Alpha's Witch Mate, Vampire's Obsession

Chapter Seven: Sour Note

Ivy's POV

I found Alexios exactly where Talia's forum thread intel said I would: office hours, a door cracked open, and a stack of ungraded papers he was very obviously not grading.

"I need to tell you something weird," I said, closing the door behind me before I could talk myself out of it, "and I need you to not make that face you make when you're about to explain something in a way that's technically an answer but somehow also not helpful."

I don't have a face.

"You have several. This is going to require the patient one."

That, at least, got the ghost of a smile out of him. He set his pen down, folded his hands, and gave me his full attention in a way that still, unfairly, made my pulse do something complicated.

Maren came to see us yesterday, I said. "My grandmother's oldest friend, apparently. A witch." I watched his expression carefully as I said her name and found nothing. No flicker, no reaction, just polite attentiveness. "She was kind. Genuinely, unbelievably kind. She held my hand, and I felt something go quiet in my chest for the first time all week."

That sounds like a good thing.

It was. Mostly. "I hesitated, hating how flimsy this was about to sound out loud. Underneath the good part, there was something else. Just for a second. Something wrong, like static under a nice song, and I can't explain it any better than that, and I know it sounds like I'm describing a vibe instead of an actual fact, but"

"Tell me exactly what it felt like," he said, and there was no humor in his voice now at all. "Don't simplify it for my benefit. I'd rather have the strange version than a tidy one."

So I tried. Static. Wrongness. A note that didn't belong in the chord. He listened to every word like it mattered, like I mattered, leaning forward slightly, gaze sharp in a way that had nothing to do with charm and everything to do with genuine, focused attention.

When I finished, he was quiet for a long moment.

"I'm not going to tell you it's nothing," he said finally. "I'm also not going to tell you it's something, because I don't have enough to go on yet. What I will tell you is that your instincts have been right about everything else this week, and I don't see a good reason to start doubting them now."

"You believe me?"

"I intend to find out whether I should," he said. "Which isn't quite the same thing, but it's the honest version, and I promised myself I'd give you those instead of comfortable ones."

Something in my chest eased, small but real. The first time all day I'd felt like a question I'd raised wasn't just going to evaporate into polite, reassuring nothing.

"I'll look into her," he said quietly. "Carefully. Quietly. You should say nothing to anyone else about this, including Damien, until I know more, not because I don't trust him, but because I don't yet know who else might be listening."

I opened my mouth to ask what, exactly, that meant. The window behind him shattered inward in an explosion of glass and cold night air, a shape crashing through it low and fast, already moving before either of us could react. Alexios was across the room and in front of me before I even registered the sound of my own scream.