AN: Written because I can. ^^
Disclaimer: I don't own the Night World series. But if anyone knows where my copy of the third volume went, I'll love you forever and ever.
– + Broken Bonds + –
~ Lethe likes to toy with human boys. But unlike her cousin, she's never gone too far. Until now. ~
i. as always
When Lethe wakes up for school, she thinks it will just be an ordinary day. And why not? After all, her day starts off as normal as always.
She gets out of bed at six forty-five in the morning, as always. She stumbles into the shower half-asleep, as always. She blow dries her hair fifteen minutes later, as always. She eats some breakfast – a light golden toast with strawberry jam – as always. She goes up to her room and dresses for school, as always.
As she stands in front of the mir ror with her swinging curtain of silky coal hair pulled back out of her face, her violently amethyst eyes narrow in concentration as she focuses on securing the small obsidian clasp around her neck. Hanging down it is a minute black dahlia, forever immortalized by a little spell her mother performed. Of course, no one will ever understand the importance of this diminutive charcoal-petaled flower. Well, no one who will see it, that is. The Night People would understand what it meant, but not the… humans she goes to school with.
She is proud of the hanging emblem that marks her as a witch, because she is one. She is Circle Midnight, as her mother was, and her mother before her. She is Lethe Amisi, the river of forgetfulness, sole remaining heiress of the Amisi family who are both famous and infamous, renown for the many artifacts their family as a whole has created. And though her mother clicks her tongue and shakes her head at her daughter, who she thinks is not ruthless enough to be a Midnighter, she doesn't raise her voice. Just because she isn't as devotion-spell-happy as her cousin, Lethe thinks, doesn't mean she belongs to Circle Twilight, or, Goddess forbid, Circle Daybreak. She can reel in others without the help of magic, thank you very much, and it's because of that natural power that she has no enemies at her school.
Her chauffer drives her to school, and when she exits, she is immediately accosted by a sea of adoring followers. As always.
She's in first block, now, and bored out of her mind. She sits there, gazing out the window with her head propped up, looking for the world a beautiful and uninterested marble statue. People are staring, and she knows it. It's a feeling she revels in, a feeling that's constant everywhere she goes, as always.
And then the door opens.
There are footsteps, yes, but there isn't just one pair. It's two – and she's never heard that happen before. It's very strange, she muses. There's the heavy, clunking steps of their Trig teacher, but there is a different pair, light and airy and carefree, stepping in time. The door opens, and the heavily mustached face of their professor appears, shadowed by a different face.
She stares, and almost gasps. There, behind Mr. Gruen, is the most beautiful boy she's ever laid her eyes on. Well, most beautiful human boy, anyways. He's got a warm face and a swimmer's body, and while it's nothing compared to the unearthly beauty of Night People, it's phenomenal compared to the others here. He looks her way, and his gold-flecked hazel eyes focus on her deep lavender ones. She can't keep her gaze off of him. People are shocked that the Ice Queen Lethe, who toys with guys and has every boy in the whole school just waiting for full, glossy lips to form the syllables of their name and the flick of her fingers, the school's aloof and cool princess, is actively taking an interest in the new boy. He catches her eye, and her lips quirk up just a quarter of an inch. He mirrors her expression with a tiny smirk of his own.
It's that exact moment Lethe decides that she's going to keep this new boy.
She zones out while Mr. Gruen drones on and on about whatever they were learning that day, the boy's name rebounding and echoing in her head.
Julian.
– enjoy it while it lasts –
Lethe balls her hands into fists, nails digging into the elegant porcelain skin of her palms. How dare he!
She's Lethe Amisi, Amazon-of-the-Island, descended from the legendary forger Chalcedony Amisi, creator of the Cup of Lethe, with a family line that goes back nearly has far back as the Harmans. She is the most beautiful girl in the school and possibly the whole district, the most sought-after girl in the whole school. She wants him.
And he has the gall to go and turn her down!
Even though it was totally private and his lips are completely sealed about the occasion, it doesn't change the fact that this… this… this human has decided he wants nothing to do with her, despite being her current favorite and being selected out of the hundreds of other boys.
And he tells her no.
She's selfish and self-serving, yes, but when she puts her mind to something she accomplishes it no matter what the consequences. When she digs her claws in, they don't come out until she's caught her prey. She's got her eyes on the raven-haired Julian, and she will do whatever it takes to get him.
At whatever price.
– the seed is sown –
She goes to her cousin.
Even though she's sworn never to ask Blaise for any help concerning guys, not after the whole Randy incident. Her cousin is beautiful and wild and unpredictable, not to mention unspeakably cruel. She's broken the minds of all her boys, willing or not. A true Midnight witch, as her mother is fond of saying.
