Prey

Chapter 25

Doe's POV:

I wasn't focused on it in the slightest, but my fingers plucked away at this violin regardless.

It wasn't working as the distraction that I wanted it to be.

Nor was it working in easing me completely from today's earlier... mishap.

I'd tried convincing myself to believe that I was over it, but I could still feel the certain edge and twist in my stomach.

And the minor tremor that would reach my fingertips whenever I let myself think back on it for too long.

My jaw still ached but I wouldn't allow myself to touch it.

At least not whenever Xander was within eye-shot.

Ever since I got back, it seemed like whenever I'd move in the slightest bit, I'd feel his eyes on me.

His silent stare as he peered my face for a solid tell of what I was thinking.

The fact that he was most likely getting more information from that than I'd like him to didn't exactly help.

Stupid vampire senses.

I knew he wanted to ask for some sort of deeper detail about what happened with Nico, but so far he hasn't said anything.

What happened back then was a first for all of us.

We've all seen Nico angry, but that was the first time it was explicitly directed at me.

Which, in a way, I saw coming, but seeing it coming and being prepared for it are two drastically different things.

I guess I thought that I was prepared for it.

I thought that fear was linear.

I thought that it was all the same.

But when Nico had me trapped between a wall and that thin-pupiled glare of an angry beast, my previous conclusion changed very quickly.

My aimless strumming stopped, and I purposefully shifted, meeting Xanders eyes with intent as he turned to check on me.

Which caught him off guard judging by the raising of his brows and slight puckering of his lips.

I squinted my eyes, focusing harder on his from the distance between this couch and his desk.

His eyes have always stayed the same for as long as I've known him.

Even with my imagination, I couldn't picture his eyes reflecting how Nico's looked at me at that moment.

It was still different whenever his pupils would thin against his will on the blood moon.

Enough so that I wouldn't even count it.

Even then the only emotion I can read in his eyes is panic.

An unfitting, unnatural fright that clashed hard against the fear that looks is meant to invoke.

His eyes have never had that harshness that could lead to you freezing in fear with just a single glance.

That was the look that I couldn't picture despite my best efforts.

A knock cut through our apparent staring contest, the usual fear that it was Layla passing through me at the sound.

Before I reminded myself that she doesn't knock.

Xander stood almost immediately, showing that this was a planned guest.

Which was strange since I hadn't seen him order anything.