Chapter 6

ELVIRA'S POV

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Guilt landed like a stone in my stomach after I made my last comment to Eliano about being Wolford royalty. "Eli... I'm sorry…"

"Please don't feel bad. I'm sorry if my words hurt you, Eli... I snapped." He exhaled, his shoulders dropping. "It doesn't matter to me anymore. They're not that lucky, just as you think. They still haven't found their mate yet."

I glanced down at my own wrist, my tattoo pulsing faintly under my sleeve. I haven't found my mate either.

What if one of the three is my mate?

Yeah. Keep dreaming all you want, Elvira.

Would I even want to be a mate to one of the three?

"I really don’t know," I mumble, mostly to fill the silence in my head.

"Everyone, back to your mats!" a teacher bellows, and the little moment I was having with Eliano breaks apart. Eliano and I spent the rest of the lesson laughing our way through drills, harmless flirting through all of it. I liked whatever was brewing between Eliano and me… whatever this is, the easy friendship we've stumbled into. He seems to like it too.

When our class ended, he threw his arm around my shoulders and gave me a sideways hug. I squeezed his waist back while hugging him.

"We'll see tomorrow at Period two, Elvi…"

"Ok, Tomorrow then, Eli."

I watched him slink off, his bag over one shoulder. Students were parting for him like he was a dangerous animal. Anika and Lexa practically sprint over the second he's gone to interrogate me.

"Why didn't you tell us you're friends with Eliano Wolford?" Lexa gasps.

"I know realize it was a big deal to be friends with Eli..."

"It is a massive deal," Anika says. "He's Wolford royalty. His great-grandfather literally founded this school."

"I already know that, Ani..."

"Do you know he's a Mosaics?" Lexa adds, dropping her voice like she's confessing something shameful to me.

"Yes, I know that. We talked about our prophecies. It's really not that deep, girls… he's a sweet boy."

Anika and Lexa exchanged a surprised look between them.

"Eliano Wolford is not sweet, Elvira," Anika said. "Come on, why would you say such a thing about him..."

She drags me back through the crowded corridor by the hand. Once we're through the dorm door, both girls pull me onto the sofa like they've got a story that can't wait to share with me.

"Last year Eliano was actually popular," Anika starts. "He and The Three were the golden boys of this academy… their parents basically built this school. When we all got our flames, Eliano got Mosaic. Nobody could believe it."

"We figured maybe it meant he would be some kind of royal scholar-warrior," Lexa continues. "But his best friend, ex-best friend now, Susan…. told the whole school what it actually meant. She said, he will never be allowed to marry till he dies."

My chest aches, hearing it out loud the way she said it.

"It was brutal," Anika says. "The news went round the school in a single day. It turns out Susan and Eliano had been together… probably together, before his prophecy came up. The second it came out he couldn't ever seal a bond; she snapped and told everyone. There was a huge fight on the Pentagon between Susan and Eliano. She got expelled. He got a mere suspension, purely because of his family's name and influence."

"He hasn't been the same since he came back from that suspension," Lexa adds. "He keeps to himself and doesn't really talk to anyone."

"That's why we're shocked he's so friendly with you. Eliano Wolford doesn't do friends."

I frown at them. "Well. I am one of his friends right now, and I believe you girls can see it."

"He needs it. I can't imagine what this last year's been like for him without a friend."

Daphne bursts in from the corridor, making all three of us jump up.

"How was your first day at school?" she asks, while dropping onto the sofa. "Whoa… what's with the funeral vibes from you girls? Who died?"

"I’m going to call my parents," I say, and slip off to my room before I have to explain myself to them.

I dialed my mother's number and lay back on my bed while I listened to it ring.

"Hey, sweetheart. How are you doing today?" Was the first thing my mum said as soon as she picked up the call.

Just hearing her voice untangled a lot in my chest. "I’m good, mummy. I survived my first day. How's home?"

"Home has been quiet without you, baby girl. I am not saying that you make much noise, but you know what I mean."

"I got my prophecy flame this morning, mummy."

"Oh, that’s amazing… what was it?"

"It showed red... mummy"

"Oh, how wonderful! Darling, our daughter's an Amores!" she calls, presumably to my father. "Have you felt anything yet? Like a pull towards anyone?"

My face heats, unbidden images of gold eyes and cyan ones running through my mind.

