"Kinda freaking out a bit," he said, showing he knew what I meant.
"But we stopped it again."
We both grabbed food, then moved to sit. The meat inside the containers had been cut into bite-sized pieces. There were plastic forks included, along with an assortment of other foods. Marshmallow-coated sweet potatoes and glazed carrots, I realized. That was enough sugar for a fae, but Hawke really ate meat? Yeah, that was going to take some getting used to. After waiting until he took a bite of the steak, I finally dug into my own.
He chuckled, clearly seeing my hesitation. "Quite a few wildlings sustain our inner magic by consuming it," he explained. "Trolls actually eat animals - including people. Some bathe in blood, some twist minds and take it through that contact. We jevadu can incite so much fear, it paralyzes our target - then we drain the magic from their blood." He set down his fork and cleared his throat. "We can also seduce. Well, not like a siren or dryad. It's more..."
"Hawke, I don't have any biases," I reminded him, all too aware he was trying his hardest to justify himself. "To me, this is interesting, not something to despise."
"I have the ability to make you instantly so horny you stop thinking," he explained. "I mean, it's kinda how we make more of ourselves, since jevadu are always male. That's why, um, when I kissed you that time? And you were pissed because I left?"
Yeah, I remembered that. He'd gone from flirting to running away, and it had been so weird that he'd actually pissed me off.
"Yeah?" I asked.
"I thought I'd, um, accidentally done it. You kinda changed from a no to a yes faster than I expected, and um..." He offered me a weak smile. "I'd accidentally pulled the fear out on you when we were studying, so I was worried I was out of control. Pretty girls make me stupid, you know."
"I did not know that." I stabbed another bite and shoved it into my face, then talked around it. "I thought I was just having some minor PTSD from the whole Hunt attack."
"Camilla pissed me off," he explained. "That jester girl was being a bitch to you, and I wanted her to go away, but I couldn't catch her eyes, and I don't use that a lot. I didn't evenmeanto use it, which proves how bad I am at it."
"So, what you're saying is you're cooler than I expected?" I asked.
And beside me, his head snapped up. The man's eyes were wide, clearly shocked. "Huh?"
"Hawke, I grew up as a normal human girl. One who didn't have cool things, who read too many fantasy novels, and who happened to like the dangerous heroes the best. Well, anti-heroes, mostly. And all of this? To me it kinda sounds like that."
"I'm an anti-hero?"
"Nope," I said. "You're the dangerous and unpredictable hero who everyone assumes is going to betray us - unaware you never would, because you've decided to fight for the good guys. Torian's the anti-hero."
"Keir's just a hero," he said.
I chuckled at that. "Yeah, the stereotypical knight in shining armor. Wilder's the easily overlooked powerhouse, I think."
"Oh, that's dead-on," Hawke agreed. "Aspen's a manic pixie dream girl."
"Definitely."
Then he smiled at me softly. "You're the strong female character, I think. I would say the underdog, but Jack screwed that up."
"Morrigan!" Jack cawed right on cue.
Which made both of us laugh. It was the tense sort, because we were trying so hard to pretend like nothing bad had justhappened. Still, it felt good. It also helped more than I'd expected.
"I meant it, you know," I told him. "No matter what happens, my opinion of you isn't going to change, Hawke. I mean, Keir is ok with you - and Pascal! So how bad can this be?"
"Bad," he mumbled.
"Why?"
"Because when they were growing up, they were all told I was the thing that would eat them."
I hummed, tilting my head as I thought about that. "I dunno."
"Rain, jevadu are the fae equivalent of the boogeyman."
"And there are only five fae students here, Hawke. You're one. The other four are yourfriends. I mean, Pascal didn't seem to know much about your kind." I paused. "Race? Species? People?"
