Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Book 2 Chapter 27

27

Before dinner, I check on Tina.

Unlike the shifters, who had an initial few days of sickness then recovered without the ability to shift, Tina isn’t recovering. The transfusions of vampire blood she’s getting are the only thing that help to perk her up, but it’s getting harder and harder for us to cover her absences.

“Where were you?” Val asks as soon as I walk into the room.

“I just stopped by the infirmary to check on Jordan and Greg and—”

“No.” Val coldly interrupts. “Where were you when you disappeared for almost two whole days?”

I blink. Taken aback by his tone and that he noticed I was missing. I glance at Tina, who’s buried beneath a layer of blankets. “Maybe we should go outside and talk about this.”

He nods his assent and we quietly exit the room together. We remain silent as Val takes the lead down the hallway. When we reach the front entrance instead of heading out the door, Val grabs my hand, tugging me in the other direction.

The dormitory buildings are assigned according to students’ disciplines. Assassination class in one building, healers in another, and so on. Each building is then split in half, with the boys on one side and girls on the other. And Val right now is taking me into the boys’ assassination dorm. Which means he’s taking me to his bedroom.

I hesitate. “Um, I don’t really know if I should—”

Val’s lips twitch with amusement. “Edie, I’m not taking you to my room to put the moves on you.” He pauses and lifts his eyebrows. “Unless you want me to.”

“No! I…” I stop because I do sorta want Val to put the moves on me. It would be a nice distraction from all the stuff with Mavis swirling around in my head. And Nico’s upcoming raid isn’t making me feel so great either. At the same time, things with Val are complicated too.

“Look,” Val says, cutting through my confusion. “We need to talk privately. If we go outside there’s a good chance Nico will run into us again. Or run into me, should I say. It’s obvious the guy is tracking you.”

“He is not,” I protest. “You make him sound like a stalker.”

“No, he’s much worse. He’s a wolf with your scent. I saw him sniffing around the portal after you went missing yesterday.” Val tugs my hand again, and this time I follow him down the hall to his room. He opens the door and holds it open for me.

Still nervous, I go back to the Nico argument. “You know, he’s planning this big raid. That’s probably why he was at the portal.”

Val shakes his head. “No. He was hunting.”

“Okay, well—” I push past Val into his room and all words leave me. His room is so him.

Three of the walls are painted black. But the fourth is a mural that’s a bright mix of colors. I walk over, wanting to examine it more closely. I see Val riding a unicorn through a night sky filled with pizzas instead of stars. In another connecting scene he’s cliff-diving from the top of a waterfall that goes from the ceiling all the way down to the floor. His bare white butt shimmers slightly.

“This is amazing,” I laugh.

“Yeah. While I was being introduced to all of Larissa’s family and friends, Tina snuck back to campus. I think she wanted to check on Vee—”

“Of course she did,” I interject.

“But she also wanted to cheer me up. So”—Val indicates the entire wall—“she did this. Or most of it. Before she got sick, she was coming in almost every day to add more.”

“Okay, just to clarify. We are talking about the same Tina, right? Your twin sister. Who only smiles when she’s laughing at someone else’s misfortune?”

Val shrugs. “She has hidden depths.”

“Yeah, speaking of those…” Uncomfortable, I sit down. Then realizing I’m sitting on Val’s bed, I spring up again.

I don’t know how eyes as dark as Val’s can laugh. But his do.

And right now—they’re laughing at me.

Sticking my chin up, I sit back down on his bed. And then primly cross my ankles and fold my hands in my lap. Val actually bursts out laughing at this, which feels like winning a prize. I grin back at him before remembering what I was about to say.

“Tina told me about her mixed blood. And plant powers. Oh, and I heard all about your family too. She was really out of it and just sort of talking…but I think maybe it also felt really good to get it off her chest.”

Val nods tightly and then turns away from me to study his mural wall.

“I don’t need to ask if you’ll keep her secret,” he says at last. “I know you will.”

“Of course,” I answer immediately.

He turns back to me, his face tight. “You know then that I’m a Moggy too.”

“Yeah and I don’t care about it, either. I think the whole Moggy thing is stupid.”

