“There now.” Avery smiled pleasantly at her. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? And it looks so yummy. But you know…” He cocked his head to one side as though thoughtfully considering. “I think I’ll pass. Thanks anyway for showing it to me.”
Grinning, he left his empty tray on the dull silver top of the steam table and moved on down the line as Nancy bared her big white teeth at him.
Saint looked at Avery in surprise, his black eyebrows raised almost to his hairline.
“Avery, my friend, I had no idea how vindictive you could be,” he remarked, as we all moved past the place where Nancy and her friends were serving.
Avery’s blue eyes flashed.
“Only when it comes to putting would-be-murderers in their place,” he snapped. “And before you start, you should know I’m not kidding. That witch with a capital B back there honestly tried to put both Megan and Kaitlyn six feet under not that long ago. I might forgive a plot against my own life, but if you mess with my Coven-mates, you’re going to pay.” He smirked. “Even if you only pay in bites of stinky tuna-mango casserole, you know?”
Saint held up the hand he wasn’t using to hold his tray in a “don’t shoot” gesture.
“I meant no disrespect. You show loyalty, rage, and fierce bravery. My Drake approves.”
This seemed to mean something because Kaitlyn and Ari exchanged a startled look with each other.
“Your Drake approves?” Avery asked, frowning as we finished getting our food—well, those of us who got some, anyway. I wasn’t about to ask for a scoop of the tuna-mango casserole after Nancy had almost gagged on it.
Saint nodded.
“My Drake approves of you.” He frowned. “This is…most unusual. He has never approved of anyone before—at least, he has never told me so.”
We all knew that the Drake guys were a two-in-one kind of deal. They were essentially two beings who shared one body and switched back and forth from human to dragon form. Kaitlyn, however, was an exception. Though she could now turn into a dragon herself, she had only one consciousness inside her—which was a good thing, as far as I was concerned. I could only imagine how confusing it would be to share a body with someone else.
“Well…thanks, I guess,” Avery said at last, looking at a loss for what else to say. I knew he and Saint were getting along, sharing the boys half of the Norm Dorm, but I wasn’t sure how much they were talking. After all, you can “get along” with someone and hardly say a word and Saint didn’t exactly strike me as a chatterbox.
“My Drake says you are very welcome,” Saint told Avery, after a moment, as though consulting his inner other half. “He says he likes your spirit of vengeance.”
For just a moment, his eyes flashed from black to blood red in his handsome face.
I couldn’t suppress a shiver. Rumors about Saint and his Blood Drake were all over the school—the thing that lived inside him was bad news. So it was maybe not so great that it seemed to have taken a shine to Avery.
Avery, however, only smiled.
“Thanks, roomie,” he said, grinning. “Tell your Drake any time he wants to come out and help me get revenge on Nancy and her Weird Sisters, I’ll be ready to go.”
“Do not say that!” Ari looked truly alarmed as he put a hand on Avery’s shoulder.
“What? Why not?” Avery frowned, though he didn’t try to shake the other boy’s hand off.
“Drakes are very literal,” Kaitlyn answered for him. “If Saint’s Drake thinks you want him to come out and, oh, say…bite Nancy’s head off…” She shook her own head, frowning. “Well, he’ll most likely do it.”
“Uh-oh—sorry.” Avery looked abashed, which doesn’t happen often with him. He’s usually very self-confident. “I’m sorry,” he told Saint. “I didn’t mean I wanted your Drake to kill Nancy. Even if she does deserve it,” he added in a rebellious mutter.
“Avery!” Kaitlyn and Megan and I all said at the same time and with the exact same inflection. I felt a little tingle of power as we did. Our Coven is very “one-minded”—a sign of a Coven with extraordinarily close members—and we occasionally all voice the same thought or emotion at the same time.
“All right, girls—sorry.” Avery sounded more repentant this time. “Please ask your Drake not to kill Nancy, Santiago,” he said formally to Saint. “No matter how angry I am at her for what she tried to do to my Coven-mates.”
Saint frowned thoughtfully and was silent, as though listening for a moment.
“No,” he said at last. “He says he will not kill her. Well, not unless she offers you insult or harm.”
“You mean ‘you’ as in us—as in our whole Coven?” Megan asked, looking at Saint with interest.
“No,” Saint said shortly. “Just Avery.”
Then he took his tray over to our table, in the far corner of the vast Dining Hall, without another word.
“Well,” Griffin said at last, after we had all stood there staring for a moment. “We had better go eat. Or, in my case, drink before the dinner hour is over.” He lifted his bottle of chilled animal blood and he and Megan followed Saint. Avery and Jalli went next but I stayed a moment to fix myself a big glass of iced tea from the beverage table beside the cafeteria door. I would need it to tide me over until “second supper” when Avery cooked for all of us. I hoped he was making roast chicken again—it was my favorite.
I was just taking my tea towards our much smaller, humbler Norm table, when something bright lying on the grey, flagstone floor caught my eye. I knelt carefully beside it and saw that it was one of the living hair ornaments that were in fashion with all the Fae girls right now.
Only this one wasn’t living anymore.
“Poor thing,” I murmured as I lifted the brilliant Blue Morpho butterfly, still attached to a hair comb. Either some careless Fae girl had lost it or simply thrown it down when it died.
They only liked live creatures to adorn themselves with—almost every one of the girls at the Fae table currently had a brilliantly colored moth or butterfly fluttering helplessly in her hair. I wasn’t sure what kind of magic they used to keep them in place but it was clear that whatever power had kept the Blue Morpho alive had run out.
I sighed as I stared at the tiny, brilliant butterfly in my hand. It made me sad to see the lovely little creature tossed aside like so much trash—and even sadder to think that it had given its short life in service to some bubble-headed Fae’s vanity.
“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” a deep, familiar voice said in my ear.
I gasped and jumped, nearly spilling my tea. From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a tall, muscular guy with dark gold hair and brilliant blue eyes standing beside me. Then my vision cleared and I saw it was only Bran O’Connor.
“Oh, the living ornaments, you mean?” I asked, handling the butterfly hair-comb carefully in one hand and still holding my glass of tea in the other. “Yeah, it is. It’s not right to make a living creature into nothing more than a piece of jewelry to stick in your hair.”
“It’s a perversion of the Natural Magic,” he agreed, which surprised me. “A living thing shouldn’t be fixed in place until it starves to death just to feed someone’s vanity.”