by Rye Brewer
I huffed.
Then, praying that no one would actually give a damn, I stepped out of my room and allowed Aidan to come out after me.
Of course, we instantly drew every pair of eyes in our direction.
As Aidan and I walked side by side down the hall, him clearly still wearing the same rumpled outfit from the day before, wide-eyed stares unflinchingly watched us.
Part of me didn’t blame my classmates. Aidan and I had been famous foes since day one. Everyone knew we hated each other. The fact that such a thing was evidently not true at all had to be the plot twist of the century for the Under Realm Academy student body.
Aidan didn’t seem that bothered, humming lightly under his breath and nodding hello to everyone who had the gall to direct their shocked gazes straight at us. Much to my annoyance, he was enjoying this.
To make matters more complicated, just as Aidan and I made our way past my best friend’s dorm, Kendra opened her door. I met her eyes briefly, long enough to watch them flood with confusion, disbelief, suspicion, and then confusion again, and then firmly grabbed Aidan’s elbow to pull him along faster.
I’d deal with Kendra’s scrutiny later.
For now, I had to get away from all those prying eyes.
I had too many things to hide.
Chapter 2
“I know you probably don’t want to me to pry for more information regarding Aidan’s less-than-subtle exit from your room this morning,” Kendra sighed as we cleaned up our table at the end of our last class of the day: Botany. “And, as your best friend, I really want to respect that, but you’ve got to admit that I have a right to at least be curious.”
I snorted at my her. My best friend, who was clearly trying not to sound like she was being nosy, even though we’d been telling each other literally everything for years.
Well, almost everything.
“It’s nothing,” I insisted, sweeping up a pile of chrysanthemum leaves that would be preserved for beginner Potions classes. Apparently, Under Realm Academy liked to take advantage of Advanced Botany students in the senior class to gather necessary ingredients for other classes for free.
Not that I really minded. But still. It was the principal of it. Weren’t we supposed to be students? Not child laborers?
Kendra bit her lip and I caught her gaze. I could tell she wanted to press the issue, but she also didn’t want to overstep.
“Sneaking your sworn enemy out of your bedroom when he’s still wearing clothes from the night before certainly doesn’t seem like nothing, Moira,” Kendra replied timidly.
I frowned. Clearly, she’d chosen to take the bold route.
Trying to act casual, figuring it would be the most effective way to get me out of this sticky situation, I shrugged my shoulders and grabbed my backpack.
“Seriously,” I told her. “We were just studying and accidentally fell asleep.”
Kendra followed after me as the final bell rang and we headed to the cafeteria for dinner. Talia, our demon friend, would be meeting us there since her last class of the evening ended early on Thursdays. I felt a bubble of anxiety at the thought of adding her to this conversation. Talia was much bolder than Kendra and was a lot less likely to tiptoe around other people’s feelings. Mainly my own. At least, in this case.
Maybe it was a demon thing. Maybe it was just a Talia thing.
Either way, I knew I probably wouldn’t stand up very well to her inquisition if it came alongside Kendra’s, so I decided it was best if I ended the line of questioning before we made it to the cafeteria.
However, Kendra wasn’t quite willing to let it drop.
“But Aidan is a necromancer,” Kendra protested. “You’re a witch. Why would you be studying together?”
She had a point but I wasn’t about to concede.
“Don’t you and Luca study together all the time?” I asked her.
Luca Romanov was a necromancer like Aidan and also happened to be Kendra’s boyfriend. They were an adorably nerdy couple and an overall testament to the fact that sometimes dating outside of your own kind was a good thing.
Excluding animal shifters, of course. Dating an animal shifter was still taboo. Pretty much anything to do with animal shifters, including dragons like me, was heavily discouraged.
But I digress.
