I hope you all enjoy the fantastic trailer and excerpt! I'm really excited to read Taste when it is released in May, I hope you are too.
I mentally stomped on the intimidation
their perfection brought into my mind and said, “Excuse me.”
The group froze, startled by my words.
The girls had their brows raised and the boys stopped mid-speech, mouths agape.
They stared at me with eyes the shade of onyx stones.
I smiled and gave them a little wave.
The boy a step ahead of the rest
recovered first. His stunning features went from shocked surprise to intense
interest. He reminded me of a hawk eyeing its prey. I gulped.
“A Day Student,” he said, his eyes
insolent and excited.
Something about the way he said “Day
Student” made my stomach flip. “Excuse me?”
They snickered. The boys looked at each
other while the girls continued to stare, muffling their laughter by delicate
hands. I seemed to be the butt of some joke.
“You broke the rule.” The boy’s grin
turned predatory.
The students formed a loose semi-circle
in front of me. My gaze darted from face to face. Hunger filled their eyes. The
image of lions about to chase down a gazelle came to mind. I mentally shook my
head. I was in the mountains not the Serengeti for crying out loud.
I took a small step back and cleared my
throat. “Can any of you give me a ride back to the dorms?”
The boy wagged his forefinger like a
metronome. “Ah, that’s unfortunate for you.”
One of the girls pinched the bridge of
her nose. “Eli, you can’t possibly—”
“It’s forbidden, Eli,” another boy
interrupted, pronouncing the word “forbidden”
like a curse.
The nervous murmur at the pit of my
stomach grew louder. Six against one. Not good odds. Instinct told me to cut my
losses and run. Bad enough I faced expulsion, now it seemed like weird,
beautiful people who’d suddenly appeared on campus wanted to beat me up. No,
scratch that. Judging from the way they studied me, beating me up wouldn’t
satisfy them. Something more primal prowled behind their looks.
I definitely wasn’t going down without
a fight. Years of self-defense and hand-to-hand combat classes had me prepared.
While other children from rich and important families got bodyguards, I got
defense training. But I think my father meant for my skills to go up against
potential kidnappers, not against other students who may or may not be crazy.
Oh God! Maybe I stepped into a parallel universe or something when I reentered
Barinkoff.
“None of the students are supposed to
be on campus,” I said. Then, realizing my mistake, I added, “Okay, I know I’m
not supposed to be here either. If one of you gives me a ride back to the
dorms, I won’t say anything about all this. Let’s pretend this never happened.
I didn’t see you, you didn’t see me.”
“We’re not ordinary students,” Eli
answered. “We’re the Night Students.”
He’d said “Night Students” like the
words were capitalized. I didn’t know Barinkoff held classes at night. What was
going on here?
Eli smiled with just one side of his
mouth and said to the group, “She’s right, no one will have to know. We’re the
only ones here. And it’s been so long, don’t you agree?”
The rest of them nodded reluctantly.
“What’s been so long?” I challenged. I
fisted my hands, ready to put them up if any of them so much as twitched my
way.
“Since the taste of real flesh passed
through my lips,” Eli said. He came forward and took a whiff of me then laughed
when I cringed.
“Flesh.” Yep, parallel universe.
“Yes,” he said. “And yours smells so fresh.”
Someone grabbed my shoulders from
behind and yanked me back before I could wrap my mind around the meaning behind
Eli’s words. In a blink, I found myself behind someone tall. Someone really
tall. And quite broad. And very male.
I realized he wore the same clothes Eli
and the other boys did. Not good. He was one of them. Although… I cocked my
head, raking my gaze over him. He seemed born to wear the uniform, like he was
the pattern everyone else was cut from. My eyes wandered to long, layered,
blue-black hair tied at the nape by a silk ribbon. Even in dim light, his hair
possessed a sheen akin to mercury.
I looked down. The boy’s long fingers
were wrapped around my wrist like a cuff. His fevered touch felt hotter than
human standards, hot enough to make me sweat like I was standing beside a
radiator but not hot enough to burn.
“I must be mistaken, Eli,” the boy who
held my arm said in a monotone. “Correct me. Did I hear you say you wanted to taste the flesh of this girl?”
A hush descended on us. It had the
hairs at the back of my neck rising. How was it possible for the atmosphere to
switch from threatening to dangerous? Unable to help myself, I peeked around
the new guy’s bulk. Eli and his friends bowed. They all had their right hands
on their chests.
“Demitri, I’m sure you misheard me,”
Eli said.
So the guy standing between me and the
person who said he’d wanted to taste me was named Demitri. I like the sound of
his name. Demitri. So strong, yet rolls off the tongue. Definite yum factor.
“So, you imply I made a mistake?”
Demitri demanded.
“No!” Eli lifted his gaze. “I did no
such thing. I simply wanted to show the girl the consequences of breaking
curfew.”
“Hey!” I yelled. “Don’t talk about me
like I’m not here!”
Demitri ignored my protest and
continued to address Eli. “So, you threatened to taste her flesh.” His fingers
tightened their grip around my wrist. “In the interest of investigating this
matter further, I invoke the Silence.”
All six students gasped, passing
surprised glances at one another.
Before I could ask about what was going
on, Demitri yanked me down the hall toward the library. But why there? Oh,
maybe we were getting my things. No, wait, he couldn’t have known about that.
Everything was too confusing now.
Eli and the others didn’t try to stop
us when we passed them. Demitri’s cold command must have carried power.
Handsome and powerful, never a bad
combination on a guy.
We reached the heavy double doors in
seconds. He jerked one open effortlessly. I’d needed all my strength just to
squeeze through that same door earlier. To him, the thick wood might as well
have been cardboard. I raised an eyebrow and mentally listed the benefits of
going to gym class.
“Why are we here?” I asked after my curiosity
overpowered my worry. I’d almost forgotten how frightened I’d been right before
Demitri showed up. I wasn’t above accepting help from strangers. Especially
from gorgeous dark-haired strangers with hot hands and wide shoulders.
Demitri kept going, tugging me along,
snaking his way deeper into the library. I had to take two steps for every
stride his legs made. I tried to stay directly behind him, praying we didn’t
slam into anything.
He stopped suddenly and I collided with
him. It felt like slamming into a wall.
“Hey,” I said, momentarily stunned. “A
little warning would be nice!”
He faced me, and I gasped. His eyes
resembled a starless night, deep and endless. Their intensity drilled through
me without pity, seeming to expose all my secrets. I felt naked and flustered
beneath his gaze.
“You could have died back there,” he
warned.
A lump of panic rebuilt itself in my
throat.
