Chapter 31: Tit for Tat?

Blair stood rigidly in front of Professor Feron’s desk, keeping her eyes firmly glued to the floor.

"Explain," Jack demanded. "Exactly how did I get to your bed?"

Blair swallowed the dry lump in her throat.

"I dragged you," Blair lied, staring intensely at the tip of Jack’s polished leather shoe. "You were unconscious, so I hauled you back to my dorm all by myself."

Jack stared at her. He looked at her small, gray-clad shoulders, and then slowly looked down at her fragile human arms.

"You dragged two hundred and ten pounds of dead weight across the campus. By yourself," Jack repeated, his tone dripping with blatant disbelief.

"I have excellent core strength," Blair lied again, her face beginning to heat up. Desperate to change the subject, she quickly pivoted. "But what about the monster? You saw it right? It had no eyes! If you know what they are, maybe they have something to do with my rommate being missing! If we just—"

"I am not interested, Miss Willows," Jack shut her down instantly, his voice slicing through her panic like ice. "I am, however, beginning to deeply regret my decision to intervene last night. You are a constant, unending source of headaches."

Blair’s shoulders slumped.

"I should have just let the creature deal with you," Jack sighed, organizing a stack of papers on his desk. "It would have saved me an incredible amount of trouble."

"I should have just let you bleed out then," Blair muttered bitterly under her breath, still staring at the floor.

The rustling of papers stopped instantly.

"Excuse me?" Jack asked softly, a dangerous edge creeping into his tone. "Would you care to repeat that?"

"Thank you for saving me!" Blair practically squeaked, her voice cracking up an octave as she clutched the strap of her bag. "I said thank you for saving me! Can I go now?"

"No," Jack said.

The air in the classroom grew thick with tension. Jack rested his hands on the desk, leaning forward slightly.

"Why are you avoiding my gaze, Miss Willows?"

"I’m not," Blair lied for the third time, her eyes still drilling a hole into the floorboards.

The silence stretched. It pulled tight like a piano wire, wrapping around Blair’s lungs until she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

"When I awoke this morning," Jack stated casually, his voice cutting through the quiet, "I noticed that my boxers were an inch higher on my hips than I usually wear them."

Blair’s face turned beet red. Her heart hammered a frantic beat of alarm against her ribs.

"I—I was treating your wounds!" Blair babbled nervously, her hands waving in front of her. "I had to check! The infirmary was too far away, and to be honest, I don’t even know where it is yet, so I had to do a full medical check myself!"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "My wounds were on my chest."

"I wasn’t careful!" Blair stammered, the flush spreading all the way down her neck. "I told you, I dragged you! I had to check your lower half to make sure I didn’t scrape you on the cobblestones!"

Jack hummed. It was a low, skeptical sound that made it abundantly clear he didn’t buy a single word she was saying.

He stood up from his chair.

"Let us look at the facts," Jack said, pacing slowly behind his desk. "You pretended to be scared in the armory. A creature conveniently attacks. You drag an unconscious professor into your bedroom."

Blair blinked, her brain struggling to follow his twisted logic.

"It is quite obvious what you are doing," Jack accused smoothly. "You orchestrated the entire event. You likely hired a beastman to dress up in a monster costume to attack you, knowing I would intervene. You then took me to your room and undressed me to create leverage for a scandalous teacher-student affair."

Blair’s jaw hit the floor.

"A scandal?!" Blair gasped, utterly appalled.

"It is the only logical conclusion," Jack stated. "Human women are notoriously desperate at this academy."

Blair finally snapped her head up. She glared right into his blood-red eyes, her own eyes blazing with defiance.

"Stop it!" Blair snapped, her voice echoing sharply in the empty room. "I did not stage an attack, and I do not want an affair with you!"

Jack paused, his eyes narrowing slightly at her sudden outburst.

Desperate to clear her name, Blair’s mouth moved faster than her brain. "And as for the boxers? You saw me naked. So I saw you naked. Tit for tat. We’re even."

Jack froze.

He stared at the human standing in front of his desk. For the first time since Blair had met him, the terrifying Crow professor looked genuinely stunned.

Jack stepped out from behind the podium.

He closed the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps, backing Blair up until her spine hit the edge of a front-row desk, trapping her.

"Tit for tat," Jack murmured, his voice dropping into a low, velvety rumble.

He stepped closer, towering over her. The faint scent of rich espresso and cigarette smoke wrapped around her senses.

"If we are operating under that particular logic, Miss Willows," Jack argued smoothly, "then we should address the flaw in your reasoning. It is very possible that you sat in your room and stared at my exposed body for the entire night. Whereas I..." his red eyes dropped to her chest and a bit lower for a fraction of a second before returning to her face, "only saw you for a minute. Is that fair?"

Blair’s breath hitched. Her heart pounded so hard she was sure he could hear it.

"It was only a few seconds!" Blair argued quickly, her voice a breathless whisper as she pressed her hands back against the desk. "I barely looked!"

Jack leaned in. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating from his chest.

"How," Jack whispered, his gaze locking onto hers, "am I supposed to believe the words of a human who lies so poorly?"