Skyler's POV
I leaned on Jace as he walked me back into the house, those luminous green eyes looking for a quiet place to go. A resonating energy seemed to roll off of him in electric clarity. I could feel the hair on my neck rise with the thrum of it. Rowan followed behind, stoic while dodging girls who targeted him as a dance partner. Jace just glared at them, causing them to veer to the side in a sudden effort to avoid the intensity. I snagged a water bottle on the way in, parched and desperate for something to hold other than guilt. I hadn't done anything wrong; Jace was indecisive and we weren't a couple. It was Forbidden. And Rowan certainly wasn't any competition. He'd burned that bridge a while ago.
"Jace," I hissed as we stopped in the corner of the formal dining room. It was empty for the most part, with the exception of the periodic person stumbling through to get to the kitchen. "You're not my boyfriend. It's Forbidden." My emotions warred in a confusing mixture of hope, anxiety, and foreboding, causing my heart to do an erratic skitter in my chest. The possibility of him rescinding what he had said was a clear plausible outcome. I wanted to raise a wall to protect myself, but Jace was...irresistible. Since knowing him, he'd given an impression of certainty when he knew what he was talking about or wanted. I glanced at Rowan to see his reaction. He watched, emotionless and observing, arms crossed over his chest. My awareness of both of their potent wills created palpable tension between them.
Jace didn't take his eyes from Rowan. "Skyler, he knows just as well as I do that it is Forbidden. Hence my discomfort. He is Morfilian."
My jaw went slack as I gazed at Rowan. "Is that true?"
He didn't blink as he turned his eyes to mine. And another second passed before he replied. "Yes. That's why I had to leave you two years ago, the way I did. I couldn't have you chasing after me in case they didn't send me back."
Jace looked down at me, understanding dawning in his glowing eyes. "Is he the one Riley spoke of? The one who hurt you?"
I felt my face turn into a tomato as I stared hard at the ground. Jace's arm tightened, causing me to cringe and redden further. There was silence for a prolonged moment as a girl with stringy black hair entered the room. She paused, eyes wide as she openly stared at the two aliens. Her eyes had the droopy effect of weed, pupils dilated, her stare blank. Rowan growled and she scurried away. He turned back to us with an exasperated expression, eyes somehow a lighter blue in this lighting than I'd ever seen them.
"Skyler, I said I'm sorry. I'm not leaving again, and obviously you know about all of this, the secret I kept from you and my friends for as long as I could remember. I've been here longer than most Morfilians. I'm past the Elite stage, if you ask me," he added dryly. Then he sobered. "But seriously. I had to leave to receive further instruction and training in the ways of our people because they concluded I was behaving more human than was proper. I'd appreciate any forgiveness for how I treated you, and I promise I will be here for much longer than the last time. I had to be cruel to convince the Council that I was not attached. To protect both of us." He shot a pointed look at Jace's arm around my waist, an emotion flashing across his features too fast to make out. "Since it is Forbidden, and the Council is good at what they do."
My breath hitched with the remnants of my feelings for him, that he may possibly still feel something for me yet. That he didn't go willingly, break my heart on his own accord... I shook my head and leveled a considering stare at him. I didn't speak. A dull pain began a rhythm in my temples. In the corner of my eye, Jace's face split between apprehension and resignation. Rowan's face slowly melted into wariness rather than tension. He leaned on the glossy dining table, all of the energy and fight seeming to leave him in a fast trickle.
"As I said, we can be friends, but no more. You have to rebuild the relationship you destroyed. Got it? That's the only thing I'm offering." I turned to Jace. "We'll talk about us later. But right now, I just want to forget all of this and see friends. See if Rayne and Jaden are alright. And I have a sleep over to put together."
He nodded, but slid his arm around my waist again, in a gesture of either guidance or protectiveness, I couldn't tell. I felt like it was supposed to act as a figurative neon sign saying "SHE'S MINE". "Okay."
And so we wandered the clustered bodies, me downing my water and replacing it with more punch. Jace did as well. Distantly through the soft buzz in my ears, I wondered if aliens got drunk. I erupted into a stream of giggles and snorts. Both boys stared at me as I covered my mouth in an attempt to smother the torrent. Rowan's mouth pulled at the edges in the beginnings of a smile.
