by Cara E Holt
Rafe laughs nervously before responding. “Let’s just say I wasn’t always on my best behaviour.”
Meara’s eyes light up in interest and she leans forward in her seat, resting her head on her hands. “Tell me more.”
He shrugs. “I played a prank on one of our professors and got caught out and well with my rap sheet it was kind of the final straw.”
Meara grins. She was a sucker for a bad boy. “You don’t look like a bad boy Rafe?” She winks at him. “Especially not with those cute glasses.”
Drayce leans in to my ear. “She’ll eat him for breakfast,” he whispers to me, smiling.
I grin back. “Maybe Rafe enjoys being breakfast.”
I sit back and watch as Rafe and Meara chat away. I’ve never seen Meara be flirty. She is always serious and looks bad ass and I think she intimidated most of the guys at the academy, but Rafe didn’t seem to be at all.
I leave them chatting as I head over to grab another water bottle. I reach into the fridge and grab another bottle and as I turn; I bang straight into someone.
“Watch it,” I hiss. My bottle tumbles to the floor.
“Maybe you should watch where you are going,” Barks a voice I know all too well.
“Sereia,” I deadpan.
She bends down and picks up both our bottles of water and hands me back mine. “Here you go,” She says with an overly sweet smile before she stalks away and sits back down at the far end of our table. She was always there in the background, like a foul smell that lingers.
I take my seat back beside Drayce and he leans into me, resting his hand on my lower back. “Is everything okay?”
I nod as I open my water and take a drink. “Yeah, just Sereia being her usual self.” I look over to find Sereia watching me with a smug expression on her face. I stare back at her and give her an eye roll before I look away and watch the foreplay between Meara and Rafe.
Rafe has his next class with me, so after a quick goodbye kiss with Drayce we walk together to our Herbology class. “So, it looks like you and Meara hit it off?” I say with a smirk.
Rafe laughs nervously and runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah she seems nice. Is she err dating anyone?”
I grin. He likes her. “No, she is very single and ready to mingle?”
Rafe arches a brow. “Did you really just say that?”
I wince and nod. “Yeah, I did. It’s the kind of thing my friend Norah would say, she’s kind of rubbed off on me.”
Rafe nods and bites on his lower lip. “Is that Norah De Meath? The girl who was taken?”
My smile drops and I look down at the books clutched in my hands, unable to meet his eyes. “Yeah, that’s her. She was always ready with a one-liner or some sexual innuendo.”
Rafe lightly touches my arm. “I’m sorry about what happened to her. It must be hard.”
I nod, giving him a tight smile. “It is. I just have to hope that she is okay, and that she is find her soon.”
“Rumour is that it’s the work of the HDS.”
I scoff and shake my head. “Don’t believe everything you read in the Wiccan Herald. This was the work of a rogue vampire, not some secret society.”
Rafe looks at me in surprise. “A vampire?”
I remind myself I need to be careful about sharing too much information. “Yeah, that’s what’s being said around the academy, anyway.” We come to a stop and I gesture at the door. “Here we are.”
As Herbology class progresses, I felt itchy and agitated. The professor reprimands me twice for my fidgeting. Was it hot or was it me?
“You okay?” Rafe asks, leaning over with a look of concern on his face.
I nod. “Yeah. I’m just hot.” I scratch at my face. “And I’m itchy.”
Rafe frowns and leans over and feels my forehead. “You are warm.”
I lean back in my seat and try to listen to the professor when a horrendous smell hits my nose and I gag. What was that smell?
The girl in the seat in front of me turns and sniffs the air and then looks at me. Her eyes widen and she points at me. “Putrid pox.” Suddenly all eyes are on me and everyone gags and holds their noses. I put a hand up to my face and feel large bulbous boils on my skin, one appears on my hand, it is purple and the smell it emits is horrendous.
The professor holds her nose and points to the door. “Elara, get to the infirmary right now, please.”
