Chapter 6 : She Doesn't Know

Dawn’s POV

“You want to merge our mediums together?” I asked over the sound of my now empty tray hitting the back of the holder. “How would that even work?”

I watched as Craig shrugged. “Plenty of artists have done it before, it isn’t like this will be an entirely new concept. All we have to do is figure out a theme and piece special enough to wow the judges.”

I sighed as I followed him out of the dining hall and into the main hall. There were considerably more people now, causing me to brush up against Craig more than once in an attempt to stay close enough to speak and also out of the way of everyone else walking about.

“Here,” eventually, Craig’s hand came up to the side of my waist as he pulled me to stand in front of him, where he placed both hands on my shoulders and led me through the throng of people as he looked over my head. I would have felt offended at how he moved me around like a doll if I wasn’t, well, so impressed at how easily he seemed to move me around like a doll.

Craig always seemed like a trail of water among people, either a stream or a full forced tidal wave, never anything in between. And now as he maneuvered me through the crowd and towards where the dormitories were, it seemed like I was somehow welcomed into that abyss of water with him.

“Are you worried it won’t work?” he asked me eventually as we made it to a quieter hallway in the dorms, everyone now having moved from here to either the dining hall or outside. “You’re a great sculptor.”

“It’s not—thank you, it’s not that I’m worried it won’t work. I just can’t seem to think of anything right now that would even begin to… I mean… your art and mine are so different, and I know you said about working with those differences, but that’s really easier said than done, you know?”

Craig nodded in understanding and I placed my hands on my hips as I looked up at him, already beginning to feel the crick in my neck that would form by the end of this competition from looking up at him.

“I know that, we don’t have to settle on an idea right now, but at least there’s a foundation laid. We could walk around the galleries for some more inspiration, maybe look at the metal work and porcelain sections on their own to try and gauge the most appreciated pieces, then work our way from there.”

I nodded my head as I listened to him, not entirely hating the idea of going to look at the galleries again. But for some reason I couldn’t get myself to focus on much lately, ever since I had been walking in the gardens this morning and taking pictures my mind had been elsewhere, and the frustrating thing was that I didn’t even know where it was.

“Hey,” again, his arm reached out to me and forced my eyes to meet his. “Why are you doubting us?"

My eyes widened lightly, and there was a sickening turn in my stomach that I knew could only be caused by the pitter patter of soft, winged creatures. I swallowed down, thankful at least that despite it feeling that way, my throat wasn’t as dry as I thought it was.

Craig’s words, though innocent enough, caused me to bite down on the inside of my mouth. G*d, did he even know what he was capable of doing to a girl with words like that?

“If it’s… if it’s about what happened before, you know, with us…” my mouth dropped open, shocked at where the sudden turn of conversation had gone. Did he finally remember? Was that why it seemed so tense between us during breakfast? I had thought it was me, and that I was making it up, but did he feel the tension too? Was it because he suddenly remembered?

“I shouldn’t have acted like that,” was all he said after, and there seemed to be the tiniest of weights lifted from my chest at his words. It wasn’t a full apology, it wasn’t even an explanation—but it was a beginning. And after months and years of wondering about the what ifs, of whether I had done something wrong, of… of nothing. It was enough for right now.

I smiled up at him as I shook my head. “It’s alright.”

“It isn’t,” he pushed. “I—”

“It’s,” I pushed back, “alright.”

I didn’t want this to be something that would hold us back in the competition. Admittedly I had been hung up about it in the beginning, but after seeing his art and speaking with him some more, It was an awkward situation for everyone involved, and we were just kids back then. We were older now, more mature… right?

“Admittedly,” I began replying bashfully, diverting my gaze from his when he cocked his head to listen to what I had to say. “I didn’t think you’d remembered at first.”

There was a slight tick to his hand still on my cheek, and for a moment I thought he would’ve pulled away. I tried to ignore the way I seemed to hate that thought-but instead, he only readjusted his hand and kept it there. “It was a while ago, I kind of just seemed like the weird, crazy girl still hung up on someone really ho—”

My eyes widened, and I shut my mouth before I finished the sentence. “Hm?” Craig asked, leaning forward slightly to hear me better. “Someone really…?”