But when push comes to shove, there is no one else better than her at devotion spells and binding spells. Her cousin is simply the best there is.
Well, there is her cousin Tanith, but… well, Tanith is a Twilighter, now, and she is weak. She simply renounced all those spells once she had broke the mind of her boy back then. Most likely she would chase her out if she even got around to mentioning using one of the spells. Not to mention report it to her mother, who would be terribly upset that she would even need help.
So. Blaise it is.
– take a bite darling –
"It's simple," Blaise had said, and Lethe believed her.
All she had to do was get Julian alone. Put the delicate chain she had forged around his neck. It would immobilize and knock him out long enough for her to perform the risky little spell that sapped away at his will to keep on refusing her.
It was so easy.
Julian is a sweet and generous boy. He is the kind to stop and help old ladies carry their bags and walk across the road. There is no way he will be able to ignore a sexy brunette who lost a precious family heirloom, the only thing she had left of her deceased father. And he can't.
They walk into the lightly forested grove behind the school, Lethe making a show of her worry and heartbreak with some tears rolling down her cheeks.
They stand like that for a while, Julian rummaging around the leaves while she pretends to be searching on the other side. She is biding her time, waiting for him to lift it up and tell her he has found it. Then it will start to muddle his senses long enough for her to get him to put it on. She will perform the spell, and he would be completely hers.
"Hey, Lethe, I found it." Right on cue.
But the strange thing is, he is reacting like normal. No slowing of the senses, nothing to show that he is being affected by the charms put around it. It would work once it went around his neck, though, she knows that. So she improvises.
"Oh Godde – " she cuts herself off just before she says Goddess. It won't do to make him suspicious. "Thank you so much, Julian! I don't know what I would have done if I lost it."
She is right next to him, now, and grabs the intricate golden thread in her hands. And then she does what her subconscious has been screaming at her to do ever since he walked into the classroom a week ago.
She kisses him.
Her arms thrown around his broad shoulders, she scrabbles to clasp the dainty collar-like object around his neck as she kisses him with everything she has. There is a silvery mist rolling across the ocean of her mind – when did she get there? – and it is moving toward him. It nearly reaches him, too before a shining golden barrier erects itself and halts all process.
The charm is working. Perfect.
Moving quickly, she detaches herself and starts murmuring the incantation under her breath. In her haste, she stumbles over a word, but she pays it no notice as she hurries on. Already, his eyes are looking steadily clearer.
Rushing through the last verse of the spell, she holds her breath as a vivid red aura-thread starts to wind its way around him, tying his body into her hand. It is working, and soon Julian Rivera with his gorgeous good looks and exotic eyes will never decline her wishes again.
That was, until, wind starts howling. The red thread begins to unravel, only to squeeze tighter. It coils about Julian's stiff body, twisting tighter and tighter before it shatters. She only has time to catch a glimpse of his horrified stare before the metallic hazel eyes she adores go completely and utterly blank.
He is dead.
She gazes at the slumped body, looking for the world it was peacefully sleeping, and shrugged. Blaise hadn't warned her that it would cause death if failed, but then, Julian was the exception to so many other things, not the least of them her natural charisma. Lethe turns gracefully, and walks out of the clearing. Already the euphoria and fireworks that he set off in her are fading. He was a fling, she decides, a fleeting obsession. Nothing more, really.
She doesn't notice the gaping hole in her heart that Julian had slowly began to fill start to gape wider.
– and don't look away –
When her mother finds out about his demise, the first thing she does is confront her daughter to see what her reaction to this is.
She goes up to Lethe's room, and finds the girl getting ready for school, brushing out her long, glittering hair. Not a speck of black is on her excluding her emblem. Avalon Amisi can not be more pleased – and confused – by her daughter's attitude. After all, it was just a few days ago that she had been chattering nonstop about the little human boy.
"Lethe, darling, all you alright?"
Her daughter, her pride and joy, turns around and faces her with a cold and distant look on her face, and utters nine words.
"Of course, mother. He was only a human, after all."
She turns back to the mirror. Avalon smiles to herself. Her daughter is a true witch of Circle Midnight, a proper Night Person. Maybe she will accept Hunter Redfern's proposal, after all.
Lethe continued to brush out her hair. She doesn't notice the emptiness in her heart, the jagged missing piece in her soul. She doesn't notice her expression getting colder, her voice flatter, her eyes blanker. She can't miss what she never really had. Her life goes on, as always.
The thin and frayed silver thread snaps without her even noticing it.
– for this is the end –
Well, my latest brainchild is finished. For now, considering I have about nine more to go. Stupid fanfiction editing thing. It won't let me center the middle part. Bleh.
Love it? Hate it? Think it should be burnt as an offering to the god of bad fanfiction? Leave a review, please.
~Hallow