Chapter 13
Aric
I’M OUT ON THE RUNEBALL field before the sun comes up, doing my laps in the cold air, trying to get my head right for today.
Not because we have a runeball game this afternoon—which we do—but because I’m supposed to meet Poppy for tutoring after breakfast. And knowing I’m going to see her today made it hard to sleep.
I tossed and turned until Felex finally hissed at me to get up and get out.
He’s grouchy in the mornings. And evenings. And pretty much all the other times of the day. Makes it easy for me to annoy him.
But it’s clear that Poppy has officially gotten to me, with her blushing cheeks and soft lavender hair. And even after breaking a sweat on the field for an hour as the sun slowly rises, I’m still not sure what to do about it.
I’m not usually nervous around women. I’ve been chasing girls since I was thirteen.
But something about Poppy makes me feel like I’m back to being that nervous teenager again, trying to figure out how to ask a girl to get cinnamon buns with me after class.
She makes me feel like I’ve never done this before. And I kind of like it.
I grab a towel from my bag and mop the sweat from my face, then turn my gaze up to the sun as it lifts high enough to bathe me in soft golden light.
“Morning, Ma,” I whisper.
She used to love sunrises. She’d wake me early in the mornings, when it was still dark, and get me all bundled up before taking me outside, where I’d sit in her lap, cuddled against her chest, and we’d watch the sun come up together.
It didn’t matter what time of year it was either.
Summer or winter, in bare feet or boots, we’d be out there to tell the sun good morning.
I reach under the fabric of my sweat-soaked tunic and grip the glowing silver ring hanging around my neck. Then I pull my gaze reluctantly away from the sunrise and head back to the castle to get ready for my date—no, my tutoring session—with Poppy Waverly.
WHEN I GET TO THE library, having bathed and dressed and hurriedly grabbed a blueberry muffin from the dining hall, it’s already humming with life; a fire crackles in the hearth, chasing the morning chill away, and a few students linger about, chatting quietly and bent over books with furrowed brows, their quills scratching away at rough parchment.
I cast my gaze around for Poppy but don’t immediately see her.
So I wander a bit, exploring areas of the library I’ve never seen before, eating my blueberry muffin covertly—the librarian will chase me out if she sees me with it—as I go.
And by the time I’ve finished my breakfast, I find Poppy in a small sunlit nook tucked away in a corner of the library, partially shielded on one side by a plant with big flat leaves in shades of blue and green.
She hasn’t seen me yet. She’s got a notebook open in front of her and is gazing out the window beside the table, chin propped in her hand, looking lost in thought. Her lavender hair is pulled up into a twist with a stick stabbed through it, revealing the column of her throat.
Immediately, I start to wonder what it would feel like to trail my lips across her smooth brown skin, to press a kiss to that sensitive spot behind her ear. Would it make her catch her breath? Whisper my name?
Those thoughts immediately stir a tightening in my low belly, and I push them roughly away before approaching the table.
“Morning, Brains,” I say as I step up beside her.
I’m an orc, not a shifter, and unlike the latter, we’re not exactly known for stealthy movement.
But Poppy must’ve been even deeper in thought than I realized, because she lets out a startled squeal and jumps so hard that she sends her notebook flying off the table, its pages fluttering as it falls.
“Aric!” she says, trying to catch her breath. “I didn’t—wait!”
I bend to pick up her notebook from where it landed beside my boot. The pages flop open, and I don’t mean to read what’s on the page. But my eyes scan the neatly written words before I can stop them.
Tutoring Guidelines and Rules
Meet twice a week: Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings
No off-topic discussions—classwork and party planning only
He smiles at everyone—don’t overanalyze it
Ignore how he smells like woodsmoke and cedar
I blink, then read the rules again. Out loud, I say, “Ignore how he smells like woodsmoke and cedar.” One of my brows arches.
“Is that an issue? Should I try to address that? Warn the student body?” I look up at Poppy with a smile, only to find her frozen solid, eyes wide, mouth parted in a look of horror. “Hey, you okay?”
