Bite of Loyalty by R. L. Caulder Part 1

This week we visit the Dark Imaginarium Academy in a sexy twist on the Van Helsing and Dracula trope as we cover Bite of Loyalty by R.L. Caulder. This is part 1 of 2.

Triggers: mild knife and blood play, violence, on page graphic death, death of a mother

Tropes: enemies to lovers, reverse harem, knife play, blood play, dom/sub dynamics

KU: yes!

Recommendation: both Traders wholly recommend and can’t wait to read more!

For more check out https://www.rlcaulder.com/.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey friends, Liz here to invite you to check out our Patreon. That's where we publish

(00:05):
extra episodes every other week and that's also where we will continue any series we're
reading. So if you liked our coverage of Akatar, Guild, High Mountain Court, or Fourth Wing,
check out our Patreon to continue those series along with us. We also let you know what we're
reading each month in advance in case you want to read along with us too. There might
be a few other surprises throughout the year for our Patrons as well. You can get all of

(00:27):
this for just $3 a month, so check it out and we would really appreciate the support. Anyway,
on to today's episode. I'm sitting here like prepared to talk about the book and I have like
the summary pulled up and I'm looking at it right now and it's like Reverse harem. I'm like,
is it reverse harem? There's really only Lincoln and Andre. No girl, there's a fully third other

(00:49):
person we haven't met yet. Welcome to Your Safe Space. The podcast, your partner, friends,
parents, whoever thinks is dirty. Don't have time to read books, want to understand the jokes in
the tics-hacks, we got you fam. We're the spice traders and we deal in spicy books. I'm Katie

(01:12):
and I need it to make sense. I'm Liz and I'm hypercritical. As always, we start every episode
with three things. The first is a generic trigger warning. You can find specific triggers for this
book in our show notes, so please check those out. Also, we do use foul language and talk a lot
about sex. If you have sensitivity to any of this, please give this episode a skip. Secondly,

(01:33):
we talk about books, the whole book, nothing but the books that helped me got us. If you plan to
read this book and don't want something spoiled right now, don't listen to this episode. Lastly,
we acknowledge that a good book can hit you at the wrong time. The views expressed in our discussion
are our opinion and we absolutely don't want to diminish the work and the talent of the authors
in our community. That said, we have some notes.

(02:03):
Okay, so Liz, what are we talking about today? Today we're talking about Bite of Loyalty by
R.L. Calder. This was published in 2022 and it is the first of an ongoing series known as the Blood
Oath, which currently has four books published. This book is 296 pages long and that's a midi for us.
So, in looking at this cover, which I had pulled up and then I got distracted and changed, so

(02:31):
it does commit the Cardinal Sin of having a real person on it. However, it is really stylized.
I'll make this bigger. The problem I have is I'm starting to feel the same way about people with
like silver hair as I do with people with purple eyes where I'm just like, you can look like a

(02:52):
normal person and be an interesting character. I will say, so it's a woman on the cover. Let me
finish that part first. She's got like a lightsaber, which is not what it is, but it looks like a
lightsaber on the cover and you can't tell me it doesn't. It looks like a red lightsaber. There's
like gothic architecture behind her and a full moon and like stylized red blood-ish on the bottom.

(03:18):
I will say that she's wearing a really badass leather outfit that I want.
Yeah, I have to say we get this outfit, I think, described later and when she describes it in the
book, it does not sound as badass, but seeing it on the cover, I'm like, yeah, yeah, you look good.
Yeah, yeah. And then they even talk about it where she's like, I just happened to like it because I
feel badass. And I'm like, well, you're not wrong. Yeah, no, you look great. I don't like the real

(03:45):
person thing. I don't like her hair. I don't like the lightsaber. That being said, all of the books
in this series do follow that same trend, which does make them look nice together. And as you
pointed out, all of these series within this like universe that Arl Calder has created also follow

(04:06):
this trend, which does. It is aesthetically pleasing once I got past the fact that they're all
cartoon real people, that it's just not my jam. Yeah, I mean points for consistency for sure.
And I got to say it's not that I don't like the silver hair thing because like I think in this
case it's really badass. It's just I'm really over like the physical attributes of the chosen one,

(04:29):
right? Like, yeah, we even it's not her that has purple eyes, but we also get another person with
white hair and purple eyes and I'm just like, okay, that I think that's the thing like I don't mind
the silver hair and in this in the art on the cover, it's cool. Like it's darker underneath and
like really light on the ends. I'm just over fantasy characters having this like one weird

(04:50):
thing about them. Right. Yeah. Besides all of the other trauma that they have that makes them weird.
Right. We're like you could be a brown eyed brunette and like your character could still be
interesting. Like she doesn't have to have purple hair silver eyes like and she's already
we'll get to it but like it's vampire. She already has red eyes. She doesn't need silver hair too.

(05:11):
Right. Exactly. You with your plebeian brown eyes. Oh, you can't be a main character with
brown eyes. Come on. No, never. So all that being said, it's fine. I'm all right with it.
Right. Um, yeah, I don't have that much else to say on the cover except for her lightsaber,
which is explained. I just wish someone had pointed out that it looks like a lightsaber.

(05:33):
It makes me think of we were talking about game changer and you know the game they play
where he makes like a new game changer logo and they have to name the logo that it's like copying.
Yes. Yeah. They're like, you can't do that. It looks like the Duncan logo or whatever.
I feel like the editor should be like, you can't do that because it looks like a lightsaber.
I know. Well, okay. So between that and the way that she describes her sword when we first

(05:55):
meet it, I thought that it was a fire sword. I'm not sure if that's the case, but I'm going to
describe it as a fire sword. I mean, based on what the cover looks like, it sounds like a fire sword
to me because it's glowing. Right. But so that's canon. So that's canon. Now it is now fire sword.
If not, that's what it is. It is what it is. Any users.

(06:17):
Let's get into it. Katie, why don't you kick us off?
All right. So this book is on Kindle Unlimited. So that's great. Fantastic. I'm trying to make
that. I'm trying to make Daddy Bezos lose as much money as possible with this podcast. So
as many books and KU as possible, that's great. Yes. So since this is a mini, we're going to

(06:39):
break it up into two parts. And so this is going to be part one of two. And then at the end of
part two, we will do our ratings. So this part will cover chapters one through nine. And we jump
right in and we meet Alina, who was our protagonist, and she's at a bar for her 18th birthday.
She's drowning her sorrows with her girlfriends because the next day she'll be forced to choose

(07:00):
a husband. Yes, you heard that right. Also, she's a part of the Van Helsing clan. Yes,
that Van Helsing clan, which means she's a vampire slayer. And so are the rest of her
friends that she's out with. I was reading your notes as I do. And this line that means
she's a vampire, I was like, did I grossly misunderstand the start of this book? I just missed

(07:24):
Slayer. Yeah. So I think, so this was, you'll find this funny, I was typing this part of the notes
when I was on baby duty. And so I was like up in our guest room. And I feel like I can hear
the baby breathe when I sleep in that room. And so I was like very gingerly typing. And I think I

(07:44):
just skipped Slayer because I didn't want to make more noise. You know what you're talking about,
but that makes sense. I could see why you would just like, I'm going to type as gently as possible
and cut out all these words. Yep. Yep. So there are three of them, Alina included, and they are
living it up at a virtually empty bar somewhere in Sanguis, which is the Slayer controlled

(08:07):
territory in the plane of existence they're currently on. This will make more sense as we
learn more about the world, but essentially there are different planes of existence and
different creatures inhabit them. So Sanguis in particular is separate from the human world that
we as mortals would think of occupying currently. I did like how that was explained. Yeah, I did too.

