Absorb: Book One of the Forgotten Affinities Series

by Analeigh Ford

  He hesitates at the sight of me smeared in blood. “Is it yours?”

  “Not exactly.”

  His eyes flit to Draven, back to me, and then between the two of us a couple times. He can clearly sense something other than mending wounds was just taking place, but he doesn’t comment on it.

  Instead, he turns back towards the door and holds it open for us.

  “Good. Then come with me. I may have figured out why you have multiple affinities.”

  22

  Flynn

  Octavia and Draven follow me back to the school at an alarmingly slow pace. For the brief moment I thought the blood was Octavia’s, I hadn’t been able to think clearly. Now that I know it is Draven’s, I’m not nearly so concerned. The Ritual Mage can handle himself. The one thing I do not have patience for, however, is being hindered by him in any way.

  “I haven’t forgone sleep for the last week for you to slow us down. Just admit you aren’t up to the task, Draven,” I say.

  “Shut up, Flynn,” he says.

  Octavia has insisted on offering her shoulder for Draven to lean on the last two-and-a-half blocks, but this is taking too long. I feel my hands drumming on my thigh, unable to still until I can share what I discovered.

  “Fine, but then we are doing it my way. Octavia?” I glance in her direction. “Can you assist me?”

  I tug my sweater off over my head. It is still warm enough out that the only thing I need to worry about is getting sunburned if we are out for too long.

  “Hey-o,” Draven calls from just a couple feet away. “What the heck are you doing?”

  I toss the shirt to Octavia and immediately regret it. She barely has time to drop Draven’s considerably heavy shoulder and catch it—but it still mostly hits her in the face. Why do I do these things to her? I still don’t understand it.

  I’ve overheard whispers in the school about what they plan to make Octavia do, but I think what I learned may be able to stop it.

  “Wrap the shirt around his shoulders,” I say. Octavia does this without asking further questions. When Draven starts flinching at her touch, she glares at him.

  “If Flynn thinks it’s a good idea, it probably is.”

  The praise shouldn’t please me so much, but it does.

  She gives the knot a tug to make sure it is tight, and then takes a step away.

  The kind of homemade harness looks ridiculous around his brawny shoulders, and he seems very aware of the fact. “Maybe you should give me a saddle too,” he says. “Then Octavia can ride me, properly.”

  I ignore his comment and concentrate on the shirt around his shoulders, on my bond with Octavia, and I pull hard to lift up on his torso. Draven immediately straightens up.

  “So....now what?” Draven says. “You don’t think this is going to negate the fact that you punched me the other day, do you?”

  I tighten the hold on it a bit for good measure. “You must admit, you were a prime suspect.”

  Draven groans. “I do not accept your apology.”

  Once she sees what I am doing, Octavia furrows her brow and concentrates on helping me. After a brief second of nothing happening, she glances my way. “I don’t know how to do telekinesis.”

  “Just lend me your power,” I say. “Concentrate on me, and our bond.”

  She steps closer and looks down at the brand on her arm as it brightens. A moment later, I feel a surge of power run through me and Draven is nearly lifted off the ground.

  He grunts in surprise. “Hey, hey! I’m good. Light as a feather. I can walk fine on my own now, thanks.”

  I continue concentrating on lifting the shirt, but we are able to hurry back to the dorms much faster with Draven moving at a normal human pace.

  As we near, I hear Octavia’s feet carry her up beside me. “Thanks for fixing my phone on Thursday,” she says.

  Is that really what she is thinking about, right now? I shake my head.

  “I just thought that since it was my fault, I should fix it. Especially after that incident in the shower.”

  Her face turns pink, “That was an accident.”

  “Right.” I am preoccupied a moment. She seemed so angry at the time, I don’t understand why she’s trying to brush it off now. Here she is, distracting me again.

  Draven catches up to us, and even though we are still using our Psychic abilities to hold him up, he is out of breath. Try as he might to seem tough, whatever injured him caused more damage than he admits. “Come on.”

  The elevator ride is uncomfortable with the three of us squeezed inside. We are lucky that no one spots us on our way up. It isn’t exactly easy to hide two…no, now three…bloodstained people for long.

  Draven starts paling again by the time the door unlocks to my room. I help slowly lower him down onto my bed rather than take him all the way down to the end of the hall to his own. It’ll be faster this way.

  At last, Draven is propped up and Octavia stands over my shoulder as I rifle through the book I’ve been reading. I catch a glimpse of her in the mirror. Even stained in blood she is as beautiful and distracting as ever. For a second, I feel prickling at the back of my neck. Octavia is here in my room. I hadn’t necessarily planned on bringing her here, but that doesn’t mean the idea hasn’t flickered in and out of my mind since she arrived. How could it not, being who she is.

  My eyes flicker over to Draven as I try to focus on the task at hand. “After our last encounter…”

  “Fight, more like.”

  I continue past Draven’s comment. “I realized I had let my emotions get the better of me. I was concerned for Octavia’s safety, and while I doubt spending time around a Ritual Mage such as yourself is going to keep her out of harm’s way,” I glance at the healing stab wound on his chest, “I do at least believe you don’t mean her any harm.”

