3 Conjuring (11 page)

It was dark by the time I left Professor Blake’s office
. On a regular weekday, campus is still bustling with activity until at least midnight. Since it was Friday, though, it was all but deserted.

I pointed myself toward the dorms and let myself get lost in thought
during my trek. I was halfway back to the dorms when a dark figure stepped onto the sidewalk in front of me. Since I hadn’t been paying attention to any potential danger, I was relieved to see Rafael’s stern countenance instead of some fangy monster trying to kill me.

“What are you doing here?”

“Making sure you get back to the dorms safely,” he responded irritably. “Why are you out here walking alone?”

“Are you following me?”

“Why do you ask that?”

I’m surrounded by a whole fleet of liars. “Because you only seem to show up when

I’m alone. That would suggest you wait for me to be alone to approach me. That’s not creepy at all. Oh, wait, it is.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m following you.”

“So you’re saying it’s just a happy coincidence?”

“You’re in a mood.”

“It’s been a really crappy day.”

Rafael looked sympathetic to my plight – even though he had no idea what it was.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Professor Blake told me about Delta Omicron.”

Rafael scowled. “You went to Blake?”

“No one else would tell me the truth.”

“So you know.”

“I know they’re dark witches bent on destroying the world.”

“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“I guess it depends on how you look at it,” I shot back sarcastically.

“And how are you looking at it?” Rafael asked seriously.

“Well, since two of my roommates are planning on pled
ging the sorority, I’m looking at it like it’s the end of the world.”

“You’re definitely being dramatic this evening.”

“You’re saying this is a good thing?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me what they are?”

“There are rules,” Rafael said evasively.

“Rules? Like you can’t pass Go without collecting two hundred dollars?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” There was no way I was explaining that. “What kind of rules?”

“People live by certain rules. So do supernaturals.”

“You’re seriously pissing me off.”

“Why didn’t you just ask Winters?”

“I did. He said he couldn’t tell me.”

“That makes sense. He’s bound as well.”

“Bound by what?” I asked.

“His pack.”

I wrinkled my nose disdainfully. “You’re saying his pack makes him lie to me?”

“I’m saying his pack has rules that he literally cannot break.”

“Literally? Now who is being dramatic?”

“A werewolf can’t break a pack rule unless he’s wi
lling to break from the pack,” Rafael explained. “So, yes, he literally might not be able to tell you. Not with who his father is, anyway.”

“Is that a real thing or is that some myth?”

“I’m not a werewolf. You’ll have to ask him.”

“I’m not talking to him right now.”

“Really?” Rafael looked intrigued.

“He pissed me off,” I answered. “Just like you are right now.”

“I hate to take Winters’ side … .”

“So don’t.”

“But you are not the queen of the world,” Rafael continued. “Sometimes you can’t win over everyone else and demand that everyone bend to your will.”

“I’m not asking to win,” I countered. “I’m asking him to tell me the truth.”

Rafael took a step toward me. “Do you love him?”

“What?” I felt my face color. I could only hope his keen
eyes couldn’t pick up on that fact in the dark.

“Do you love him?”

“I’m really pissed off at him right now.” I decided to evade the question.

“That’s not what I asked.” I shivered when I felt Ra
fael rub my arm. He had closed the distance between us and he was now officially invading my personal space. Part of me wanted to push him away. The other part of me wanted to see what would happen.

“I ... .”

Rafael silenced me. Not with a look. Not with a gesture. No, he silenced me with his mouth over mine. So, here’s the thing: Kissing a vampire is different. When I kissed

Aric, all I could feel was the warmth and desire e
manating from his body. When I kissed Rafael, I felt heat – but it was emotional and dark. After a few seconds, he removed his cold lips from mine and took a step back. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” I asked breathlessly. I was having trouble remembering where I was.

“For doing that,” Rafael answered honestly.

Well that wasn’t exactly an ego booster. “Me, too,” I
said hurriedly, running a hand through my hair.

Rafael smirked. “I didn’t mean that. The kiss was nice.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“You’re confused over Winters right now. I don’t want to add to the confusion.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to figure things out on your own.”

What is it with men giving me answers I don’t want to hear today? “Well then,” I said tiredly. “Perhaps you shouldn’t follow me anymore.”

“Perhaps.”

“I need to get back to the dorms,” I said irritably.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Rafael agreed.

My journey back to the dorm was a confusing one. Rafael refused to leave, but he also wasn’t big on any discussion. Once the dorm was in sight, he disappeared into the night without a word. I was mostly calm by the time I climbed the steps to the dorms. That’s when Aric stepped out of the shadows by the front door. I should’ve been surprised to see him and yet I wasn’t.

“What are you doing here?”

