Chapter 2
Chapter two
Reading Is Fun!
Nora
Sorren takes a step closer. “It’s true,” he says.
“My uncle attacked me. Left me for dead so he could claim my crown.” He pauses, drags in a breath, then continues, “Since I am the only son of the recently departed king,” sorrow flashing across his face, gone almost instantly, “the throne belongs to me. But if I’m eliminated, he’ll be next in line. ”
“So you’re like…what?” I say slowly. “Bunny royalty?”
I almost laugh.
Because this entire conversation is absolutely ridiculous. When a naked man appears in your workplace, why is he never just, like, a regular accountant from Mesa who got lost?
I wait for Sorren to laugh too. To give me some sign that he doesn’t believe this nonsense.
But he just stands there.
Stoic. Solid.
Still extremely naked.
My eyes dart down, just for a second, then snap back up like I’ve touched a hot stove.
Nope. Not doing that.
My eyes drift again because…wow. I jerk my gaze up.
Traitors. My eyeballs are traitors.
This is not the time to check out the hot, crazy guy. What I should be doing is planning a way out of here before I become a very uncomfortable bullet point in the next district newsletter or, even worse, a true-crime podcast with a title like Hop into Hell: The Nora Hayes Story.
“I am not a bunny,” he says stiffly. “I am a lagomorph.”
“That did not help.”
He inclines his head slightly, as if acknowledging a fair point. He glances at the door and says, “We should leave now so Uncle Rion cannot track us.”
I tilt my head. “You mean you. Can’t track you.”
“I have marked you. I—” He falters. “We are tied now, you and me. To my uncle, we are the same.”
“Excuse me?” I practically shriek. “Marked?” I repeat, even louder. “As in what? Like a Sharpie? A Post-it note? A tracking device? What the hell does that mean?”
For the second time, his attention flicks to my finger, with the planet Band-Aid. I look too. Saturn stares back, its rings perfectly aligned.
“When I bit you,” he says, “it was not merely to escape. It was recognition.”
My pulse gives a startled kick. “That doesn’t explain anything.”
“It means my enemies will find you,” he says. “They’ll smell me on you. My uncle’s hunters will know. Your blood carries my magic now.”
My stomach lurches like I just stepped off a curb that isn’t there.
“That’s not—” I take a shaky step back. “That’s not a thing.”
“They will not distinguish between us,” he continues. “To them, you are now part of my claim.”
Claim?
“The woman in your home,” he adds. “The one who held me this morning. She shares your blood. She is already within their reach.”
“Mom?” Another step back, until my leg bumps against a desk. I lean against it, grateful for the support.
He watches me carefully. “She sat in the chair by the window. The one with the blue blanket over the back. Her hands tremble when she reaches for things. She smells of lavender and medicine.”
The breath leaves my lungs all at once.
“She called me handsome,” he says softly. “Even though I was in rabbit form.”
Memory slams into me.
Mom in her recliner, the morning light catching on the curve of the IV port beneath her shirt. The way her face lit up when I set the cage on her lap. How she’d laughed, actually laughed, when the little white bunny nuzzled into her hand.
“Well, aren’t you handsome,” she’d said, her voice thin but warm.
I hadn’t heard her laugh like that in weeks.
My heart gives an uneasy thud. “That’s…” I swallow hard. “That’s not possible.”
Sorren doesn’t waver.
“Is it only her?” he asks. “Or do you have a father? Siblings as well?”
Dad is gone.
It’s just me and Mom.
And this morning, that rabbit. If the thing that bit me somehow turned into the man standing in front of me now, then it wasn’t just in my classroom.
It had been in my house.
In my mother’s lap.
“Dad died a few years ago,” I manage. “Heart attack. It’s just us.”
Sorren nods once, the movement clipped, decisive. “We must go to your home and ensure she is safe.”
Safe.
The word hits like a hammer. If he’s telling the truth, whoever’s hunting him already knows where I live. Knows where she lives.
Sorren glances down at himself, and I swear his cheeks color, just a little. He clears his throat. “If you possess garments suitable for a royal male,” he says politely, “I would appreciate their use.”
I blink at him. “You’re asking me for clothes?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it?” I gesture wildly. “You break into my locked classroom via rabbit cage, announce that you’re being hunted for the throne, and now you want to borrow a cardigan?”
