“Well, that was fun.” Sarcasm dripped from Aedan’s voice after we spent the whole day showing Cyan the classrooms and introducing him to the professors, but I wasn’t in the mood.
We also showed him the gardens, training room, dining room, ballroom, and had dinner with him, because why not? All the while that stupid, delicious, sensual smirk of his always appeared when he looked at me, causing havoc inside me.
What the actual fuck?
I’ve had a boyfriend before, for like a week, but still. I’d even been kissed. Yet, this was the first time in my life I had ever found a guy attractive, let alone “caught fire” by him simply looking at me. Again, what the fuck? The things he awoke in me by being near me, the need, the arousal… and I didn’t even know him! My body had never reacted this strongly to anyone, never. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, which pissed me off royally.
“You don’t like him…” Aedan stated after we entered his dorm.
It wasn’t a question, but it bothered me to no end because I didn’t have an answer. We’d just finally taken Cyan to his new room, which just so happened to be right across from Aedan’s for “convenience.”
I plopped onto my bestie’s bed. “You like him?”
Aedan shrugged. “He’s been through a lot. The least we can do is give him a chance.”
My mood deflated at that. “It’s not him per se. I mean, the guy was tortured and lost his parents…” I made a face. “It’s just, something seems strange,” I confessed, crossing my legs underneath me and resting my back against the wall.
Serving himself a glass of water, Aedan leaned his hip against the desk, considering my words. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Didn’t you notice the way his voice changed? The resentment flowing through it when he spoke about how his parents were captured by the ˈlēTHəl? It was directed at our Savior Queen.”
A slow sigh left his chest like he was having trouble getting to the same conclusion. “There was also honesty and pain in his voice, C. I know you felt his sincerity when he described the conditions he grew up in, and the torture he and his parents endured.”
He had a point there. I did feel the pain and the truth pouring from his words at the revelation of what they had suffered, but it didn’t lessen the weight of the other feeling I got as he spoke.
Noticing my hesitation, Aedan narrowed his gaze at me.
“Is it possible you are just being overprotective of our queen? You have idolized the woman since you were old enough to hear the story of our race for the first time. It’s normal to get upset when someone else doesn’t have the best perception of a person you look up to so highly.”
“I mean, how dare he insinuate that Queen Daetha just left the others behind? Like she didn’t give a damn what happened to them?!” I huffed, yanking Aedan’s pillow toward me, and plunging my hand into the case until my full arm was inside it—scouting for chocolate. “Doesn’t he know she lost her parents during the fight too? It was an impossible decision, and I can’t even imagine how freaking hard it must have been for her to think of everyone else but herself while experiencing such heart-wrenching loss.”
Pulling the pillow out when I came up empty, I practically stuck my head into the pillowcase.
“She risked her very soul for us. You try making that decision right now to see how you like it,” I retorted, my voice muffled by the fabric a moment before Aedan snatched it off my head. “Where is the damn chocolate?!”
My bestie shook his head, looking at me through the hair that fell every which way over my face. Pulling open the drawer in his bedside table, he took out a pouch filled with truffles. “Here, with everything that’s happened, I completely forgot to put one in the pillow this morning.”
He offered me the truffle, but I frowned, glancing at the still open drawer and the empty pillowcase. “Why do you put it in the pillow when you have the bag literally next to your bed?”
His lips twitched, and he took a chocolate too, popping it into his mouth. “I can’t decide if the fact that you haven’t realized it yet is ridiculous or fucking adorable.”
My eyes narrowed at him; I had been stealing his chocolate for as long as I could remember, without fail. Every day I—
Realization fell on me, and I blinked. “You leave it there because you know I love stealing it from you?!”
Repressing the smile wanting to take over his face, he put the bag back in the drawer.
Awe! My bottom lip stuck out at the immeasurable cuteness. That was possibly the single most awesome thing anyone had ever done for me. He even fought me for it sometimes just so I’d win.
Glancing at my puckered lip, he kissed my forehead, letting his body fall next to me.
“You are ridiculously in love with me, aren’t you?” I teased, popping the truffle into my mouth.
Laughter burst out of him, unable to be contained. “Head over heels.” My bestie winked. “Unfortunately for you, I don’t like girls. Otherwise, you’d be the luckiest Faery in the kingdom right now. Cause, you know, I’m a total catch.”
Amusement danced in his eyes while I snickered, but he really was.
“I have no idea how you and your ego fit in this room.”
We both chuckled at that.
Head over heels indeed. He may not be my starlight bond, but he forever owned my heart.
