All of them wanted to talk to me and none of them was paying a bit of attention to Morganna anymore.
Naturally, Morganna noticed the defections from her court. I caught a glimpse of her face, white with rage, as she sat on the other side of the room. Her lips were pinched shut into an angry line and her big blue eyes were shooting hate at me as hard as she could. Surprisingly, though, she didn’t say anything—she just looked more and more pissed off.
Meanwhile, I was doing the best I could to fend off my new admirers but none of them seemed to want to take “no” for an answer.
“Tonight you will come with me to view the moon,” Elian Darkwing said in that dark, sexy voice I used to find so appealing. “We’ll watch it rise together as we drink chilled champagne.”
“Uh, no thanks,” I said quickly. “I have to work tonight—sorry.”
But Elian wasn’t listening to my reply, he was too busy glaring at Francisco who was saying,
“Come with me tonight, chica. I’ll take you flying on my Drake.”
“I don’t think so,” Cedric cut in. “She’s obviously Fae—High Sidhe if not royal, I mean, just look at her eyes—so the Edict prevents her from going out with either one of you losers. I, on the other hand, am also Fae which means that this lovely little fairy belongs with me.” He ran a hand through his carelessly tousled golden-brown curls as he spoke, grinning at me in what he doubtless thought was an extremely appealing way.
I’ve never been the kind of girl who wants boys to fight over her—it’s just not in my nature. Even back when I used to fantasize about boys paying attention to me instead of overlooking me or pretending I wasn’t there, I had never fantasized about this.
And now things were getting rough.
“I saw her first,” Elian hissed at Cedric.
“Back off—she’s Fae which makes her mine,” he snapped back.
“Both of you are too weak to claim her,” Francisco snarled. “I will take her as my own!”
They started a shoving-match right there at my lab table and it looked like it was really going to come to blows. I backed away from them, as much as I could, feeling miserable and unhappy as the cause of the impending violence.
This fight over insignificant little me seemed to finally be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Morganna. She got up from her seat and sashayed over, her hands on her hips and the nostrils of her perfect nose flaring.
“Why fighting, are you?” she demanded, shouting at the boys to be heard over their trash-talk. “Not so great is she!”
Huh? I looked at her in confusion. Why was she talking like Yoda all of a sudden?
“To me you should all listen!” Morganna insisted, when the boys ignored her, just like they used to ignore me. “Nothing but an ugly little Norm she is! Not worth your time she is!”
Suddenly I understood. The skink! It must have come back to her and gotten into her ear after all and she hadn’t figured out a way to remove it yet.
I felt a moment of twisted happiness—it was, after all, no more than she deserved—but my revenge glow was quickly shattered when Cedric pushed Francisco into my lab table, nearly knocking it over, while Elian snarled at the two of them, showing extremely sharp-looking fangs.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen! What’s going on here—stop this right now!”
I thought I had never been so happy to hear my dour biology teacher’s voice in my life. Mr. Barron came striding down the aisle, glaring at the three boys who by now were pushing and shoving each other and just about an inch from throwing punches.
He took them roughly by the shoulders and pulled them apart—no easy feat since both the Nocturne and the Drake had supernatural strength on their side. As for Cedric, I didn’t know. Were Fae stronger than normal humans? Was I stronger now that my true Fae self had come out and been revealed?
I made a mental note to check on that later. Right now, Mr. Barron was glaring at all three boys and demanding to know what the fight was about.
Of course, before anyone could answer, Morganna pointed a perfectly manicured finger at me.
“Her fault it is!” she declared, glaring at me. “Put them under a spell, she has!”
Mr. Barron blinked at her strange diction but turned his attention to me, nevertheless.
“Is this true Miss…er, is that you, Miss Plunkett?” he asked, frowning uncertainly.
“Yes, it’s me, Mr. Barron,” I said in a small voice, feeling even more miserable—if that was even possible. “But I didn’t put anybody under any kind of spell, I promise! They just came over and started talking to me and…and fighting over me.”
It sounded so ludicrous I could barely get the words out. Three of the most handsome, popular boys in school fighting over plain little Emma Plunkett? Who would believe it?