(08:29):
So Alina is using her phone to control the songs that are playing in the bar. And so it's like
away from her. And as she and her friends party, she tells us that she's eternally grateful for them
and their names are Skye and Jade. These two were the only ones at school that did not gossip
behind Alina's back or straight up run away from her when they were younger. And thus they've been
tight friends ever since. As they decide to turn in for the night, Alina checks her phone and

(08:52):
realizes that something is very wrong. She has way too many missed calls and texts and the gist of
them tells her that there's been a vampire attack on her home. Oops. Without thinking, she runs back
to her house alone and without a plan. On the way, she summons her soul weapon by slicing her
hand open. And I think it like is called to her with her blood question mark. That's the gist I got

(09:17):
like throughout this book she mentions like preparing to prick her palm to like bring it forth. There's
a lot of background lore that I wish we saw more just because it sounds interesting, but I'm also
glad we didn't get it. But she talks about this like ceremony where you like find your blood weapon
and how the weapon chooses you and how no one's ever heard of this one before. Like I thought all

(09:42):
of that background was really interesting. And I do wonder how much of that is going to come in to
the rest of the books. Me too. Because like, I mean, obviously Alina has big chosen one energy,
right? You can tell by the color of her hair. But I mean, like she she is set on this path that like

(10:05):
she a lot is going to happen with her. And I wonder if the sword thing is going to be a part of that
in a better way. I also just realized you were going to say that and I jumped ahead. So sorry.
You're all good. I got excited. So this blade of fire in my head, I don't I don't I read it a
couple of times and I don't actually know. I couldn't tell you if that's canon or not, but it's
canon for me. So her blade of fire is called Devourer. And those soul weapons usually have

(10:31):
prior owners and like have a history to them. As Liz mentioned, this one is brand new. And so
no one knows what the fuck is up and she's still getting the hang of using it. Cool.
So at the gates to her home, she sees a gruesome scene of bodies staked to the pikes of the gates
inside. She finds her mother barely alive and her mother begs her to kill her rather than let her

(10:54):
be turned into a vampire. Alina is reeling and has no idea how vampires could have gotten through
the wards without warning or how she missed anything off when she was headed out for the night.
She's like, if there were so many vampires that were going to attack, like I would have seen them
a couple of hours ago. But her training as a slayer kicks in and she kills her mother using
Devourer before her mother can turn into a vampire. This book starts with like zero to 60

(11:20):
on it being dark as hell in here. Yeah, like zero to 100 real fucking quick in here. Man, like
no one even has a candle in this place. It's so dark. It's and it gets darker. Oh yeah. Oh,
so speaking of it gets darker. When Alina leaves her mother to go and search the rest of the house,

(11:40):
three cloaked vampire figures stop her in her tracks. They restrain her and tell her that Dracula
sends his regards before biting her on the neck, causing her to black out. She wakes up sometime
later completely disoriented and in an incredible amount of pain. Someone calls her name and she
moves toward them. As she does so, she smells something amazing and delicious and seeks it out.

(12:04):
Any guesses? That's what's happened here. You'll never figure it out. As she's enjoying this thing,
her thirst becomes more quenched and she realizes that the thing she's been enjoying and drinking
was the blood of her best friend, Skye. Unfortunately for Skye, Alina has drained her completely and

(12:25):
killed her. Big ups. Alina screams in agony just as Jade arrives and Jade like immediately realizes
what's happened and is on the defensive. Remember, all three of them are slayers, right? So like they're,
this is a tough situation. Yep. And they've all been trained for this, even though Alina didn't
quite follow her training, but how could you when you find your whole family decapitated and then

(12:50):
have to kill your mom? On your birthday. Yeah. Anyway, Alina begs Jade to kill her, but Jade tells
her that she doesn't deserve such a quick death and tells Alina to leave and to never come back.
Basically to go into time out and think about what you did. Which like, I couldn't tell you
if that was merciful or cruel. Like I feel like Jade didn't want to murder her, but also wanted

(13:16):
to punish her for everything, but like, let her fall. So part of me, and I have nothing to back
this up, but part of me is like, was Jade in on it? I have questions about Jade and Skye and like,
because we still don't really know what happened here. No, well, and because like,

(13:38):
so Alina took off from the club, right? But like, she's not super human or she's not even
any more super human than her friends. And like, they just couldn't keep up.
Question mark. Okay, that's a thing because like, granted, things happen quickly. But I think
it's weird that enough time passes that Skye didn't see her get bitten and therefore didn't know she

(14:03):
was a vampire. Right. And then B, that Skye and Jade didn't arrive together. Right. Like, well, and it's like,
if I'm Jade, I don't care if you deserve a quick death or not. Like, realizing that
Alina is a Van Helsing and now a vampire, like, that seems like a pretty dangerous combination to me.

(14:26):
Yeah, because you are highly, lethally trained and now you're supernatural. Yeah. But that combined
with the fact that we got all of this information about how like Alina was basically ostracized
from the rest of the Slayer group because she was a Van Helsing and not in like the Van Helsings are
like shit bags or anything, but like, they're just so powerful and like, they're like the it guys,

(14:49):
right. And so there's a lot of jealousy, something something that I was wondering that too, because
let me also get information. This is when she's still at her party at the bar, no matter how she's
going to have to pick a mate and shout how she is convinced that they're all just going to be
essentially like afraid of her like how it by her because she's so powerful and she won't have

(15:10):
anyone to go toe to toe with, which will come to play later. But so is there jealousy from Jade?
Would she go against her? Would she betray her whole race of people? I don't know. Yeah.
The other the other attack that I took was like, well, maybe Jade was used by the powers that be

(15:34):
that really want to kill Dracula, because like, based on what we learned later, I have a lot of
fucking questions about how the Slayers and the vampires interact. Yeah. So anyway, we'll get to
it when we get to it. But we don't know. We don't have answers to those questions now. So Alina gathers
herself and asks whether any other Slayer house was attacked. And reluctantly, Jade tells her that

(15:55):
it was only the house of Van Helsing. And she is now the last one. So her entire fucking family is
dead. And it was clearly a pointed attack, not just vampires destroying all the Slayers, they
could get their hands on. Yes. So Alina vows to Jade to get revenge for the lives lost and then
flees. As she runs from the house, she murmurs aloud, quote, roses are red, violets are blue.