"No, I haven’t felt anything for anyone yet, Mummy."

"That's fine, baby. You've got up to ten days for the tattoo to turn scarlet."

"Mummy? What actually happens when it does?"

"You go back to whoever your assigned Prophet is, hold your arm to the flame again. This time you'll get a vision from the moon goddess… a short flash, and it will be like a clip of your future. A clue to who your mate is."

"Is it just going to be a clue, mummy?"

"The moon goddess likes to make you work for it. She has already done the hard part by pairing you up with your mate… the rest is on you and your mate to work it out, baby."

"How will I even know when I get bonded to my mate?"

"It will start with attraction. You won't be able to look away from them. Everything about them will feel right to you from the moment you guys meet… He will sound right to you, smell right to you. Or so I've heard. Your father and I chose each other, remember that. We didn’t need any divine help to be together."

"I know about that, Mummy."

"And look how well that turned out for us," she says, delighted with herself. "I hope you find yours soon, Elvira. Call me the second you know anything or feel an attraction for anyone."

ELIANO'S POV

'He's Mosaic...'

'He has got the white flame.'

'He'll never marry.'

'I wonder if he even wants to.'

'What does his father think of him?'

I drew the whispers out and kept walking faster down the corridor. I spent less time hearing their bullshit.

Everyone knows my business, but nobody actually knows what it's like to carry my cross.

I'm nearly at my dorm when three people block the hallway. I recognize their shoes even before I look up to see their faces… their shoes were expensive, unscratched, the kind of shoe that never touches mud. I lift my eyes to meet three unimpressed gazes. The Three stood shoulder to shoulder. They were silent, blocking my path completely.

If I didn't know them already, I might have found this intimidating. I've known these three my entire life. They stopped scaring me a long time ago.

Funny thing about a prophecy like mine… it burns off a lot of your fear. When you've already been told exactly what you can't have, there's not much left that can rattle you anymore.

"Eliano." Gideon was the first to speak among the three, his arms crossed and his jaw set. "It has been a while. How are you holding up?"

"Don't pretend to care, Gid. What do the three of you want from me?"

They traded a look between them, the kind that says they're already thinking the same thing without needing to speak it out. I've never understood how three guys who aren't biological brothers ended up sharing one brain.

"We are here because of the new girl," Rafael says. "You've gotten close to her more than us."

"That's not a question."

What do they want with Elvira?

"Elvira," Xavier says quietly. "I saw her in my maths class, and She's beautiful."

"Yes, she is," Rafael agrees, then turns his attention fully on me. "Has she mentioned anything about us to you?"

I snort. "Wouldn't you love to know?"

All three take a calm, calculated step forward, while I put my hands up, unbothered.

She's asked. I told her the basics about your prophecies, and that was all."

Their eyes widened in unison.

"How much did you tell her about us?" Gideon asks.

"The basics."

"You didn’t tell her everything?" Rafael starts.

"Yes." I cut him off. "I didn’t tell her the part where you all mated to the same girl."

That's the part they've kept locked down since last year, ever since I overheard them arguing about it in the library and they realised too late that I already knew about their little secret. Half of the girls at this academy think they've got a shot at one of The Three. But what they didn’t know is that landing one means landing all three, whether they like it or not.

"That’s good," Gideon says. "We don't want to scare her off. Raf and Xavier are the only ones who've actually seen her so far…"

He hesitates. Rafael finishes it for him.

"But we've felt something for her already. Her tattoo's barely a week old and hasn't turned yet… we can't be sure. But it's there deep inside us."

I don't know why they're telling me all this. If Elvira really is what all three of them are waiting for, it puts a target on her back.

Why tell me at all?

Rafael reads the question off my face before I ask it.

"We want you to keep watching her for us. We won't know for certain if she is our mate or not until next week. We don't want her spooked before then… and you're already too close to her; use that to our advantage."

"Watch over our mate for us," Xavier says, and do it quietly. "Or there will be hell to pay."

Knowing they need something from me puts the power back in my hands. I push off the wall the three formed in front of me, straighten my bag, and shove past all three of them. They allowed me to walk past them without stopping me. After I walked past them, I turned back. I met three unreadable stares looking at me furiously.

"I'll watch over her," I say. "But she already thinks you're a bunch of spoiled overachievers. Good luck talking her out of that one."