So I leaned in, pinning her below me. "So you know, you look very good like this."
She smiled sweetly and pulled me closer. "Shut up and kiss me."
And kiss, and kiss, and kiss some more. Aspen was back. She was still mine! The feeling in my chest was overflowing, just like it had been when Liam had said he and Bracken wanted to adopt me. Here, in the most beautiful place I could imagine, I was actually wanted - and by the most amazing girl I could ever imagine.
So I kissed her deeper, leaning in so I could hold her as I did it. That meant bracing my arms on the ground. One knee landed between her legs, and as I leaned in, she sucked in a breath. The sound wrapped around it was so fucking sweet.
"Rain..." she begged, hooking her leg around the back of my calf.
Then the entire atrium exploded with water. The click of the sprinklers activating wasn't enough warning before the various types began to spray in every direction. Some were misty. Others had direct streams that flickered across a wide area. The two of us seemed to be right in the middle of them all.
"No!" she squealed, lifting her hands up to cover her face.
"Fuck!" I laughed, leaning higher to shield her from the water. "It's midnight!" Because that was when the sprinklers went off!
A jet slashed across my back, soaking my shirt, but I was laughing too hard to care. With a tug, she pulled me down beside her, then gestured. A massive bubble appeared around us, knocking the water back and looking like a much larger version of the plant I liked so much.
"Oh, now that's useful," I giggled.
"Doesn't really do anything for privacy though, and the plants are busy getting a drink."
"Rain!" Jack called from the tops of the trees.
"Not helping!" I called back.
"Rain-Shadow," he cawed.
I turned to look at Aspen. "Oh, now that's one thing I can do!"
So I released the darkness inside me, feeling the pressure finallyrelax. Shadows swirled up, out of the bubble, and encompassed it. Yeah, so maybe it wasn't exactly subtle, but this was definitely private. And dark, very dark. Perfectly dark.
"Stay with me tonight?" I begged, sliding my hand up her neck so I could find her face again.
She grabbed my soaking shirt and pulled me towards her. "It's exactly where I want to be."
This time, she was the one kissing me.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
RAIN
Aspen stayed. Not just that night either. And sure, she sometimes went to check on her brother, but our evening in the atrium convinced her she could handle being on her own again. Sometimes she asked me to help her contain her power, but it had been well before there was a real problem, almost like she'd figured out she could lean on me.
Sadly, the rift between Torian and Keir was only growing. Wilder and Hawke made sure Keir spent lunch with us, and they refused to let him isolate himself in his room. During our lessons, he said it got easier to deal with Fin's absence every day. No, he didn't like it, but he no longer felt as guilty, or like he'd failed.
Over the weekend, the group of us hung out in the atrium, checking out the new plants. Well, all of us except Torian. Aspen's little flowers had visibly grown, even in such a short time. It was from her magic, though, which was cool. Naturally, I went to check on the bubble plant - the Elysian Burst - so I could spend some time petting it and giggling at the bubbles.
Hawke left halfway through. Keir and Wilder assured him it was ok, and Aspen seemed tense, but I understood. Her brother was in one of his pissy moods. She'd pulled away, he'd pushed Keir as far as he could, and now he was paying for it on his own. Yeah, well, the smug prick deserved it.If he couldn't suck up his pride long enough to apologize, then he had no one to blame but himself.
Everyone else on campus had moved on. The Hunt attack had been short, brief, and didn't affect most of them. After this long, it was little more than a distant memory. Hell, over the weekend, I'd even heard a girl say it meant we had more time before we had to worry about it again. She acted like the whole thing had been little more than a timer reset!
But then Monday rolled around.
When I dragged my ass downstairs to the Never, Ms. Rhodes had a cup of coffee for both of us. Mine smelled suspiciously like chocolate. Lifting a brow in confusion, I headed for my chair on the far side, dropped my book bag on the floor, and moved Jack to the perch that was really just a spare chair.
"What's going on?" I asked.
She slid a rather large paper cup towards me. "Your... zez, I believe? Bracken reminded me you like a little coffee with your cocoa. He may have also mentioned why there are a lot of new plants in the atrium, and why I saw shadows down there last week."
