Chapter 259

Zaeryn looked up at Ingrid, who was on her feet looking down at him. "I don’t want to deal with Leia. Can we switch partners?" He looked at Genevieve too, waiting for one of them to agree.

"And risk getting in trouble with Audrey?" Ingrid responded. "No way. You’re stuck with Leia."

Genevieve wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind and rested her chin against him. "I think you’re overreacting. You and Leia will make.... good partners?"

"Why do you sound like you don’t even believe yourself?"

"Well. She might kill you." Genevieve paused. She squeezed his shoulders sympathetically. "Just don’t upset her. Be at your humblest around her for the next ten cycles okay?"

Eventually they exited the room.

The hall emptied fast.

Zaeryn filed out with Ingrid and Genevieve, the three of them moving with the current of students pouring into the corridor. The noise level jumped the moment they stepped out of the doors, conversations picking back up mid-sentence, the general energy of people released from somewhere they had to be.

Genevieve fell into step beside him, her shoulder bumping his lightly. She had her data-slate tucked under one arm and was scrolling through something on her personal screen with her free hand, not really reading it.

"So," she said, still looking at her screen. "I heard some girls talking earlier. Apparently you were in serious trouble with Professor Jade." She glanced up at him. "What did you do to get on her bad side?"

Zaeryn stayed quiet.

What flashed through his mind was Jade on her knees in that office, lips stretched around his cock, eyes glassy while he used her mouth. The same woman who had tried to act in charge now swallowing him down and ending up marked with his cum across her breasts. He kept that memory to himself.

"Nothing," he said.

Genevieve studied him for exactly one second. "That’s not a nothing face."

"It’s my normal face."

She looked unconvinced but let it go, turning back to her screen. Ingrid, on his other side, said nothing.

She was eating something, a small wrapped thing she had produced from her pocket and watching the corridor ahead with mild, unhurried interest, completely unbothered by the world or the conversation between Zaeryn and Genevieve.

They turned the corner into the main block and nearly walked into Jyn.

She was coming from the opposite direction.

Her face changed the moment she saw him.

"There you are." She pointed at him, not accusatory, just emphatic. "You weren’t in the first period. Where were you?"

"I ended up in Professor Audrey’s class."

Jyn stared at him. "The senior class."

Zaeryn nodded. "The senior class."

She stared at him a second longer, then turned to Ingrid and Genevieve as if seeking confirmation that this was real. Ingrid offered her a small, amused nod. Jyn turned back to Zaeryn.

"How."

"Long story."

"Were you lost?"

"No."

"Audrey found us in the class hanging out with Ingrid and she made us stay," Genevieve explained.

"Okay." Jyn fell into step beside them, apparently having decided she was coming with them regardless of where they were going. She pulled out her own data-slate and tapped something, then looked back up at him. "Luckily you didn’t miss anything important,"

Zaeryn exhaled through his nose. "That’s a relief."

"Also, the professor noticed you were missing." Jyn said it with the particular weight of someone delivering genuinely useful intelligence. "I covered for you. I told her you had a stomach thing. The one males are known for getting,"

"I didn’t ask you to do that." Zaeryn responded.

"I know. You’re welcome." She smiled at him, bright and completely unrepentant.

"Also I don’t get the stomach thing," Zaeryn said.

Ingrid looked over at him, genuinely curious. "How do you not get it? They say it’s part of the male biology. Every male gets it at least once a month."

"What even is it?"

"The cramping," Jyn said, as if this was common knowledge. "Males get it when their body overproduces stress hormones. It’s a biological thing, tied to how your nervous system is wired differently from ours. Most of you are basically walking anxiety machines."

Zaeryn considered that for a moment. And he had really never heard of that. "That sounds made up."

"It’s in every basic biology text," Ingrid said flatly.

"Well it hasn’t happened to me."

Jyn and Ingrid exchanged a look over his head.

The four of them walked outside.

They settled on one of the benches outside the main block, the four of them spread out in the easy, unplanned way of people who have nowhere specific to be for the next hour.

The courtyard was filling up with other students doing the same thing, eating, talking, scrolling through slates. The morning classes were done and the afternoon block hadn’t started yet.

Zaeryn leaned back and let the noise wash over him. Jyn was telling Genevieve something about a third-year girl who had apparently made a scene in the combat hall the previous week, and Genevieve was listening with the particular focused interest she reserved for things she found genuinely entertaining.

Ingrid was still eating, working through the wrapped thing she had been eating earlier, watching the courtyard with the calm, unhurried expression of someone who was perfectly content to exist without contributing to any ongoing conversation.

