“Well, you weren’t invited. You aren’t welcome.” He turns back to Julian, nodding him toward the door. “Let’s go.”
He doesn’t follow, instead staying in the chair, eyes forward, but it’s impossible to miss the low rumble of his voice as we leave.
“Are you sure about that?”
I wait until we’re nearly back to the dorm before I ask the question that’s been eating at me from the moment the doors fell closed behind us.
“What the fuck was that?” I hiss, trying to keep my voice down. I don’t really want to wake Wren because A: I feel bad, and B: something tells me I won’t get the answers I’m looking for if she wakes up.
The others exchange a look that tells me I’m the last to know, and for a second, I’m mad until I remember why they might have kept it from me. Until this moment, I hadn’t exactly cared about anything to do with Wren if it wasn’t a way to get her out of our dorm.
“The other day when you two—” Titus looks between Julian and me. “Were fighting, Julian mentioned her being in the library all the time.” I look at him and wonder where the hell he’s going with this. I’d been there, I remember, and if I’m being honest, it’s not a moment I’m very proud of.
Looking back, I cringe at where that conversation went and the memory of Wren running off.
I’d never intended to hurt her feelings; in my mind, Wren wasn’t someoneIcould make cry. She was above me, better in every way, perfect.
But she’s only human, and I think I need to remember that, seeing her like this, asleep in Julian’s arms after a week of studying with a headache. It’s eye-opening in a way I didn’t know I needed.
I still don’t want her in the dorm, but maybe I can shut the hell up when I get up early.
Nolan seems to get annoyed with my inability to catch on and rolls his eyes.
“And who spends all of their spare time in the damn library?” he asks with a huff.
“Well, he used to spend all his time there. Apparently, he enjoys movies now, too,” Julian grumbles. I don’t need to see his face to hear the sarcasm that bleeds into each word.
Felix.
“Felix has been spending time with Wren?” I ask, unable to make sense of that in my head. “Like your brother, Felix.” Titus glares at me, but I don’t bother correcting myself. Dimitri and I are only half-siblings, and I don’t see him any differently than I would if we shared both parents.
Titus just hates Felix.
I wave his annoyance away and continue. “The same Felix who doesn’t like anyone and can kill people by touching them?” I hiss a little too loudly, which gets me hushed by Nolan as we all look around to see if there’s anyone near enough to have heard us.
Thankfully, most people are out on Friday night, leaving the dorms mostly deserted.
Once we’re sure nobody overheard us, Julian answers me, though it’s not necessary; I don’t know another Felix.
“Yeah, leave it to Wren to befriend him. Maybe if she had felt comfortable in the dorm, she wouldn’t have had to hide away there.”
Shots fired, and while he’s right, I don’t like it. Sadly, I don’t have a good comeback to that.
“She would have ended up there, anyway. The girl could live in a library,” Nolan says, and I turn to see him looking at her in Julian’s arms with a softness in his eyes that I’ve never seen before.
“Yeah, she could.” Julian agrees, and suddenly I’m feeling like a fourth wheel.
Thank God for Titus.
“Enough. It doesn’t matter why or how. It only matters that Felix is dangerous and we need to keep them apart.”
“Which would be a hell of a lot easier if she weren’t a dud,” I say more to myself than to them because I can see it now; she’s never going to listen.
And honestly, I don’t really blame her. Why should she listen to a thing any of us has to say, Titus and me especially?
“What?” Julian roars, stopping dead in the middle of the hall, and it’s only because of years of sports that I react quickly enough to avoid ramming into his back.
“What the hell?” I growl, turning to face him and finding him staring at me, eyes wide, his hold on Wren looking as if it borders on uncomfortable as I feel his magic seep into the air.
