| Italics are lines from the book

English Class
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Jesper's POV

Jesper, Wylan and nina were all in English class, their teacher reading out the novel, shadow and bone the first book. They were on chapter 5 and their teacher's voice had said so many words that it lulled most of the children into a dreamless sleep. When the teacher noticed this, he stopped reading, stopping the lullaby spell.

"since none of you are listening, I'll choose students to read for me." Jesper looked at Wylan who was sinking further and further below his seat. "Wylan." Jesper freezes, "can you read the first paragraph of chapter 5?" jesper, being so close to Wylan, he muttered the page number, "65" jesper saw Wylan stop on the correct page and jesper starting muttering the paragraph out to him, just audible for Wylan to hear.

Wylan spoke in a much louder voice, "The next few days passed in a blur of discomfort and exhaustion. We stayed off the Vy and kept to side roads and narrow hunting trails, moving quickly as the hilly and sometimes treacherous terrain would allow. I lost all sense of where we were or how far we had gone." Wylan finished the first paragraph with jesper's help. He smiled at the Zemeni who gave him jesper's signature seductive smile, making Wylan turn as red as a tomato.

"Thank you," Wylan muttered in jesper's ear. "all good" he mutters back. "Well done Wylan for reading that paragraph! Who would like to go next?" Mr Brown asks. Nina puts her hand up and reads the second paragraph.

"After the first day, the Darkling and I had ridden separately, but I found that I was always aware of where he was in the column of riders. He didn't say a word to me, and as the hours and days wore on, I start to worry that I'd somehow offended him. (Though, given how little we'd spoken, I wasn't sure how I could have managed it). Occasionally, I caught him looking at me, his eyes cool and unreadable." Nina finishes. Jesper had read this book at least a million times but to hear Wylan retell some of it with his help made jesper's heart glow.

Of course nina did do a good job, but then again, she can read. And jesper wasn't being rude to Wylan when he thought that, of course not. "you okay jes?" Wylan whisper in my ear as someone else reads more of chapter 5. Jesper nods quickly and notices Wylan still looking at him worriedly. "Don't worry, I'm fine." He puts his hand on wylans, half expecting Wylan to take his hand away, but instead he turns his hand over to entwine his fingers with jespers, interlocking their hands together.

This time the Zemeni blushes, smiling at Wylan. When jesper first met him he didn't know if he could trust him. But as he got to know him, that quickly changed. Whats more is when he saw what van eck did to Wylan, jesper's made it his personal mission to hide Wylan away from bad stuff like van eck.

But to do that, he first has to tell Wylan how he really feels.

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526 words.