Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The softest pillows were the first thing I noticed when consciousness tugged at my mind. The weight of a thick blanket came next. I rolled over in heavenly down, filled with the fragrance of lilac detergent, and… Rosemary? Tobacco?

Oh, I fucked up. I fucked up hard.

I forced open my eyes, only to be met by cream covered walls and grey bedding in every direction of my periphery. As much as I was mentally ready to lose my shit, freak out, and start shrieking like a banshee, it was so damn comfortable, and my whole body was so content in its endorphins and restfulness, that it was impressively hard to commit to moving. Could I just pretend I was dead and never leave this spot? Was that an acceptable conflict resolution strategy?

Dealing with the consequences of my actions was bullshit. I snuggled into the pillow one last time before I accepted I had to face the music.

With a deep breath, I wrenched myself upright on this not-too-firm, not-too-soft, just-right heaven of a mattress, and I inspected myself. I was fully clothed in my black velvet dress. My shapewear was hugging my body with tension that was mildly uncomfortable after sleeping in it for some unknown number of hours, and the black jeweled belt that Ceto had given me was resting on the stained wood nightstand at my side. The bracelet was still around my wrist, having never left at any point that night. How exactly it was supposed to protect me against Alphas, I had no fucking clue, because my body felt thoroughly ravaged.

My first instinct—likely born of trauma and deep denial—was to ask myself if I'd dreamed the whole thing while sleeping in this cozy, fluffy little nook. Maybe I'd actually passed out from a hallucinogenic fever while in class, and all of it was a product of my subconscious confusion.

There were so many aspects of the night that I had to process still, otherwise.

Like, I was supposed to now believe that I wasn't human?

Or, I was going to just accept that my parents lied to me my whole life?

And on top of all that, I went on a date with my teacher and hopped on his scaled fish dick in the middle of a public business?

In what world was the nerdy, unpopular girl from the frigid north secretly a kinky, magical exhibitionist?

Nope, nope, nope, and fucking nope.

But of course, any cognitive dissonance I wanted to indulge in was spoiled by the indisputable fact that I was, without question, sleeping in Adrian Karras' bed, at what I could only assume was my dear professor's personal home. Not the nurse's office. Not my own dorm room. Not a guest room or a pull out bed. No, this was the bed that he slept in every night. An intimate place where he let his guard down, where only he and his lovers—however many of them he might have—belonged.

This was not a place for his student, and especially not a place for me.

Abject horror struck me as I heard the sound of a turning doorknob. The door swung open on silent hinges faster than I could bury myself back in the covers and pretend to be asleep.

Instead, I opted—not at all awkwardly—to stare at Adrian, who was fully dressed in casual jeans and a short-sleeved Henley, as though he wasn't a stuffy, hard to talk to, serious, and professional person at all. One might even think he was actually a regular guy who had a life outside his job.

Confusing .

I'd figured he was the type to wear pressed dress shirts even on his weekends.

"How are you feeling?" He asked with thinly masked guilt in his voice. My eyes dropped to the bag of takeout in his hand, then lifted back to the wall, since I was not at all ready to actually make eye contact.

"Surprisingly great?"

"Is that an answer or a question?" He raised a brow.

"I honestly don't know." I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. It was complicated, really. My pussy felt fantastic, but my brain was a rockslide in a glass house .

"Then let's sort it out." Adrian said so casually and practically. A man of science, he was. Always approaching problems like they were solvable. And he called me na?ve.

"I don't even know where to start." I muttered, dropping my chin to my chest. I was purposely not processing the biggest revelation of the previous night. And no, I was not referring to his dick.

It was big though.

AHEM .

"Chinese takeout is where we start." Adrian said matter-of-factly, and I was completely disarmed by that friendly, non-serious, gentle answer. "The rest can come after we eat. I don't think you got nearly enough at the restaurant."

One might argue that I'd gotten far too much at the restaurant, but as this was my teacher's house, I would not be saying that out loud. Instead, I followed with a loud grumble of my stomach and an awkward laugh. It was truly a wonder that he wasn't falling for me when he was sane.

I got out of his bed—yet another uncomfortable acknowledgement I was trying to downplay—then I followed him to his kitchen. He placed the bag on the breakfast bar counter, then fetched some plates and glasses of water. I broke apart my chopsticks, while casually surveying the area.

Browns, off-whites, grays, and tans. He was definitely a warm, earthy kind of person. It was nothing like Marcus' house. The analog wall clock was ticking past noon, which would explain how he'd found an open Chinese restaurant, and the natural light of the middle of… whatever day it was, created a calming ambiance.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this is your house?" I asked the obvious.

He nodded. "Correct."

"And it probably wouldn't be a stretch to assume" we fucked on your roof "that you flew me here from the restaurant?"

"Your powers of deduction are befitting of an engineering student." He rolled his eyes half way, then caught himself, like he wasn't supposed to act so normal and human in front of me. He set down the plates, then cleared his throat before he added. "Yes, that's also correct, Miss Denton."

I rolled my eyes fully. "No one else is here, and you literally ate me out in front of an audience of random diners. Can we not do the professional, formal thing right now?" I guess I was just frustrated enough to drop some of my own niceties and nerves. Or I just had too much else going on in my head to find them.

"If it's any consolation, I'd actually rented out the entire restaurant in case of just such an occasion. The only ones who saw anything were the wait staff, which was entirely composed of succubus and incubus who were comfortable with the display." He didn't look me in the eye as he said that.

"‘ In case of just such an occasion,' huh…" I parroted back with two raised eyebrows. "So you were expecting and planning for that to happen."