“I do not believe a cardigan would be appropriate.”
He sways slightly on his feet. For the first time, I notice how pale he’s gotten. How a faint sheen of sweat dots his brow.
“Are you all right?” I ask, then immediately feel foolish. Of course he’s not all right.
He’s delusional.
Mild alarm turns into outright fear as Sorren sways, then drops to his knees with a heavy thump. I don’t know what makes me rush to his side. Teacher instinct, probably. That ingrained desire to help.
I kneel beside him, my hand settling on his shoulder. His skin feels like regular skin, but cold and clammy.
“I was injured in battle,” he says, dragging in a breath as his eyes flutter. “When I escaped through the portal.”
He points weakly toward his back.
I shift so I can see and let out a gasp. My hand flies to my mouth. There, on Sorren’s right flank, is a long, jagged slash. The edges of the skin are slightly blackened, like he’d been struck by lightning. Blood runs freely, a steady river down his back and the backs of his legs.
I glance toward the closet where he hid and see the faint trail of bloody footprints leading from the door to where he now kneels.
Oh.
Oh no.
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
Sorren grabs my arm, not hard but desperate.
“Please.” The word is soft, but his grip on my wrist is surprisingly firm. “You must not.”
“You’re bleeding everywhere,” I tell him. “You need stitches. Or…something. Antibiotics. A tetanus shot. I don’t know.”
“No human healer can treat this wound,” he says, voice tight with pain. “Their tools would only make it worse.”
That feels…really unlikely. An excuse?
“You must take me to your dwelling,” he continues. “I require only rest until the bond stabilizes. It will help.”
“The what stabilizes?”
He doesn’t answer. His breathing has grown shallow. For a minute, I think he’s going to pass out. Right here. On my classroom floor. Naked. How would I ever explain that? No one would believe me. I’d lose my job. My reputation.
“We need to get you out of here,” I declare as I stand. I rush around the room, searching for something suitable. The entire time, I’m telling myself…
This is how people end up in documentaries.
This is how women get lured into cults.
This is how you wake up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney.
Finally, I remember the lost-and-found bin in the corner of the room.
I run over to it. Behind me, Sorren makes a low sound, something caught between a breath and a groan, and my chest tightens.
When I glance back, he’s still on his knees where he collapsed, one hand braced on the tile, his shoulders rising and falling in shallow, uneven pulls of air.
Right. Priorities.
I need to get him out of here before he passes out.
If he hits the floor, there’s no way I’m dragging a massive, bleeding, unconscious man through an elementary school by myself. He’ll be a 300-pound liability.
Moving fast, I spin toward the lost-and-found and grab the first thing that looks remotely adult-sized, a bright blue hoodie with READING IS FUN!
splashed across the front in glittery, puffy letters.
A cartoon book wearing sunglasses grins up at me.
It was left behind after the literacy fair last month.
Perfect.
“Arms,” I command, holding it out as I hurry back toward him.
Sorren looks at the garment like it has personally insulted him. “This is not suitable.”
“You’re naked.”
A beat passes between us.
His arms sag before he manages to lift them, and I dress him like a child. He gives a long blink.
“Stay with me,” I mutter, tugging the hoodie down over his head.
It catches on his shoulders, stretching in a way that feels vaguely alarming before finally settling across his chest. The sleeves stop halfway down his forearms. The hem barely covers his navel.
As I smooth the fabric into place, a faint dusting of glitter transfers from the front to the bare skin of his collarbone.
The man is literally sparkling.
I drag my eyes away. It takes a surprising amount of effort.
“Okay,” I murmur, stepping back. “Great. Perfect. No one will notice anything weird about this.”
I look down.
Oh, right.
Pants.
My feet slide across the linoleum as I sprint across the room for a second time.
I almost go down. My arms windmill wildly as I fight for balance and manage, barely, to stay upright.
At the bin, I drop to my knees and dig frantically through a mound of abandoned mittens, hats, and a puffy coat with green dinosaurs on it until my hand closes on a pair of navy sweatpants.
I yank them free and hold them up.
Then I freeze.
I recognize these pants.
