17. Ivy
Chapter 17
Ivy
Two weeks have passed, and my virginity is still intact.
I don't know if Thorne is screwing with my head or if this is part of some weird ritual where he's trying to drive me insane.
I’m having lunch with Isabelle at the café. She's talking about her dates with Ryan, but my mind is on Jupiter. I'm listening to her but not really paying attention.
Thorne has scrambled my brain worse than eggs and I can’t focus on anything else. Since this whole arrangement started I’ve just about managed to get through my classes and do my sorority stuff.
I keep remembering that first night in the shower when I was sure he was going to take my virginity.
Shamefully, I’d wanted him, then I realized that taking my virginity would mean nothing to him. That saddened me deeply, and then, by some stroke of magic he changed things up.
He didn’t slam into me with his pierced dick—which totally terrified me when I first saw it.
He’s only worn it once since and I’ve gotten so up close and personal with him and his dick that I know he really does just wear his piercing for me. To shock me.
He’d be shocked if he knew that I think it suits him and his dick looks good with or without it.
Shit. I have gone crazy and my brain must have turned into a blob if I can admit to liking his dick .
I'm supposed to see him tonight. I know we’re going to be doing the exact same as every other night.
I’ll have his cock shoved down my throat as often as he can manage and he’ll have me spread out on his bed where he’ll eat me out and feast on my body.
That’s what we’ve been doing, but any day now I know he’ll take my innocence. He just wants to make me crazy first. Until then I'll continue to hang off the precipice of sanity, holding on to whatever I can of my dignity.
The question is, do I want him?
During the moments when we're close and intimacy has robbed my brain of thought, I think I do. I know my body does.
Sex was an obvious part of my agreement with him. I geared myself up for it but that doesn't mean I know what I want.
Or maybe it does and I'm finding it hard to accept it.
Then there's the obvious elephant in the room carrying my secret around its neck.
I always feel awkward around Thorne because of my father.
When I’m with him I think about his family and what must have happened to them. I think about how he must blame my father, and what he may think about me.
We haven't spoken about my father since that first night but maybe that's a good thing. I wouldn't know what to say.
I've kept my presence at the palace on the night of the massacre a secret. I also kept it secret that I saw the scar-faced man. Thorne already knows too much as it is and, like he said, we need to be careful.
But I need to be more careful than him. He might be keeping my secret but he's blackmailing me, using my body and making me feel things I didn't even know I could feel for him.
I went into this plan thinking I could keep my mind strong and resist him, but I lose myself every time he touches me. My emotions and body are a mess.
Isabelle taps the table, snapping me from my thoughts. "I think it's best I just put guys on pause for a while," she declares with a huff.
"Really?" Since it's been a while since I spoke my throat feels dry, so I take a
sip of my drink. "It's just been bad, bad, bad since I've come here."
"I'm sorry."
I truly sympathize with her. Her dates with Ryan were going great, until they weren’t.
Her first date with him was so good she said it made up for the bad experience with Kade, then last night everything took a nosedive.
"It was like Ryan was a different person." She releases a heavy sigh. “Like someone swapped him for his silent twin. I don't know what I did wrong in the space of a few days."
"Why do you think it's you?"
"It must be. On our previous dates he couldn't wait to see me again and planned another right away. But last night he barely said anything to me and left within the hour. Clearly he doesn't want to see me again. I haven’t even heard from him."
My shoulder slumps. "The last thing you want is some guy treating you like that.”
"Exactly. So I've decided I'm just going to focus on classes, which are finally going great." She gives me a proud smile.
"I'm glad to hear that. Mine are great, too.” At least all my classes are going the way I want. When I'm there I allow myself to get lost in the lessons.
"I also noticed that Thorne seems to have left you alone. So now you can breathe."
"Yes." I nod with conviction, feeling terrible that I have to lie. I've done such a good job at hiding my relationship from everyone that no one suspects I'm seeing Thorne.
He either comes to my room late at night or I spend the night at his place. I'm sure, though, that someone at Erebus must suspect something. I've encountered one or two guys when I've gone to his apartment.
Maybe they have some sort of bro code of silence so they can hide things until they're ready to share with the world who it is they're dating.
It wouldn’t matter if people know I'm with him but I’m mindful that my parents could find out. The chances of them knowing are very slim, especially because they’re in L.A. and this isn’t exactly breaking news, but I’m paranoid because Thorne is an Ivanov.
"I heard some seriously hot seniors are joining us on the Amherst trip." Isabelle perks up, rubbing her delicate hands.
"I heard that, too."
I'm excited about that trip. Amherst is the hometown of Emily Dickinson. We're going to be there for three days to sightsee and learn about her life.
Amherst is in Massachusetts, so not that far, but a trip is a trip and we're going to be away from campus the whole time.