(16:17):
Here comes Alina and she's going to kill you, which has big manic pixie dream girl energy to me.
Also, I feel like the author was just so tickled by this rhyme, because we also get it as like the
epigraph at the start of this book. It's like we get it twice and I hated it both times. I know.
And I think you said this in our debrief, but it really went toward like a camp, like track.

(16:40):
Yeah, because I was so careful. It was so dramatic. It was so dark and like
fucking violent, which like, you know, the horror girlie and me was like, yes. And then we get this
line and I'm just like, what are we doing? Yeah, very much. So, okay, strike two for Alina, just

(17:01):
like totally not paying attention to all of her training because she's determined to get vengeance
and go like immediately to Dracula's castle. Girl, do some planning. She's like running through the
forest and she's thinking about this castle and what she knows about it. And we learned that no
slayer has ever successfully returned from a recon mission there. So she knows next to nothing

(17:23):
beyond like a general location where the castle physically is. And I'm like, girl, what is your
plan? She doesn't have one. She doesn't even get like supplies. I'm just I have so many questions.
Anyway, no, nothing. She has no plans. Also, if this was your plan, don't you think you would
want to, I don't know, stay and talk to Jade and be like, let's get revenge. Like, can we partner

(17:45):
up? Like, can we be an undercover of it? I don't know. Like, she has no plan. No plan. Yeah. But
it also feels like so I in the context of the story, like Jade made it perfectly clear that like
Alina is not welcome there anymore. So I kind of get that. But I also don't from like a strategy
perspective because it's not like Alina chose to be a vampire. Exactly. And now that we're here,

(18:12):
it could be a really big asset, right? To have a slayer vampire. Right. But no. But no.
So Alina's running, running, running. And then she gets to the like edge of the territory
of the slayers and she runs into the barrier. It's a magical barrier that witches help them
put up and it seems perfectly intact, which seems odd since vampires had sudden had somehow

(18:37):
slipped through to murder her entire family. Hmm. Interesting. She tells us that the only other
way that vampires could get through is if they had a very powerful witch helping them.
So Alina tries to cross the barrier, but it burns her skin and she wonders aloud what to do.
And just as she does that, a woman appears out of a portal at that exact moment.

(18:59):
And we learned that portals like this aren't necessarily out of the ordinary because Alina
and other slayers use them to get to the human world on the plane of ordinary.
These are some of these names. I'm just like, okay. Okay. All right.

(19:20):
But names are hard. I get it. I get it. I mean, it's, it's the famous example is like
Tolkien definitely meant to go rename Mount Doom and didn't. So I get it. Right. This was the
plan of Ordinarious, where the people are, where the people are. So this woman has curled blonde hair

(19:40):
and blue eyes that radiate kindness and Alina can smell the power in this person's blood.
And it takes all of her willpower to not like go and drink that blood for her own.
But she has remarkable control for a brand new vampire. Right. Again, big chosen one vibes, right?
Yeah. So this woman introduces herself as Estrid Headmistress of the Dark Imaginarium Academy,

(20:04):
which is a neutral territory in the supernatural territory of Priditis,
the current plane that Alina is on. So Sanguis is like the slayer area. It is, think of it like a
state in the plane of existence, Pridarius or Prid, Prid, Prid, Priditis. I said it so confidently

(20:25):
the first time. You did say it confidently the first time. I think Priditis. Priditis. Priditis.
Priditis. It sounds like, it sounds like something you need to go to a doctor for. Yeah.
Anyway, Priditis, Priditis, whatever. It doesn't matter.
We quickly learned that Estrid is a goddess, which is why her blood smells so damn good to Alina.

(20:49):
She tells Alina that when there is a student in need, the fates who are like real people,
real gods, give her, Estrid, a portal to that student to like ferry them to safety. It's a rare
event, but that event has actually happened twice now in as many days, which is kind of weird.
We find out later the last time was like over a decade ago, like this doesn't happen.

(21:11):
Right. So Alina tells Estrid that she isn't worthy of such kindness since she's a monster,
but Estrid tells her that it's a miracle that Alina is even able to speak coherently after
being turned two hours ago. Usually, fledglings take weeks or months to recover. She urges Alina
to come with her and accept the help. She adds that monsters don't usually have so much grief and

(21:34):
self-hate in their eyes as Alina does. Estrid goes on to say that if Alina accepts a position at the
school, she'll attend for four years and then be placed in a prestigious job within the realm.
Alina asks about Dracula and whether he hires people from there, but Estrid laughs and says
likely not because he's so private. Even still, Alina accepts the offer and almost lies when

(21:56):
Estrid asks her name, but ultimately decides to own who she is and where she came from.
In this discussion, we also learn something wild, which is vampires can not only be made
like Alina was, but also born, which makes me have a lot of fucking questions about the slayers.
Yeah, they just out here killing babies that didn't ask to be here?

(22:16):
Right. Okay, I understand that there's people who murder people all the time.
There's layout that murder is bad, right? Yes.
But like, if you didn't have a choice and you still got to eat, are you like,
are slayers just killing any vampire they come across?

(22:39):
I don't know. I didn't really understand the purpose of slayers. Like,
I had a frame as if they were kind of the police for vampires, but the more we learn about them,
the more they just kind of seem like they hate vampires and just want to kill all of them for
no real reason. Right. And like demons and shit exist. So like, why do you hate vampires?

(23:01):
I know. It's like, this poor vampire duder is just going to his casual bank job on a Wednesday
and gets merked in the face by a slayer. Like that's just, wow.
Right. I have, I have a lot of questions about why, who made you this way?
So many fucking questions.
Who gave you the right? Who do you think you are?

(23:28):
So Alina goes with Estrid and they end up back in Estrid's office.
They continue to talk and as they do so, Alina decides to keep her ultimate goal of getting
revenge on Dracula close to her chest and do whatever it takes to keep in Estrid's good graces.
Estrid eventually calls someone named Lincoln and tells him to bring some blood bags for Alina.

(23:49):
As soon as Alina hears Lincoln's voice on the other end of the phone, Alina reacts physically.
She's drawn to him and that only intensifies when she sees him in person.
Lincoln, we learn, is a professor and also a vampire.
Naturally.
He's described as having hazel eyes, short, well-groomed, wavy, dark hair with bronze streaks in it,
and he's fit as fuck, as you might imagine.

(24:12):
He exudes power and Alina can't help but size him up.
I wanted to point out here because it bothers me immediately that
Estrid asks, like, should we hide who you are?
And Alina's like, no, I want to be who I am, but I want it to be up to me to share my lineage.
Right.

