House of Korba: The Ghost Bird Series: #7 (The Academy) by C. L. Stone Page A

with Silas’s, bleach and cleaning detergents, with a thin layer of tobacco smoke, faint but distinct.
    Two large leather Lay-Z-Boy chairs sat off to the side, close to the couch and aimed toward television. Out of everything in the room, the chairs drew my attention and I wasn’t quite sure why until we stepped deeper into the room. One looked almost brand new and a fine layer of dust coated the brown material. The one next to it had heavy creases from years of use, with a tear in the seat. They were the exact same chairs, though.
    Silas let go of me, avoiding the big armchairs to drop my book bag and his keys onto the coffee table. He fell onto the couch, sitting back and rubbing his hands over his eyes.
    I wanted to ask if he was tired, but I’d lost my voice the moment I’d stepped into his space. I tiptoed to the couch, sinking down a foot away from him at the corner. I watched him at first as he had his face covered but when his hands moved away, I moved my eyes to the television, the coffee table, to anything besides his face.
    This was worse than going to Victor’s. We were alone. There was no one else to distract us. My stomach tripped over itself, twisting. What was I doing here? How was I going to survive the night when in this moment, I felt I could hardly move at all? And why did I suddenly feel so shy and awkward?
    His eyes bore into my face. “ Aggele ?”
    I flitted my gaze to him, locking only for a moment onto his deep dark eyes. My heart stumbled over itself again and I couldn’t stand it. I scanned my eyes around the room, memorizing the details of his apartment over and over again. Remotes on the coffee table. Plain, white-faced clock on the wall over the counter in the kitchen. A collection of mail on the side table. “Yeah?”
    “What do you want to do first?”
    First? I wanted to run away. I didn’t want to, really. I wanted to be with him, but suddenly it felt like this wasn’t him at all. This wasn’t the Silas that slept in my bedroom to protect me from my stepmother. He wasn’t the Silas that sat behind me in biology class. He wasn’t even the same Silas that picked me up less than an hour ago at my house. This was too close. This was Silas Korba, raw and overwhelming around me. I wanted desperately to understand it and get used to it, to have the old Silas I knew outside of this place.
    “Um...I don’t know really,” I said, my finger pinching my lip into my teeth. “Whatever you want to do.”
    His head tilted as he gazed at me. He sat back again, putting the arm closest to me around the back of the couch, beckoning to me with his other hand. “Come here.”
    I inched closer, unsure where he wanted me. When he curled his fingers again at me, I moved until I was a breath-width away from my thigh touching his. I swallowed and steeled myself against the desire to shiver.
    Silas scooped his arm under my knees, dragging my legs until they were hanging over his thigh. He left his palm warming the side of my bare knee. My shoulder met with the back of the couch, and his hand moved down, and splayed out over my collarbone. His eyes met mine, locking on me, wordlessly beckoning and yet he remained still.
    My heart spasmed. His skin on mine electrified my entire body. My core trembled. Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to? I wanted to sink into him, to sit in his lap like I’d done before, but whatever before was, this was something on a different level. Why was touching him so different here? I was completely terrified.
    Then there was Nathan, who had kissed me and intended to date me. In his bedroom he’d proclaimed we’d run away together. He hadn’t spoken about it since, but he did kiss me, in secret, away from everyone else.
    The others, though, continued to hold my hand, hug me, and kiss my cheek. North once asked me to trust the boys to know what they were doing, but it still left me confused.
    “So what did you do today?” he asked.
    I couldn’t remember. My mind