Page 44 of Beasts

“Please let me tell her.” Hendrik chuckles. He seems more like a giddy teenager at the moment.

“You’ll make it sound way worse than it is.” Valentine says between clenched teeth. He comes over towards me but doesn't come too close. “Without trying to make it sound as ‘disgusting' as possible, please be reminded this is just in my nature.”

“I'm not about to judge you.” I assure him.

He looks around at the others. Not really sure he wants to say this out loud, “So, obviously, as the others suggested, any abilities I have do have to do with sex. That includes a certain amount of stamina and strength, but also we do have the ability to slightly… alter ourselves.” I look at him with a very concerned glance, but then I look around at the others and ask them,

“Does that mean what I think it means?” No one’s willing to speak out loud, but quite a few of them nod. “Right, well I can see why you're popular with the ladies.” He shoots me a wicked grin before continuing,

“And of course I do have suggestive abilities over women.”

“Which is totally cheating by the way, do you actually know how to flirt with a woman or do you just use your abilities?”

“She's got you there.” Nolan adds. Valentine gives him a pair of dagger eyes before turning back to me.

“Hey, you're the one who wanted to go down the rabbit hole.”

“That much is true.” He comes up to the side of me and uses the pools edge as leverage to hop out and sit down next to me, but his expression changes to something similar to alarm.

“Is that why Oliver killed that guy?” He whispers out of earshot. My face drops as I saw his line of sight down towards my legs. I guess my shorts were just too short.

“Ah, no, I mean, that's not what you think it is.” He tilts his head at me and I can tell that he's not going to let this go too easily. “Okay look, it probably is what you think it is, but it wasn't because of that guy. But please just keep this to yourself.”

“I didn't even know you had a boyfriend. You work quick. Just tell me it's not one of those dorks from the drama class you apparently joined. You can do so much better than that.”

“How do you know who is or isn't in the drama club?”

“Just a hunch that anyone who's in it just must be a dork.”

“I'm in the drama club.”

“And you are a dork.” I give him a solid push, which lands him directly back into the pool.

Chapter twenty-five

Mother Dearest

After lunch, everyone splits up to go and do their own thing. Only Nolan and Seth remain with me in the living room. Seth tells me that I should sit in Kane’s usual spot by the windowsill, so I do, keeping a solid look outside. I mean, why else would he tell me to sit here? As they both continue conversing with each other for the next twenty minutes, I see a car pull up. My jaw drops as a blonde steps out of the car with her high heels and blazer jacket.

“Oh, fuck.” Are the first words that come out of my mouth as I recognize my mother. Nolan jumps up and comes to my side trying to see what I was looking at. “What is she doing here?” As the next words that leave my mouth, I can see my father hop out from the other side of the cab. “Oh shit, they have no idea why I'm here. I don't even know how they found me. The school must have given them my different postal address.”

“I'm assuming that means you didn't tell your mother you were staying in a frat house.” Nolan states rather than questions. I nod sheepishly. I take a deep breath as I head towards the front door and open it. I run out towards my mother hoping that her excitement to see me will overlay the disappointment that I'm no longer at the sorority that she hoped I would be at.

“Baby girl!” She exclaims that she opens her arms to embrace me. “My goodness, I was so worried when I went to the other sorority house and you weren't there. The girls told me you left and came here, why on Earth would you disappear like that?” I don't really know how to respond to my mother, but I suppose there is nothing better than the truth.

“They were horrible. I couldn't be around people like that. I figured I'd be better off sleeping on the street than with them.”

“You should have called us immediately.” As my mother continues to berate me, my father comes around from the other side of the cab and gives me a hug as well. “We need to make sure that you're safe. You're all we have.” If I don't stop her soon, she'll keep going.

“Mama, I was absolutely going to call you. But I was lucky. Some other students were out for a walk that night and they found me. They offered me a room in their house and I was extremely grateful for it.” Now how do I get her to turn around and leave without going inside the house and finding out that it's for boys? As if by his terrible stroke of luck, both Hunter and Byron come back from wherever they just were. They waved to me as the head around the back of the house not paying me any further mind.

“Oh, they’re cute. Are they boyfriends of some of the girls that live here?”

I've never been able to lie to Mom directly. “No, they're not.” I bite my lip and wonder how to approach this subject.

“Hello, you must be Mr. and Mrs. Weaver.” My heart nearly jumps into my throat when I hear Nolan's voice behind me. He extends a warm and friendly welcome handshake, to which both my parents accept. “I'm Nolan, I'm in charge of the house.”

“Oh, I see you found co-ed dorms to stay in.” My mother was, if nothing else, quite optimistic.

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