Descendants Academy: Young Adult Urban Fantasy, Belle Malory [motivational novels for students .txt] 📗

“It’s romantic,” Hazel said, looking up at the sky with a dreamy smile. She and Birch had been seeing each other since the night in the woods, and she was falling head over heels—or hooves, I guess. “I can’t wait.”

“Yeah, sure.” Jett shook her head. “Anyway, can we rendezvous tonight in the woods again?”

“What for?” I said.

A few tables across from us, Xander sat down with his gladiator friends. They were talking and laughing, and a few of them were roughhousing, pretending to fight one another. Xander looked more carefree than I’d seen him lately. A girl with dark hair punched him on his bicep, and he smiled at whatever she said. I sighed, wishing I could sit next to him without it being a big deal.

Jett waved her hand in front of my face. “Hello—earth to Sheridan. I need to sell some of my potion stock. Also, can’t we just go for fun? I mean, that’s the whole point of us being friends, right? We do fun stuff together?”

I chuckled. “Like secret trips to Twilight Island that go horribly wrong? That kind of fun stuff?”

In a way, that experience only brought us closer. Instead of it being weird, we laughed about it now.

“Exactly—one for the books.”

“I’m down too,” Hazel added. “It will give me a chance to see Birch.”

“Oh, for Apollo’s sake,” Jett slit her eyes at Hazel. “People are going to start thinking Sheridan’s magic is rubbing off on you.”

Hazel shrugged. “Maybe it is.”

“I’m fine with that,” I said, grinning. “My reputation could use a boost. Tell everyone I’m the queen of romance.” I waved my fingers in the air, pretending to spell her.

She laughed. “Will do.”

My grin faded when I caught Xander looking over here out of the corner of my eye. He quickly looked away, and I winced, wishing it didn’t have to be this way.

Oh geez.

Queen of romance, my ass.

33

That night I canceled on Jett and Hazel, too tired to go out after a grueling session with Mia and Ben. Their attraction was strong, but getting those two to open up wasn’t easy. By the time I left the mirror realm, I was disappointed. Ione tried talking me into going to an Aphrodite party with her, but I refused that too. My books, my room, and my bed were the only friends and social interaction I wanted tonight.

Deep down, I knew this was about more than Mia and Ben. That moment at lunch really got me down, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Xander and I couldn’t even look at each other in public. As much as I tried not to think about it, I couldn’t help it. How was I supposed to help other people fall in love when my own track record was a series of failures?

Shortly after impressing the first few books, I fell asleep. Not surprising, since they were all about Mythonian law.

Sometime in the middle of the night, a knock sounded at the door. I glanced at Ione’s bed, noticing she wasn’t in it. She must have lost her key. I yawned and pushed my books aside to get up.

The moment it fell open, two mesmerizing blue orbs swirled over me, followed by a gorgeous grin I knew all too well. “Xander?”

The clock on the wall said it was two in the morning, not exactly the time to visit friends he wasn’t supposed to have in the first place.

Blinking through my sleep, I stuck my head out into the hall to make sure no one else was there. “You need to leave before someone sees you,” I hissed.

“Relax, they’ll think I’m here for my sister.”

He strolled past, a little too comfortably, his eyes glassier than normal. I shut the door, watching him closely. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Just a little. I had to kill some time in the woods—where you were supposed to be, by the way. Why are you never where you’re supposed to be?” He picked up a photo frame of me and my dad to inspect it, then set it back down again.

“Ione’s not here,” I pointed out, nodding to her empty bed.

“I know. She’s at some fancy Aphrodite party,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I definitely don’t miss those.”

Hold up, he knew she was gone? I blinked rapidly, wondering if I was dreaming. This all felt like some topsy-turvy universe, where nothing made any sense.

My eyes followed him to the bed. He plopped down, grimacing at something hard beneath the covers. “Why do you sleep with so many books?” he said, scooping them up and moving them aside.

“I don’t usually.”

I didn’t like the way he was invading my personal space, like he could figure me out if he just looked hard enough.

“Xander, why are you here?”

“Because I need to get something off my chest.”

I raised a brow. “What’s that?”

“I don’t appreciate the way you’re trying to confuse me. All the time, you keep me confused and guessing about where you’ll be.”

That was why he came here? I put my hands on my hips and let out a long sigh. “The solution is simple. Stop following me, and you won’t be confused anymore.”

“Should I just let you get eaten by monsters?” He said, wincing. “What if you die, huh?”

“I guess that’s a risk I’ll have to take.”

He groaned, sounding frustrated. “You want me to suffer.” He ran his hands through his hair, as if I were the cause of all his stress. If I wasn’t so annoyed, I would have laughed. Drunk Xander was kind of funny.

“The question is—why?” He held up his hands, being super dramatic about it. “I asked myself that all night. Why does this girl want to torment me? I just don’t understand.”

Oh, good grief. I might as well humor him since he probably wouldn’t remember this anyway. “Come up with any good answers?”

He nodded very seriously. “Not right away. At first, it was like a puzzle I couldn’t solve. I kept asking myself, why? What did I do