Page 5

Chapter Five : The Tea

I missed the first half of the day, being the stubborn person that I am, I refused to give up, and now the entire Academy knew.

Prince de Babineaux was an exceptional fighter, and I hated to admit it, but he kicked my ass...

I kicked his ass, too, but he scored more points than I did though so he technically won.

Rolling around on the floor, his muscular body pressing against mine, caused mixed feelings in me that I couldn't help but feel as if I've had them before...

And that added to the current situation and only made me even more pissed off.

The smug French Vampire Prince just waltzed into my program as if he owned the place and kicked my ass, making me look like a punk in front of my team, and then he had the audacity to offer to escort me to the Healing Center like a total and complete gentleman...

I really wanted to dislike him.

Before we even started to grapple, Prince de Babineaux asked permission to touch me.

I didn't understand what that meant, so I punched him first.

After that, he didn't say much.

Occasionally he grumbled an apology under his breath when one of his hits resulted in bloodshed, which I'd always take advantage of to bloody him in return then smiled because he let his guard down. Or he'd growl under his breath, a deep, animalistic sound, which I thought was pretty damn sexy in a weird way, and that was always followed by a French profanity when I moaned, distracting him even more.

It wasn't a distraction tactic on my part.

That deep, menacing growl of raw masculinity was legitimately one of the sexiest things I had ever heard, and the other females and a few of the males in the class who were watching moaned in agreement with me.

All of that, strangely enough, made Prince de Babineaux even more interesting to me, and that could be why I kept slipping while we grappled and he was able to score the points that he had.

I had grappled with everyone in the program before, all of the Instructors and Masters, including many visiting Masters, and those I trained with in my youth. It was always professional and it never registered with me that they were anything other than a grappling partner.

But grappling with Prince de Babineaux was different.

I was hyper-aware of him, of every inch of his body, of every bead of sweat that rolled down his flesh, of every drop of blood that rose to the surface of his perfect ivory skin, each breath he exhaled, the way his soft hair felt every time it caressed against my skin...

Feeling our bodies pressed together, legs and arms tangled like a knot of flesh was very stimulating, to say the least.

And his smell, he smells so good!

Clean but ambrosial with a floral note of something I can't quite describe or name, but I know I've smelled it before.

"What in the heck happened to you?" Jolyn blurted out, startling me.

"Huh?" I asked.

"Continue to daydream while you gnaw on that stalk of broccoli, Love," Harper amusingly said with a smile.

I am not daydreaming!

I glared at him before chomping on the broccoli in my hand and angrily chewed, causing him to chuckle.

Okay, maybe I was daydreaming about Prince de Babineaux and didn't realize it.

Damn it. I think I have a stupid crush on the new student.

"Fangula," Harper said, turning to the fourth member of our little campus family. "Our little Ari got her ass handed to her in combat training this morning by a Prince, nonetheless."

Jolyn's mouth fell open with a popping sound. "No way! Who? A Prince?! And she didn't kill him?"

I rolled my eyes. "I'm right here, and I have a bit of self-control even if none of you will acknowledge it," I reminded them.

They all gave me identical looks.

Yeah, I'm not buying that one either.

"She hurled a bloody practice stake at him within thirty seconds of meeting him because she has self-control," Harper said.

"Okay, that's fair," I conceded.

"Is he of concern?" Jolyn pressed, looking at Harper.

He shook his head once.

"Again, I'm right here," I said.

I hated it when they acted weird like that when I was around.

I could never tell if they were flirting with each other or if they were trying to one-up the other with who was considered the eldest or leader of our group since I'm the baby of it age-wise.

"The Prince is merely a delicious new piece of meat and nothing to concern ourselves with," Slevin said, twirling a lock of his pink hair around his fingers before sighing. "His ass though, my god, is totally worth getting the crap beat out of you for more than four hours straight for. Damn. He can pound my ass anytime."

Harper rolled his eyes and then kicked Slevin under the table, causing him to jump with a yelp. "It was bloody insane, the two of them. Each opening was corrected faster than I had ever seen an opening corrected before, and it was as if they were both constantly on the offensive but on the defensive at the same bloody time, and reading the other's mind! I don't know how either of them scored any bloody points," he said. "Even Master Dade was completely gobsmacked by it."

Jolyn eyed me. "I thought those sparring rings were enchanted to prevent injury," she said.

"You should see the other guy!" I smugly informed her with my mouth full before smiling.

Harper nodded. "If they weren't enchanted to prevent critical and lethal injury, they'd be dead," he confirmed. "Four hours of non-stop fighting. They switched between styles faster than any of us could keep up: Kodokan Judo, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Chinese Shuai Chiao, Russian Sambo... And those are only the ones that I could identify before I gave up trying!" he said.