I narrowed my eyes at the smile on his face, and straightened my back to try and put on a bolder front. But in reality I was shaking in my boots, the nervousness in my stomach now returning tenfold, and I wondered just how the h*ll I managed to end up in this situation—twice!

“Someone really hot headed,” I finished off, and he made a tutting sound with his tongue as he leaned back slightly, pulling his hand from my face as he held them behind his back.

“Hot headed, huh?” he asked as he leaned back. “That’s what you think?”

I shrugged. “I mean, you do quite literally bend metal as a hobby. Are you telling me there isn’t a little bit of rage inside of that body of yours?”

I crossed my arms over my chest as I stared at him, noticing the way his brow quirked up at what I had said.

“Think about my body often, do you?”

My jaw fell slack, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You seem to enjoy it though. You want me to stop?”

“Please,” I exaggerated the word, almost begging. “It would make working with you a whole lot easier.”

The corner of Craig’s lip tilted up, and he stepped forward. His head lowered, as did his voice, as he whispered down to me. “Make me, then.”

This time, my throat really did dry up.

He took another step toward me, and another then another, and there was only so much space left between me and the wall behind me before I could stop stepping back. “You said you thought I had forgotten you, earlier,” his hand came up to hold my face, deliberate and claiming this time.

“As if I could ever…” he whispered, his breath tickling my lips as his thumb came to run across it. I felt the prickling sensation rush right through me, and his long, dark eyelashes dusted his cheek before he looked up from my lips to my eyes.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” he whispered.

“It’s because of you,” if I was more sane I would have slapped myself for that line. If I was less sane, I wouldn’t have appreciated the way his eyes seemed to darken at what I had said. “Are you going to kiss me?”

He smiled lightly, his gaze flickering down, and then up. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

“I want you to want me to kiss you.”

He smirked at that. “I want everything from you, Dawn Fairborn.”

And then he kissed me, flushed and soft and claiming. His lips pressed against mine in the delicious way I remembered they had once, before. And I pulled him to me, my body pressing into his as much as I could allow. I could feel his arm grazing my chest between us, and the sensation shot through my stomach straight down to the spot between my legs. I wanted him—needed him closer, closer, closer, closer.

Craig’s hand ran down my cheek to my neck, deepening the kiss as he tilted his head. But his hand didn’t stop there, it trailed down until it was tugging at the wide open neck of my shirt, until it was exposing my collarbone and my shoulder and—

I felt him freeze, his body went slack against mine for a moment. The smallest, minute and almost undetectable moment. But this was déjà vu, this had happened before. And when I pulled away from him and looked down at where his hand rested, just above the birthmark on my neck, exactly where it had been the first time he rejected me—my body froze up.

And then it moved before my brain instructed it to.

Not giving Craig the time to pull away from me again, to run away from me again, I pushed him off of me and yanked on the door behind me, knowing that I had left it open before leaving and that Candice would be inside waiting for me, if I needed her.

“Dawn—” I heard him call my name, but I was shutting the door in his face before he could say anything else.

Craig’s POV

I think I’m an idiot.

Actually, scratch that, I knew I was an idiot.

How the f*ck could I have let her slip away from me like that… TWICE? I had known what I was doing when I kissed her, had known what it would mean for the both of us, and yet I still froze. Still hesitated when I pulled her closer to me, still saw the flashes of—

My phone rang, and I slammed my bedroom door behind me as I stormed into the dorm I shared with no one else, sliding the call to accept and placing it to my ear.

“What?” I gritted into the speaker, not having bothered looking to see who had called.

“Good morning to you too, sunshine,” Jared’s voice called out from the other end. “What’s gotten your feathers ruffled this early on? I thought you were supposed to exercise all of that emotion through your artsy projects.”

“Ha, ha,” I dry laughed at my beta’s words. “You think you’re funny?”

“I think I’m hilarious, actually.”

“I found her.”

My next words seemed to stop Jared from his laughter, and I could tell even through the phone how serious he had become all of a sudden. I gave another humorous laugh.

“I found her and she doesn’t even know she’s a f*cking shifter.”