Chapter 19
In this haze, I go to my room and sit on my bed with my knees pulled up. First, I make the sparks appear again only to convince myself of how useless they are. Then, slowly and in great detail, I relive how thinking about the symbol seemed to jumpstart things. I relive my conversation with my wolf and the little lesson she tried to teach me. I relive the moment I was gifted with my first power by the Scorpio.
My mind wants to rush to what happened with Bane, but I don’t let it.
It’s the symbol and my powers I need to be thinking about, I tell myself. What the hell does the symbol have to do with anything? And what do the sparks mean? Can they even mean anything else but being able to control electricity?
Or thunder, as they’d say in the olden days.
What do you think, I ask my wolf.
There’s the image of her flickering before me and there’s the presence telling me she’s here with me, but she’s not saying anything.
She’s sticking with her decision of making everything so much more difficult for me by not even talking to me, let alone helping me.
Fine. Then I guess I’m on my own in this.
But her silence only makes it impossible for me to keep pushing Bane out of my head.
I just can’t help it, because this — everything that happened tonight — feels so strange, I can’t even begin wrapping my head around it. I pull my knees tighter to myself, I press my lips and I crane my neck to look out the window.
It feels so strange, in fact, that I find myself wondering if it even happened.
I let him go down on me? Or even better, I initiated it? Or better still, I fucking crawled on top of him?
I can’t seem to help it, but it’s proving to be incredibly tough just thinking about it, for two main reasons.
One, because of how weirdly possessive I felt of him. I never get possessive of people.
Two, because of how he behaved. Tonight has made the man even more opaque to me. I mean, I thought I”d already figured him out. And then, well…
I let out a groan. It’s making me cringe even thinking about it, but did he go down on me because he wanted to or…? I don’t even know what other motive he’d have, but there’s one thing I do know — he not only did not try to get some himself, he downright stopped me from giving it to him.
I press my palms into my face, trying to find comfort in complete darkness. Here I thought I had a problem when I was still only starting to fantasize about him.
Outside, the sky is growing lighter, the birds are chirping and I’m even starting to hear the students’ chatter.
The pit of despair in my chest only grows deeper, when the following question manages to grab my attention — why and how did being with him like that feel better than anything I’ve ever experienced before?
Gods, I’ve never felt desire so powerful, deeper than just physical.
That’s probably just what it’s like for a shifter, right?
Of course it is. Why would it be different for me than it is for anyone else?
Just the possibility that I’m developing actual feelings for this man, it keeps me alert well after the sun rises.
It’s only once my stomach starts rumbling that I get up. Enough is enough, I tell myself.
As if waking from a dream, I come to stand in front of the window. I definitely need to figure out what happened to me with Bane tonight, but I’ve managed to mess everything else up as well.
I’ve had enough of all my crap.
First, I need to go back to being a decent living being and find Raven so I can give her the apology that I’ve owed her for the last two weeks.
***
It’s in the cafeteria that I find the two of them. I stop as soon as I spot them, but I don’t let myself linger on the shame.
I take a deep breath and walk right over to them. It throws me off a little, when Alaric stops talking, Raven puts her spoon down and they both look up to stare at me.
I let out an awkward laugh. “I just thought you looked too happy and needed to see someone you hate, you know, to balance things out.”
I want to slap myself for being such an idiot, but then I see Raven turn to Alaric with confusion on her face. “Is this sarcasm, Alaric?”
Alaric just presses his lips tight, throws daggers at me and says, “I don’t think I care what it is, not after what she did to you.”
I open my mouth to say I understand, only to have Raven beat me to it. “Alaric,” she tells him with a frown, “I think I already told you that she didn’t mean to hurt me.”
It all throws me off. It’s so subtle, just like she is, but this is the angriest I’ve ever seen her.
“In fact,” she continues as she throws a hesitant glance at me, “it could be said she was protecting herself from me.”
“What do you mean?” Alaric demands.
There’s a moment of silence during which Alaric just frowns at the two of us and my mind buzzes in fear that she’ll be going into more detail about what happened.
She doesn’t. “It doesn’t matter,” she says in a firm voice. “I think we should all just move on.”
Alaric doesn”t seem to agree, at least judging by the way he looks at me. Neither do I for that matter.
I throw myself into the chair opposite to them and I let everything pour out of me. “Look,” I start, fixing my eyes on Raven and not letting her look away, “I’m sorry. Whatever happened back there, Raven, I still ended up hurting you. I honestly don’t know what’s going on with me, but whatever it is, it’s no excuse for any of my actions. I’ve already started working on fixing it and I’ll keep working on it until I’m no longer a threat to anyone around me. So if you could find it in your heart to forgive me, I’d be eternally grateful to you.”
I let out a heavy breath and lean back in the chair, waiting for the reaction.
“Of course I forgive you, Anna,” Raven says in a soft voice.
It makes me warm around the heart, the look she’s throwing me. “Thanks,” I force myself to articulate it. “You don’t know how much that means to me.” I get up. “I”ll be leaving you to it,” I say as I give them both a smile.
I”m already turning around when I hear Alaric start, “I mean…”
I turn to look at him, seeing his features softened a little.
