by Lola Gabriel
“Aw, that’s not so bad!” Stella, one of the dragon twins next door, had told her when she and her sister, Shauna, had gone to her room to apologize for their fight. “I’d love to have a room of my own instead of sharing one with Shauna here.”
“As much as I hate to admit it, sis, I agree,” Shauna had said. “Having to live in the same room as you for twenty-three years was already punishment enough.”
“Hear, hear.”
Since Ellen was alone, Stella and Shauna had sort of adopted her against her will, dragging her along to the library or the cafeteria or the student lounge, where people of all species and grades would hang out and watch movies or a TV show or even gather for a book club.
Maddox had also introduced Ellen to his best friend, Oliver, who had come up to them one day at lunch, slapping Maddox’s back in greeting.
“Hey, prince boy, you never told me what happened to the—” It was at that point that he’d finally noticed Ellen, and he’d let out a surprised gasp. “Oh, crap, I didn’t—sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
“Don’t worry, that’s okay,” Ellen had said, mostly because Maddox had been staring at him like he was really glad his friend hadn’t finished whatever he was going to say, and he’d blushed while doing it, which Ellen always wanted to see anyway. “Hi, I’m Ellen. You must be Oliver. Maddox has told me a lot about you.”
Oliver, a vampire like Maddox, had smirked, the tips of his fangs showing over his lower lip.
“Only the bad things, I assume?” he’d joked, shaking Ellen’s hand.
“No, I asked about those myself,” she’d replied.
Oliver’s smirk had turned into a mischievous grin, and he’d glanced at Maddox out of the corner of his eye. “I like her.”
Third, and most surprising of all, Maddox and Oliver had encountered Ellen, Stella, and Shauna at the student lounge while they were watching the new episode of a silly human sitcom, and after some introductions, the five of them had stayed to watch the show’s entire season until they had all passed out. A security guard had woken them up in the early hours of the morning, sending them to their rooms, but only after the five had promised to repeat the occasion sometime.
It was… nice—really, really nice, actually, to be making friends as easily as Ellen had when she was a little girl. The students she’d met and befriended had not made a big deal about her being an angel, which she was incredibly thankful for. Oliver had once asked her if she had wings and could fly with them, like humans thought (she didn’t), and Shauna had asked if she truly had a sort of defense mechanism (she did), but other than that, they didn’t treat her any differently than they would a member of their own species or just another student at the campus.
Ellen was brought back to the present by Shauna snapping her fingers in front of her face.
“Earth to Ellen?” she asked, her tone indicating that she’d been trying to get Ellen’s attention for a while. “Did you go to the moon or something?”
“Sorry,” Ellen apologized. “I guess I got distracted.”
“No kidding,” said Shauna. “There’s nothing stopping you from just leaving if you’re not interested in studying with us.” At this, she gestured to the door of her and Stella’s room, closed so they would get some peace and quiet to study for an upcoming test. The twins were sitting on their respective beds, and Ellen had made herself comfortable on a beanbag chair on Shauna’s side of the room.
“No!” Stella cried. “Shauna, stop being an ass!” Her sister started to protest, but Stella turned her eyes to Ellen, and her gaze was pleading. “Please don’t go! I need you to help me; Shauna’s useless at it!”
“I’m not leaving,” Ellen said with a smile. “I just got lost in my own head a bit.”
“More like ten minutes,” Shauna teased her, deciding to ignore her sister’s comment about her being useless at helping her. “Thinking about a certain someone, are you?”
Ellen looked at her in confusion. “What?”
“Oh, come on,” her friend said.
“Shauna,” Stella interjected. “Are we really doing this now?”
Her sister looked at her, and they seemed to have some sort of non-verbal conversation through their gazes, because they stared at each other for a long time without saying a word.
Ellen could do nothing but watch the eerie interaction. She was used to the twins arguing and fighting with each other, and she’d had to step between them once or twice when their fights started to escalate so they wouldn’t burn down the entire building.
