I noticed Eugene Dipper was missing from the class and sighed. That kid really did deserve a break one of these days.
When Numerology was over, I headed to lunch with Karla, my gaze pinned on the back of Elise's head as she weaved through the crowd at Leon's side ahead of us. She glanced back over her shoulder and I quickly looked away so she didn't catch me staring, turning my attention to Karla instead.
"So…what do you usually do for fun?" I asked.
"Hmm, I like catching frogs down at the lake."
"Oh yeah?" I asked, trying to sound like that was something I'd be interested in doing.
"Yeah, they scream better than rats do when you skin them," she said conversationally and bile rose in my throat. By the fucking stars. "What do you like to do?"
I shrugged and she smiled at me. "You're interesting, Nox. How comes you wanna hang out anyway, aren't you the loner type? My friend Nicky says you never join the Harpy club for group flights."
"Yeah, I don't really do groups," I said. "Never really found a group of people I wanna hang out with for more than an hour."
She eyed me curiously then wet her lips. "I know a group you might fit into." She looked away and my heart thudded harder as I waited her out. This was what I'd been angling for, but I hadn't expected to get to the point so quickly.
"You think so?” I pushed as we headed out of Altair Halls and walked towards the Cafaeteria.
She paused, tugging me off the path and casting a silencing bubble around us. My gaze was drawn to Leon and Elise as he whipped her off her feet and threw her down on the grass a hundred yards away, falling onto her and kissing her unashamedly. I started walking toward them before I knew what I was doing and Karla caught my arm.
"Where are you going?" She frowned and I forced my eyes away from Elise with a solid lump in my throat. Where the fuck had I been going?
I looked down at Karla as I concentrated, blocking out the sounds of the two of them laughing together. "Nowhere."
"You're weird," Karla chuckled. "I love it." She tip-toed up, cupping her hand around her mouth as she leaned in close to my ear. "I think you'd fit in great with my friends."
She stepped back, biting her lip and arching her pencilled-on brows.
"Oh yeah?" I grinned darkly and she nodded then held out her hand to me.
"But if I tell you about them, you can't breathe a word to anyone else about it. Agreed?"
I could almost feel the stars watching me, urging me on, and I was sure this was the right thing to do. Even if I was slightly uncomfortable going it alone. "Agreed."
I lounged in the sun on Devil’s Hill with Leon at my side, his fingers trailing over my stomach lazily as he soaked in the sun’s rays and replenished his power. He was half asleep, but the way his thumb kept dragging along the edge of my waistband told me he was starting to get other ideas about what he wanted us to be doing. And the heat which was growing between my thighs with every touch of his fingers on my flesh said I wasn’t opposed to the idea either.
It was early evening, the sun slowly beginning its descent towards the horizon while I kept an eye on the time for my Liaison with Professor Titan.
The sound of footsteps moving along the path at the base of the hill drew my attention and I stiffened as I spotted Ryder stalking by. He still wouldn’t talk to me. Still wouldn’t really look at me either. And I was starting to be pissed about the fact that I was getting blamed for something the stars had chosen. I had no say in it. Only a choice between accepting a man I loved or turning him away forever and being cursed to never love another for good measure. So how would that have improved his situation even if I’d considered it? Which I hadn’t. Because of course I wanted Leon to be mine forever. But I was beginning to seriously wonder if that really had to be as exclusive as the research said.
I shouldn’t have been feeling like this about Ryder. Or Gabriel or Dante either for that matter. But here I was, my heart breaking as he ignored me, my soul splitting into damaged pieces at the thought of them turning away from me forever.
Leon noticed the tension in my flesh and pushed himself up onto his elbows so that he could see who was causing it. His chest was bare, the golden, sun-kissed colour of it on show for all the world and making me all the kinds of hot the sun couldn’t manage alone.
“Ryder!” Leon bellowed, waving an arm over his head as if the Basilisk Shifter could have missed the sound of him yelling at the top of his lungs or the sight of the two of us sitting alone out here. “What are you up to, dude? Come hang out.”
Ryder fell still, his glare sweeping over us and a moment later, Leon stiffened, a grunt of pain escaping him as he was snared into Ryder’s hypnosis.
With a snarl, Leon blinked hard and managed to force the hypnosis off, barking a laugh as he did so even though the look in his eyes said that whatever he’d just been gifted a vision of was all kinds of fucked up.
“If you’re going to send visions of you cutting my dick off at least be accurate with the size of it!” Leon called as Ryder turned and stalked away. “It would have made it a lot easier for you to choke me with it if you’d had the size right!”
Ryder kept walking and Leon sighed dramatically, flopping back down onto the grass.
“That’s a pretty fucked up vision to send you,” I muttered, looking down at my Lion with an apology in my eyes which he waved off.
“It’s how he shows he cares,” he said with a smirk. “One of these days I know he’ll gift me a vision of him tossing me from a cliff Mufasa and Scar style and then I know we’ll be bros for life.”