“You don”t have to leave.”
Raven nods. “Stay, Anna.” She pauses a little before she says, “Unless you don”t want to hang out with us.”
“Of course I do,” I reply with a frown. “Why would you say that?”
Alaric lets out a laugh. “It”s not like you ever share anything with us.”
I frown. “What the hell are you talking about? I share plenty with you.”
“Yeah,” Alaric mumbles with an awkward shake of his head, “we don’t know a single thing about you.”
“Well,” I reply with a frown, “there’s a lot I don’t know about you, either.”
“Like what?” he asks.
I look at him incredulously, then take a seat. “Well, it was only last time I saw you that I found out you weren”t powerless.”
“You never asked,” he says simply. “That”s another thing. You never ask anything but the most superficial stuff.”
Well, maybe I don”t want to be asked anything but the most superficial stuff. This, however, I keep to myself. “Doesn”t mean I don”t want to know,” I say with a sorry look in my eyes. “Would you tell me? Why you choose not to use your powers.”
To my surprise, he looks at me for a second then blows a soft laugh through his nose. “I mean, we’ve got so much power and look how we use it.”
“How?”
He hesitates for a moment. “Look, Anna,” he starts with this seriousness in his voice that I’ve never heard before. “Biologically, I’m twenty six years old, but it was in 1921 that I was born.”
What the… I glance at Raven, but she already seems to know all this.
“My family, the Siegers,” Alaric keeps going, visibly ashamed, “they were at the height of their power during the Second World War.” The way he says it makes it very clear to me which side they were on. Not the good one. “And they did horrible things, Anna.”
I throw him a sympathetic look. “I understand that that would make you cynical,” I say quietly.
He lets out a bitter laugh. “Not even family meant anything to those people. When the war ended and it was clear they’d lose everything, they went into hibernation and forced me into one as well.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Damn.”
“We only woke up a couple of years ago, and now they’re rotting in prison, as they should be, but it doesn’t make it any better, you know?”
“I know,” I whisper, trying to communicate with my eyes exactly how much I’m sorry for all that he’s been through.
“And that’s why I choose not to use my magic.” He shifts in his seat awkwardly and it makes me realize he’s had enough of vulnerability for one day, so I choose to lighten things up for him a little.
“Alright. You said you knew nothing about me,” I start with a smile. It encourages me when both him and Raven lean a little forward with interest in their eyes. “Well, my favorite color is green, my favorite food nachos, I hate people who scribble their shit in books they don’t own, but I also kind of like it…”
Raven just blinks at me, but Alaric laughs. “Ooh,” he cuts in with a spark in his eyes as he slides his forearms down the table. “I’ve got a question for you. Would you rather be forced to eat a gerbil plant,” he starts in a low, excited voice, “or have someone spike your drink with blood gin…” He pauses, building tension as his eyes sweep over the two of us. “Just as you’re about to have a chat with the Pied Piper?”
“What kind of non-question is that?” I protest with a laugh. “I’d eat a dozen gerbil plants voluntarily and risk all the grueling consequences before ever embarrassing myself in front of Johanna de Groot.”
As the two of us laugh our asses off, I notice Raven still has a serious look on her face.
It’s sobering. I clear my throat. “Actually, you two,” I start in a somber voice, making Alaric’s smile slide off as well, “there is something I’d like to talk to you about.”
I decide to just tell them about everything that happened. Not everything, obviously, but everything except the vision and the incident between me and Bane.
***
“What do you think?” I ask when I finish recapping my experiences. I don’t say it, of course, but I’m first and foremost thinking of the matter of my feelings for Bane. “It’s not supposed to be this hard and definitely not this weird, right?”
Raven blinks and Alaric leans back in his chair, thinking. “It is strange,” he says. “I mean, for you to complete a ritual before ever having shifted…” He scratches his beard, frowning.
I turn to Raven. “Raven?”
She shakes her head. “I am sorry, Anna. I just never had the need to do rituals. I am simply… connected with the constellations as is.”
“Do you think there’s something wrong with me?” I insist. “I mean, there has to be. Right?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Alaric replies with a wave of dismissal. “These things, they’re so individual…”
Then it occurs to me. “There was this thing Bane made me drink before we started. Could that be to blame for all the weirdness?”
“Did it have a metallic taste?” Raven asks.
“Yes,” I answer with hope in my voice.
She shakes her head. “That is what shifters routinely take to help them establish a connection with the stars.”
“What about him being an alpha?” I keep insisting. “Could that have messed with my brain somehow?”
“Why are you hung up on it being about him?” Alaric cuts in.
I just shake my head at him, eager to turn my focus back onto Raven.
She takes a moment to think before she says, “I suppose the possibility of him having influenced you into pushing too hard can’t be dismissed.”
My lips curl into a smile.
“I think you should get some more sleep, Anna,” I hear Alaric say, “and think about it tomorrow.”
I nod, but I’m busy being flooded with relief. It was his influence and not any actual feelings of mine after all. Everything’s okay with me.
And it’ll stay that way. I’ll make sure not to have any contact with Bane from now on, I’ll keep working at the Library and I’ll do everything in my power to pass the first-term exam.