Then they both looked at her, and Ellen braced herself for whatever they had planned on doing.
“Don’t play dumb,” Shauna said, as if their conversation hadn’t suddenly stopped and resumed. “We see the way you look at him.”
“At who?” Ellen demanded, even more confused.
“At a certain vampire,” Stella answered in a sing-song voice.
The image of Maddox laughing immediately came to Ellen’s mind, and she tightened the grip she had around a pen. She hadn’t been thinking about him, but now she was, and just by the looks on the twins’ faces, they knew it.
Shauna leaned her cheek on her hand. “And there it is again.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ellen replied. She turned her attention back to her Immortal History book, which was the subject they were studying, but her friends were not going to let her change the topic that easily.
“He’s pretty cute, you know,” Stella said helpfully, like Ellen didn’t already know he was.
“And he’s a prince,” Shauna added. “So bonus points to him.”
“You’re both being ridiculous,” Ellen snapped, trying to push any thoughts of Maddox out of her head, but it seemed impossible. She couldn’t stop thinking about his chapped lips, his gorgeous smile, his musical laugh, his dark brown eyes, his cheeks coloring pink when he blushed.
“Ellen.” Stella, cross-legged, hopped closer to the edge of her bed, like she was trying to reach Ellen. “Girl, it’s totally okay for you to have a crush on him.”
“Of course it’d be,” Ellen agreed, “if I did.” Because she didn’t. Not at all. She and Maddox were friends. It wasn’t like they were always alone, or like they only paid attention to each other and not to the rest of their five-person group. She didn’t know where Shauna and Stella had gotten such an idea.
Yes, sometimes they sat a little too close when they watched something at the student lounge, but there was only so much space for them to sit on. She was the only one who wasn’t bothered by the natural coldness of Maddox’s skin, so it was only logical that they sat next to each other. Yes, sometimes Maddox laughed a little louder at Ellen’s jokes, but that was not on her. It wasn’t her fault that Maddox liked her sense of humor. Yes, sometimes they did hang out on their own, just the two of them, but it was usually either to have lunch, like they had used to when they’d first met each other, or to do their homework together.
Yes, sometimes their gazes lingered a bit too long when they made eye contact, but Maddox’s eyes were beautiful, and there was nothing wrong with Ellen wanting to appreciate that beauty.
Her phone dinged with a text, and she immediately pulled it out of her pocket and glanced at the screen.
We’re still on for tonight? – Maddox
“Speak of the devil,” Shauna muttered, and Ellen glanced up at her, alarmed.
“How did you—”
“Your eyes go all soft and relaxed whenever you get a text from him,” Stella told her.
“And the smile on your face is different than your usual smile,” Shauna said.
Ellen, not knowing how to respond to those observations, went back to her phone and texted a reply.
Hell yeah, she typed. 8:30, right?
“We’re not gonna keep bothering you if you really don’t want to talk about it,” Stella went on. “But he’s got a crush on you, too.”
Ellen nearly dropped her phone, her friend’s words so une
xpected that she had to replay them in her head in order to understand them. How had Stella come to that conclusion? Why? What made her think that Maddox, Vampire Prince, had a crush on her?
“No, he doesn’t,” she said, because her brain refused to believe it.
“Yes, he does,” Shauna insisted. “We’ve also seen the way he looks at you.”
Her phone dinged again, but it took Ellen a few seconds to look at the text Maddox had sent her. Just like with Stella’s statement, this one echoed in her head, replaying itself over and over and over again.
Ellen would have noticed if Maddox looked at her differently than he looked at everyone else, right?
That’s right! read Maddox’s message. See you there!
“Look,” Ellen finally said, putting away her phone and addressing the twins. “There’s nothing going on between Maddox and me. We’re just friends.”
Stella and Shauna didn’t say anything else. They simply looked at her, then at each other, and then sighed quietly, going back to their respective books of Immortal History.