A blush creeps slowly up her neck, across her face, and all the way to the tips of her little round ears. And it gives me an idea for my own rule I should write down: Don’t get distracted by how cute she is when she blushes. I’m pretty sure I’d break that rule multiple times a day though.
“Y-y-you weren’t—” Poppy starts, but she doesn’t get any further than that.
“Don’t sweat it, Brains.” I pull out the chair across from her and sink down into it. But she’s still frozen. She smells the way she usually does—like peppermint and paper—and I say with a sideways smile, “You don’t smell half bad yourself.”
She blinks, seeming to come back into her body, and I slide the notebook across the table to her. As soon as it’s back in her hands, she flips it closed and cradles it to her chest, making me laugh.
“You weren’t supposed to see that,” she finally says.
With a smile, I lean back and tip my head at her. “So, why do we need rules for these tutoring sessions? And should I have known about them? Maybe been provided a syllabus?”
This gets Poppy to crack a very small smile, but she doesn’t look at me as she says, “The rules are to help me focus. Sometimes you can be . . . distracting.” Her cheeks are flaring red again.
And my heart is beating just a bit faster. “Distracting, huh?”
She nods but says nothing, still not looking at me.
“Well, we can’t have that. So I’ll try to keep my smell over here. Can’t make any promises about the smiling though.”
When Poppy glances up and meets my eyes, I give her a full smile, tusks and all. And this time, she gives me a full smile back, making my stomach do a flip.
She’s so damn pretty.
Poppy sits up straighter and takes what I think is a steadying breath, then levels a look at me and says, “All right, which class are we focusing on today? More runes?”
I pull my notebook out of my bag and fish through it until I find the homework assignment I scribbled down for Herbology 201.
“I’ve got to come up with three recipes for tinctures that can help heal wounds. Do you have any experience in herbology?”
The shy smile she gives me is answer enough.
WE SPEND AN HOUR GOING over different herbs and their properties.
Poppy gently corrects me when I write down ingredients that would hinder the healing process we’re trying to achieve.
And by the time I’ve got my three recipe lists, I’m feeling like herbology makes way more sense than it ever has before.
“Have you ever thought about being a teacher? Or maybe becoming a professor here?” I ask Poppy as we stand from the little table and sling our bookbags over our shoulders.
She shrugs. “A little. But I don’t know if I’d be very good at it.”
The laughter I let out as we walk through the library draws the stares of the students and earns me a sharp look from the librarian.
“Sorry,” I mouth to her. Then I pull the door to the library open before Poppy can reach it and hold it wide.
“Thank you,” she whispers as she passes by me, the cool air from the hallway sending the baby hairs along her temples fluttering.
Out in the hallway together, I reach my arms overhead in a big stretch.
Being in the library makes me feel claustrophobic sometimes, having to be so quiet, and there’s a bit of a knot in my neck from leaning over the table with Poppy while we worked on my recipe lists.
It’ll get worked out during the game though. Which reminds me.
“Hey, you busy this afternoon?”
Poppy looks up at me with those big lavender doe eyes. “Um, I don’t think so. Why?”
“I’ve got a runeball game. We’re taking on the Sigil Strikers. You wanna come?”
“Oh, um, I think the other girls were already planning on going, so . . .”
“So . . . you’ll come too?” I finish for her.
And now she’s wearing that shy little smile again. “Yeah. I’ll come too.”
“Sweet. I’ll make sure to play extra hard, then. You know, try to impress you and all.”
Poppy laughs, then covers her mouth with a hand like she didn’t mean to.
Everything this witch does makes me want her more.
Her smiles, her blushing cheeks, the way she glances away from me nervously when we’re talking about anything that’s not classwork related.
I’m pretty sure she hasn’t cast any love charms on me—she doesn’t seem the type—yet I’m falling under her spell anyway.
“Okay, Brains. I’ll see you at the game. I’ll be the one on the field.”
She lifts a hand to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose and says, “Okay. I’ll see you there.”
Now I’ve really got to crush Morgan’s team. There’s no way I want Poppy to see me lose.