  “Still not an apology,” he says.

  I continue. “The only way to protect Octavia is to first find out why she is the way she is. Ever since she arrived, I’ve tried comparing our situation. Why, of all mages, did we get multiple affinities?”

  Draven is at least listening now. Octavia sits down at the end of the bed closest to me. “I’ve wondered the same thing,” she says. “I don’t think we have anything in common.”

  “But we do,” I say. “Neither of us has any history of magic in our families.”

  “And…that is where the similarities end.”

  “Not exactly. There are others, but at first I thought they were irrelevant.”

  I tell her I tried looking at our lives outside of magic. We each come from a traditional household with two ordinary parents, no history of hereditary diseases, and no siblings. Neither of us was the subject of any odd medical trials, we didn’t live close to nuclear plants or areas with high levels of radiation, and as far as I knew—hadn’t been bitten by any poisonous spiders.

  We were ordinary. Except we got magic. And then we got more than one kind.

  “So?” she says. “I thought you said you figured it out?” I can see her interest waning. Draven looks like he is stuck in a lecture he can’t get out of.

  “It was your friends, Wednesday and Kendall, who gave me the idea,” I say. “I overheard something Kendall said in the common room the other night. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but then I had an epiphany.”

  I can see Octavia squirm in her seat. She must not have seen me there that night, and doubtless it was a conversation she would rather I not have overheard. But I digress.

  “I didn’t realize they were identical twins, until Kendall mentioned how his mother used to dress him up as a girl and no one could tell them apart.”

  Draven snickers from the corner.

  “It got me thinking about something I read in my free time. This is what I brought you here to see.” I swivel in my chair to face her and Draven and hold out the pages for them.

  Octavia leans over in order to see better. “This is what you do in your free time?”

  I can
tell from their faces that neither of them has any idea what they are looking at. I point at one of the diagrams.

  “The key here,” I say, “is twins.”

  Neither of them immediately reacts, so I continue. “The book of magical law lays out the guidelines for the affinity ritual. Most magical affinities are passed down from generation to generation, but in certain instances there can be anomalies.” I point again to the diagram of twins.

  “But how does this have to do with Wednesday and Kendall?” Octavia asks.

  “Only that they gave me the idea. Identical twins always share the same powers, as your friends do.”

  “Yes?”

  “But fraternal twins often don’t, especially if they come from a non-magical lineage. When magic shows up in the blood randomly, it often doesn’t prescribe to the laws the same way. That’s why we end up with something random.”

  “But neither of us is a twin,” Octavia says. “I think my mother would have told me.”

  “But think,” I raise my hand to stop her. “Do you have a history of twins in your family?”

  She stops to think for a second. “I think I have a pair of cousins who are twins, but that’s it.”

  I press a hand to my chest. “Your great-grandfather was also a twin, did you know that?” I can tell from her face that did not. “My father was a twin as well, but he rarely speaks about it because apparently his brother died very young. After reading this, I had a phone call with my mother.”

  We haven’t spoken since I decided to leave the country for America. She didn’t agree with my reasons for leaving, and quite frankly, I am surprised she chose to speak with me at all. I don’t include this bit of information, since it is only relevant to me.

  I continue. “It turns out that at the beginning of her pregnancy, she thought that I was going to be a twin as well. She never told me because the twin died so early on, there wasn’t even a body. But I have another theory.”

  “Wait,” Draven finally sits up. “Are you saying that Octavia is a twin?”

  “I am saying that I think my twin did not die—I absorbed him in utero,” I say, “and took on his magical affinity. I think Octavia did more than that. I think she was going to be a triplet.”

  A heavy silence fills the air.

  “So...” Octavia trails off. “So you are saying that I got these powers because I basically ate my two siblings?”

  My mind backpedals. I hadn’t expected this response. “No, no...I mean yes. It isn’t so gruesome as it sounds. It happens quite often. Most people never even know that they absorbed a twin. Or, in your case, triplets.”

  Draven tries to lean forward. “So Octavia technically could have the powers of three people inside her?”

  I nod. “If my theory is correct, it may be why she’s been advancing so quickly. Not many mages would be able to do what you have in just your first week.”

  Octavia looks down at her hands like they are foreign objects. “So...it wasn’t a mistake then, after all?”

  “No,” I say. I slam the book shut and make both her and Draven jump. I need to be more aware of my surroundings. There I go getting distracted around Octavia again. “It is all in here. It’s basically a loop-hole in the affinity ritual. If Octavia really did absorb her siblings, we may be able to prove she shouldn’t have to give up her powers.”

  “You know about it too?” Octavia asks.

  “Of course. I knew from the first night you arrived that the principal was not going to let you keep all your powers if he could find a good enough reason to justify taking them away.”

  She nods. “Seems I was the last one to find out,” she says. It takes her a second to let the information sink in before she says, “But you think this is enough to convince the school board that my magical affinities aren’t something, well, wrong with me?”

