Chapter 10
Piper
My eyes move slowly towards Adelaide.
She is watching them with a look that tells me everything I need to know.
She is behind this.
And I don’t like it.
Not one bit.
Still… whatever game she is playing, it’s not mine to solve, so long as my friends don’t get hurt.
The men take seats in the section reserved for the other private dormitory, and for some reason my stomach drops as my thoughts turn to him.
If they are here… does that mean he is too?
But he is older than the rest. He is twenty eight, well past the age for university or further study. Surely he should be done with all of this by now.
Then again, I also know he is part of the Ferrum Syndicate. Finishing the academy doesn’t necessarily mean being done with it.
Unlikely, really.
Though truthfully, I don’t know exactly how they operate.
For me, once I finish the academy, I won’t be done with the Thirteen Circle either, but I will no longer be directly involved.
I will be heir in name only, the representative of my family, at least until I have children of my own to attend here and take my seat in representing our legacy.
Just thinking about him stirs feelings that should not be there. He lights a fire that should never have existed, and with those feelings comes guilt for wanting any of it.
I need to kill it, because this… whatever this is… can’t be. Not even in my own head.
I can’t do that to him.
He would never forgive me.
I push the thought aside.
Pathetic.
What have I become? It was a one night stand. Just sex. The man asked for nothing more, and I am certain he wants nothing more from me. Even if he kept insisting I was his…
God. Really?
Am I truly so starved for the smallest flicker of love that I can turn nothing into some grand romance?
I need to get a grip.
And keep those fantasies where they belong, in the books I read.
Because in this world, my world, such things don’t exist.
And with the signature you put on that paper, you made certain of it.
Happily ever after doesn’t exist for me.
He is probably not even here, and I am spiralling for no reason.
We will never cross paths again, just as I knew from the beginning.
I will get over it eventually. That night will remain only in my dreams, where it belongs.
But at least he gave me one gift.
He showed me, if only for a little while, that such things are real.
That a person can really feel that way. That passion exists. That you can genuinely connect with someone and lose yourself in them. That perhaps, somewhere along the way, even love is possible.
Just not for me.