Lock and Key (Nocturne Academy 1)

Griffin shrugged.

“I might have in previous generations. But I think you and I are proof that it isn’t working quite the way it used to.”

“I want to be close to you again,” I said, knowing I sounded shamelessly needy and unable to help it. “If I promise to behave myself do you think you could…could hold me again?”

Griffin sighed and raked a hand through his hair.

“I think so. The feeling when you marked me caught me by surprise but I’m on my guard now. And I will not do anything that you might regret in the future. Especially while you are still underage.”

There we went with the age thing again. I had a feeling that was going to be a problem for some time to come—at least two years to be exact. But at this point, I would take what I could get.

“Just hold me then,” I said, scooting closer to him.

Griffin put an arm around me and drew me close to his side. As he touched me, I felt the zing of warmth and the diamond-shaped mark on his forehead, which had disappeared when he had stopped touching me, suddenly blazed into life again.

“You’re glowing,” I said, looking up at him.

“So are you, little witch.” He sighed and shook his head. “This is going to make things extremely complicated back at the Academy, you know.”

I was sure he was right but just at that moment I didn’t care. All I wanted was to stay in his arms as long as possible and not think about anything but being close to him.

I would worry about the Academy and the implications of what we had done tonight, later.

61

“You what?” Avery demanded, looking at me with wide eyes across the Formica tabletop where he and Emma and Kaitlyn and I were all sitting.

The I Scream You Scream diner was a throwback to the golden age of ice cream sodas and poodle skirts. There were wide padded booths, covered in shiny red vinyl, framed posters of Elvis and The Four Tops, and Chuck Berry on the walls, and even a juke box in the corner that didn’t have a single song written after 1960.

Seriously, it looked like something out of the set of Grease, the Musical.

But it wasn’t the décor I was looking at—it was Avery’s shocked and disbelieving face.

“Are you seriously telling me you marked him back?” he asked me.

“Can’t you tell by looking at my forehead?” I said.

They all leaned forward and peered at me—at the spot between my eyebrows where Aunt Dellie claimed “the third eye” was placed. I hadn’t seen anything there myself this morning when I looked in the mirror but then, I hadn’t seen it when Griffin had first marked me either.

Avery sighed and shook his head.

“No, thank the Goddess,” he remarked and frowned. “Though I can’t understand why not. Usually when people mark each other, it’s there for everyone to see.”

“It shows when we touch each other,” I said and blushed.

Emma and Kaitlyn exchanged an unreadable look and Avery shook his head again.

“Girl, you have it bad. But could you have picked a worse guy to fall for? The school bad-boy and a Censured Nocturne. Not to mention the fact that he’s from a whole different species of Other so you’ve now officially broken the Edict twice.”

“Keep it down, will you?” I hissed, looking around.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Emma said. “People from the Academy hardly ever come here—it’s strictly a Norm hangout. Most of our fellow students prefer the café on campus.”

I was partial to the café myself, but it only served drinks, which made it useless as a substitute for the awful cafeteria food.

“Besides, you’re not going to be able to hide being double marked with a Nocturne for long,” Avery said, frowning. “It wouldn’t matter if Headmistress Nightworthy herself walked in here and overheard us because eventually this particular kitty is coming out of the designer handbag.”

“Well, even if she is, uh, double marked now, at least it doesn’t show up unless she touches Griffin,” Kaitlyn volunteered, clearly trying to stick up for me. “I mean, maybe they’ll be able to hide it.”

“If they can keep their hands off each other.” Avery sounded distinctly skeptical about that idea.

“We can if we have to!” I exclaimed, feeling defensive. “And in case you’re wondering, I didn’t set out to mark Griffin. It just sort of…happened.”

“I could buy that excuse the first time, Princess,” he said flatly. “I mean, after all, the first time he marked you and it was to protect you from Sanchez. But you don’t just happen to break the Edict twice in a row!”

“Shouldn’t the Edict itself have kept this from happening?” Emma asked doubtfully. “I mean, I thought it worked to keep members of different species of Others from feeling attracted to each other in the first place.”