Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
The answer was, I couldn’t. I told my Drake he would have to wait—to hold himself in check. I had things I must attend to and cuddling my roommate was not one of them.
This drove him into a fury and I had to fight with him as I got dressed, straining to keep him under control as I got ready for the day’s classes.
I’m not sure what Avery must have thought of me. I was almost silent and when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, my face was white with tension. I hoped he didn’t think I was upset about the healing the night before but I simply couldn’t spare any strength for idle conversation. I was trying too hard to keep my Drake in check and I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
13
AVERY
It was just what I had been afraid of—Saint hated me now. Or else he hated himself for what we had done together the night before. I could tell by the tense set of his broad shoulders, the way his face was a white, silent mask. He barely said a word to me as we got ready to go to Breakfast and once we got to the Dining Hall, he sat at the far end of the table from me, just as he had the night before.
My stomach was in knots and I could barely sip the coffee (extra cream, extra sugar) that was my usual morning meal. Saint wasn’t eating or drinking anything at all. He was just sitting there, silent, at the other end of the table with that tense, angry look on his face that made me think he was probably never going to talk to me again.
It wasn’t my fault, though! I thought, feeling miserable and irritated at the same time. He was the one who said he wanted to “heal” me and then started kissing me all over!
You did too start it, whispered a guilty little voice in my head. You started it by offering him a hug. You should never have left your bed—you should have kept some distance between the two of you.
I had to admit that little voice was probably right. There had been a kind of electric tension humming between myself and my tall, dark and dangerous roommate last night. Almost a magnetism that seemed to draw us together. I could still feel his arms around me, his lips on my skin. I could still smell his scent—a mixture of warm, masculine spice and the fragrance of bonfires in the autumn.
And now he hates me again, I thought morosely. I should never have let things go so far. I should have known that a guy who considers himself straight couldn’t get as close as we got last night without some serious regrets the next day. I should have—
“Oh, Avery—your face is all healed!” Megan sat down on my left side and Griffin, holding a tall cup of animal blood which was what the Nocturnes had for all their meals, sat beside her.
“Yes, what happened? You were a mess yesterday and now you look great!” Emma sat on my other side. Bran and Lachlan were back from the Fae Realm and they sat on either side of her.
“Did something happen to Avery’s face?” Bran asked, frowning. When we had first met him, he had appeared as a skinny, nerdy human but that was only because he was using an uglification spell on himself. Now, in his true form, he was a tall, blond, Fae warrior with blazing blue eyes.
“It looks fine to me,” Lachlan remarked, glancing up from his plate of Eggs Benedict. He was almost as tall as Bran and equally gorgeous. He had black hair and green eyes—he was a very powerful Fae mage.
Emma, sitting between them with her midnight hair and starry, violet eyes, looked like the princess she was. The three of them together were enough to take your breath away but at the moment, all I could think of was coming up with an explanation as to why I was suddenly healed of all my cuts and abrasions from the day before. And though I am normally never at a loss for words, my mind was drawing a complete blank.
“Avery got into an…altercation with several of the Drakes in his physical education class yesterday,” Griffin said carefully. “I’m afraid some blows were exchanged.”
“Not exchanged, exactly,” I said, trying to smile. “More like absorbed, on my part. But I’m fine now—really.”
“You certainly are,” Megan said. “But how?”
“Yeah, Avery—how did you get your face fixed so fast?” Jalli asked, coming to sit beside Griffin. She was careful to keep some distance from Saint at the other end of the table. Her three chimelings, Spike, Sweet tooth, and Jelly Belly, were scared to death of his cursed Drake and flew away, chiming in alarm, anytime she got too near him.