around?

As if my problems weren’t already stacked like a Jenga tower ready to tumble, Bee’s school had called me earlier, letting me know they could only get half of the back tuition approved with the grant, and that I’d have to get them five hundred as soon as possible.

Five hundred I didn’t happen to have right then.

Feeling pummeled by the day’s events, I entered the lab, and found Professor Bramwell hunched over, studying something on the bench he stood before. A candle flickered near him, as he poked a set of forceps toward the benchtop. It was enough distraction to banish the thoughts of Spencer and Bee and Gilchrist, and every other woe that’d reared its ugly head.

At the brush of my ankles, I knelt down to give Bane a quick pet, grateful for his sweet little greeting on such a shitty day, and I approached Professor Bramwell to see it was a moth he had spread out on the extra wide stage plate of the microscope, its thorax sliced open to reveal the organs beneath. He lifted a long, skinny black worm up into the air, where it wriggled and thrashed around. Professor tipped his head and grabbed another set of forceps, which he used to hold one end of it still while he examined the parasite. “Son of a bitch.”

“What is it?” I asked, intrigued by the awe in his voice.

“Another one with teeth.”

“Teeth?”

He laid it beside the moth, restraining the end of it, and when he shifted it beneath the lens, I peered up at the small square viewing screen to see tiny fang-like structures snapping at the forceps. “It seems they’ve evolved.”

“You’re telling me those things …” The thought of it curled my guts. Probably didn’t help that I’d skipped both lunch and dinner after what had happened earlier.

“Yes. They can apparently latch now.” He lifted the worm and plopped it into a jar of clear fluid and placed a cap over it. From beside him, he lifted the burning candle, holding it over the moth as if looking for more of the worms.

At the angle he held it, the flame flickered over his knuckles, and I frowned as it seemed to have no effect on him. He didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch, as if he couldn’t feel it.

“Professor!” I lurched toward him, and he startled, knocking the jar with the worm onto the floor, where the glass shattered. The worm wriggled across the tiles toward a drain.

“No! Shit!” He jogged toward it, sliding over the slick tiles, but caught himself and planted his shoe over the drain. The worm slid up onto his shoe, lifting its upper half, which it tapped against the leather’s surface. “Hand me the forceps!”

I sprang toward the bench and swiped up the forceps, slipping on the small bit of water like he had moments ago.

He leapt back toward me, catching my arm before I fell and pulled me upright.

Momentarily stunned, I stole a moment to catch my breath, and at the same time, both of us snapped our heads in the direction of the worm, only catching its tail end as it slipped down the drain.

He let out a sigh. “Fuck.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean …” Perhaps it was exhaustion coupled with hunger, and add in the fact that I’d just disappointed him, but my voice shook and I blinked away tears.

As if realizing he still held my arm, he frowned and stepped back, stuffing his hands into his lab coat. “What’s wrong with you?”

I shook my head, not wanting to tell him, because telling him would’ve definitely made me cry, and I was not crying in front of the man. “I’ll clean up this mess.” As I stepped in the direction of the utility closet, he sidestepped and blocked me.

“Lilia, tell me what’s wrong.”

A strange feeling stirred in my chest on hearing him say my name, and when I lifted my gaze to his, saw the concern brimming in his eyes, I couldn’t hold back the tears.

“I can’t.”

“Tell me. Now.”

Why did I protect Gilchrist? Had she given me even a fraction of consideration when she’d said those things earlier? No. In fact, it probably tickled her black heart to know how much her words had crushed me. The way she’d somehow seen right through me and reached down into the deepest pits of my self-doubt. “Gilchrist accused me of cheating on an exam. She gave me a fifty-six on it.”

His eye twitched, jaw hardened. “Did she now?”

“I don’t know if she plans to pursue the cheating accusation, but if she does, then that will ruin everything. I’ll be kicked out, and I won’t be approved for next semester.”

“Relax. She would need proof.” While the confidence in his tone cut through my worry like a jagged blade, it didn’t settle it entirely.

“She accused me of cheating off Spencer. She’s threatened to fail Spencer before. He’s not going to tell the truth for my sake.”

He snorted. “As if Spencer held a candle …” He trailed off in a grouchy grumble.

I didn’t know why that half comment filled me with satisfaction and withered some of the mire in my head. Maybe because the man rarely threw out compliments. Or perhaps it was because I felt like he was on my side.

“It takes tremendous effort to prove a student has cheated, and I don’t think even she has the energy, or motivation, for that.”

