Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Nati

The corridors are empty, which is to be expected when it’s almost curfew, and I know that if we’re not back in our dorms in the next ten minutes, we could be in real trouble. But if there really is a party in the secret tunnels of the academy, then it’ll be worth it.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” I ask Anja.

“Mmhmm, the entrance should be just here.” She gestures to a painting of some fruit.

“Really?”

“Have a little faith, Nati.” She steps forward and presses on the stone to the left.

My eyes widen as the painting swings towards us, revealing a corridor hewn into the wall of the castle. “Whoa. How do you know about this place?”

“Cethin is very knowledgeable about the secret passages in the castle,” she responds. “You know Afan, right?”

“The merman?”

She nods. “That’s the one.”

“He doesn’t seem to like us much,” I muse.

“Cethin says he’s grumpy because he refuses to believe in fated mates, nothing more than that.” She steps through the hole in the wall, and I follow her.

“Why would that make him grumpy at me?” I muse.

Anja looks away, though I could be reading into that and she’s just checking we’re in the right place.

Frank lets out a soft hiss, but I think it’s more of the curious kind than anything else.

“Do you believe it?” I ask when she doesn’t respond to my former question. “Fated mates?”

“Yes. How can I not? I know how I feel when Cethin is around, and I don’t think there’s anything else that could explain it.” A smile spreads over her face, replacing all of the uneasiness from before.

“The glow of all the orgasms you get from good sex?” I mutter.

Anja laughs and flips her long silver-white hair over her shoulder. “I guess there is that. But when he explained it to me, I realised that his explanation felt right to me. Like the pieces were in place.”

“And you never considered he was lying to get you into bed?”

She snorts. “Hardly. He kept saying no because of the fated mates thing at first.”

“Oh.”

“Why are you asking?”

I sigh and run a hand over my face, accidentally catching a snake tail with my fingers and causing them to hiss in response. “We’re doing tea leaves in Divination and mine said I was going to accept my fated mate.”

“Ah, so you’re questioning whether it can be true?”

And if the things I’m feeling whenever Meic is around might be because of that. It’s the only real explanation I’ve got. “Basically.”

She shrugs. “They’re just tea leaves, how accurate can they be?”

“No idea.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry about it. It’ll happen when it happens.”

“Mmm.” Though I don’t know if I want it to happen. Fated mate makes it all sound so serious.

We lapse into silence. Or almost silence, I can hear the music echoing around the corridor from where the party is presumably being held. I never once thought about students doing this kind of thing in the secret passageways at the academy, but it makes sense. We’ll find any way possible to break the rules.

We turn a corner and find a few dozen students milling around, several with drinks in their hands, and others already dancing.

My gaze locks with Meic’s even without me meaning to, and a strange feeling spreads through me. I clear my throat. “I’m going to get a drink,” I tell Anja.

“Okay, I’ll join you in a bit, I’m just going to say hi to Cethin first.”

“Mmhmm.” I’m sure she means it, but I know her well enough to be sure I’ll have a while before she reappears. She’s very easily distracted by her boyfriend, even if she doesn’t mean to be. I don’t mind too much, they seem to be happy together.

I head over to the drinks table and take a look over the options. A part of me is tempted to go straight for the rum, but I know better than that. No one wants to deal with a drunk gorgon, especially one with sassy snakes.

I sigh and pick a fruity cider instead. I pop the cap and head over to one of the corners so I can watch what’s going on without having to get pulled into anything. A group of students are already playing a loud drinking game, and there are several couples who should probably work on finding somewhere private before they give us more of a show than they intend to.

“Hello, Nati.”

A pleasant shiver runs through me at the sound of Meic’s voice.

“Hi,” I respond, the sound coming out as more of a squeak than I intend it to. It’s hard to be calm and collected when I’ve spent the past couple of days thinking about how he was with me during Divination . It was so at odds with how he normally is with me that it made an impression.

“Not much for partying?” he asks.

I shrug. “I like a party as well as anyone else does, but I like to see the lay of the land rather than just jumping in.”

“A wise choice.”

“What’s up with you?” I blurt out.

He raises an eyebrow. “Nothing.”

“Okay.” I look away, trying not to think about how much it bothers me that he’s not acting like himself.

“I don’t really know how to act around you,” he admits softly.

“What?” I turn around to face him so fast that it makes the snakes hiss loudly, the sound echoing around my head. “Quiet down, I want to have a conversation,” I chide them.

Meic cracks a smile that makes me think he hasn’t completely lost his sense of humour.

“What do you mean you don’t know how to talk to me?” I ask, the words spinning around my head as I try to make sense of them.

Meic sighs. “I’ve never really known how to talk to you,” he admits. “That’s what all the jokes were about.”

“Wait, that’s not just your personality?”

He looks around as if he’s looking for some way to escape this conversation. “You’re my fated mate,” he blurts out.

I blink a few times as I process what he’s saying. And the fact that it basically echoes my own thoughts. “You think I’m your fated mate?”

“I know you’re my fated mate.” The earnestness in his voice is impossible to ignore, especially in contrast to his normal tone. “I felt it the moment I met you.”

“And that’s why you kept making comments about how I make you rock hard?”

He groans. “Yeah, I hear how bad it sounds now you’re repeating it to me. But I couldn’t help myself. Every time I talked to you, I found myself saying dumb stuff like that.”

“Oh.” All kinds of emotions swirling around inside me. “What changed?”

“You saw that you were going to meet your fated mate in the tea leaves,” he responds softly. “And Anja might have overheard me talking to Cethin about trying to work all of this out. She told me that I should just talk to you instead.”

“I see.” So that’s what the shift in him is all about. And it explains why Anja got strange when I asked her why Afan didn’t like me because of the fated mates thing. If Meic has already told my best friend that I’m his fated mate, then he’s certainly told his.

A warm fuzzy feeling spreads through me at the thought. He’s so sure that’s what I am to him that he’s been telling people. That should scare me much more than it does, but instead, it just feels right.

“I’m sorry,” he says, bringing my focus back to him. “I know that I shouldn’t have said all of the things I did. And that it wasn’t exactly very charming.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I murmur, setting my cider down and stepping closer to him. “It wasn’t all bad.”

Surprise flits over his face. “It wasn’t?”

“Mmhmm.” I step closer. “But next time, maybe just try asking me on a date instead of getting all tongue-tied.”

I don’t wait for him to respond and start to walk away, making sure to grab my drink as I do.

“Nati!” he calls after me.

I pause and wait for him to catch up.

“Would you go for dinner with me?” he asks. “As a date.”

“All right. Does Tuesday work?”

The relief is clear on his face. “Tuesday is good.”

“Then I look forward to it.”

Frank rattles from within my hair, making me think that maybe I’ve gotten this wrong after all and his emotions aren’t actually tied to mine. I wish Familiar Training was more helpful when it came to learning about how my snakes reacted to me and the things I was feeling.

But I suppose that’s something to work on for Tuesday. And until then, I’m going to focus on the really important things. Like how I’m going to focus when all I’m going to be able to think about is our upcoming date.