Adrian choked on his saliva, or his shame, or his deceit, or who knows what else that man put in his mouth. "No. But I knew it was a possibility. I needed to see how your body reacted when exposed to the full moon without a trigger stimuli, and that was a safe environment to do so. My father has known the owner for over a century, and I've known him for decades, so it wasn't an issue for him to allow me an isolated test environment."

"I can't wait to read the write up in the scientific journal." My expression was as flat as that explanation. It was all fair and well executed, but having him talk about me like I was one of the test cases for his research was painfully lacking in intimacy.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that." He sat next to me at the breakfast bar and started pulling Styrofoam containers from the plastic bag. Despite everything that just happened between us, oddly enough, sitting next to me by choice so we could enjoy a meal together was decidedly the most genuine and sweet. He hadn't been of sane mind or body while we had sex, so that was just carnal and mindless, but choosing the stool a few inches from me was a fully consensual choice.

Dumb.

"I get it." I put him out of the misery of having tact. "But that doesn't explain the ‘why.' Did you… know that would happen?"

"I suspected it." Adrian kept his gaze trained on the Chicken Lo Mein. He paused for several moments, then rephrased. "Yes, I knew that would likely happen."

"Even though I thought I was…" I couldn't physically vocalize the word human. I still hadn't accepted that myself.

"You shifted on the last full moon. I know you weren't aware, but when we were stargazing, you were in Virgo form. Your shifter scent was intense and maddening, and I was barely able to keep myself together around you. Which was also why Marcus, who is eight years younger than me and heavily lacks any discipline, wasn't able to keep himself together around you."

He stopped talking abruptly, likely realizing what he'd said. The fact that I was staring at him, wide eyed, with my mouth hanging open, was probably his indicator.

"He… he told you about that?" Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. They really were comparing notes about my vagina. I knew it. I fucking KNEW it. God, this is so fucking awkward. I hope whatever I really am isn't immortal, because I'm going to need someone to shoot me as soon as possible.

"Right, anyway." He dismissed that mortifying line of questioning with nothing at all helpful. "My point being, the fact that you can take on mate marks, exhibit a shifter scent that specifically targets other zodiac breeds, and were affected by the full moon last month were clear indicators of your lack of humanity. But since you refused to acknowledge it, I took matters into my own hands. The only problem is, while we can easily deduce that you have the blood of a Virgo Shifter, the fact that you're forced into transformation instead of having control of it means you're only half Virgo shifter. I would love to help and mentor you from here so you can better understand what all of this means, but I have no idea what else you are."

I dropped my focus to my Mongolian Beef, and I nibbled on a single piece of meat for much longer than necessary. How was I supposed to respond to that?

"Are you telling me my parents have somehow both lied to me and hid these things for my entire life?" The question was more defeated than it was confrontational .

"Either that or you're adopted."

"If you ever saw my face and my mom's face, you wouldn't even consider that as a possibility." I wanted to laugh, since my likeness to my mother's features was so prominent, it had been a running joke that she cloned herself, but I wasn't in a ‘ha ha' kind of mood.

"Then I'm not sure how else to tell you that you've been misled for a long, long time." Adrian bit his lower lip, and his discomfort with that revelation was unexpected. It was almost like it bothered him to break this news to me.

"I think that's about the only way you can say it." I smiled like he was the one who needed someone to comfort him, while my entire world was shattering, one splintered shard at a time. I sighed heavily. This was going to be a fun phone call with Mom when I got back. "So you know I'm a Beta because I transformed without a trigger, and I was still mentally in control?"

"Correct." He nodded. "Also because your form was the same as the month before, with no characteristics of the Pisces. An Alpha has many forms, while a Beta does not."

"And you have no control over yourself at all in that form?" I wanted that restated for my own records. If this was going to become my life, I wanted to make sure I understood exactly what I was dealing with.

"None." He shook his head.

"What about before you turned?" I mumbled next. "When you um…" Grabbed me. Threatened me. Asked me what I wanted. All the ways you touched me before you had shifted. "How much control did you have up until that point of transformation? "

He stopped eating, but didn't look at me.

"Some," was all the answer I got, before he followed with, "I should take you home. Finish eating, and I'll drop you off. I'm sure you're overwhelmed and could use some more rest and privacy to dissect your new reality."

My whole heart sank.

"Okay." I squeaked, no protest left in me. I quietly finished my meal, and I let him take me back to the dorm. It was a somber drive back to Graves Academy.

I left that afternoon with more questions than I had answers, and a weight of shattered trust that I might never be able to lift. The worst part was that it wasn't these psychotic, questionable, monstrous men who had my heart in my stomach this time around. It was my own family.

I was in a daze as I wandered back into my room. At some point, I'd gotten under the covers and curled up in bed, then picked up my phone, and scrolled through my contacts.

I dialed the only number that made sense, but my mom's phone went straight to voicemail. I dialed again. Same thing. Again. Again. Again.

It's not like she was avoiding me. Why would she be? She didn't know what had been happening to me. She didn't know anything about anything. I wondered, now, if she even knew I wasn't human at all.

Of course she did. If it wasn't her blood that made me some kind of mythical beast, then it was Dad's. As much as I loved and respected my father, he wasn't capable of keeping a secret of that magnitude from Mom. He couldn't even resist telling everyone what he got them for Christmas long enough for them to open the gift.

I dialed Dad next, to the same result, then dialed five more times to communicate the urgency of the conversation. When neither picked up, I threw my phone at the wall with frustration, hard enough that it would have broken if I'd not had such terrible aim that I hit my desk chair instead.

I curled more tightly into my pillow and squeezed my eyes shut.

What the hell is she doing that's more important than explaining to her daughter why she enrolled her in a school full of monsters without telling her she fucking is one?