“Spill!” Sammy demanded.
Becky curled her lip. “He's a 'slave driven demon' when it comes to fighting. I mean, the guy is good with a sword in his hands, but he has no sense of when he needs to stop. He's driving me insane!”
“What?” Sammy shrieked.
“Lucian McKenzie, my Lucian?” It felt great saying that.
“You heard me.” She plunged down on her bed with a pair of socks in her hand. “You only know his sweet side, Elena. He's head over heels for you.”
“Well I hope so. Since he's been training you, I hardly see him,” I said, irritation filling my voice.
“I'm sure he'll spend all his time with you after today. You know he told his parents that he won't be going home over weekends anymore,” Becky said arching her eyebrows.
“Get out of here,” Sammy shrieked excitedly while my stomach was doing a back flip.
“It's the truth.”
“Do you guys think he told them about me?” I asked. My gut turned into a big knot.
“Who cares? He's going to stay.” Sammy sounded happy on my behalf.
I had to admit, as much as I loved to spend more time with Lucian over weekends, a part of me panicked when I thought about his parents. I mean they’re ruling a country for crying out loud. What if they have certain expectations of me? I swallowed hard. Did they know I was the girl with the dragon father? For the love of blueberries,what if they didn’t approve?
I anxiously looked for Lucian during breakfast, but he was nowhere to be seen. To make matters worse he was constantly on my mind, so I had no idea what the professors were talking about during their lectures. At lunch, we had pasta for the zillionth time. Riley had gotten most of the riddles lately.
“Elena, please, I'm begging you, if it's going to be pasta tomorrow again, I'm going to puke,” Sammy complained, begging me to solve the days riddle.
I giggled and walked over to the Chef's board to see what he had in store for us today.
“All about, but cannot be seen. Can be captured but cannot be held. Can be heard but have no throat, what am I?'”I tried to think. Usually the answer just popped into my head, but today was completely different. I felt someone standing behind me. When she started to tap her foot, I assumed she wanted to see the riddle. I turned around and Arianna, princess of Areeth, was all up in my face.
Long strawberry locks curled down her back and around her face. Her lips twitched as a sly smile spread across her face, and she raised an eyebrow. To her right, a girl with a pug face glared at me, and on her left was a ginger that tried desperately to hide her freckles with too much concealer.
“Sorry,” I said, and tried to step away.
Arianna stepped in front of me, blocking my exit. “I'm not done with you, and yes, you'll be sorry if you won't do as I say.”
“Excuse me?”
“Stay away from Lucian McKenzie. He always goes through a mild crush on whoever is new.” Freckles and Pug Face sniggered.
“You see,it doesn't even matter if you two do get along. Lucian is royalty, Elena, and he can't waste his time with a commoner. So the way I see it, is that you stop whatever‘this’ is before you get hurt.” She emphasized the word “you” a little too harshly.
After all that venom, her lips turned into a perfect smile, and she turned around to walk away.
Becky and Sammy were walking toward us, and Arianna slammed into Becky violently. It was a miracle that Becky was still standing.
“Get out of my way,” Arianna spoke down to them.
“This is not Areeth, Arianna,” Sammy yelled after her.
“Are you okay?” Becky said.
I nodded and felt tears clog my throat.
“Elena, whatever she said, ignore it. She is a big biatch.”
“Yeah.”My mind was stumped with what she’d said.
“What was that all about?” Sammy asked, as we sat down at the table.
“It doesn't matter.”I sulked and started to eat my bowl of Alfredo pasta. I’d totally forgotten about the riddle when Chef rang the bell.
Lucian mimicked Becky with her happy dance and the entire cafeteria cheered.
Could he be sexier?
I closed my eyes and pushed away my tears. What do I do now? Arianna was right and had only spoken out loud what I already knew, but how could I stop what we had?
"Hey, beautiful." Lucian sat down next to me.
"Not now, okay, I have to go," I said quickly. I rose to leave as one tear lurked in the corner of my eye.
The fact that he was royalty wasn't going to change,and having a commoner for a girlfriend was probably against the law or something. How was I supposed to get rid of my feelings for him? Ever since he’d kissed me, I'd felt as if I could fly. Now, whatever had made me feel so powerful died painfully with Arianna's words.