  “Hopefully,” I say, rising to my feet beside her. “Your gifts are too valuable to sacrifice for some old tradition of separating the affinities.” I glance over at Draven on the bed. He is impossible to read, but I continue anyway. I’ve been mulling over this possibility for a long time. “It may be unorthodox, but everything about you is. Magic, your abilities, just...you.” I have to take a breath and swallow hard. I try to tell myself that what I am saying is purely from an academic standpoint. But one look at Octavia, one flash of memory of how her hand felt grazing mine, how it would feel to be beside her...and I know I also say the words with selfish intent.

  There is no way she would choose me over the others. Not the way that I have treated her thus far. Not with so little time to rectify it.

  “If we plan this right, you won’t have to choose just one power, or one of us. You can have it all.”

  23

  Octavia

  Seems I didn’t have to be the one to say it. I can’t even begin to describe the weight that lifts off me at Flynn’s suggestion. If he believes it could work, maybe it isn’t such a crazy idea after all. Misguided and risky, yes, but crazy…we will see.

  I’m not about to make this decision unless everyone is on board. I text Kendall and Cedric to meet us here as soon as possible, but I can’t get myself to sit still while we wait. I desperately need a shower, and Draven probably needs medical attention, but he almost yells at me when I suggest it.

  “If you think I am going to leave now and leave this up to the rest of you without me, you are sorely mistaken,” he says.

  “Fine. But we need at least get you out of these clothes.” I nod at Flynn and he steps over to help.

  Draven winces again. “I’d rather you do it, Octavia. I always imagined you would be undressing me eventually.”

  Both Flynn and I roll our eyes, but I hide the fact that his words send a little thrill through me. I climb up beside him on the bed and start carefully removing the rest of his shirt. Flynn sees me struggling and hands me a pair of scissors.

  Since Flynn just seems to be standing around, I ask him to head up to my room and grab something clean for me to wear. I catch him opening his mouth to protest, but I’m not having it. “I know you can get in. Please, go. I’m not leaving Draven until I know he is going to be okay.”

  “I’ll be just fine, with you here by my side.”

  “If you’re really so fine, why don’t you get up and go take yourself a shower?”

  Draven struggles to get back to his feet. The potion might have healed his wounds, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he’s lost a lot of blood. He almost immediately sits back down again.

  “Fine. Proceed.”

  Flynn promises to be back soon and leaves me to finish cutting off the rest of Draven’s shirt. I peel off the last of it in long, sticky swaths. When I reach for his belt, a sly smile creeps across his face.

  “Wow, moving a little fast?”

  I respond by whipping off the belt with a flourish that sends it skittering into the corner of the room. “Now, are you going to help me help you out of these pants, or am I going to have to cut them off too?”

  Removing his pants turns out to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. Fortunately for both of us, Flynn is back faster than I thought humanly possible and crouches down beside me to help. Between the two of us, Draven is soon laying on the bed in nothing but tight black boxer briefs.

  I make Flynn check to make sure the showers are empty and stand guard while I rinse the blood from my body. As soon as I’ve toweled off, I get a good look at the clothes he picked out for me.

  He certainly has a very different sense of style than I do. I guess I never really would have imagined short skirts and cropped tops were his thing. I would think he grabbed it on accident, if it weren’t for the carefully coordinated black lace bra and panties set he picked out as well. I know the state of my underwear drawer. It would take some time.

  The thought of Flynn carefully looking through my underthings is actually kind of...well...hot.

  The rest of the outfit is something I would never pick out on my own. It shows more of me t
han I usually like, but there isn’t time to go to my room and change. As soon as Flynn sees me his eyes bug out, but I try to ignore it and head back to his room and to Draven before anyone else sees me.

  Almost as soon as we get there, Kendall and Cedric burst into the room together.

  They pause and surveil the scene, their eyes roving over Draven’s near naked body on the bed, the bloodstained rags on the floor, and me, dressed in clothes that barely cover my most basic assets, crouching beside him.

  Once everyone has been assured that no, it is not my blood and yes, Draven is going to live—I start trying to tell them what’s going on. I find myself shifting a little self-consciously on the bed. I guess I never really realized just how big these guys are. Each of them has to be over six feet tall and well-built, especially for being what—seventeen or eighteen? The four of them take up all the space in the room...and being around them all at once makes it difficult for me to clearly articulate my thoughts.

  So Flynn steps in and does it mostly for me. He fills Kendall and Cedric in on the theory about how I was going to be a triplet, and how he thinks that since I haven’t technically violated the terms of the affinity ritual, I should not be made to choose just one of my powers.

  “Wait,” Kendall cuts him off there. “You mean she should what, date all four of us?”

  “It makes sense to me.” Everyone turns to Cedric, more than a little surprised. I never took him as the type that was particularly inclined to share. Whitney said as much on multiple occasions. But while everyone is looking at him, Cedric looks decidedly, and very intensely, at me. “Octavia, you were never meant to be normal. Your destiny was decided before your own birth. If this is what it takes for you to flourish, and for me to be there by your side...then I say we give it a chance.”

  “Hold on.” Draven sits up. I realize that he hasn’t expressed an opinion about this yet, even earlier. “Just because Octavia is bound to the four of us, it doesn’t mean she has to be romantically involved in order for her powers to work. Right, Flynn?”