Bad Blood: An Academy Romance Series (Reverse Harem) (The F My Life Series Book 1)

and then swallows. There is more.
“When she doesn’t have the benefit of my protection within this school, I am asking you to be her protector.”
“For how long?”
“As long as… she’s needed.”
“You are quite vague.”
He nods. “I’m sorry but I can’t answer all your questions.” Then he nods as he faces me and sighs. There’s more.
“What?”
“I need to warn you…”
“Yes?” I demand. I really don’t have the time for this.
“She’s… she’s quite beautiful. As much as I’m trusting you to be her protector… you have to promise me you’ll protect her… against yourself.”
“Against myself? I won’t bleed her dry, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“That’s only one of the things I’m worried about.”
“Then?”
He looks at me and nods, a sly smile covering his mouth. “We are both aware of your… effect on women, Jean-Claude.”
I laugh without mirth. “You’re asking me not to seduce her.”
“She’s young.”
“All the better.”
He clears his throat and gives me his serious expression. “Jean-Claude, I’m asking you to do me this favor because I trust you. I have known you a very long time…”
“Why won’t you provide for her yourself?” I demand.
He shakes his head. “I’m too close to… the issue,” he responds. “Otherwise, I would.”
I glare at him. “I shall have you know this…”
“It’s asking a lot, I’m aware.”
I stand up and head for the door. “Do me a favor and don’t bother me again for another hundred years, at the very least.”
“I won’t,” he promises. Then he looks at me with hope in his eyes. “Do we have an agreement, then?”
 “Fine. I’ll host your fucking student.”
He sighs and bows his head. “Thank you.”
I turn towards the door and mumble, “Did I even have a choice?”
Though he can’t see my face, he can feel the tentative bridge of friendship between us crack and break, and sustainable pieces drift off into the ether of distrust. I can feel his desperate attempts to siphon off my skepticism, but one thing vampires have above all others is self-control. I shut down the remaining scraps of my humanity until my heart is nothing but a frozen tundra.
Riven’s tendrils shift in the room, collecting harmful emotions, but snap away from me as if I burn. He hisses in a breath, and I turn to see his eyes have gone wide and his face is a sickly hue. Normally, I might be concerned. Now, I feel—nothing.
“Jean-Claude…”
Though he can’t see my face, I’m sure I feel as dead to him as my soul. I stand waiting, apathetic. And for the first time, Riven blinks. Water collects suspiciously under his eyelids, and he turns his back.
He clasps his wrists behind him and says, “Thank you. That is all.”
Dismissed.
If I had feelings, I might be irked. But I don’t. Not at the moment, at least. Not since Vitrine destroyed any sense of humanity or good will I had left.
I make my way through the door in a haze of indifference, much like the automaton I am. Then, as I pass through the empty hall to the student classroom, the slick, oozing will of a necromancer slides over my mind.
I can feel the undead slobber burrowing into my brain. I turn around to see if the blasted thing is anywhere close but I see nothing and no one. But I can feel it all the same.
And then I realize it’s done the impossible. The necromancer is inside my head.
Rage flares up within me, but it’s too late. It’s already infested me.
Emotion is the last defense against a necromancer, since vampires have no souls, but the damn warlock is already in. I’d forgotten to keep my walls up. Riven… he threw me off… he unseated my stability and now a fucking necromancer has gotten control of me... It has been such a long time since anyone dared take me over.
“Fucker,” I whisper. “I will find you.”
The equivalent of laughter echoes in my mind. There are no commands, no fight for control. He is one of the dangerous ones. Strong. Powerful. Patient. Waiting.
I compartmentalize the part of myself where the necromancer has entered, where he’s deposited his parasite of control, and hope patience will work for my benefit.
He might be a strong magic-user, but I am one of the strongest of vampires. It will be no easy task to fight the fucker, but I can do it, all the same. I have to do it.
But right now, I’m beyond pissed. I’m also stumbling into a hallway of loud, bright pupils that are walking too fast, snapping their arms around, zigzagging around each other and running in chaos. As they say: it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I take a fighter’s stance, fill my lungs to the point of pain, and let out a vicious battle cry apropos of a vampire who has denied himself blood for too long and is now suffering for it.
Everyone in the hall stops. I’m still screaming my warning call as two teachers race into the fray from their classrooms and stare at me in wide-eyed horror.
“Backs to the wall!” One of the teacher’s commands. The other instructor is a blight—an intelligent plant—and she spreads her arms. Bark branches shoot out of her limbs, and vines grab students and pull them flush with the lockers.
The other teacher, the one giving the command, throws his hands out in typical wizard fashion, and a gold barrier separates the other side of the students, leaving an empty wake of blessed silence and space to me.
Before I can thank either one of them, I march down the hall, keeping a laser focus on the door on the other side. I slam my hand against the latch bar and snarl at the blast of UV rays assaulting my eyes.
As the