Flushing bright red in the face and trying not to gag at the smell, I rush out of the room as quick as I can. One of the boils bursts on my face and purple mist emits from it and the smell nearly knocks me out. I rush to the infirmary on the other side of the school grounds, but unfortunately I don’t make it before the bell goes and students start to spill out of the classrooms. People point and gag, rushing to move away from me, as I hurriedly walk past them. Some laugh and take their phones out and take photos. I want to die with embarrassment. I spot Drayce up ahead, leaning against his locker, laughing and joking with Thorin. Great! I really did not want him to see me like this. The shouting jibes and gagging noises are however hard to ignore, and I see him turn and look and his eyes fall on me and widen.
He jogs up to me and I see him rear back when the smell hits him. “Raven, what happened?”
I shake my head as I continue to walk speedily with my head down. “I don’t know. It started in Herbology.”
I watch him try to hide a gag, as he wraps an arm around my shoulder and hurries me along the corridor and out through a side door.
“Mother goddess,” he exclaims as he pulls the neck of his school jumper over his mouth and nose.
“This is so embarrassing,” I wail, as I try not to inhale the god-awful smell that the boils emit.
We make it to the infirmary and the school medic takes one look at me and ushers me into a side room.
“Oh, dear.” She whispers a spell, and a mask appears on her face, covering her mouth and nose. She waves her finger at Drayce and one appears on his face. “Take a seat, my dear. You have a nasty case of putrid pox.”
“Can you treat it?” I ask in desperation. I wasn’t sure I could take much more of the smell.
The medic grimaces. “I’m afraid you are just going to have to wait it out. They will all burst over the next few hours. Once they have burst, I can put some elderflower tonic on them to help them heal.”
“So I have to ride this out?” I ask her in horror. “Fuck!” I exclaim as one on my hand pops loudly and it releases a purple mist. “How has this happened?”
The medic shakes her head. “There’s only two ways you can get putrid pox. First, by coming into contact with someone else who has them, or by drinking griffin saliva.”
I shrivel my face up in disgust. “Griffin saliva. As in their spit?”
The nurse nods. “When I was younger, I remember a girl in my class putting griffin saliva in her ex-boyfriends milk shake to get revenge for him cheating on her. Have you upset anyone recently?”
I frown and shake my head. “Not that I can think of. Unless..,” I look at Drayce. “Sereia. That bitch!”
Drayce shakes his head. “Nah, Sereia wouldn’t do this.”
I glare at him. Was he really defending her?
“This is the girl who has planned her entire life on being your wife. You saw how she reacted to our engagement.” I gasp, “The water! The conniving bitch swapped my water in the cafeteria when she bumped into me.” I replay the event in my mind and her passing me my water and giving me a sickly sweet smile. “I will kill her when I get my hands on her.”
Drayce swears under his breath and rubs my shoulder. “Maybe you contracted it from someone else? Let’s not jump the gun here.”
I push his hand off my shoulder and snarl. “She did this, and she is going down.”
When I get my hands on that little bitch I would make her rue the day she crossed me.
THE MIRACLE OF MAKE-UP
I end up spending the rest of the day in the infirmary. The medic insists Drayce leave
s and attend his classes and he promises me he will come back at the end of the school day. I spend the rest of the day holding my breath and jumping every time one of the damn boils bursts. The worst ones are the ones on my scalp, as when they burst they leave a sticky residue in my hair.
I look through my phone and there are posts of me on the school Wiccagram walking through school with huge purple boils all over my face, with hashtags like ‘#Latimerlurgy’ and ‘#poorgirlgerms.’ I find Sereia’s account and growl aloud when I see what she has posted. ‘Stay away from Latimer or you’ll catch something nasty. Purple really isn’t her colour.’ followed by a puking and a poo emoji. I was the laughingstock of the school.
There’s a knock on the door and Rafe pops his head round, wearing a mask. “Can I come in?”
“Are you sure you want to?”
Rafe walks in the room and takes up the chair at the side of my bed. “The medic gave me a tonic before I came in, so I’m good.” He looks over at me and grimaces. “How are you feeling?”
