31. Clay
31
Clay
“What the fuck were you thinking? That is such a gross invasion of privacy.” Ryan seethes, his green and gold eye narrowed at me.
My gut churns. He’s right, of course. I couldn’t let our relationship progress without telling her my shame, and of course, she ran.
“I’m going after her,” I say, ignoring Ryan’s protests and following her path into the administration building.
But she’s gone. There is no sign of her.
Did she fly off?
Wait, can she fly? I’ve never asked her. What if she’s like a penguin or something and is flightless?
No, that doesn’t make sense.
I spin aimlessly in the courtyard, self-hatred singing a familiar song in the back of my mind.
Yes, I invaded her privacy. Yes, I messed up. But don’t I get a little bit of credit for admitting it to her before letting her take me to bed? She never would’ve known what I had done. Literally, there was no way she could’ve known, and I told on myself.
“Stop it, Clay,” I admonish myself. I don’t get points for admitting to something I did wrong. That doesn’t make what I did okay.
She may never forgive me.
I didn’t want the only memory I had of her body beneath mine to be one stolen from Yuri, but I couldn’t keep my secret anymore. I care for her more than I probably should, and she deserved my honesty before we took that step.
Fuck.
I may have ruined things with her before we even started.
My head hurts from trying to parse out where she could’ve gone. A tug in my gut tells me to go to the library, and I may as well follow it because how much worse could it get?
“Tsk tsk, Reaper,” a gravelly voice says from behind me. “You scared off the little dragonfly, didn’t you?”
I spin around, feeling my hands starting to transform into my Reaper’s. Who does this male think he is, calling my brilliant, powerful Valkyrie a dragonfly?
“You don’t know anything,” I sneer, taking a step towards him.
He’s shorter than me, with jewel toned blue hair, and dark bags under his eyes. He carries himself the way a rockstar would, with swagger and callousness that he wears like a fur coat.
“Ah, that is where you’re wrong. Put your claws away, pussycat, and let’s chat, shall we?” He nods at my hands, and I see that my fingers have grown additional knobby knuckles and curved black nails. “Follow me, Reaper.”
I don’t know why, but I do, trailing behind the strange male. He exudes a draw that tells me he’s worth listening to. I’m not sure what he knows about me or Stella, but I want to find out.
He pulls me down a hallway of the academic building, which is normally teeming with faculty but is empty right now. The first door he tries is unlocked and empty, so he ushers me in.
The male leans against the table that occupies most of the room casually. This has to be a conference room of some sort because, besides the table, the only thing in here is six chairs. He stretches his legs out, heavy combat boots tapping on the ground. They remind me of Stella’s.
A tight black shirt stops above his belly button, showing off an ornate tattoo of jagged black points, and baggy black pants hang low on his hips. He’s like the direct opposite of myself. I know he sees it, too, because he curiously examines my worn white shirt and blue athletic shorts.
“You’re an interesting choice,” he says, finally breaking the silence.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snap. “And who are you?”
He waves my words off, rolling his eyes like I am the most unreasonable spirit he’s ever encountered. “Who I am doesn’t matter. I’m simply here to stop you from doing something stupid.” At my baffled silence, he sighs in frustration. “If you went after Stella now, you’d ruin your chances, Reaper.”
“How could you possibly know that?” I don’t think I like this male. Something about him would ruffle my feathers if I had them.
“Call it a lucky guess.” He crosses his arms over his slim chest as he looks at me critically again. “I’m trying to help, Clay.”
I don’t question how he knows my name. As the Academy’s only Reaper most of the spirits here know of me. “Why?” I ask eventually. “Why does it matter to you?”
He ignores my question. “You know so little about Valkyrie.”
“I know Stella, and that’s all that matters. She is more than her spirit.” I lean against the door behind me, copying the relaxed pose the male is in but feeling a bit like a fraud.
He looks cool, calm, and collected, and I look clumsy, creepy, and cornered.
He clicks his tongue and taps the side of his nose. “In that, we agree. But there is still an element of her spirit that is important to know if you’re going to entangle yourself with her.”
“Have you been watching us?” For some reason, the idea of him watching me with Stella isn’t terrible.
Fuck. These voyeuristic tendencies are going to be the death of me.
Wait, where does a Reaper go when he dies, anyways?
“I’m watching everyone, Reaper. Tell me, what do you know of the Valkyrie?”
