“Yes, Headmistress,” we all said—all except Ari. He turned stormy eyes on Headmistress Nightworthy and then looked at me and I saw that his eyes had gone pure gold.
“MINE,” he growled again in that deep, thunderous voice I knew belonged to his Drake.
I couldn’t help myself, I flinched back at the intensity of his glare and the possessiveness in his voice.
Ari said nothing at my swift movement, he only studied me as though memorizing my face, and then turned and stalked out of the Headmistress’s office.
I watched him go and wondered if I would ever see him again.
59
Ari
I was so angry I knew I had to leave. My Drake was too close to the surface and he, too, was angry—enraged, in fact, at the idea of our L’lorna being given to another in order to feed.
“No one! She must touch no one else—feed from no one else!” he roared, so loudly my skull ached.
“She won’t,” I promised, though I had no idea how to keep my word. “We won’t allow it—somehow we’ll stop it.”
But how?
I didn’t know but right then I knew that I was not going to leave Kaitlyn behind to the tender mercies of Nancy Rattcliff. That vrota had already tried to get her killed twice—once by the jaws of the Guardian and once by an angry mob.
I had half a mind to let my Drake burn her to a crisp—that would have been the penalty for attempted murder of a male’s mate in the Sky Lands. But I knew things didn’t work the same here, in the human world.
Reluctantly, I decided I would have to leave the punishment of Nancy Rattcliff to the Headmistress.
But that didn’t mean I had to leave Kaitlyn to her as well.
I felt my determination rising as I stalked down the stone hallway. I wasn’t sure how I would manage it but I swore to myself that my little L’lorna was coming with me…
All the way to the Sky Lands and beyond.
60
Kaitlyn
“Hey—you wanna talk about it?” Megan sat down on the battered old blue couch beside me and put a comforting arm around my shoulders. We were back in the Norm Dorm and I was trying to get myself together after the scene in the Headmistress’s office.
“Hi Megan.” I looked up from my contemplation of the fire. “There’s nothing to talk about, really—he’s gone.”
“I know. I’m sorry, hon.” Megan gave me a squeeze and I sighed and let myself lean against her.
“You’re a good friend. I know all this messed up your weekend plans.”
“Don’t be silly,” Megan said briskly. “Our only plans were to cook and eat dinner with Aunt Delli. She was going to teach Griffin how to make her famous goulash.”
“So you see, I must thank you for keeping us here,” Griffin remarked, coming to sit on the other side of Megan. “Otherwise I would be cooking human food at this very moment.” He made a face and I had to laugh.
“All right now, you brought this on yourself, you know,” Megan remarked, looking at him pointedly. “You’re the one who said human food was like eating dirt or sand.” She looked at me. “I told my Aunt Delli he’d said that and she was horrified. She wanted to know how in the world he was going to cook for our children if we ever have any.”
“Um, can you have kids, though?” I asked. “I thought it wasn’t certain when you mixed two kinds of Other.”
Megan shrugged. “I’ve been doing research and it’s not certain one way or another. But if we can’t have them the regular way, we’ll adopt. There are lots of Other orphans that need homes.”
“And if the children we either have or adopt are of the human-type variety—that is to say if they eat food instead of drinking blood—I must be able to cook for them, apparently,” Griffin said dryly.
“Yes, you must,” Megan said. “Because I am not going to be doing all the housework and cooking and cleaning by myself. We’re splitting the chores fifty/fifty.”
“I don’t really mind,” Griffin remarked. “I am well content to do the dishes and vacuum, or whatever else you desire me to do.” He shrugged. “I just don’t think I’ll be a very good cook, since human food doesn’t taste like anything to me.”
The sight of the two of them getting so domestic tugged at my heart. Would I ever have that kind of love with anyone? The kind where we talked about having kids and who’s turn it was to do the dishes?
“Aren’t you two getting a bit ahead of yourselves?” Avery said. His voice came from above us and I looked up to see him standing on the spiral staircase that led down into the Norm Dorm. “I mean, you’ve still got a few more years before you set up house together,” he said.