I sigh. “Like I have had disgusting boils popping all over my body all day long.” I cross my arms as I fight my anger. “I will kill her for this.”
“Who?” Rafe asks curiously.
“Sereia Balfour. She did this. She swapped my water when she bumped into me this morning.”
Rafe nods. “Yeah, I’ve only spoken to her twice but I can believe it of her.” He leans in and winks at me. “I am the king of revenge ideas honey. Between me and you, she’ll wish she was never born.”
I can’t help smiling despite being furious. It looks like I had a wingman in my revenge plot. Rafe stays with me for about half an hour and he leaves, promising to go away and come up with a dastardly evil scheme to make Sereia pay for what she has done to me.
Drayce comes back after football practice and the Medic declares that all the boils have burst and that I’m over the worst of it. She applies a water based tonic of elderflower to the sores and advises me to put it on every couple of hours.
“How do I look?” I ask Drayce as I put my shoes on ready to leave.
He nods. “You look fine.”
I can tell he’s lying.
As we leave the infirmary I hesitate at the door and glance out into the corridor, checking if anyone is there.
“There’s no one around raven. It’s dinner. Everyone is in the cafeteria.” He wraps an arm around my shoulder and urges me out of the room.
“Can we go the long way round? I don’t want anyone to see me.”
Drayce squeezes my shoulder. “Come on. I know a short cut that no one uses much.”
We make it back to the senior fire house without seeing anyone. There a few bodies in the main room as we enter the house but they don’t see us and we make it to our room. I sigh with relief as the door closes and I pull my hood down. I head straight for the mirror in the bathroom.
“Raven wait,” Drayce shouts, chasing behind me.
I look in the mirror and groan. Although the boils have all gone, there are red scabs on my face and neck where they have burst and are healing. “Just great. I have to walk around looking like this.”
Drayce comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me, resting his chin on my shoulder. “You’re still beautiful, scabs or no scabs.”
I sigh and shake my head. He was ever the charmer. “You’re just saying that.”
He spins me round until I am facing him and leans in and presses his lips to mine. “You could have horns and green skin and you’d still be gorgeous. That first time I met you I was so determined to hate you, but then I saw you and I was like damn, why does she have to be so stunning.”
I bite my lip and look up at him. “For real?”
He grins. “For real raven. Your beauty took my breath away.” He runs his thumb over my lower lip. “Full, rosy, kissable lips.” He takes a piece of my hair and wraps it around his finger. “Glossy, ebony hair that shimmers in the light.” He looks deeply into my eyes. “Beautiful, soulful green eyes.” His hand grasps my bottom. “A body that most girls would kill to have.” Then he rests his hand over my heart. “And a heart that is good and honourable.” He leans in and kisses me again. “You knocked me off my feet, girl.”
I can’t help but smile. He always knew the right thing to say. “Did you just quote from an MJ song?”
Drayce shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe,” he says, taking my hand and tugging me towards the bed. “Come on, let’s veg out in bed and watch movies.”
I moan out loud as I allow him to pull me along. “That sounds like heaven. Do we have chocolate in?”
I wake the next morning and hear the shower. The space beside me in the bed is empty. I touch my face and feel the scabs. I think I’ll take a sick day today and hide out here. There’s a knock at the door and groaning I walk to the peephole and look through.
“Come on, pox girl. Let me in.”
I open the door and glare at an all too perky Meara. “What do you want? It’s early and I’m grouchy.”
Meara holds up a cream make-up case. “I am here to make you beautiful again.” Meara pushes her way past me, just as Drayce walks back into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. I eat him up with my eyes as he walks over to the wardrobe and pulls out his clothes for the day.
“Drayce called me and asked me to come to the rescue.”
Meara walks over to me and grasping my chin, she turns my face one way and then the other, inspecting me. “Ah, we can cover this up, easy.” She winks at me and gently pats my cheek.
“Someone’s awfully cheerful today,” Drayce observes as he pulls his school shirt on and fastens up the buttons.
