Page 9
Her summation is underwhelming. The scowling man with a granite jaw who just stalked in here like we are prey and he is hungry, is the Elijah Wyldan, Professor Elijah Wyldan that the student body has been hyped about. The air leaves the room with every shred of common sense the female quotient possesses.
Professor Wyldan is a tall, athletic man with dark brown hair bordering on black. It’s cut short at the back and sides, with the top featuring some longer lengths to sweep over his forehead and almost into his eyes; eyes so potent you cannot look away. Dark, honeyed amber, almost like burning whiskey, is encased in a darker brown ring around each iris. His left eye has a quadrant of a lighter bluish brown; partial heterochromia. The variance is alluring and mesmerizing. A siren’s song calling a sailor or his death.
He strolls to the front center of the room and leans his hands on the closest desk. The sleeves of his black shirt allow a glimpse of an expensive-looking watch and a fine dusting of arm hair. As he leans, the students in the front row cower backward, desperate for space from this powerful man. My love for laboratories just took an unexpected nosedive. He is the reason laboratories have warning systems, including flashing lights and audible alarms, for a security breach or hazardous situation. Professor Wyldan is the danger.
The door slides open with effort; a latecomer flies through before heaving it to an almost closed position. She scans the situation, and upon noticing a spare seat diagonally behind us, makes for the chair.
“Close the door,” he bellows, and the poor thing almost freezes in shock. She turns on her heel and races back to the door. “First you have the audacity to be late to my class, then your manners desert you. Name?”
“Merda,” she squeaks out, trembling under his unyielding gaze.
His jaw is locked tight, eyes inviting no argument with his filthy mood for latecomers.
“Merda, what?” he hissed.
“Ferado, sir.”
“Professor,” he thundered.
“Sorry. Merda Ferado, Professor.”
“Door, watch, and sit.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understa—”
“Close the fucking door, reset your watch to the correct time, and sit your ass down.”
She races toward the door, almost tripping over her own feet she’s so nervous. Jesus Christ, we are being taught by Lucifer himself. He’s not only dressed in black, his dark temperament thrums with a demonic nature. Love that for me. His mismatched eyes sweep the room. A calculated glance to sum each of us up in his brain, based on less than a second. Or I could transfer out of this class and into Tali’s. She was gutted that the esteemed professor wasn’t one of her teachers. If only she understood the bullet she has dodged. A dark and handsome bullet with a short fuse and no social skills.
Once Merda has fallen into the chair, heart racing at a volume we can all hear galloping through her sternum, the professor continues with introductions.
“I am Professor Elijah Wyldan. Not Prof, or Eli. I expect you to attend every class, with no exceptions. If you are sick, you suck it up and come to class. You will not be late, as Ms. Ferado so blatantly demonstrated; that is the first and only occurrence of tardiness. I will not accept excuses, nor notes from your parents or other staff. Don’t try a medical note either. Unless you are unconscious, you are in my laboratory, under my control. If you find any of these rules to be too difficult for your basic brains to follow, the door Merda just closed is waiting for you.”
Whoa. All the air leaves the room for a second time. The vacuum pressure is too great. Lukaz shifts next to me, uncomfortable with the barked rules of law. He breathes out one word, the gentle force softer than a whisper. “Prick.”
“You, third row. Name?”
Softer than a whisper, but not soft enough for a man with no tolerance for tardiness, and supersonic fucking hearing.
“Lukaz.”
“Lukaz, what?” he spits.
“Vaskari.”
“Something to share with us, Mr. Vaskari, or just your neighbor?”
“Nothing to share, Professor.”
“No?” He crosses his arms over his chest, the action causing strain on the black material. It stretches across a chest tight with packed muscle, and biceps that bulge with the force of containment. His mouth forms a line, the slash demonstrating no humor and zero patience.
“Perhaps your friend can enlighten us. Won’t you introduce me?”
Lukaz offers me an apologetic look. His palms splay on the desktop, sliding forward under the strain of Professor Wyldan’s public wrath. His Adam’s apple bobs as he forces down a swallow. Wyldan glowers at him, and Lukaz caves under the pressure. “Professor Wyldan, this is Aspen.”
The professor turns his predacious glare to me, and I, too, swallow thickly. That eerie stare, the quadrant of honey-blue flame daring to burn among the whiskey, is unforgiving and foreboding. I try to remember everything Tali told me about the man and come up short. He was returning to teaching after a sabbatical, and a… marriage breakdown?
“Hello, Aspen,” he hisses with serpentine predation. He all but spits my name back at me.