Aric ignored the question. “What did Blake tell you?”

“He told me Delta Omicron was full of dark witches.”

“That’s all?”

“He told me that he couldn’t do anything about the
m because they’re born and not made and that’s some funky gray area for his little group of jerks.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

I scanned Aric’s face under the lights of the building and realized that he looked as though he was about to explode. He was obviously tied up in knots. “Why are you here?”

“I couldn’t just let things go,” Aric answered truth
fully. “I needed to see you. I needed to know that you were all right.”

“I’m fine,” I replied shortly.

“You don’t seem fine.”

“I don’t understand,” I admitted. “I don’t understand why you just
couldn’t tell me they were dark witches. I pretty much had it figured out myself.”

“There are rules,” Aric said quietly.

“Rules. You’re the second person tonight to tell me about rules.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” Aric said. “The last thing in the worl
d I want to do is hurt you. Please believe me. I’m trying to protect you. I don’t always go about it the right way. I know that. I just feel like I’m caught.”

“Because of the rules?”

“If I don’t follow the rules ... .”

“Then you get kicked out of the pack. I know.”

“Who told you that?”

Well that was a thorny question. “Blake told me,” I lied.

“Well, maybe he did me a favor.” Aric ran his hand through his hair, which looked pretty wild at this point. I had a feeling he’d had a rough couple of hours. Part of me was happy with that observation.

“How so?”

“You’re not the easiest person to talk to,” Aric admitted. “You want all the answers, and sometimes I can’t give them to you.”

“I don’t want all the answers. I want some of the answers. The important ones.
You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”

“I want to be able to tell you everything,” Aric said. “I
want to be able to crawl into bed with you and shut out the rest of the world. That’s not an option for us, though. I have ... obligations.”

“I know.”

“You have obligations.”

“I know.”

“I can’t tell you everything.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m hiding stuff from you.”

“I know that, too.”

“I just want you to be happy.”

I smirked despite myself. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.”

“Does that mean you’re done being mad at me?” His tone was hopeful but his eyes were resigned.

I pursed my lips, considering my options. Finally I b
lew out a sigh and reached for the door. His eyes fell and the breath in his chest hitched. I held the door open for him. “Are you coming up?”

“Spend the night here? With you?”

“Well I’m not going to let you share a bed with Matilda.”

“What about Laura?”

“She doesn’t particularly care about my concerns right now so I’m not really worried about her reservations,” I replied.

“Are you sure?”

“That I don’t care about Laura being mad? I’m pretty sure.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” I sighed. “Let’s get some sleep. I think we’ll both feel better in the morning. This whole day has been a crapfest of turmoil.”

Aric placed his hand on my shoulder, gripping it tightly. “I want us to be all right.”

“We’ll be all right,” I replied succinctly. “We’re not having sex tonight,” I warned him. “But we’ll be all right. Let’s just go to bed and pretend this day didn’t happen.”

Aric pulled me toward him so quickly I lost my grip
on the open door. I pressed my face into the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of him while I basked in his warmth. His arms were tight around me and I realized he needed the human contact. I wrapped my arms around his waist to reassure him – and myself.

It was all going to be okay. I was like fifty percent sure of that.

When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday.
The thought of dressing up as Wonder Woman or Jason from
Friday the 13th
had a special appeal to me. Unfortunately, since I’ve learned that monsters are real, the day has lost some of its magical zest.

“Remind me why we’re going to this party again.”
I glanced up from the bathroom mirror and met Kelsey’s steady gaze, seeing the same puzzlement I was projecting reflected there.

“Because we promised to be more supportive of
their stupid sorority,” Kelsey replied simply.

“I didn’t promise that.”

“No,” Kelsey agreed. “You promised not to be overtly hostile.”

“Which I’m rethinking.”

“It’s just a party,” Kelsey sighed. “How bad can it be?”

“Bad enough that we promised to dress up,” I repl
ied dryly, glancing down at my outfit and cringing.

I was dressed in a pair of low-slung jeans and a gauzy wh
ite top. I’d tied a flowery headband across my forehead and I was calling myself a hippie for the night. I thought I looked kind of cute, but I had a feeling that Matilda and Laura would find my effort something akin to laziness. They would just have to deal with it.

Kelsey had put a bit more effort into her costume
. She’d actually picked up the phone and made her mother send her high school private Catholic school uniform up to school. She’d made a few enhancements, shortening the skirt, lowering the bodice of the top, and was essentially calling herself a naughty schoolgirl for the night.

“You’re going to get a lot of attention in that outfit.” I jus
t didn’t think it was the kind of attention that she wanted.

Kelsey looked down at her uniform and shrugged. “A
nd I’m sure those are just the kind of guys I’ll be interested in.”

