“He says you’re his Atmá.” Noah leaned in, switching his hands so that his free arm could snake across the back of my chair. His other hand gripped my knee tighter and pulled slightly until my right leg was turned out, pressing into his. “We don’t believe him. You won’t show us your mark, so we’re going to force a reaction out of one of you.” His bright eyes glimmered for a moment, travelling over my face. “Either him… or you… do you know the kind of pain it causes a pair to see someone touching what belongs to them?”
I could feel the frown pulling down the corners of my lips, but I didn’t turn away immediately. I wasn’t going to let Noah bully me. I raised my chin, narrowing my eyes on his. He inched closer, and then paused. He was too close now for me to continue meeting his glare, so I flicked my eyes lower. There was a muscle ticking in his jaw… he wasn’t as unaffected as he pretended to be. I felt the pinch of his fingers tightening on my leg and then the brush of his exhalation against my lips. I swung my head toward the front of the lecture hall, my eyes widening and clashing with Quillan’s. He shook his head imperceptibly, his mouth hooking into the smallest of grimaces—and all the while, he kept speaking as though a student wasn’t getting at least semi-molested at the back of the hall. I hadn’t known Quillan for anywhere near as long as Noah and Cabe had, but even I knew that if this was truly upsetting him, he would have called us out by now. Maybe he was pushing Noah and Cabe just the same way they were pushing him.
“You want a reaction?” I ground out, scanning the backs of the heads in front of us.
The students all looked older, so it made sense that I wouldn’t recognise anyone, but it didn’t matter. I jumped out of my seat, leaping over the empty row directly in front of me before Noah or Cabe could grab me. I made it out into the aisle as people started to notice me, but I didn’t attempt to escape the hall. Instead, I walked quickly down between the seats, stopping beside the biggest guy that I could find—not out of personal preference, but because I was worried that one of the three people in the room supernaturally tied to me might break him for what I was about to do.
I grabbed the front of his shirt and he turned to me, startled. His notebook slid to the ground, his phone and pen following it. The pen scattered down a few steps and the sound echoed around the suddenly silent room. He was nice-looking, with hair that half-flopped, half-curled around his face and almond eyes of the same darkish hue… but it didn’t affect me in the slightest. I had enough boyfriends to deal with.
I’m not a damn instrument, I thought to myself as I perched on my victim’s lap. You can’t just pick me up and play me whenever you feel like it.
His hands landed on my hips lightly, surprised and unsure whether to hold onto me or push me away. I could feel the strength radiating from his body, and I decided that I had picked well.
And then I dipped forward.
Really, all I had done was tilt my head at a convenient angle to allow my hair to shield what was really happening as I pressed a chaste kiss to the guy’s cheek, close to the side of his mouth, but I knew what it would look like. His hands moved from my hips to my biceps, clearly intending to push me back, but I quickly dug a hand into the hair that curled around the nape of his neck, punishing his reluctance. He made a sound that was halfway to a laugh, but ended on a surprised grunt when I gave his hair another warning tug. There was another guy sitting beside him—who had the perfect vantage point to bear witness to the fact that I wasn’t really making out with anyone—and he grinned at me, apparently understanding what I was doing.
I was making someone jealous.
Or, more specifically, I was giving Noah and Cabe the reaction that they needed. Their own reaction.
“Seraph!”
Quillan had finally spoken up, and I quickly scooted away from the guy, giving his shocked head a pat as I stood and straightened out my clothing. Quillan was standing in the aisle right beside me, Noah and Cabe close behind him. Noah looked decidedly more furious than he had after finding me and Quillan by the side of the road the day before. Even Cabe seemed to be on the edge of ranting at me, his dark brow pulled into a fierce scowl.
“Sorry, Professor,” I said, though my tone was bland. Quillan winced. “It seems I’ve got the wrong lecture hall.” I started to walk past them, pausing beside Noah and Cabe. “Don’t you hate getting things wrong?”
I didn’t wait to hear their response, but hurried up the aisle, fleeing the room.
“You know, you guys really don’t have to take turns watching me,” I grumbled, pulling myself up in my bed to stare at the silhouette of Cabe, who was sitting in a chair against my bedroom door.
I wasn’t getting any sleep. Having him sit so near to me without being able to touch him in any way to sooth the strain was killing me.
He glanced up from the novel that he had been pretending to read—I knew that he wasn’t really reading it because I hadn’t heard him turning any of the pages—and I saw his head tilt to the side in the darkness.
“I know that, but Noah said that he’d sell my Lexus to a family of Mexicans if I didn’t start taking half of his watch-dog shifts.”