Chapter 26: The Devil on My Shoulder is a Wolf

Blair’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs as she met his gaze.

Jack hovered over her, his broad shoulders caging her in against the lumpy twin mattress. His chest heaved, the poisoned gashes bleeding sluggishly, but his blood-red eyes stared intently down at her without a single word.

The air in the tiny dorm room suddenly felt thick. The fever burning through his veins made him radiate heat like a furnace, his bare skin searing right through the thin cotton of Blair’s clothes. He shifted his weight, his muscular thigh sliding against her hip as he braced himself above her.

"Miss Willows," Jack finally rasped.

His voice was a delirious, gravelly whisper, but his gaze was dangerously sharp. His red eyes slowly dropped from her panicked gaze down to her lips, lingering there for a breathless second before snapping back up.

"If this was your grand, elaborate scheme to get me into your bed..." Jack murmured, the heat of his body pressing flush against hers, "I must say, using a monster attack was terribly unoriginal."

Blair’s jaw dropped. Her brain took a quick second to reboot.

"What?!" Blair stuttered, her hands frozen mid-air, terrified to push against his bare chest. "No! I’m trying to help you!"

"I do not need your help," Jack scoffed.

His eyelids fluttered as the venom dragged him back under. As he spoke, Blair felt the feverish warmth of his breath fan across her face. It was in that paralyzing, far-too-intimate moment that her overwhelmed senses processed exactly how good he smelled. The professor smelled intoxicatingly of rich espresso, a trace of expensive aftershave, and the distinct scent of cigarette smoke lingering on his breath.

Staring up at the intricate runic tattoos crawling across his collarbones and ribs, Blair felt a sudden, deep spike of guilt and panic. She felt like she was intruding on a secret she was never, ever supposed to see.

Before Blair could form a coherent argument to defend her honor, Jack’s eyes rolled back.

He passed out, his body going limp. All two-hundred-plus pounds of muscle collapsed on top of her.

"Oof!" Blair squeaked, the breath knocked out of her lungs.

She was squashed flat into the thin mattress. She lay there, suffocating under his dead weight, her face pressed awkwardly against a tapestry of ink on his shoulder. She tried to wiggle her arms free, but she was pinned.

She wasn’t strong enough to push him off of her, but even if she was, she wouldn’t do it. The bed was tiny. If she shoved him, he would roll right off the edge, hit the hard wooden floorboards, and tear his wounds wide open. He would bleed out because of her, after getting hurt in the first place because of her.

Resigning herself to her fate as a human mattress, Blair squeezed her eyes shut and waited.

"Bunny?" a deep voice called from outside the door. The doorknob rattled. "Open up, I got the stuff."

"I can’t!" Blair squeaked, her voice muffled by Jack’s pectoral muscle. "Help!"

There was a brief pause on the other side of the door.

CRACK.

Blair flinched as the wooden door was ripped entirely off its hinges with a splintering sound. Daemus stepped into the room, holding the door frame in one hand and a first-aid kit in the other.

He casually leaned the destroyed door against the wall. "Sorry about that," Daemus mumbled sheepishly. "I’ll try to fix it later."

He turned back to the room and stopped dead in his tracks.

Daemus took in the sight of the half-naked professor sprawled on top of a very red-faced, trapped Blair. An amused smirk spread across the Wolf Prince’s handsome face. He leaned against the doorframe and wiggled his eyebrows.

"Am I interrupting something?" Daemus teased, his deep voice rumbling with laughter. "Because I can always come back later."

"Daemus, please, get him off me!" Blair pleaded frantically, her face burning so hot she felt like a radiator. "I can’t breathe! I’m being crushed!"

Daemus chuckled. He set the medical supplies on the desk, stepped over to the bed, and grabbed Jack by the shoulders. With effortless strength, he peeled the Crow professor off Blair and carefully rolled him onto his back against the pillows.

Blair gasped for air. With the twin bed entirely occupied by Jack’s broad frame, she scrambled backward and practically tumbled off the edge of the mattress, landing on her feet by the desk to put some distance between them.

Daemus looked down at the unconscious professor, his silver eyes scanning the elaborate tattoos covering his chest. Then, a glint sparked in Daemus’s eyes.

He reached into the pocket of his gray sweatpants and pulled out his smartphone. He held it up, waving it playfully at Blair.

"You know," Daemus murmured, a wicked grin touching his lips as he tapped the camera icon. "I know a lot of beastwomen who would sell their souls for nudes of the "super-hot" Professor Feron. We could take a few pictures right now. Ultimate blackmail."

Blair’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. She looked at Daemus, then at Jack, treating the unconscious teacher like a sleeping dragon that might wake up and incinerate them both if they spoke too loudly.

"Are you insane?!" Blair hissed, waving her hands frantically to stop him, her terror of the Crow momentarily overriding her fear of the Wolf. "Put that away! He’ll kill us!"

Daemus just laughed.

"Bunny, stop being a goody-goody," Daemus told her. "This world will eat you alive if you let it. You eat, or you be eaten. When an apex predator exposes their throat, you take the bite."

He held the phone out toward her, offering her the weapon.

Blair stared at it. A week ago, she would have never even entertained the thought of committing extortion. It was a felony. It was a guaranteed death sentence if she got caught.

She bit her bottom lip.

Wait, Blair thought to herself, a cold knot forming in her stomach. Am I seriously considering it?