Page 9 of Twilight of Embers
“This is Maggie and Bella.” Delaney inclined her head to the blonde and then the redhead.
“Nice to meet you,” I greeted.
They looked at me with that same assessing stare as their friend. And they, too, didn’t seem to like what they saw. They made polite noises of greeting, but the welcome didn’t reach their eyes.
I bit the inside of my cheek and turned toward my bed.
“Are your parents bringing up the rest of your stuff?” Delaney asked.
It was a completely normal question; she’d have no way of knowing that it cut me to the core.
I didn’t turn to face her when I answered. “I sent my stuff ahead.”
I motioned to a large box that sat near the second desk in the room. All that was in it was bedding, but Delaney didn’t need to know that.
“That’s it?” Bella asked disbelievingly.
Maggie gaped at me. “What about all your shoes?”
My brows pulled together. “My shoes?”
“I had an entire box of just shoes. What are you going to wear to all the welcome parties?” Maggie seemed generally appalled on my behalf.
I shrugged. “I’m not really a partier.”
Delaney scoffed, sifting her fingers through her silky, dark brown locks. “Your loss.”
Maggie grinned. “More of the Irish boys for us.”
My brow furrowed deeper, but I didn’t bother asking. I didn’t want to know.
I set to work unpacking my meager belongings and making my bed. It wasn’t long before I completely faded into the background for the girls on the other side of the room. I was good at that. Fading so completely that sometimes I wondered if I’d disappeared altogether.
“God, I’d give anything for them. Knox with his panty-dropping smile, Easton with that broody stare, and Cáel with that feral grin.” Bella practically moaned.
“Paws off Knox. I called dibs,” Delaney snapped.
The weirdest sensation ripped through me at the sound of Knox’s name on their lips. I wanted to claw her, scratch her eyes out, or do whatever it took to prove he was mine.
Maggie and Bella shared a look.
Delaney flicked her hair off her shoulder. “And I’d stay far away from Cáel. He’d be more likely to murder you than anything else.”
“I’d like him to murder my vagina,” Maggie muttered.
Delaney and Bella gaped at her.
She just shrugged. “What? He’s got that whole Viking look going on, and I got really into that show over the summer.”
They all dissolved into giggles.
Bella sent her friends a sly smile. “I heard they share.”
Delaney frowned. “A house? Sure. They live off campus.”
“No. They share women,” Bella whispered.
Heat flushed over my skin at the thought. Were the two other boys I’d seen with Knox earlier who they were talking about? Those boys had seemed so normal, average in comparison to Knox.
