Celestial Heartbeat (Book One) COMPLETE

Chapter Fourteen - Le Livre des Lunes

I think I started liking Ren when he had showed me his tattoo of the White wolf.

It wasn't that Ren had performed any romantic gesture or anything. He wasn’t acting any different from usual, and there was no real reason for me to think about him any differently. He'd just asked me to lift his top and take a look at the ink on his back. Which might have sounded a little bit racy until you reminded yourself it was in the middle of a well populated a pub.

But he did it to make me feel better.

He knew that I was conscious about my new mark, so he showed me his. To let me know that I wasn't the only one. Considering my life had taken a weird turn that made me feel very much like an outsider in every way, it was nice to know I didn't always have to be.

**

 

From: Fricken McAwesome

Do you know what I did with my dignity last night?

I can’t find it.

Do you think maybe I left it at the pub?

 

It was the first message that I woke up to the next morning. It made me laugh out loud heartily. Ren was obviously reflecting on his actions from the night and was less than impressed with himself.

I texted him back:

Think it might still be at the bottom of the fourth beer glass you had.

 

I hoped it’d make him laugh, the way that his had made me laugh.

I’d wanted to get a head start in the look for my family book before heading to school, but it seemed like I was already out of time. Time made me its servant, and forced me to instead race out of bed, chuck on some clothes and head down to school. I was already late. It was thanks to Ren’s text that I woke up for school at all, having slept in well past my alarm.

I felt a strange sense of familiarity as I strolled into Mr. Skye’s history lesson very much tardy and he could do nothing but shake his head in contempt for me. Only, last time it had been the Chevalier cousins who had arrived late, not me. But all three of them were already seated. I tried to smile at Ren, but he looked away from me in his usual fashion. Vi looked at me pointedly from the back of the room, her expression saying ‘where the hell have you been?’

Embarrassed, I quickly made the walk of shame through the silent room and slid into my seat between her and Ren and began nervously tugging at the sleeve that was the only protection from the judging glares everyone would send my way if they caught a glance of the new addition to my skin. It made me feel like a fugitive whose only disguise was a pair of cheap sunglasses, very last minute and useless. It wasn’t going to be long before I slipped up and Vi, or someone worse, would find my new ‘ink’.

Are you okay? Vi mouthed at me as she took in my nervous body language. I could feel myself shaking, but I didn’t know why.

Ren kicked my foot under my desk, like he was warning myself to keep it together.

When I sent a glare his way, he was acting oblivious, looking down at his desk with a bored expression and tracing patterns in it with his fingers.

“I overslept.” I muttered to Vi, who continued to watch over me wearily.

“You never oversleep for school.” She said wearily, her tone was accusing. Like I was hiding something from her.

I am. I reminded myself, but it wasn’t what she was thinking. I was sure that Vi had already come up with some irrational, exaggerated excuse as to why I came I late. Knowing her, it probably involved me having a secret boyfriend. The truth was much less glamorous.