275
Lucy
Well, don't get used to that. That'll be ending soon, Lily.
Amelia's remark followed me into my afternoon class all the way to the locker room. I threw my bag in the locker and yanked on my clothes, irritated and feeling like I wanted to punch something. My anger was sparkling beneath my skin, and I knew it was ridiculous.
Still, I was mad. I was pissed, and I couldn't believe her. I couldn't believe she had the nerve to say that to me.
I slammed my locker shut and stomped out to the combat classroom. Duke was there already, stretching. As soon as he saw me, he smiled. The atmosphere in the magical combat class crackled with energy as the rest of the class filed in and set up. Lucian glanced at me with a curious tilt to his eyebrow before instructing us to pair up so we could hear through the hand-to-hand combat drills.
We went through the stances before we were supposed to hold cushions for each other's strikes. Duke picked up the cushions first. Before I realized it, I was already ready to strike. He assumed a defensive stance as we began the exercise.
He smiled, meeting each one of my blows with the cushions as if he were blocking them. Despite the exercise and the burning in my muscles, my thoughts kept drifting back to the encounter with Amelia during lunch.
I could hear the lilt in her voice when she called him alpha as we circled each other. Frustration simmered within me. I couldn't shake the annoyance that was still rattling through me. I felt like every strike was making it better and worse at the same time.
"Hold!" Lucian called.
I turned away from Duke, huffing and still wanting to go. I tried to shake it off.
"Friendly reminder," Duke called. "I'm Duke, not Amelia."
I set my jaw and huffed. He grinned at me. "I'll let you take the next round, too, if it'll help."
"Go!"
I kicked hard. Duke caught it with a cushion and the next and the next. I was grateful that Duke had extra combat training; otherwise, I might have worried about hurting him even though I knew I wasn't that strong. The training drills provided much-needed, and Lucian didn't ask me to trade-off.
With a swift motion, I lunged at Duke, punching and kicking in the combination Lucian was teaching us.
I saw her face.
I heard her voice.
Every flash of her presence in my memory seemed to irritate me more. Duke blocked me easily, seeming to read what I was going to do before I had even figured it out. It felt almost like I was on the edge of exploding, and it was ridiculous. David hadn't paid her much attention. David hadn't even seemed interested in carrying on much of a conversation with her, yet I was mad.
Why?
I didn't use to get upset.
I didn't used to get jealous.
I guess I also had no reason to get jealous.
I saw Lucian out of the corner of my eye, watching silently. He was probably thinking about the last time I'd gotten angry in one of these moments, but this was Duke. Even if I was trying to shake my anger, nothing in me wanted to hurt him.
"Hold! Take five."
I huffed, turning and pulling in deep breaths that didn't seem to be helping at all. Duke caught my eye.
"Better?"
I shook my head.
He nodded. "Okay."
When it was time to go again, he let me go at it. As the drills continued, my muscles burned, and it seemed to burn through the majority of my anger.
Then, it was time for the halfway break, and I couldn't even sit down.
"Can you believe the nerve of that girl? Flirting with David right in front of me?"
Like I wasn't even there, or better yet, that it didn't matter that I was there? Like I was invisible.
David hummed, eyeing his arm as he took off the cushion. "No bruises. I'm counting myself lucky."
"I'm still mad," I growled, pacing in front of him. "I'm so mad I don't know what to do."
"Breathing is a good first step," Duke said. "And maybe remembering that David is wrapped around your little cat ears."
I scowled at him, but he grinned.
"You're terrible."
"You're adorable."
"Duke, I'm serious," I said. "I--"
"David thinks you're divine. A real gift from the universe."
I huffed. My cheeks heated for a different reason as I looked down at him. My stomach fluttered, and I thought of the way David had looked at me when he'd come into the cafeteria.
"Take a seat, and let's talk, or I'm going to have to call you little tea kettle."
I laughed. "Duke."
"Kat-Kettle Lucy. It's got a nice ring." I flopped down beside him and grabbed my water bottle. "Amelia is an airhead, and if David was interested in her, he had plenty of time to date her, but that's not what happened, is it?"
I shook my head.
"There's only one girl around her that he's auditioning for," Duke grinned at me and flicked my forehead. "So what's really bothering you?"
I pulled my legs to my chest, trying to parse through the anger, but suddenly, it felt fragile like glass, and the moment I touched it, it shattered. Doubt, fear, and utter anguish welled up, stealing my breath. The encounter with Amelia had stirred something within me. Amelia was in the same class as David. She had grown up in the magical world. She was a werewolf, too, I was pretty sure... She was a lot of things I wasn't in so many ways.
For a moment, I heard those women's cruel words about what it meant to be a luna, what I could hope to have, what I should expect. The shame that rolled through me, the way it made my skin crawl, was enough to make me sick.
I knew that David didn't think the same way. I knew that he wasn't looking for that kind of relationship. I could even imagine the scenes from the dream again, but they drifted away and turned to dust as my doubts and fears swept through me like a storm.
I hadn't even known I was a werewolf until recently. I was just a hybrid. I barely knew anything about magic or the magical world. David was an alpha, basically a governor or a president of a sort.
A king, something whispered.
Wouldn't she be the better fit?
I could hear Selene's voice in the back of my mind, insisting that I would be happier with the twins. I shuddered at the thought, my stomach lurched, but a small part of me...
A tiny part of me wondered if that future with the twins she was so hell-bent on forcing on me was all I should hope for. I had so much to learn and there was so little of a chance that I would ever catch up. I bit my lip at the thought. I could almost see it: the way David's gaze would turn for me, focusing on Amelia with all the intensity that he used to direct at me. Never mind everything I had to learn and figure out; what about everything that had happened to me? Wouldn't it be better for him, easier, if he was with someone with less baggage?
I could see the Escort car pulling up to take me back to Blue Moon, to Tony and Matt, wherever they were.
I could see my eyes growing dim and almost... being...
I pressed my hand to my mouth as my stomach lurched again.
"Hey," Duke said, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Talk to me. Your expression is... well, it's not good. You look like you're about to puke."
"…Do you think she's right?" I whispered, my voice sounded so fragile. "That I shouldn't get used to this? To David?"
"No."
"But--"
"But nothing, don't let dark-haired bimbo Ashley make you doubt what David has shown you." He shook his head. "You deserve better than that. You should treat yourself better than that."
I swallowed and nodded, swallowing past the patch of tension in my throat. I felt rocked and unsteady. I wanted to hold on to those words. I wanted to believe that there was more meant for me than Selene's twisted future, than loneliness and where I was right now.
By the end of the break, the frustration had turned to a low-grade melancholy. The rest of the class seemed to vanish and had eased a little. I was still upset, but it felt so far beneath the feelings of doubt that it didn't even bother me.
"I'm glad to see how much you all have progressed," Lucian said, grinning at us all. "Thinking back to when we started just a few weeks ago, I'm pretty sure I can barely recognize half of you, and the rest of you must be new students."
People laughed.
"Seems like now is the time to chat about the rest of the semester."
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
