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“Who are you from and what do you want?”Saint demanded in a loud voice.

There was no immediate answer but slowly, the cloud began to form a shape.After a moment, I saw it was turning into a face—a big, angry face that was bigger than Saint was.

Now, I know people see shapes in the clouds all the time and they’re kind of nebulous and indistinct and you can’t really see the details, but not the messenger cloud—no, this cloud did agreatjob with the details.The ten-foot-tall face staring at us was clearly a man—a man with a long mustache and a beard with an angry, disapproving frown between them.His cloud eyebrows were drawn low over his cloud brow and his angry eyes were fixed on Saint.

“Father,” Saint said coolly, apparently not worried at all.“To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?”

“Do not pretend you don’t know why I have come to you, Santiago!”The cloud’s voice was like literal thunder in the now dead-silent Dining Hall.“You are no longer my heir but you are still my son and I have heard rumors that you are bringing great shame on our house and on the entire Western Province of the Sky Lands.Is it true that you have become a lover of men?”

I held my breath, waiting for Saint’s reply.Just a day or two ago he had sat right in the Headmistress’s office and declared that hewasn’ta “lover of men.”Would he acknowledge me now or would he deny me at this critical juncture?

“As you see, I wear the Blood Mark of another male, father.”Saint brushed back the hair from his forehead, baring the softly glowing Mark my blood had left on him.“And he wears mine as well.”He turned his head and nodded at me and I came out from behind him because the time for hiding was over.“This is Avery,” Saint told the angry cloud face.“My Drake has chosen him as ourl’lorna.”

“WHAT!”the cloud bellowed.Lightning flashed, lighting up the entire Dining Hall in a dazzling display and thunder cracked and rumbled deafeningly, making the students around us clap their hands over their ears.

But Saint stood firm.

“You heard me, Sire,” he said, lifting his chin.“My Drake has chosen him and, as is the way of our people, my heart has followed my Drake’s.”He took my hand in his and interlaced our fingers.“Avery is mine and I am his.In time, I will claim him completely and we will be Blood-Bonded forever.”

“Blasphemy!Sacrilege!”the cloud thundered at us.“I will not have it said that my son is a lover of men!”

“Nevertheless, I am,” Saint said calmly.“I know it is wrong, but I do not care anymore.I choose to be with Avery and to love him in a way that is unnatural—the way of a man with another man—and there is nothing you can do about it.”

Wait—what?I cast a quick glance at Saint.I was touched that he was standing up for me like this, but did he still think that what we were doing was unnatural and wrong?Did he?—

Then the big, dark eyes turned towards me and my brain seemed to freeze.

“You know that my son’s Drake is cursed, do you not?”Saint’s father demanded.

I lifted my chin.

“Yes, I know that,” I said calmly.“I love him anyway.”

“I do not think you understand,man-lover.”The cloud face’s scowl twisted into a sly smile.“You think my son loves you—that his Drake loves you—but neither of them do, not really.The only reason my son’s Drake is drawn to you is that it iscursed.Thebrujawho cursed my son before his birth made certain that no female would be able to tame his Drake—he would never evenlookat you otherwise.”

I honestly didn’t know what to say to that.Unfortunately, it was kind of exactly what Saint had told me the night he had healed my wounds.My stomach twisted into a knot but I tried not to show it on my face.

“I love him,” I repeated, not knowing what else to say.

A disgusted look came over the enormous face.

“You and your kind are a disgrace—my son would never be with someone like you if thebrujahad not cursed him!If the curse was broken, he would revile you as all right-thinking people do!”Saint’s father growled with another rumble of thunder.He looked back at Saint.“If I hear any more about you consorting with thismariposa,I will recall you to the Sky Lands and exile you to the Southern Swamps.There you will live your days in sorrow and regret and you will never be allowed anywhere near another person again, lest you infect them with your evil!”

And then, before Saint or I could say anything else, the dark cloud suddenly sucked in on itself, getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared with an audiblepopthat made my ears ring.

Apparently the audience with Saint’s father was over.Meeting the parents of my new boyfriend had gone exactly as badly as I had imagined it would.

25

SAINT

Istood, stunned to muteness as the messenger of my father disappeared.Inside me, my Drake roared defiance.Who was he to say Avery was not ourl’lorna,he demanded.How dare he forbid us to be near our love?

I was inclined to agree with him.I had accepted the fact that I wanted Avery in my life as much more than a friend and roommate.I could still taste the sweetness of his lips against mine from the night before—could still feel his soft skin under my fingertips.He made me feel things I had never felt with anyone else—he made my body comealive.

I had never felt those feelings when looking at any female.In fact, I could only remember one other person who had made me feel half of what Avery made me feel—and that was my friend, Diego, whom my father had banished.But even what I had felt for my friend was nothing to what I felt now for Avery.

I was determined I would not give him up—not without a fight.