Page 19 of A Heart of Bluestone

Asta Ström.

On Dray’s level in terms of elite, ancient ancestry, but less power in her family and much less wealth than most of the aristos. Her family, the Ströms, teeter on the edge of gentry, the class below aristos.

Asta makes up for it in beauty, in silvery-blonde hair that falls like a sword down her back, in the delicate cut of her jaw, in the lush lips she has filled at the salon, and her frame so slender that I can even tell she’s fit and small under the puffy coat that blankets her.

Dray has his unreadable gaze on her.

He could be hearing the opera detailed from her lips, he looks so uninterested. But his fingers toy with a strand of her hair, and that is interest enough to fuel her into her ramblings.

I cut my gaze to the faculty table overlooking the hall, a sudden hollow pit in my stomach.

I see no signs of Eric Harling anywhere.

Suppose he’s gone off with the faculty, or arrived earlier than the students, since he’s to start a part-time apprenticeship this year.

Doesn’t matter anyway.

We wouldn’t speak if he was here in the mess hall. At most, we would share a look, a small moment that flees as quickly as it came.

He might smile.

I would look away.

Turning back to my smeared tray, I start on the dessert. Butterscotch pudding.

Time is fading. I need to be quicker, finish up here and scurry my cowardly ass to the dorms.

I swallow back a sudden lump lodged in my throat. It isn’t the pudding. It’s the pair of brown eyes notched onto me from across the hall.

Mildred has spotted me.

And she’s watching me.

I shrink in on myself.

Her family might be beneath mine, a gentry beneath aristos, but she’s a lot bigger than I am, thanks to all the ice-hockey and snow-rugby she plays. No amount of dangerous rituals my father performs can save me from her knock-out right hook. Believe me.

I scarf a too-large chunk of pudding that immediately gives me heartburn, then chase it down with a too-strongly brewed green tea.

I fumble for my white-fur hat, discarded on the seat beside me, then—as I reach down between my boots where my bag rests—Dray catches my gaze.

I took too long. He’s finished at the buffet, now setting his tray on the table, next to Mildred, and I’m hyper aware of a now-double threat.

Dray’s glass-shard eyes find my stare.

The snowy wind outside leaves its mark on him, in the tousled hair that falls over his brow, and the pinkish hue that warms his cheekbones.

I drop my gaze, fast, and yank my bag onto my lap.

No parents or decorum to save me here, and eye-contact is an invitation to him and his torture.

I abandon my tray for the cleaning staff and get the hell out of the mess hall before anything can kick-start the year of torment.

The welcome heat of the dorm room rushes me inside.

The moment I open the door and feel that punch of warmth, I’m quick to stumble in and shut the door behind me.

I shrug off my coat and, with a quick look around, spot Courtney on the canopy bed beside mine. The fireplace roars on the wall across from the doorway, casting a menacing orange and shadowy light over her relaxed face.

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