“Yeah, spill,” I say as I scrutinise her. Meara was never this perky and pleasant in a morning. Ever.
Meara shrugs and tries to look nonchalant, but fails. “Let’s just say, I got lucky last night.”
Drayce looks at me, and I grin and hold up my hands. I am as clueless as he is.
“Who is the lucky guy?” Drayce asks. “I hope you didn’t scare him away with your hoofed feet.”
Meara throws a fire ball his way, and he laughs and ducks.
“Rafe?” I ask her and she fights a smile. “Oh, my god! You slept with Rafe.”
Meara doesn’t look me in the eye as she gets out her make-up kit and sets it out on the table. “Well, there wasn’t much sleeping going on.”
Drayce whistles. “Looks like Rafe is a fast mover.”
She sighs and bites her lips. “He certainly knows some moves.”
“You like him,” I say with a grin
She looks over at me and shrugs before she points at Drayce. “Do not drop that towel in my presence. Get your arse in there and get dressed and then Elara can shower and I can make a start on making her beautiful again.”
Drayce snags me by the waist as he walks past me and nuzzles my neck. “She looks beautiful now.”
Behind his back, Meara puts her finger in her mouth and makes a gagging sound and I chuckle.
“Go and get ready and let me and Meara have girl talk.”
As soon as Drayce goes I grab her hand and drag her to sit down on the sofa. “How, when, where?”
Meara tries to fight it, but a shit-eating grin spreads across her face. “We were just hanging out, talking you know and flirting playfully and the next thing I know, I dived on him and kissed him and, well one thing led to another, and another, and another.” She smiles, chewing at her bottom lip.
“Wow! Who knew Rafe was a warrior in the bedroom?” I shake my head as I take in what she has just shared. “So was it a onetime thing?”
Meara chews on her lip, looking conflicted. “I’ve felt this instant attraction before but when we were together, it felt like we connected on a whole other level. I like him Elara, like a lot.”
“Like true mates a lot?”
She nods and I dive on her and hug her hard. “I’m so pleased for you Meara.” I pull away from her and find her looking all vulnerable and uncertain.
“What if he doesn’t feel the same Elara? What if it was just sex to him?”
I shrug. “There’s one way to find out? Ask him?”
Meara looks at me like I have grown three heads.
“At least you’ll know one way or the other and if he doesn’t, then I’ll be here to help you pick up the pieces,” I say.
Meara lets out a big breath and nods. “You’re right. I’m a fearless woman. I will tell him how I feel and ask him if he feels the same.”
Drayce comes out of the bathroom and interrupts our girl’s moment. “Shower is all yours, raven.”
Twenty minutes later Meara has worked her magic and I look my normal self. She has covered all the red scabby sores that my body were visible.
“I will hex that bitch so bad she will not know what has hit her,” I growl in promise.
Drayce grabs my hands and uncurls my fists. “Let me deal with her, okay?” I roll my eyes and he holds a hand up. “Before you protest, you forget I have known Sereia a long time, which also means I know some of her secrets, ones she would not want getting out around the academy or back to her parents.”
I grin, my eyes gleaming with curiosity. “Oh, come on, you have to share.”
Drayce taps me on my nose, “Maybe later. Right now we need food before class.”
People snigger and giggle as I step foot in the cafeteria. Anyone who giggles as I walk past them gets a death stare from Drayce and they soon shut up. Drayce pulls me down to sit beside him and wraps an arm around my shoulder, protecting me and giving me reassurance.
“How are you Elara?” Ivelle asks me with a sweet smile, showing genuine concern.
“I’m okay.” I flush with embarrassment.
“Well, look who’s all recovered,” Sereia says as she swans up to the table with her two cronies, smiling like an innocent doe.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Drayce asks her coldly, his hostile eyes burning into her and making her flinch.
She flicks her hair over her shoulder, trying to maintain her composure. “What does it look like, silly? I’m sitting down to eat my lunch.”
