Moonlit

ix

warnings: violence, blood

The visit to her father left Avani uncertain about her relationship with Tom. Was what she was doing too bad? She had no trouble lying, but when it came to her father, she tried to be nothing but honest. Deceiving her father left a perpetual sickness in her gut. And the fact that he liked Tom made matters worse.

Tom didn't seem to be affected too much by the scenario. No guilt that he was sleeping with the daughter of a man with whom he had shared a drink and a smoke. And it angered Avani. Tom's respect for her father was superficial, or he wouldn't have touched her again. But apparently, Tom respected no one but himself. He deemed himself to be a god, after all.

Avani had promised herself she would try to mind her escapades with Tom. But he muttered such blasphemous words in her ears and touched her so beautifully that she always found herself sneaking back to his chambers.

And there he would whisper apologies, so shamelessly fake that even the stars sighed when Avani believed them. He had her in his palm, and each time they fought, one finger closed. And it would not be long before she was trapped in his fist.

Then he would look in through the folds of his hand and ask her, do you still find my blood status funny, Avani?

Tom was feeding her venom disguised as saccharine nectar. And though she knew the taste was too honeyed... a mere hoax, she would drink it till it rotted her insides. Because if venom was anything, it was addicting. And Avani was its staunch devotee.

And as she sat in his classroom, she could not help but stare at the men who were corrupting her.

"Are you listening?" Circe said.

Avani flinched, her elbow slipping from the edge of her table. Tom concealed a smile with a cough.

"Uh, what?" Avani asked.

"I asked if you had done your homework."

Avani stared at her friend for a long time, her mind not fully functioning to capture the words.

"Oh, Homework?" Avani said when her overcast head finally cleared from the clouds of sacrilegious daydreams. "What about it?"

"Did you do it?"

Avani nodded. "Sure, why?"

"Could I borrow it to copy?"

Avani did not like giving up her stuff to people, but she would feel awful for saying no to Circe. They were good friends.

Avani took out her roll of parchment, handing it to her.

A heavy weight pushed against Avani's back, making her fall forward, and she placed her palms on the table to avoid cracking her skull open.

"Looks like the mudblood is too stupid to do her own homework," Mathias Black said, resting his forearm on Avani's back. Circe looked down, her fingers tightening around her quill.

Avani rolled her eyes.

"Get off of me, you bloody bulldog," she said, pushing him away from herself.

"Sit down, Mr Black," Tom said from the front of the class. Mathias and his friends tittered, lowering into the seat behind Avani and Circe.

"Hey, mudblood, how are things going on with the caretaker? Are you shagging yet?"

"Black, I will thrust my quill in your eye. Leave her alone," Avani said.

Mathias Black cocked an eyebrow at her, almost as a challenge. "Like you shoved a pie down my throat? Remember you were the only one who got in trouble for that?"