Chapter 103: 103. Settlement Section I
Maisie
It was a school day.
It was also raining cats and dogs in Ashbourne. I walked for a long time, clutching the silly contract to my chest. I stared up at the skies like it held answer for me.
By the time I reached the white washed limestone building of the Academy’s lodgings, the downpour hadn’t let up. The security looked me up and down twice, then his eyes went wide like he had seen a ghost, and he began to do strange things.
Like bow to me and ask me if he could take me up to my room or get me a warm blanket. "The Princes’ lodgings are on the highest floor. Would you like me to show you up, Princess?"
Sometimes, I forgot they were students like me, and actually went to school here. The lodging situation was a little tricky. The higher the floor, the more expensive it was. It only made sense that with their status, only the Lycans would be able to afford the top floor.
They didn’t even live there. I might have thought it vain—actually, I used to, before I met them, but now, glancing around and noting the couples smooching loudly around in the dark and the corners, the echoes of laughter pealing off the walls and hurting my head, the gossiping I could hear from seven stories above, I realized how difficult it must be for them if their everything was even more sensitive than that of wolves.
I shook my head. "No. Thank you."
It was funny how quickly the world changed when you became a different person. It wasn’t so long that I’d shown up on this very hallway in a ballgown and had been turned into a heartbreak meme.
Now, everyone stopped and stared when I walked past. I waited for the laughter that always came when I showed up looking like a drowned rat, as always.
But there was nothing. Sure, the entire hall and hallway had taken notice of me. But they weren’t looking at me like I was a drowned rat. They were looking at me...
Remember months ago, right before Cole had rejected me in front of the entire school? When the Lycans had been walking through the hallway and everyone had been sighing wistfully?
That, was exactly, how I was being stared at.
The world hadn’t changed. The people hadn’t changed. I had. Maisie Adams had become someone else. Someone desirable. I heard them gasp. I heard their whispers. But there wasn’t a single bad thing to be said. I had now become someone people wanted to be, or wanted to worship. Even the boys were watching me with awe. Not the disgusting manner of wanting to fuck some hot chick you saw from afar. No. It was reverence. Like when you saw a goddess. And knew touching her would taint her somehow.
It grew increasingly uncomfortable, but I made my way up the stairs amidst all of it. And my knuckles rasped against Regina’s door.
For a moment, I worried she might be home instead, back at the Braxton mansion. But I heard the crash of something inside the room and a male groan.
Huh?
I knocked harder.
"Go away," I heard Regina moan softly.
I slammed my fist into the door.
The door cracked down the middle and the two broken compartments went flying inside. I heard Regina’s shrill scream, followed by a rough, "What the fuck?"
I gasped, staring at my hand. Really needed to work on that strength.
A boy appeared a moment later by the door. A very familiar boy. Tucker Reeves, Cole’s best friend, stepped out of Regina’s bedroom, adjusting his pants. There were scratch marks all over his bare chest as he shrugged on his soccer team sweater and his lips were kiss-swollen.
He stopped dead when he saw me.
I was also staring at him with wide-eyes. Were were both staring at each other for completely different reasons, I could tell.
Him, he had that look in his eyes too. The dazed and glazed expression you had when you were before deity. Me, he was fucking Tucker Reeves. He’d bullied Regina, Jenny and I through high school. And he was coming out of my best friend’s bedroom, smelling like sex.
"Y-you’re back," he stammered. "Cole has been—"
Something flew out of the room—a shoe—smacking him in the back of his head. "You left your shit behind," said Regina from inside. "Don’t come back unless you learn how to fuck properly. Wonder what all those muscles are for anyway."
My mouth fell open.
Tucker’s cheeks flushed red and he glared at the room before gathering his things off the ground and fleeing.
I stepped into the bedroom and halted when I found that it was a mess. Regina’s back was turned. She was wearing only a long t-shirt that came to halt at her knees, and her red hair was tied to a messy knot on top of her head.
"Ginny?" I said softly.
Regina froze. Turned around very slowly. Her eyes were slightly dull. Dark make smudged them around their corners. She looked like she’d lost weight since I last saw her.
She paused. Looked me up and down. Her jaw slackened. She squeezed her eyes shut, rubbed them, shook her head, opened her eyes again. Her mouth opened. "Er... who the hell are you and what have you done with my best friend?"
Surely, I didn’t change that much.
A different voice came from behind me. "Regina, I think someone’s stolen your doo—Maisie?"
It was Jenny. I turned and her eyes were wide as saucers. And then, her face was so close to mine and she was wrapping her arms around me, squeezing me so tight, I thought my spine would snap. "Oh my god, it’s you!" she squealed.
I smiled. She pulled away and Regina marched forward. "No shit," she said, before pulling me into a hug. "I came by last week. But for some reason, I was told you were out of commission. I was starting to wonder if I needed to bring a tractor to demolish that mansion."
"It was probably for the best you didn’t do that," I said, then paused, taking in the new creases to her face. Her eyes looked older. Weary, almost. "What happened to you, Regina?"
"You first." She looked me up and down admiringly. "May, you look awesome. What have you been doing? Weight training or something?"
I blushed. Then rolled my eyes at myself. Freezing, hateful, and still blushing? I needed to get over that fast.
"Maisie!" Jenny gasped. "Sex? You’ve been having sex this whole time? With... all of them?! We were so worried about you. With the wedding and it was so sudden, oh my god, it was like a freakin’ movie. You have got to tell us everything! Everything!"
I wrinkled my nose. "I’d rather not—"
I was suddenly pulled into a different bedroom down the hall—Jenny’s—while Regina pulled some clothes on and called on someone to fix her broken door.
Either way, thirty minutes later, I found myself on Jenny’s bed, being sandwiched between two furious women, who looked about one second away from committing murder.
"I never thought I’d say this," Regina gritted out. "But the Lycan Queen is a fucking bitch."