(24:34):
And then the next thing happens and I'm like, okay.
Yeah, because Estrid basically introduces her as Alina Van Helsing and like, come on.
And I was just like, why would you do that?
Yeah, I actually didn't clock that the first time, but it is interesting in the context of like,
Alina doesn't actually get to introduce herself to anybody but Alexandra as Van Helsing.

(24:57):
Yep.
That's really funny.
I don't know if that was just a slip on the author, but like,
they have a whole conversation about it and Estrid is like, oh, yes, I respect that.
So anyway, this is exactly who she is.
I respect that, but not enough to follow it.
And like, ostensibly, Estrid knows that Lincoln would fucking hate her.

(25:21):
So like, girl, you are not giving her any chances.
Is that on purpose?
Exactly.
Because as soon as Lincoln learns that Alina is a Van Helsing, his hackles raise and he refuses to
teach a slayer immediately, immediately, like just zero to a hundred.
This causes Alina to defend herself by claiming that slayers are the most honorable people on her

(25:43):
plane of existence.
But Lincoln claims, quote, you have no idea the number of senseless deaths the slayers have doled out.
And I kind of agree.
Like, that makes more sense to me.
Well, and also it makes more sense to me.
And the fact that you're like, we're the most honorable people on this plane.

(26:03):
I was like, based on what information?
Because that is a wild plane to make.
It is.
And we learned later that she, like she'll say to us, like almost verbatim, like, I had
blinders on when I was a slayer and like, I didn't learn very much about other like creatures
in this realm.
I was aware of them.
And I'm like, so you have a very small amount of information here.

(26:25):
Yeah.
Very limited view to make such a vast claim.
Also, you fucking hate the slayers, girl.
Right?
Right?
Okay.
So they kind of go back and forth and like Lincoln calls her a name or whatever.
But I pulled out a line that I think is illustrative of kind of a little bit of the confusion that

(26:47):
sometimes comes through in this author's writing because so Lincoln says something offensive
to Alina and Alina says internally, quote, he said it with such irreverence that he
felt it was impossible to feel that he viewed me as less than him.
End quote.
What she means to say is that it was impossible not to feel like he viewed her as less than

(27:08):
him.
And it was, it's just like these couple of slip ups that I'm just like, okay, it's a little
bit difficult to read sometimes.
Yeah, it's confusing.
And that's a perfect example of it, which is a little bit disappointing because like
technically the writing otherwise is very good.
It's just like, it feels like just one more round of editing would have gone a long way.

(27:30):
Exactly.
So they're fighting and Esther basically tells them both to stop being so dramatic and get over
the spat so they can all carry on with their lives, which seems like not how I would discipline
an employee talking to a student like that, but okay.
Yeah, there's a lot of willful suspension of disbelief happening with these dynamics.

(27:53):
And I'm okay with it.
Really, I think I'm just suspicious of Esther because I'm like, girl, who side are you on?
She's a goddess.
She doesn't need to be on anybody's side.
No, which I do like.
And I like to shred a lot.
I do too.
Yeah.
So Alina cools down long enough to drink the blood packets that Lincoln brought her,
but only after learning that they're animal blood rather than human blood.
She's vowed never to drink human blood ever again.

(28:15):
But that also brings up another question of the slayers because the vampires can subsist
on animal blood and clearly do.
Like, fine.
Why are we killing them?
Right.
Like, can y'all chill?
People are just trying to live their lives out here.
Right.
So Esther asks Lincoln to show Alina to her room and the two of them exit.

(28:39):
As soon as they leave the building, Lincoln corners Alina against a wall and tells her
that this is her last chance to leave the academy peacefully and that he won't protect or coddle her.
She tells him that she won't let anyone take this from her and she'll fight for her place
because she doesn't have anywhere else to go.
True.
Then we get a ye old perspective shift to Lincoln who is so fucked.

(29:00):
He is all kinds of wrapped up in Alina and he's like so angie about it, like real fucking mad.
He big, angie.
He does tell us what she looks like, which is tan with long silver hair.
And I think she's got, I don't know what color eyes she's got, but they do turn red when
she gets into the vampire stuff.
Yeah, I don't know what color they are either.

(29:23):
I didn't write it down.
Anyway, he adds quote, the leather outfit she wore accented her curves.
Unfortunately, it was a stark reminder of the dumb fucking wardrobe slayers were always in,
which I fucking loved because like the leather, I get it, but it's kind of dumb.
It is dumb because it's just so cliche.
Yeah, very cliche.
He ruminates internally about how dangerous the academy is for Alina and how it's now his mission

(29:50):
to get her kicked out.
He knows his other students will make a meal of her, especially someone named Andre,
whose dad is the Bishop of Dracula's board.
Lincoln goes on to reveal the name of the other student who was also a late admission
that Estra was drawn to, and it's a demon named Alexandra.
He seems to think that these two, Alexandra and Alina,

(30:10):
signal something that is strange at work in their realm.
And I think this is when we learned that like Estra hasn't been drawn to another student in like
either 10 or 100 years.
I don't remember.
Yeah, it was a decade or a century, but it's been a long time and that
both Estra and Lincoln were alive at that moment.
Because of course, Estra is a goddess and doesn't die and vampires live forever.

(30:35):
But yes, Alina is an 18 year old, irresistible companion.
It's fine.
Which I find, I know what I'm going for.
I don't care.
Somehow that trope still doesn't bother me.
Like it bothers me in my head and my heart.
It doesn't bother me.
That's how I feel like it really, and it bothers me even less with vampires for some

(30:57):
reason than with they, but even with them, just like,
just let people like what they like.
Exactly.
So as Lincoln leads Alina to her room, he tells her to familiarize herself with the
24 hour cafeteria so she doesn't lose it and accidentally drain someone.
This gives Alina a that's a ribbon flashback moment of grief that has Lincoln like closing

(31:18):
the distance between them and brushing the tears off of her cheek with his hand and
asking if she's okay.
He tells us that he's never felt this drawn to anyone else before, let alone a student.
And he's been with Estra at the Academy since the beginning.
Okay.
Alina snaps out of her remembrance moment of sky and tells him to never touch her again.
So he goes back to brooding as they continue to her room.

(31:38):
We learned that the reason Lincoln's got a chip on his shoulder about slayers beyond the
reason for their whole existence.
It's just kind of wild.
I'll read it to you because there's some editing Tom Fowler that I want to call out.
So the line is quote, after all, they were the ones who slaughtered my parents with
abandon, not carrying that they had brought me to the human plane of ordinary.

