Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels Page 31

  I peered at the girl. “I remember you. You were at the monologue contest. I remember seeing you while we were all waiting outside for our turn to audition.”

  “Yeah, I was there. I’ve been there for three years in a row. I thought that this year, I was going to get the scholarship. Do you have any idea how unlikely it is for them to award it to someone who isn’t even in the program yet?”

  Oh. She was angry. I’d beaten her out of the scholarship. “I guess you know who I am.”

  She folded her arms over her chest.

  “What’s your name?” I said.

  “Reba Keir,” she said. “And the last I checked, you were a freshman, and you didn’t belong in the upperclassmen wing.”

  I showed her my assignment paper. “It says I’m living here.”

  She huffed.

  “Look, I’m sorry you didn’t get the scholarship, and that I did,” I said. “I know how you feel. I’ve been auditioning for things since high school, and when you don’t get things that you want, it’s disappointing.”

  “Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t try to say that we have things in common. We don’t.” She pointed at me. “You don’t belong here.”

  The door opened behind her. “Who are you yelling at, Reba?” said a girl with blonde hair and a cute pug nose.

  “Um,” I said, “I think I’m supposed to be on this wing?”

  “Are you Teagan?” said the girl.

  “Yeah.” She knew who I was. Did everyone know who I was?

  She grinned. “I’m Nell. Nell Sutton. I’m your roommate.”

  Reba put her hands on her hips. “She’s a freshman, Nell. She can’t live here.”

  “She’s an older freshman,” said Nell. She reached out a hand. “Can I take one of your suitcases?”

  Reba moved between us. “So what? She’s still a freshman.”

  “She’s our age. They thought she’d be more comfortable here.” Nell grabbed my suitcase and yanked it back so that it hit Reba’s legs.

  Reba leaped out of the way.

  I squeezed by her. “It was, um, nice to meet you.”

  Nell led me down a hallway. There were identical doors lining it. Each one was thick and heavy, made from dark wood. There was only one window, and it cast a gloomy light over the darkened hallway. “Don’t listen to Reba,” she threw over her shoulder. “She’s a diva in training.”

  There were paintings hanging on the walls. One was a landscape, with a crumbling castle against the setting sun. Another was a picture of a bunch of men on horseback, hunting a wild boar. Dogs were leaping at the animal, frozen in midair. I wrinkled my nose.

  “You looking at the paintings?” said Nell. “Yeah, they’re weird, right? But they were all painted by Thornfield alumni, so we’re stuck with them.”

  I nodded. “Oh, right. Because a lot of successful artists and performers come from this school.” It was one of the reasons why I’d been so pleased to get a full scholarship here. It seemed like Thornfield was the place to go if you wanted to find success in the art world. While actors from Thornfield rarely made it to Hollywood, I’d heard that nearly fifty percent of the actors on Broadway had graduated from Thornfield. Authors, publishers, and gallery owners often had ties to Thornfield as well. I was very fortunate.

  She grinned. “Yep. It’s really a great place for networking. Last spring, Thomas Ricter was a guest director, and, of course, Carter Alexander started teaching here last year.”

  I knew who Thomas Ricter was, and I’d even heard about his stint as guest director here. “Carter Alexander?”

  “Oh, he graduated from here a few years back,” she said. “He directed the premiere of, um... what’s it called? Oh, Scats and Dreams.”

  My eyes widened. “That was him?” It was a brand new play, but it had taken the Tonys by storm. It was being adapted into a movie now. I’d wanted to go so badly, but, of course, I couldn’t afford it.

  “Yeah,” she said. “So, it’s a good school.” She stopped and opened a door. “And this is our room.”

  The room contained two beds with wrought-iron headboards, two large desks, and two chests of drawers. One side was covered in open, overflowing boxes.

  “I took the left side,” said Nell, “but if you want to switch...”

  I stepped inside. “No, it’s fine.”

