CHAPTER 111: I AM NOT FRUSTRATED

"Hold on, how did we get to talking about Eloise?" Caius asked while still keeping enough of a whisper that they both could be ignored by the class at large.

"Because it’s been almost a week, Caius. She’s been waiting. What, you kiss her, get her hopes up, and then nothing while you slobber it all up with that possessive bitch?!" Kaya said and considering who had been a subject of this conversation from the start, it was not all that hard to figure out who the last two words were referring to.

It also wasn’t hard to decipher how Kaya would have found out about that. For one, all the icy looks Aylin had thrown their way a few times at the Cafeteria could not have gone unnoticed. Hell, the entire class could see and feel it. Also, Caius had a feeling it was something Aylin had talked about while the girls were all back at their Dormitories.

"I’ve done as much with Eloise as I have with Aylin," Caius said.

"And that’s the point," Kaya said in a seething whisper through gritted teeth, "Where do you get off leaving sweet Eloise hanging while going after her?"

She said ’her’ with an enunciation of detest that had Caius wondering what exactly Aylin had said to her. Not just today while they walked to class, but ever as well.

He felt the pricking of an icy stare and followed it, knowing already who was giving it. And of course, seated beside her friend Marianne, Aylin was looking over at where Caius and Kaya were seated with a smirk at the argument she could see was ensuing due to her words.

When Caius turned to Kaya, he realized she was looking over at Aylin as well. Likely drawn by the icy glare.

"Has Aylin ever... attacked you?" Caius asked, wondering if he had been too negligent.

Kaya whipped her head around and the corner of her lips pulled up in a smirk.

"She wishes she was confident enough for that..." she said and clenched her hands around her arms so tight that the back of her hands were starting to turn white from how taut the muscles underneath were becoming due to tension. Any longer and Caius was sure she would be making welts appear on her skin underneath the sleeves of her uniform jackets and shirt.

"I’d pulverize her," Kaya completed her sentence but didn’t look at Caius when she did. Instead, she looked at Aylin whom she was staring daggers at. Tiny green motes of her Nature Magic were starting to appear now.

Seeing that, Aylin’s smile became a taunting grin as she twirled a finger in the air, causing a tiny bit of ice to appear like she just couldn’t wait to send it flying at a target.

"Try it, bitch," Kaya said. Her voice was in a whisper but she was directly looking over at Aylin and speaking each word so clearly that her lips were easy to read.

And then Caius placed a hand on the point where Kaya’s arms crossed.

"Don’t do that," he said gently and then he looked over at Aylin and glared so hard at her that she eventually threw him a wink and looked away, withdrawing her icy-pricking stare.

Kaya scoffed and only now withdrew her motes of Nature Magic and then she looked at Caius, gesturing with her head at the back of Aylin’s head in what was clearly meant to say ’See what I mean?’

Caius smiled and leaned in close to place a kiss against her cheek, in a way that covered up the interaction and made it look—to the rest of the class and Professor Anne Gilligan—like he was simply whispering in her ear.

To be fair, he did that too.

"Ignore her. I’ll handle it."

Kaya just ’Humphed’ like she knew how he was going to ’handle it’ and did not agree. She would have preferred to have Aylin Khione as far away from her as possible and she knew that wasn’t Caius’s intention.

She was still feeling annoyed when she felt Caius press his lips against hers in a move that surprised her but quickly melted any annoyance she held in her heart. She was soon raising her hand to place against his cheek before the hand slipped to the back of his head to brush through his hair.

The kiss was short enough to happen while Professor Anne Gilligan was looking away from them but long and meaningful enough for Kaya to realize just how easy it was for him to put her at ease.

They broke away just as the Professor’s eyes were back in their direction but they stayed in place staring into each other’s eyes with an intensity that made Anne Gilligan peer at them over her glasses before she cleared her throat and looked away to get back to her lecture.

When Magi History Class ended, a message came sounding all over the classroom, through a somewhat unseen channel that made it sound near-mystical. Like a message from beyond. The message was to announce to Caius that Professor Cynthia Kragsten wanted to see him in her office.

Kaya sighed, knowing this was likely another Break Caius would not be spending at their table. Or another Break she would not be spending with him alone.

When last had that happened? Them alone at Break. Oh, right. Last week again. It seemed like so long ago. She decided right then that they had to work that out. A better schedule maybe. Or maybe just keeping those Professors from calling him to their sides the moment he had any free time.

"See you later," she told Caius with a bit of a groan.

"Yeah," Caius said with a light smile and waved once just as Kaya joined up with Eloise and Delia. Delia made a point not to glance at him. Eloise’s expression was a bit longing.

Before Caius left the classroom though, he heard a call.

"Mr. Von Helsing, a moment," Professor Anne Gilligan said with her robe folded across one arm.

She hadn’t sped off to her office as she had done last week but there was an almost fidgety quality to the way she looked now even if she mostly projected a tall, dignified look fit for a Lochxen Professor.

"Yes, Professor?" Caius said as he hung back while the rest of his classmates filed out and off to break.

Staring into his face brought memories of last week’s class to Anne’s mind but she truly believed she was past that so she maintained the tone of an authority figure as she said,

"Mr. Von Helsing, Lea Gilligan is my daughter."

"I know, Professor," Caius said immediately.

"Right. Has she perhaps asked you to do anything? Anything you don’t want to?" Anne asked, her black eyes intense.

Caius shook his head slowly,

"No," he said, "No. Certainly not something I DON’T want to do.

Why do you ask Professor?"

The innocent-sounding tone used to ask that last question clashed with the clearly deliberate enunciation of the word ’Don’t’ and only caused Anne’s sexy and mature face to get a bit more serious as she waved her hand a little.

"I might have told Lea of a moment of... discomfort last week," she admitted.

"Caused by me," Caius said. It wasn’t a question.

"A little. But it’s more my... issues, to be candid with you.

However, I might have painted it as more your fault when she forced me to recount my day and, well, I’ll just be so sorry if that caused her to approach you and..." Anne stopped here, looking like she was struggling to get the next word out. Like she wasn’t even sure what word she wanted it to be.

Caius shook his head and placed a hand on the Professor’s shoulder, surprising her, as expressed by the widening of her eyes.

Caius smiled lightly.

"You have nothing to worry about, Professor. Also, if I had known you were so... frustrated, I would not have brought up those stories."

"Frustrated?" Anne repeated the word and she would have sounded more indignant if the hand on her shoulder wasn’t filling her with a sense of calm that was clouding her mind.

Still, she managed to say clearly,

"I am NOT frustrated."

Caius cocked his head to the side. He and Anne were looking into each other’s eyes now.

"If you say so," he said and took his hand off her shoulder.

Anne’s heart sank at losing that comfort but she made sure not to show it.

"I DO say so," she said and rocked her shoulders a few times before opening a Portal Gate against the wall to vanish through it.

Only when she was on the other side of the portal in her office, did Anne Gilligan remember she had had a more specific question to ask which was; What exactly Caius and her daughter had done during those times they had been together?

From Lea herself, Anne knew there had been a few of those ’alone moments’ already and with the emphasis Caius had made to not having been made to do what he didn’t want to do, her imagination ran wild.

Or maybe her imagination had been close to that already since the class incident last week. Either way, her body reacted and she was soon clamping her thighs together as she sank into her chair while her hand slipped down to offer her some release.