Free Revealed by P. C. Page A

expression that made him look frustrated
and
pissed.
    “How old were you when you met Heath?” Stark asked.
    “Nine,” I said. It made me feel miserable and helpless, but my gaze wouldn’t stay on Stark’s face. It was drawn to the guy who was still singing my song while he heaped psaghetti on his plate.
    I wondered if it would have helped if Aurox hadn’t been so cute. He did a dorky guy version of the dance I’d just done as he headed over to the drink bar.
    Nope, I decided, feeling my stomach do the weird butterfly thing it used to do when Heath would walk into a room. Aurox could have looked like a troll and he’d still make my stomach do flip-flops because
he shared Heath’s soul.
    “Good morning!” Damien came in with Shaunee, Stevie Rae, and Rephaim, who waved and said hi to Stark and me as they hurried to get in line and fill their plates.
    They didn’t seem to notice that Stark and I didn’t say anything in return.
    “Hey there, Aurox. Wanna sit with us?” I heard Damien give him a cheery invite.
    “Sure, that would be great,” Aurox said.
    “Awesome—Z and Stark are already at the table. It’s that one over there.” Damien pointed at us, which is when his happy-schmappy expression slid away, and was replaced by an
uh-oh
look. “Um, that is if there’s enough room and it’s okay with Z and Stark, and, um…” Damien trailed off uncomfortably, his cheeks getting pink.
    “Fuck!” Stark said under his breath so that I was the only one who heard him. Then he sat up a little straighter and called, “Yeah, no problem. We got room for Aurox.”
    When Aurox sat down directly across from me I focused on shoveling psaghetti into my face.
    “So, where’d you learn that song?” Stark shocked the bejezzus out of me by asking Aurox.
    “What song?” Aurox answered around a mouthful of noodles.
    “Never mind,” Stark muttered.
    The long, uncomfortable silence wasn’t broken until Damien and the rest of our group smooshed into the booth.
    “Have y’all seen Aphrodite today?” Stevie Rae asked.
    I looked up then to see everyone shaking their heads.
    “Or Darius?” she added.
    More head shaking.
    “Crap,” I said. “I need to go check on her. It’s not like her to hermit in her room.”
    “Yeah,” Stevie Rae agreed. “She calls breakfast the beginning of the day’s fashion parade. You know she actually told me once that she could predict which girls were going to turn into their fat, flabby mammas by how much makeup they wore to breakfast?”
    “That girl is super crazy,” Shaunee said.
    “Is wearing a lot of makeup to breakfast good or bad?” Damien asked.
    “I have no clue,” Stevie Rae said. “I try to quit listenin’ if Aphrodite talks too long. She kinda hurts my ears.”
    “Is her prediction about the girls part of her prophetic gift?” Aurox asked.
    I couldn’t help laughing with everyone else. Well, everyone except Stark. Instead of laughing he was stabbing his scrambled eggs like he was trying to kill them.
    “No,” Stevie Rae answered Aurox. “It’s part of her hateful gift, which we’re pretty sure wasn’t given to her by Nyx.”
    “Oh, sorry,” Aurox said, looking sheepish. “That was probably a stupid thing to ask.”
    “Hey, no worries, roomie,” Damien said, smiling kindly at him. “Aphrodite baffles all of us.”
    “Roomie?” I heard myself asking. “You guys are sharing a dorm room?”
    “Yes,” Aurox said, meeting my gaze for the first time. “Damien offered, and I did not want to be alone, nor did I wish to share a room with a stranger. The others, well, I often find them staring at me oddly.”
    “That would be because you can change into a bull.” Stark’s voice was emotionless.
    “I suppose you are correct,” Aurox said. He dropped his gaze from mine and went back to eating.
    “Yeah, well, that brings up a subject Stark and I were talking about earlier,” I began.
    “Yeah, we were talking when we woke up. Together. In the same