too.
“I’ll give you a complete play-by-play of me almost knocking Giovanna’s head off if you find me a drink. I need to forget what that bitch’s voice sounds like. Sage, you’re a freaking saint. How you put up with her without lighting her ass on fire, I’ll never know.”
Sawyer snorts at me before swooping down to kiss Sage on the cheek and getting up. “I’ll grab you both drinks… try not to start a riot while I’m gone.”
I nod at him with a tight smile, the wince still stinging a little, but then I launch into a completely true and not at all exaggerated version of what went down with that tanned skank of a woman.
We’re both dying of laughter by the time Sawyer and Felix find us there, enough bottles of beer between them to drown a hippo. I pull a face because beer is not my favorite, but Felix grins and shrugs at me. “Maria caught us grabbing the good shit, so we had to compromise.”
I shrug back and take one of the bottles from him. “It’s fine, I just need the alcohol to forget how pissed off I am, really.”
Sage scrunches up her nose but takes a bottle as well, introducing Felix and I properly, even though I’m sure we both already know too much about each other. It’s awkward for a second, with Sage trying to scoot in closer to me to make room and Felix’s eyes following her with a hunger that he’s not even attempting to tamp down, but then I start the Giovanna story all over again, with a few more embellishments and commentaries, and the air clears around us all and there isn’t another awkward silence between us.
It’s a good night, one I was never expecting.
As I look over at the group of gossips, Gabe once again accepted into the fold, I make a point of leaning into Sawyer to hear his story and the look of pure rage Gabe sends me feels like a victory.
Chapter Eleven
It takes three weeks to get our marks back for the assignments, but the second I walk through the doors and into the lecture hall, my bond tells me something is really freaking wrong with this situation.
I might hate having that weird, almost-sentient calling in my chest but it’s also never wrong. I lived in LA for a summer a few years back and it saved me from a drink-spiking incident, as well as a car mugger. Since arriving at Draven University, kicking and screaming, it’s gotten even sharper, like even just being so close to my Bonds has made the calling as sharp and accurate as the scope on a sniper rifle.
When my footsteps slow, Sage shoots me a look and falls into step with me, which I’m expecting, but when Gabe does the same thing, a frown etched onto his handsome face, I start to get worried.
Is there a bomb in the room?
A shooter?
What the hell has all of my hackles rising like this?
Everyone files into the room like there’s nothing wrong, taking seats and chatting away to each other, and I start to sweat because how do they not feel this panic like a fist in their chests like I do?
Am I losing my fucking mind?!
Nox steps into the room by himself for the first time in months, and it only takes one look at his face to tell me that the ominous feeling in the room that only Gabe and I can feel is of entirely Draven creation.
For fuck’s sake.
I slump back in my seat a little now that I’m not looking around for a freaking terrorist, and Sage gently bumps my shoulder with hers with a sad smile, solidarity in the face of my Bond’s bullshit because if anyone in this room can understand it, it’s her.
The moment he starts talking, all eyes hit Nox and the talking and gossiping immediately dies down. He doesn’t call for attention, his mere presence demands it and, like a pack hierarchy, every student falls into line obediently. There’s a respect here that he has cultivated that once again makes me curious about what he can do, what the real danger he poses to us all is, because there has to be more than just a respect for a professor here.
I’m too busy thinking about potential powers to notice Gabe leaning into me until his breath hits the curve of my ear, dancing down my neck and sparking a flurry of goosebumps that I don’t