Kendra blushed at my question. “Yes, but we study different topics, of course. And it’s really just so that we can spend time together. I mean, it’s not like we spend the whole time actually studying—”
I giggled at the suggestion she was making regarding her private time spent locked away with Luca. Technically, girls and boys at Under Realm weren’t supposed to be in each others’ dorms with the doors closed, but no professors were particularly fond of having to enforce that rule, especially since it usually involved seeing far more of their students’ personal lives than they ever wanted to. For the most part, professors really only intervened when the midnight trysts were glaringly obvious or causing a constant distraction during the day in class.
“—which is why I’m confused about you and Aidan studying together,” Kendra continued. “I thought you hated him. Why would you want to spend time with him?”
I searched around in my head for a quick but believable lie.
“I’m writing a paper for history class,” I told her. “It’s about witch and necromancer alliances in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.”
Admittedly, my little fib wasn’t totally off the mark. Aidan and I did spend quite a lot of time researching the history of various magical creatures.
“Wait… we have a paper due for history?” Kendra replied, sudden panic causing her eyes to widen with alarm. “Since when? How did I miss that?”
“No, no,” I exclaimed. “It’s for extra credit. I didn’t do so great on the last paper, so I cut a deal to write a new one.”
“Oh,” Kendra sighed. She looked visibly relieved as we rounded the corner of the narrower castle hallways into the grand hall, which led directly into the cathedral-like room that served as Under Realm’s cafeteria. The long tables were already teeming with students.
“Well, I’m glad you got a chance for extra credit,” Kendra told me, patting my arm in a gesture of encouragement. She knew that history was my least favorite subject. “But why didn’t you just ask Luca for help with the necromancer stuff? I’m sure he’d be happy to help. There’s no need for you to spend all that time alone with a guy you hate just for extra credit.”
I spoke before I could think as we approached our usual table, where Talia and Luca were already waiting for us.
“Honestly, Aidan’s not that bad,” I blurted out.
Before we could sit down, Talia and Luca looking up at our arrival with casual smiles. Kendra froze and stared at me in shock.
Oops.
“What?” Talia asked, sensing both Kendra’s surprise and my anxiety. As a demon, she was good at getting a sense of the emotions swirling around in the room, even if we weren’t humans, and as easy to read.
I sighed and sat down, breaking Kendra’s confused gaze.
“Kendra? You good?” Luca asked as she sat down and absentmindedly accepted a kiss on the cheek.
Kendra chuckled and shook her head. “You two won’t believe what Moira actually just told me.”
Groaning, I dropped my head into my hands. I was pretty hungry, but even the warm food piled up on the table in front of us didn’t look appealing as I felt a blush rise to my cheeks and a squirming begin in my gut.
“Huh?” Talia replied, nudging me with her knee. “What did you say?”
I shook my head in embarrassment. I couldn’t believe I’d actually just admitted out loud that I didn’t hate Aidan. Our rivalry had been intense and long-lived. It was practically legendary. Everyone at Under Realm knew that we detested each other. Of course, given that we were spotted exiting my dorm together that morning, clearly, something had changed between us.
But personally, putting it out into
the open hadn’t quite been my intention.
“Moira just said that she doesn’t think Aidan is that bad,” Kendra giggled.
Talia whistled low in surprise. “No way.”
Luca chuckled. He was friendly with Aidan, mostly because they were both necromancers in the same year. In fact, Aidan did have quite a few friends. Where I wasn’t concerned, he was generally well-liked at school. It was sort of the same for me. Neither one of us had much difficulty getting people to at least respect us, and yet we somehow managed to hate each other for years.
I would probably never understand the complicated machinations of our relationship.
“That’s pretty monumental, Moira,” Luca commented. “What changed?”
“Apparently, he’s helping her with a history project,” Kendra replied with a mischievous look in her eyes. She was enjoying the melodrama unfolding before her, though I could tell that she was vaguely upset that I was clearly not telling the full truth about me and Aidan spending so much time together.
I felt terrible about keeping so many things from her, but I still wasn’t ready to come clean about everything. And it wasn’t like I could pick and choose the things I wanted to be honest about with her. Once she knew the truth about one, she’d know the truth about it all.
