I went for an early run and when I came back the door to our dorm was open.
“She is such a drag, though. Boring as hell, speaking hardly any words.”
I froze as Ashley’s voice spoke. Did she speak about me?
“Yeah, be careful she doesn’t hear you. She kicked Professor Mia’s ass in Art of War,” Vivian said.
My stomach dipped as a heaviness settled on my stomach. Tears pricked in my eyes.
“Mrs. Boring?” Ashley asked. “The girl that looks like she is going to run away any second?”
“Yep,” Vivian answered as they chuckled. “She knows her, but didn’t say a word when I asked.”
“You see what I mean? She doesn’t even try to make friends.”
I walked the other direction and went to sit on the stairs until they left. Dad was wrong.
I wiped the tears from my eyes. I would never fit in. When their voices came from the stairs, I got up and rushed up the stairs. I needed a shower as I reeked.
They greeted me as I passed them, but I didn’t do fake, so I ignored them.
The shower was a quick one as I was already running late and entered the cafeteria around quarter past six.
“Morning, Elena,” the chef greeted me.
“Morning.” I smiled at him, and I grabbed another bowl of oats and blueberries.
Plenty of students crowded the girl with the hyena laugh again. Was she royalty too? Her table was always so full.
I sat down at a table close to Ashley and them, and they went all quiet. What was her problem with me? I did nothing to her.
A group of girls joined my table, but they didn’t speak to me as I ate my breakfast in silence.
I put my hoodie over my head and just wished I could disappear as they started chatting about their classes.
“Oh, my word. Look who just entered. Look, look.” The girl with the short brown hair spoke fast.
My gaze flickered to the direction they stared and I froze. It was Blake. I looked down immediately as hot flushes rushed through my body. What was he doing here?
“It’s like the second time,” one girl with red hair said. “He’s definitely looking for someone.”
“I don’t care who brings him here, he brightens my day,” another girl with green in her hair spoke, and they giggled as I plopped another spoon of oats into my mouth.
Was he a teacher here? That would be so my luck.
“We saw him yesterday on the first floor with the prince of Tith,” another girl said.
“Well, he’s sister is with us at orientation. It could be her.”
I looked again and Blake spoke to the girl with the hyena laugh, and she had a smile with a raised eyebrow. Heat rolled down my body.
The girl’s lips moved, and everyone around them giggled. They were grating on my nerves.
“Fuck off,” he cussed as he came walking toward the buffet area. Her laughter pierced through the entire room.
I held my head extra low and prayed that he didn’t see me.
“Blake,” the chef behind the buffet area greeted him. “Seven o’clock.”
“I’m hungry, Pete, they’ll have to get used to me, eventually.”
“Oh, you’re blaming your hunger?”
“Shush,” Blake whispered and the Chef’s laughter reached my ears.
I didn’t know he was at Dragonia. My heart thumbed inside my chest as he dished up.
I concentrated on the blueberry drowning in my oats as the girls kept looking over their shoulder, staring at him.
“Fuck, he is hot,” the one closest to me said.
The others giggled again, and I rolled my eyes. As soon as he was going to take a seat, I would make a run for it. Yeah, that was the best.
The chef spoke to him in Latin, and Blake’s chuckle made my skin tingled. I didn’t dare to look up.
“You gotta be kidding,” one girl in front of me hissed, and I closed my eyes as my heart stammered.
“Morning,” Ashley at the table in front of us greeted him but he didn’t reply. He walked past their table and came to ours.
He plopped his tray at the edge of my table closest to me and I sighed.
“Morning,” he greeted all of them and they just stared at him. “Or not.” He sat down. “You seriously think you can hide from me?”
My gaze flickered on him. My heart pulled in all directions. “Apparently not.”
Every person in the cafeteria’s eyes was on me. I could feel them.
He smiled. “When did you get here?”
“Yesterday morning.” I kept my answers short and shoved a spoon of oats into my mouth as my stomach turned.
“How is your training going?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Okay?” He raised his eyebrow.
“The flavor of the month is spicy, so more than okay.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, Micha is hot.”
He was such a flirt. I wished I had seen it earlier. I finished my food.
“Mind taking a walk with me? We have a couple of things to discuss.”
