Inside me, my Drake roared in negation. Kaitlyn was ours, he asserted passionately—ours to watch over, ours to protect. I could no more stand by and watch her fall and hurt herself than I had been able to let Sanchez get away with bullying her.
But as I sat back down in my own seat, I couldn’t help lifting my nose to catch a bit of her scent once more. Her fear had faded but the new, cold note hit my nose, making it tingle. I frowned—why did she smell so strange? So unlike herself?
I frowned as I wondered once again, what was happening to my little human?
5
Kaitlyn
“So I hear you tripped and fell right into Ari Reyes’ arms in History of Magic class this morning,” were the very first words out of Avery’s mouth the minute I sat down at our lunch table.
“Shut up, Avery—don’t tease her!” Megan exclaimed.
“Well pardon me, Princess Latimer,” Avery said huffily. “I was just curious about what our little Katydid might be up to with that big handsome Drake.”
“I wasn’t up to anything,” I said, feeling my cheeks getting hot as I looked down at the steaming mess on my green plastic lunch tray. “I tripped and he caught me—that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Avery probed. “Are you sure about that? I mean, after he punched out that brute Sanchez for you, I thought—”
“That was ages ago,” I said quickly, cutting him off. “And he was just being honorable—that’s all.”
“Honorable. Riiiight.” Avery nodded and I felt my cheeks get even hotter at what my Coven-mate was implying.
As if someone like Ari Reyes could honestly be attracted to someone like me in any way.
It was impossible—he was so tall and handsome and he smelled so good—his spicy scent still seemed to linger in my senses after the incident in my History of Magic class that morning.
Maybe he might have been interested in me if I still looked the way I had before The Fire. But not now—no one could want me now, I was sure of that. Least of all someone like Ari. Besides, I knew how his people felt about women with facial scarring or deformities. Drakes considered women like that unfit to show themselves in society.
Unfit to live.
I thought it was probable that he was just curious about exactly how ugly I really was. He probably had a morbid interest in seeing the melted side of my face up close or something—which he certainly had—at least for one horrible moment before I could cover myself that morning.
I’d had people try to peek at me before—to see what I was hiding behind my long black hair. They almost invariably recoiled when they saw what The Fire had done to me. Only my Coven-mates and little Allegra didn’t seem to see my scars—I couldn’t trust anyone else to be so kind.
“Please, Avery—don’t tease,” I said quietly. “You know Ari doesn’t have any interest in me…that way. And I wouldn’t want him to. I just like keeping to myself and staying with my friends. You know that.”
Avery’s sharp blue eyes softened a bit.
“I’m sorry, Katydid,” he said gently, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. It was his pet nickname for me and he always used it when he was being especially sweet and careful of my feelings.
“It’s okay.” I smiled back at him. I have to say, I love Avery—he is one of the best friends a girl could ask for. He’s loyal and true and protective of all of his female Coven-mates—which is basically all of us, unless you count Griffin who had become kind of an honorary member after he and Megan got together.
Avery winked at me. “I won’t say anymore. Maybe I’m a just a tiny bit jealous. I wish I could get a big handsome Drake interested in me.”
“Well, why not, now that the Edict is broken?” Megan said, smiling.
She and Griffin were sitting side by side. Megan’s long, auburn hair was tied back and she was picking unenthusiastically at the cafeteria’s latest offering. For once it wasn’t a casserole, though that hardly made it any better than usual.
Though Megan had come into her power in a big way and had the right to eat from the Sisters’ selections of food—which was almost always better than what they fed us Norms—she still got the same food that Emma and I did, out of a sense of solidarity. I wondered if she was regretting that now as I watched her look unhappily at the contents of her lunch tray.
Griffin, of course, was sipping a chilled bottle of blood. I could smell it from where I was sitting, even though he was far across the table from me. For some reason the harsh, metallic scent actually smelled good to me—appetizing. Which was crazy, right?
Huh—just goes to show how bad the food the cafeteria feeds us really is when a Nocturne’s lunch smells better than mine, I thought with a mental shrug.
“I’ve told you, the Edict might be dead magically, but it’s still with us socially,” Avery said, breaking into my weird thoughts. “Besides which, I’m pretty sure that homophobia is as much a constant companion to most Drakes as their dragons are.”
“I’m quite certain you’re right about that,” Griffin said quietly. He didn’t usually speak a lot, except to Megan, and I got the feeling he was getting used to having friends again—and belonging to a group after he had been a social outcast for the past fifteen years. “I believe it is actually against the law in the Sky Lands for two males to, er…” he cleared his throat. “Cohabitate.”
“Well isn’t that a fancy name for getting the goodies?” Avery said dryly.
Griffin shrugged. “I’m just telling you that you’re right. If you’re looking for a romantic relationship, you should probably look elsewhere.”
“Seriously?” Megan raised her eyebrows. “They actually outlawed same-sex couples? But that’s discrimination!”
“No, Princess, that’s the uber-macho world of the Drakes,”