“They should just be glad we dressed up at all,” I grumbled.

When Matilda and Laura broached the subject of Kelsey and me attending Delta Omicron’s annual Halloween party last week, I had initially balked. Kelsey pointed out that the last few weeks had been one step short of war in our room, though, and this might be a way of thawing the ice. Seeing the wisdom in her words, I immediately apologized to Laura and agreed to go to the party. I had been regretting that decision since the day I made it, even though Matilda and Laura had been decidedly warmer since we’d agreed.

“What time is Aric picking us up?” Kelsey asked, putting the final touches on her eye makeup in the mirror as she posed the question.

Once Aric found out we were going to the party he insisted on going with us. That was, of course, after he tried to talk me out of it for an hour. Things with us had settled to the point of comfort again – but I still had a few niggling suspicions pushing at the borders of my mind from time to time. I usually just swatted them away. I could only deal with one emotional crisis at a time.

“He said we should be downstairs in about five minutes,
” I replied, checking the wall clock for confirmation. “We should probably head down.”

“You two seemed to be getting along well,” Kelsey s
aid carefully. “I was a little worried a few weeks ago, but you guys seem better now.”

“Yeah, we had a fight. It’s fine now.”

“Good. I like him.”

“You do?”

“I like that he seems to care about you so much. And, plus, he’s not hard to look at.”

“He’s definitely not hard to look at,” I agreed, blushing a l
ittle as a specific thought of looking at him naked wafted through my mind.

Once we got down to the lobby I was surprised to find Aric already waiting for us.

“Are we late?”

Aric greeted me with a deep kiss, pressing me to his ch
est and holding me there for a few seconds before letting me go. He looked me up and down and then shook his head. “What are you? A flower child?”

“Pretty much.”

He glanced over at Kelsey curiously. “What is she?”

“A naughty schoolgirl.”

“She’ll be popular.”

“That’s what I told her. What exactly are you, though?”

“I’m a lumberjack,” Aric replied simply.

“You can’t just put on a flannel and say you’re a lumberjack.”

“Why? You put a bandana around your head and called yourself a hippie and that’s somehow okay?”

“It’s not a bandana.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s a sophisticated hair accessory.”

Aric rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Let’s go and get this over with.”

“Are you going to have attitude all night?” I asked as
Kelsey and I followed him out of the dorms and toward his Explorer.

“Are you?”

“Probably.”

“Well, we’ll make a good couple then.”

Uh-oh.

It took us about fifteen minutes to get to the party a
nd find a place to park. I had fought the urge to tell Aric to turn around at least fifteen times during the drive. Each time, though, I pictured Laura’s hurt face, and my resolve strengthened. There had to be a way to make this right – or at least make it tolerable. I couldn’t take many more nights of stony silence when the four of us were in the dorm room together – which admittedly wasn’t very often these days.

Once we were out of the car, Aric moved to my side and gripped my han
d in his tightly. “Let’s not separate tonight,” he said. There was a worried tone to his voice and I figured he probably had good reason to feel that way.

“Sounds like a good idea to me.”

The nights were starting to get cold, but not intolerably cold. The sorority members had built a large bonfire in a pit toward the back of their property and there were quite a few people around it having a good time.

The three of us wordlessly made our way to the bo
nfire rather than entering the sorority house. I don’t think any of us were too keen on being trapped inside of a building with a gaggle of Jessicas.

“So, how long do we have to stay?” Kelsey asked nervou
sly. I could tell she also was rethinking our decision to attend.

“I think we’ve done our due diligence and we could l
eave right now,” Aric answered hopefully.

“We can’t leave until Matilda and Laura see that we came,” I corrected him.

“Right after that, though?”

I glanced around the party wearily. “Pretty much.”

“Good.”

We found three empty lawn chairs on the edge of the fi
re ring and settled into them. There were a lot of people milling about, but I only recognized two of them – and they weren’t two people high on my socializing list. “What are they doing here?”

Aric followed my gaze and smirked. “Oh, look, young love.”

“Don’t be a pain.”

“I’m not trying to be a pain.”

“Your glee at this situation is pretty obvious.”

“I’m not really happy that this upsets you,” Aric replied honestly.

“It doesn’t upset me. It’s just ... .”

“You don’t date someone else’s ex-boyfriend,” Kelsey interjected angrily. “It’s just not done. That girl is a total idiot.”

“Who’s an idiot?”

I grimaced when Brittany and Will invaded our little co
rner of solitude. I was hoping they wouldn’t see us. Or, if they did, they’d have the good sense to stay away.

“You,” Kelsey said pointedly.

Brittany sneered at Kelsey. “Nice outfit.”

Kelsey glanced at Brittany’s clown costume and sneered right back. “You, too.”