Ellen did the same, forcing herself to focus on the textbook in front of her and not on the anticipation of meeting up with Maddox in the library to work on essays they needed to turn in after the weekend. She forced herself to push everything the twins had told her out of her head, despite her head desperately clinging to their words, wanting to keep replaying them until they were engrained in Ellen’s synapses.
Besides, she thought, any kind of union between an angel and any other species would be detrimental to both of us…but especially to him. He’s the Vampire Prince, and I’m…I’m just an angel.
Ellen had always been proud of who and what she was.
Now she wasn’t so sure anymore.
4
“Are you finally going to make a move on her tonight?” Oliver asked the second Maddox put his phone away.
“I’m sorry, who are we talking about here?” he demanded.
“Ellen!” his best friend replied. “Are you finally going to make a move on her and spare the rest of us the suffering?”
Maddox felt his entire head heat up at the question. He hated that he got so flustered so easily, but how was he supposed to respond to that? He settled on stuttering out, “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” though that was a bald-faced lie.
When he was with Ellen, everyone within a fifty-mile radius could probably tell that he had a hopeless crush on her, except that ‘crush’ wasn’t the appropriate word for it, because what Maddox felt went beyond the childish, innocent feelings a crush entailed.
Being away from her was painful in a way Maddox couldn’t explain. He wanted to be with her at all times, even if it meant sitting with her in silence for hours on end. He loved hearing her jokes, because she always smiled when he laughed at them, and if there was anything that Maddox loved more than her jokes, it was seeing Ellen smile. It was seeing her adorable dimples. It was seeing the small crinkles around her bright eyes as they lit up, sparkling with joy.
“Dude,” Oliver said. “If you don’t make a move, she’s gonna end up doing it.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Maddox said, rolling his eyes in annoyance.
“Maybe, but I’m not blind!” his friend protested. “And neither are the twins, by the way. We can tell that you’re both just waiting for the other one, and it’s getting really tiring.”
“Wait, have you and the twins talked about this?”
“Of course we have,” Oliver answered.
“When?” Maddox asked in disbelief.
“When you and Ellen cuddle on the couch while we watch those stupid human war movies.”
Maddox’s tongue twisted inside his mouth, refusing to cooperate, which turned into him sputtering nervously.
“Cuddle?!” he ended up nearly screaming. “We don’t cuddle!”
Oliver shrugged. “If you say so.”
Maddox decided to ignore him and just start getting ready for his… not-date with Ellen at the library. They were just going to work on their essays together, and the only reason it was going to be just the two of them was because Oliver, Stella, and Shauna didn’t like doing homework quietly. Oliver had always done his with loud music, while the twins needed to have some white noise so they could “work properly”.
Sure, they could take notes for their essays on their own, but why would they do that when they could peacefully work together in comfortable silence?
Besides, Maddox was pretty sure that Ellen wasn’t interested in him in any way whatsoever, much less in the way Maddox was, with his weird, inexplicable feelings. She was just a nice, funny, friendly angel whose friendship meant the world to Maddox, and he was not going to do anything to risk it.
Luckily for him, Oliver seemed to drop the subject, because he didn’t say anything else in regard to Ellen. But when it was time for Maddox to leave, his best friend waved goodbye at him with a suggestive raise of his eyebrow and a smirk.
“Go get her, champ!” he called out.
Maddox slammed the door of their dorm room shut behind him. He stomped his way out of the dorm building, believing that if he did so hard enough, he would also stomp out the thoughts starting to form in his head about him and Ellen being together in a more-than-friendly manner. He suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about her adorable dimples and about how much he wanted to press his fingers into them as he held her head and kissed her.
STOP! he chided himself, stomping his feet even harder and shaking his head. You’re just friends! She’s not interested! You would know if she was! Don’t screw this up like you almost screwed up everything when you first met!