It was a good ten minutes before Zaeryn heard someone approaching from across the courtyard and looked up.

Leia was walking toward them with the direct, purposeful stride of someone who had already decided how this conversation was going to go before she arrived.

He watched her come without moving.

"You," she said, stopping in front of the bench and looking straight at him.

"Address me by my name, Leia." He looked up at her. "You know who I am."

Leia looked at him with the unimpressed, measured expression of someone who did not find him particularly funny. "We are starting the project today."

Zaeryn looked back at her calmly. He had been planning to train this afternoon. He had been thinking about it since the lecture ended, already mapping out what he wanted to work on. A full session, uninterrupted.

Zaeryn had training this afternoon and wasn’t interested in giving it up.

"Today doesn’t work for me," he said. "We can sort out a time later this week."

"Today works fine," Leia said, as if the question of whether it worked for him was not really part of the conversation.

"I have training." He said.

"We start today." She repeated, and it sounded like she was making a demand.

"My training schedule doesn’t reorganize itself around yours," Zaeryn said, keeping his voice even. "Later this week."

Leia held his gaze for a long moment.

She was unsettling, staring at him like this. Not threatening, exactly.

Something else. His pulse picked up without his permission and he couldn’t entirely tell whether that was the look itself or the fact that the look happened to be sitting on a face that was, objectively, very hard not to notice.

Zaeryn considered arguing further, then exhaled. "Fine. My place. Meet me outside after the last class."

"Tch."Leia’s expression shifted. "I am not going to your house. We’ll do it at my place. Meet me right here after your classes, and don’t be late."

Zaeryn raised an eyebrow at her. "You want me to come to your house instead? I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’ve spent the entire time you’ve known me making it very clear that you can’t stand me. I’m not going anywhere alone with someone who looked ready to flip a desk when she heard my name."

Genevieve laughed beside him, short and genuine. "You two are already getting along."

Leia looked at Genevieve, then back at Zaeryn. Her face remained cold and measured, but something colder moved behind her eyes.

She studied him for one long moment, then turned and walked away without saying anything.

Zaeryn watched her go, then settled back against the bench. Jyn had stopped talking to Genevieve during the exchange and was now watching Leia’s retreating figure with sharp, delighted attention.

She turned to look at him. "That’s your research partner for the rest of the term?"

"That’s her," Zaeryn said.

Jyn was quiet for a moment, pressing her lips together. "I’ll pray for you."

Almost an hour later, the sharp buzzer cut through the courtyard, signaling the end of the break.

Jyn, Ingrid and Genevieve gathered their data-slates, leaving the bench as the outdoor crowds re-entered the main academic blocks. Zaeryn and Jyn split from Genevieve and Ingrid, heading down the opposite corridor to endure their remaining required lectures for the day.

Hours dragged by under the weight of standard jurisprudence theory. When the final dismissal bell finally echoed through the halls, the relief in the classrooms was immediate.

Zaeryn grabbed his slate and shoved it into his pocket, stretching his shoulders. He was more than ready to get out of the building.

He had a solid afternoon planned. First, a mandatory training session with Arya. After that, solo drills. He had decided he was going to start pushing himself to the limit, because he needed his vitae abilities at their highest possible classes as soon as possible.

He stepped out into the crowded main concourse, matching the stride of the departing cadets heading toward the transit pad. He didn’t even make it three paces past the threshold before a familiar silhouette blocked his path.

Leia stood directly in front of him, her arms tightly crossed over her chest. Her eyes locked onto his face, her crimson braid resting sharply over her shoulder.

"Where do you think you’re going, anomaly?" she demanded, her voice cutting through the ambient chatter of the hallway. "We are supposed to be working on our project."

Zaeryn came to a halt, casually sliding his hands into his uniform pockets. He looked down at her, a lazy, unbothered smirk playing on his lips.

"I thought you gave up," he said dryly. "After all, you walked away earlier before we could actually agree on a location. Besides that, I have plans this afternoon. We should do this another time."

"No," Leia said. The refusal was unimpressed, immediate, and left no room for negotiation. Her eyes narrowed with familiar contempt. "We are going now, anomaly. I am not risking my academic standing just because a lazy parasite decides his social schedule is more important than senior research."

Zaeryn stared at her for a moment, weighing her sheer stubbornness against his plan to train. He could try to push past her, but the rigid set of her jaw told him that was not a good idea. Plus, a quiet reminder flickered in his mind: the system had flagged her as a high-value target with latent S-class ability potential. He had to deal with her eventually.

He let out a slow, resigned sigh and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Fine," he muttered, dropping the smirk. "Let’s get it over with."