“Hey, that’s enough from you,” I snapped playfully, shoving a plate of dinner rolls in her direction to encourage her to eat rather than gossip about me to our friends.
“Wow, that’s wild,” Talia gasping, shooting me a meaningful look. “So, it’s true what I overheard about you sneaking Aidan out of your room this morning for a walk of shame? Has hell frozen over or something?”
“I don’t know,” I whined. “You’re the demon. You tell me.”
Talia snickered. “You two aren’t… you know…”
Heat instantly flooded my cheeks and I scoffed loudly, hoping that I managed to look disgusted enough at the suggestion that Aidan were secretly hooking up or something like that.
“Ew! No!” I gasped. “It’s just schoolwork!”
Obviously, I was lying through my teeth about being disgusted at the prospect of physical intimacy with Aidan. At the end of the day, I was the one who kept replaying our kiss over and over again in my head. Not only that, but I could hardly ever stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss him again, this time without the panic attack and the dragon claws.
I wasn’t ready to admit that to anyone. Not even Aidan.
“Well, that’s good,” Talia replied, nodding in satisfaction at my appropriately disgusted response. “Because Calder keeps asking me about you. Plus, don’t look now, but he’s been staring at you from across the room like a lovesick puppy ever since you walked in.”
I exhaled sharply and stabbed my fork into a carrot.
It wasn’t anger I was feeling, though. It was shame.
Calder Darkmore was a friend of Talia’s, a demon in our year. I’d had a crush on him since we were freshman. He was blond and handsome and athletic and adorably innocent for someone who had a demonic nature written into their genetics. I was overjoyed when he finally asked me out last semester, but I blew him off to spend time with Aidan.
Not that I wanted to blow Calder off. In fact, I was more excited for our date than I’d been for anything in a long time. However, as fate would have it, the dragon shifter side of me was acting up particularly bad around that time, what with fevers, sweating, fainting, black smoke coming out of nostrils… Right. Not exactly the most charming symptoms to bring along with me to a date with the hottest guy in school.
I’d enlisted Aidan for help, knowing that his necromancer abilities could help me contact my mother and figure out what was wrong with me, but I accidentally scheduled our seance for the same night as my date with Calder.
In the end, I had to cancel on both guys because my dragon shifter symptoms were leaving me physically weak and confined to my bed for an entire day. Aidan had been the one to show up at my door and question the fact that I never showed up for our meeting, which was how he got the privilege of witnessing my bizarre dragon ability of breathing fire in the first place.
When I learned the truth, and my entire life spiraled into a confusing mess of questions and distrust and heartbreak, with Aidan being the only one privy to my secret and therefore—apparently—obliged to stick by my side, I had no choice but to distance myself from Calder.
It wasn’t the right time to pursue a relationship, no matter how cute he was or how long I’d liked him for.
And then, of course, Aidan kissed me.
Ever since that kiss, my feelings had grown more and more muddled.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Calder anymore.
It was just that I happened to be spending almost all of my time with Aidan recently…
And didn’t actually mind it that much.
Plus, what Aidan and I had felt different. Deeper. He knew my darkest secret, after all. I certainly wasn’t about to reveal that side of myself to someone as gentle and innocent as Calder, especially if I couldn’t even bring myself to tell the truth to my closest friends.
I felt bad for basically blowing Calder off. But, I had confidence that he would get over it quickly and move on. He was, like I’d mentioned, the most handsome boy in school. There were plenty of girls lining up, hoping to win his affections.
Sighing, I shook my head and tried to keep myself from looking over my shoulder where I knew Calder would be sitting at the next table over with his own circle of friends.
Unfortunately, Luca was way too friendly and also terrible at reading the room.
“Hey, Calder!” He shouted, waving his hand dramatically. “What’s up, man?”