I snorted a laugh, glancing back towards Ryder just as he reached the door to the Vega Dorms and my heart skipped as he turned back to look at us one last time. He wrenched the door open and disappeared inside and I released a long breath before turning my attention back to Leon.
“You wanna go after him?” he asked me and my gut twisted in that guilty way it seemed to do a hundred times a day at the moment.
I hated it. It made me feel like being myself wasn’t okay anymore. I’d always been open with my kings about my feelings for all of them, always made it clear that monogamy wasn’t for me and yet now, just because the stars had ringed my eyes in silver I was left feeling guilt whatever way my gaze turned.
“I love you, Leo,” I breathed, leaning down to press a kiss to his lips just as his brows pulled together. It was still hard for me to say it, to admit that I was healed enough to truly even feel it, but I knew in my soul that I did. I may have been a broken girl but what little there was of me belonged to my kings. And I couldn’t deny the intensity of my feelings for them anymore.
He pulled me close, his strong arms winding around me as a deep purr started up in his chest and his tongue rolled across mine. Warmth built in my core as I pushed my fingers into his golden hair, the soft strands silken against my skin.
“That’s the first time you’ve said that to me, little monster,” he growled against my lips.
I pulled back with a frown. “No it isn’t,” I protested, shaking my head as he smirked at me, though I wasn’t sure I could pinpoint an exact time when the words had left my lips before this moment.
“Yeah it is. You’re not good with words. All the other times you thought it, it was just implied.”
I rolled my silver-ringed eyes at him and teased my fingers deeper into his hair, the purr emanating from his chest growing louder as he arched his back like a cat, all feline in that moment.
“Fuck, that feels as good as your lips on my cock,” he groaned as I slowly massaged his scalp, and he pulled a laugh from my lips. “And I love you too, little monster. Just in case I imply it too often as well.”
“You’re only saying that because I’m playing with your hair,” I teased and he smiled up at me, catching my wrist in his grip and slowly tugging my hand back out of his hair until it was laying on his bare chest instead.
“I love you, Elise Callisto,” he growled, holding my eye and making sure I felt the depth
s of those words all the way down to my soul. I bit my lip to stop myself from grinning like an idiot and he smiled mischievously as he used his grip on my wrist to slide my hand all the way down until my palm was pressed to his junk. “Now play with my balls and let’s see if you can get me to propose.”
I burst out laughing and he smiled as wide as the moon before rearing up to capture the sound with a press of his lips to mine. He kissed me with a passion so hot that I could feel his fire magic warring beneath his flesh and I was seriously tempted to let him have me right here in the middle of the school grounds. I really was one lucky bitch. This man beneath me was one of the best people I’d ever known and somehow, I’d managed to snare him all for myself. I just hoped I was enough for him, because sometimes I still felt like the fractured soul of the girl I’d once been. But when I was in his arms I felt real joy again, and I could only hope that I was giving him as much as he gave me.
A reminder pinged on my Atlas just as I was about to drag my Lion in out of the sunshine somewhere more private and I groaned dramatically as I rolled off of him, abandoning him to blue balls and leaving the ache between my thighs seriously unsatisfied.
“I’ve got to go,” I huffed and Leon chuckled as I got to my feet. “What?”
“It’s just nice to know I can get you all hot and bothered too, little monster,” Leon teased, pushing a hand down into his pants to rearrange himself and making my gaze fall on the solid ridge of his dick beneath them as he made himself more comfortable.
“Hold that thought,” I said, forcing myself to back away from the perfection of his stacked muscles. “And meet me in our room when I’m finished?”
“I’ll be waiting,” he promised, winking at me and I shot away from him at top speed as I raced to make my meeting on time.
I found the door open as I arrived and I sped through, tossing it closed behind me and dropping down into the office chair before Titan’s desk with enough force to make it spin in a full circle before using my toe to halt myself facing him again.
His lips were parted in surprise and he dropped the book in his hand to the desk with a thunk.
“Elise! You startled me. For a moment there I thought I was under siege by a gang member,” Titan gasped.
“Just a Vampire running late,” I joked. “No need for alarm.”
He chuckled softly and leaned back in his chair, his gaze falling on my eyes and studying the silver rings in them with keen interest.
“I suppose I should be thanking you,” he said lightly.
“Why?”
“I was visited by the Kiplings on the first day of term and I made quite the tidy profit on my bet, thanks to your insider tip.”
“What tip was that?” I asked in confusion.
“When you told me you wouldn’t be picking between the two gang leaders. The rings in your eyes made that choice official and the few of us fortunate enough to bet on you picking neither made a fair profit.”
I barked a laugh, rolling my eyes. “And what if I actually picked both of them? Who would have won then?”
Titan laughed loudly like the idea of such a thing was so fucking ridiculous that he just couldn’t contain it and I had to bite my lip against telling him that it hadn’t felt ridiculous when I’d gotten the two of them naked in my hotel room a few months ago.
“So, aside from the obvious, how was your summer? I hear you moved in with Leon’s family. Did you enjoy pride life?” he asked.
