by MJ Prince
“I didn’t ask for any of this. Everything was fine before you came along.”
He runs a hand through his hair, in a gesture of frustration.
“But then you show up here, mess things up, turn the world upside down.”
He steps closer to me, so close that we’re sharing breath. It reminds me of that day in the forest, the feeling of his lips brushing against mine and I want to scream.
“I don’t want you, Jaz.”
I don’t think he could’ve hurt me more if he’d slapped me in the face just then. I need to walk away. Right now. But I stand rooted to the spot and let him dig the knife in deeper.
“I can’t want you—I can’t give you what you need. None of this can ever matter.”
And just in case those words aren’t painfully clear enough, he stabs me in the chest one more time.
“This—it can never happen.”
I feel like the wind has been knocked out of my lungs for a moment. But I don’t allow myself to feel the loss. I’ve had too much of that in my life already. So I let the anger in instead.
“So, what the hell are you doing here?” I demand, because it makes no sense. He’s looking at me like’s he’s the one who’s being torn to pieces, when it’s him doing the tearing.
“I don’t know,” he repeats those words and I force myself to look him in the eye, although the sight of him makes me feel like my insides are being shredded apart.
“Then why don’t you just leave me the hell alone.” I fill my words with venom and ice because ice can’t feel.
Raph looks like I’ve just slapped him in the face, which again makes no sense, because he’s just made it painfully clear that he wants nothing to do with me. But I’m glad to see the hurt. Good, because I want both of us to hurt.
Something seems to snaps inside him then.
“Because I can’t leave you alone!” He’s almost shouting now.
“I’m not blind—I see the way the guys at school look at you. From the first moment you stepped on campus, they all wanted you. I have no right or claim to you. But the thought of another asshole touching or so much as looking at you, makes me want to set something on fire.”
I stare at him in utter shock. When that fades, I’m left only with anger. Not the red hot anger that cares, but a deathly cold anger that numbs every fiber in my being. The whole thing is so twisted, that it makes me sick. He makes me sick.
“So, let me get this straight,” I say with a voice as cold as the stone that I’m made from and his eyes darken until they are almost the color of the night sky.
“You don’t want me. You can’t want me. None of this matters. But you don’t want anyone else to be with me either?”
Raph looks stricken, but I force myself not to care.
“Is that right?” I demand.
He doesn’t answer. His silence is answer enough. The look in those now midnight blue eyes tells me that he can’t stand to let me go, but his silence tells me that he can’t say the words to make me stay either.
“Well, you’re right about one thing—you have no right or claim to me.” My words are harsh, but I want to hurt him.
“Jaz—” He walks towards me but I hold my hand up to stop him because I can’t stand it. I can’t stand to be near him, to even look at him.
“Don’t. Please, just don’t come near me. I swear to God, I don’t ever want you to come near me again.”
The plea stops him in his tracks, and this time as I walk away, he doesn’t stop me.
21
Raph respects my wishes and keeps his distance, although the stupid part of me wishes that I had never asked him to stay away, which is utterly pathetic, given that he was clear when he told me that he didn’t want me.
It’s not like the thing between us, whatever it was, lasted for very long. It was only a couple of months, for god’s sake. But it feels like I can’t even remember a time when Raph wasn’t part of my daily routine—whether it was hating him or … otherwise. It feels like my life hadn’t really started before him and now going back to that time when Raph wasn’t a part of my daily life, feels like I’m trying to be someone that I no longer am. I’ve experienced too much loss in my life not to recognize the familiar feeling.
I keep myself distracted with classes, homework, painting, hanging out with Dani and when Raph isn’t around, with Baron, Lance and Keller, too.
But at night, I can’t deny that I miss his warmth. It’s weird that you don’t realize how alone you are, until you know what it’s like to miss someone. At the same time, the realization makes me hate myself for missing someone who clearly wants nothing to do with me.
I’m sitting in elements class like a zombie, Dani and Keller sitting next to me, trying to pay attention to what Professor Roman is saying. My gaze travels to Raph on the front row with Baron and Lance next to him. Layla is sitting in her usual spot beside him and my stomach feels the usual burn.
“Layla, you’re up.”
Almost immediately, she stands and saunters towards the middle of the field, her expression is almost gleeful.
“Pick your opponent,” Professor Roman says then.
I feel sorry for whoever would have to go up against this girl. Everything about her tells me that she’s merciless in a duel.
“I choose …” Layla pauses dramatically, seeming to enjoy the attention as the other students wait in anticipation.
“Jazmine.”
I don’t think I hear her right. Why would Layla choose me, knowing that I’m probably the least experienced person here? It’s hardly going to be a challenging sparring match. But then I realize with a sickening feeling that it’s exactly why Layla has chosen me. Of course, she knows that I’ll be no match for her and she clearly hates me. She’s going to use this as an opportunity to humiliate me and tear me to pieces in front of the whole class. Payback for what happened in swim class a couple of months ago.
“That’s hardly a fair match, given that Jazmine has just started her training,” Professor Roman says with a scowl.