  “We can’t make bunk beds, as you can see.” She gestured to the iron headboards. “But it’s okay, because our rooms are a little bigger up here, and we have our own bathrooms.” She pointed.

  There was a door in one corner. I looked inside to see black and white tile, a claw foot tub and a toilet.

  “Plus, I totally got us an adorable shower curtain,” she said. “Do you like Disney villains?”

  “Um...” I was a little overwhelmed. I was going to live here. Really. I’d somehow made it out of my family home, away from my crazy aunts and my mentally ill mother. This was happening. I smiled at Nell. “Yeah. Absolutely. This is great.”

  * * *

  I gazed up at the cathedral ceilings in the theater. It was the most gorgeous place I’d ever been in, nothing like the rinky-dink community theater I’d been performing in for years. This theater had been built sometime in the 1700s. It was ornate and opulent. The chairs were red plush, the curtain on the stage the same. The vast expanse of the audience spread out in front of the stage. Eventually, the seats climbed high above, so that sitting on the top row meant an audience member would be peering down at tiny actors. Dripping, jeweled chandeliers hung from the high ceiling to light the theater. But right now it was dark. Only tiny house lights on the wall illuminated its splendor.

  I stood with Nell on one of the balconies, looking down on the stage, which looked so small.

  “This theater can be hard to fill,” she said. “It really only gets used for the big play in the spring.”

  “The musical?” I said. “The one done in tandem with the music department?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. It depends on who’s directing. Two years ago it was Bancroft, and he’s a pushover, so none of the theater majors got big roles. But last year when Ricter was the guest director, I got cast.”

  “You did?”

  She grinned. “Yeah, it wasn’t a big role or anything, but I got to work with him, and it was awesome.”

  I looked down at the ornate theater. “This theater is beautiful.”

  “Come on, if we go to the other side of campus, I’ll show you the two black box theaters where most of the plays get put on throughout the year. And your classes will be in there too, probably, or in one of the practice spaces.”

  “Okay,” I said, following her out.

  The outside of the theater building was just as imposing as the inside. Like all the buildings on campus at Thornfield, it was old and stone. The theater was even decorated with gargoyles though. They perched on the edges of the building, grinning madly down on me.

  Nell was still talking. “The black boxes are cool because they’re really versatile. Like we can change the configuration of the audience really easily. My freshman year, we did theater in the round all year long, and it was so weird to block.”

  “In the round? I’ve never done that.”

  We started down a set of ivy-covered stone steps, descending down off the hill where the theater was located. “Oh, it’s so cool. It’s like the audience is everywhere. You feel completely surrounded. It’s a rush.”

  “Sounds cool.”

  “So, did you mostly do community theater before coming here?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve done every Rogers and Hammerstein musical ever produced.”

  She laughed. “The Sound of Music?”

  “Liesl,” I said.

  She pointed at herself. “Greta.”

  “When you were younger?”

  “When I was in high school,” she said. “I was even shorter then. This is the way I look after a growth spurt.”

  She was fairly short, but I hadn’t thought she
was abnormally so. “Short is good, though. I mean, you don’t want to be taller than the male lead.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not a lead actress. I don’t even want to be. The way I figure it, the lead is always the most boring character. The villains are always cooler than the heroines.”

  I considered.

  “Don’t say it,” she said. “I know I’m too cute to be a villain.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that,” I said.

  We reached the end of the steps and waited at a crosswalk to go across the street.

  “This way is quicker,” said Nell. She pointed. “You can walk all the way around, and you’re on campus the whole time, but this is a quicker walk. However, it does mean that you have to walk through a little bit of the residential part of town.”

  We crossed the road and were on a house-lined street. The houses were stately, with wraparound porches, several stories, and tall, reaching towers. Thornfield’s architecture seemed halted in time, like it had never quite entered the twenty-first century.

  “You can see Professor Alexander’s house, too,” she said, pointing.

  The house was set back from the street a bit, shrouded in tall, willow trees. Their fronds brushed against the ground. A man was standing on the porch. I couldn’t see his face, but at the sight of him, a jolt went through me.

