Fearless (The Blue Fire Saga) (8 page)

4
. FLIRTING

M
onday morning, Leesa awoke wrapped up in Rave’s arms. As usual
when they spent the night together,
she opened her eyes
to find his eyes
already open and looking at her. He smiled.

“Good morning, b
eautiful,” Rave said.

Leesa brushed her hair away from her face
, then
leaned forward
and impulsively
gave him
a quick kiss on the lips. Despite the brevity of the contact, the familiar
, delicious
warmth shot through her.
She couldn’t think of any better way to start a day.

“Hi, h
andsome.”

The first time
she
had
slept in Rave’s embrace, Leesa had felt self-conscious when she opened her eyes and found him looking at her
. Rave had assured her
she didn’t drool or snore or do anything else embarrassing in her sleep
and
that he loved watching her
. She still hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea that he
usually
stayed awake and watched her all night, but any discomfort was more than made up for by how peacefully she always slept when she was with him.

Rave rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed. Leesa pushed herself up next to him. She saw
Dral
and Bain sitting on the floor, their backs against the wall on either side of the door.
Both were wearing long sleeve waffle-knit shirts and je
ans.
Dral’s
shirt was dark blue and
Bain’s was a deep crimson
color
.

“Good morning, guys,” she said.

They nodded to her and then stood up in unis
on, remaining beside the door. With three volkaanes looking out for her, Leesa couldn’t imagine feeli
ng any safer, unless Dominic was here, too
.

She wondered how far away the wizard had gotten overnight. He had probably spent all n
ight on a bus or train
and would be hundreds of miles from Connecticut by now
. She wished she could have fashioned
a ring
for him similar to the one he’
d given her, so she would always know where he was. U
nfortunately, such magic was way
beyond her current abilities.

Thinking about magic made her want to
dive into her magic book right now and start practicing, but Dominic had told her to limit her practice to an hour a day, so there would be plenty of time for that later. For now, she would have to be content with being a normal col
lege student, with classes to attend
and homework to do.

Her first class this morning was English, the only class she shared with Cali.
With
Dral
and Bain here, Leesa was pretty sure Cali would be knocking on the
door earlier than usual,
giving her
extra time to flirt with the two handsome volkaanes.

“
I’ve got to go shower,” Leesa said to
Rave. “You guys need to stay
in here. We c
an’t have three
guys as gorgeous as you
hanging around in the hallway—it might cause a riot. Not to mention the R
.A.
wouldn’t be too keen about it, either.”

“Are you sure?” Rave asked. He grinned and put his arm around her back, rubbing the area between her shoulder blades with the palm of his hand. “I was hoping maybe I could wash your back
for you
.”

Leesa shivered with delight. “Ha! Don’t I
wish.
But
, no,
I’m afraid you’ll have to stay here.”

She grabbed her robe and her toilet kit and headed out the door.

As Leesa expected, Cali
’s familiar knock sounded on the door
fifteen minutes earlier than usual.
Leesa
opened the door and
stared at her friend in surprise.

“Whoa, where’s the party?”
she
asked, taking in Cali’s outfit. “
I thought we were
going to English class.”

Cali had matched the pink highlights in her hair with a tight dark gray sweater that proclaimed “I LOVE PINK” in giant pink letters and a short black leather skirt worn over black leggings decorated with big pink diamond shapes.
All of it showed off her pe
tite
but shapely figure nicely.
Her
fingernails were painted with a sparkly pink polish and her
sho
es were black with pink straps
. Draped over her arm was
a
stylish
black leather jacket.
The total effect
of all the pink and black
was a bit out there, even for Cali.
And it was definitely not a “going to class” outfit.

Leesa suddenly felt very plain in her red Weston sweatshirt and jeans, but that was okay with her. Never in a million years could she have worn an outfit like
the one
Cali
was sporting,
but Cali never minded drawing attention to herself.
Of course, Cali wasn’t
trying to
hide
from any deadly evil wizards, either.

Cali
swept in
to
the room with
a big grin on her face.

“
What? This?” she asked innocently
, doing a quick pirouette
. “I just
grabbed the first stuff I could find in my closet
.
For some reason
, I just couldn’t wait to ge
t started to class this morning.”
She swiv
eled her head from
Dral
to Bain, as if just noticing them.
“Oh, hi guys. I forgot you were here.”

“Ha! Right,” Leesa said
, laughing
. “
Of course
you did.”

The two volkaanes
smiled at Cali. They had met her several times in the past and were used to her flirtatious ways.

“Bee
n kissed by any vampires lately?
” Bain asked.

Cali glanced down at the back of her
right
hand. Stefan had kissed her there
several times, and his icy lips had felt pretty delicious.

“
Naaa
h
,” she said. “I only go for vampires
when there aren’t any gorgeous volkaanes around.” She held
out
her
left
hand
for Bain to kiss.

Bain glanced at Rave, who just smiled and shrugged. Bain laughed and kissed the back of Cali’s hand.

Cali sighed.
“
Mmmmmm
…so warm.”
She held both her hands out in front of her. “Hot?” she said, lifting her left hand.
“Or cold?”
She lowered her left hand and raised her right. She repeated the process twice more, as if she couldn’t make up her mind which she preferred.

Finally, she dropped her right hand. “I think I’ll go with hot,” she said.

Leesa laughed. “You kill me, Cali.
You really do.
”

“I’m sorry I mentioned vampires,” Bain said.

Cali just smiled brightly. “Shall we get started for class?” she asked.

English dragged by for Leesa. They were discussing The Great Gatsby, which she found dry and kind of boring.
She would much rather be reading Dominic’s book of magic, which was sitting inside her backpack on the floor by her feet. She still had one more class this morning and then Chemistry to get through in the early afternoon before she could do any
magic practice. At the
pace her day was going, this afternoon was going to take forever to get to.

Knowing Rave was waiting right outside the building didn’t help, either.
This
class was too small for him to sit in on, the way he had done in Vampire Science
back on
the
day she had first seen him. Vampire Science
was one of the most popular
classes
on campus, so an extra body or two was hardly noticeable.
Exactly why Rave had chosen to pop into the amphitheater classroom near the end of
her first Vamp
Sci
session
she still wasn’t exactly certain, but she was
certainly
glad he had
.

She still marveled at t
he path her life had taken
—it
was truly amazing. If Bradley had not disappeared while attending Weston, she might never have left San Diego and would certainly never have enrolled here. If her mom had not been bitten by the
grafhym
, Leesa doubted she would have ever taken the Vampire Science class. But her mom
had
been bitten, and Bradley
had
disappeared, so here she was,
in love with a vampire-
hunting volkaan
e and trying to learn
enough
control
of her magic to help Dominic defeat the Necromancer and the black waziri. She could certainly have done without the latter, but she would never want to do without Rave.
Never, ever, ever.

Just like English
was too small for Rave to sit in on, it was also much too small to sneak out of early, so she was stuck her
e
until it ended. She tried to force her mind back
to
what the professor was saying, but Jay Gatsby’s struggles to fit into the upper crust just did not seem all that important right now.
Maybe if Fitzgerald had stuck
a couple of wizards or zombies
in
to
his book
, she might have been able to pay better attention.