The Legend of the Eight: The Gifted

17: Cupid's Comet

SEVENTEEN: CUPID'S COMET
FEBRUARY 14
WIL DIAMOND

"HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, BABY GIRL," Damon said in the morning, pressing a kiss against Wil's shoulder to wake her up. His dark hair was messy and his coffee brown eyes were fresh. She inched closer to him and took his hand in hers while her eyes fluttered open. She smiled at the sight of him in bed next to her, like it was a dream she hadn't quite woken from.

"Hey you," she said and kissed him back. She rolled in his bed so she was facing him and rested her forehead against his. When she did, Damon asked her,

"You're not really a Valentine's Day person, are you?"

Truth be told, Wil had spent the last three Valentine's Days with a bottle of Stoli and whoever she was bored enough to spend a night with. Romance was never the objective. Escaping overwhelming loneliness was. Though she'd only been awake a few moments, she could already tell that for Damon, romance was most definitely his objective.

She buried her face in the sheets sheepishly and twisted her fingers around his. "Sorry to disappoint," she mumbled and he chuckled.

"Not disappointed," he said and she wondered if she meant it. Cynical as it was, she couldn't remember the last time she hadn't disappointed someone. "Just means I'll have my work cut out for me today."

"Have you always been such a romantic?" she asked him, rejoining him above the covers.

He shrugged. "Growing up, I saw the way my mom and stepdad were and I guess that was something I always wanted for myself. They were like teenagers sometimes and I knew that wasn't something many people grew up with—two parents who loved each other the way my mom and Greg did."

She should have known. When it came to relationships, men were the product of their parents. In a way, she was too. Her parents married because her father was the future King and her mother was a respectable society girl from the right family. Sure, there was love between them but nothing like the kind that inspired great writers and poets.

"I didn't know your parents were divorced," she said, rolling onto her side to face him. The sheet pulled tight around her chest and she folded her hands under her head. "What was that like?"

He stared off distantly, like watching a movie only he could see. "They split when I was young—I never really knew my biological father. My mom met my stepdad in the Mortal World and when I wasn't in school, I lived with them there. Mom got sick just before I graduated—that's why I stayed in the Mortal World for college. She died a few years ago. But Greg was there. He was the one at all my baseball games. He cheered for me when I graduated college and we do dinner together every time I'm home. I'm sure he'd be here with me if he weren't a mortal."

"I'm sorry about your mom," Wil said, moving her head so it was on his chest. "That must have been hard. So it's just you and your stepdad now?"

"I have a sister. A half-sister, technically, on my dad's side. I found out not too long ago. After he left my mom and I, he started another family."

Wil could hear the hurt in his words.

"But he eventually left them too."

"Is your sister a wizard too?"

He nodded. "She lives in California with her mom. Goes to Purum."

Purum Sangeuinem was another magical high school, located in Southern California. A few Academy students attended Purum for their lower years but because the school didn't board, they were required to live nearby and not everyone could do so. Also, not everyone was willing to live in a world where they were forced to keep their magic a secret.