Layla turns to look up at me, her eyes fierce with challenge. I see Raph getting up, his eyes cold as he turns to Layla. He opens his mouth to say something but Professor Roman is already speaking.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says looking up at me.
The rational part of me knows that I should take the out that’s being offered. There is no way I’m going to come out of this unharmed. But something inside me is not letting me back down. I raise my eyes and meet Layla’s stare unflinchingly.
“I accept,” I say simply, putting steel in my spine as I hold my head high and climb down the bleachers.
Dani and Keller are gaping at me like I’ve lost my mind. Baron and Lance have similar looks on their faces as I pass them.
Then I meet Raph’s eyes and something like concern flashes in them. But I don’t need his concern. I don’t want him to care.
I shoot him an icy look. He’s the reason why Layla hates me so much in the first place. The hate that I should feel for Layla in that moment, I direct at Raph, putting as much venom as I can muster in my stare. Raph’s lips clamp shut and he scowls as he sits back down.
I meet Layla in the middle of the field, feeling strangely calm. She looks like she’s having the time of her life. Her eyes are bright with excitement, eager to start tearing chunks out of me.
My heartbeat is roaring in my ears. My legs feel like jelly, but I won’t let Layla see that.
Layla leans over, her perfectly manicured talons digging into my forearm as she speaks.
“I’m going to enjoy this, you little slut,” she whispers.
“Now I totally understand why your poor father killed himself when he found out about you. The shame of finding out that he fathered a dirty human bastard who was selling her body must have been too great a shame to bear. No King would have been able to survive it.”
I can feel my self-control being shredded to pieces. But I force myself to breathe. She’s
trying to get to me, trying to make me lose focus and it’s working, because I can barely see straight through the rage. I shake off her arm and thrust my face up to hers so that we’re breathing the same air, so that she can feel that I mean exactly what I’m about to say.
“I’m going to tear you to pieces.”
But as soon as I say the words, I have no idea why I’ve said them, because I’m no match for her in an elements duel and we both know it. The only one that’s going to be torn to pieces is me, with Layla doing the tearing.
She just smiles at me before turning to walk away towards the other side of the field. I didn’t think it was possible for a smile to convey how much you want to kill someone. But Layla manages it.
I stand on my side of the field, desperately trying to remember everything that I’ve learned so far. Layla is pacing like a caged animal on her side of the field, ready to strike at any moment.
I clear my mind and gather my focus. The field falls away, as does the crowd watching from the bleachers. There is only the humming of power in my veins and the connection I feel to the elements around me.
Layla lashes out first, with an arc of fire which rivals Raph’s own flamethrower that I’d seen in that first elements lesson. The flames surge towards me and I only have a split second to react.
I hold my hand out, focusing on summoning a whirlwind to engulf the fire and the power rushes from my veins, connecting with the air around me to form the whirlwind. I hear the startled shouts from the crowd and I stare dumbfounded, because we definitely didn’t cover that in the training sessions. No one has taught me that and yet the knowledge of it is somewhere inside me.
Layla’s expression is shocked for a moment, but she quickly recovers and is moving again.
She retaliates with another blast of fire, this time there’s wind swirling it and she creates her own whirlwind but this one is made of flame. I react almost instantly, some primal part of me holding a knowledge that my conscious state is not aware of. I summon a wave of water which swallows the fire, extinguishing it in less than a second.
Barely conscious of my own actions, I summon lightning as thunderbolts hurl down from the sky. Ice hails down on the field as the ground rumbles and quakes. Another round of gasps breaks out from the bleachers.
The fear is clear on Layla’s face as I step forward, the storm around me raging stronger. I’m not in control of my own body. I can feel nothing, can think of nothing but the connection, the storm raging around me until I become the storm. The power is dizzying, I can feel the danger in it, something that I have never felt before because in that moment, it feels like the entire universe is in my hands and such power is infinitely dangerous.
I should stop then. But I don’t. I stretch out both my arms and the power recedes like a tsunami pulling back before unleashing its final wave of destruction. I can feel the air shifting, changing. What came before feels like nothing compared to what’s roiling in my veins in that moment.
The sky above the field darkens until day becomes night and the gasps and exclamations from the crowd becomes dead silence. Tapping into the power of night, the power which runs most potent in my blood feels exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. It feels like skydiving through the air or like drinking water for the first time after months in the desert or like taking the first breath after suffocating underwater. It feels like all of those things and none because nothing can really describe the raw power that I feel coursing through me in that moment.
I feel the shadows gathering around me, like a mist creeping along the ground, it thickens. The tendrils of darkness curl around me, ready to act on my command. The shadows are so dark that I know that if I were to release it from this darkness, none would emerge.
The power is consuming me, demanding that I release it. But something inside me stops me cold. This isn’t me. I’m not this person. I look over at Layla, let myself see what I’m about to do. The girl is frozen in place, her eyes wide with terror, the earlier venom replaced by a look of helpless fear.
