Chapter 3 Closed Practice

POV: Carly

"5, 6, 7, 8... and 1!"

Carly snapped her fingers to the count and watched her cheerleaders fumble through the routine like they had never seen choreography before in their lives.

She pressed two fingers to her temple. The migraine was coming. She could feel it building behind her left eye like a slow boil.

She let them get through eight more counts before she couldn't take it anymore.

"Stop. Just stop!"

Everyone halted. Half of them were out of breath. One girl in the back was still moving on a two count delay and didn't realize it until complete silence hit.

Carly exhaled through her nose and clasped her hands together in front of her. Calm. Collected. Barely.

"Sierra, sweetie." She turned to the brunette witch on her left. "I know you weren't able to learn the new steps over Winter break so maybe just move to the back for now."

Sierra's mouth dropped. "Really Care?"

"It's nothing personal." Carly held her hands up. "But you are missing every single count and you are not the only one." She swept her gaze across the whole line. "Our first game is in one week. One week. And we are nowhere close to ready."

Nobody argued. Nobody dared.

"Well maybe some of us would be more focused," Whitney called from her spot in the second row, raising one eyebrow toward the bleachers, "if Dana wasn't busy ogling the enemy."

Carly followed her gaze.

Her blood went from warm to boiling in about half a second.

Niko Monroeson was sitting in the bleachers with a sketchbook in his lap like he owned the place. Outside the fog of Black River Falls crept along the tree line bordering the field, the way it always did this time of day, grey and thick and pressing in from every direction. It made the bleachers look like something out of a nightmare. It made him look right at home.

She closed her eyes. Took one slow breath. Opened them again and turned back to her squad with the most composed smile she could manufacture.

"I'll be right back." She kept her voice even. "Go over the routine again until you get it right." She paused and found Dana in the lineup. "And Dana. If you let your eyes wander off this field one more time during my practice, your spot on this team is gone. Are we clear?"

Dana nodded so fast her ponytail whipped her in the face.

"Good."

Carly turned on her heel and walked across the field. Long strides. Shoulders back. Every step fueled by the specific kind of irritation that only Niko Monroeson could produce in her.

She did not understand it. They had barely spoken to each other in four years. Whole semesters went by without a single direct interaction. Now suddenly she was seeing him twice in one day and both times he was exactly where she didn't want him to be.

She reached the bottom of the bleachers and planted her hands on her hips.

He didn't look up.

His pencil moved across the sketchbook like he had all the time in the world and absolutely no awareness of her standing three feet away from him. Which was a lie. Every supernatural creature on this field could hear her heartbeat from twenty yards. He knew she was there.

Getting under her skin was his favorite sport and he was very good at it.

She cleared her throat. Loud. Pointed. "Excuse you?"

Niko's pencil stopped. His head lifted slowly and his eyes met hers with that blank unbothered expression that made her want to scream.

The corners of his mouth twitched.

She ignored the familiar chill that crept up the back of her neck and kept her face completely still.

His eyes dropped. Just for a second. Down from her face to her tank top, to her practice shorts, to her bare legs, then back up again. Slow and unbothered like he wasn't even trying to be subtle about it.

Carly felt it like a physical thing. She said nothing. She refused to give him the reaction he was fishing for.

After what felt like an entire lifetime he finally spoke.

"Sorry love, I didn't see you."

"Yeah, sure." She crossed her arms. "I know your eyes work fine considering they were burning a hole through the back of my head at lunch."

One brow lifted. "So you did notice?"

She growled under her breath. His smallest remarks made her want to do something she'd get detention for. "What are you doing here?"

"Not sure what you mean, love."

"Don't call me that." The pencil stilled in his hand. "I mean what are you doing here, on these bleachers, during our reserved practice time. This is a closed practice. No viruses allowed."

Niko laughed. Low and easy, like she had said something genuinely amusing. "Yet you're outside. On a public field."

"We reserve this space three times a week, same two hours every time. That schedule has not changed in four years."

"I'm sorry." He placed one hand over his heart. "I never cared enough to memorize your schedule, princess. Contrary to what you seem to believe the world does not revolve around Carly McPherson. And this field does not belong to you."

"Listen-"

She stepped sideways without finishing the sentence. A group of werewolf track stars were making their rounds on the field, passing close enough that she felt the shift in the air. She flashed them an easy smile and turned away from Niko, lifting one leg up onto the railing in a casual stretch, bowing forward until her forehead nearly touched her knee. She held it. Breathed. Waited until the last set of footsteps faded before she straightened back up and dropped her leg.

Last thing she needed was for anyone to see her standing here talking to Niko Monroeson.

He watched the whole thing and shook his head with a quiet laugh.

"You're quite flexible."

The blush hit her cheeks before she could stop it. "Shut up."

"What's the matter? Scared someone might see you fraternizing with the big bad vampire?"

"We are not fraternizing." She pointed at him. "I am telling you to leave because this practice is already a disaster and your presence is not helping."

"Not that I owe you an explanation," he said, leaning back casually, "but I'm here waiting for my sister. Reba. Who for some reason takes pride in being part of a team that doesn't trust or like her."

Carly remembered that audition. Last summer. Reba Monroeson showing up with her perfect posture and her perfect smile and every girl on the team looking at Carly waiting to see what she would do. School rules were clear. No discrimination based on species. She had no grounds to cut her.

