Page 8 of Blood Oath
MAVEN
Two Weeks Later
Knock, knock. "Maven? Are you here?”
I don't bother responding since Kenzie has already burst into our dorm room. She blinks in surprise at where I sit on the floor, surrounded by charred plant remains and a ring of smoke.
The smoke dissipates as I discreetly move my hands behind my back so she won't see my blackened fingertips. I offer no expression.
"Oh! Sorry, I didn't mean to fuck up your…aromatherapy?" She glances at the other withered plants on the desk at the foot of my four-poster bed. Then she shrugs it off. "Smells good in here. A bit overpowering for my nose, but I still like it.”
For the last two weeks, I’ve avoided any and all attention at Everbound University. My routine is set in stone: wake up, go to classes, speak only when spoken to, brew potions, keep my head down, and return to my dorm to bide my time.
I’ve gone to Halfton with Kenzie a few times, and I occasionally explore Everbound Forest. But otherwise, I have carefully kept to myself to avoid any chance of running into high-profile legacies.
My reputation as a forgettable nobody is solid.
And for the last two weeks, Kenzie hasn’t asked any more prying questions. It's why we’ve become comfortable acquaintances, and I’ve all but retired my spider-egg-pillow idea. She now calls me her bestie and makes me binge-watch steamy Regency romance shows with her. Meanwhile, I put a limp dick hex on the asshole vampire who was bullying her.
Basically, being stuck in the same room as her has not been the worst arrangement.
Except for when she barges into our room like this without warning. That's no good, but at least she didn't see anything.
"So? What do you think of my outfit for the Seeking? I was going for sexy and stunning with a dash of inappropriate.”
She twirls, showing off the shimmering gold bodycon dress that clings to her. That's in addition to the strappy platform heels and fishnets. It's a statement that I'm not surprised she pulls off—though why she keeps coming to me for fashion advice, I'll never know.
“You are both inappropriately stunning and stunningly inappropriate,” I confirm.
Kenzie squeals. “This is it. Today is the day we’ve been waiting for. In less than an hour, we’ll know which other legacies we’ll be bound to for the rest of our lives!”
She skips to the window on my side of the room and tries to throw open the black curtains. When she remembers that I spelled them permanently shut, she gives up and sits next to me, tapping her long, newly manicured nails against the wooden floor.
"Are you nervous? Gods, I am so nervous. I wonder if I’m going to be a keeper. What if I wind up in a quintet with ugly people? Or—” She gasps and gives me the most horrified look. “Shit, what if I have no matches?”
From everything I’ve learned since arriving, that does happen.
The gods may decide that a quintet still has missing pieces, such as legacies not yet at the university. Those quintets graduate without being bound to each other, meaning their curses go unbroken. Most incomplete quintets return yearly for the Seeking, living on a prayer and a hope.
In other words, quintets with age gaps get the shaft.
"I don't want to wait," Kenzie growls, clearly thinking about the same thing I am. She rolls onto her back, stretching like a cat and sighing at my ceiling. "I just want all my people at once. Is that too much to ask? I want two or three gorgeous guys and at least one sexy girl, and then we can all break our curse together and skip to the good part, where we get on with life, have lots of kinky, mind-blowing sex, and live happily ever after. Doesn’t that sound perfect?”
I won’t tell Kenzie this, but I don't believe in happily ever after. Not for me, anyway.
Am I a pessimist?
Yes. I find it keeps me from being disappointed.
Then Kenzie frowns and props herself up to look at my side of the room. Her side of the dorm is pretty much empty now, all her bright decorations, erotic paintings, and other belongings packed neatly into boxes stacked by her stripped four-poster bed.
My half of the room is almost as bare as the day I arrived. I did buy things like black sheets and blankets and gray pots for my plants, but I don’t see the point of decorating when I plan to leave soon. The only evidence of my space being inhabited are the potted plants on my desk that get their light from a gentle sunlight spell and the white pillow on the dark bed.
“Hang on. Why haven’t you packed your stuff up yet, May? You know we’ll move in with our quintet members immediately after the Seeking, right?”
“If I get matched to a quintet, I’ll move my stuff later.”
It’s a lie. I’m not budging.
