Page 17 of The Black Table
Right. Not a single day can pass without Kai bitching aboutnot being team captain, not fencing foil, whatever else is eating at him. It’s pathetic, if I’m honest, and Kai seems to realize this, too, because he backs off, a faux-sympathetic expression on his brow.
“What’s wrong withyou, Pretty Boy? Tummy ache?”
I rub my stomach self-consciously. I don’tnotfeel nauseous, but I’m not about to admit that to Kai. “No.”
“Tough class?”
I shake my head. “Just French.”
That’s another thing, I realize. Love and death? Sure, it’s an eerie echo of the exact meaning of the curse that I’ve known about since I was old enough to understand what deathwas.But then again, what poemsaren’tabout love and death, especially French ones? A coincidence—one with extremely high odds.
But if it was just a coincidence, then why do I feel…like this?
“Oh ho ho.” A wicked smile curls over Kai’s lips, and he catches his teeth in his lip ring. “Struggling with your vows?”
“What?” It takes me a minute to even process who he’s talking about.
“Girl trouble,” Kai says. “That brunette with the tight ass barking up your tree again?
“Oh, Elena?” I flutter my eyes shut. Shake my head. “No.” Not even close. “I mean, yes.” She certainly isattentive.It’s like she doesn’t remember that I’m evenonthe damn fencing team, the way she’s trying to hang all over me. “But…no.”
Irksome or not, Elena Shalott is not even top five in the Lanz problem leaderboard right now.
And I’m not about to tell Kai, of all people, what’s top-ranking.
My whole body feels warm, flushed. Aching.
It’s not just horniness, either. I almost wish it were; that’d be easier to deal with. It’s something else. Something more…feral, almost. My protective instincts, my inner golden retriever clawing to get out, a pull so compelling it feels borderline pheromonal.
And that’s the heart of the whole problem. I am, in fact, doomed.
The Dell’Acqua curse.
Love shall claim him once, then again;
Death shall come with a heart split in twain.
Doomed to fall in love, easily and over and over, and then die with a broken heart. That’s me. That’s all the men in my family, apparently—if you believe in those sorts of things, and I sure as hell do.
Because I’ve seen what they can do.
Magic is real. Good, bad, everywhere in between. It was just my bad luck to be born into a family with the deadly kind ready to wipe out every one of its male descendants whenever he falls for the right—or wrong—girl.
And until then, there’s nothing I can do about it but ride the wave.
Except…
Except if that’s her, if that isthe girl,well…
I saw her for all of, what, forty minutes, and I feel like this? How am I supposed to survive a semester?
Forget riding the waves. She’s a freaking tsunami.
“Fuck.”
I hear the sound of a book slamming shut, a few footsteps, and open my eyes to the tip of Kai’s foil.
“Jesus,” I croak. He took the safety button off; this is pure, sharp metal, inches from my flesh.
