Page 15

AVERY

I t was just what I had been afraid of—Saint hated me now.

Or else he hated himself for what we had done together the night before.

I could tell by the tense set of his broad shoulders, the way his face was a white, silent mask.

He barely said a word to me as we got ready to go to Breakfast and once we got to the Dining Hall, he sat at the far end of the table from me, just as he had the night before.

My stomach was in knots and I could barely sip the coffee (extra cream, extra sugar) that was my usual morning meal.

Saint wasn’t eating or drinking anything at all.

He was just sitting there, silent, at the other end of the table with that tense, angry look on his face that made me think he was probably never going to talk to me again.

It wasn’t my fault, though! I thought, feeling miserable and irritated at the same time. He was the one who said he wanted to “heal” me and then started kissing me all over!

You did too start it, whispered a guilty little voice in my head. You started it by offering him a hug. You should never have left your bed—you should have kept some distance between the two of you.

I had to admit that little voice was probably right.

There had been a kind of electric tension humming between myself and my tall, dark and dangerous roommate last night.

Almost a magnetism that seemed to draw us together.

I could still feel his arms around me, his lips on my skin.

I could still smell his scent—a mixture of warm, masculine spice and the fragrance of bonfires in the autumn.

And now he hates me again, I thought morosely. I should never have let things go so far. I should have known that a guy who considers himself straight couldn’t get as close as we got last night without some serious regrets the next day. I should have ? —

“Oh, Avery—your face is all healed!” Megan sat down on my left side and Griffin, holding a tall cup of animal blood which was what the Nocturnes had for all their meals, sat beside her.

“Yes, what happened? You were a mess yesterday and now you look great!” Emma sat on my other side. Bran and Lachlan were back from the Fae Realm and they sat on either side of her.

“Did something happen to Avery’s face?” Bran asked, frowning. When we had first met him, he had appeared as a skinny, nerdy human but that was only because he was using an uglification spell on himself. Now, in his true form, he was a tall, blond, Fae warrior with blazing blue eyes.

“It looks fine to me,” Lachlan remarked, glancing up from his plate of Eggs Benedict. He was almost as tall as Bran and equally gorgeous. He had black hair and green eyes—he was a very powerful Fae mage.

Emma, sitting between them with her midnight hair and starry, violet eyes, looked like the princess she was.

The three of them together were enough to take your breath away but at the moment, all I could think of was coming up with an explanation as to why I was suddenly healed of all my cuts and abrasions from the day before.

And though I am normally never at a loss for words, my mind was drawing a complete blank.

“Avery got into an…altercation with several of the Drakes in his physical education class yesterday,” Griffin said carefully. “I’m afraid some blows were exchanged.”

“Not exchanged , exactly,” I said, trying to smile. “More like absorbed , on my part. But I’m fine now—really.”

“You certainly are,” Megan said. “But how?”

“Yeah, Avery—how did you get your face fixed so fast?” Jalli asked, coming to sit beside Griffin.

She was careful to keep some distance from Saint at the other end of the table.

Her three chimelings, Spike, Sweet tooth, and Jelly Belly, were scared to death of his cursed Drake and flew away, chiming in alarm, anytime she got too near him.

“I, um…” I couldn’t help shooting a glace at Saint and then looking away quickly.

I couldn’t tell them the truth—not here in the Dining Hall in front of everyone.

Later, I might admit it to my closest Coven mates—Kaitlyn and Megan and Emma—but I couldn’t say what had happened between me and my roommate last night in mixed company like this.

For one thing, Saint would probably hate me even more if I exposed what we had done.

And for another, though Griffin and Bran and Lachlan and Ari all liked and got along with me, I still didn’t think a bunch of straight guys would want to hear about the semi-homoerotic encounter that had healed my face.

“Avery?” Megan was frowning at me in concern. “Is something wrong? Why aren’t you talking? How did you get your face healed?”

“He probably went to the Healer before any of the rest of us was up,” Kaitlyn answered to my great relief. “You know what an early riser he is.” She and Ari got settled beside Lachlan with their breakfast trays.

Now why hadn’t I thought of that?

“Yes, of course.” I smiled around the table.

“You know me—I couldn’t stand to be anything less than gorgeous for long.

But speaking of gorgeous…” I turned to Bran and Lachlan.

“We missed the two of you yesterday—at least, I know Emmers did. How are things in the Realm and what did you have to do there?”

“Oh, er, well…” Bran cleared his throat, his face looking a little red.

“We had to sign a marriage contract,” Lachlan said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, really?” I raised my eyebrows. “But didn’t Emma need to be there, too?”

“Nope. Because this was a contract between Bran and Lachlan,” Emma explained.

“Really?” I looked at them in surprise. I had only been trying to change the subject away from my magically healed face, but this was interesting news. “The two of you have to get married in order to be with Emma?”

“Essentially.” Lachlan nodded. He still didn’t seem too upset about having to marry his best friend and I remembered what Emma had said about the Fae realm being less judgmental when it came to the LGBTQ community.

“We cannot share her unless all three of us are wed to each other,” Bran explained—his face was still a bit red.

“Though they didn’t have the actual wedding yet,” Emma put in. “They only signed the contract. I wouldn’t miss their wedding for the world! Besides, it’s part of mine—all the weddings will be together,” she added. She put her arms around both her guys’ waists and gave them a squeeze.

“We missed having you with us yesterday, Emma,” Bran turned and dropped a loving kiss on her left cheek. “I wouldn’t marry another man for anyone other than you,” he added. Then he shot a glance at me. “Oh, sorry, Avery—no offense.”

