16. Wrenlee

16

WRENLEE

" D o we need to redefine the word ‘discreet'?" Saylor asks with an arched eyebrow.

My cheeks flush, if only slightly, but there is no denying that she has a point.

"I don't know what came over me," I say, the only explanation I have for what I did.

"I do," she says with a lascivious grin. "That, my love, is called that cock fever."

I laugh and she does too, hers quickly building until she snorts, which makes both of us laugh even harder.

"What's so funny?" Emery asks, sliding onto the bench across from us.

"You mean besides your plate?" I ask, arching an eyebrow as I give a disdainful look at the food piled on her tray.

She blushes hard, but her eyes narrow and her lips form a hard line. She looks around the room with a quick, darting glance. I know that look. I've seen it a thousand times. She's looking for a way to deflect attention onto someone or something else. While she is looking, the rest of the girls join us at the table.

The conversation and laughter are so routine it's almost like a comfortable blanket. This is where I belong. How can I give this up? This is who I am. Sitting here in the middle of this group, surrounded by the girls I've grown up with. People who understand my life and who I care about to one degree or another. No matter how much we might cut one another down with razor-sharp tongues and icy chills, this is all I know.

Everyone else in the dining hall has at least part of their attention on us. As they should. We are, after all, the trendsetters. The goddesses on high that decide what will be in and what will be out, all on our whims. Whims of a group of girls who have no more clue what we are doing nor any more right to do any of this than any of them, except for the accident of being born into the right family.

What is wrong with me?

I've never in all my life had thoughts like this. Sek'su is getting under my skin in ways that he never should be able to. This is crazy.

"Look at that," Emery says, her tone dripping with acid.

I follow her gaze and see a Zmaj and a human. I don't know this couple, but a young boy is bounding along beside them, full of energy and excitement. He looks like he's pretending to wield a lochaber of his own, jumping and landing in a mock fighting stance before stabbing the imaginary weapon into some beast he is pretending to face.

The couple looks happy. No, not happy. That doesn't begin to encompass what I see in them. They are joyous. Almost ecstatic. They walk so close to one another that some part of them is almost always touching. She keeps looking at him with a bright smile and his adoring eyes are always on her.

He's one of the ‘Frankenstein' Zmaj. The ones that were found in the Bunker had been operated on. Extra arms that don't match, mutilated, his tail looks as if it belongs on a scorpion, but none of his outward appearance bothers her or him. They are so clearly, so deeply in love, that his scars don't matter.

Looking at them, my breath catches in my chest as my heart speeds up. I instantly put myself into her place, but it's the way that Sek'su looks at me. The same way her mate is looking at her. Which… he does. That could be us, I could have that if only I was brave enough to throw it all away. Dimly, I'm aware of the pressure on my thigh, but the vision in my head is too real to give it any attention.

"Wren," Saylor hisses close to my ear and the dream shatters.

She grips my thigh tightly in one hand while looking behind and past me with a wide smile to cover the fact she is hissing in my ear. I blink away the remnants of that which cannot be and give her a very slight nod. Emery is going on about the couple and the rest of the gaggle of our shared group is eating it up.

"I mean, can you imagine," Emery says.

She is gesturing dramatically while sliding back and forth on her seat as if she is having sex. She even rolls her eyes and makes a soft moan.

"You know," I say, anger soaring and my mouth running faster than I can think about what I'm saying. "It's no wonder you can't keep a man if that's what you look like when you fuck."

Everyone stops. Silence falls over the table as the rest of the girls try to decide which side of this to come down on. They are all afraid. Afraid of making a social faux-pau that could easily destroy their delicate standing in this false society we've created with each other.

Emery's face flushes a soft pink, but she stops and turns all her attention to me. A slow smile spreads over her face, and it looks for all the world as if she is pulling a dagger, fully intending to drive it into my heart.

"Wren," she says, honey sweet. "So good of you to pay attention to the rest of us. I've been meaning to ask you… how was the bathroom?"

My heart stops. Cold spreads down and across my spine.

How? How could she possibly know?

I have to cover this. Fast. It's been only a second, but it feels like minutes are ticking past as my thoughts race first to understand what she knows and then how she knows anything before leaping to how to respond. The girls are turning their attention to me. Curiosity burns in their eyes. I need a response. Now.

"Why, dear? Are you constipated again? You certainly eat enough of that…" I drop my eyes to her plate with clear disdain. "Cheese like food. Perhaps you should cut that down. It definitely doesn't help with the bloating."

My words hurt her. I see it in her eyes, but she's determined and barreling forward. This isn't over for her or me.

"I don't think it's me that was having a… problem in the bathroom…" she trails off letting the mystery hang in the air.

She's good. She's learned all my tricks well. I keep a smile fixed, noting the girls looking between the two of us as we exchange barbs. None of them seem to know what is really happening, yet at least, but it's clear Emery knows something. Whether it's the truth or not I don't know and neither do they, but she knows enough to feel confident. And it's not as if the veracity of claims matters in our world. It only has to be believable enough to fuel the rumor mill.

"Oh honey," I say, reaching across the table and laying my hand on hers. "It happens to all of us. It's almost your time. It's not uncommon, but I do wish you'd watch those carbs. It would really make you feel better," I pointedly look her up and down, "overall."

Her eyes narrow and she clenches her jaw.

"I am not?—"

"No, no need to argue," I say, feigning care I definitely don't feel. "You should see that medical doctor; Allison I think her name is? Or the Zmaj have a healer. Maybe you'd like him to… examine you."

Her eyes widen as she jerks her hands-free of mine.

"I'm not the one who wants to be examined by a Zmaj!"

I have her. I know it and she does too. The secret to winning the game is to find the button on your opponent that makes them react without thinking. She's good. She almost had me, but there's a reason the Ice Queen crown is mine. I'm not just good, I'm the best.

"Really? Well, I thought… the way you were gesticulating so crudely…"

She splutters. I hold her eyes for only a moment, long enough for her to know that I've won the battle if not the war. Once I see it in her eyes, I turn my attention to the rest of the girls.

"I mean, what do I know," I say with a carefully designed shrug. "I do like a big… you know."

I give them a knowing smile that leaves no doubt about what I'm implying without saying it.

"No!" Iris exclaims, then she's laughing, and the others join in.

"Can you imagine? I heard that they have… like bone ridges. How do they even… I mean, does it fit?" Valentina asks.

"It would if you're a… you know, a woman of loose morals," Ayla says. "Besides I heard…"

I let their conversation carry on as I return to being lost in my own thoughts. I know exactly how a Zmaj cock fits. Perfectly. My pussy throbs with the memory and the desire to have it again. And again.

Emery joins into the conversation, but she watches me with surreptitious glances. This is far from over. And it's clear that the girls are not going to be kind if they find out I'm sleeping with a Zmaj.

How am I supposed to deal with this?