Firestorm | ✎

prologue

    "You want me to do what?"

     Isla Kingsley was ready to pack her bags and spend yet another lonely weekend in her dormitory. Well, lonely wouldn't exactly be true—she'd have the comfort of attempting to finish that five-page Wuthering Heights paper due next week, the analysis on the Siege of Orleans in fifteenth-century France, and not to mention that commentary about Greece's financial crisis for her macroeconomics class.

     To say she had her hands full would be an understatement. Or, as Emily Brontë would say, cold in the earth and the deep snow piled above thee!

     Isla wrinkled her nose.

     She really needed a break from that bloody novel.

    "It's only going to be at the start of this semester," Madame assured her, a lilt in her French accent. "A three-week trial."

    "Three weeks is quite a lot, madame."

    "I'm aware that what I'm asking you is not an easy task to do." She paused, knowing the girl's already tight schedule. "But you've been excelling in my classes for so long, and this would be good for your résumé, non?" (Right?)

     Isla groaned, knowing she was right. "But why me?" she had to ask. "Why not a French native to tutor the poor bloke?"

     Madame chuckled. "Because everyone else had failed."

     Brilliant. Like that certainly made the situation better.

     But Isla found it hard to argue with her French professor. The points she'd made were spot-on—she'd risk almost anything to improve her application. Anything that could present herself as a better candidate. Being a foreign language tutor wasn't so bad.

     A little more help wouldn't hurt, right?

    "Alright, I'm in. Who's the lucky lad?"

    "Elias."

     Isla's jaw dropped. "Elias Sabatier?"

    "That is correct."

     She blinked at the woman.

     Elias Sabatier was not an unknown name.

     In fact, all of Belfort Academy probably heard of it one way or the other—whether it was synonymous with ladies' man, the Academy's favourite lacrosse champion, or during specific times, a complete wanker. Fair, due to the endless amount of hearts he'd captured as well as broke. For his notorious antics that always got him in trouble.

     And so his name was not a name on top of Isla's list.

    "Oh, don't be overdramatic," Madame reasoned, "he's stubborn and easily distracted, but it's nothing you can't handle. You've tutored many other students before. Why should he be any different?"

     Because he's Elias Sabatier, she thought in her head. He's a wild card.

     One that she had successfully avoided. Passing through hallways and minor coincidences were inevitable, but she'd never talked to him directly.

     There was always a mischievous glint in his eyes that Isla needed to stay away from.

    "Girls would usually jump at this opportunity," Madame teased. 

    "Some girls are daft."

    "Language!"

     The girl muttered an apology. "You should know by now that I'm a lost cause."

    "No one is ever a lost cause." Madame's tone took on a serious note, and Isla avoided her eyes, knowing the double meaning behind her words. "So," the older woman laced her fingers together, looking at her with anticipation. 

    "What do you say, Isla?"

A/N: I'm so excited.