Absorb: Book One of the Forgotten Affinities Series

by Analeigh Ford

  “Wait, you’ve been keeping a secret from me?” Wednesday plays at being hurt, but I can tell she is baiting me.

  “I haven’t had time to process it.”

  She pauses. “So this happened recently?”

  I nod. “Right before I saw you, actually.”

  “But Kendall picked you up, you told me...” For a second she sits, confused, and then it slowly dawns on her. “What the hell, Octavia?”

  Her playful banter is gone so fast, I am the one left in shock.

  “What do you mean? We are paired. It just...happened.”

  “And then you went and immediately kissed Cedric!”

  “I thought you liked Cedric.”

  She stands and folds her arms in front of her. “That is beside the point. You are playing with my brother’s emotions, and it isn’t fair.”

  I blink several times. “I don’t mean to—”

  “He’s been in love with you forever. Can’t you see that?” She digs her hands into her hair and tugs at it in frustration. “Have you kissed the other ones too? Draven and Flynn?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Don’t say it like you’re the victim here,” Wednesday snaps at me. “For all I know you’re doing the devils tango with all four of them.”

  I fight the urge to smack her for her words. She has no idea what I have been going through. She is my best friend. Isn’t she supposed to support me, not judge me? “I thought you agreed that I shouldn’t have to choose.”

  “I have been trying to be supportive of your decision to try and keep all your powers...but you’ve crossed a line.”

  “Well what am I supposed to do?” I say. “Play pin-the-tail on the donkey with my future? I haven’t even figured out why I have more than one affinity in the first place!”

  “Quite frankly, I don’t care.” Wednesday storms over to the door and flings it wide. “It’s time you grew up and stop pretending you are the first person ever who has to make a tough decision.”

  I sit up. “But I’ve already made my decision.”

  Wednesday throws up her arms. “Then make a new one!”

  I stand slowly. I am so confused. Sure, Wednesday always had something of a temper, but she has never behaved this erratically before. “Why are you acting like this?”

  “Some people don’t have the luxury of having to choose between four boys,” she yells. “So until you’ve gotten your act together, don’t bother crawling to me for advice. I am over it.”

  She storms across the hall and into her room, slamming the door behind her so hard that it bounces open and she has to slam it again. I am left standing in my own doorway, completely shell-shocked.

  Several faces appear down the hall. Two girls stand frozen outside their rooms, but duck back inside before I get to see who they are. Great. This news is going to be all over school by tomorrow morning.

  I shut myself inside and throw my phone across the room. I immediately cringe and hope I didn’t break it again. Not after Flynn just fixed it. Whatever emotions I was feeling before are replaced by a numbness that quickly turns to anger.

  I don’t need Wednesday. I can figure this out on my own. She’ll come to her senses and realize I’m not the one behaving selfishly—she is. She’s just jealous she has no pair yet, and I have four. She has no idea how hard this is.

  There is one thing that she is right about, however.

  Homecoming is fast approaching, and I haven’t discussed my plan, or any plan in fact, with any one of the boys. I sit up and catch a glimpse of myself in the wardrobe mirror. Maybe this is exactly what I need. Something to take my mind off the crazy that is the rest of my life.

  I think it is about time I told the boys my plan. I’ve waited too long already. Both Kendall and Cedric think I’m going to choose just one of them, so chances are Draven and Flynn do as well. Now, all I have to figure out is the best way to tell them the truth.

  There isn’t exactly a guidebook on how to tell four boys that you plan on taking them all to Homecoming together.

  21

  Octavia

  I have work first thing in the morning, and if any one of the boys is going to be open to something rather...unconventional...I imagine it is Draven. I shoot him a quick text telling him I need some advice, grab a granola bar and some homework I would like to catch up on, and head over.

  I’m actually so early, it looks like Draven hasn’t arrived yet. That would be a first. I let myself back behind the bar and look for a place to stow my bag. I made sure to bring my Ritual textbook this time in case he tried to pull another fast one on me. I find a place where I can squeeze it between some cardboard cups and a large bag of freshly ground coffee beans.

  There is no musician setting up this morning, thank god, so the only sound I hear is the snoring of the clerk at the front desk. I wait a few minutes, my hands drumming anxiously on the top of my thigh while I wait. When I realize I have checked my phone a grand total of twelve times looking for some response from Draven, I just decide to try and get things set up as much as possible myself.

  I grab my apron and loop the strap over head as I kick the door open into the back. It slams against something on the ground and bounces back so hard it almost hits me in the face.

  The thing on the floor groans. I freeze. It’s a person curled up back there. I’m about to back away and yell for the front desk clerk to call the cops when that person rolls over and I see his face. It is Draven.

  And he is covered in blood.

  I slip between the door and the wall and drop to my knees beside him. I try to prop him up myself, but it takes several tries. I’m not sure he is even conscious until he groans again and stirs in my arms.

  I don’t think we are going to be making any coffee this morning.

  His left eye is swollen and the skin around it turns a nasty shade of green. He tries to wave me away, but I can tell by the way he winces while doing so that he is in more pain than he wants to let on.

  “What happened? Do I need to call an ambulance? I’m going to call an ambulance.”