(32:00):
At a young age to offer me a better future.
End quote.
Okay, so slayers killed his parents.
Cool.
That just seems like his parents were trying to do like their regular live shit and they
got slaughtered for it, which slayers are fucking wild one.
And yeah.
So this backstory, I'm very curious, this backstory adds more to the question of like,

(32:21):
to the question of like, what the fuck are slayers doing?
What is their job?
Are they just mass murderers?
TPD.
So the editing Tom Fulery here is that after all,
the way this sentence starts is one word.
There's no space.
That's not a thing.
And the way he says, they were the ones
who slaughtered my parents with abandoned,

(32:42):
or abandoned period, it should be without abandon, right?
It should be without abandon.
Yeah, it's just like there's too many double negatives
happening and they don't end up to the thing
that they want anyway.
It's just another example.
I'll stop calling them out after this,
but I just wanted to give you guys an example
of like what you would be in for if you read this book.

(33:02):
And it will come up and it will be shown within our ratings.
So it's not egregious to the point where it took away
from any of my enjoyment, but it is kind of annoying.
Yeah, to which I say like, a girl,
I'm already reading it from my living, not my living.
You guys aren't paying me that much yet.
I'm already reading it.

(33:22):
Like I will have fun and I'll give you notes.
Like it's fine.
Fred, we'll give you great notes.
For any aspiring authors out there,
we are happy to be bait,
any aspiring authors out there,
we're happy to be bait or eaters.
Totally.
So when they get to her dorm,
we learn that it's conveniently believed

(33:43):
exactly beneath Lincoln's room.
Of course it is.
So why would it not be?
Lincoln is so agitated about this interaction with Alina
that when he gets back to his room,
he's intending to take a cold shower
to alleviate his raging heart on.
But his super hearing allows him to hear Alina sobbing
in her room.
And so instead of a shower,
he sits on his bed listening to her cry

(34:04):
until she falls asleep and hating
that he isn't with her to comfort her.
I am intrigued to see how this ability to like,
hear each other comes into play.
And also if he had taken a cold shower and like,
wanked off, could she hear that?
Oh, she definitely could have because she hears it later.
Oh, you're right, I forgot about that.

(34:25):
Yeah.
Awkward.
So in the morning, we're back with Alina
who feels spent after feeling her feelings the night prior.
Lincoln is banging on her door
telling her they have an appointment
to get her school schedule.
So like, hurry the fuck up.
She gets out of bed and goes to her wardrobe
to get something to wear
and makes a sound of surprised distress
to see only uniforms in there for her to choose from.

(34:47):
This causes Lincoln to burst in thinking she's in danger.
Okay.
She complains to him about the uniforms
and he's like, oh right,
cause slayers with their leather daddy uniforms
are so individualistic.
And this kind of makes Alina bite her tongue.
He tells her to hurry up and goes back in the hallway.
And that's when she realizes that she's naked.

(35:09):
And like, look, I know that we're here for specific things
involving vampires and reverse harems
and not character development,
but Alina says this thing internally,
quote, maybe that was why deep down,
I love the power struggle between Lincoln and myself.
I have to say, she killed her mother

(35:30):
and her best friend within 36 hours
and saw the rest of her family slaughtered
across her childhood home.
And she's thinking about this power struggle
between Lincoln, a man she does not know.
Man she does not know who is her teacher.

(35:53):
What are we doing?
What?
What are we doing?
Also, my other problem with again, character development
is I do like that we get kind of this one liner of like,
I'm comfortable with my skin.
I don't care that he saw me naked or whatever.
A, I've never once not noticed that I've been naked,
which she ostensibly does.
B, I would still care if my teacher saw me naked,

(36:15):
no matter how confident I am in my skin.
A stranger, not just my teacher, a stranger.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm just not built like that.
No.
And like, good on you for being built that way, Alina.
But like, I couldn't get past the part
where she didn't realize she was naked.
Okay.
That's like the thing, I have never not noticed.

(36:37):
Yeah, I don't, couldn't be me.
So anyway, Alina gets dressed and meets Lincoln in the hall,
but decides to test him by sitting at the top of the stairs
rather than following him,
which makes Lincoln pin her to the floor by the throat.
Is this how you discipline all your students?
Cause...

(36:57):
Sign me up.
Sign me up, yeah.
You're such a teacher's pet.
Yeah, yeah.
So Lincoln tells Alina,
if given a choice between the easy way or the hard way,
he finds the hard way so much more interesting.
And Alina can't help but be turned on by the situation

(37:19):
because she admits that she's a brat
who's been looking for someone
to not let her walk all over them
for like basically her entire life.
And that was her whole fear of like essentially
the auction block of her hand in marriage
that it was just gonna be some dude
that let her control him.
Correct.

(37:40):
So Lincoln throws Alina over his shoulder
and carries her the rest of the way
to the admin building for her meeting about her schedule.
Like a sack of potatoes.
Yeah, and I think this is a good place to add that like,
we are ferried with these characters
from a couple of different buildings across a campus
and we don't get any description of this campus

(38:01):
and we certainly don't get a map.
And so that leads to this feeling for me
that this story happens on what is essentially
a white canvas and it's a little disorienting.
It's very disorienting.
Which like, look, between that
and like happening within like two rooms,
I would definitely take this over that
but I just like, can we get a little bit more of that please?

(38:25):
Like how far did you walk?
How many buildings are around?
Where do they look like?
Well, and like the admin building,
is that the same building that the Estrid was in?
How far away is it from the vampire?
Is that different from the, I mean,
I guess it's different from the demon dormitory
but like, do they have classes in the same space?
Yeah, do they all have one admin building
or is there like a vampire admin building

(38:45):
and a demon admin building?
Because that seems like a lot.
Yeah.
Anyway, Lincoln deposits Alina outside the door
to an office and tells her to be a good girl
to which Alina remarks inwardly, quote,
all the reasons I couldn't cross that line with him
went out the window with those five words.
Fuck, why did being called a good girl do it for me?
I feel like just know your audience really well.

(39:06):
Yeah, I was like, I highlighted that
and it was one of those lines as Kindle does
that shows you how many other people have also highlighted it
and it was not a small number.
No, yeah.
Hmm.
So Alina meets with a woman named Victoria
who is effectively her counselor.
Victoria meets Alina at her door
and finds her dumbfounded in Gaga
staring after Lincoln as he walks away.

(39:28):
Victoria tells Alina that, yeah,
Lincoln tends to have that effect on people
which makes Alina's hackles rise.
The door to Victoria's office is unique
in that it takes a small portion
of the person's blood who opens it.
Victoria then drinks that blood to get a handle
on what the aura or general vibe of the person is.
And so she does this for Alina
and has a pretty wild reaction

(39:49):
that ends in her eyes turning completely black
into not demonic.
Well, Alina is upset about this
and tells Victoria she did not consent to that happening
and what the fuck is going on.
And Victoria is like, let me explain.
I'm an empathic vampire
and while I can't see specific memories,
I can feel the way someone felt or feels
when I drink their blood.

