His sight moved from staring curiously at me, to longingly at Kendra.
Bracing myself for such a colossal impact was impossible. I would have needed hours of preparation, and I didn't even have a single second.
When Dante stepped into the threshold and his eyes connected with Kendra's, everything came crashing down on me like a brick wall tumbling to pitiful pieces.
Excitement, attraction, confusion. Familiarity. And the feeling of wanting to be complete. It all rushed through me like a drug, immobilising me, making me feel things that I would never feel normally. It nearly knocked me off my feet.
They flew through my protection barrier as if it had been made of thin, easily penetrable paper.
I watched, my body shaking, as Mr. Angrypants stopped midway and simply stood there, looking directly into Kendra's eyes, as if he were gazing straight into her soul. All the following students threw him strange looks, but walked past him wordlessly nonetheless.
His body posture was just as stiff as Kendra's, they both looked like they'd frozen into ice and been rooted to the ground. The look on his face was strained.
I wondered what he was thinking.
Then, like rain trickling down from the skies above, a calm sadness washed over me. The rain drops had a familiar signature—they were Kendra's.
She broke the eye contact, just to stare at the wooden floor beneath her feet. With the loss in connection, the emotional impact dimmed and where I couldn't breathe, now I could at least barely breathe.
Still, it was hard and not very pleasant.
I was exhausted, trying to sort out which feelings belonged to who. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed Kendra's left arm and pulled her with me. She needed to leave this room.
Hell, I needed to leave this room, if I wanted to live to see another day.
I tried to manoeuvre her past Dante without her touching him, but of course that was exactly what had to happen. Oh, blowing freezing hell of ice fire! Why? Why!
Their arms brushed, and then both of them froze again, staring at each other like two people drowning together, dying, and all that could save them was their bond. Her irises were full of passion, as his were swimming in an endless ocean of desire.
Aside from feeling like the biggest third wheel in history, there was pitifully little I could do at this point.
"How is this happening?" he asked, his voice husky and deep.
Even my skin crawled at that voice.
"It—" Kendra began, not able to speak properly.
Instead of trying again, she broke off eye contact but this time darted out of the room, straight to the girls lavatories across the classroom.
Finally!
I stayed behind, right beside Dante who was staring at the door which Kendra had disappeared behind.
"Don't. You don't get to do what your body is telling you to do," I told him, urgency in my voice.
I tried to push the want to follow my instructions into my words, but manipulating emotions that way rarely worked. For it to really work, I needed to know the emotion's shape.
I didn't have a clue what 'don't go and follow her' felt like, let alone what shape it had.
"It's not allowed. Just refrain yourself, please. For the sake of all of us."
It would cause chaos within the council and punishment for everyone else. The council didn't take breaking the laws lightly. Besides the fact that cross-relationships between the races weren't legally allowed, Dante being Kendra's promised wasn't supposed to be possible to begin with.
Dante's piercing blue irises hardened and snapped to me, shocked that there were other people in this room. There was a feral look in them that caught me off guard. His frame was suddenly so much larger. He was towering over me like a bulky statue, intimidating and almost scaring me.
Just moments ago he seemed like a man about to die if he didn't hold love between the palms of his hands—now, all his hands wanted to do was crush whatever was unfortunate enough to fall into them.
But I stood my ground and folded my arms over my chest. No. I wasn't going to let him make me feel small. Enough people were already capable of doing that.
I wasn't going to let him be one of them.
"My body is not telling me to do anything. It's forcing me to," he growled through clenched teeth, his jaw clicking.
I closed my eyes, trying to drown all those intense feelings still rushing through me. "I know. I–I'm sorry."
Trying to wrap myself in an invisible blanket, I pushed all overwhelming emotions into that blanket like a towel soaking up water. When it succeeded, I lifted the emotional sheet from my shoulders and sent it away, as if I were blowing a Dandelion into the air, and felt it disintegrating. As if a vein in my head just snapped, a jolt of pain surged through me.
Then blood trickled down my nose.
Breathing through more freely, though I was utterly exhausted, I focused on transferring my calm to Dante, who was still fighting a battle within himself he could only hope to win with my assistance.
This cleansing dried me out, but it was the only way I'd be able to get him not to storm over to the lavatories and kiss Kendra like the bond was forcing him to. To lessen those emotions, I sucked them up to get rid of them. For that to happen, they needed to pass through my wall. And my wall was built to withhold foreign emotions. Letting them slam against it, letting them in and overrule everything my ocean was already dealing with, made something inside of me snap like a twig.
