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Instead, I was rudely awakened by Florence shaking me roughly, with a, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Harlow Vanguard. There’s late and then there’s you,” like she was a cardboard cut-out of her overly proper and lovable mother.
I pulled myself awake. As I sat up, she threw something at me. I dragged it off my face and found she was throwing bits of my uniform at me.
“What are you–?” I mumbled.
“Get dressed. There’s missing breakfast and there’s missing morning mass. Sister Agnes is going to kill us.”
I nodded, still blinking sleep out of my eyes and brain. “Sure.”
I hurried to get changed while Florence flapped around the room in panic and kept marking every minute that went by. I had no chance to think of anything except trying to remember how to dress myself so all the layers went in the right order. It embarrassingly took a few goes, which only stressed Florence more.
“Come on,” she whined. “I know you’ve not been sleeping well, but come thefuckon, Bridget!”
“Pants,” I said, realising I needed to change my pants, which made me remember that Valen had stolen a pair last night.
“What?” Florence asked as I froze. “Have you forgotten where pants live? Where they go? Between your fucking legs, woman. Come on!”
“Right…” I muttered, pulling my focus to the current problems and finishing getting ready.
By the time Florence was pushing me out of our room and bundling me to the chapel, I was pretty sure I was fully dressed, my hair was up although totally not brushed at all, my bladder was empty, and I’d wiped a bit of toothpaste over my teeth.
“You’ll do!” Florence said. “No one cares what you look like. It’s the last day of term. You’ll probably start a new trend.”
I snorted, but then realised she might have been right. There was a time in Year Nine when I’d started winding ribbons through my plaits, and it had caught on to the point people were still doing it.
During mass, I fell asleep on Florence’s shoulder and, whenever she jolted me awake again, was too tired to notice whether people were staring at me or not, whether they cared what I looked like or not. On the way out, I took a surreptitious look around and only received the usual smiles and nods and greetings. If I looked as bad as I felt, then no one did care.
As we walked into the main building for first lesson, I caught my reflection in the door and saw that it wasn’t that no one cared what I looked like, it was that I’d actually managed to make myself look somewhat decent. At least decent enough to pass during class time. I was quite proud of myself.
Florence’s panic had passed after none of the sisters had pulled us up on tardiness and we were now safely off to lessons, so she was chatting away about something. I was only half-heartedly paying attention to her, giving her the ‘uh huh,’ ‘yup,’ and ‘really?’ she was looking for.
But I paused as I saw who was up ahead. A very definite ‘yip’ sound escaped me and that got Florence’s attention. She searched to follow my gaze and saw it fixed on Valen.
“Like you don’t love any chance for him to intimidate you,” she scoffed, nudging me forward with her shoulder.
My feet moved against my wishes.
Yeah, I loved Valen intimidating me. But that was before he’d fucked me. That was before I knew –knew– all my fantasies were pale imitations of how good the real thing was. I wasn’t a total idiot. I had a suspicion why the real thing was so much better than the fantasies, because there was more to real life than the perfect planning of a fantasy. Emotions swirled – be it hate or not – and they heightened everything. They changed everything from the almost sterile, calculated, designed atmosphere of a fantasy.
Knowing all that, I didn’t know how I was going to be able to even look at Valen ever again without everyone seeing how much I wanted to have it all again. But it was never going to happen again. I couldn’t let it. Not when he was so certain it would. I had to prove him wrong. I couldn’t let him be right. I had very little power in my life, and that was one thing I hoped I wasn’t too weak to keep control over.
We were getting closer to Valen, who seemed to not have noticed me yet.
He was walking with Marco, another Angel – one of Apollo’s lieutenants.
Marco had the dark hair and pale eye combination that seemed prevalent among the angels. He was a good-looking guy in his own right, full of cheeky mischief and busy fingers. He never sat still and always looked at you like he knew your deepest secrets. Marco was a big guy – taller than Valen – but somehow still looked small in comparison to the hulking presence that was Valen Kincaid.
Valen’s…aura emanated power and a deadly darkness that threatened to swallow anyone stupid enough to get close enough. Many Magdalens had been lost to it. Marco’s was good, but not that good. Not to me, anyway. I knew Florence thought the opposite, though, and each to their own. The world would be a fucking stupid place if we were all attracted to the same person.
Following the social mores of the high school corridor, I made to avoid running directly into Valen and Marco, and sidestepped. Problem was, Valen sidestepped as well. Seemingly as natural as anything, but the fact it was right into my path made me think it was anything but an accident.
We stopped right in front of each other, me forced to crane my neck to look up at him. I let my eyes take the scenic route, though. Up over his school trousers, enjoying the way the dark grey material clung to his muscular thighs. Over the shiny black belt at his waist. Up the white shirt that was absolutely not see through, but I could easily picture the body underneath. Past the collar with the open top button and loose tie. And finally into his face.
That face that I knew better than my own. The square jaw, the full lips, the near-black hair that hung into those storm grey eyes that raked over everything with keen disinterest and boredom. Like he was better than everyone and everything in any room he was in. Not the way Apollo was. Not like he ruled over everything, but rather like it was all trivial to him.
“Move,” he told me, his voice a low warning.
My heart pounded and my clit throbbed, but I held my own.
