Blood Pledged (Arcane Arts Academy #3) - Elena Lawson Page 0,35

back for a moment after class, please?”

My throat tightened, and Bianca gave me an apologetic look before she scooted out the door with all of the other students. I hadn’t told her everything, but enough for her to know that I wasn’t exactly thrilled with him right now.

Elias closed the door behind the students. “Don’t worry,” he said, turning to face me. “I’ll excuse you from being late to your next class.”

I gathered up my books and stood, biting the inside of my cheek. I didn’t respond, unsure of what exactly to say.

“I’m sorry,” he said after another beat of silence, and when I met his gaze, I saw the sincerity there. “It was wrong of me not to trust your judgment. And you were right. I would have done it to protect you without question. I’m just...” He sighed and lowered his eyes.

I shook my head, sighing too. I didn’t want to harbor all these ugly feelings anymore either. And looking at him now, I knew that I wasn’t truly angry with him. I’d only been disappointed. But people said things sometimes without thinking. Hell, I was the queen of doing that at times. “It’s okay,” I told him, clearing the distance between us. “I just want you to trust me. That’s all. It sucked feeling like you didn’t, even if it was only for a second.”

I realized then that he was now the only one in my inner circle that didn’t know about my father’s journal and what it possibly contained, or that I was doing my very best to find the person responsible for all those deaths.

How did things get so screwed up? How had I come to trust someone like Draven with those secrets and not Elias?

“Is everything alright?” he asked, giving me the perfect segue way to tell him. To bring him into the knowledge we’d gained so far—which, I’d be the first to admit, wasn’t much.

But I didn’t tell him. Instead, I shrugged. “Nothing. Just tired. It’s been a long week.”

The worried crease in his forehead softened, and he pulled me in for a hug, books and all. I nuzzled into him, relishing in the calming effect of his cold mountain pine smell mixed in with a wisp of bergamot from his morning tea. My body unwound from its tense spool and melted against him, allowing his strength to hold us both up, if only for a second.

“You had me worried,” he whispered into my hair.

I peered up into his soft gaze, and my heart began to beat faster, harder than it was a moment before. The black of his pupils almost completely took over his blue eyes, making them look as though on the verge of a catastrophic storm.

And this. This was why I hadn’t told him yet. Because I didn’t want to be the cause of his worry or his pain. I didn’t want the crease in his brow to be there because of me. I wanted to bring him only joy. I wanted to make him smile. Laugh.

I wanted more for him than what I could give.

As he leaned down to touch his lips whisper-soft against mine, my stomach fluttered and my spine tingled, forcing a tiny whimper from my lips. My fingers clenched the books tightly against my chest, needing something steady to hold on to while my knees trembled.

When his lips left mine and I opened my eyes again, I saw in him the same riotous emotion raging behind his stare. My magic called to him, only serving to strengthen the connection and the forceful pounding of my heart.

Was this what it felt like to fall in love?

I studied the curve of his face in the morning light streaming in from the tall windows to our right. The addition of the golden rays made his jawline sharper and set his deep brown hair alight with threads of gold and brass. There was brass in his short beard, too, and bright copper that I hadn’t noticed before.

He was perfect. So perfect it was almost painful.

The door creaked open, and we weren’t fast enough to pull apart as Professor Donovan, the vile snake he was, slithered into the room. “Oh,” he exclaimed and froze in his tracks. “I was just… coming to ask a favor of Professor Fitzgerald.” He said the words slowly, his mind processing exactly what he walked in on.

With my heart in my throat and my knuckles white against my textbooks, it was easy to make a tear