The relief I felt in telling him just that small piece of my day left me wanting to offload everything, every miserable detail, until I’d purged and emptied myself of it, but I wouldn’t. He didn’t need to know my financial woes on top of everything else.

The man probably had more money than he knew what to do with. The fact that I owed thousands for Bee’s tuition, with a mere ten bucks left in my account, would’ve probably seemed absurd to him. To all the students who attended this university, too. I’d yet to meet one weighed down by their finances, the way I was. “Sometimes, I think coming here was a mistake. I just feel like everything is stacked against me all the time. There’s no winning.”

“And so, what? You go back to Covington?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to, but …” Even if I paid Bee’s school the two hundred Bramwell had agreed to give me every week, it’d still take over two months to pay everything back. And that was assuming Conner kept up his half to bring the account current. “Everything just feels so heavy sometimes.”

“So, your solution is to quit school. Forego your scholarship.”

“As I said, I don’t want to do that, but–”

“But nothing. You may be smart, but you sure as fuck say foolish things.”

I could’ve given him some benefit of doubt, not knowing what was going through my head right then, that Gilchrist was only one of many worries, but his response still pissed me off. People with money somehow always pissed me off, and I hated myself for that, but goddamn it, sometimes they acted like their problems were on par with everyone else’s. What would he have thought, had he known that I’d uploaded a fucking porn video to a website just to pay for my sister’s tuition? Would he have judged me for that? Lectured me on virtue and human decency?

“Since when do you care? I’m sure you’ll appreciate going back to your quiet lab, where no one breaks jars and lets specimens escape down the drain. I don’t belong at this school, with students who drop hundreds on dresses for one night. Who can afford their fancy latte coffees in cute little cups with the gold dragon logo,” I said, giving a snobby flip of my wrist. “Who don’t have to think about anything but their grades and studying. I’m tired of stressing about things that never cross their minds.”

“So, going back to Covington is going to relieve you of all these struggles?”

“Of course not. But everyone in Covington struggles. At least I’m not some freak outcast there.”

“Yes. Brilliant. You’ll be thrown into some shit job that you’ll hate and resent for the rest of your life.”

“What does it matter to you if I stay, or not?” I searched those usually apathetic eyes for some explanation for why he suddenly seemed bothered.

“It matters.”

“Why?”

“Has anyone treated you like scum here? Has anyone thrown your lack of money in your face?”

Gilchrist came to mind, her comment from earlier that’d apparently sunk its claws into me, given the way I was feeling right then, but I didn’t bother to mention it. Instead, I kept my lips shut, which he apparently took as a response to his question.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You sound ridiculous.”

“I sound ridiculous? Why? Because I don’t share the same problems as the rich elite?”

“No. That you bother to compare yourself to them at all is ridiculous.”

“Ah, yes. I almost forgot they were in a different league. Thank you for yanking me back down to reality.” Tears formed in my eyes as I dared to confess what had ground at me all afternoon. “Perhaps Gilchrist was right when she said the underprivileged aren’t meant for a proud and dignified institution like Dracadia.”

Scorn darkened his eyes. “She said that to you?”

As much as I regretted having said it aloud, it felt good to have told someone. To offload some of the humiliation still chipping at my pride. “Yes. After she accused me of being entitled, based on my circumstances. So, tell me again why I sound ridiculous. Why I have no right to compare myself to my fellow students. Why I shouldn’t go back to where I belong.”

His jaw shifted, lip curled in disgust. “Because you’re better than them. Stronger. And unfortunately, you’ll have to fight harder for what you want. But you have an understanding of things beyond their comprehension. You’re exceptional, Lilia. And by God, if you waste that intellect on the ignorant words of an envious shrew like Loretta Gilchrist, it will be the most egregious offense you’ve ever committed.”

Heat burned my face red-hot. My arms shook with the urge to throw them around him and kiss him. Instead, I stared, focusing on the unsteady breaths that sawed in and out of me.

The suffocating tension between us threatened to ignite on one bold move, a single strike of a match. His hand curled around the bench where he leaned, and it was then I noticed the glossy red mark and inflamed skin where he’d burned himself with the candle.

“Oh, my God.” I reached out for his hand, and he jerked it away, holding his fist at his chest. “You’re burned pretty badly. You need to clean and wrap that.”

“I know what I need.”

“Right,” I said, taking a step back. Of course, he’d probably done clinical rotations in the ER and burn units at some point in his life. “Can you not feel, at all?”

“No. Not at all.”

“I can’t imagine how awful that must be. How terrifying not to feel.”

