Hidden Magic

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Hey, Karinna! You have some men asking for you in the hallway!" A girl with a wonderfully odd hair color mix of black and white streaks, waggles her eyebrows at me as she walks away from the mirror entrance into Sira branch, having just come in.

"Thanks for letting us know, Sloane!" Ariel helpfully replies for me because in truth I didn't know her name at all, being here for only a week I had only met a small percentage of the members of Sira branch.

"That would be Ezekiel, and I am assuming Thane and Ryker. I told him he might be able to see me if he tried today, and that he should bring his friends, I wanted to see how much they remembered of our last conversation." Rebecca snorts, and Monica leans over to Astra, giving a very accurate if not a little exaggerated reenactment of Ryker kissing my cheek and slumping on me.

"Very funny Monica. It wasn't that bad." She pulls back and looks at me with a raised eyebrow, as if asking I was completely sure of that, and in truth I wasn't, it probably was that bad, but it was cute, drunken Ryker was very cute, though I wasn't sure I wanted to admit that to anyone else.

"So, Karinna, are you going to let them in, or just leave them waiting out there? You do need to find your six consorts remember." Astra stares at me in question, they all do, but as much as I would like to avoid the whole consort thing, I don't want to send them away, it surprised me but now that I was thinking about it, I found that I actually wanted to see Ezekiel, as well as his two friends who intrigued me more than I would like to admit.

"Don't even think about it! This has nothing to do with the consort thing, just some friends meeting up together." Monica chokes out a laugh, as if she found me hilarious.

"Yes, sure, they've come when you called them, and assaulted you when they were drunk because they just want to be friends with you. Yes, I am sure they have no attraction to you at all, I mean what are face licks and hair smelling among friends." I growl at her as all of them cackle in laughter, I swat her lightly on the arm as I pass them on my way to the mirror.

"Just for that I am going to take them somewhere other than here, where you lot can't watch!" Their laughter immediately cuts off and groans and whines replace it, they had definitely wanted to see me interact with them, my going somewhere else was the perfect revenge.

Just as I am about to step through the mirror that isn't truly a mirror, I pause, a stick tangled in my hair catching my attention. I quickly rush upstairs to my room and go through the quickest shower of my life, pulling on a random set of clothes that isn't my uniform, I make it back downstairs in a record ten minutes, my hair in a loose messy bun atop my head. I groan out my annoyance as I notice all my friends had disappeared from the lounge, I wasn't surprised to find them out in the hallway, conversing with the men waiting for me. "So, what first made you think Karinna was the prettiest girl you ever met, as you said so kindly the other day?" Monica gives me a small smirk, as she notices me emerging from the mirror out of the corner of her eye, but she stays quiet as she waits for Ryker to respond.

Ryker had the deepest blush I had ever seen on him, clearly, he either remembered our meeting or was embarrassed to find out that he had ever said something like that. "Don't torture him, Monica. I am sure you've done more than enough of that while I was getting ready. Now out, the lot of you, back into Sira branch, I don't need any of you lurking around watching me." They pout at me, but go back into Sira branch with little resistance, Seth hadn't been out here, though I wasn't entirely sure where he went, right now it didn't matter anyways.

"Karinna." It was strange to hear someone sigh out my name in elation, like Ezekiel was absolutely delighted that I was here, standing before him.

"Yes, that is my name. Thane, Ryker, nice to see the two of you sober, tell me do you remember our first meeting?" They both blush and look away, though Ezekiel chuckles, obviously amused at their embarrassment.