Chapter 34 Eleusínia Mystḗria
Eleusínia Myst?ria
Present Day
Valarian College Dormitory
Malcroix Bones Academy
“Ican’t believe I have to put on another costume,” I grumbled, sipping my tea as I peeked up at Miranda from under a lock of curls she’d combed over my face to get them out of her way.
Wraith sprawled in my lap, kneading her claws on the terrycloth robe I wore, which was also Miranda’s. Wraith had been clingy with me since I got back to the room that afternoon, and wouldn’t leave my side.
I felt guilty about it.
It also made me want to go to the party even less.
“If I really must go, can’t I just come as the school hybrid?
” I complained. I frowned as I rubbed Wraith’s head with my thumb.
“My costume could be an exhausted, studied-too-late-and-for-far-too-many-hours half-human. I’ll wear my pajamas and slippers and bring a cup of cocoa, read at a table in the corner for an hour, then come back here to sleep.
You couldn’t ask for a more authentic costume, really. You might even win a prize.”
Miranda laughed, and smacked my arm.
Her mood around me had improved significantly since the night of our Halloween-themed birthday party.
Normally, I’d be happy about that, but she was utterly immovable about me attending the dance with her and Jolie and Draken.
She insisted I needed at least three parties where terrible things didn’t happen to me to make up for the ones where they had.
When I said I didn’t have the energy or the brain power to figure out a costume, she offered to do everything for me, and then I was too tired to think up a better excuse not to go.
I’d barely slept.
Bones and I both crashed after that first time, but it’d been around four o’clock in the morning by then, and he woke me up only a few hours later with his fingers between my legs and his mouth on my breast. I hadn’t been particularly difficult to persuade after that, and we ended up fucking in his bed, then again in the shower after I tried to pull myself together enough to get to class.
My whole body was sore.
I was sore in places I’d never been sore before, and a part of me just wanted to curl up in bed with Wraith and think about the night before until I could relax about it.
I could admit to myself, the main reason I’d agreed to go to the ball at all was Bones.
He’d said he would be there. He’d asked me, both in the shower and in class, if I would be there, too, and what I’d be dressed as, and when I’d be arriving.
As for my dorm-mates, for once, they hadn’t even noticed I’d been out all night.
That was mostly because I’d covered my tracks better, telling them beforehand I’d be in the library and in Frumpy’s doing research all night. I’d warned them before the royals bonfire that they might not see me before I took off to classes the following morning.
When I’d stumbled into our dormitory briefly before my Dark Magic class, probably looking like roadkill, Miranda only laughed sympathetically and offered to make me a coffee.
She’d recently discovered just how strong she could make her own coffee drinks with only a kettle, a portable filter, and some very finely cut fresh grounds.
When she asked me if I’d get a nap in before the dance that night, I’d groaned out loud.
“No,” I’d protested. “You can’t make me go. You can’t.”
“You have to go,” she’d insisted. “You’re and Jolie are my only single friends.”
I opened my mouth at that, closed it, and frowned.
After a few more seconds of thought, I said, “I’m not single.
I’m the hybrid. There’s a difference.” Hesitating, I added, “I’m not at all in the ‘troll for mages’ space, Mir.
If I go at all, I won’t stay for long. I still have a paper to write before finals start next week.
Not to mention all the practicing I need to get in for my Offensive and Defensive Magic exam. ”
Miranda looked over, a faint frown furrowing her forehead.
“Bones is making you take a final?” she scoffed.
I rolled my eyes, lifting my coffee to my lips.
“Of course he is,” I said, quirking an eyebrow. “Did you doubt he would?”
She sniffed disdainfully.
“Prick,” she declared.
Thinking, she added, “Anyway, hybrid or not, you could have a boyfriend, if you wanted.” She gave me a reproachful look.
“You know Draken is pining hard. And he’d be an amazing boyfriend.
He’s definitely the spoil-her-rotten and treat-her-like-a-princess type of mage, and he’d be that for you a thousand times over. He’s positively smitten.”
I thought about Bones, and how he’d looked that morning when I first found him hanging over me, eyes glazed as he’d lowered his mouth for a kiss. Remembering the things he’d said to me, especially when he climaxed, and right after, I bit my lip, fighting to clear my mind.
Gods, I couldn’t think about that now.
I had to remind myself what I was dealing with here.