He lowered his hand, flexing his fingers. “It’s grown on me.”

“You’ve suffered with that your whole life?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need your pity, Miss Vespertine.” His voice hardened, the space between us colder, all of a sudden. “If you’d be so kind as to clean up the broken glass, I’d appreciate it. Be careful not to cut yourself.”

“Of course.”

For the next two hours, I busied myself with menial lab tasks–autoclaving, sterilizing new agar solution, and catching the occasional glance from Professor Bramwell, like the night at the gala–stolen glances amounting to nothing, really. Nothing but curiosity. I thought back to the evening before, when he’d told me that, under different circumstances, he’d have pursued me. Whatever had compelled him to confess that must’ve slinked back into its shell and covered itself up with a blanket.

As I wiped down the fume hood, I noticed a tray of tubes carrying a strange purple and black solution. Frowning, I turned my head to the side, reading the vertical label on the test tubes–NyxVar2.10, NyxVar2.12, NyxVar2.15. Beneath that was Noctisoma toxin and the date. Pretending as if I was scrubbing hard at something, I studied the strange fluid inside, the almost marbled mixture of purple and black that must’ve been what he planned to inject into the moths.

At the end of my shift, Doctor Bramwell walked me to the bus stop, wordless. Shoulders bunched, gazed glued to the ground, he seemed preoccupied. And I supposed I was too tired to bombard him with questions, so the two of us walked in silence. Just like the last time, he watched me from a distance, until I caught the flicker of bus lights coming up over the hill, and I waved him on. Hands stuffed in his pockets, he turned around and headed back toward his lab.

Drops of rain hit my arm, and when I tipped my head back, cold sprinkles dotted my face. Perfect. Fortunately, the bus was close, because the longer I stood there, the faster the drops fell. Faster. Faster.

When the bus finally reached me, the rain had picked up intensity, pattering hard against the sidewalk. It was then I realized I’d left my purse and my ID back at the lab.

Shit! Shit!

I’d need it to get into my dorm.

Shit, shit!

Groaning, I waved the bus driver on, and as the downpour assaulted me along the way, striking my skin like dissolving bullets, I jogged my ass back toward the laboratory until I reached the incinerator room, where I shook off the freezing water still clinging to my skin. Shivering, I made my way down the frigid cadaver tunnel, clenching my teeth to keep them from chattering. I’d worn a skirt that day, thinking I’d beat the forecasted rain for the evening. It was my luck to have to walk in it, anyway.

There was no sign of Professor Bramwell when I entered the autopsy room and strode toward the hooks holding the lab coats. As I approached, I noticed something sticking up from the pocket of my lab coat. A note.

I opened it to find a small plastic card with the Dragon’s Lair coffee shop logo on it. The attached paper simply said: Now you can buy coffee whenever you like. –B

It was a yearly pass, one he must’ve purchased for himself, and at the echoes of my self-wallowing earlier, I winced. It wasn’t like me, at all, to be so pathetically self-deprecating, but I was tired. Stressed. Confused. Angry. A whole host of emotions that made the perfect storm. Even then, I felt kind of stupid for dumping all of that on him.

I unhooked my coat to find my purse hidden beneath it, and I nabbed it, just then remembering the dreaded walk I’d have to make back to my dorm, seeing as the last pick up of the night had already come and gone. I’d be a sopping mess and, with my luck, would end up with a horrible pneumonia, proving my mother right all those years.

A sound reached my ears–loud, pained, brimming with suffering. A chill skated up my spine, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

It arrived again, that time carrying a distinct masculine pitch that I recognized. Bramwell?

He could’ve been having another attack.

Without too much contemplation, I punched the keypad code and dashed through the door, into the lab. I yanked my phone, ready to make a call in the event that his heart had suffered the attack that time. Eyes scanning the candlelit space, I caught sight of the glass dome, where Patroclus and Achilles fluttered around inside. Flying? Though my head begged to tease out the possibility of such a thing, it was only a brief distraction in my otherwise cursory search, and I kept on through the other set of doors, toward Bramwell’s office. I slowed my steps on hearing the sounds of quiet moaning and peeked into his office.

He sat at the desk, turned toward his bookshelves, shirtless, his muscles glistening with sweat, a tourniquet wrapped just below his bulging bicep.

I trailed my gaze to the tray of test tubes in front of him, the purple marbly tubes that I’d seen earlier under the hood. Beside them lay a syringe.

Unless I was mistaken, those were the test tubes labeled NyxVar. The Noctisoma toxin. Had he injected them into himself?

