Marked by Midnight

Chapter 10

Something Was Different

Damon

I knew something was wrong with Kyle. He was terrible at hiding things. Usually, he had an answer for everything. He knew what he wanted, where he was going, and what he expected from everyone around him.

But lately, he kept looking at Elena. And he wasn't the only one. I caught myself doing it too, and I hated that.

She was supposed to be irrelevant. That was what I had told myself after the ceremony. Elena Morgan was human and powerless. Someone who had somehow been chosen by a bond that made no sense. So I rejected her. Simple. At least, that was what it should have been.

But then she nearly fell in the refectory. Kyle caught her. And for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Not because Kyle caught her. Because of what happened immediately afterwards. The air around Elena had changed. It had been so quick that I almost convinced myself I had imagined it. Almost.

I was walking beside Kyle and Lucian after class when I suddenly stopped, "Wait."

Kyle turned, "What?"

I looked back down the corridor and said “Nothing”.

Students were walking around. Teachers were talking. Everything looked normal.

Lucian stopped beside me, "What did you sense?"He asked

"So you felt it too?" I asked, looking at him.

He didn't answer immediately, and that was enough.

Kyle turned to me with a frown on his face and asked, "Felt what?".

But I only replied, "Nothing."

I started walking again.

Kyle followed and said to me in a cold voice, "You don't get to say nothing after stopping in the middle of the hallway."

I shrugged and continued walking.

As we approached the courtyard, I sensed something, but from where? I looked towards the courtyard, and it was Her “Elena”.

I noticed Kyle's expression changed immediately, and Lucian looked at me. Neither of us said anything. Just then, we heard a loud crash, and we turned.

A large decorative stone planter near the courtyard had fallen over. Students jumped back, looking terrified, and someone shouted.

I stared at it. The planter had been sitting against the wall. There was no wind, and no one had touched it.

"What happened?" Kyle asked.

Nobody answered.

Then I saw Elena. She was standing several metres away.

She looked just as confused as everyone else.

Her hand was slightly raised. Then, she quickly lowered it.

I narrowed my eyes. "Did you see that?"

Kyle looked at me. "See what?"

I didn't answer. I wasn't sure what I had seen. But I knew something had happened. And somehow, Elena had been standing right there when it did.

Lucian

I had noticed it, too. Not the planter but Elena. There had been something around her. Something faint. Something I couldn't identify, and It disappeared almost immediately. But I had felt it.

The strange part was that Elena didn't seem to know it had happened. She looked around the courtyard with the same confusion as everyone else. That made me more curious.

I had spent years learning to notice things people tried to hide. Body language, changes in expression, a shift in someone's breathing, a sudden change in the atmosphere, but Elena wasn't hiding anything. She genuinely didn't know.

I looked at her from across the courtyard. She was speaking to Seraphine. Her friend seemed worried.

Elena shook her head and smiled. She looked normal. It's completely normal. But something wasn't normal about her. I knew that now.

"You're staring again," Damon's voice broke my thoughts.

"I am observing."

He laughed, "That's your fancy way of saying staring."

I ignored him while my eyes stayed on Elena. The bond had chosen her. Three of us. That alone should have been impossible. But maybe we had been asking the wrong question. Maybe the question wasn't why the Moon Goddess had chosen a powerless human. Maybe the question was why we had assumed she was powerless in the first place.

I looked towards the fallen planter. There were cracks in the stone. Not ordinary cracks. They spread from the centre outward. Almost like something had pushed against it from inside.

Damon walked closer. Kyle followed. But I stayed where I was. Elena suddenly looked in our direction. Our eyes met. For a second, I felt something pull inside my chest.

The bond, but this time, Stronger than before. I looked away. I didn't want her to see my confusion. Not yet.

Damon

Later that afternoon, I found Elena alone near the edge of the academy courtyard. She was standing beside one of the old trees. Her hand rested against the trunk.

I stopped. I wasn't planning to talk to her. At least, that's what I told myself.

"You're going to make the tree uncomfortable," I said to Elena as I took a few steps towards her direction.

She turned around, lifted her eyebrows, and saw me. But from the look on her face, it seemed like I was the last person she had expected to ever talk to even though she tried her best to hide that expression. "What?" She replied

I smiled and said to her again, "You've been staring at it for almost a minute."

"I wasn't staring." She said, with a faint smile on her face, which I noticed.

"You were." I said to her with a smile on my face too, which was really unlike me, but I couldn't bring myself to control anything that was happening at that moment .

She looked back at the tree like she was trying to understand something and said to me, "I thought I felt something."

My smile disappeared, and i asked. s"What?"

She shook her head, "I don't know."

I took a step closer and asked her again, "What did you feel?"

She looked at me. For once, she didn't seem annoyed by my question. "I can't explain it", She answered.

Her voice was quieter. "It felt like..." Then she stopped.

"Like what?" I asked curiously.

"I don't know", She answered as she pulled her hand away from the tree.

The moment she did, the leaves above us moved. There was no wind. I looked up, then back at her, and it seemed like she had noticed it too.

Her eyes widened. "Did you see that?" She asked me.

"Yes," I replied in assurance to what I saw.

She stared at the tree. Nothing else happened.

I looked at her carefully.

"You should tell someone," I said to her.

"Who?" She asked me immediately with a little sense of hope in her voice.

I didn't have an answer.

Because who were we supposed to tell? The people who already believed she was powerless? The council? Or Ravina?

None of those answers felt right.

Elena looked at me and asked, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

I stepped back. "Like what?" I answered a smile.

"Like you're trying to figure me out." She said as she smiled back at me.

"Maybe I am." I said as i walked closer to her.

She rolled her eyes and said, "Good luck."

Then she walked away like she was shy of answering whatever question i had formher next.

I watched her go, and for the first time since the mate ceremony, I wasn't thinking about rejecting her. I was thinking about what she could be. And that scared me. Because if Elena Morgan wasn't powerless… then none of us knew what the Moon Goddess had actually chosen.

I looked back at the tree. One leaf slowly fell. It landed exactly where Elena had been standing. I stared at it.

Something was definitely different. And I had a feeling we were only seeing the beginning.