"Can you guys get drunk?" I asked when I calmed down.
They glanced at each other and shrugged. Jace answered with a short "Takes awhile." I sighed and continued my search for Rayne and Jaden. The music thumped in my chest as sweat collected between my shoulder blades and stuck my hair to my neck. The body heat was surreal, all encompassing, and there was no way to escape it unless we were to go outside again.
"Lets check upstairs," Rowan suggested. "What do they look like?"
"Jaden is blond and tall, pale of course. Rayne is in a short black dress and heels. Brown hair," I answered, eyes glued to a pair sitting in the corner of the sunroom. The girl had short curly hair, with a noticeably bright smile while her partner was all straight lines: slim, straight hair, tall. The girl seemed familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then it hit me: she was one of the girls from the diner. I ushered Jace and Rowan farther along, just as her head snapped around.
"What is it?" Jace murmured, gently guiding me through the maze of rowdy people. Rowan looked back to where I glanced.
"One of the girls from the diner," I said, slurring on the word 'girls.' Jace hurried us along, until we stopped at the stairway and peered back. The girl, Calica from what I could hear from under Jace's breath, was on her feet now. She was pointing in our direction, her hair bouncing in urgency. I began up the stairs, softly shoving people out of my way. Sweat and perfume mingled in a sickening haze. When we reached the landing, somehow each of my hands was taken by an alien. My mind slugged in a flow of confusion, distracting me from what we were doing.
"Do you guys mind? Not now." I peeled both hands free and lurched forward with determination. There were a collection of doors that lined the hallway, three of them open while another couple were closed. Obvious sounds of movement came from them in rhythmic thumps. I felt the burn of alcohol fizzle up my throat, not helped by the inescapable feeling of suffocating heat.
"Come on," Rowan said impatiently. He shoved ahead, scanning each of the open doors we passed. He paused at the second one and winced, quietly closing the door and moving on. The third to the left was propped ajar, and he pushed it open. We all looked in, and found Jaden and Rayne sitting on the floor with a group of other people. A game of Monopoly was on the floor between them all, little silver figurines at various points on the colored squares. Rayne jumped up, clapping her hands excitedly.
"Sky!" she crowed. "Come join us! This is so fun. Oh, who's you're new friend?" She looked Rowan up and down, as Jaden stood up and dusted his pants off.
"Rowan," I said, "meet Rayne and Jaden. This is Rowan, you two. We need to go soon, unless we plan to spend the rest of the night explaining the diner fiasco to a witness." I glanced at my phone for the time. It was almost midnight anyway. "But I'd like to grab another friend or two, if you still wanted to have a friends' night."
Rayne met eyes with Jaden and they seemed to communicate without words. "Sure, girlie. Let's meet some more of your friends, and then we can head out. But can we maybe finish this game? We can shut the door so no one bothers us."
I sighed, exasperated. Rowan shrugged and slid smoothly to the floor. Jace looked to me, waiting. I smiled at him and nodded. "You'll probably like it, so may as well. I always lose, so makes no difference to me."
Rayne shut the door, and I caught a small flash flicker from her fingers. She headed back over and sat down, winking at me. I plopped down next to her and Rowan, Jace heading to Jaden and a girl's side. His glowing eyes took in the board game, clearly taking in the meaning of the lines and cards, piles of fake money cluttering each edge of the board.
"Need a recap of how to play?" Jaden asked, dealing more money and figurines. He handed me the bowler hat. I nodded at him, glancing pointedly at Jace. He jumped in to an abridged version of the instructions, but Jace's face said he already got the gist.
And so we played. As I predicted, I lost first, followed by the other humans we were playing with. The girl who sat to Jace's left was named Layla, who blushed every time her arm brushed his. Her sense of humor was nice, considering I hadn't had much the past couple of weeks. The other girl and boy next to her were her friends. We ended up inviting the two girls to the slumber party we planned to have. They jumped at the chance, reminding me much of my quiet friends at school, although they came from a different school in our district. We watched as Jaden and Jace were the last players. I checked the time again and realized two hours had passed already. I silently prayed they'd finish soon.