Jarred with disbelief, I stood paralyzed, watching him writhe in his chair, grunting and moaning, as I presumed the toxin worked its way through his body. My phone slipped out of my hands, clattering to the floor.

Shit. Shit!

Slapping a hand to my mouth, I swiped it up and backed myself away. As I heard him moving about, undoubtedly getting up out of his chair, I turned to the nearest door beside me and ducked inside. Footsteps approached, and in a panic, I stumbled through the dark room, until I felt a cold metal surface beneath my fingertips and slid my hand over a latch. With a yank, I swung it open and shut myself inside. Through the barrier, I heard the other door creak open. Footsteps.

I bit my lip, praying he wouldn’t find me there. Given how staunchly he protected his privacy, who knew how he’d react if he suspected I’d seen him?

The footsteps retreated, and I exhaled a jittery breath.

When I reached for the latch to open the door, though, it wouldn’t budge. Oh, no. No, no, no.

I wriggled the latch, yanking on it, but to no avail. A putrid stench assaulted my senses, so repulsive, it sprang tears to my eyes, and I covered my nose with the back of my hand, swallowing back a gag. Blindly patting the wall, I found a light switch and flipped it on. A fluorescent tube flickered overhead, and I turned around to find that I had locked myself in what looked to be a smaller autopsy room with only one examination table. A white sheet covered what I had little doubt was a body beneath.

Muscles quaking, I tiptoed toward it, my heart my heart rioting inside my chest with every step closer, and I peeled back the sheet.

There on the table lay a man with the telling post-autopsy Y-incision stitches, and whose eyeballs had been removed, leaving empty sockets. Another gag punched the back of my throat, the acids burning as I breathed hard through my nose. The sight of him sent an icy trickle of fear down my spine, and with a sharp exhale, I threw the sheet back over him to quickly cover him up. Even without his eyes, something about him looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place why. And I didn’t care, because the realization that I was stuck in there with him hit me right then.

I ran for the door. No fucking way I was staying all night with a corpse who had no eyeballs. No fucking way! When the door wouldn’t budge again, I pounded. The panic rose up into my throat, and I let out a scream.

Cold tentacles of fear slithered over the back of my neck.

A glance over my shoulder revealed a ghostly figure of the man standing alongside the examination table. Forehead pressed to the door, I squeezed my eyes shut. No, no, no. Hysterics commandeered me, and I slammed the heel of my hand against the door. A sob broke from my chest. “Help me! Somebody, help me!”

The door swung open, and I dove headfirst into the body standing in the doorway. I wrapped my arms around it, fingers clawing into flesh to keep me rooted there, away from that room and the death it held. Every muscle in my body convulsed in terror, and I let out a shaky breath, the tears spilling down my cheeks.

At first, he didn’t move, but then strong arms engulfed me, pulling me closer. “Oh, fuck, Lilia. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I clung to him, letting the fear work its way through me. The realization that I could’ve been stuck all night in there gnawed at my bones every time I dared to imagine the visual. It was when I felt the gentle stroke down my damp hair that I glanced up to see Professor Bramwell embracing me, his eyes brimming with remorse.

Remorse that shifted to confusion, as he stroked my hair slower.

Curiosity and trepidation clashed his eyes, and he skated his palm down my cheek, pausing to rub his fingers together. His thumb caressed my bottom lip, and his hand moved to my hair again, where he let a strand slip through his fingers, eyes alight with fascination. “I feel you.”

I stared up at him, the fear inside of me dissolving, and I raised my hand.

He placed his much bigger hand against mine, palm to palm, and curled his fingers around mine, swallowing them. “I feel everything.” He let out a choke of a laugh. “I fucking feel everything!” He whisked me into his arms and spun me around.

My stomach flipped, and a giggle slipped free, in spite of my earlier tears.

The room settled as he placed me back onto my feet and held me against him. Tightly. I didn’t move. Like the night before, I let him hang onto me, breathing. “You’re so cold,” he said, the heat practically radiating from him, as I sagged into his embrace.

“It was raining hard, and …” My words drifted off the moment his fingers feathered across my back and to my arms where they drew a light caress.

He let out a shaky exhale, as he ran them up my shoulders and to my throat, where he held my face in his palms. The delicious spice and musk of his cologne mingled with the cinnamon on his breath, the intoxicating mix watering my mouth. His gaze fell to my lips, and I wondered if he’d kiss me.

The restive beat of my heart marked each passing second, as I waited for it.

