The ride was silent. Dante never said a word, letting me stew in my thoughts. I occasionally glanced at Dante and noticed how his hands were gripping the wheel too tightly and how his face was set in a blank tightness.
Soon, Dante dropped me off, giving me a long hug. He pulled back and tucked a rebellious strand of hair behind my ear. His intense stare made me squirm underneath it. The tightness in his posture relaxed as he finally spoke, "you ever need anything. Anything. I will be there. All you have to do is ask."
I nodded, agreeing to his terms. He let me go and wordlessly watched my pull my stuff out from the trunk and walk towards the towering building, not wanting to believe that I was back here, alone again.
I rolled my shoulders back and entered the building. Students and professors crowded the hall. I pushed past them and marched straight to my home for now. I couldn't help taking a quick look at what was Caden's house. I doubt he's coming back. I didn't want to be alone.
I know I told him to stay behind, but a part of me wanted him to insist on coming. I shook my head, space was good, I needed some. I have to stop being a hypocrite.
The inside felt lonely and bland. I ignored the sinking feeling in my gut and unpacked my clothes to harshly shove into my closet.
I forced myself to stop overthinking this situation. Nobody broke up with anyone, we weren't even together in the first place. We haven't even kissed. We have time.
I sent Caden a quick goodnight text before I sank into my bed.
The next day was spent thoroughly cleaning my small home to distract myself from the sweet texts from both Caden and Dante. Ronan had called and we had blissfully talked about absolutely nothing before I made up an excuse to leave.
I forced myself to bed early so then I would be well rested for school the next day.
————————————
I shot upright and shut off the blaring alarm. That was something I didn't miss. I threw together a comfy outfit for my early day. I had set my alarm extra early for a reason, to research. The one thing that's been made extremely clear to me is the fact that I know nothing about this new world.
I made the long trek up the three flights of stairs to get to my destination, the library. I pushed open the heavy metal door to the an enormous space filled with long rows of bookshelves. They were so high, there was a ladder attached to each shelf so someone could climb up and grab a book at the top.
I shuttered at the thought of being so high above the ground on a rickety, skinny ladder.
"Good morning," a high pitched, older women chirped, "do you know what you're looking for? Can I help you find anything?"
Her friendly personality caused me to blurt out exactly what I was looking for. "Yes, actually. I'm looking for any information on all the different species."
She seemed confused at first and I had to embarrassingly explain my very limited knowledge of everything. She smiled, staying professional. "Oh, of course. Right this way, I'll pick out some books I think you'll find helpful. You find a seat at one of the tables and I'll be over shortly."
I smiled and thanked her and went to grab a seat in the corner of the library. The frail women shuffled over a moment later, carrying multiple heavy looking textbooks in her arms. She dropped them on the table and they made a large thunk, echoing throughout the empty library.
She put her hands on her hips, proudly looking over her bounty before smiling down at me, "if you need anything else just let me know."
"I will, thank you."
She beamed and swaggered off. I spread the books out, looking at what she got me. I skipped over the ones about wolves, I'm sure I would learn about that in my classes.
I pulled the next book in front of my, "All The Extraordinary Creatures." That looked promising, I would put demons, dragons and gargoyles in the extraordinary category.
I lost track of the time as I immersed myself into the book. It looks like everything Atlas said was true. The seven deadly sins were children that the devil had. The last child he had was hundreds of years ago. Nobody has seems him for centuries and there are rumor circulating around that he's dead.
I don't know where these rumors were circling but I haven't heard any of them. Atlas never said anything about his father being dead.
The book included the description of a demon. It was common for them to have red eyes, an unnaturally tall height, a large, muscular build and they called the power Atlas gave off, an aura.
There was a whole chapter on the different powers each of the devil's first seven children had and the theories of why only the devil's offspring possessed these special powers. Some say it was because the devil was so powerful, other believed it was the mother's DNA mixed with the devil that caused this power to manifest.
Ordinary demons were considered to be in the top forty most dangerous and powerful creatures, but the devil's offspring are easily the top ten. I didn't know there were at least forty more species out there.
After flipping through more pages, I finally got to the section about dragons. Ronan gave me no information about dragons. I felt a little guilty looking into his species as if I was betraying him. I wasn't doing anything wrong, just simply gaining knowledge about a topic.
The large, graphic image of a red scaled dragon eating a humanoid toad filled the entire page. I flipped to the next and tried to push that picture out of my mind. There was no way that sweet Ronan could turn into that thing.
As I kept reading I learned that dragons haven't been able to shift for around five hundred years. But, Roman said he was a full blooded dragon, does that mean he can shift? My question was answered in the next paragraph. Although, dragons couldn't shift anymore, the pure blooded ones were from the royal family.
So I was dealing with the devil's son and a descendent of royal blood. Fantastic.
Dragons were also extremely rare. Their species was thinned out long ago when they could shift into dragons. Their scales made for sturdy armor. Many slayed dragons for sport or to prove they were worthy to their king.
But, dragons weren't easy to kill until people found their weakness. A specific flower was crushed up and mixed with toxic berries and then thrown into the dragons mouth. It was known to take down even the oldest, strongest dragons.
In the supernatural world, most species with a lifespan of over a few hundred years gained more powerful as they grew older. Although, their hair turned grew and their limbs grew weaker, they had more power flowing through their veins than a younger, more active creature.
The book said the flower was extinct and hasn't been seen in centuries. However, rumors of the flowers growth in tiny regions of the world have always been whispered. If the flower was mixed with the berries that are still around today, the mixture could easily kill a dragon. I'm glad the flower is gone. Whatever it was, the book never said the name of the flower so it must have been extremely deadly.
Dragons liked to live in mountains, cold areas or very secluded parts of the forest. Check, check and check. Nothing gets colder than Russia, their house was on a mountain in the middle of the woods.
I skimmed the next few pages about a dragons appetite which consisted of mostly meat, I flipped the pages in hope of finding something about gargoyles. I got to the end without a peep about them. I guess they were so rare, not even this book that had every creature imaginable in it had considered adding them.
I glanced at my phone, thinking I had at least an hour left. I jumped out of my chair so quickly that it knocked over. I had five minutes before my first class of the day, self defense. I could not be late to that.
I raced to the front, thanked the librarian again, dropped off the books and ran out. I quickly slowed down into a walk because I was getting weird looks. I hurried as fast as I could without running to the class.
Mr. Clark did not look happy. He pushed his glasses up his nose and eyed me. "And why are you late?"
"I'm sorry. I was in -"
"Mhhhh? Well let's hear it."
I frowned, maybe he didn't hear me, "I was in the library and I -"
"Well, nothing to say for yourself." He looked at the class behind me as if waiting for them to mock me too. They said nothing and looked at me with sympathy.
I gaped at him. What a prick. He was just being rude.
"What's your name again, girl?"
"Odette."
"Perfect. You will run ten laps around the gym. Then you will stay after class and run ten more. I think that's only fair. Don't you?"
I stared him down refusing to humiliate myself by agreeing with him. Twenty laps, there's no way I would be able to complete that without vomiting or fainting or both.
He tilted his head then stepped closer, "you want to make that thirty laps."
I shook my head, "twenty's fine."