  I reach for my phone, but he lifts a hand to stop me. Even now, with one eye swollen shut, the other rakes over me in a way that makes me shiver.

  “Hold your horses, Octavia. I am fine. I don’t look it, but I am going to be fine.”

  “There is no way you can work in his condition. Come on, I’m going to take you home.”

  Draven lifts his hand to block out the morning light coming in through the little sliver of open door. “Is it morning already?”

  “Yeah, and your shift’s already begun.”

  I help prop him up against the door. Every breath is accompanied by a pained look on his face. Something makes a wheezing sound deep inside his chest.

  “God, I think your lung might be punctured.” He groans again, but again refuses to let me call for help.

  “Just get me out of this shirt,” he says. He tries leaning forward, but he isn’t able to lift both his arms to unbutton it himself.

  My fingers tremble as they begin to undo the top button of his shirt and then work their way down. His chest heaves under my touch, each breath bringing with it that agonizing sound. It isn’t until I get it halfway undone that I see the source of all the blood.

  He’s been stabbed. I gasp and reach towards the wound, but my hand hovers right before, unable to touch it. I don’t bother unbuttoning the rest of the shirt. I tear it apart, the buttons popping out with a clatter around us.

  Draven glances down and scowls. “You’ve ruined my shirt.”

  “I think the blood and the stabbing ruined your shirt first,” I quip. I tug the shirt down off his shoulders as gently as I can. It would be easier if he wasn’t so, well for lack of a better word, ripped. His shoulders and arms are rounded with muscles that strain against the wet fabric. I eventually settle for halfway off and begin to carefully check his body for further damage. I gently graze another bruise on his ribs and he barks out a curse.

  G
od. What happened to him?

  “In my bag, under the counter,” he says, his voice coming out between clenched teeth. “Get the little green bottle.”

  Little green bottle, got it.

  I scramble out of the back room, letting the door shut partially behind me. I don’t want anyone to walk in and see all the blood. Though, I catch a glimpse down at myself and realize that I’m covered in blood now too. So much for that. I shake myself back into the moment.

  Enough stilly thoughts about appearances and customers, I have to hurry.

  I find his bag under the counter like he said. I fumble with the latches long enough not to notice when someone enters and comes up to the counter. I find the bottle he is talking about just as a voice speaks to me from overhead.

  I jump and scrabble back on the floor.

  I recognize him at once.

  “What’s going on here?”

  It is the same man who came in last week. He looks down at me, not in surprise or interest, but with a certain amount of disdain. I don’t have time for this. I hear Draven groan from the back room and I tighten my grip on the bottle in my hand.

  “The café is closed. Because of a...a...” I look down at my own bloodstained front, “A biological hazard.”

  “I would say so.” Something about his expression suddenly changes. “Hey,” he says, “I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

  “No!” I blurt, a little too forcefully. “Definitely not.”

  I am loud enough that I wake the front desk clerk at the other side of the hostel. I hear a rustle and a sleepy mumble come from the corner.

  The man glances over his shoulder, and then back at me. His eyes search my face until I spot a little spark of recognition.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow for my usual,” he says. He glances at the door to the back room. “Send Draven my regards and tell him to get some rest. He’s seemed a little…distracted lately.” He taps his temple and walks out, leaving me stunned for a moment.

  Then I remember where I am and I hurry back into the storeroom and to Draven. He has slumped over again. His skin is a pale shade verging on gray. I hate to think about what would have happened if I wasn’t early this morning. I can’t think about it.

  “Here,” I say, holding out the bottle like a trophy. “Tell me what to do.”

  His lips part just enough to mutter instructions.

  I pour most of the contents of the bottle into the stab wound in his side. The rest I drizzle over his swollen eye. They are the only two wounds that I can see. The bruises will just have to heal as they normally would.

  It takes only a few seconds before he is able to gasp a full breath and sit back up. As I watch, the stab wound begins to close rapidly and the swelling all but disappears from his left eye—leaving it bloodshot and a little bloodied, but not much else.

  “That’s amazing,” I say, looking down at the potion bottle in my hand. “I need to learn how to make it.”

  “Takes a long time,” Draven wheezes. He coughs and this time, there is only a little blood. “And power. Fortunately, I know a guy.”

  “Speaking of...” I tell him about his visitor. “You aren’t going to lie to me again and say he is here for free coffee, are you?”

  “He’s a member of a mage crime syndicate,” he says. “My father owed him a debt, and unfortunately, death wasn’t enough to repay it...so I am stuck cleaning up his mess ever since.”

  “Oh.” I sit back on my heels. I am a little taken aback by the sudden total honesty. It’s definitely a lot to take in. “What do they make you do?”

  I immediately imagine grisly deaths at Draven’s hands. I mean, he is used to killing in order to perform ritual sacrifices. What else could a magical crime syndicate be interested in?

  “I distill their Salamander Brandy,” he says.

  “Their what?”

  He slowly gets himself to his feet, though I try to stop him. His color is fully returned to him now, and after a couple times shrugging his shoulders to loosen them up, it is his turn to offer me a hand up.

