Amaia

“Don't call me kid.” I pushed off of the wall, rage slithering through me. “This Academy might make me wear a uniform like a high school student, but I'm eighteen and I've looked after myself most of my life anyway. You think it would have been any different back there if I'd had a friend with me? We're freshmen. We're not trained to fight Nymphs.”

Orion's jaw ticked as he absorbed my words. Eventually, he nodded, his eyes moving to look up at the tower. A baying howl sounded in the distance and he glanced over his shoulder. “The hunt's started, I should go and join them.”

“Be careful,” I whispered.

He looked back at me with a frown and something broken and desperate shone from his eyes for a moment. He blinked firmly and his expression morphed into a fierce scowl. “Stop looking at me like that,” he snarled and I fought the urge to recoil from his terrifying tone.

“Like what?”

“You know what,” he snapped. “I'm your teacher.”

“I know,” I balked, horrified at what he was suggesting. That he could somehow read how much I wanted him.

“Do you?” he stepped forward.

I nodded firmly, though I wasn't sure my body was getting the message because I had the urge to wrap myself around him and kiss him goodbye. It was absolutely crazy. But him running off after a Nymph made me dread the idea that he wouldn't come back.

“Then stop looking at me like that.”

Embarrassment poured through me like a tsunami, but I fought it away, elbowing aside my shame. Because how dare he accuse me of being inappropriate? He'd had this hands all over me the other day and he'd shouted at me for that too. I was so done with his bullshit. So I stepped forward, looking him square in the eye as my hands began to shake. “Then stop looking back, Lance.”

I left him with a gobsmacked expression on his face as I turned away, casting air at the symbol above the door. It unlocked with a loud clunk and I darted inside, slamming it behind me without a single glance back.(Darcy)”
― Caroline Peckham, Ruthless Fae