The boys joined us for dinner after they cleaned the gym. As soon as they sat, Imogene strutted into the cafeteria. She smirked at me and stopped behind Dastien.
My temper flared to life. I wanted her away from him. Now.
She ran her fingers through his hair and leaned down between Dastien and I. “I thought we were meeting outside?”
My trust in Dastien was still extremely fragile and she was trying to break that. I knew she was trying to get me to react, but I couldn’t stop the growl that escaped from me. For some reason, I didn’t care when my hands started changing.
Dastien pushed her away, and leaned into me until our noses were touching. He gently placed a hand on each of my cheeks as his eyes started to glow. “Shhhh,” he said.
Waves of power ran through me. My muscles turned to mush and whatever was rising up inside of me laid down.
“Okay?” His face still close to mine, close enough to kiss.
A silly grin spread across my face. Like he was reading my mind, he leaned in and gave me a soft kiss on the lips. I waited to see what his mind would show me, craved to know what was going on beneath the surface, but got nothing. My whole body tingled as he pulled away from me. He didn’t get very far, since I was clutching his shirt in my hand.
He laughed, and pulled me to sit across his lap. “Better?”
“I’m not going furry.” My words slurred together. “It’s totally better.”
Imogene snarled. She grabbed the table and flipped it into the air. Dastien stood quickly and blocked me from the flying debris. Chairs screeched across the floor as people dodged the table.
Luckily no one was sitting where it crashed. The force broke our table in two and chairs scattered across the linoleum.
When the din faded from my ears, Dastien stood between me and Imogene. “I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you, however unintentionally, but this is getting silly, Imogene.”
“I’m sorry. You’re my oldest friend. My best friend.” She looked at the ground. “I apologize.”
“It’s not me you need to apologize to.”
Her gaze met his again, but she shook her head. She kicked chairs from her path as she stormed out of the cafeteria.
I slumped into Dastien. He wrapped an arm around my waist and looked down at me. His smile made me giggle. It was the same one from the night of the party—the one I hadn’t seen since I woke at St. Ailbe’s. It made him deadly gorgeous. I reached up to touch his face.
Meredith grabbed my arm and pulled me away from him. “Maybe a little less intense on the shushing next time. You’ve turned the poor girl to pudding.”
I whined as she tugged me away from Dastien.
“Come on, Tess,” she said. “Everyone’s going to be coming in here soon for a pre-sundown dinner. We should get out of here before people see the mess and start hounding you. Plus, I think you could use a cold shower.”
I stared back at Dastien as she dragged me out the cafeteria doors. He bent over, picking up pieces of the table. The only thing I knew about him was that we had the same odd taste in music and that his butt looked really awesome in those jeans. There was so much I didn’t know about him. And I really wanted to know everything.
As if he could feel me staring, he looked at me and winked.
“Get me out of here before I do something really embarrassing,” I said.
When we got back to the dorm, Meredith did as she promised and shoved me fully dressed into an ice cold shower. I screeched as the water came down and jumped out of the way.
“What the hell was that for?”
“You actually let me put you in the shower. That should tell you something about how you were acting.”
I turned the hot water on full blast and closed the shower curtain. “It was like my brain capacity went from smartish to total dimwit in five seconds flat.”
“You can thank Dastien for that. He over did it on calming your wolf. I hear it’s like being drunk.”
“Remind me to never get drunk.” I shed my soaked clothes and stepped into the now steaming spray. My mind and body were out of my control. That was enough to chill me to the core.
***
Friday I woke up completely groggy. The sirens had gone off nearly every hour. I desperately wanted to look out the window, but we were under strict orders not to look. Plus, I wasn’t going for a repeat, but worry for Dastien kept me up most of the night.
I probably should’ve known something was up when I saw Mr. Hoel at breakfast in the morning, but ignorance was bliss. He was the President of the Board and, as such, had decided that all us youngins needed a three-hour lecture about the situation on campus as it were.