“So do I. But Tina…she’s always craved acceptance and is determined to be accepted into the crème de la crème of vampire society, even though she knows they’re a bunch of inbred jerks.”

Val sits beside me on the bed, his weight tipping me towards him. Our shoulders bump together. I’m not gonna act like an i***t again and jump away, so instead I just go with it, relaxing until his left side from shoulder to hip connects with my right side from shoulder to hip.

“Val,” I say softly, looking straight ahead at the amazing mural while feeling Val’s cold seep into me. “You have powers too, don’t you?”

Even as I speak the air surrounding us becomes thick with fog. At first it’s so light, I blink, wondering if I’m imagining it. But then the fog grows and Val’s whole room is swallowed in white. If he wasn’t pressed against me, I’d have no idea if he was even in the room anymore.

I remember then how it rained the day we talked last semester when I was feeling homesick for Florida. It was a tiny cloud, like it had been made just for me. And then again in the desert, when Val found me, it rained. That was Val.

“Yes, Edie,” Val answers at last. “I have powers.”

I kiss him then and Val wastes no time kissing me back. His arms come around me, pulling me tight against him so more of me is connected to more of him. As we sink back onto the bed, it feels like Val and I are in our own space, and all the rules are suspended.

Val trails kisses along my lips and then gently bites the soft skin at the corner of my mouth. I shriek in surprise.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling away. “It’s a vampire thing.”

Grabbing hold of his T-shirt I jerk him toward me. “I liked it. Do it again.”

His eyes grow dark as he descends once more. I squeal again because it’s weird and wonderful that I’m kissing a vampire and it’s Val and—

Bam.

The person next door bangs on the adjoining wall.

“Val. Can you and Larissa give it a break already?”

I go still. The cold is no longer coming from Val, but growing outward from my own center. The room is no longer our foggy world away from the world. It’s just a dorm room again…one where everything, including me, is slightly damp.

Bringing my knees up, I push Val away.

“Edie.” He’s on his feet instantly, extending a hand to where I’m still pushing myself up off his bed.

Ignoring his hand, I stand. “No. I cannot believe I let you play me like this.”

He crosses his arms. “My next door neighbor is an i***t. Yes, Larissa has been in my room. We talk. Sometimes we play chess. It’s a shared passion.”

“Shared passion? Interesting word choice, Val.” I shove my way past him, to march out the door, but Val snags the back of my shirt. “Let me go. I may not be able to burn you, but I can make this room awful toasty for you.”

“Edie, I can’t let you go.”

Val reels me in using my shirt as the fishing twine, until my back is attached to his front. Wrapping both his arms around me, his cool breath hits my neck. “I told myself that when I returned to campus with Larissa, I wouldn’t see you. Wouldn’t talk to you. But then you were lost in the desert and I kept going through portal after portal trying to find you. I had to. The thought of never seeing you again…” He sighs and a shiver runs down my spine. “Edie, I can’t let you go.”

“Oh.” It takes a while after that before I’m capable of words again. After that speech I feel like we should be running off hand in hand to our happily ever after. But my head isn’t in the clouds anymore and I can see the future all too clearly. “You’re still marrying Larissa.”

“Yes,” he answers without hesitation. “With Tina huddled away in her room for so long, already there’s been talk. Whispers that she’s sick with the shifter disease. Both Larissa and I are doing our best to crush them, but the longer she’s gone…” Val sighs. “Her position is more precarious than ever—”

“And yours too,” I can’t help but point out.

I feel Val’s head shake, his lips brush the back of my head. “If it was only me, I’d leave today. Derrick—my old roommate—and I used to talk about working private security. His uncle had a business, very exclusive. Monsters of all types worked for him. We figured we had the perfect education for it, since MOA is the perfect place for learning how to protect rich and lazy idiots.”

I can’t help but think of how the gods hid behind tables during the Spring Fling m******e, and agree with Val.

I allow myself one more minute within the protection of Val’s arms before pulling away. “I have to go. I’m expected at this faculty dinner thing.”

Val lets out a laugh.

“What?” I ask.

“Kratos invited me to attend as well.” He holds open the door for me. “Shall we?”

I follow hesitantly. There’s no getting away from Val.