No, he was determined not to ruin his and Ellen’s friendship, no matter what it took.
---
“How are things going on your end?” Ellen asked, glancing up from her essay.
“Well, I’ve got maybe two pages to go, depending on whether I can sneak in a final subtopic so Professor Camden has no reason to be unhappy with it,” Maddox answered, looking at the pages he’d already written. He wasn’t exactly doing badly in Professor Camden’s class, but he didn’t want to give her any reason to criticize his work.
Then he made the mistake of looking up at Ellen, who was sitting on the chair next to his rather than on the chair across from him. The soft lights of the building’s bulbs and lamps made it seem like there was a halo around her, the gentleness of it giving her an ethereal glow, and Maddox immediately thought about the image humans had of angels: heavenly, divine, otherworldly.
Focus, Maddox!
He shook his head to himself and cleared his throat. “How, uh, how about you?”
“I think I’m almost done,” Ellen said, her bright hazel eyes scanning the pages around her. A few light brown curls were slipping from behind her ear, since her head was tilted down, and without thinking, without being able to stop himself, Maddox reached out and pushed those curls back with the rest.
Even though his fingertips barely brushed her skin, he could still feel how warm it was.
Ellen looked up at him, her eyes wide in surprise, and Maddox pulled his hand back as if he had been burned.
“S-sorry!” he stammered. “I…I didn’t—”
“No, no, it’s…it’s fine,” she said, her eyes on his.
Like the first time he had seen her, Maddox was speechless, captivated by Ellen’s beauty, frozen in place as something deep within him begged him to touch her again, to soak in her warmth as if he were a cat beneath the sun.
When Maddox started to lean in, Ellen met him in the middle, their mouths coming together like they had been made to fit, two puzzle pieces finally clicking into place.
Ellen’s lips were incredibly soft, parting beneath his to lick his bottom lip and suck it between her teeth, and Maddox hissed a little and pushed himself forward, kissing her back harder. Her eyelashes were brushing his cheeks, and when he cupped his hand around her nape, he felt them flutter and heard her contented sigh, felt her ho
t breath against his cold skin.
In the blink of an eye, Ellen had stood up from her chair, forcing Maddox to lean upwards so he wouldn’t break the kiss, and then she was straddling him, her hands on the back of his neck to tilt his head back and kiss him deeper, her tongue caressing his fangs.
Maddox choked out a moan and pulled away, pressing his forehead to Ellen’s as he gasped for breath.
“Do you…” He licked his permanently dry lips. “Do you want…I mean, do you really…” He was trying to ask if Ellen truly wanted this, because he did, but the words wouldn’t come out.
Ellen, however, seemed to understand.
“Yeah,” she said with a smile, running her hands through his hair.
“Well,” Maddox said, once more licking his lips and seeing how Ellen’s gaze followed the movement of his tongue. “As much as I hate to break…you know, this off, I don’t think this is the right place.”
“Oh!” Ellen looked around them at the mostly empty library, though there were a few students here and there who had either not noticed what was going on or decided not to pay it any attention. She turned her eyes back to him, and her smile grew mischievous. “We could go back to my room?”
The suggestion made heat course through Maddox, a sudden rush of excitement flowing through his being, and he nodded his head and kissed Ellen again.
“Lead the way,” he said.
They put their things away in a hurry, desperate to keep touching each other. Even the feeling of Ellen’s hand against his own as she guided them out of the library and to her room was electrifying.
“C’mon.” Ellen gently tugged him along. His palm tingling and burning in the most delicious way possible, Maddox followed her.
5
So. Apparently the twins hadn’t been wrong after all.
Ellen was shaking, and she only hoped that Maddox couldn’t notice it through their hands. She didn’t want him to think that she was nervous, or that she was having second thoughts, because she wasn’t. On the contrary, she was excited, eager to get to the privacy of her room so they could keep kissing and touching and whatever else might happen between them, if Maddox was okay with it.