Jolyn looked from me to Harper then to Slevin. "This isn't good," she said. "Maybe I shouldn't start Night Class this year."

Slevin smiled wide. "No, that is exactly where you need to be, Jo. The nightmares are back, remember? Besides, the Prince is nothing to worry about. Beautiful asked me to find out about her mysterious, tall, dark, and handsome Prince, so I did," he said, stealing all of our attention. "Obviously he's French, but only half from what I can tell, and that mysterious other half is where the size and hair color came from. According to his transcripts, he just transferred in from the Stockholm Academy."

"I already knew where he came from," I reminded him. "I told you that!"

Maybe Zannie knows him?

"Shut up," he said. "Rumor is that the Prince got kicked out for screwing the Headmaster's daughters, yes, pluralized-"

"That was my brother, not Prince de Babineaux," I interrupted.

"Really? Huh, interesting," Slevin said, giving me a look. "Another rumor suggests that Prince de Babineaux pulled a knife on an instructor and it took ten Sentinels to pull him off-"

I put my hand up to stop him. "Rumors mean nothing," I reminded him. "Did you forget that I'm really a man, and Harper is my brother and you are our love child, and Jolyn is a total lesbian Atheist? Hello, get to something that might be credible."

"Fine," Slevin said, then stuck his tongue out at me. "He's the Prince of the Fifth House of Vampires, the de Babineaux bloodline. The other bloodline which makes him up was redacted in ways that even I couldn't uncover."

"That's concerning," I commented.

"I wasn't able to find out if he has any siblings, the record was also redacted," he continued.

"Hardly surprising," I said.

He glared at me. "I did find out that he doesn't have a protection detail, which is strange considering he is from one of the first Five Houses."

"That means he isn't the eldest heir," I reminded them.

Slevin glared at me. "Ugh! You are so annoying when you do that when it's my tea to spill. You two share most classes and he's staying in the eastern visitors complex until a living arrangement can be coordinated."

Okay, that was strange.

Jolyn huffed. "Well, where is he? I want to see him."

"He's a Vampire so most likely he's in the Sanguis Lounge," I said before gagging, and she glared at me. "You know what I mean."

The Sanguis Lounge is what the Vampire students and staff call where they feed on fresh blood from their chosen walking blood banks, or volunteers that make up a large portion of the Academy's Mundane population.

Needless to say, I was not a fan of the Sanguis Lounge, and one too many comments over the years from either new Vampire students or visitors about how they'd like to see me in the Lounge for some quality time together, and the assaults that always resulted, cemented my opinion and disgust of Vampires in my mind.

That was part of the reason why I was so conflicted over the green-eyed vampire that I couldn't stop thinking about.

Vampires were not an option, I knew.

Royals certainly weren't an option.

Silly, infantile males weren't an option.

And without question, Prince de Babineaux of the Fifth House of Vampires was not an option...

With that said, why was I not accepting of that all of a sudden?

My life at the Academy was good, for the most part.

I had three people that I considered friends, not acquaintances, but actual friends that I loved like family.

Slevin was short, that's why I called him Shorty; five foot-four, messy curly hair in various shades of pink, delicate features, and rose-tinted cheeks and lips. Everyone needed a gay best friend and he just happened to be ours. His love of designer fashions and his higher opinion of himself is what kept him single; no one was good enough for Slevin, just ask him.

Our Wizard-born in our little academy family is different, and not all that terrifying for being a Wizard-born; my father and grandmother are Wizard-born and I've seen them do some pretty insanely powerful stuff. Slevin's an underachiever in his studies and his fashion sense was greater than his Thaumaturgy; he's lazy and failing all of his classes, but I loved him nonetheless.

Every group of boys, yes, I'm considered one of the boys despite my awesome boobs, needed a girl, and our girl was Jolyn.

Bubbly and spunky with an ear for gossip, she kept us in the loop when it came to the many outlandish rumors that go around the academy about me or us. Jolyn's an Elemental-born over Water that's part-Vampire from four generations back, and without any of the Vampiric traits—that's why Harper calls her Fangula, because Jolyn has tiny fangs but didn't know how to use them—with dark blonde hair with a slight curl and light blue eyes that are warm despite their cold hue, and her soft features are always warm and animated.

Strangely, Jolyn's true passion is religion and the Lord, annoying as all hell, but it's a part of who she is. Because she's in her Sixth year now, she is starting Night Class, but she won't tell me what that actually is or what it entails.

The last in our little party is Harper; beautiful, protective, and nerdy, Harper. All the girls want him, but he has no interest in any of them. I've had to kick as few of their asses when they turned into fanatical stalkers. If only they knew the Vyras they lusted after was a huge geek with a comic book collection that took up most of his room, and his lack of skills with the opposite sex and his social awkwardness is from his geekiness surfacing.

