Page 12 of Wanted: A Roommate Who Isn't Evil

Luc pulled one arm into a shrug. “I can’t sleep.”

Dranian didn’t ask why. Nor did he care.

Luc looked Dranian over as he shovelled another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He raised an eyebrow, seeming to notice the sweat on Dranian’s face, yet, seeming entirely uninterested in asking why it was there.

Dranian snarled a little and stomped past, fetching the box of cereal for himself. He poured a bowl, then went to add beast milk. Only a few drips came out of the bag, and Dranian cut Luc a glare. There was no backup beast milk, since Dranian had left it to rot in the stairwell yesterday. He released a heavy breath and set the bagholder back on the counter. Then he snatched a spoon to eat the cereal dry and went to the kitchen table to sit.

He chomped, just as loudly as Luc.

They ate their midnight cereal in silence, apart from their competitive fairy chomping. Dranian thought about his dream.

A moment later, Luc said, “We’re out of groceries.”

6

Dranian Evelry and How it all Began in Ashi-Calla Village, Part I

She was the childling girl with no name. If she had one, she refused to tell a soul what it was. Most of the fairy folk referred to her as “her” or “thatgirl.”

Even though she had grown up in Ashi-Calla amidst the forest fae, she was a mystery to everyone. Her long black hair seemed just a little too luminous. Her eyes a little too bright and green. Her skin too soft and fair. Features that made the young females jealous and the young males intimidated. She was a girl with a secret, supposedly the daughter of a quiet woman who never left her house and the blacksmith who had gone missing days after she was born. A girl with too much power ather fingertips—or so the fairy elders claimed. A girl who should never be trusted; for when the girl locked eyes with certain villagers, they whispered later they thought they were cursed.

“A land siren,”they called her. A creature that should have stayed at the bottom of the Twilight Lakes where it belonged.

Many in the village avoided her, evaded speaking to her. Most pretended she didn’t exist.

Dranian was barely older than the girl, but he’d heard the rumours, and so at ten years old he kept away from her like everybody else. But like her, he remained invisible to the forest fae locals. He maintained his core duties, keeping to the edge of the village and serving the merchants at the docks to collect a few coins every month. Most evenings he swam in the crystal green lagoon to pass the time, to keep away his worries, and to avoid going home to face the father who didn’t want him.

That was, until the day he witnessed the girl drowning.

Whether she’d slipped down the muddy slope into the river, or had jumped in herself to fetch a fish, he wasn’t sure. But when Dranian came upon a young fairy fighting for her life against the current, he dropped his merchant buckets, shed his cloak, and dove into the silver waters, using the strength he’d built up on the docks to paddle against the rush.

She was too thin. Much too thin to battle the water herself. This was what went through Dranian’s mind when he watched the girl give up her fight and slide beneath the surface, choosing to let thewater take her as its victim after all. She mustn’t have seen Dranian coming. She couldn’t have noticed the pleading look upon his face—the scolding for giving up, the begging to hold on just one second more.

“I’m coming!” he tried to shout beneath the water, but the river muffled all sound.

He wrapped his arms around her middle and soared toward the surface, breaking through with a gasp. She was a limp doll in his arms as he paddled toward the shore, dragging her along with him. When he reached the mud, he hauled her up, leaned over her, and pressed his mouth against hers to bring her back to life—the way he had learned to do after one of his fellow merchant workers had fallen into the lake last year.

During the entire incident, he did not realize who the childling girl was. And perhaps it was by the meddling of the sky deities, for he might not have jumped into the river had he known.

It wasn’t until she jolted, her body awakening and searching for air, that he pulled his mouth from hers and looked upon her face for the first time. Water spurted from her lips, and she spat it to the side as her chest pumped, as her faeborn will to live returned. When she drew her bright green gaze back and beheld him, Dranian felt an icy ribbon coil around his spine as it dawned on him who she was.

Water dripped off the ends of his hair and onto her forehead directly below. She looked more startled than anything. His arm was still wound snugly around her waist, holding her to him. Hewas crushing her into the mud.

He sprang back, but at least he had the decency to lift her with him to a sitting position. He tried to find an excuse to leave, but he’d never been quick with words. And also…

Perhaps he was a bit startled to find she didn’t look dangerous like the forest fae claimed. Rather, the girl with no name was undoubtedly beautiful up close. It was the first time Dranian asked himself why the fairies in the village avoided her. The first time he wondered if maybe they had it all wrong.

But he was shaken from his study when a twig snapped in the forest beyond the mud shore. Dranian’s gaze shot up to find a hogbeast—the largest one he’d ever laid eyes upon—inching through the woods toward them with its hungry eyes set on the girl’s back. Dranian’s heart skipped, his chest tightening as the beast snarled.

He was not afraid to die—he knew that much. But perhaps he was a little afraid to be eaten alive.

His hand went to his back pocket to find the half-sized spear he’d spent his last month’s coin on. He tried to draw it out, but his hands shook.

“No… No, don’t do this…” he whispered to himself, to his own body, to his wretched hands. His breaths turned ragged, and he cursed his condition, knowing it would only worsen. Knowing he was about to lose control of himself any second now. And so, he said to the childling girl, “Run. You should live.”

Her eyes widened. It didn’t seem to be in fear though—it was more like he’d said somethingprofound.

Dranian used his last effort to press the handle of his half-spear into her palm with trembling hands so she might defend herself if the beast chased her. He kept his eyes set on the snarling hog whose snout was just feet away, whose low growl was almost close enough to feel the heat of. His thoughts tipped off the edge of a familiar cliff, leaving him blank. Leaving him useless. He began to crumple.

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