Page 9

AVERY

“O h, Avery—what happened to your face?” Emma exclaimed, the minute I sat down at one end of the Norm table—which was badly named since none of us were Norms anymore.

But at least our spot was across the large, echoing Dining Hall from the other long tables that housed the Nocturnes, Faes, Sisters, and most of all the Drakes.

“Who hurt you?” Kaitlyn demanded, protectively. She used to be such a shy little mouse but now that she had an enormous, gorgeous Drake inside her, our little Katydid had become quite the warrior princess.

“Whoever it is, we’ll make them pay!” Megan promised. She and Griffin were sitting across from me and she had an angry look on her pretty face.

“Thank you, girls, but I’m just fine,” I told them, taking a big bite of my salad and crunching noisily to prove it. “It was Juan Gonzales and a few of his cohorts. We had a little altercation in gym class, but it was nothing that couldn’t be handled.”

“I believe I know who handled it,” Ari said quietly.

He shot a look at Saint, who was sitting all the way at the other end of our table, as though he couldn’t get far enough from me.

“Avery, I am so sorry that my kinsmen attacked you,” he continued, looking back at me.

“I am ashamed to bear the name of Drake today.”

“Well, well—word does spread fast, doesn’t it?

” I said as lightly as I could. “Don’t worry yourself, Ari.

And girls, you can all simmer down,” I added, looking at my Coven mates.

“The attack was no fun but it did get me out of gym class for the rest of the semester. So all-in-all, I’d say it was worth it. ”

“Nothing is worth getting punched in the face!” Megan said indignantly. “That Juan Gonzalez and his friends are going to be in a world of hurt when I’m done with them! They can’t go hurting my Coven mate and not expect some vengeance!”

“Now, Princess Latimer, you know you’re not allowed to use your Blood Magic for any reason,” I admonished her gently. “Besides, I’ll be fine. I’ve bounced back from worse. I’ll go to the healer tomorrow and get it taken care of—I just didn’t have time tonight before supper.”

“I don’t care if you’ve had worse—you’re not going to have to take it anymore,” she said stubbornly, knitting her auburn eyebrows together. “And I don’t have to use Blood Magic—my little magic is coming along nicely, thank you very much.”

“Beloved, did it ever occur to you that Avery might not want to be avenged?” Griffin, who was sitting beside her, murmured.

The two of them were permanently Blood-bonded, just like Ari and Kaitlyn and Emma and her two Fae consorts, Bran and Lachlan were—(both of whom were in the Fae Realm for the day, doing some kind of Royal business.) Sometimes I couldn’t help feeling lonely when I realized that all of my Coven mates had found their soul mates and I was the only one who was still alone—who would probably always be alone because of who and what I was.

“How can Avery not want to be avenged?” Megan demanded. “He would avenge any of us if the situation was reversed and those goons came after Emma or Kaitlyn or me!”

“Yes, but there is the small matter of masculine pride,” Griffin told her. “Avery may wish to deal with this in his own way. Besides…” He cleared his throat and looked pointedly at Saint. “I believe he already has a defender.”

“What?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What’s the whole story?”

Kaitlyn and Emma and Megan were speaking all at once, and all three were staring at me.

To my relief, it was Ari who answered.

“I believe that Saint came to Avery’s rescue,” he murmured in a low voice. “Or at least, his Drake did. Which nearly resulted in the two of them being kicked out of school.”

“What?” Megan, Kaitlyn, and Emma all spoke the same word at the same time with the exact same inflection, which is the sign of an unusually tight-knit Coven.

It was also, however, something I didn’t want to answer at the moment.

I wished they weren’t so focused on me. Why couldn’t they be distracted, like little Jalli who was sitting a few seats down from me and was engrossed in feeding tidbits of food to her trio of chimelings ?

“Girls, can we please talk about it later?” I pleaded. “The fact is that Saint and I didn’t get kicked out of Nocturne, but Coach Vasquez did. And that’s all that matters for now.”

As I had hoped, this little tidbit was enough to switch the topic of conversation from the incident in the gym to how much everyone at the table heartily disliked the ex-coach.

They tactfully dropped the subject for the rest of Supper, though I knew from the looks all three of them were giving me that they would want to resume it later—probably after everyone had gone to bed and the four of us had the Common Room of the Norm Dorm to ourselves.

But until then, at least, I could try to eat my meal and make certain that my eyes didn’t wander too often to the other end of the table, where my dark and silent roommate sat picking at his food and studiously avoiding eye contact with me.