I didn't know what Pegasus shit was currently falling from my lips. "We broke up before I came here. I really like anal and he didn't, so..."
Bless his little cotton socks, Hastings' eyes almost bugged out of his damn face. It was too cute. I wished I could take a picture.
"Can I go get changed before my work detail starts?" I asked when words just didn't seem to want to come to him and he shook his head like he'd just remembered where we were and what was going on.
"No need," he said, stepping forward and taking hold of my bloodstained jumpsuit between his fingers and using his water magic to draw all of my blood out of it and into a globe with what had spilled onto the floor.
"Are you going to put that in a cup and give it to Officer Cain?" I teased and Hastings snorted a laugh.
"Maybe I should," he agreed though I didn't think he meant it. I wished he did though, the look on that stronzo's face when he got a takeaway delivery straight from his vein of choice would have been priceless.
"Waste not want not," I purred and Hastings shrugged, glancing at the swirling globe of my blood like he was actually considering delivering a takeaway service to the boss man and I really hoped he was. "Thank you for saving me, ragazzo del coro," I said softly, moving into Hastings' personal space and tiptoeing up to place a kiss on his cheek.
I was gone again before he could chastise me or lean in or whatever a choir boy would do in a compromising position, and the heat in his cheeks said that he didn’t even know what to do with me.
Before he could figure it out, I turned and walked away, swaying my hips as I went and striding off towards the library.
The Mess Hall was emptying out as I reached it and I moved into the crowd as everyone headed for the stairs, letting them sweep me towards it.
But as I took the first step down, the dizziness swept through my mind like a wave again and I stumbled, almost falling. And if it hadn't been for the hand which clamped around my arm to stop me, I probably would have gone ass over tit all the way down to floor seven where the Belorian could laugh at me for being a silly twat.
"What the fuck just happened to you, love?" Ethan growled in a low voice and as I turned my head to look up into his eyes, I found them wild with panic.
"Shit, baby, do you care now?" I asked, wide eyed and innocent as the flood of inmates continued to pour past us and we drew more than a few curious looks. The Lunar King and Oscura Queen should never be seen together after all – the poor common folk would shit their britches. Couldn’t be having that.
"Don't dick around with me on this," he hissed, yanking me along until we reached the next floor down and he tugged me a little way along the corridor to gain some small level of privacy. "I was having the joy of a random cavity search because someone tipped the guards off to say I'd been smuggling a shank up my ass when I felt your pain like a punch to the fucking gut. I clenched down on Nichols' fingers so hard that I'm surprised I didn't break them."
I couldn't help but laugh at that visual and Ethan actually smiled back. For one, fleeting heartbeat it was like we didn't hate each other. Like we actually could be what the moon had wanted us to be for each other.
But that must have just been the blood loss talking, because the shine faded fast and his brows pulled together as if he'd seen me slamming the door to my heart closed in his face.
"Rosalie, please, I-"
"What's going on?" Roary's deep voice drew my attention over Ethan's shoulder and my heart twisted in this almost guilty, definitely painful way as I glanced between these two men I'd sworn not to ache for and felt as though I was bleeding all over the floor for them even more than I had been upstairs.
My lips parted on the truth, but I held it back. If they knew what Gustard had done then they'd run right on down there and beat the living shit out of him, maybe even kill him, and we couldn't afford that.