Heir To The Iron Crown: Butterfly ✓

7 - Sjöunda

I bet Delta Osvald credited himself for the sudden fight match Valente and I were in.

We went from staring at each other indefinitely to trying to literally kill each other.

It wasn't until the Delta got everyone's attention to signal the end of training for the day, did we actually stop.

I could tell my body was in pain, but I could barely feel it over the slight ringing in my ears. I couldn't believe that just happened. Every second that passed now made it feel even more unreal.

Valente, the boy I had a major crush on, then didn't. The boy who had literally been ignoring me for all these years, is now in front of me, sweating, bending a little in pain, his pale golden skin now pink, and there was something about the way he kept looking at me that made me feel like I was something worth looking at.

Maybe the crush was coming back, because at that point in time, I couldn't think of anyone else who I'd seen look better than he did.

"Careful. Someone might eavesdrop on your thoughts," he said to me, sending me a discrete wink that I'm sure only I saw, before turning away from me to join his friends.

If I was was pink from the sweating, I'm sure I'd turned red now. I still don't know when I'll learn to shut off the mindlink. I barely ever do, and for anyone who cares to listen, my thoughts are free real estate.

"Well someone's caught the Alpha's interest," said Glo, wiggling her eyes suggestively. She was being followed by Irmelin and Dilja who looked way too exhausted to function.

Regardless, Irmelin fussed over my bleeding lip that I hadn't realized was there. But I didn't expect any less coming out of a sparring session with the pack's Alpha.

As we walked into the girl's locker room of our school, I could tell the girls were looking at me weirder than usual. But nobody said anything or did anything, it was just the stares.

I took a shower stall closest to my locker, taking my clothes and towel with me inside. There's no way I was going to let anyone steal my clothes.

Once in, I tried taking my clothes off, but it caused a lot of pain. As my body cooled down, my muscles began to seize up, causing even slight movement to hurt like hell.

I had no idea how much it'd hurt to feel the water on my skin with cuts and bruises.

I was still in the middle of trying my best to rub the soap down my legs when I heard Glo's voice from outside.

"You okay Ray-ray? How much longer do you need?" she asked me. I never liked that nickname, but didn't mind it too much.

"A little bit. What's up?"

"We're going to get some lunch, if you need a bit of time, tell us what you want so we'll order it okay?"

I told her to go ahead and that I'd catch up with them in ten minutes.

It took a lot of effort to finally change, and I owed this to the fact that Gramma and I hadn't trained in a while, and I went all out today with Valente.

As I turned the knob on the door to open the bathroom stall, I realized it was locked from the outside.

Shit.

"Hello?" I called out, only to be met by silence.

"Did I really take that long to shower?" I asked Ima.

"You always take really long showers Rayne," she replied.

I sighed, looking up at the door edge.