(40:09):
She tells Alina that,
Alina is a danger to herself and others,
if she does not consent to Victoria's counseling,
which makes Alina begrudgingly agree.
Inwardly though, Alina is chewing through
how she didn't know such a specific kind of magic
existed in the vampire world
and wonders what other things the slayers don't know.
And she's also obsessing over the fact
that Victoria seems very familiar with Lincoln

(40:32):
and she's irrationally jealous about that.
The saving grace here is that Alina knows
that she's irrationally jealous about it.
Which I appreciated that.
And Alina is a really relatable character.
Yeah, I think so too.
I mean, despite the fact that she's handling grief
in a wild way.
Like, oh yeah.
Her thought processes feel like,

(40:54):
she's not making huge leaps for me.
No, I don't have to warm up for these stretches.
Exactly.
So Victoria gives Alina her schedule
and we learn that she's going to take combat training
because of course, strategy,
proditus 101, diplomacy, mentoring,
and of course, counseling with Victoria.

(41:14):
Is it a class everyone gets or just her
because she is a chosen one?
Well, it made it seem like new students
slash specific students had to.
Which makes sense.
Question mark.
Like I don't think Andres getting counseling, for example.
Yeah.
So as Alina leaves the room,

(41:34):
she runs into another student named Maya
who is gorgeous with pinned straight black hair
and brown eyes.
Clearly not the chosen one because of the brown eyes thing.
Like a plebeian.
A plebeian.
And Maya clearly thinks that she's above Alina
and basically looks down her nose at her the whole time.
As Alina has downstairs,
she sees a bunch of other newly arrived students
and they all stare at Alina knowing

(41:55):
that she's the new girl.
They're all vampires too,
which makes me have more questions about the layout here.
It's like, are all of the vampires arriving at one place
or is this the vampire admin building?
Like, I don't know.
I couldn't tell you.
Yeah, I don't know either.
The other question I had about
where they all know she's the new girl is,
she didn't arrive late to the term.
Like, as Shred says,

(42:16):
like tomorrow all the students arrive
and then Monday classes start or whatever.
This is essentially college, right?
So they should be freshmen here
who wouldn't know she's a new girl
unless all the vampires just know each other.
Yeah, those are great points.
Just saying.
I don't know.
Because later we learned that there were 25 new students
and she's one of the 25, right?

(42:38):
It's just in the vampire class.
So it's like, okay.
What?
So they just saw that she is a new girl, not the new girl.
Cause, I mean, I guess the class of 25 is pretty small,
but I've never been anywhere.
I'm like, oh, you're new here.
Let me stare at you.
Right, like I never noticed that.
Yeah.

(42:59):
So when she gets to the door of the building,
she opens it just as another student is coming in
and runs face to face with a handsome vampire
named Andre, the same one Lincoln mentioned earlier.
Andre is described as having green eyes
and dark messy hair that hangs in his eyes
along with a chiseled jaw.
Of course.
Kind of a weak jaw.
Andre like catches her and says that he'll forget

(43:20):
about her running into him
if she gets on her knees for him tonight.
Whoa.
Yikes.
Before she can retort though,
Lincoln does it for her and brings up Andre's father,
which immediately puts Andre on edge.
Alina remarks to us, quote,
it was always the guys with daddy issues that needed
the biggest slap of reality.
I'd enjoy providing that for him.

(43:40):
Also just like,
that's not how we talk to people.
I know, like have you ever, I can't.
This interaction does serve to illustrate
that Alina also feels drawn to Andre, at least physically.
So she's got these two guys now
and we're almost to the reverse harem.

(44:00):
I can taste it.
I can taste it.
I was going to say,
has that line ever worked for him before?
And then I remembered that when I was in my dating phase,
this dude that I had like just talked to,
talked to, like we never met
because of the thing that happens.
We had like a very brief conversation on Tinder

(44:23):
or whatever.
And then he was like, wow, you have a really pretty smile.
I wonder what it would look like
with you on your knees for me.
Oh.
And I was like, we've been speaking for 47 seconds.
Yeah.
Does that work for you?
Has that ever worked for you?
I need to know.
Yeah.
Like I can also see it being like,

(44:44):
oh, I'm just here if you have a sense of humor,
to which I say, no,
I don't have a sense of humor for you.
Like I don't leave me alone.
As a matter of fact, no.
No, I do not.
So Lincoln takes Alina aside
and as he does, Alina sees that girl, Maya,
straight up to Andre and drape herself all over him.

(45:04):
She entoes that these two are the power couple
in the school that she will need to be wary of
and eventually like confront in her quest to be the best.
Lincoln pulls her attention back to him,
telling her that she needs to feed.
She says she's a big girl who can handle it
and she doesn't need a babysitter.
When she uses Lincoln's government name,
he asks that she call him Professor Aldia

(45:26):
to which she says, quote,
oh, suddenly there are formalities between us.
This morning led me to think differently.
I mean, that is a good point
because you showed up saw me naked
and did not tell me I was naked because somehow I forgot.
And then you pinned me down by my throat
and called me a good girl.
So, which is-
But I'll call you Professor Aldia.
Sure. Sure.

(45:49):
When Alina continues to go to Lincoln,
he pulls her out of earshot and eyesight of everyone else
and tells her, quote,
what do you want me to say, Alina?
Do you want me to say that I want to rip the eyes out
of anyone else who might have walked in
and seen you this morning, end quote?
Obviously, Alina is excited by this response,
but he follows it up with, quote,
if that's what you wanted me to say to you,
you're in for a world of heartbreak, princess.

(46:12):
Buh!
The princess of it all.
So, princess in this case is disappointing for two reasons
because I haven't mentioned it,
but he, Lincoln, has come up with this other nickname
for her, which is Spitfire.
And we were going in a good direction with that,
and now we're just back to this trophy bullshit.

(46:33):
Yeah, that bummed me out.
Yeah.
So, Alina calls him a liar, and he says, maybe he is.
And then they just continue walking around campus
so he can show her the building where her classes are,
and I'm like, y'all, y'all need some alcohol or something
to make this a little bit more fluid.
It's very awkward.

(46:53):
Yeah.
So, I'll mention again, right, like they're walking around,
we don't get any description of where they're at,
and it just, this would have been a good place
to put that in, but it just was a miss,
and we don't get it.
A blank canvas.
But anyway, as they walk, Alina asks about Victoria,
and gets Lincoln to say that she and Estrid and he

(47:15):
have been at the school since it opened,
and that the two of them, Estrid and Victoria,
are like his sisters since he doesn't have family of his own.
But he quickly buttons up after that,
clearly feeling like he's divulged too much.
Alina takes the win though, because she was still
feeling some type of way about Victoria and Lincoln
potentially having a thing, biblically.
I mean, they're immortal beings.