With a shake of his head, he stepped back. “Forgive me. You’re the first thing I’ve felt in a long time.”

As he drew his hands back, I reached out to clutch his forearms, holding them there. “What was the last thing you remember feeling?”

Pain flashed over his face. “My brother’s hand, just before he was taken away and killed.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

Brows tight, he ran his fingertips across my clavicle and licked his lips. “You feel good.”

My nerves caught in my throat as I said, “You do, too.”

Curious eyes seemed riveted on my lips, and he ran his thumb over their surface. Before I could gauge his next move, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine.

All sound faded. The world around us disappeared. The kiss began slow, a mere sampling, as he brushed his lips over mine. He grabbed either side of my face, pulling me closer, fully committing to the kiss, and a tingling deluge of excitement scattered across my skin.

Some kisses were said to feel like fireworks. His felt like a slow-drip anesthetic, silently siphoning my senses, until all I could smell, taste, and feel was him.

I held his biceps, as he ate the breath from my mouth and ran his palms over my exposed skin. He pulled me closer still, kissing me with such passionate fervor that my knees weakened. I’d never been kissed by a man. Boys, yes. But never a man. Not even Ghostboy, who was technically an adult, held a candle to Professor Bramwell’s skill and mastery. The way he teased with his tongue, and held me as if I were fragile porcelain. It was right then that I realized, I’d never truly been kissed before, at all.

As his grip hardened, the need for oxygen burned in my lungs, punching at my ribs. I tugged my head back, but he held fast, threading his fingers through my hair, jaw flexing as he dipped his tongue to deepen the kiss. Dizziness settled over me, the need to breathe setting off alarms inside my head. I whimpered against his lips and pressed my palms to his chest.

When he pulled away on a sharp inhale, a coldness filled the space between us, and the dizziness heightened, claiming my balance. I teetered to the side, and he caught me, holding me upright.

Forehead pressed to mine, he breathed hard. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”

“It’s okay.”

“No. No, it’s not okay.” He released me and stepped back. “I can’t fuck this up. Not now.”

Don’t take that personally, my head warned.

Running a hand over his brow, he turned away from me. “Forgive me. I’m just overwhelmed right now. I didn’t mean–”

“It’s okay. I understand. It was a pretty tense moment for both of us.”

His gaze flicked toward the autopsy room behind me and back. “You’ll not speak a word of what you saw in there.”

“Of course not. But … you injected yourself with the toxin,” I countered. When he didn’t respond, only stared at me with that chilling, sobering look in his eyes, I kept on. “I remembered seeing the vials under the hood. You’re performing clinical trials on yourself, aren’t you?”

He slowly turned back around to face me. “You’re in a very precarious situation, Miss Vespertine.”

Spencer’s words echoed inside my head. Those warning me that Professor Bramwell was a bad man.

“Are you … infected with the worms?”

“No. Of course not. The toxin is purified.”

“So, you can’t become sick from it?”

“Not at all.”

Swallowing hard, I lowered my gaze. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“How can I trust you? How do I know you won’t use it against me?”

I reached for his hand and linked my fingers in his, keeping my eyes on him. “I give you my word.”

With a gruffness, he shook off the connection. “C’mon,” he said in a surly voice. “I’ll walk you back to your dorm.”

“My dorm? Won’t someone see us?”

“There’s a path through the woods.”

“It’s pouring rain,” I argued back, because I didn’t want to be alone, and I didn’t want to leave him alone. What if he fell into a seizure again and there was no one there? “Maybe I should stay a bit. What if you have a bad reaction?”

Not a single cell in my body imagined that he’d actually consider such a thing, and the argument to stay sat perched on the tip of my tongue, ready to fire off, when he gave a short nod. “Fine.”

As Bramwell furiously scribbled notes into a journal, I sat sprawled on the couch in my long socks, reading a chapter from my textbook on my phone for the next day’s lecture. Soft piano music drifted from the record player, the cozy ambience colliding with the feverish thrill still humming through my bones. My lips tingled where he’d kissed me earlier, and as subtle as I could muster, I ran my thumb over them, wishing I could capture the feel of his mouth on mine again.

Focus, Lilia.

I turned my mind back to my reading, then yawned and stretched, settling further into the cushions, willing my eyes to stay open. Between the laboriously detailed text and the lingering echoes of that kiss, the maelstrom of thoughts in my head exhausted me.

“If you’re tired, the couch folds out to a bed. You can sleep there.”

