Blood Pledged (Arcane Arts Academy #3) - Elena Lawson Page 0,91
knowing if you did, you wouldn’t be able to keep it down anyway. So you just starved, became frail and hangry with low blood sugar.
My mouth was full of some weird gray stuff that tasted a hell of a lot better than it looked when I spotted a familiar, though not necessarily friendly, face. “Kendra? What are you doing here?”
She pursed her lips, and I noticed she was alone. No Sasha or… well, Heather was dead, so…
I cringed. Oops. Even after everything Kendra put me through, I couldn’t help feeling that if losing Heather was anything like the mere thought of losing Bianca, then I was being an insensitive bitch.
“I—” She hesitated, and I saw how very uncomfortable she was. In her short dress with the diamond necklace, her shoulders hunched inward. “I should have just—I shouldn’t have come,” she stammered.
“No, wait,” I said when she tried to turn away. It pained me to my very core to say it, but I forced the words to come out. “Stay.” I even attempted a smile. “If you want.”
She looked at me like I was insane. “What?”
“Stay,” I repeated. “And I’m sorry about Heather.”
Kendra stiffened at the words and I saw the bitchy facade she wore like a mask all the time waver, just for a second. “Thanks,” she mumbled. “I just…” She paused uncertainly. “I needed to get out of my house. My parents have practically had me locked up in my room all week and…” She trailed off and I raised my brows.
Okay. My lenience only goes so far. I wanted to tell her we weren’t friends, to remind her of that fact before she got the wrong idea. But when she saw how I was looking at her, she clammed up.
“Nevermind,” she said. “I won’t be staying long. I just wanted to escape.”
“Upstairs,” I told her, using up the last bit of patience or care I had for Kendra Van Damme. “Go all the way to the end of the hall and use the door on the right. No one will bother you in there.”
I left before she could thank me—if Kendra was even capable of a thing like gratitude—and made for the lawn again, tired from all the walking in circles and about ready to call it a night.
I caught sight of Elias on my back out for a wine refill and winked at him through the crowd. He was standing next to another professor, chatting. I forgot his name, but he was one of the younger professors and taught the fourth year students some advanced something or other. He wasn’t the only other teacher to arrive, either. Though Granger had left, I’d run into at least three other professors eating the fancy snacks or gazing at the paintings in the hallways. As though they’d been invited to a swanky museum instead of a teenage girl’s birthday party.
But I supposed the grandeur of Rosewood Abbey would draw a crowd even if it weren’t for the soiree Martin had organized for me.
Where was that old man? I’d seen him for barely a minute earlier and now he had vanished on me. I wondered if he went home for the night but didn’t think he would leave without telling me.
“…still can’t believe she’d let them loose in her house!” I caught the tail end of a conversation between two girls a little to my right.
“Right? They could attack anyone at any moment. Shifters aren’t—”
“Excuse me,” I said in the most saccharine voice I could muster, trying to rein in my fury. They were first-years and I couldn’t unleash full-throttle Harper on their tiny asses. “But if you’re uncomfortable being here, may I suggest you leave?”
The pair flushed brilliant scarlet before they bowed their pretty little heads and sped away back toward the house. I hadn’t missed the looks all the people who’d shown up were giving my familiars. And I was sure Cal and Adrian didn’t miss them either. But this was my house. My birthday party. And if they didn’t like it, they could fuck right off.
I was midway through filling my glass when I heard it. The sound was so muffled at first, I thought I’d imagined it. A shrill cry carried on the gentle summer breeze. The people near me didn’t seem to notice, but when I locked eyes with Elias, I knew he’d heard it, too. He rushed from his conversation and darted back inside, and I hiked up my dress to follow him.