Chapter 12
1759 Words
_Raven’s POV_
I stood in the sitting room with my bag still on my shoulder and tried very hard not to let my anger show on my face.
Lucas was smiling as if he was being reasonable. His tone was calm and his words sounded kind, but I knew exactly what this was.
He wanted to control me.
Cassian stood nearby with that calm expression on his face but there was something in his eyes that gave him away. He looked too satisfied and too pleased with himself.
He did this, I thought.
Of course he did. It was all his idea.
I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell Lucas that I had already asked my mother, that I wasn’t a child and that he had no right to decide where I went. He might be my stepfather now, but that did not mean he got to control my life. But I didn’t want a scene, not in front of the staff and not when my mother was probably resting upstairs.
So I swallowed it.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “I’ll stay.”
Lucas smiled as if I had made the mature choice. “Good girl, I think this is for the best.”
The words made something inside me tighten.
I forced a small nod.
Cassian did not say anything. He did not need to. I could feel his victory from across the room.
Lucas looked at him then. “Help her properly,” he said. “No distractions.”
Cassian gave a smooth nod. “Of course.”
I almost laughed at that.
No distractions? Cassian was a distraction in human form.
Still, I kept my face blank.
Lucas picked up his glass from the table and said a few more things about dinner being served later, about not staying up too late, about how nice it was that we were “bonding.” I barely listened. I only waited for him to leave.
When he finally turned and walked toward his study again, I let out a slow breath through my nose.
The second he disappeared from view, I turned sharply to Cassian.
He was already grinning…like an i***t.
I glared at him. “Can you stop doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“That,” I snapped. “Looking so pleased with yourself.”
He leaned casually against the wall. “Maybe I am pleased with myself.”
“You can stop pretending now. Your father isn’t here.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“Please. You’re the reason I’m stuck here.”
He pushed himself off the wall and stepped closer. “You make it sound like studying with me is a punishment.”
“It is.”
He placed a hand over his chest in mock offense. “That hurts.”
“It should.”
He laughed softly. “At least pretend to be grateful.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“That’s interesting,” he said. “Because your math grades suggest otherwise.”
I stared at him. “You’re unbelievable.”
“And yet still better than Raphael at algebra.”
My expression hardened. “Leave Raphael out of this.”
Something flickered across his face for a brief second before disappearing.
“Come on,” he said while gesturing toward the stairs.
“Where?”
“My room.”
I looked at him in disbelief. “Do I look stupid to you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to study on the stairs?”
I didn’t answer.
“We need a desk,” he added. “My room has one.”
I didn’t like it but he was right. So I followed him upstairs.
His room was cleaner than I expected. It still looked like a boy’s room. There were posters on the walls, some of football players, some of dark cars and one of a mountain under a huge moonlit sky. There were a few shelves with books and trophies. His bed was neatly made. His desk was large and dark, with stacks of notebooks placed in careful order. A black jacket was thrown over the back of a chair, but even that somehow looked deliberate instead of messy.
I frowned a little.
“For a boy,” I muttered before I could stop myself, “this room is surprisingly clean.”
Cassian shut the door behind us and turned to me with mock offense. “For a boy?”
I shrugged. “You heard me.”
“That is very sexist.”
“That is very true.”
He gave me a look. “Maybe I just like things in order.”
“Maybe your room is the only thing about you that is.”
He let out a quiet laugh and moved toward his desk. He then pulled out a chair for me. “Sit.”
I sat down, watching as he dragged another chair beside mine instead of sitting across from me. I immediately noticed how near it was.
Too near.
I looked at him. “Why are you sitting there?”
He dropped into the chair beside me. “Because I need to see your work.”
“You can see it from across the desk.”
“I prefer this.”
“Of course you do.”
He only smirked and nodded toward my bag. “Take out your books.”
I opened my bag with sharp movements and placed my math notebook, textbook and pencil case on the desk. He waited. He was watching me with a look that made me feel like he was amused by everything I did.
I opened the book to the chapter I had been struggling with.
He leaned closer. “Alright,” he said. “Tell me what chapters and subtopics you don’t understand.”
I crossed my arms for a moment. “Why?”
His mouth twitched. “Because I can’t help you if I don’t know what your tiny angry brain is fighting with.”
My eyes narrowed. “My brain is not tiny.”
“Then prove it.”
I wanted to throw the textbook at his face.
Instead, I stabbed a finger at the page. “This chapter. Functions. And this part on quadratic equations. And some of the graph questions.”
“Some of them?” he repeated.
“Most of them,” I admitted.
He looked down at the page and then back at me. “Anything else?”
“The word problems.”
He gave a low whistle. “So basically all of it.”
I glared.
He lifted both hands. “Relax. I’m helping.”
He took the pencil from my hand and turned the notebook toward himself. For a second our fingers brushed and the contact sent a strange little jolt up my arm. I pulled my hand back at once.
Cassian either did not notice or pretended not to. “Look here,” he said, his tone changing.
And then he started explaining.
At first I expected him to mock me the whole time. I expected him to make me feel stupid or laugh when I got something wrong.
But he didn’t.
He was annoyingly patient.
He explained each step slowly. He wrote out examples. He broke hard things into smaller parts. When I got confused, he repeated himself without losing his temper. He even changed the way he explained things when he noticed I still did not understand.
“See?” he said while drawing a neat curve on the page. “You are panicking because the question looks ugly. But the moment you separate it, it becomes simple.”
I leaned closer to look. “That still does not look simple.”
“It is,” he said. “You just want to be dramatic.”
“I am not dramatic.”
He looked at me sideways. “Raven, you sigh like a dying Victorian heroine every time math appears.”
I stared at him. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you suffer beautifully.”
I should have been angry. But instead, to my horror, a laugh slipped out of me.
The sound seemed to surprise both of us.
Cassian went still for half a second, then smiled.
This made something in my chest feel strange.
I looked away first.
He continued with the lesson.
Minutes passed. Then more. Without meaning to, I found myself paying full attention. He really was good at math…very good. Lucas had been right. Cassian understood the work so easily that it made me feel both impressed and irritated.
So Cassian was not an i***t after all.
That was unfortunate.
He tapped the page with the pencil. “Now you do this one.”
I frowned at the numbers. “I hate you.”
“No, you hate the x.”
“I hate both.”
“That’s fair.”
I tried the problem. He watched in silence while I worked through it. When I made a mistake, he leaned over and pointed to the exact line.
“You lost the negative sign here,” he said.
“Oh.”
“Math is not hard, Raven. It just punishes carelessness.”
“That sounds threatening.”
“It is supposed to.”
I fixed the line and kept going. By the time I reached the final answer, I blinked at it in surprise.
“That’s right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I looked at him. “Really?”
“Yes.”
I could not hide my shock. “I did it?”
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Try not to look so amazed. You’re making me question the quality of your entire education.”
I rolled my eyes but I was smiling a little before I could stop myself.
He saw it.
Of course he saw it.
His gaze held mine for a beat too long. The room grew quieter. I became aware of everything all at once. The closeness of his chair. The warmth of his shoulder near mine. The faint smell of his skin mixed with whatever cologne he wore. The low evening light coming through the window. The silence pressing around us.
My pulse changed….so did his.
Neither of us spoke.
Cassian’s eyes dropped to my mouth for one quick second, then rose again to my face.
My breath caught.
He moved a little closer.
Not much.
Just enough.
I should have moved back then.
I didn’t.
- Writer