They’re Seth’s spare clothes. He left them here after field day last fall when someone dumped Gatorade on him in the middle of the relay race, and I took them home to wash.
I never got around to giving them back.
Oops. Oh well.
“These will do,” I say when I bring them back to Sorren.
He eyes them with deep suspicion. “They appear…small.”
“They’re fine.”
“They are child-sized.”
“You’re bleeding on my floor.” I shake the pants out, trying to straighten the legs so he can step into them. “We’re past the point of dignity.”
For a second, I think he’s gone. His head dips forward, and I hold my breath until his eyes swim back into focus.
Slowly, with a hand on my shoulder for support, he lifts one foot.
I help him step into them, trying very hard not to think about the fact that I am dressing a wounded, half-conscious stranger in my kindergarten classroom.
After some determined tugging and what may legally qualify as manhandling, we wrestle them into place.
They sit low on his hips, the waistband pulled tight enough to make me nervous for the structural integrity of the elastic.
The hems hover several inches above his ankles.
“Right,” I say, pushing myself upright. “Let’s get you standing.”
He rises slowly. Unsteadily. When he sways this time, I’m close enough to catch him.
His arm comes around my shoulders automatically, his weight settling against me, heavy and warm and very, very real.
The moment his skin touches mine, something strange flickers low in my body.
It’s not pain. Not fear. Just a brief, disorienting warmth, like recognizing someone I’ve never met.
My brain chooses this exact moment to become aware of:
A) how large he is
B) how good he smells, like spring rain and something sweet I can’t quite name. Clover, maybe. Or wildflowers.
C) how little fabric exists between us.
Focus, Nora. If he passes out, you’re screwed.
The lights snap back on. They flare bright, then dim again. Sorren and I both turn to watch the bulbs pulse overhead.
Bright. Dim.
Bright. Dim.
“We should go,” Sorren says.
I’m already moving. We make it to the door in a slow, staggering shuffle. Halfway there, his weight suddenly doubles and I nearly go down with him.
“Sorren,” I hiss, tightening my grip.
He doesn’t answer. His head lolls toward mine.
Fantastic. Love that for me.
I brace us both and crack open the door. The hallway is clear. Unfortunately, the real problem isn’t the hallway.
It’s the front office.
The front office that’s staffed by three women who know everything about everyone and have opinions about most of it. And I’m about to walk past them with a six-foot-five stranger wearing a child’s literacy hoodie and my ex-boyfriend’s sweatpants.
This is fine.
Everything is fine.
We round the corner, and Mrs. Delgado looks up from her computer. Her gaze lands on Sorren. Then slowly tracks down the length of him. Then back up again.
“Well,” she says.
Beside her, Linda’s eyes go wide. “Oh my.”
Margaret jerks upright to see what the commotion is about. Her mouth drops open, and a strangled sound escapes.
Sorren shifts against me, his grip tightening at my shoulder, his body going tense as if he’s bracing for attack.
Seth stands by the copy machine.
He turns and freezes.
His eyes land on me. Then on Sorren. Then on Sorren’s arm slung around my shoulders. Then on the READING IS FUN! hoodie stretched across approximately 4 percent of his torso. Then…on the sweatpants.
“Nora?” he says faintly.
He squints.
“Wait,” he says slowly. “Are those my pants?”
“Uh…” I clear my throat. “Hi, Seth.”
“Who’s this?” Seth asks, frowning, pointing at Sorren.
Sorren straightens beside me, drawing up to his full height, even as he sways.
“I am Sorren Valdren—”
“My friend,” I cut in quickly, before he can start talking about the White Warren and his murderous uncle.
“—her protector,” Sorren finishes anyway, sending Seth a glare so full of fire I can practically see it crackle across the room.
Seth pales.
Some small, deeply uncharitable part of me enjoys that.
No time to savor it. Not while Sorren is two seconds away from face-planting into the plastic ficus by the exit.
Aiming for breezy and coming out breathless, I smile at the stunned faces around us. “Have a great spring break, everyone. See you in a couple of weeks.”
With Sorren’s arm around my shoulder, I pivot and hustle him toward the door as fast as I can manage, considering I’m half-dragging a huge man.
Maybe rabbit.
Nora and Sorren. Art by Momo Mitsuko