It's funny though, the four of us are all so different but mesh together perfectly, as if Fate put us together.

Jolyn's the annoying, bouncy little sister that you love to hate and have to save from herself because she's so na?ve, loves everyone and everything, and puts so much faith in the Lord that you have to save her from herself most of the time. But her pure nature you just have to love and protect her because you need it in your life.

Slevin's the gay brother with severe middle-child syndrome that thinks everything should revolve around him, and he wouldn't be caught dead in anything from last season; he's a total clothes whore. As selfish as he comes off, he'd wage war with Hell to save you from it or would throw himself in the pit with you so you weren't alone and had someone to spill the tea with.

Harper's the protective big brother who's smart and hilarious in his geeky way; he tries to hide his genius, but he wields it when needed without giving it a second thought. He takes it upon himself to count how many calories I eat and how many I burn; he makes sure we have food and snacks in our suite and will go out of his way to make sure I have everything I need even if I don't need anything at all.

Big brother syndrome, I called it.

Then there is me.

The rebel who is overly protective of all of them and isn't afraid to slap a Royal, which is a criminal offense, if they step out of line with one of them.

My academy family goes out of their way to make sure I'm happy and have everything I need, and that they are there for me, but I do the same for them, even if they fight me on it.

It's what family does.

"Oh. My. Gosh," Jolyn emphasized each word in her overly dramatic fashion. "That's the Prince that you beat on for four hours straight?" she gasped.

"Huh?" I asked; I wasn't paying attention, but I guess I should have been.

The crowded dining hall quieted when Prince de Babineaux entered.

"Told you his ass was amazing, Jo," Slevin whispered, and Jolyn nodded her agreement.

With confidence that his crown dictated he had, Prince de Babineaux strolled down the center of the room towards the food services line, the cape on his right shoulder fluttering away from him with each long, purposeful stride he took.

Prince de Babineaux was wearing an academy uniform, but instead of it being the uniform of the Vancouver Academy, he was wearing the uniform of the Stockholm Academy, which in my opinion was something you'd see a vampire in an anime wearing.

Black slacks with burgundy pinstripes and a matching slim fit, long sleeve dress shirt with burgundy satin cuffs and black silk-wrapped buttons. Over it was a tailored burgundy double-breasted vest with black buttons and piping, and a high collar that covered the entire length of his neck.

Attached to one shoulder was a matching burgundy cape trimmed in black with the Stockholm Academy crest embroidered in shimmering burgundy thread, and the same crest was on the gold round cloak fasteners that had gold chains draped to connect his cape to the other shoulder when needed. Tall, polished leather black boots cut just below his knees and had soft, pliable soles and black metal buttons with unfamiliar markings on each fastened them along the back of each calf with individual thread chain closures.

That over-the-top uniform was the everyday Stockholm Academy attire.

I only knew that because my brother had sent me a very questionable photo shoot of him in his uniform when he arrived at the Stockholm Academy for the first time. And the graphic detail of how long it took him to get in and out of it was more than any baby sister needed to know.

It killed me to admit, but Prince de Babineaux was the picture of perfection, not a hair out of place, not a blemish or bruise on his smooth ivory skin, and he looked amazing in that uniform.

His onyx hair hung just below his shoulders in large, loose curls that were glossy, shorter hairs framed his face which he would blow out of his eyes when they fell into his line of sight, effortlessly turning him from the male lead on the cover of a cheesy romance novel to a teen cast in a Shakespearian high school production real fast.

It was kind of cute, regardless of how annoying his perfection was at the moment since I was sitting there looking like a slovenly-dressed punching bag.

"Jolyn, can you fix my ice pack?" I asked, tossing it to her.

Absently Jolyn picked it up while she leaned into the aisle to check out Prince de Babineaux's ass since Slevin was admiring it as well.

It was admirable, I'll give them that.

Jolyn pressed the bag of water between her hands and a soft blue light illuminated from between them before she slid the frozen bag of water back to me.

"Thank you," I said. "You two might want to wipe the drool off of your chins," I told them.

Jolyn and Slevin wiped their mouths.

I slung my book bag over my shoulder and then hissed.

Harper looked at me. "Why don't you call it a day, Love?" he asked.

"It's just tender," I promised, kissing him on the cheek. "I'll take it easy tonight. See you in class?"

Harper nodded and watched as I headed from the quiet dining hall, mumbling something under his breath.

If I didn't leave, I would have sat there gawking like everyone else was at the tall, broad Vampire Prince that had beaten my ass today, and the truth is, I was tired of hearing about Prince de Babineaux.