Free Dracul by Finley Aaron Page B

Everything appears to be there. “How did you—”
    “It was lying on the ground. How did it get over here?”
    “I’m not sure,” I answer truthfully. One of two things could have happened. Maybe it fell out of my bag as I was trying to grab it while fighting my assailant in the air.
    Or maybe—and I study Constantine’s eyes for any sign of guilt, but his eyes are as dark as the night and just as mysterious—Constantine may have been my attacker.
    I don’t know what my assailant looked like because he was wearing a ski mask, but his build fits Constantine’s. The jeans and parka, though ubiquitous this time of year, are fundamentally the same, and it was too dark for me to see any details that might differentiate between them. Constantine may have disappeared with my backpack (just as he disappeared last night) and then reappeared and pretended to find my wallet on the ground.
    The cold air invades my lungs and slows the ramming of my heart with a dread akin to terror.
    Did Constantine attack me?
    Or did my wallet fall out of my bag before the real attacker fled with everything else?
    I’m not sure which theory is more plausible, but until I know the truth, I really can’t trust this man, can I?
    “Ready to go eat?” Constantine seems to shake off his question about my wallet’s strange location, without pressing for any clear answer.
    Is that strange? Should it make me suspicious?
    I shake my head once, slowly, then wince. “Sorry. I slipped on the ice back there and fell.” I point behind me to the place where my fire created a safety hazard. “I think I may have hit my head.” On a vampire’s hard noggin, but I don’t want to let on about that last part. Not if Constantine’s head may have been the noggin in question.
    Constantine looks more closely at the glove I’m using to point. “What happened to your glove? You know, you look…roughed up.”
    “I—I,” I place my hand on my forehead and think quickly. In another moment, he’s going to be asking me about the blackjack books, which are long gone. How much do I dare tell him?
    I don’t like keeping secrets. I certainly don’t like secrets being kept from me.
    But there are a lot of things Constantine has yet to tell me. Why should I be an open book when he keeps his book to himself?
    He can’t know I’m a dragon. Not unless I know I can trust him, and we’re far, far from that. So I can’t let on anything about what I just did or what I’m capable of, but I can tell him why the books are gone.
    “I think I may have been attacked. Jumped from behind. My backpack is gone.” I snap my fingers through the slashes in my gloves. “That would explain why you found my wallet down the sidewalk.”
    Constantine’s face hardens. I’m not going to lie, this is a scary look he’s sporting right now. He may be charming when he smiles, but he’s terrifying when he’s angry. His nostrils flare as he breathes out a furious breath that forms a cloud in the cold air between us, veiling his face. “Your backpack?” Another cloudy breath. “What was in it?”
    “Your blackjack books, mostly, and my textbook and notes from the political science class I came from before I hit the library.” Thankfully, the poly sci text should still be available in the campus bookstore, and I can get the notes from the class online forum, so none of that is irreplaceable. And even more thankfully, because of the sheer volume of blackjack books I was carrying, I left all my Dracula materials at home.
    For once.
    “Do you have any idea who may have attacked you?” Constantine meets my eyes.
    I study his face for any sign of guilt. He looks livid. He’s also significantly taller than I am, even though I’m pretty tall and these boots add a couple inches to that. From this vantage point, his nostrils are flaring like a bull about to charge.
    I set my jaw and meet his gaze as well as I can from below. “Do you?”
    He flinches slightly, glances at the sky for