I couldn’t forget everything I knew about Bones, just because both of us were confused, and the kind of sex we were having was definitely confusing.
Given everything on his end, I had to be the rational, semi-clear-thinking adult between the two of us.
It really probably was just the sex.
Bones was enthusiastic about finding someone he could finally fuck.
That’s all it was. I couldn’t read too much into it.
I was setting myself up if I let myself make more of it than it was.
He was a twenty-two year old mage with a healthy libido who’d been holding back since he hit puberty, worried he’d actually kill one of his lovers by accident.
Of course this was going to be confusing for him.
I really needed to not go too far with things in my head.
He’d wanted me to be exclusive with him because I was the only person he’d found that he could shag at all. If he found another witch who could take his magic, particularly one who wasn’t half-human, he’d likely change his mind in a hurry.
“You really can’t see yourself with Draken?” Miranda pressed.
I sighed internally, and met her gaze in the mirror.
“You know that’s not wholly in my control,” I reminded her, rubbing Wraith’s ear. “I love Draken, but I just don’t see him that way. I can’t even explain to you why not, because I honestly don’t know why. But it wouldn’t be fair… to him, especially… if I pretended to feel something I don’t.”
Some of the tension left Miranda’s face.
“I know,” she said, apologetic. “And I get it. I just really love you guys. I can’t help wishing for it, and not only for him. For both of you.”
I smiled at her in the mirror. “We love you, too, Mir. And believe me, I’ve sometimes wished I could see Draken that way.”
Silently, my mind added, It would certainly make my life less complicated.
Miranda decided to dress me up as Persephone.
It was classic for the holiday, she’d argued, and, she was quick to point out, relatively easy on me, as it wouldn’t require a ton of transmorphing spells, or body paint, or an elaborate headpiece, or much more than Ancient Greek-style clothing and a few spells.
She still managed to make it elaborate, of course.
She did my hair up in classic Greek style, all piled on my head in curls, with tendrils hanging down, a large Greek braid in the back, and gold chains adorned with pomegranate seeds wrapped into multiple, smaller braids around the larger one.
She also fitted me with gold armbands and gold, knee-high sandals.
The toga she found was off-shoulder and form-fitting on top, with a number of colored drapes, half of them the same, blood-like color of pomegranate juice, the other half bone-white.
She charmed me a wedding band with the symbol of hades on it, and long earrings and a necklace to match.
She also did my make-up, making my eyes stand out with glittery gold and red.
After that, I helped her and Jolie put their own costumes together, which ended up being Kali, the Destroyer, in Miranda’s case, and a faun in Jolie’s. Both of which were, I can say in all confidence, a lot more interesting than mine.
I was completely fine with that.
I still hoped to make a fairly minimal appearance, then leave.
By six o’clock, I was already yawning, even with all of Mir’s high-octane coffee in my system. Poor Wraith meowed plaintively as we were going out the door, and I promised her I’d try to be back very very soon.
“The boys already left,” Jolie informed me when we reached the main floor of Valarian. “Draken stopped by while you and Miranda were finishing up.” She grinned. “They went to get drinks. As usual, we took too long.”
“You mean Mir took too long,” I corrected, and Jolie snorted.
Mir elbowed me with one of her six, bizarrely life-like, blue arms, and rolled her eyes, then the three of us were out the door in a thin layer of snow, walking past the greenhouses on the way to Malcroix Mansion.
I stared up at the sky as more snowflakes drifted downwards, and wished I’d dressed as a polar bear, or maybe a Viking god covered in animal skins.
It was definitely colder this late November than it had been the previous year, and wetter.
Once we made it into the hall, however, I was relieved to be blasted by heat from the numerous spells protecting the Mansion lobby from the elements.
By the time we got inside Morwormer Hall itself, I could feel my toes inside the sandals again, and I was only shivering minimally.
Jolie and Miranda made a beeline for the bar.
The latter handed me a hot drink that tasted vaguely of peppermint and hard alcohol before I’d even gotten in line, and suddenly, I had a déjà vu of the previous year, when I’d come to this thing with Graham Strangemore.
It wasn’t the same, though.
Honestly, the déjà vu felt more like a mirror effect. I think I was more bewildered by the similarities, since absolutely nothing else felt the same to me at all.
Although I was looking for him.
That much hadn’t changed.