(47:39):
They probably still did, let's be real.
And so what if they did, if it was 100 years ago,
who gives a shit?
No one.
So they continue to the cafeteria
in the bottom of the dorms,
and Lincoln grabs Alina some animal blood.
She still hesitates to drink it,
so they play the question game,
and Lincoln says that he'll answer any question that she has

(48:01):
for every bag that she finishes, and vice versa.
Okay, so we get the question game.
Cool, cool, cool.
Also, how many bags is a meal?
Because, is it like a slice of pizza?
Because she had two before, and that filled her up.
So like, how much is she eating to play this game?

(48:21):
Yeah, because he grabs, it's very specifically says
that he grabs four for her and two for himself.
But I also feel like we're not in a level,
or normalized state yet, because she's still a quote
fledgling, even though she's handling it really well.
Yeah, so she probably needs more.
But I also had questions about what this cafeteria looked like,

(48:43):
because for some reason I pictured it as,
you know, a normal cafeteria with different windows,
but they all just had like, different animal motifs,
so you could like pick what kind of blood it was.
Yeah, like goat, chicken, cow, bear.
The exotic brands.
Yeah.
I also feel like they're just driving right past

(49:07):
how good of a fledgling, like how good she's handling
that shit, and that kind of bothered me too.
Yeah, because that's, I mean, they mentioned it
a little bit at the beginning, but I feel like
it should have come up more,
because it seems like a really big deal.
Totally.
Like she's not having like very much difficulty at all,
anyway. No.
I do want to say that I didn't mind this question game

(49:29):
because of the way that it was brought up,
and because the questions were relevant,
like it wasn't like, what's your favorite color?
Exactly, we actually got good information here.
Yeah.
So we're in the question game,
and Alina first asks how students are graded,
and we learned that it's based on a point system,

(49:50):
and that all of the years compete together.
And so when you're the top of the class,
you're not just the top of like the first years,
or the blood, whatever, you're the top of the college, right?
And that's how you get picked for like these government
or prestigious like positions.
So just by virtue of time,
fourth years are at the top of the class
because they've had more time to accumulate points.

(50:11):
But Alina is determined to make that top the first year,
like, okay, girl, I don't even,
like people say that's not possible.
I wish that somebody would just say,
I mean, it is possible.
Exactly.
Because my first thought is that it isn't possible

(50:31):
because there's gotta be X amount of points
you can get in a year.
So by virtue of time, you can't get that many points.
So if we had that one liner of like, well, it's possible.
Mh, that would make it better.
Right, like I'm just thinking about like classes, right?
Like if there's 400 total points in four years,
you can only get 100 points a year.
Like there's not, there's no amount of extra credit given.

(50:55):
That's what I'm saying.
Like you can't, you can't do it.
Right.
So Lincoln asks Alina why she hates drinking blood so much.
And she kind of fibs a little bit here
and tells him that it's not that she hates it,
it's more that she's worried
that she won't be able to stop when she starts
because the hunger can feel overwhelming.
Which would have been a really good point for them
to talk about the fledgling thing again.

(51:17):
Exactly, because it should be overwhelming.
But also my other complaint was that
this is a wild question for him to ask
because he knows her history.
And like, you can't just ask a human
why they don't wanna drink blood.
Yeah, I mean, I feel like, okay,
I think for this particular conversation,
like Lincoln's reaction is valid

(51:38):
because again, it's been less than 48 hours.
So like, I think he's still like piecing it together.
Like, oh, you're a van Helsing.
That's weird that you're a van Helsing
and you're also a vampire.
Now that I'm thinking about that,
how the fuck did that happen?
Right, because he kind of like gets to that
in his next question.
Yeah, that's true.
So that didn't bother me so much, but it was like.

(52:00):
But the fledgling thing like,
would be a great teachable moment of like,
yeah, the hunger can feel overwhelming
and this is what you can do about it.
Or wow, it's amazing that like,
you're actually handling this very well.
Right, like, yeah, now it does feel overwhelming,
but later, once you get past this stage, you'll be fine.
Yeah, but whatever.
So then Alina goes on to ask how big the student body is
and we get a vague answer of somewhere around 100.

(52:23):
But I think that's 100 per like, sector.
So like, there's 100 vampire students.
There's 100 demon students, Faye.
Those are the only three we know about so far,
but I'm sure there's others, et cetera.
I know, I kind of wish we had a list of like,
what all of the supernatural beings were
that were handling here, like our witches involved in here.

(52:44):
Right, there's shifters, like.
I do wonder if we're gonna get more of that
when she goes to the party.
Yeah, that's what I was expecting.
When they all mix and co-mingle.
Maybe that's when she'll meet Drake.
Oh, oh.
We haven't mentioned the party yet,
but we did get that information earlier through Lincoln's

(53:05):
and her monologue.
That's true, yeah, like there's a start of the year party
coming up that we will attend.
But I think now that we're talking about it,
it is worth noting that this book is a reverse harem
and we've talked about two of them, right?
So Lincoln and Andre, obviously,
through the way that she's talking about them
are gonna be in her harem.

(53:26):
But we were reading the summary of this book
on Goodreads before we started recording
and fully there's this third duder
that we haven't met yet in part one.
Which is wild, that his name hasn't even been mentioned
because we've met plenty of,
like there's been opportunity to meet other people.

(53:46):
Right, which makes me think
that he's not gonna be a vampire.
Yeah, which will be very interesting.
Yeah, anyway, so back to Lincoln
and he asks what Alina meant when she said earlier
that she had nowhere else to go outside of the school.
She doesn't answer and so Lincoln
just kind of starts talking aloud

(54:06):
and he leads himself to the answer
that Alina was forcibly turned into a vampire
and so by virtue of that is no longer accepted
into the Slayer community.
And he doesn't seem to like the idea
of being forcibly turned very much.
Which again brings me more questions about vampires

(54:27):
and look what the problem is, correct, right.
And it brings me a lot of questions
about the people who turned her,
like did you mean to turn her or did you mean to kill her?
Exactly, and if you meant to kill her,
how could you have messed that up?
Right.
So Alina ends this discussion there
because she does not want to answer questions

(54:48):
about what happened, where she came from,
she doesn't wanna look at that grief too much at all.
She certainly doesn't wanna reveal her ultimate goal
of revenge and so she goes up to her room.
But on her way out, Lincoln tells her
that the answers to the rest of her questions
can be found in the school handbook
which is waiting for her in her room.
In this moment, Alina recognizes that Lincoln
not following her and forcing her to answer his question

(55:10):
is a remarkable respect of her boundary
and that makes her think about her prior life
with her parents and the rest of the Slayer community
where she effectively wasn't allowed to have boundaries
and she appreciates that difference.
And I get it.
That's kind of a bare minimum.
Okay, that was the vibe I've got of like,
this is a normal thing that you should accept

(55:31):
and you haven't had it in the past,
but it's bare minimum.
If you don't wanna answer a question,
you don't have to answer a question.
Right, it's not, it doesn't make him an amazing man.
No, yeah, you're giving him far too much credit.
That's right.
Also, like that should be a line between a professor

(55:54):
and his student.
Yeah.
Anyway, Alina spends the rest of the day studying the books
that she has for her classes along with the school handbook.
The book particularly about Praditis
is particularly interesting for her
because she admits that she had blinders on
with her worldview when she was a Slayer.

