CHAPTER 41

VEENA

I was too stunned to move. I still hadn't fully processed what Nick had said to me. Ever since my transformation, other than having some infrequent thoughts about Geoffrey, I was Not even sure about my sexuality anymore. Nick’s sudden request had put me on the spot before I had even finished processing what he had said to me. When I found Nick standing so close to me, my reflex action was to push him away. My panic, unfortunately, had also travelled through my bond to Shade. Very soon I was facing a completely dejected looking NIck with my familiar bearing his fangs at him.

“I guess I have your answer," Nick said before leaving back to the clearing looking thoroughly miserable. A part of me wanted to run after him and tell him about what was really bothering me, but his recent behaviour had made it uncomfortable for me to ever even consider sharing what my problem actually was. I ended up leaning against a tree where I found myself crying with shade trying to comfort me. Thoughts were whirling inside my head without any particular direction or form for what felt like a long time. Once I had calmed down enough to consider things rationally I realised that there was no way that I could share my deepest secret with Nick.

It didn't take long for my sorrow to turn into anger. How dare he treat me this way? He didn't even give me an opportunity to explain myself after dropping such a huge bomb on the top of my head. How did he expect me to deal with all that?

I really thought he would have been a better friend to me than that. I was really angry by the time I made my way back to the tent. I was sure that Kate and Anna saw the foul mood that I was in, but I was too angry to care as I went and fell face first into my bed.

Kate and Anna, at least had the decency to wait for a while before coming into my room.

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“Are you okay honey?" Anna asked while she stroked my hair gently.

“I am fine” I replied In a tone that clearly implied that I was not fine.

“Did something happen with Nick?” Kate asked, while knowing full well that something had happened.

“I don't want to talk about it," I replied while muffling my voice with the pillow.

“Young love is tough enough dear, even without all the baggage that you have to carry around” Kate said kindly.

“You would know.” Anna added, which earned her a glare from Kate.

Normally I would’ve been curious and enquired as to what it was all about, but I couldn’t bring myself to care in my current state.

“Why did he have to go and ruin everything? I mean, we had a good thing going. We were good friends but he just had to go and ruin all that” I fumed.

“That's understandable Veena, from your perspective, Nick is the first friend of your age that you have had since you left your village. But for him, you are a really beautiful girl that he thought he had a shot with.“said Kate.

“And that makes it okay for him to ruin everything, making me lose the one friend of my age that I was counting on to help me get through magicus collectio” I yelled back at them.

“I’m not telling you that Nick was in the right for springing this on you now, but nor can I say I don’t understand why he did this. When you two met, he believed that you were roughly in the same power level. Even though your beauty might have intimidated him a little bit, you were someone who was accessible and attainable for him. But that has drastically changed in the past few days. Your power has grown leaps and bounds ahead of him and your familiar has been cutting off everyone’s access to you. For Nick, he might have felt like he was losing you and just like every other stupid teenage boy he went and did something that made things a lot worse” Kate said.

I wanted to keep yelling and screaming at them, raging about Nick some more, but now that Kate had shoved Nick’s unwanted perspective into my head, it was hard for me to completely shake it off. I still tried to persist in abusing Nick for a while longer but my heart was just not in it like it was before. After patiently listening to me rant for a while longer Kate and Anna left after kissing me goodnight. As I drifted off to sleep with Shade keeping me warm by my side I came to the definite conclusion that familiars were a lot better to have than friends, especially stupid ones who made me cry.