Something inside me fractures as I drop onto my knees, the shadows receding and dissipating. The ground stills and the darkness disappears as I drop my head into my hands. What am I doing?
What comes next happens so fast, that I barely have time to register. The air thickens again as another arc of fire blasts towards me. I look up and catch a glimpse of Layla, her face contorting in fury as she directs the wave of fire towards me. Then there’s a flash of blinding light and something comes between me and the wall of flames, shielding me from it, moving faster than humanly possible.
It takes a moment to register that Raph is kneeling on the ground in front of me. His arms are around me as he shields me and he holds my head to his chest. His back absorbing the fire.
I pull away in shock and look up at him. Our eyes lock and something undefinable passes between us. Raph’s eyes are as dark and unfathomable as storm clouds, his expression unreadable.
Everything happens so quickly after that, Professor Roman, who had been standing paralyzed, is moving towards the field. Chaos breaks out on the bleachers.
Layla is moving towards where Raph is kneeling in front of me, a look of deadly heat in her eyes. Not a trace of the earlier helpless fear. Professor Roman is holding her back as he tells her to get off the field.
Raph doesn’t turn to look at them. His eyes are still intent on my face. I expect him to get up but he doesn’t pull away. His arms are still around me and something akin to fear spreads through me like wildfire.
“Are you okay?” Raph asks, his voice raw and thick with some emotion that I don’t understand.
“I’m fine.” I force myself to reply and at the same time force myself to let go of him.
Professor Roman dismisses the class early right then and everyone hurries away. I can see Dani and Keller waiting by the bleachers along with Lance and Baron.
“God, what the hell was that?” I ask as I stare up at Raph wide eyed and for a moment I forget how much I’m meant to hate him. That power, so raw, so potent. I’ve never felt anything like it. There was a seduction in that power, too, which made me feel like I was teetering on the edge of a knife blade. Goosebumps rise on my skin at the memory.
Raph’s eyes are as dark as midnight as he looks back at me.
“I don’t know, Jaz. I’ve never seen anything like that …”
Neither of us speaks, but we’re still standing there and it seems like neither of us wants to walk away either.
“It looks like you didn’t need all of that training after all,” he says finally, the ghost of his usual teasing smile playing on those sensuous lips. I can see that he’s still shaken, but I don’t know why because he’s made himself pretty clear about just how little he cares.
Except the way he’s looking at me just then, as if the shock of what just happened has stripped something away from him, leaving him raw and for a moment, it seems like whatever control he had been exercising all these months has finally dissipated.
Part of me is aware that we’re standing in a field with crowds of people around us, but it’s one of those moments between us when it feels like we’re the only two people in the vastness of time and space.
I feel like the entire universe is watching just then, waiting, and time seems to stop as I feel like I’m standing at the edge of that precipice again.
“Jaz, I—”
I wait for him as he seems to be battling with something in his mind. Something seems to win out and when he turns to me again, it’s with that face of stone that I saw that first day at the beach. His eyes are like glaciers, his gaze shuttered.
“I can’t do this,” he says, finally, as he turns and walks away.
I can do nothing but watch his retreating figure as the gaping hole that had opened up inside me that night of the bonfire, widens until it swallows everything in its path, leaving only the emptiness that resonates in the wake of loss.
Part of me thinks that I should be happy that it t
urns out I have powers worthy of a Dynasty heir after all. But I don’t feel that. I only feel fear at the danger that comes hand in hand with power and something else, something like fear as I watch Raph walk away.
“I’m not going to the Fall Ball,” I say for what must be the tenth time.
“Yes, you are,” Dani insists, for what must also be the tenth time.
Keller and Dani have dragged me to one of the shopping districts in Arcadia where they’re in the middle of dress shopping and ganging up on me about the Fall Ball.
They’ve become fast friends and I’m glad because, having never had even a single friend before, I don’t actually know how I ever got through the week without these two.
“You are,” Keller adds as she steps out of the boutique dressing room in a silver ball gown which suits her coloring and frame perfectly.
“I don’t even have a date,” I remind them.
“That’s not true—is it, Dani?” Keller says, with a smirk.
“Nope, Devon Waldorf asked her to go.”
“He didn’t ask me to go,” I correct. “He just said that if I didn’t already have a date, then he would go with me.”
Dani and Keller exchange incredulous looks.
“That sounds like he asked you to go,” Keller replies flatly.
“Urgh. It was weeks ago now and I haven’t spoken to him since. So he’s probably found himself another date by now.”
“Nope. Not true,” Keller says, as she unzips the silver dress and reaches for another one from the plush velvet couch next to me.
I realize then that this is my first dress shopping trip. Ever. Buying clothes was always a luxury I couldn’t afford. Now, it feels so strange not even having to think about how much any of these clothes cost. All I have to do is present the Evenstar card that Magnus has given me.
“I know for a fact that Ivy asked Devon to go, but he turned her down. He said he didn’t have a date yet, though, because he was waiting for a certain someone to accept.” Keller looks at me pointedly.
Something occurs to me.
“Wait, what? Isn’t Ivy going with Lance?”