  “Professor Alexander,” I said. “The one you were telling me about.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s him on the porch. He’s young, but he’s tough. I’ve never had him for class, but he was an assistant director for one of the shows I did last year, and he doesn’t hold back. He sent the main actresses home in tears more than once because they weren’t giving him what he wanted.”

  I squinted. Why did he look familiar?

  He moved forward, out of the shadows, and I saw his face.

  I gasped.

  It couldn’t be.

  He was waving. “Hello there, Miss Sutton.”

  “Hi Professor,” she called back. To me, quietly. “He’s really formal. Some of the professors let you call them by their first name, but not Professor Alexander.”

  He stepped off his porch. “Is that Miss Moss with you?”

  How did he know me?

  He was coming closer.

  My heart thudded. Sweat began to bead up on the back of my neck.

  Nell nudged me. “Say hi.”

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. No way could I talk.

  Professor Carter Alexander was the dark man from my dream.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Carter

  Teagan Moss was even prettier than I remembered. And she was staring at me like I was the devil incarnate. So much accusation on her face. I almost stopped walking under the heat of her stare. She didn’t know what we had planned for her, did she?

  No. She couldn’t know.

  I forced myself to walk all the way to the sidewalk, where she and Nell Sutton were standing together. The two had been placed together as roommates at my suggestion. I knew we intended to tap Miss Sutton in this class of Scales and Fangs. Miss Moss would be tapped also, so that we could keep an eye on her and prepare her for the ritual. It seemed natural to have the two girls close, since they would have so much in common. And Miss Sutton could be useful, if need be.

  Miss Sutton didn’t know a thing about the ritual yet. But once she was part of Scales and Fangs, she would do as we asked her to do without question. They always did. Miss Moss might not be quite so cooperative. That was why it was important she never figure out why she was really here.

  Teagan’s face was white. She took a step away from me.

  I gave the two of them my most charming smile. “Hi there. I’m Professor Alexander.” I offered Miss Moss my hand.

  She clasped her hands together, shaking her head.

  I looked down at my proffered hand, then back up at her. She wasn’t going to take it, was she? She was afraid of me? What did she know? I swallowed. “I was on the committee that decided on the scholarship competition. We’re pleased to have you here with us.”

  “Oh.” Flustered, she suddenly thrust her hand into mine. “Nice to meet you.”

  Her palm was sweating.

  She yanked it back after only the briefest of touches.

  What was wrong with her? “Your work is impressive.” Flattery was always a good option, wasn’t it? Truthfully, Teagan was a talented actress. I wasn’t sure if she’d really been more talented than the rest of the applicants for the scholarship, of course. However, she was nice to look at. It was a sad fact of show business. Pretty people were more fun to watch than ugly ones. And Miss Moss was pretty.

  I found myself eyeing the way her white t-shirt clung to the swell of her bust. The sharp dip of her small waist.

  Realizing that I was essentially undressing a student with my eyes, I snapped my gaze back up to her face.

  Only to see that her eyes were snapping back up guiltily to mine.

  My lips curved into a smile. If I was reading that right, Teagan had been checking me out too.

  “Um, thanks,” she said.

  Why was she thanking me? Oh, right, I had complimented her acting talents. I gazed into her eyes. I’d assumed they were brown. I’d seen her from the stage, of course, and she was a dark beauty. But now that I was closer to her, I could see that the color of her eyes was closer to hazel—flecks of green and blue shot through them.

  She held my gaze, her lips slightly parted. She still looked frightened.

  I wanted to soothe her.

  Which was silly. She should be frightened of me. When I was done with her, there wouldn’t be much left. I was going to suck her dry.

  “Well,” said Miss Sutton. “I was, um, showing Teagan around the campus.”

  Miss Moss and I both broke our gaze at the same time, turning to Miss Sutton.

  “Of course,” I said.

  At the same time, Teagan said, “Yeah, you were.”

