Chapter 30 #2
“Well stay there next time,” Rafe snarked, his glare cutting off as Skye dropped the towel to pull on some clothes.
She did not have to do that outside her closet. I almost laughed.
Luckily, Rafe was throughly distracted, so if he’d noticed her weirdness before, he wasn’t bringing it up now.
“I have to tell you something,” he blurted out suddenly.
Skye turned, her breasts barely covered by a hot pink lacy bra thing she’d pulled on. “Oh?”
Rafe blinked several times before looking away.
“Isaiah is going to be following you on campus from now on. Fully in sight.”
Skye’s jaw dropped. She crossed her arms, pushing up her breasts, and…I couldn’t tell if she was being intentionally sexual or not. “No way!”
“Yes way,” Rafe argued. “A photographer burst out of some bushes to get a photo of Wyatt this morning. I can’t have that happening to you for obvious reasons.”
Obvious reasons referring to how she’d killed a guy who tried to stab me in Alaska. Whether she used her affinity or not, killing someone would bring way too much attention to the campus.
Skye pursed her lips, then gave us her back as she pulled on a sweatshirt.
“Wyatt didn’t kill the guy, did he?” I asked.
“No,” Rafe muttered, sounding disappointed. “No, he just buried him alive for a few minutes.”
I shuddered.
“I don’t know if I like Isaiah,” I mumbled.
“We’re in agreement there,” Rafe said, barking a laugh when Skye threw her wadded up towel at him.
He wrapped it around his shoulders, then shrugged.
“I don’t know how I feel about him, but if we’re adding another man to this Chain, someone needs to tell me.
I don’t want to be the last to know everything like Wyatt. ”
Skye paused for just a second before she went into the closet. I watched her, then looked back to Rafe.
“I’ll know first,” I said as I stretched. “We all know I’m the favorite.”
It was my turn to get a wadded up towel to the face.
“I’ll see you later?”
I nodded, giving Skye a lingering kiss. When I pulled back, though, Isaiah’s gaze was firmly behind me, which was…annoying.
I didn’t want to like Isaiah.
He was too good-looking to be a guard. He’d probably be fine as a regular guard, but not as a guard for Skye, an equally hot young woman.
Whether or not Raaz was one of the Queen’s Links wasn’t important. He was still way too hot to have been a personal guard. The relationship with the Queen would’ve been inevitable. Chicks loved falling for bodyguards.
Hence why I worried about Isaiah.
The two of them set off for the library, and I pouted while I considered skipping Health class.
“Aiden?”
I turned, then slapped a hand over my eyes. “Hey, Willow.”
“Wow, don’t sound too excited,” she snarked. “Whatever, I’m not here for you. I thought I saw Skye over here.”
“You did,” I replied, pulling my hand down to look at them. “She left with the guard.”
Mia’s eyes widened. “Who?”
“The guard,” I repeated, irritation spiking once again. “Super-hot, dark hair, dark eyes.”
Now Willow’s eyes widened. “Oh? And…where are they now? I should meet him. You know, since I’m around her all the time.”
I rolled my eyes as hard as possible. “I gotta get to class.”
“You’re the TA, you don’t have to be on time.” Mia argued.
“What? I’m like the one person that should be on time,” I snapped back.
“Oh, my God. Look, it’s him.” Willow hissed, pulling Mia close to her. The two girls craned their necks to look around me again, and I once again rolled my eyes.
“Why am I even talking to you two?” I said. “This is weird.”
And Mia’s extra-large sweatshirt with holes in the sleeve was extra weird. Mia didn’t wear shit like that. It probably belonged to Zephyr. It looked just like something Lana had been wearing.
“Oh…” I said. “Have y’all heard about Lana?”
Willow ignored me, still glaring daggers behind me.
“What about Lana?” Mia asked suspiciously. “Skye told us what happened with…you know.”
“I meant Lana and Zephyr,” I corrected.
Willow whipped her head toward me, her eye twitching. “My Zephyr?”
I laughed. “Yeah? What other Zephyr do we know?”
“Aiden, what are you talking about?” Mia demanded. “Zephyr’s hanging out with Lana?”
I laughed again, glad I’d finally ruffled their feathers, but then I turned and saw the one person who pissed me off more than Isaiah.
River. Fucking. Mac.
My vision narrowed, my attention completely focused on that smug fucker.
That smug fucker who’d kissed Skye and then left her.
My anger reignited, and without Skye here, my impulsive streak flared hot. I stormed across the quad, ignoring Willow’s squawking as she chased after me. Mia said something, but I ignored her, too. They disliked him, but if they knew what he’d done…if they’d seen Skye sitting in that cold shower…
My baby had been through so much. Her father rejected her for most of her life. And then her first Link rejected her. And now this asshole was rejecting her, too?
River turned just in time for my fist to slam into his perfect fucking cheekbone.
Something crunched. I wasn’t sure if it was my fist or his face, but I followed him down, not even wincing when his arms flared white-hot.
My own arms nearly ignited, so hot that River hissed through his teeth.
He punched me in the side, kicking his feet out to throw me off, but I got one more good hit on his face before the fucking grass began crawling up my legs.
“Not today, asshole!” Willow cried, and the grass receded, allowing me to kick River in the fucking shin.
“What the fuck?!” He growled before grabbing at my arm, and then he hissed again when I burned him.
He tried to send a burst of water at me from a nearby fountain, but Willow stopped that, too, twirling the water away so that it splashed into the grass. River slammed his hand down on the ground, and suddenly, everything began to shake, but only for a few seconds.
I punched him in the jaw. “How could you fucking run away from her?!” I punched again. “Are you fucking stupid?” One of my knuckles cracked. “You made her feel like shit!”
The shaking ground wasn’t in my imagination, and it got worse to the point where River and I weren’t even fighting anymore, just bouncing around on top of each other.
Willow wobbled, then fell on her ass behind me along with Mia. River ignored the ice creeping up his ankles, keeping him in place. There was a cut on his cheek, and I grinned, glad I’d done some damage.
The ground continued to tremble violently, then started to slow.
River’s eyes widened as he looked around for the source, and then he gulped.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Fuck.
Wyatt was here.