Sleep there? I’d only expected to stay a couple hours to observe him. I never imagined he’d invite me to stay overnight, and I didn’t dare question it aloud. “What about you?”

“I’ll sleep here in my chair.” He planned to stay, too. The two of us, sleeping in the same room. “It’s raining pretty hard.” He’d gone to lock up the incinerator entrance about fifteen minutes earlier and must’ve noticed it then.

We were rained in together. Alone. In the dungeon of the building.

I was going to be sleeping over with Professor Bramwell. Doctor Death.

Perhaps that should’ve terrified me, especially since there was an eyeless corpse laid out in the room across the hall. Unfortunately, it didn’t. As naive as it might’ve made me, I felt something with Bramwell that no other man in my life, including Conner, had ever made me feel–safe. I let that thought wrap itself around me like a blanket, as I stared back at him, then snapped my focus back to the issue at hand. “No need to be a martyr. You can sleep on the bed. I’ll just make a bed out of the couch cushions.”

“I’ll use the cushions.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re twice my size.”

“Have you always been so damn stubborn?”

“Since the womb, I’m afraid. I was born nine days after my due date.”

He grumbled and scribbled more notes. The man looked absolutely delicious in his half-buttoned black shirt that he’d since donned and the thin-rimmed glasses he wore as he read through books. In the thick of his note-taking, he paused and ran his fingers over the shiny desk surface, then held his hand over the candle and quickly withdrew, rubbing his skin where it must’ve burned.

I smiled, watching him explore all the different sensations around him. How exquisitely rich his world must’ve seemed now that he could feel again. “So, what happens next? Now that you’ve had a successful variant?”

“I wait and see how it affects the moths. If they continue to respond favorably, we move to the next step.”

“I thought moths didn’t have a nervous system like us. How do you measure success in them?”

“So long as Patroclus and Achilles continue to fly, the toxin is working.”

“You’re going to be famous, Professor Bramwell.” Burying a smile into my phone, I mindlessly read the same line in my book that I’d read ten times already. “In all the textbooks for having cured Voneric’s Disease. Arthritis. Diabetes.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“It’s called manifestation. And it actually works.”

“Yeah? What have you manifested?”

I quirked a brow. “Working in your lab.”

He groaned again, in disapproval. “Blackmail is hardly manifestation.”

“The mechanisms for achieving your goals are inconsequential, so long as they’re successful.” I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth, marveling at the man’s unbreakable focus on his work. “Perhaps I manifested that kiss.”

He froze, staring down at his notes, then slowly removed his glasses. “Now, why would you do that?”

I lowered my gaze to my fidgeting hands and shrugged. “Are you angry?”

“I’m angry at myself. Not you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my student. I’m your professor. I also happen to be a decade older than you. You’ve got a lot to lose, if someone found out. We both do.”

“Who would find out? There’s no one here.”

He ran his tongue over his lips, his eyes lost to whatever thoughts churned inside his overthinking mind. With a shake of his head, he snapped out of it. “I can’t do that, Lilia. This lab is still subject to the occasional visitor. The school provost, in particular.”

“I like when you say my name.” Not something I would’ve ordinarily confessed so boldly, but the kiss reminded me that I wasn’t alone in my attraction. A heavy silence filled the space between us as we stared back at one another, the intensity only broken when I cleared my throat and stood up from the couch. “So, I can start pulling these cushions off, then, to make my bed?”

“Yes.” He pushed up from his chair and helped me remove the stiff leather cushions, arranging them in a row to form a bed. “You’re not sleeping here. You can sleep on the mattress,” he said, folding out the bed.

“Be serious. Look.” I pointed to the row of cushions, which must’ve only measured about four feet in length. “You’ve got to be over six feet tall. It’ll be like sleeping on a dollhouse bed for you.”

“Six-foot-two. And I’ll be fine.” From the closet, he pulled down a stack of sheets and unfolded them onto the mattress. He returned to the closet for four pillows, handing off two to me.

Before he could stop me, I plopped down onto the cushions. “Look, you see? It suits me better.”

“Up on the bed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be fine.”

“On the bed. Now.”

The deadly authority in his voice prodded something deep inside of me. Something that begged to be cracked open and cut loose. A flash of fantasy slipped through my mind, of him holding my throat, spouting off commands in that voice.

“You’ll have to haul my dead rotting corpse there.”

“I’m quite familiar with the task.” Lips tight, he bent forward and to my utter shock, slid his hands beneath me, lifting me up into his arms.