“None taken,” I said airily. “I don’t know many straight men who would marry each other for any reason. It’s actually kind of fascinating.”

“It’s simply the law of the Realms” Lachlan said, shrugging. He kissed Emma’s right cheek and smiled at me. “And I don’t mind marrying another man. Bran and I have been best friends for years—why shouldn’t we be wed? Especially as we’re going to share the woman we both love.”

“So what happens on the actual wedding day?” I asked, now thoroughly intrigued. “I mean, what is the ceremony supposed to be like?”

I was hoping I would be there to see it—I knew that Emma was trying to get a special dispensation to allow her non-Fae friends to visit the Fae Ream for the big day—and I wanted to know what to expect if I did.

“Well, first I will be wed to Bran and then I will be wed to Lachlan,” Emma said, ticking off the ceremonies on her fingers as she went.

“Then they will be wed to each other and then, as the finale, the three of us will tie the knot in front of both Fae Courts at once—they’re going to merge especially for our wedding,” she added, smiling.

“Of course, none of this can happen until after we are all of age,” Bran added, looking meaningfully at Emma, who wasn’t legal yet.

“But there are so many technicalities, legalities, and formalities to get through in order to pull such a big, complicated event together, we’ve already started the paperwork. ”

“Which is why we had to miss classes yesterday to sign our marriage contract,” Lachlan added, smiling over Emma’s head at Bran. “Isn’t that right, my husband?”

Bran’s face went red again and he nearly choked on his coffee.

Emma burst into giggles and elbowed Lachlan in the ribs, causing him to nearly spit out his own tea.

“Be nice, Lachlan! You know this isn’t as easy for Bran as it is for you!”

“The really difficult part will be on the wedding night when all three of us must consummate our union,” Lachlan said blandly. He raised an eyebrow at Bran. “Think you can handle that, old friend?”

I was sure if Bran’s face got any redder and hotter his hair would probably catch on fire.

“I can handle it,” he said at last after choking on his coffee some more. “We just have to kiss at the wedding, that’s all.”

“ You certainly seem to be handling it with aplomb,” I remarked to Lachlan. “I don’t know many straight guys who would be so calm about the prospect of, er, being with their best friend that way.”

I couldn’t help shooting a glance at Saint as I spoke, wondering what he might make of this. He stared back at me for a moment, his face still white and tense, then looked hurriedly away.

I felt a knot of tension in my stomach but I turned back to Lachlan, trying to listen to what he had to say anyway.

“Oh, I’m not strictly what you humans call ‘straight’,” he remarked casually.

“Sexuality is a sliding scale, after all—at least I believe it is. I have been attracted to others of my own sex as well as others of different Fae species before,” he added.

“So being with both Bran and Emma—the two people I love most in all the Realms—is a joyful thing for me.”

“It’s a joyful thing for me, too,” Bran said firmly.

His face had lost some of its redness and he was able to take another sip of coffee without choking.

“I love both of you,” he added, looking first at Emma and then at Lachlan.

“And I love the fact that the three of us will be together for life. Some parts of that life will just take a, uh, little getting used to—that’s all. ”

“All right, you guys—enough talk about our personal lives,” Emma chided them both.

Her own cheeks were flushed prettily and I thought of how much she’d changed.

The shy, quiet, plain little Emma Plunkett that I had known in the past wouldn’t have dreamed of having not one but two gorgeous guys in her life. Now she seemed to take it in stride.

“I suppose it’s not that different from our relationship,” Kaitlyn offered, nodding at Ari.

“Since we both have Drakes. Well, I am my Drake—I don’t have another entity inside me like Ari does.

But it still amounts to a three-way relationship, since Ari’s Drake loves me as much as Ari does.

In fact, sometimes I think he almost loves me more . ” She smiled at Ari playfully.

“The love of a Drake is an intense and sometimes dangerous thing,” Ari said seriously, not rising to the bait.

“It borders on obsession. Even the most stable Drake will go mad and wreak havoc if his l’lorna is threatened.

” He cast a glance first at me and then at Saint as he spoke, a worried look in his eyes.

Saint rose from the table suddenly and picked up his untouched breakfast tray.

“I have to go,” he said shortly. And then, with no other explanation, he left, his face still white with tension.

“Oh dear,” Kaitlyn murmured to Ari. “Maybe you shouldn’t have said that.” She looked at me. “Did something, er, happen last night? Something to upset him?”

Megan raised her eyebrows and Emma did too.

“Avery?” they both asked at the same time.

Again, I found myself at a loss for words. But to my great relief, this time I was literally saved by the bell—Breakfast time was over and we all had to get to our first period classes.

“Oh well—tell us later then,” Kaitlyn said, gathering her tray.

I took a final big sip of my coffee and, over the rim of my cup, I saw Juan Gonzales staring at me.

He still had some marks on his lips where my magic needle had sewed them together the day before.

Feeling extremely grateful that I didn’t have to have gym class with the big brute anymore, I tipped him a wink.

I expected that my flirtatious gesture would make him glare at me with rage. There’s almost nothing a homophobe hates more than being flirted with by someone like me. Instead, he nodded pleasantly and gave me a friendly little wave.

I nearly spit out my last sip of coffee—what had just happened?

As I stared over at the long table where the Drakes all sat together, several more of the boys who had been bullying me the day before caught my eyes.

But none of them glared or cursed or even looked away in disgust. Instead, every one of them made some kind of friendly gesture at me—nodding or smiling or waving—as though I was an old friend they were happy to see.

I shook my head and looked away as I left the table. What in the world was going on? Was my life about to get weirder than it already was?

I didn’t know if I could handle it if it did.