  I cleared my throat, feeling embarrassed. I’d been ogling her, hadn’t I? It had been obvious, hadn’t it? “I wouldn’t want to keep you.”

  “We’re not in a rush or anything,” said Miss Sutton. “But we don’t want to get in your way. You’re probably busy, getting ready for classes.”

  “Oh, no, I’m ready. I’ve been preparing all summer.” I shoved my hands in my pockets.

  There was an awkward moment. Were they leaving or weren’t they? I stole a glance back at Teagan. God, her shirt was tight, wasn’t it?

  “Um...” I looked up at the willow tree in my yard. “So, I don’t think you’re in any of my classes this semester, Miss Sutton?”

  “No,” she said, smiling. “Too bad.”

  “You aren’t taking the senior directing seminar? Isn’t it a requirement for the major?”

  “Oh, I’m not a senior yet,” she said. “Just a junior still. But maybe I’ll audition for one the seminar plays again this year.” She turned to Miss Moss. “Every semester, the senior directing students each put on a play, and it’s a really good chance to get cast in something, you know, if you don’t have much chance of getting a part in the department productions.”

  “Well, I’d love to work with you again,” I said. “But don’t sell yourself short, Miss Sutton. You’re a junior. You’ve got a good chance of being cast in the big fall show.” She didn’t know she was being tapped for Scales and Fangs yet. She’d get a juicy role. Initiates always did.

  She blushed in pleasure. “Really? Coming from you, that means a lot.” To Teagan, “Professor Alexander does not give compliments lightly.”

  “I’m honest,” I said. “I don’t think anyone is helped by lies, however well intentioned they may seem.”

  “I get that,” said Miss Sutton. “But Teagan should audition, right?

  “Absolutely.” I turned back to Teagan. “I’ll be working closely with the student directors, and I’d love the chance to work with you.” Of course, I was pretty sure I was going to make it a requirement f
or her class, but I’d wait to decide that.

  “Oh,” she said. “Well...” Her gaze swept my body again. “I’ll think about that. I will.” She tried to smile at me, but she still looked afraid. She looked at Miss Sutton. “I don’t know if I’m feeling too well. I think maybe I need to... go back to the dorm.” She turned away from both of us and started back up the sidewalk, hurrying away.

  I watched her go. Damn. She might have the most perfect ass I’d ever seen.

  “I guess I should go after her,” said Miss Sutton.

  I looked back at her. “Hmm? Oh. Well, of course, you do. Good to see you, Miss Sutton.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “Are you okay, Professor Alexander?”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “You seem a little distracted.”

  “Do I?” I took a deep breath. “Well, I’m not. Not at all.”

  * * *

  Teagan

  “Teagan, calm down,” said Aunt Kate.

  I had my phone jammed against my ear, and I was sitting on a stone wall that ran around one of the buildings at Thornfield. I didn’t know exactly where I was. After leaving Professor Alexander and Nell, I’d started running, and I’d gotten myself a little lost. The building loomed over me, covered in hanging vines. I sat in its shadow. I was afraid.

  “Now, start over,” said my aunt.

  I took a deep breath. “I saw the dark man, Aunt Kate. The man from my dream. He’s here at Thornfield.”

  “Well, why do you think we told you there was danger there, my dear?” said Kate. “He’s a servant of the Evil Ones. He wants to steal your light. Now that you know we’re not crazy, you’ll come right home.”

  “What?” I said. I didn’t want to go home.

  Okay, so it was terrifying to think that a man that I’d dreamed up, a figment of my imagination, could come to life like this. And maybe it did tend to support some of what my aunts said, that the Moss women were sensitive and that we had power that was otherworldly.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. All my life, my aunts had told me that I was heir to the power of the sky goddess, the serpent Innarra, and I had ignored them. What if they were right? What if that was why I’d been having those dreams?

  “I said that you’ll come home now,” said my aunt from the phone. “It’s the only place you’re safe.”