"Yes!" Jaden yelled. I jumped in surprise. In no way had I ever expected him to show so much animation. Jace offered a lopsided grin to me. And winked. Did he let Jaden win? I couldn't help but giggle.
"What?" Rayne asked. She had been sitting back on her phone for the past half hour. Her already short dress rode high above her thigh. I wish I had legs like that, but my lack of height made that feat impossible. I shook my head.
"Nothing. Just feeling the last of the little alcohol I had. Are we ready to go? We can hope my friends are still here."
She nodded and bounced up yet again. She offered me a hand and we filed out of the room. The atmosphere of the house had ebbed and changed a bit while we'd been playing. A guy in a hoodie sat passed out in the corner of the hallway while the music continued to pour throughout the house. Jace took my arm, and I leaned on him gratefully. We all made our way downstairs, noticing the amount of people had over half left. I looked around for any sign of the girl from the diner, but didn't see her. Relieved, I looked more closely for any glimpse of Laurel or maybe even Tamara.
"See anyone we know?" I asked Jace. We drifted to the backyard, and before I could say another word, heard a resounding smack- I was jerked forward and careened to the glowing water of the pool face first. I splashed in, water searing its way up my nose and down my throat. I coughed and began to take in more water as I floundered to the surface. I could just make out a brawl between two guys by the back door of the house, Christmas lights flickering as their bodies blocked out the individual lights. My contacts moved, distorting my vision and jabbing my eyes with pain. I coughed a couple more times and heard a splash a couple feet from where I tread water. An arm encircled my waist, pulling me up and out of the pool. I gasped and shivered with the bite of cold as my hands and knees made contact with cement. A hand thumped my back as water slowly made its way back out of my system.
"Breathe, Skyler. Are you alright?" Rowan murmured into my ear. Worry wrinkled his brow as my vision tried to center. I impatiently took my contacts and threw them into the water. Blinking, I looked at his face again. His eyes were now on the two moving figures nearby. I squinted. I could just make out the glowing white of Jace's skin as he flitted two feet from the other figure.
"What's going on?" I scraped out, my throat restricted from more coughs. I leaned back so that i was upright, supported by my knees and feet.
"This douche just came at Jace," Rowan said, getting to his feet. Water dripped from his clothes and hair as he leaned down to grab something. He draped it over my shoulders, and I realized it was his fur lined jacket. It smelled like wood smoke and a hint of something more foreign than tea. Just as I remembered. My hands shook as I wrapped it tighter around me as I got to my own feet. Worry had my breath coming in shallow heaves.
"Jace!" I yelled. "Who is it? I can't see clearly right now."
"Michael," Jace grunted. What I assumed was Michaels' prone form was being dragged by Jace. To the back door, where he was no longer in danger of rolling into the water.
"What did he do? Why did he attack you?" I asked. A cold trickle of water found its way down my back. I shivered. "What a dick."
Rowan chuckled. "I assume he didn't like him. It's natural for our kind to attract attention, negative or positive." He paused for a second as we watched Jace nudge the football players' prone form with a foot. "Regardless, we need to leave. It's late, Skyler's wet, and the party's pretty much over anyway."
Jace came to my side in a flash. "Are you alright, Skyler? I would've gotten you, but it would have risked me getting him truly hurt."
I nodded. My teeth began to chatter. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and glanced in Rowan's direction. We made our way to the house again. Isabella was just inside the door, a hand to her mouth in what I presumed was shock. Layla and her two friends were in similar states, scattering as we entered the back door.
"Are you okay?" Rayne muttered in my ear.
I sighed. "Yes. Just ready to go home and relax. It's cold." An overwhelming sense of exhaustion washed over me, and the uncomfortable feeling of heavy wet clothes weighed me down even more. "Let's go. We don't need to find anyone else, they're all gone anyway."
As one group, we all headed outside the front door, passing unconscious people. The street was silent and serene, the cold pressing down on everything in a cloak of night.