  There is a hidden panel behind one of the larger bags of coffee grounds in the back. He shoves this aside and carefully takes out a tiny, portable cauldron on a hot plate.

  “It’s the mage drink of choice,” he says. “Not everyone can stomach the fact it’s made from boiling toxic salamanders, hence the name, but they do serve it at some school functions. It’s damned hard to make, and expensive too. You can only get the really good stuff from a small village in Slovenia, or...” he looks down at the tiny, perpetually bubbling cauldron, “right here.”

  I remember the stuff from Cedric’s the night before. One sip was all it took to make me light headed. I can’t imagine what an entire glass would do. I tell Draven as much.

  “The stuff at school, that would probably just make you sick. Its effect is more like alcohol than a true hallucinogenic. This stuff is crazy.”

  “So you’ve tried it?”

  “I couldn’t see anything...I mean, I could see, but I didn’t have my Sight.”

  “Oh wait, that’s all?” I peer down into the cauldron. Even after he told me what is in it, I still think it smells kind of nice. Not as strong as the drink at Cedric’s the other night, but there is still the slightest hint of maple syrup in the air. “I went without Sight for seventeen years, I don’t think it is all that bad.”

  “You go ahead and think that.” He carefully returns the cauldron to its secret spot and hides it again. “But go without it for one second now that you have it...and then you talk to me.”

  I glance at the cauldron again and think about what he said. “Are they the ones after me? The people you are making it for?”

  “One of many that would be very, very happy to get their hands on you,” he says. “But as long as you are near me, I will never let that happen.”

  “Look at you, acting all tough again,” I say, playfully punching his arm before I remember he is still only semi-recovered. If it hurt him, however, he doesn’t let on. “Why didn’t you call someone? It didn’t have to be me, just…someone. You could have died.”

  “I couldn’t reach my phone,” he says, crouching down to peer under the shelves. He spots it after a second and fishes it out. I can tell it takes more effort than he thought it would, as he is slightly breathless when he straightens back up. I’ve got to say, it made it out of the beat-down way better than he did.

  “What was the thing you needed advice on?”

  It takes me a second to remember that I texted him right before heading over this morning.

  “Oh yeah.” I rub a hand along the back of my neck. Draven just told me his secret, a much more dangerous secret, is it feels wrong not to tell him. But as I start, I fumble, and am not able to tell him the whole truth. Only part of it.

  “It’s about Homecoming.”

  “I’m guessing this isn’t about what kind of dress you should wear, because it’s obvious that you will look best in silk.”

  “It’s something else.”

  He sobers a minute. “The school board wants you to choose just one of us.”

  I’m taken aback. Here I am thinking this is some great secret…but so far Kendall, Cedric, and Draven have all known. I wonder if they knew even before I did.

  He sees the look of surprise on my face and chuckles. He has to stop almost immediately from the pain of it.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I always assumed you’d pick me. I am, without doubt, the best dancer. I am very good with my hands.”

  It is my turn to giggle. I’m glad to see his sense of humor made it out intact. “You mean your feet, right?”

  “Oh sorry, were we talking about dancing? I forgot. I was thinking of...something else.”

  Suddenly we are both standing in a dark room, very close to each other, with the adrenaline of the last few minutes still pounding in our veins. Draven is so close to me I can feel the heat emanating off his bare skin.

  Draven takes a half step closer to
me. He smells like musk and blood and iron and syrup. The scent is surprisingly intoxicating.

  I feel very suddenly light headed. I stumble a bit, and Draven reaches out to steady me. “I think I stood up too fast,” I lie. I feel my heart beat pounding between us and his hot breath on my face. Even in his current state, Draven holds me like I weigh nothing. His body melds into mine in a way that makes my defenses drop. He is both hard and soft. He certainly knows how to hold a woman.

  “You know, I may owe you my life now,” he says, his voice dropping low as his face lowers closer to mine. “I was losing a lot of blood when you found me.”

  My own breath comes in short gasps. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  “Now that you’re here, I am more than okay, aren’t I?”

  For a brief second, I remember what Wednesday said. I shouldn’t be here, doing this, kissing a third boy in not even as many days.

  But he is so close and so strong and he is leaning in to me and oh...I press back against him. My lips part to let his tongue dart between them. His arms squeeze me tighter. There is no sign of injury in the way he sweeps the contents of an entire shelf out of the way so he can perch me on it. The blood on his face mingles with his saliva, but I don’t even mind. I kiss him, and I kiss him hard.

  His hands find the base of my neck, the small of my back, the outside of my thighs. Never once does he let my balance waver. He’s surprisingly strong, and his touch both gentle and firm. I can imagine losing myself in him completely.

  But fate has other things in mind.

  I hear the tinkle of the bell and footsteps outside. Shoot, there is another customer.

  I force my hands to disentangle themselves from Draven’s thick hair and pull away from him. I adjust my shirt and try not to slip on the floor, still slick with drying blood. Draven follows one step behind me, looking down at the remnants of his shirt as he tries to button what is left of it.

  I prepare to calmly tell whoever it is that yes, it is blood on my shirt and no, we will not be serving coffee today. But it is not some random person impatient for their morning caffeine. It is Flynn.