“Anyway…” Aedan threw me a pointed glance, resuming our conversation. “Give the guy a chance.”
An exaggerated groan left me, and I rested my head to the wall.
“His life hasn’t been easy, C, and I’m sure if you put yourself in his shoes, you’ll find it is difficult not to feel resentment toward what happened. Especially after getting here and seeing the life he could have had if only his family had ended up on this side of the barrier.”
I instantly felt like a bitch.
Yeah, Aedan’s default was to see the best in people while I was the guarded and skeptical one, but he was right. If I tried to put myself in the guy’s position, I honestly couldn’t say how I’d be feeling right now after being a prisoner for so long, while everyone else continued their lives protected by the queen.
As far as I knew, no one had even attempted to rescue those behind the Red Guardian, they were all just assumed dead.
Not that the queen had a choice, either way, she alone couldn’t go against an army of evil Elves. Not again, at least.
“Still, that’s funny coming from you, Mr. Pot. The one who basically shielded me with his body when he entered the office and saw the stranger looking at me.”
His lips twitched. “That is different. You know I’m protective of you and he was staring at you too intensely for my liking. I don’t like guys who smolder at you.”
Chuckling, I stood and headed for the door. It had been a long day and I was tired. “Goodnight, Mr. Pot,” I called his way a moment before I closed the door.
“Goodnight, Miss Kettle!”
After eyeing Cyan’s door for a moment, I headed toward the main corridor so I could take the stairs to the girls’ floor and get to my dorm. The academy was dead quiet, only the night sconces providing a dim glow in the halls.
My friend’s words resonated with me with each step. “Give the guy a chance….”
“Put yourself in his shoes….”
Aedan was right. I was almost as overprotective of Queen Daetha as he was of me. I just really admired who she was and wanted nothing more than to be in her guard.
Lost to my thoughts of a hot bath and a cool bed, I didn’t notice that I wasn’t alone. Not until the sound of the double doors in the lobby of the academy clicked open. A figure exited the school, but I could see nothing more than a shadow from where I stood.
Pulling out my wings, I jumped off the railing and flew down in a blink, opening the doors too and heading toward the gardens. Stopping by the flowering trees I had flown through the day of the Bright Warriors Tour, I glanced all around me, yet I found no one there.
Had I imagined it?
When my gaze swept the entrance to the Elementals’ Sanctuary, I noticed the vines covering the mouth of the tunnel slightly swayed.
My wings flapped as softly as butterflies’ on my way through the passageway, the last thing I wanted was to alert whoever was there to my presence. I didn’t know how they would react to realizing they were being followed.
Technically, I had all the right to investigate. I had been in the academy for four years and not once had I seen someone roaming the school after hours. In all honesty, I was the only one who dared to be out of her room after lights out, but the security already knew me, and if they caught me during their nightly rounds, they usually didn’t care. My trips were always just to Aedan’s room to steal chocolate and then back to my own.
When I landed on the other side, I immediately slipped behind the closest tree, glancing at the sanctuary before me. A large shadow moved along the stone floor, its shape dancing from monument to monument, but my vantage point was terrible, hiding the person from me.
Carefully, I advanced to the other side of my hideout. When my gaze lifted once more, I found hair as dark as the shadows of the night, and crystalline green eyes glancing up at one of the monoliths.
House of Iarann…
Cyan’s form stopped before it, his gaze far more reverent than when we brought him to it earlier today. His eyes went to the symbol carved onto the center of the rock surface, and he just stood there, staring at it as though he believed it might hold the answers to his future.
I wasn’t sure why, but I stayed with him. Unable to look away, trying to understand… waiting for him to do something.
After several minutes in silence, admiring his house’s altar, Cyan lifted both hands and pressed them against the rock. The symbol resembling a mix between an arrow and a sword illuminated silver with his touch, and Cyan staggered back, startled.
My eyes widened as shocked by the monolith’s reaction to him as he was. Instantly, I realized where I had seen his neck tattoo. The symbols were one and the same.
He finally stepped closer again, hesitant hands lifting to the rock, and the light returned to the carving. His touch remained this time, and I watched in wonder as the light traveled along the curves and lines of the symbol, illuminating it whole.
It pulsed, echoing the beating of my heart.
When he fell to his knees, his chest deeply rising and falling with pain, my heart became heavy. I stepped back, feeling like I was intruding in his private moment.
Turning, I slipped away the same way I had come, the image of Cyan’s silent cry for everything he had lost and what it meant to be here following me into the night.