Pride x Familiar Read Online Free PDF Page A

the end, I missed my chance to tell him.
    When I calmed down and thought about our
circumstances, I realized that maybe Caelum was right.
    It hurt like Hell to say goodbye, but he’d given
me the clean break I would need in order to start again as an
Aventis.
    To start my new life as a member of the Avenir
Pride.
    But regardless of the reasons, the end result
was a hollow shell.
    Me.
    I spent time with my new friends.
    I spent time with a boy every now and then, and
joined my new girlfriends on double dates.
    A met a special boy, and little by little he
began filling the emptiness that consumed my heart.
    And then something happened – something I never
dreamt of coming true.
    I saw Caelum again.
    And he threw my world into a spin.
    #
    (Haruka)
    He stood at the front of the class room.
    As a transfer student it was required that he
introduce himself.
    I felt my heart beating so loudly I thought my
classmates would hear it too.
    But they were all eyeing him warily, and I
quickly understood why.
    I looked at him, studying what I could see of
him.
    He looked a little taller, and he stood a little
straighter.
    He’d lost some of the fat on his cheeks and the
uniform hung well on his body.
    His black hair was thick and neatly combed.
    He looked older.
    He looked…harder, as though he’d acquired an
edge he lacked before.
    I was starting to understand this wasn’t the
Caelum Desanto I had known for so many years.
    This wasn’t the Caelum that I held in my arms
when he cried at his parent’s funeral.
    We weren’t children anymore, and that was more
than evident in the aura I perceived emanating from him.
    It was an aura that quietly, confidently
challenged the classroom.
    He spoke his name, enunciating it with
precision.
    He greeted the classroom, the teacher, afforded
the usual pleasantries and stated his hopes for a productive
year.
    I listened to him, yet like all the students in
the class, my eyes were inexorably drawn to the left breast of his
uniform’s blazer. Since becoming an Aventis, my eyesight had grown
preternaturally sharp, and I saw the reason my classmates were wary
of him.
    Two badges pinned side by side.
    One held the crest of the Pride he was
associated with – the Lanfear Pride.
    The second marked him as a Familiar – neither
Aventis nor Regular human, but something that lay in between.
    Yes, it was clear now. This was not the Caelum I
remembered.
    He was not the Regular young man I’d left behind
seven months ago on that school rooftop.
    Caelum Desanto afil Lanfear.
    That was his official name now.
    I swallowed again, wondering if it was stomach
acid I tasted in the back of my mouth. Or was it bile? As I
swallowed, I turned my head to look at another member of my
class.
    She sat at the back of the room, her long raven
dark hair framing her heart shaped face. She sat with a perfect
posture, as though raised from an early age with all the teachings
of a child born into a privileged family. Yet as far as anyone knew
she was an orphan of the state.
    An orphan of Pharos just like Caelum.
    I watched him walk down an aisle of smart desks
and seated students.
    He walked to the girl at the back of the room,
and sat at the empty table on her left.
    There were a number of empty tables around
her.
    For as long as I’d been a part of the class – a
mere six months – she had always been alone. She had sat alone,
eaten alone, studied alone, and played gym activities alone.
    But now she was no longer alone.
    She had Caelum sitting to her left.
    I watched him nod to her politely, and she
returned it with a faint smile.
    They wore matching badges on their blazers.
    My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an
iron fist.
    He had swept his gaze over all my classmates. He
had surely seen me seated by the window, a third of the way down
the length of the classroom.
    And yet, he had walked down the aisle between
the smart desks with his eyes focused solely on one individual –
the girl that was a Familiar just like