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He flipped the stake again, letting it flash in the light, and then it disappeared in the sheath. "I
want you to tell me where the heart is the next time we meet. Exactly where. And I want to
know what's in the way of it too."
I gave him my fiercest glare, which—judging from his expression—must not have been that
fierce. Nine out of ten times, I thought Dimitri was the sexiest thing walking the earth. Then,
there were times like this …
I headed off to first period, a combat class, in a bad mood. I didn't like looking incompetent in
front of Dimitri, and I'd really, really wanted to use one of those stakes. So in class I took out
my annoyance on anyone I could punch or kick. By the end of class, no one wanted to spar with
me. I'd accidentally hit Meredith—one of the few other girls in my class—so hard that she'd felt
it through her shin padding. She was going to have an ugly bruise and kept looking at me as
though I'd done it on purpose. I apologized to no avail.
Afterward, Mason found me once again. "Oh, man," he said, studying my face. "Who pissed
you off?"
I immediately launched into my tale of silver stake and heart woes.
To my annoyance, he laughed. "How do you not know where the heart is? Especially
considering how many of them you've broken?"
I gave him the same ferocious look I'd given Dimitri. This time, it worked. Mason's face paled.
"Belikov is a sick, evil man who should be thrown into a pit of rabid vipers for the great offense
he committed against you this morning."
"Thank you." I said primly. Then, I considered. "Can vipers be rabid?"
"I don't see why not. Everything can be. I think." He held the hallway door open for me.
"Canadian geese might be worse than vipers, though."
I gave him a sidelong look. "Canadian geese are deadlier than vipers?"