I let out an unattractive squawk as he threw me into the air, my skirt flying up around the spandex shorts I’d worn underneath, and the soft, cushy mattress caught my fall. “Talk about stubborn.”

He strode over to the fireplace and lit a small flame, stoking it enough that it caught quickly and let off a blaze of radiant heat. As if mesmerized, he stared back at it and raised his hands, twisting them in front of him. “I never thought I’d feel warmth again. Not like this.” In his profile, I caught the slightest curve of his lips. “My brother used to tease that I was half-dead, for how cold my hands were all the time.”

“You said your brother was taken away and killed?”

The look he cast over his shoulder held an expression of Oh, yeah. About that. He turned back to face the fire, and I pulled the blanket he’d set out up over myself. “He was kidnapped when we were about seventeen years old. Boarding school. They sent what we believed were his ashes. For years I questioned whether, or not, they were his. But even if they weren’t, the message was clear. He was gone.”

A cold dread stirred in my stomach, as an image of Bee’s terrified face flashed through my mind. I quickly blinked it away. “I’m so sorry.”

“I blamed myself for what happened to him.”

“Why?” I stared off, wondering if his guilt weighed as heavily as mine. If it ever pressed down on him, drowning him, as it often did for me.

His brows knitted together, and he lowered his hands. “The day he was taken, I fell into one of my episodes. I couldn’t fight back.”

“You were a kid. It wasn’t your fault.”

He shook his head, as if refusing to believe me, then pushed to his feet and strode over to his desk. From one of the drawers there, he withdrew a picture that he handed to me.

I stared down at two adorable boys with dark hair and copper eyes, one with a more prominent dimple on the left, the other more prominent on the right. “You’re identical,” I said, running my finger over the one I knew was Professor Bramwell, based only on his dimple.

“He was three minutes older.”

After examining the two of them side by side, I handed it back. “I couldn’t imagine losing my sister. She’s going to be seventeen this year. I worry what that’ll mean for her.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s in a sort of boarding school herself now. A special school designed to help her. She kind of had it rough when my mom died, and … well, she’s just been lost. Has some mental turmoil to work through. She, um … found my mother in the bathtub.” My nerves hummed, as they usually did, with the creeping visual of what I’d actually seen that night. Except, that time, I felt sliced open, like he could see the ugliness of it all. The dysfunction that’d felt like a shadow for so many years. “Anyway, the school has been great for her, but it’s so expensive to keep her there.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Your mother’s trust pays for her tuition?”

“Trust?” I wanted to laugh at that, but it occurred to me right then how disconnected the two of us were. How inconceivable it must’ve been for a man like him to imagine a woman living so irresponsibly as to not leave a trust behind for her child. My world must’ve been as foreign to him as his was to me. “My mom didn’t have anything when she died. Her boyfriend, Conner, is Bee’s father. The two of us split tuition.”

“You pay for your sister’s tuition while going to school?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t want to admit that I was a couple of months behind. “It’s why I was so hardball about getting paid in cash. I don’t want to be that way, but sometimes, you do things out of desperation, you know?” I tried not to wince at the thought of the video I’d filmed in his class weeks ago. “Or maybe you don’t.”

“Don’t ever feel ashamed of being ruthless in the pursuit of what you want, Lilia. The path to success is rarely a virtuous one.” After returning the picture to its drawer, he fell back into his chair. “And how is this Conner?”

I shrugged. “He’s okay. He sticks around, so I guess I can’t complain. Has some pretty shitty friends, though.”

“They give you a hard time?”

I bit my cheek to keep the repulsion from showing on my face, as Angelo came to mind. “One. He’s the only one who really scares me.”

“What’s his name?” An edge of hostility hardened his voice, and I looked up to see rigid lines of malice darkening his expression. As though it angered him to know the man scared me?

“It doesn’t matter.” Shameful as it might’ve been to say, I liked his defensive reaction. I’d never relied on a man to protect me. Ever. But something primal played on the back of my thoughts that went hand in hand with the visual of him choking me, and I found myself oddly turned on by it. “Anyway, I know what you mean about feeling the guilt, though. I was sixteen when my mom died. I knew things were going downhill with her, and I tried to get her to go to the hospital, but she refused. She was so paranoid of everything and everyone, and …”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Those words hooked themselves in my belly and pulled a blackness from my guts that twisted and writhed. My head begged to ignore it. To cast him off as a liar. I turned away, forcing a smile. “You’re throwing my words back at me.”

“They’re fairly wise words.” He reached down into his desk and brought up a decanter of amber-colored liquid.