Will shuffled uncomfortably. “Aric. Zoe.”

“Will.”

“See, this isn’t so bad,” Brittany said brightly, dragging two chairs toward us and plopping down in one of them. She really is oblivious sometimes. “We’re all getting along. I knew if you just had some time to get over things that you would be fine. I didn’t think it would take two months, but hey, some people know how to hold a grudge.”

What was going on here? She couldn’t be that stupid. Could she?

“So, Aric, how are things going with you?” Brittany asked brightly. “You look good. What are you?”

“I’m a lumberjack,” Aric said, amusement flitting through his eyes.

“And you’re still with Zoe, I see,” Brittany continued. “How is that going?”

“I don’t have any complaints,” Aric rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb.

“That’s surprising,” Brittany mused.

I exchanged a dark look with Kelsey, who was trying to
bore holes into Brittany with a series of furious glares. “You’re not fooling anyone,” Kelsey said directly.

“Excuse me?” Brittany held her hand to her heart,
like she’d really been hurt by Kelsey’s words.

“I said you’re not fooling anyone,” Kelsey repeated. “You
try to act all innocent, like Zoe is in the wrong here. That’s not what’s going on, though, and everyone here – including you – knows that.”

“You can’t talk to me that way,” Brittany said petulantly.

“I just did.”

Brittany turned to Will for support, but he was still
standing a few feet away from the rest of us. If I had to guess, he was wishing he was anywhere but here – which made him part of the majority. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

Will opened his mouth to speak but then snapped it shu
t. Brittany looked hurt by his continued silence. If it had been anyone else, I might have felt a little sorry for her. But it was Brittany, and I couldn’t help but feel a little giddy. Fine, yes, I’m mean.

“This is typical,” Aric said.

“What’s typical?” Brittany asked petulantly.

“Will here not standing up for his girlfriend.”

Will glared at Aric, but he didn’t take a step toward him. I figured that feeling animosity and actually getting his ass kicked were two very different things in his world.

“What are you talking about?” Brittany’s tone shifted from emotional to suspicious.

“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend,” Aric pressed. “He’s the one who keeps hanging back and letting his girlfriends get attacked. At least this time no one is in actual physical danger.”

“She’s the one who was doing the attacking,” Kelsey reminded Aric sternly.

“Oh, there’s no doubt about that,” Aric agreed. “Brittany is a total idiot and pain in the ass. She had what was coming to her.”

“Hey!” Brittany looked incensed.

“As much as I don’t like Will – and I hate him,” Aric said darkly, “you do not go after your friend’s ex. Which means you were never really friends in the first place. So, for you to continue on with this little charade of yours, like you were the wronged party, is just immaturity at its finest.”

“I don’t think I like what you’re saying about me,” Brittany said angrily.

“I don’t care,” Aric said, his eyes fixed on Will. “You’ve made this bed for yourself, Brittany, and you deserve what you’re going to get out of it.”

“And what’s that?”

“A boyfriend who doesn’t really care about you and will never have your back,” Aric replied. “That’s the kind of guy you deserve, quite frankly.”

Brittany glanced between Will and Aric. “What is he talking about?”

Will shifted his gaze from Aric to Brittany. I don’t know what I expected, but there was no warmth there. A certain level of pity? Yes. Warmth? No. “I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Will lied.

“Really?” Aric got to his feet and took a step toward Wi
ll. I’ll give him credit, Will looked worried but he held his ground. “You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well then, let me tell everyone here so we all know where everyone stands.”

Crap.

“Will here is only dating you because he thinks it will make Zoe jealous,” Aric continued, his hands clenched at his sides. “He doesn’t care about you, Brittany. I actually feel a little sorry for him. It must be absolute hell to put up with your shenanigans. He does it, though. He just doesn’t do it for you. He does it because it’s the only way that he can think of to stay close to Zoe.”

“That’s a lie!” Brittany jumped to her feet. “Will and I have something special, something he never had when he was with Zoe. For them it
was all sex and nothing else. It’s not like she can hold an actual adult conversation, after all. We’re in love. He’s waiting until I’m ready for us to make love. That’s love. That’s true love.”

Aric barked out a cold laugh. “Right. That’s why he’s waiti
ng. No guy wants to wait. He’s only waiting because it’s easier for him. He’s convinced you that he’s letting you set the pace. The thing is, he really doesn’t want to sleep with you. He wants my girlfriend.”

I glanced around worriedly. We were starting to dr
aw a crowd. People had stopped talking amongst themselves and were now focused on us. Partiers had even started spilling out of the house as word spread that there might be a fight on the lawn. This wasn’t good. I put a hand on Aric’s arm. “We should just go.”