Business Arrangement

Part 19

CHAPTER 19:

I know what it's like to feel as if your soul left your body, but you're not really dead. No, you're in a transitioned period, you're half-way into the light and half-way still tied down to your body. When I saw who stepped foot into my room, who spoke those words, who helped hide something critically important to me...stands there with a tray of food and a look of great, grand question.

She made me pause.

What in the-

"I know, this is a surprise. I was not going to ever give this away, but now I have to. We've been friends for over eight years and this is what it came to. A transfer from my old academy to this very prestigious, however older one with medieval foyers, old tunnels shaped like mines and guess this-a full blooded dragon-wolf heir who just so happened to be your fiancé suddenly walking around with less of a spicy anger and more a relaxed weird lizard."

I crack up laughing, "Eden-what are you-you little liar?"

She smooths out her features when Headmaster Cecile steps in and gives Eden a once over, "What did I say about the dress code?" She mentions.

Eden gives her a look, "Mom, you locked up my best friend in a tower?" She sounds skeptical, before smoothing it out, as if the very notion of my being locked in a room on a tower-level was iconic and devilish, but at the same time...genius.

Now, I'm insulted.

I straighten in my pyjamas, "Mom?"

"Mom." Eden nods.

My jaw drops, "Mom?!"

It couldn't be. I didn't know much of Eden's family, she kept it secret, Father's a lawyer, mother's a reception for an intelligence agency.

I guess the stretch of the truth could span the whole freaking universe.

Headmaster Cecile stares at us both, no guards were outside, no movement out my window, we were thoroughly alone, only for Cecile to lean in, "Mom." She clarifies.

I place my hands on my hips and stare Eden down, "Now, you have no right to be pissed, you didn't tell me who your mother was. You know, the woman who drugs every student just to get them here." I complain. I had to complain, her mother was Cecile Flynn. She looks nothing like her bloody mother. Eden was not a reasonably tall, highly slim woman who looked like death itself still couldn't scrap her edges. Eden had some serious curves, lips full-probably on account of her father's.

It just...struck me.

Flicking my hair behind my shoulder, Cecile runs her critical eyes over the room, assessing the changes-if any were located, she glances at my window, but thankfully not the latch. I sit on my bed, Eden places the food down on the plain desk and glances at the games I had stacked next to the bland wardrobe.

She rolls her eyes, "The only thing I hate about this place is the lack of anything unique. Besides initiation and festivals for each family." She shrugs, she knows. She knew more than any assumption I should make in the moment. So, I make no assumptions. I keep it vague and pretend she knows everything.

I stare though, running my mind and thoughts through each moment we spoke, every shared story and talented tale, every moment we talked like real friends. Like my normal friend outside of this hellish life where my childhood consisted of something far more peculiar than any other could dream of.

"Is your name even Eden?" I question, scrutinising her.

She sits on the edge of the bed, at it's foot. Rooting for exact moment where secrets shared and believed truths given became little dirty lies in the background of our relationship. It's not like anyone's been an exposed canvas to me, every single person I've met, spoken to, talked about...all secretive of what's behind their closed doors and hanging in their closets. But this?