Everyone around the table was staring at both of us as my eyes skidded over them. “Yeah, sure.”
I got up and walked to the drop off area. He handed his tray to the chef.
“Keep it in the warmer please, Chef.”
“Will do,” he answered, and we slipped out the back door.
“Humiliate me more, won’t you? Now they will never leave me alone.”
“Well, you look as if you need some friends.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“I’m a student, just like you,” Blake answered and put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me into him.
I hated how good he smelled and how the flutter in my stomach betrayed me.
“Stop being mean to me. I haven’t seen you for almost four months.”
It was over four months.
“I’m just stressed.” I stepped out of his embrace and tried a different technique, as he wasn’t going away soon. Dying in that ring still laid heavy on my shoulders.
“Yeah, well, Saturday everything will be over.”
I laughed. “That is easy for you to say. It’s not you that is going to face ten tons of muscle and scales who happen to be the most vicious beasty I ever laid eyes on.”
He chuckled. “Beasty?”
“Oh, shush. I have to come up with a name for him. Everyone keeps pushing him down my throat.”
He squinted and then laughed. “He’s everything except a beasty, Elena.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Lucian told me you kicked his ass?”
“By default. He tripped over his shoelaces.”
Blake’s shoulders bobbed as his lips thinned out into a grin.
“He is relentless, to be honest.”
“Well, according to him, you are too.”
“Humph. I’m not the damsel you brought back four months ago.”
“Clearly not. So you think you stand a chance on Saturday?”
“Nope.” I didn’t even think about that.
“Come on. You have Micha.”
“She is a human, not a beasty.”
“They are dragons, Elena, not beasties.”
“I have to do something for my mind to process, okay. They will stay beasties until my mind will accept the other word.”
“So you are still not there yet?”
“I’m getting there. Believe me, I face the Rubicon in Lucian’s simulator every single day. He still scares the living crap out of me.”
“He was protecting you for an entire weekend.”
“Yeah, because of his fuck-up. How many enemies does he even have?”
“A lot, but nothing will happen to you, you have my word.”
That irked me off. It was the last I could take. “Stop giving me your word as you clearly suck at keeping it!” I turned around and walked away as my eyes pricked again. These stupid tears.
“Elena, come on!”
“I have to go. Micha is waiting for me. I’ll speak to you later,” I yelled at him without looking back.
Thank heaven he didn’t follow me. I was early in the Parthenon Dome and waited for Micha.
BLAKE
Elena disappeared through the door, and I went back to my room. She looked hot, as her tights hugged a rounder ass and more sculpted legs. She was still pissed off, and didn’t even hug me properly.
Lucian stood by his dresser and gelled his hair. “And?”
“I found her?”
“Why the long face then, Blake?”
“She is still upset.” I pulled my hands through my hair. “I think you are right. She does not know that I’m the Rubicon.”
“I told you that. She speaks about the Rubicon all the time but whenever I bring up you, she changes the subject like that.” He snapped his fingers.
My eyebrows knitted. “How can she not know that I’m the Rubicon?”
“You said her father asked you in the beginning—”
“Yeah, but there is the fucking internet. You want to tell me she never searched for the guy inside the Rubicon? She is still not comfortable with the word dragon.”
Lucian laughed. “I told you she calls them beasties.”
“It sounded so wrong the way she spoke about my dragon form.”
“You want me to tell her?”
“No, I’ll find a way. If she can stop running away from me.”
I laughed and told Lucian everything that she said. I almost blew it and told her then but realized fast that she didn’t know that I was the Rubicon. It was good to see her again, but she was furious at the fact that I have so many enemies.
“She’ll get used to it.”
“She is going to hate me even more if she discovers I’m the Rubicon.”
“Hey, worry about that when the time comes.”
I nodded.
We went down for breakfast and Chef heated my plate and handed it to me. I ate in silence until Tabitha plopped down at the table in front of me.
“So she is here?”
“Yes, she’s here. Stay away from her, Tabitha. If you treasure my friendship, you will watch what you say in front of her and to her. Best is not to even speak to her at all.”
“It’s so unfair. Five months ago she was a nobody and now she is ruling your entire world.”
“She is what she is to me, so back the hell off.”