Luca and Calder were soccer teammates, so they were good friends. It wasn’t a very good idea for us to be trying to have girl-talk about Calder while Luca was present, which Talia must have realized at that moment, as she bit her lip and took an awkward sip of her black coffee.
“I’ll be right back,” Luca added, standing up from the table. “Haven’t seen him since before Yule.”
Kendra cringed when Luca stood up and hurried off to Calder’s table, obviously having no idea that there was palpable tension between our tables.
“Sorry,” Kendra apologized. “I tried to explain things were a little complicated between you and Calder.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left him hanging, and I probably shouldn’t be leading him on, even though we haven’t talked since before the holidays. Do you think I should talk to him?”
Talia shrugged. “Talking to him probably wouldn’t hurt.”
I nodded and resolved to do so as soon as possible, just to patch things up and make sure that Calder wasn’t going to harbor some kind of grudge against me for the rest of his life.
Not that I thought he would do something like that.
But, you know, just to be safe…
Taking a deep breath, I glanced over my shoulder at Calder’s table.
Luca was standing at the table, chatting animatedly with Calder, whose attention had been successfully pulled away from me.
However, someone else was staring at me.
Right next to Calder sat Aidan. His dark hair and dark eyes were in stark contrast to Calder’s golden aura, but Aidan was, admittedly, just as handsome as his friend.
Oh, yeah… Calder and Aidan were best friends.
Speaking of complicated.
Aidan caught my eye, his gaze softening for the smallest of seconds when I offered him a small, subtle smile from across the room.
At least, I thought it was subtle.
When I finally managed to break my eyes away from Aidan’s steady stare, I turned back to find both Talia and Kendra looking at me with raised eyebrows.
“It’s nothing, huh?” Talia asked sarcastically.
My temper flared at her words. Why was it any of her business who I decided to spend my time with? Who cared if I suddenly didn’t mind Ai
dan Grimsbane? People changed all the time. It was stupid to make a big deal out of it.
“Honestly, both of you,” I said, standing up and glaring at my two friends as I felt a familiar tingle of fire whisk down my spine. “It’s really none of your business.”
Then, I turned on my heel and marched out of the cafeteria without turning back. I knew I was probably overdramatic and that I would have to deal with the consequences of my weird behavior later, but at that moment, I just wanted to get away from Talia’s judgment and Kendra’s curiosity.
Plus, when my annoyance levels increased back at the table, I could also feel the dragon shifter part of me stirring with activity. I wasn’t about to whip out my claws or start snarling at the dinner table; that was the last thing I wanted.
So, I removed myself from the situation, ignoring the stares from both Calder and Aidan as I walked past and headed back to my dorm.
However, mere minutes after slamming my door behind me, I felt a slight mist hovering at the tip of my nose.
Sure enough, as I aggressively waved away the tiny cloud of damp fog, a letter dropped onto my pillow. I already knew it was from my Aunt Inez. And I already knew what it said.
All throughout the holiday break, I spent the entirety of my time at my aunt’s seaside cottage, ignoring her. I felt so angry at her that I didn’t know what else to do. She’d known that I was half-dragon shifter for my entire life and willingly conspired with my mother to cover it and keep the truth from me. Not only that, but when I reached out to her last semester and begged her to help me with the frightening and unfamiliar symptoms I was feeling, she brushed it off and insisted that it was mere stress.
Lo and behold, it wasn’t just stress. I was a damn dragon.
Aunt Inez had to know that I knew the truth, but she spent all of the holiday break acting as if I was nothing more than a moody teenager who wanted alone time. She was intuitive and smart. Surely, she figured I would discover the truth someday?
My anger had grown tenfold when it became clear to me that my aunt would continue to pretend nothing was wrong.
Still, it didn’t stop her from checking in on me. She knew that I was a dragon shifter and had probably deduced that I was going through some kind of delayed dragon puberty, convoluted by the fact that I’d previously only listened to my witch nature for seventeen years and therefore had no idea what was hiding inside my veins.
