Leviathan

Chapter 21: This Kiss

Chapter 21:

"Serenaaaaaa! What do you think about this one?"

I held up a silver colored dress with a blue sash across the waistline, which shimmered, in the soft yellow light of the department store.

She gave it a once-over, then shook her head. I sighed and put the dress back onto the rack.

The seven of us-Elexia, Valeria, Laura, Serena, Yasmine and Mirabelle and I-were shopping for dresses. We each had a color in mind, and none of us would be twinning at all. Mine was blue, obviously. Lexie had purple, Serena green, Yasmine pink, Mirabelle lilac, Laura white and Valeria black.

"Go have fun," Aaron said as I left SFC, pecking me on the cheek. "I'll still be here when you come back."

"Oh, I thought you'd be going home for a bit," I said, confused.

"No, I have some things to take care of. See you," he said dismissively, and slammed the door to my Mini. Lately I had been detecting something off about him, but I couldn't put my finger on it. We had been spending less and less time with each other, but with exams and the war coming up, we couldn't afford to lose focus, even though I'd hardly call a relationship a distraction. To be honest, I was kind of worried. He'd been kind of closed off, and every attempt I made at spending more time with him was shot down. I can only hope he's not getting bored of me. But who am I? I'm just the weirdly powerful Leviathan chick who has an abnormal amount of powers. He's the most popular guy in the year, and a werewolf at that.

I bit my lip, smearing the lip gloss on it. I'm really starting to have doubts. Did he really love me?

I shuffled through the racks and picked up a few more dresses. One was mainly white with a periwinkle-blue sash around the middle. Another was electric blue with a black lace veil over the skirt.

"Ems, what do you think?" Laura asked, waving a white dress at me. It was simple, made of creamy white chiffon, and a leaf-patterned belt was wrapped around the middle, cinching the waist. It brought out Laura's pale skin as she brought the fabric up close.

"Go try it on, girl!" I laughed, pointing her in the direction of the changing rooms.

She went with a smile on her face. "I can't wait to see if Damien likes it,"

After looking through a few more racks, I went to find Elexia. She was buried deep underneath a pile of purple dresses. "Dude, you need to get rid of some of these. This is unhealthy," I said, rolling my eyes.

"I can't choose between them!" She wailed, fingering one after another.

"I like these three," I said helpfully, picking out three of them and hooking them on my finger. "Go put those back and then go try these on."

After a while of helping the others, I was left with three dresses to choose from. One was made of navy blue satin, with swirls around the waistline. Another was blue ombre and looked like it had been wrapped snugly around your torso. The last one was an indigo color, and was made of tulle and similarly colored netting over a silk skirt.

I tried them on and picked one of them. After we had all picked out our dresses, we headed over to the shoe department. We still had to pick out our masks later, so we still had a long day ahead of us.

_____

Aaron

I'm pretty sure Emerald's on to me now. I caught a flicker of distrust in her eyes when I slammed the door in her face. But I needed her out of there. There was something I needed to do.

Slowly, but surely, I had begun to shut off all my emotions, since every time I thought about Emerald, spoke to her, heard her voice, I would feel a sharp pang go through my chest as I thought of the pain I was going to cause her.

Damien and I decided to break up with them after the Christmas Ball. Honestly, I thought it'd be the last thing I'd ever do for her, and I wanted to end with a somewhat bittersweet memory.

The very thought of true mates scared me. To think that somewhere out there, there was a girl, who was practically fashioned for me, the yang to my yin, the white to my black, the Clary to my Jace-I've been around Emerald too much-its just too much to take in. Right now, I had to focus on cutting off every single emotion, until the breakup would be believable.

I treaded lightly along the stone corridor of the school, heading to the computer lab. There was someone I had to meet.

"Well, it took long enough," a feminine voice drawled. Tasha leant against the wall, wearing a red long-sleeved blouse and black jeans.

"Don't forget why I asked you to come," I said stonily, as I approached. "It has nothing to do with your new rogue status either."

"I know. Lets just get this over and done with, shall we?" She said, leaning closer.

For the love of my mate, I convinced myself. Then, my lips touched hers.

It was weird. I was accustomed to the kisses I shared with Emerald, filled with sparks, fireworks and life. This kiss was dead. Cold. Fake. Even as my lips moved in sync with Tasha's, and our tongues darted out to meet each other, every cell in my body was screaming stop it! Get away!

But I stuck with it. I tried to keep going, ignoring the way my skin was raising into goose bumps along my arms.

When her hands began to dance lower, I pulled away abruptly, raising a hand to smear off her lip gloss from my face. My eyes were glowing subtly, part of my werewolf genes, and my claws were beginning to appear on my fingers.

"Did I help?" Tasha inquired seductively, fluttering her eyelashes.

"No," I said through gritted teeth. "Get out."

"Oh, boo, Aaron," she pouted. "You poor lovesick baby. Call soon!"

She snapped her fingers. Black mist appeared around her and wrapped around her body. As it neared her face, a lightning bolt symbol burned on her forehead. She smiled, and the mist evaporated, taking her with it.

Oh, Emerald, Why can't I get you out of my head?