The Border Trilogy (Book #1) Enemies to lovers, Forbidden love

Part 12

Zane and Aria walked me back to Darien and waited with me until he returned.

"You can leave now." Darien directed at Zane and Aria as he approached.

"Isn't he a ray of sunshine?" Zane said.

"The brightest," Aria said, they both laughed.

"I'd answer but I'm afraid he'll take it out on me when we train," I said.

I looked over at Darien who to stifled a smile, but then got serious again.

"Good choice, now come on. Pick up a stake, we're gonna go over the techniques I showed you yesterday."

"And that's our que to leave. Bye Eva, we'll see you tomorrow." Aria hugged me good bye.

"Try to stay alive, tell me if he gets too rough I'll put him back in his place." Zane smiled and winked at me and left with Aria.

"Okay, let's begin." Darien said. And we began training again.

ARIA'S POV

"I like her." I said to Zane when we were out of sight.

He put his arm around my shoulders and smiled at me.

"Me too, she's nice." he said.

"She's just as normal as us,"

"I feel like out version of normal is very different from their definition of  normal,"

"Which is far from normal." I looked up at him.

We both chuckled.

"I just hope Darien isn't too rough on her, he can be a real ass sometimes," he said after a few seconds.

"Especially when he wants to be, maybe we should join them next time."

"You think?"

"Yea, I think it'll ease the tension, and I think Eva could use a friend or two being around her. I don't know what I'd do if I was separated from my family like that."

"Well, we'll join them tomorrow."

"Whether or not Darien lets," I added.

"How can he refuse it if its coming from you" Zane smiled at me.

EVA'S POV

"You did good." Darien said as we put away the stakes.

"Thanks." I looked at him, "So, what do you do for the rest of your day when you're not training?" 

"Keep busy." he looked at me.

"Hm." I turned around and began to walk.

"How's Cassandra and the girls?"

I stopped and turned around, bewildered by his question.

"Uhm, they uh, they're fine." I stuttered. 

He gave me a half smile, "Good,"

He turned around and put the stakes in a bag. I turned around ready to walk away but turned back and conitnued.

"They uhm, they're extremely fond of you," I said.

 Darien got up and looked at me."They're great girls, Cassandra's very lucky,"

"Do you visit them often?" I asked.

"When I can. I drop by sometimes, I used to babysit them, for lack of better word." 

"Yea Cassandra told me. You don't seem like someone who would have little girls as friends."

"Well, technicaly, no older guy should be making friends with little girls." 

We chuckled.

"Yea that sounds about right, I think it's great though, I would've loved to have an older brother, or something close,"

"Zane would beg to differ,"

"Then he doesn't know how lucky he is."

He looked at me softly.

"You uh, you mentioned you had two sisters?" he looked back up.

"Yea, Katrina, she's older than me, and Avery, she's the youngest."

"Avery's the one that crossed the border?"

"Yea," I looked down.

"Well, I hope she knows how lucky she is to have you as a sister. What you did was very incredible."

"Thank you for saying that." We stood there for a few seconds before I spoke again. "I better get back, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"I'll see you," Darien said.

*     *     *

The next morning I woke up to Rita and Jenna jumping on my bed. 

"Wow, girls, good morning." I said as I got up and stretched.

"Good morning!" they said and sat down next me.

"What are you girls doing here?" I rubed my eyes.

"You have company! Downstairs you have friends!"

"Oh okay," I got up out of bed, rushed to the bathroom and washed my face, then came out to the living room. Cassandra, Aria, and Zane were sitting at the table and talking.

"Morning Eva!" Aria noticed me and came up to me and gave me a hug.

I hugged her back and smiled, "Hey," I pulled back, "What are you doing here?"

"We came to walk you," Zane came up and hugged me.

"Walk me? Walk me where?" I asked.

"To the training grounds," Aria replied.

"Oh wow, that's so nice you guys, thanks. But you didn't have to go out of your way to do that." I said.

"Out of our way? We're going there anyway," Zane said.

"Yea, we're gonna train with you today." Aria added.

My eyes widened a little in happiness. "Really? Darien let you?"

Zane and Aria looked at each other and then at me and gave me smile that I knew could only mean trouble.

"Well," Aria began.

"Not exactly," Zane finished.

"Not exactly? Oh come on you guys, Darien's gonna get angry if you two get in the way of our training."

"Yea well that's cause he's crazy, and that's okay. We're okay with crazy Darien." Aria smiled at me.

"What she means is, he wants you to be well trained, and we'll insist that we're helping you, I mean you can't just fight one person, you have to test different personalities," Zane said.

"Plus, we wanted to make your training more fun by adding two fun people," Aria said.

"Yea, and who better than us," Zane put his arm around Aria's shoulders- again.

When will they get together already.

"I think it's a great idea," Cassandra came walking up to us. "It's really sweet of you guys," she looked at me. "You could use some fun."

"You guys are really sweet, thanks," I smiled at them.

"Now let's go, if we're late, Darien definitley won't let us stay." Zane said.

"Okay let's go, bye Cassandra, I'll see you later." I hugged her.

"By Cass," Zane and Aria said, and we all walked out.