I try to wrack my brain for the stories and legends told to me about the warrior spirit. There isn’t much there, though, and even less in books. They’ve always been so few and far between that there isn’t a plethora of material like there is on more prominent spirits, like wolf shifters.
“They’re superior in battle?”
“Are you asking me?”
“That’s about all I know,” I say in frustration. “There isn’t much research out there.”
He pulls himself up to sit on the tabletop, humming softly. “That is true. Did you know Valkyrie means chooser of the slain?” I shake my head, and he clicks his teeth without an ounce of surprise on his face. “I didn’t think so. They would choose fallen men to bring to Odin to assist during Ragnarok.”
“Ragnarok never happened, right?” I ask. “That was a myth.”
“No, it hasn’t happened.”
I file that curious response away for later. I’ll need to ask Ryan if he knows anything about it.
“Anyways,” he says, heaving himself off the table. “It’s a curious phrase, isn’t it? Chooser of the slain.”
He pushes past me, opening the door and slipping into the hallway. I follow behind him, having to jog to catch up. “Why do you say it like that?”
“I’m always so interested in the choices people make, Reaper,” he says quietly.
Before I can get out another question, he turns the corner, and when I round it, he’s gone.
Botany for Death Spirits is the weirdest class in the entire Academy. I’m sure of it.
It’s made weirder by the fact that I’m the only student.
The teacher, a hellhound shifter, stares at me blankly as I work on repotting the orchid I’ve been working with. The white flower is speckled with dark red, making it look like it’s covered in spatters of blood.
I didn’t know it would look like this when I chose it, but I can’t say I dislike it.
“Finish that, and we’ll pick up where we left off next lesson,” the shifter says dully. His voice has no inflection, and when he speaks, I may as well be reading the words off of a plain white sheet of paper.
Well, that’s not right. I’ve read some books where the words seem to jump off the page with personality.
Not the dictionary, though.
This male is the dictionary of spirits.
I top the pot off with moss and stretch as I stand, ignoring how my joints pop out of place when I do. Something about my spirit and the way I grow extra joints when I shift makes my body constantly ache.
But I paste a smile on regardless because no one wants to be around a Reaper, especially a gloomy one.
When I exit the greenhouse, I’m shocked by a pair of white, bronze and silver wings stretched out in front of me.
Stella stands in the sun, her back to me, with her hands on her hips. Her wings are spread wide, and the ends twitch in the breeze. It’s a warm day, and her little black shorts and halter top show off a lot of skin that I want to run my hands over. Memories of her in the shower rush to the forefront of my mind as I stare at what seems like miles of golden skin, and the guilt threatens to drown me.
As if she can sense me, she spins around, and we lock eyes. I watch as tension leaves her shoulders and the corner of her eyes. “Clay,” she whispers, taking a few steps towards me. “I’m sorry for running away.”
I shake my head, holding up a hand. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m the one who was inappropriate.”
She doesn’t say anything, just reaches out and grabs my hand. The contact warms me from the inside out, like a flower blooming in my chest. I can’t help but sigh in relief.
“I don’t hate the fact that you watched me as much as I probably should,” she says softly. “But next time, you have to ask, okay? Please don’t take the choice from me. You’re better than that.”
I let us both sit in those words, rolling them around in my head. I don’t want to be the type of male who pushes my will on others. If I made her feel even a fraction of how Yuri did, then I need to do whatever it takes to ensure that I do not behave that way again.
“It’s no excuse, but I didn’t have a normal childhood. I spent a lot of time in the void, playing with ghosts, and sometimes sitting there watching other kids play and pretending I was a part of it.” My chest tightens at the memories, the crushing loneliness I would feel. “I promise that this won’t happen again.”
“I mean, I may give you permission,” she chuckles. “I don’t hate the idea of knowing you’re watching me. But I’ll let you know, okay?” She squeezes my hand, and we start walking back toward the towers.
“Did you get picked as an escort?” she asks out of nowhere.
“I did.”
She pulls me to a stop. “So did me and Ryan. Something strange is happening here, Clay. And with other regions wanting to open their own Academies, I think it’s bound to get worse. I can’t help but feel like if I don’t expose it, no one will.”
“You don’t have to do it alone.” She squeezes my hand, not making eye contact as we walk along the forest line. “I mean it. Let me fight this battle with you.”
The blue-haired male’s words reverberate in my head as soon as the sentence leaves my mouth.
What did he call me? An interesting choice?
Chooser of the slain.
What am I but a dead male walking?