Chapter 24: Conflicted Lila

Lila sat on the couch with both legs folded against her chest as she hugged her pillow, her phone resting face-down on the cushion beside her.

The dorm was quiet with the only audible sound being the ticking of the wall clock.

She sighed...

When Ethan said he was going to the east grounds, the first thing she wanted was to go with him. It would have been easy, they had done it enough times that it already felt like routine at this point—her standing at the side with a drink, making comments while he worked the undead through drills, the same way they always did.

She had wanted to be there.

But that was the problem.

Every time she stood next to him, the memory of what happened that night surfaced in her mind. The feel of his hands, the way her voice had broken, the heat that had spread under her skin when his fingers worked their magic.

Another memory surfaced. The way she had walked to her room afterward without looking at him, because looking at him would have made things further complicated.

Staying near him right now made it harder for her to stay focused. So she had let him go alone, telling herself it was fine to come back here instead.

It was not fine....

Lila dragged a hand down her face and exhaled.

"Get it together," she muttered.

She stood, walked to the small kitchen, and poured herself a glass of water. The cold feeling of the liquid she felt through the glass helped for about three seconds.

Then her mind drifted again and her gaze involuntarily lander back to the couch and on the spot she lay that night. An image of her popped up in her ming. To the robe that pooled around her hips, the. back to the moment she had stopped correcting his hands and started holding her breath instead.

She set the glass down harder than she intended.

’This is ridiculous’.

It had been one night. Just one. She had asked for a massage. He had given her more than that and she couldn’t stopped him. That was the entire story. There was no reason it needed to sit in her chest like this, resurfacing every time she was either close to him or alone for more than five minutes....

She had decided, the morning after, that the cleanest approach was to act like nothing had changed. No awkwardness, no long looks and especially no sudden seriousness.

Just the same Lila who teased him, walked beside him, and treated his necromancy like an interesting topic instead of the taboo every other person saw it as.

So far, the performance was holding in public.

But in private....

"Fuck."

Lila returned to the couch and sat down again, this time with both feet on the floor. She picked up her phone, scrolled through nothing, and locked it again.

She thought about flame practice. She could go to one of the smaller training rooms and work on her skill until her focus sharpened.

The idea of leaving the dorm, however, brought her right back to the same problem. If she went out, there was a chance she would pass past the east grounds and if she did, she would see him.

And if she saw him....

"Arrghh..."

She stayed where she was. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

Time passed slowly, she checked the clock once, then again, then stopped checking entirely. At some point she stood and paced across the living room, from the door to the window and back.

Her body felt restless for some reason, she felt restless in a way that training was supposed to be able to fix, if training did not currently come with the risk of running into the exact person she was trying not to think about.

The memory of that night flooded her mind again, and she involuntarily pressed her legs together as she could still somehow feel his fingers inside her.

She had told herself when she lay in bed that night, that she could handle it, and she had woken up the next morning and proven she could, at least on the surface.

She had spoken to him normally, she had walked with him normally. She had even teased him about the Beowolf like the previous night didn’t happen at all.

The problem was that her mind refused to stay put...

Lila stopped pacing and pressed her hands on her face as she exhaled.

She liked him....

That part was becoming harder to pretend around.

Not in the obvious way some of the other girls showed interest, not in the way that made people do reckless things for attention.

Not in the way that would make you stick to him like glue...

It was quieter than that, and somehow it only made things worse.

She liked the way he took his restricted class seriously instead of drowning in self-pity.

She liked that he didn’t try to prove anything to anyone. She liked that he listened when she talked and still pushed forward with his own plans anyway.

She sat back down on the chair and buried her face into the pillow as she groaned...

An image of Ethan had sprung up in her mind. She wasn’t sure she had met anyone like him before.

That calm expression on his face that made it impossible to tell when he was serious, his low voice that always sounded tired, yet full of energy, his soft hair that she absentmindedly stroked over and over again, his green eyes that had a gaze so steady, it looked like he was staring through you...

She didn’t know if it was the crush speaking, but everything about him was attractive.

And now she also knew what his hands felt like when he stopped holding back....

She groaned again, a part of her regretting coming back, and the other part thinking of every possible way to keep distance between them long enough for her to understand what was happening.

"Bastard." She murmured, then lifted her head slightly from the pillow.

"I miss you..."