I wondered where exactly he’d heard that but decided not to question it. The shiny new Elysian Mates were a subject of gossip all over the school and the damn Mindys had the biggest mouths of any group of people I’d ever met. No doubt Leon had let it slip to one of them and hey presto, my business was public knowledge. Just how I liked it. Or not. But whatever, it wasn’t really worth making a fuss over after the fact.
“It was good, actually,” I admitted, pulling a piece of cherry gum from my pocket and pushing it between my lips. “Their home is...well if I’m being totally honest it’s like the polar fucking opposite to the place I grew up in. They’re obscenely rich and their house is fucking awesome, not to mention the fact that they’re seriously nice people. Too generous really and just...well it was nice to live in a place where there was always food in the fridge and no worries about bailiffs knocking on the door, let alone how nice it was to be welcomed in the way I was.”
I was still in contact with every member of Leon’s family via text or phone call pretty much every day and I had to admit how good it was to feel wanted like that. Like I really belonged somewhere after the only home and family I’d ever known had been lost to me forever.
Titan smiled warmly. “And you and Leon are happy?”
“Have you taken a close look at that boy recently? Any girl sharing a bed with him would be happy. The fact that he’s one of the best people I know only makes him cooler.”
“Funnily enough, I haven’t taken a close look at that boy recently,” Titan replied, scrunching his nose. “But I’ll take your word for it on your happiness. So...”
“So?”
“How much time did you manage to spend visiting with friends this summer, Elise?” Titan pinned me in his stare and I groaned as I leaned back in my chair.
“To be completely fair to me, Laini went away for the summer,” I said, holding up a hand against the telling off I knew I was going to be getting any minute now. “She was doing a continental library tour, visiting all kinds of dusty scrolls and book caves, so I couldn’t visit her.”
He nodded slowly. “But you kept in touch?”
“Oh yeah, we texted a bunch, and she sent me photos of all the things she was reading. She even found this thousand year old carving of a Fae queen who had six husbands and each of them had perfectly engraved coc- actually, that story may not be teacher appropriate,” I back-pedalled. “But you get the idea, we stayed in touch.”
“Okay. So how about Mr Dipper? Any visits with him? I know you weren’t massively enamoured with the idea of befriending him initially, but I saw you spending a fair bit of time in his company towards the end of term.”
“Eugene?” I asked, my heart sinking. “Erm, yeah, we messaged a little.” If I was totally honest though, I’d mostly blown him off. I was too nervous about him remembering more from the night we’d saved his ass from King and had killed Nightshade to see him face to face. I wanted a nice thick layer of time separating our meetings before I had to face him with blatant lies and a shitty friendship. But I couldn’t implicate him in what we’d done either, so I was just hoping that by the time we hung out again he’d have put that night down to a bad experience and forgotten it.
I felt even worse about cutting him out considering the fact that he’d been close enough to suicidal for Nightshade to paint a target on his back at the end of last term. But as much as I felt like a total dick for doing it, I really had been thinking of him in the long run. Me and my kings were dark creatures with blood on our hands and stains on our souls. What we’d done in those tunnels had been necessary, a fight for survival that could only have ended in death one way or another. And I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for that. Nightshade had been a predator, a monster, a fucking animal laying traps with kind words and subtle magic designed to snare so carefully that no one knew she’d trapped them until the noose pulled tight around their own necks. She’d needed to die. And I’d spit on her grave if we’d given her the courtesy of digging her one. But Eugene wasn’t built like us. He was innocent, naive. The kind of Fae who saw the world in black and white, good and evil, while people like me saw all the shades of grey and dressed myself in shadows too. And I didn’t want to corrupt him, take away his ability to hope and see good in a world which had only really ever been shitty to him. He needed hope more than the truth. But I could be a better friend to him now. I would be.
“I know he isn’t the most obvious choice for you as a friend, but...” Titan sighed, cutting a glance towards the door before levelling me with the lo
ok. The one that said I’m the grown up and I’m doling out serious advice here. “Dipper is a rare breed of Fae who appears to have been born without a fighting spirit. I don’t know if he doesn’t have one at all or if life just knocked him down so hard that he quit trying to fight back. A few kind words, a bit of time spent with someone as capable and self assured as you...a real friendship with someone who has gained so much respect in this school could really make a difference to him. I’m not asking you to carry him, but a little nudge to help boost his confidence could be all he needs. And as much as the students here are obsessed with gossiping about you and the rings you run around the kings of the academy, most of them are too intimidated to approach you, so finding other friends is only hindered by that.”
“Intimidated?” I scoffed. “Why?”
Titan assessed me for a long moment, leaning back in his chair like he was waiting for the penny to drop but I had no fucking clue what he was getting at. I’d picked up on the rest of it though and I made a silent vow to make more effort with Eugene, help him find his inner Fae and all that and give him a push to kick some ass around this school.
“There is only one person who can run rings around a king, Elise,” he said slowly. “Let alone four of them at once.”
“Oh yeah?” I joked. “And who’s that?”
“A queen. So maybe it’s time you started thinking about what good you want to do now that you’ve been crowned.”
Broken Fae Page 12