I watched him pour a dose into a glass and take a sip, mesmerized by the sheen that I wanted to lick off his lips. Every small gesture, from the lazy swirl of his drink, the way he inhaled the scent, to the gentle press of the glass against his lips, held a provocative undertone. “Can I have some?”

“How far away is twenty-one for you?”

“Only a few weeks.”

He cocked a brow and reached down into the desk for another glass, pouring half as much. “Seeing as I don’t know how you hold your liquor, we’ll start with this.” He handed it off to me, his finger brushing mine when I accepted the drink.

I swirled it just as he had, taking in the woodsy, fruity scent with a subtle hint of what reminded me of caramel. One small sip, and I closed my eyes, letting the liquor sit on my tongue a moment, where it burned, before I swallowed it back. “Mmm. That’s good.” I liked the feel of it sliding down my throat into my belly, warm and tingly. When I opened my eyes, he was staring at me over the rim of his glass. “I’ve never had this before.”

He tipped back his drink, polishing off about half the amount I had left in one sip. “It’s good shit.”

“Can I ask you a question?” The moment he winced, I chuckled and cleared my throat. “Who’s the guy in the autopsy room? He looks familiar.”

“You recognized him without eyeballs?” Not looking my way, he snorted. “Just someone I was asked to examine.”

“I thought I was going to be stuck in there all night with him. I was terrified. And then you came in, and …” I buried the visual of his kiss in another sip of my drink, remembering the taste of his lips on mine. “I was so relieved to see you.”

His lips twitched as if to smile, and his gaze fell as he seemed to slip into thought. “The dead themselves are harmless. It’s what they leave behind that inspires fear.” He blinked out of his staring and poured himself another glass of liquor. “I need to finish my notes. You might consider going to bed, Miss Vespertine. It’s going on midnight.”

“I wish I would’ve packed a toothbrush. Whiskey will kill any bacteria in my mouth, though, won’t it?”

“I wouldn’t rely on that as a regimen, but I suspect you’ll survive tonight.”

I placed my glass down on a coaster atop the side table next to the couch, where I’d set my phone earlier. Beneath the blankets, I unlatched my skirt and shimmied out of it, leaving me in the shirt I’d paired with it and my spandex shorts. As I discarded it on the floor beside me, I noticed him staring at the garment, perhaps thinking that I wore nothing beneath. I wondered if I should’ve said something about the shorts, that I shifted around a lot when I slept which made my clothes shift so they tended to drive me nuts. I figured I’d better just leave it alone, particularly when his attention veered back to his notes.

Except, there was the one issue. “I don’t suppose you have anything to secure one of my arms? I don’t want to wander off into the corpse room half-asleep. I’d probably have a heart attack.”

From another drawer of his desk, he pulled out a set of cuffs, presumably the ones he’d used to secure me in that cell. He strode over to the bed and snapped one to the metal frame, the other to my wrist. When he failed to release my arm, I looked up to see him staring down at it.

“Memento mori,” he read aloud, running his thumb over my tattoo, his soft caress stirring an irrepressible fire beneath my skin. “Remember you must die.”

“It’s just something I did after my mother passed.”

“A reminder to appreciate life as a gift.”

Smiling, I lowered my gaze. “Some days are easier than others.”

“Having purpose helps. Keeps you from doing foolish things, like dropping out of school.”

I winced at that. “Earlier, when I said that stuff … I was just angry. I didn’t mean to badmouth Professor Gilchrist. You won’t tell her I said those things, will you?”

“No. I won’t say a word about it. So long as you promise not to leave Dracadia.”

I gave a playful smile. “And abandon the opportunity to annoy the hell out of you? Never.”

“Good.” He held up the key to the cuffs and placed it on the side table next to my glass.

If I thought about it, perhaps it was strange asking my professor to cuff me, but it spoke to the level of trust I felt around him. I probably could’ve slept naked and he wouldn’t have laid so much as a finger on me. The man was rigid to a fault, in that respect.

No other male in my life had ever instilled such confidence in them—not even Conner, though I’d have never tested the theory.

I settled into the bed, covers up to my neck, and watched him ease back into his chair. After giving one more glance toward my skirt on the floor, he returned to scribbling his notes, stopping every now and then to glance over at me, and the moment our eyes met, he went back to his writing.

Much as I wanted to keep talking to him, to learn more about this enigmatic man, I didn’t want to bother him while he worked.

In the quiet, sleep weighed heavy on me.

Heavier.

Until at last, I could no longer keep my eyes open.