She wasn't happy about it.

"Trust me," Carly said. "If it were up to me vampires wouldn't be allowed on the cheer team at all."

Niko looked at her for a moment. Something shifted behind his eyes just slightly. "So much venom. And here I thought you were supposed to be the good guy."

Her mouth opened. Closed. The audacity of him turning it around on her was almost impressive.

She pulled in a slow breath. "I'm kindly asking you to leave. I don't need you distracting my girls any more than you already have."

Niko glanced past her at the squad. They had completely abandoned the pretense of practicing and were full on staring at the two of them. They scrambled back into formation the second Carly's head turned.

She winced. It was bad. It was really bad.

Niko's smirk softened into something closer to an actual smile. "As much as I'd love to take credit I don't think their rhythm problem has anything to do with me." He tilted his head. "They take after their captain, I presume."

"Niko." Her voice dropped. "Leave. Or I will make you leave."

He went still.

That was the thing about Niko Monroeson that nobody talked about. He wasn't afraid of her. Most people at Black River Academy, supernatural or not, had enough sense to take Carly's threats seriously. He just looked at her like she was a puzzle he hadn't decided whether to solve yet.

He leaned forward slowly, closing the distance between them until he was right there, right in her face, their noses almost touching. The only thing between them was the metal railing she hadn't realized she was gripping with both hands.

Up close he was infuriatingly hard to look at directly. Dark blonde curls resting against his neck. Multiple necklaces layered on his chest. The scruff along his jaw. A grey Henley pushed up at the sleeves. Simple. Effortless. Completely unfair.

His eyes had shifted. Baby blue gone deep red with black underneath, the color bleeding out from his pupils like something wild and barely contained. The dark veins spiraled beneath his skin near his cheekbones. His fangs dropped past his lips, both layers, and the tip of his tongue ran slowly along the sharpest edge when he smiled.

That smile.

She hated that smile.

"Is that so, love?" His voice came out low. Quiet. Like a dare.

Carly didn't flinch. She held his gaze and muttered the spell under her breath before he had time to react.

Niko hit his knees.

Both hands flew to the sides of his head, eyes screwed shut, jaw tight against the pain she was pushing through his skull with nothing but her mind. A trick witches had been using on vampires for centuries. The supernatural equivalent of an aneurysm, twice as excruciating. She had used it on him once before, freshman year, and nearly gotten a detention slip for it.

Worth it then. Worth it now.

The football coach's whistle cut across the field.

Carly blinked out of it and stepped back, angling her body to block the coach's sightline to Niko. She released the spell.

Niko stayed hunched for a moment, hands braced on his knees, catching himself. Then he slowly straightened up.

"Good to know you still like playing dirty." His voice came out rough but the smirk was already back. Barely even shaken. "If you were as brave as you think you'd at least take the consequences like a champ."

She hated that he could look like that after what she just did to him.

"Leave." She pointed toward the exit gate.

He laughed. Dark and low. Last time she had used that spell on him he threatened everyone she had ever loved. This time he just laughed.

That scared her more than the threats.

"I could very easily retaliate and rip your throat out." He said it the way someone else might comment on the weather. "But I'm a man who chooses his battles." He bent down and picked up his sketchbook and bag. "So I'll go. This time."

"Good."

He came off the bleachers and walked right toward her on his way out, close enough that she had to hold her ground to keep from stepping back. He stopped directly in front of her. Towering. Unhurried.

She kept her hands on her hips and her chin up and her eyes on his.

He looked at her for a long moment. Long enough that she heard her own heartbeat. Long enough that she was certain he heard it too.

Then his lips curved into that quiet smirk and he brushed past her without another word.

Carly stood completely still and watched him go. Small unhurried steps like he knew exactly what he looked like walking away and had decided to take his time with it.

She told herself she was watching to make sure he actually left.

Her girls were absolutely watching her watch him and she didn't even notice.

What was it about him that did that to her. That got so far under her skin that she forgot where she was and who was watching and everything she was supposed to be focused on. Nobody else in her entire life made her feel like that. Rattled and electric and furious all at the same time. She hated it. She hated him.

She blinked and he was gone.

Just like that. One second there, the next completely vanished into the grey Washington air like he was never there at all.

She released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

Then the sound of cleats on turf behind her, light and deliberate, made her turn around.

Reba Monroeson stood a few feet away in full cheer uniform, bag over one shoulder, watching Carly with an expression that was impossible to read. She had the same blue eyes as her brother. Same effortless composure.

"Sorry I'm late." Reba's voice was smooth and even. "Did I miss much?"

Carly looked at her for one long second.

"Get in formation."

Reba nodded once and jogged past her toward the squad without another word.

Carly turned back to the field, shoved every single thought about Niko Monroeson to the back of her mind and clapped her hands twice.

"From the top. Let's go."

This was going to be a very long day.

Author's Note:

Okay I need everyone to take a breath because I certainly had to writing that. The tension. The NERVE of this man. And then Reba showing up at the end like that? Things are just getting started at Black River Academy. Drop a like, vote and add us to your library because you do not want to miss what comes next. What did you think of Carly and Niko's first real showdown? Tell me everything in the comments!