The course leader is also planning a mini-trip to Salem while we're there. I've always wanted to go there to see the famous sites of the witch trials. More importantly, the break will give me some time away from Thorne and the stress of him knowing my secret.
"I've been to Amherst before." Isabelle takes a sip of her coffee. "But I was just passing through."
"Did someone say Amherst?" comes a deep voice from behind us.
We both turn to find a tall guy with curly hair who looks like he just stepped off the cover of GQ magazine.
Isabelle and I both stare at him. Correction , Isabelle is gawking at him. I expect drool to slide out of her mouth any second now but she saves herself by nodding.
"Yes," she perks, "someone did say that."
The guy smiles. "Then I'm hoping one of you is Ivy Yegorov."
Isabelle nods vigorously. "This is her." She points at me. "And she's single."
I feel my skin pale then go red. And I flash her a withering stare.
"What?" She chuckles.
"Don't what me. You know what." I turn back to the guy, who's smiling back at me looking amused. "Forgive my friend. She's had too much sugar."
"That's okay. I have a sweet tooth, too."
This guy looks like he's never consumed sugar in his life, and I'm not sure what to make of him. He's not a Knight by the looks of it. There are no visible tattoos anywhere on him.
"I'm Aiden Sabioni," he introduces himself when he notices me looking at his wrist. "I just transferred from MIT. I'm doing a minor in English, so I’m tutoring on the side. Professor Dane allocated you to me."
"Oh, wow. That's great, and great to meet you. A tutor was the last thing I was waiting for.”
"Perfect. Maybe we can catch up over coffee tomorrow."
"I'd like that."
"Are you single?" Isabelle cuts in, craning her neck around me.
"Yes. I just so happen to be."
"Wonderful. Well, Ivy will bear that in mind." Isabelle winks at him while I glare
at her again. "I hope so," Aiden says with a nod. "See you tomorrow, Ivy."
"Sure. See you tomorrow." He leaves, and I return my death stare to Isabelle. "I am going to strangle you."
"Why? That guy was seriously hot, and he's your tutor which means he's
probably going on the trip. This is perfect."
In a normal world it would be perfect, and she'd be right. Aiden was hot, but while whatever is happening between Thorne and me is happening I can't date anybody.
I'm not even looking to date. I've said that to her a few times and explained that I wanted to get used to living in Boston and settling at Raventhorn before I did any kind of dating, serious or otherwise.
"Just promise me you'll think about it. He clearly liked you. He said he was single. And did you see the way he looked at you? Come on, Ivy, think about it."
I sigh. "Fine. Sure, I will." I'm only saying that to keep her quiet.
"Yay! This week is going to be great. You have this coffee meeting with Aiden, my dad is coming to visit, and then we have the trip."
"Yeah, it's going to be good.”
“You should join my dad and I for dinner tomorrow night. I'd love to introduce you."
"Sure. That would be great." I should be able to work something around seeing Thorne.
"Cool. I'll warn you now, though, he'll talk your ears off about work and the stuff he does with the Knights' database."
I laugh. "That’s fine. I don't even know what that is."
She sucks in a breath and stares back at me as if I just said something utterly ridiculous. "How can you not know what that is?"
"My stepdad never spoke about anything like that at home."
"Well, it's like the Knight's bible. It also has a listing of every single Knight who takes the Oath."
"Wow, there must be hundreds."
"Thousands," she corrects me. "And you can search for anyone you want by name, country, age. They even have it fine-tuned so you can search for specific physical attributes, like a mole on their face."
As the words fall from her lips something clicks in my mind and my insides go still. Those last words pierce through me and suddenly I think of the man with the scar.
He'd be in the database. If I could check, would I find him?
My God, if I found him, would that mean I could find some way of helping my father?
That man has been mentioned before, and maybe others have checked, but no one believed my father.
But if I looked I'd be able to identify him. I’d have a name to put to his horrible face.
It wasn't even the scar that made him horrible. It was the evil in his eyes.
"How do we access the Knights' database?"
Isabelle laughs. "We can't. You have to be a Knight or like my father. He’s part of the system's maintenance team."
Damn it . My spirits sink faster than they rose.
"They have a hard copy of the files in the archives department in Raventhorn Hall,” Isabelle explains. “But only Alexander Ivanov and his Knights' council have access to that. Sorry."
I try to hide my disappointment. "That's okay. I guess I got excited because there's so much I still don't know."
"There's a ton of stuff I don't know either, but maybe we don't need to know it."
"Yeah, maybe."
Now that this possibility is in my mind it's stuck there. There must be a way for me to search the database. All these months of worrying about coming here, maybe this was just the thing that could help me and help my father.
If I achieve nothing else from coming to Raventhorn I'd love to get anything that could help Dad.
Dare I imagine finding that something and freeing him from the Hollows?
I could see him again.
He'd know I'm alive, and I wouldn't be indebted to Thorne for the rest of my life.