“Io,Elena,” he started.
Huh? I frowned, trying to think what the hell he just said.
He rambled a couple of other strange words,and I realized he was speaking Latin. He‘d asked something, but I had no clue. An awkward silence lingered for a couple of minutes. He stared at me with his smoldering blue eyes as if staring straight into my soul. It made my heart skip a beat. I didn't like it.
When he spoke again, I shook my head. I assumed it was his way of rebelling against having to tutor me.
“What?” My voice disappeared.
He seemed irritated by my reply and answered in Latin again. His chair made a horrible screeching sound as he pushed it back. Heads shot up from the noise of the chair. He rose, said something else with a nod, and headed for the door.
“Blake, please,” I yelled after him, and he stopped. “I really need your help. I don't want to fail.”
He just stood there with his back facing me.
“Please,” I begged again, hoping it was working.
He growled and turned back to face me, his upper lip curling up. It made him look extra hot, and I could hear a couple of girls nearby sighing.
“Fine,” he said. “But if you’re going to cry, I'm done.”He threw himself hard onto the same chair he’d sat on a few moments ago. I cringed as he pulled himself, chair and all, closer to the table. The librarian frowned at him, her glasses resting precariously on her nose.
He started with the easy stuff; the words that were similar to English.
We switched over to conjugating verbs and recited words like confirmare, which meant to confirm, straight through to vocare,which was to call. We recapped the I's, you's, he’s, she’s,and it’s.
When he started to use an example with the word “give”, it began to make sense for the first time, but he wasn't kidding about the crying part. He was mean and made me recite it a million times until I pronounced it correctly. He would flinch if
I mispronounced the word as if it was insulting him. I sighed, trying really hard not to scream.
“You struggle with verbs the most. For dragons, it's easy. We are born to speak Latin where humans find it difficult. In Latin, the ending of the verb changes every time. The ending is crucial, as it tells you tense, person, and number,” he said, counting with his three fingers to make it easy for me to understand. I had already forgotten what the first finger represented. I was lost in his eyes.
Snap out of it, Elena, the voice inside my head said through gritted teeth.
I forced myself back to the present, while he explained when using singular and plural, you always change the verb. I struggled to keep up and felt guilty when I caught myself staring at his mouth. His lips made me feel like I wanted to grab and kiss him. I felt as if I was already cheating on Lucian. My head felt like it was about to explode when, lucky for me, he called it a day.
He said goodbye and grumbled for me to meet him at the same place next week.
Until dinnertime, I poured over my notes. Everything seemed to go back to not making sense, and I wished that he didn't have this effect on me. I had no idea how the hell I was ever going to be able to speak Latin fluently the way Blake had this afternoon.
Becky was right though, he was verautiful, but such a dickhead, and I didn't feel like meeting him again next week.
During dinner, Sammy and I stared at George as he whispered sweet things to Becky, who was acting mildly amused.
I tried hard not to burst out laughing.
“You're an idiot, go sit with your buddies,” Becky said and pushed him off his pillow.
He grunted as he jumped up to go and sit with Blake again. Blakewas making fun of him and the way he’d suddenly changed toward Becky. George laughed, and I realized that Blake was only teasing him and not treating him like an outcast.
“He's like a fly circling a piece of crap,” Becky whined, and hid her face in the palms of her hands.
“You know, you just referred to yourself as a piece of crap, right?” Lucian joked. We all laughed.
“Oh shut up,” she snapped, and then joined in our laughter.
We got up after our dinner. I felt dead tired.
“See you at five, my love.”Lucian's voice roared from the boy’s stairs, and I really wished that I had a smart comeback to wipe the excitement out of his tone. I’d never met anyone who looked forward to morning runs.
“I'm a poet and didn’t even know it,” he said.
Sammy and I laughed hearing how the other guys teased him.
“So how has it been with you and Lucian?” Sammy asked, amused.
“Becky's right, he's a slave-driving demon.”
After my shower, I went over the stuff Blake taught me before I slipped underneath the covers.
The second I closed my eyes, I was faced with the same dream again. I really had no idea who the woman was, and it was starting to freak me out.