(56:15):
She's excited to meet demons, for example,
even if she feels a little uncomfortable
at the thought of Faye not being able to lie.
After several hours, she stands up to stretch
and goes over to her window to look outside.
When she does so, she notices a little ways off Lincoln,
who is watching her through her window.

(56:36):
And this is a little bit weird, right?
Wild choice.
Because she's a bit, I think the second floor
or the third, she's not on the first floor.
I think it's the, we got the layout.
I think the first floor is like,
half to whatever second is boys,
third are girls, fourth are professors.
I think you're right.
Yeah, so she's on the third floor.

(56:58):
And he's, so he's not like at her window, right?
He's like down next to like a lamppost watching her, right?
Fine.
Just...
I can't even verbalize how much this bothers me.
But like, I think it's in the description of how this is

(57:21):
because I first read it like it was a lamppost.
And then the more she described this light,
it sounded like it was like a Faye light,
like circling him or something.
And I'm like, where is he standing?
I couldn't understand where he was standing
based on the logistics of like watching her.
Like that's not a third floor window.

(57:42):
That's not how angles work.
I know.
He'd have to be standing like far-ish.
Yeah. Far-ish away.
Or in like a neighboring building on the same level.
No, but he's very clearly meant like described as being outside.
Yeah, he's outside.
Also, I just want to point it out here

(58:03):
because I'm glad that we got the one line fixer.
Some of the canon things in Mythical Creatures,
like fake ant lie, we get vampires can be outside
in the daytime.
So we have regular waking hours here.
Kind of.
Kind of.
Because their classes are at night.
They can exist in regular waking hours.

(58:23):
Yes, they can exist.
They had a one line fixer for like the society
that they're going into doesn't operate during daylight
ever.
It's like they operate in the middle of the night
for some reason.
Which if you can be outside,
I don't know why you would do that, but sure.
Right.
And so the classes are like in the evening,

(58:44):
essentially to let people with I guess internships
like go work and have a regular schedule.
Unclear.
Unclear.
What's really happening here.
But the light is also very confusing.
Yeah.
Anyway, so he's watching her either by a lamppost
or by a faylight.
It's unclear.

(59:05):
But Alina, yeah.
Alina, I forgot her name for half a second.
But Alina decides that she's going to give him a show.
So she strips and starts masturbating
so that Lincoln can watch.
She ends up lying back on her bed
to give him a little bit better of a show, which.

(59:25):
That makes the angles even worse.
Right.
Like for it to make sense in my head,
she had to be like perched in the window
with like a leg up on the ledge or something.
Yeah, exactly.
Like her, like fully her pussy pressed against the window.
Like that doesn't, no, OK.
No, her to lay down, like you can't see that.
Yeah.

(59:45):
So she's doing that.
But just before she climaxes, someone knocks on her door
and startles her.
When she sits up, she realizes that Lincoln is no longer
the one watching her, but it's Andre.
And he's like fully jerking it watching her.
Which again, I ask, where is he?
So you're just like in the courtyard?
Well, and OK.
So while she's doing this, she's like, ooh,

(01:00:07):
it's exciting for me to think about doing this so publicly.
But there's nobody else on campus,
despite the fact that we have a full fucking house.
And it's like, quote, the middle of the day
in their actual working hours.
Like how is nobody else seeing this?
I don't know.
And it was such a choice to do this.
If it was that.
Such a choice.
Public intended.

(01:00:28):
Such a choice.
Like it would have made more sense
if he was in an administrative building
that she could see into and he was watching her through the window
like on the third floor.
So she was like further back in her room.
So only he could see or another person on a third floor.
Exactly.
Like if he was like in his classroom office or something.
Right.
Alas.
So she closes her curtains.

(01:00:49):
Not because she's embarrassed because Andre saw her,
but because she wants to stick it to Andre.
More like finish off by yourself, have fun.
And she goes to open her door.
Outside, she finds a leather outfit.
Similar to her slayer's clothes with a note attached from Lincoln.
The note says, quote, spitfire.
The rules state that you must wear the assigned student attire

(01:01:11):
to classes, but I have it on good authority
that you might not be a rule follower.
Just know there are always consequences to your actions.
End quote.
Alina finds the gift thoughtful after her outburst earlier
in the day about uniforms.
It seems like a trap to me.
It's very clearly a trap.
Like girl, what?

(01:01:35):
She thinks it's so thoughtful that Alina
thinks about going up to Lincoln's room to thank him
sexually for this gift.
But before she does, she hears him masturbating in his room
above her and calling out her name.
So she does the same thing and calls out his name.
But when she climaxes, it's to the thought of Andre

(01:01:56):
jerking it from earlier rather than Lincoln.
One of the things that I had to spend my disbelief
is the supernatural hearing thing,
because if this is a full house, everyone
can hear you calling each other's names.
Yes.
You can have one liner that like, it's,
you're not really allowed to mix with faculty in this way.

(01:02:17):
And like, so you're just going to openly call out a student's
name.
She's going to openly call out her teacher's name
and like, everyone can hear you.
And we didn't call this out specifically,
but like when she was studying earlier,
she heard students like out in the hallways and in their rooms.
So it's not like the floors are very thin.

(01:02:40):
The walls are very thick.
Yeah, like no, it's one or both and neither at the same time.
And truly, it didn't bother me.
I just want to point it out.
Yeah, like I'm fully on board.
Like I'm having a great time with this book.
But there is the willful suspension of disbelief

(01:03:01):
must be willful.
Otherwise, you're going to be fighting this book
the entire time.
Exactly.
And that's where like I went into it fighting for a second
just on that like roses or red thing, because I hate that.
Yeah.
But then it never came up again.
And like we didn't go that weird campy route.
So I was like, you know what, it's fine.

(01:03:21):
Yeah, I get that.
All right, so that's where we're going to end part one
of Bight of Loyalty by R.L. Calder.
In two weeks, we will cover part two.
And that's also where we'll do our ratings.
So until next time, thanks for going on this journey.
We really appreciate it.
You know where you can find us.

(01:03:42):
Actually, we've changed where you can find us.
You can now find us on TikTok and Goodreads at SpiceTraderSpot.
And of course, our Patreon.
If you like our content and you want more,
please consider becoming a patron.
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Otherwise, we'll see you next time.

(01:04:02):
Bye.
Bye.
arp