Chapter 6 #2
“You know they do what they want. They don’t listen to me at all.” Still, he made a clicking sound and the snakes all popped their heads up from under the table and looked across it at him.
He glared back at them, and made another clicking sound.
They reared up a little higher and then engaged in what appeared to me to be a stare-down with Vorzak.
I swallowed a snicker.
My goddess, they were so damn cute.
Vorzak gestured at me, then clicked at them again.
As one, the snakes all turned their heads and looked at me.
I would swear they looked devastated, like I’d hurt their feelings or something.
Dangit!
I quickly started dropping kisses on their heads, which apparently gave them permission to continue on their way.
Luckily, none ducked back under the table, but instead, continued their paths northward.
Two wrapped around my arms, one around my torso, another around my neck and shoulders and the last one settled his head on top of mine.
Once again, I was wrapped in Vorzak’s serpents.
It made things a bit difficult to move, but since I was simply providing Vorzak all the background he needed to survive a semester in Extreme Water Sports Ed, I really didn’t need to move a whole lot.
Those first three days of classes pretty much set the pattern for the semester.
Dragon Riding 101 was utterly stressful because Vorzak’s snakes insisted on challenging the dragons every single class period.
Some days, they wouldn’t challenge them until the very end, but it always happened.
The end result was always chaos, with some dragons going on a rampage, some spewing fire, some taking off in flight, even if a student happened to be in the midst of climbing on their back or sliding from it.
For some reason, Vorzak’s snakes seemed to feel this meant they had won.
Culinary Delights saved my sanity on those days, as it allowed me to bake and eat my stress away in the afternoon hours.
Unfortunately, that was always followed by a tutoring session with Vorzak (and Mikaela and Elliot, not that they contributed much other than the kissing).
Even after I’d shared everything Vorzak had missed first semester, he insisted we continue to meet because he wasn’t feeling confident in either of the classes we had together.
Truthfully, it would be a miracle if he passed Dragon Riding.
He’d even tried covering his snakes with a giant scarf, but they’d apparently bitten him multiple times in the process.
He’d come to class that morning with tiny bite marks all over his face, neck and hands.
I really shouldn’t have laughed, but honestly, I just couldn’t help it. I kept picturing Vorzak trying to wrangle all five of his snakes into one scarf and getting bitten, over and over again, for his trouble.
He’d glared at me, but his snakes had danced in victory, which had only made me laugh harder.
Vorzak was doing fine in Extreme Water Sports, fine enough that he could master all the challenges on his own, but he made a big production of insisting he needed my assistance and stayed at my side throughout every single class.
This would be annoying, except I was secretly pleased, and of course, I adored swimming with his snakes.
They constantly were forcing Vorzak to switch positions so that another snake could have a chance to swim at my side.
They’d tried growing so that they could all swim at my side, except it somehow impacted Vorzak’s balance and they kept dragging him off course or pinning his arms to his side or getting tangled in his legs.
So now just one or two swam at my side while the others impatiently waited their turns.
I hated to admit it, but even though I was learning a lot about poisons in my Art of the Poison Garden class, I was no longer plotting how to use my newfound knowledge to cause Vorzak gastrointestinal distress.
This wasn’t good news because it meant, despite my best attempts, I was falling for him again.
I mean, I guess it was better this time, since he was no longer oblivious to my existence. However, despite his snakes constantly petting and adoring me, Vorzak the man never made a move.
Not one single kiss.
He did stand really close to me during Dragon Riding 101, so close that I could feel the body heat emanating from him, and he was now joining us for meals, doing his best to either sit beside me or across from me.
Both options were incredibly distracting.
The man was hot as Hades and his snakes were always adorable.
I just wished he’d make a move!
Kasi and Mikaela both laughed whenever I complained that he was moving slow as molasses.
“He leaves you gifts all the time!” Mikaela exclaimed.
This was true.
It had been really annoying in the beginning, when I’d been trying to avoid the man.
I’d open my locker in the women’s locker room and find a hand-carved puzzle box that had a tiny snake figurine locked inside it, or I’d walk into Culinary Arts and find a new apron with ocean waves all over it waiting for me.
“How does he know so much about me that he manages to get the perfect gifts?” I demanded at lunch one day, glaring at Kasi and Mikaela suspiciously.
That’s when Kasi told me that Vorzak was in her Familiar Training class.
“What? Why? His snakes aren’t familiars. They’re part of him.”
“I don’t know, something about him not being able to communicate with them, so needing to learn other ways to work with them. Anyway, he’s been quizzing me about you. Favorite foods, favorite colors.”
“And you told him?”
“Of course, I did. You’re my roommate and one of my best friends. And you’re in love with him. So, of course, I’m going to help you win him, even if that means I have to help him win you first.”
“Which is as it should be,” Mikaela interjected.
“Exactly. He needs to prove that he’s good enough for you, which means winning you. I didn’t tell him about your scarf collection though.”
Mikaela raised her hand, “Um, that might have been me.”
“Seriously?” I exploded.
Mikaela shrugged. “He’s in my Inner Beast Management Class. I always avoided him, but then someone drew his attention and now he insists on sitting next to me to try and quiz me about you. I held out as long as I could, Jasmine, but you know how I feel about snakes.”
Kasi snickered and I burst out laughing.
“I can’t believe you two. Here I am trying to avoid him and my two best friends are helping him court me.”
“Are you seriously going to sit there and tell us you’re not thrilled that he’s finally focused entirely on you?” Mikaela demanded.
“Well. I didn’t say that.”
We laughed.
And so it went.
Gifts appearing as if by magic in my classrooms, in the cafeteria where I usually sat for lunch, on my bed, in my book bag, on the trowel I was about to use in the Academy’s poison garden.
The gifts were always different, but so very perfect for me.
My favorite chocolates.
A scarf covered in tumbling kittens.
A hand-carved wooden cat to go with the wooden snake.
A handwritten recipe for cupcakes, along with its hard-to-get ingredients from realms I’d never heard of.
A woman, hand-carved in lighter and darker woods, sitting on rocks, with ocean waves all around.
A rare plant that only bloomed at night in March.
A hand-carved dragon with a woman riding it bareback.
“She looks like you,” Mikaela exclaimed when she saw it.
I’d thought the same thing.
“The workmanship is exquisite,” Kasi said.
“I wonder where’s he’s getting them,” Mikaela said.
The next day I asked that very question.
That was the day I finally tumbled head over heels for Vorzak the man.
I’d already fallen for his snakes long before, but I’d resisted that final step because the man had yet to make a move.
Then, he answered my question.
He’d carved each of those figurines himself, just for me, and that’s when I knew.
He’d been making moves all along.
I’d just been too blind to see them.