From His Luna to His Rival's Mate

Chapter 32

SELENE

I waited until Elara went to the library, she left around seven, said something about finishing a paper, grabbed her bag and walked out.

I listened to her footsteps fade down the hallway and then I waited another five minutes just to be sure, then I got up and locked the door.

Her side of the room was exactly as organized as everything else about her, books stacked neatly, clothes folded in the drawer.

A small shelf with a few personal items arranged with the kind of precision that made me think she actually cared how they looked. I started with the obvious places, desk drawers, under the bed, inside her pillowcase but I found nothing.

I sat back on my heels and thought about it. If Elara had something to hide, she would not keep it somewhere obvious, she was too careful for that.

I looked around the room again and my eyes landed on the full-length mirror on the wall beside her bed. Heavy wooden frame, the kind that had been there since the dorm was built probably. I went over and ran my hands along the edges.

The frame was loose on the right side. I worked it gently and it came free, just enough for me to slide my fingers behind the backing. My hand closed around something small and cloth. I pulled it out.

A pouch, dark brown, tied at the top with a string. I opened it and smelled something sharp like a chemical. The powder inside was fine and pale, almost silver in the light. I had no idea what it was but every instinct I had said it was not something Elara was supposed to have.

I put it back and kept looking, behind the second poster on her wall I found a journal. Leather bound, old looking, filled with handwriting that was not Elara's. Older handwriting. I flipped it open and read the first entry.

*Pheromone binding ritual. Day three. Subject shows increased attachment and decreased resistance to suggestion. The mark is working.*

I turned the page.

*Day seven. Subject initiated physical contact without prompting, the bond is taking shape. By the full moon he will be completely malleable.*

My stomach went tight. I kept reading. Entry after entry, all dated, all describing Calder as a subject. A mark, something to be controlled and shaped, and the handwriting at the top of each entry was in Elara's careful script.

*Day fourteen. Subject attempted to break the bond. Reapplied the powder to his drink. Compliance restored within hours.*

I closed the journal, that was when I heard the key in the lock.

I had maybe two seconds. I shoved the journal back behind the poster and turned just as the door opened. Elara stood there with her bag over her shoulder and her eyes moving from her side of the room to me standing in the middle of it.

Her expression did not change. "You are going through my things," she said. It was not a question.

I did not move. "Yes."

She closed the door behind her and set her bag down on the floor slowly. Like she had all the time in the world. "That is not very friendly, Selene."

I kept my voice level. "Neither is controlling someone with drugs."

Her eyes went sharp, she walked toward me and I did not back up. She stopped about three feet away and tilted her head slightly, the way she always did when she was looking at something that interested her.

"You found something," she said.

"I found enough."

"Did you." She smiled but it was not the warm smile she used on everyone else. This one was cold and showed her teeth. "And what exactly do you think you found?"

"A journal. Your handwriting, describing what you have been doing to Calder."

She laughed. "You think that journal is mine?"

I did not answer.

"That journal belonged to my mother," she said, still smiling. "She kept very detailed records about a lot of things. Including her experiments." Elara moved to her desk and sat down like we were having a normal conversation. "She is dead now, has been for five years. But she left very detailed instructions."

I understood then what I was looking at. This was not just Elara being jealous or cruel. This was something she had learned, something passed down.

"You have been drugging him," I said.

"I have been helping him," she said. "Calder is not capable of managing his own emotions. He never has been. My mother understood that, she understood that some people need guidance." She looked at me. "That some people are better when someone else is making their decisions."

"That is not guidance. That is control."

"Call it what you want." She stood up and walked to the mirror. She looked at her reflection and smiled at herself. "The point is that it works. Calder is exactly where he needs to be."

"Which is where?" I asked. "Obsessed with me? Following me around? Losing his mind?"

She turned around. "Exactly where he is supposed to be."

I took a step forward. "If you keep this up..."

"What?" She cut me off, her voice stayed calm but something dangerous moved behind her eyes. "What will you do, Selene? Tell someone what you think you found? That I have a journal my mother left me?" She walked closer. "No one will believe you, and even if they did, what exactly would you tell them?"

I said nothing.

"That is what I thought." She stopped a few feet away from me. "You have a choice now. You can forget what you found. You can stop digging into things that do not concern you, and you can go back to being my nice little roommate who minds her own business."

"And if I don't?"

She smiled again. "Then I will make sure everyone at this academy knows exactly what you really are."

"What are you talking about?"

"A girl who came here and immediately started playing games with two powerful men. A girl who rejected one publicly and humiliated him in front of the entire school. A girl who is clearly unstable and dangerous and possibly using powers she does not understand to manipulate people around her." She stepped closer.

"I have been very thorough with my documentation, Selene. I have names, dates. Witnesses who have already agreed to talk about strange things they have noticed about you."

My hands went cold. "You see," she said, "I came prepared for this. I knew you would be a problem eventually. I just did not know it would be this soon." She touched my shoulder and I pulled away.

"So here is what happens. You forget about the journal, you forget about Calder. You stop investigating and you stop asking questions. And in return, I do not destroy you."

I looked at her. "You cannot hurt me," I said. But my voice was not as steady as I wanted it to be.

"No?" She tilted her head. "Try me. Or better yet, try telling someone what you found and see what happens when I tell them everything about you."

She walked away from me and went back to her desk like the conversation was over. She pulled out her laptop and acted like I was not there.

I stood in the middle of the room for a while without moving as I realized something. I had been thinking of this as me investigating her, trying to figure out what she was doing. But she had been prepared the entire time, she had been building a case against me while I was building one against her, and hers was better.

I went to my side of the room and sat on my bed. We sat in silence for the rest of the evening and it was the loudest silence I had ever heard. She had won, at least for now.