Whatever it was, it sent bolts of fear through my bones. The strength in my body left me, seeping out of my muscles like liquid, and I could feel myself breaking down the deeper I went into myself to grab my calm and give it to him.
I should have reinforced my walls and walked away. Stay out of it all, let nature take its course. All I felt now was pain, searing, hot pain. The calm was nearly unattainable, but when I found the little tear drop, I was in complete control.
Gripping his forearm, I pushed every ounce of calm I was capable of into him. I sprinkled a shower of tears over him like rain, soaking him wet with calm.
Calm, calm, calm.
"What are... you doing..." he slurred, his eyes rolling upwards and his shoulders dropping.
Once I let go of him, my legs gave out from under me. Hitting the ground, my bones felt like they shattered into a million pieces.
Mr. Markoff, who'd probably only just saw us now, jogged towards us and picked me up with his cold, white arms. He glanced at Dante, who was more confused than anything else. But at least I succeeded in calming him enough for him not to experience that strong want, even if it was only for the time being.
Mr. Markoff carried me to the healing quarters thereafter. Before we entered through the doors that lead into another old, mouldy room, he stared down at me with concerned bead-like eyes.
"What in ter name o' sunlight was that, Miss Black?"
I drove a hand lazily through my hair, my eyelids suddenly unbearably heavy. My energy left me and it was as if I'd been deprived by literally every ounce of life in my body. It hurt. All of my body hurt so much.
"I just calmed him down a bit," I whispered tiredly, not looking up at Mr. Markoff who was clearly fuming with anger.
Slowly, the buzzing pain turned into a soft hum until finally, the song stopped completely.
"Is not yer job to intervene with just anyone's emotions as ye please," he lectured, reminding me of something I had forgotten completely.
He knew.
He was the only outsider that knew of my powers.
The only reason he did was because Immortals had gifts of their own. Mr. Markoff could know, from a single touch, almost everything about someone. He'd touched me, for the first time, when I first started mandatory classes at the age of eight.
It had been purely accidental—but nonetheless, he'd had a lot of long and threatening conversations with my mother about keeping it to himself.
"I know. But if I hadn't done what I did, he might have found out our secret. Believe me, Mr. Markoff, I'd do anything to keep that family from finding out about us."
With his anger subsiding, he exhaled loudly. "Be that what it may. I ser'pose I understand. Are ye feelin' alright?" Mr. Markoff looked at me somewhat concerned.
I nodded.
"Not really. But I will be," I said truthfully.
"What was it that ye had to... manipulate?"
"A bond. You know how it is."
Actually, he had no clue how it was.
"Ah, yes, o' course. You shifters and yer thousand kind o' bonds. Somethin' I ain't never gon' understand."
Nodding, relief overcame me. Thankfully, I didn't have to lie but hadn't revealed what kind of bond I had meant. Immortals and humans alike knew only little of shifter ways, including what our bonds meant. The bond of friendship, the Maecena Bond, and the bond of love, the Promised Bond. There were many more, less intense ones.
Our bonds where what made us shifters, what gave our people culture.
Meaning.
A purpose.
Humans had their innovations, Immortals had their immortality.
We had bonds.
Mr. Markoff acknowledged the arriving healer and left soon thereafter. The female healer asked me a dozen times if I needed anything else, she finally left the room and me to myself.
Once I finished a few more sips of a herbal tea she'd brought and a few bites of a disgusting granola bar, I left the healing quarters and continued on with class as if nothing had happened.
Chapter Question: You think Markoff will keep Catherine's little secret to himself? And do you think Catherine was successful and right to steer Dante away from Kendra?
Reader Question: What's the longest you've ever gone without sleep?
This is a fun question, haha! For me it was quite recently, actually. Gosh it was a nightmare. I got up at 8:45 AM and had to stay awake until 3AM the following day to catch a flight back home. During that flight I wasn't able to sleep, which took around 3 hours. As soon as we landed at the airport, we had a layover of about 2 hours. So until 8AM the following day I hadn't slept; which is 23h. In the next flight which took us around another three hours, I might have slept for one and a half, though it felt like I hadn't slept at all. Exhaustion I guess!
Safe to say once I finally got home another 8 hours later, I slept for almost 24h to make up for lost sleep haha!