“Humiliate me more, won’t you? Now they will never leave me alone.”
“Well, you look as if you need some friends.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m a student, just like you,” Blake answered and put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me into him.
I hated how good he smelled and how the flutter in my stomach betrayed me.
“Stop being mean to me. I haven’t seen you for almost four months.”
It was over four months.
“I’m just stressed.” I stepped out of his embrace and tried a different technique, as he wasn’t going away soon. Dying in that ring still laid heavy on my shoulders.
“Yeah, well, Saturday everything will be over.”
I laughed. “That is easy for you to say. It’s not you that is going to face ten tons of muscle and scales who happen to be the most vicious beasty I ever laid eyes on.”
He chuckled. “Beasty?”
“Oh, shush. I have to come up with a name for him. Everyone keeps pushing him down my throat.”
He squinted and then laughed. “He’s everything except a beasty.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Lucian told me you kicked his ass?”
“By default. He tripped over his shoelaces.”
Blake’s shoulders bobbed as his lips thinned out into a grin.
“He is relentless, to be honest.”
“Well, according to him, you are too.”
“I’m not the damsel you brought back four months ago.”
“Clearly not. So you think you stand a chance on Saturday?”
“Nope.” I didn’t even think about that.
“Come on. You have Micha.”
“She is a human, not a beasty.”
“They are dragons, Elena, not beasties.”
“I have to do something for my mind to process, okay. They will stay beasties until my mind will accept the other word.”
“So you are still not there yet?”
“I’m getting there. Believe me, I face the Rubicon in Lucian’s simulator every single day. He still scares the living crap out of me.”
“He was protecting you for an entire weekend.”
“Yeah, because of his fuck-up. How many enemies does he even have?”
