Page 33 of Stormbringer (Tracthesian Academy #1)

“No!” she gasped. “You can’t mean… Wayla, you had to have had a boyfriend before!”

Diana stood frozen by the fridge, and Chrissy let go of Wave’s arms. She sat up straight and looked from one face to another.

“Sheesh! Don’t look at me like that,” she groaned.

“Oh, we are definitely going to keep looking at you just like this until you explain,” Chrissy said. Diana finally got moving and took out a smoothie for Wave and brought it over. They were gathering around her, and for a moment, Wave felt smothered.

The feeling didn’t last long, though, when Chrissy reached over and squeezed her leg. “Did something happen?” she asked seriously.

Immediately, Wave shook her head, the lies falling from her lips easily.

“No. Nothing like that. We just moved around a lot, and my mother was pretty strict until I gained control over my powers.” Of course, something happened.

She’d been so stupid, hurting after her father’s passing, and trusted a man who had promised her the moon. It had almost cost her everything.

“What about your dad?” Diana asked softly.

Wave chuckled, masking the deep hurt and the memories, clinging to the few lighter moments from her early teens. “No one was good enough for his little girl.”

That got a laugh and a round of nods. “My dad tangled the boy coming to take me to ice cream in poison ivy.” Diana smiled. “Mom was furious with him, but he only used nonpoisonous ivy the next time.”

“My father is a threader like me,” Chrissy sniggered. “He made sure my dates couldn’t take their clothes off.”

“Like that’s bad.” Ginny snorted. “At least they could still touch you. Imagine going out with a fucking barrier spell around you every damn time.”

“That explains why you are so good at barriers.” Wave laughed. “How long did it take you to circumvent him?”

“Too many years,” Ginny groaned with a twinkle in her eyes. “What did your dad do?”

Wave hesitated. How much could she say?

“It’s all right, Wayla,” Diana hurried to say, when the silence lingered. “You don’t have to—”

“It’s not that…” Wave mumbled and then sighed. “So, my mother wasn’t letting me date anyone anyways, so I don’t have any cute stories like that. Even after I got my power under control to an acceptable degree, there weren’t that many options that counted. I’ve been mostly with… humans.”

There was a sad flicker in Diana’s eyes. “Can’t have a relationship with them, though. Not a real one.”

Wave nodded. “That. Mother has issues with the… society,” she added, and then sighed again. “And Father’s family is a piece of work. He wanted someone to be good enough. They wanted someone proper and suitable enough.”

“Why would their opinion matter that much though?” It was Chrissy who asked, but Ginny answered.

“Because family expectations can be a bitch, even in the middle tiers, Chrissy. Maybe especially in the middle tiers.”

“That was the one thing I never envied about higher tiers,” Diana said. “We get to choose among ourselves without any drama.”

Chrissy was still frowning. “I still don’t get it.”

“Middle tiers have families that aspire to be more or higher or whatever. Traditionalists who don’t want to acknowledge that we’ve all become so mixed up that the whole tier system is basically obsolete in its original form,” Ginny said.

Wave nodded. Her problem wasn’t marrying up, so to speak, but the threat of marrying down sent grandmother into a fit if it was ever even implied.

Grandmother was the queen of cold rage wrapped in sharp civility and manners that could make you bleed.

Wave couldn’t remember if she had ever been hugged by her grandparents.

“Think of old human nobility,” Wave interjected, and Chrissy finally nodded.

“All right. My family is not like that, but I can see how that could make dating difficult.”

“So,” Wave finally got to the point, “the one time I went on a date with a non-human, it was my rebellious act. He was from a low tier, weak power-wise, an asshole, which was why I chose him, and much older than me.”

“You went on a date with a mountain troll, didn’t you?” Ginny asked. Wave grinned.

“Nope. Trolls are not weak. I went on a date with a stone-goblin. He wasn’t even a chieftain.”

“You did not!” Chrissy was first to speak. Diana looked troubled.

“Not all goblins are bad.”

“Of course not,” Wave hurried to say. “I’ve nothing against them as a race. This individual, though, had been exiled. I just couldn’t figure out a better option to stick it to all the expectations heaped on me.”

“So, what happened?” Ginny wanted to know.

“Okay, saying I went on a date with him is kind of an exaggeration. We never got past the gate before Father appeared with a lava dildo in hand and informed my date where he would place it if he didn’t take his hands off of his daughter immediately.”

There was a few seconds of stunned silence. The first one to break was Chrissy, then Ginny and Diana followed suit in their laughter.

“Oh gosh, I can’t…” Ginny gasped for breath after a while. Diana wiped tears from her cheeks, and Wave hugged her knees, before getting up.

“Anyways, back to the original point. I haven’t received any lectures yet, but thanks for the heads up. Gotta run!”

She was out of the door before anyone could object. That went well, she assured herself. They didn’t need to know about all the times after that when her father wasn’t there to intervene anymore. The laughter was better than pity or horror if they knew how her love life actually turned out.