Fang and Claw: Nocturne Academy, Book 2

by Anderson, Evangeline

  “I…” I bit my lip. “I don’t know what to say,” I whispered at last.

  “Say nothing until you are ready. It’s time we got to the Dining Hall,” Ari murmured.

  “All right.” I got off his lap and straightened my hair. “I’ll go first to avoid any, er, suspicion.”

  This had been our usual way—arriving and leaving the Drake’s Den separately. But to my surprise, Ari frowned and shook his head.

  “No, I will be escorting you to classes and everywhere else in the castle from now on,” he said firmly. “If that vrota Nancy Rattcliff thinks she can hurt or threaten you, she can think again.” His frown deepened. “If she wasn’t a female…” But he left the thought unfinished, shaking his head.

  “But…but everyone will talk,” I protested. “I mean, even more than they’re already talking!”

  “Let them,” Ari growled. “I don’t care who knows you’re mine.”

  And with that, he pulled me out the door and we walked down the hall together.

  51

  Ari

  Finally, I had claimed Kaitlyn and named her as mine. I felt a surge of triumph at the thought. Holding her in my lap and giving her my blood had been so sweet for the past week or so but something had been missing—and that something was my naming her for what she was to me—my L’lorna.

  I hadn’t been certain she would let me kiss her but she had—and she had kissed me back—the sweetest kiss I’d ever had. Even now I could still taste her sweet lips on mine and feel the way she had melted against me so trustingly. Oh yes, she was my L’lorna and now that we were together, no one would ever be able to separate us.

  Something is still missing, whispered a little voice in my head. She has yet to meet your Drake.

  The thought gave me pause. I knew Kaitlyn was still unsure about my other half and I wasn’t sure what would happen when they finally met. I sensed resistance to the idea in her —she feared his fire, perhaps. And who could blame her, considering the way her parents had died and how badly she’d been burned?

  But there would be time to think about that later, I told myself. For now, she was mine and even if my Drake did growl and spread his wings, protesting that she ought to be his too, well, I could put off their meeting for a little while longer.

  Or so I thought.

  52

  Kaitlyn

  “Well, are you two a couple now, or what?” Avery inquired, the next day at dinner when Ari dropped me off at my table and then went to sit with the Drakes. I had the feeling that he would have liked to sit with us, but was waiting for me to extend the invitation.

  I wanted to extend it—I swear I did. But there was still some uncertainty left in me—still just a little bit of doubt. It wasn’t because of Ari himself, I didn’t think. Though it seemed like a miracle, the big Drake seemed to truly care for me. Every time I remembered the gentle way he’d kissed my scars, my stomach started to flutter. He had been so kind…so sweet.

  But Ari wasn’t the only one to consider—there was also his Drake.

  I remembered it looking out at me from his eyes when they went pure gold, remembered the almost hungry feeling I got from it when I sensed it in the Drake’s Den with us. It wanted me—wanted me badly.

  I just didn’t know why.

  “I’m…not quite sure,” I said in a low voice, in answer to Avery’s question. “I mean, he seems to really care for me. He calls me his, uh, his L’lorna, anyway.”

  “His what?” Megan asked, frowning. She and Griffin were seated across from me as usual while Emma was on my right side and Avery was at the head of the table.

  Speaking of Avery, it was clear he knew exactly what the term meant.

  “Oh my Goddess, did he?” he cried, his eyes going wide with excitement.

  “Yes, he did.” I couldn’t help smiling at his expression of rapture. Avery is such a hopeless romantic, he’ll lecture you on the proper structure of the classical Rom-Com or debate Darcy versus Bingley all night, if you let him. And he’s always cheering his friends’ romances on—I just hoped that one day he would get one of his own.

  “What? What does yuh-lorne-ahh mean?” Emma asked, wide-eyed.

  “It means beloved or dear little one,” Griffin answered, surprising me. “It is what Drake males often call their fated-mates.”

  I looked at the tall Nocturne in surprise.

  “How did you know that?”

  He shrugged. “Fifteen years of exile—I had plenty of time to read.”

  “Oh, okay.” I nodded.

  “So that’s really what it means? He’s basically claimed you as his fated-mate?” Megan asked. “Oh Kaitlyn, I knew you two were going to get together!”

  “Perhaps you should hold your congratulations for a time,” Griffin said quietly, studying my face. “I do not believe anyone has asked Kaitlyn how she feels about being claimed.”

  “I…don’t know, honestly,” I admitted in a low tone. “I mean, Ari is wonderful. But, well, he’s not the only one I have to consider. He kind of comes with a lot of baggage.”

  “If you mean his Drake, you’re going to have to get over that,” Avery told me. “You can’t separate a Drake from his Drake—it’s just not possible. They’re a package deal.”

  “I know that!” I said, frowning. “I never said I wanted to separate them. It’s just, well, that thing living inside him is huge. It picked me up with one hand or claw or whatever you want to call it. And Ari says it wants to meet me.”

  “That would be a non-negotiable part of being bonded to a Drake,” Griffin said dryly. “Otherwise it would be like having a three-way marriage and attempting to exclude one of the partners.”

  “Well maybe I don’t want to be in a three-way marriage!” I exclaimed. “Especially not with a fire-breathing dragon!”

  “That’s the problem, right there,” Emma said. “It’s the fire-breathing part, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I hung my head, feeling like a coward. But was it really cowardly to not want to meet a creature bigger than a T-rex who had razor sharp teeth, foot-long talons, and could breathe fire?

  Yes it is, whispered a scolding little voice in my head. And you’re going to have to face your fear sooner or later, Kaitlyn. You heard what Avery said—you can’t have one without the other.

  I probably can’t have Ari anyway, I thought with a little sigh. There was no way his parents—if they really were the rulers of the Drake people—were going to want a human-turned-Nocturne as a daughter-in-law.

  And of course, I was only sixteen, which is way too early to be thinking about marriage anyway. Probably Ari would get tired of me after a while and move on. Though who I would get blood from at that point, I didn’t know. But really—

  My pessimistic thoughts were interrupted by a shimmering soap bubble, about three feet in diameter, which had suddenly come drifting over to hover right above our table. It was about as big as one of those large exercise balls you see in gyms and its surface was a shifting rainbow of swirling colors.

  “What in the world?” Emma muttered, staring up at it.

  “Where did it come from?” Megan asked. “And how is it not popping? It’s huge!”

  “Hush,” Avery whispered. “It’s magic, can’t you tell? It’s a ‘happy-gram’— I haven’t seen one since I was a little kid.”

  “A what?” I asked, frowning.

  “A happy-gram. It’s a really childish, beginner spell you teach to magically precocious kids to keep them busy—you can send little pieces of news or pretty pictures to give somebody a smile. That’s why it’s called a happy-gram,” he explained. “I used to send hundreds of these things—my poor mom was bombarded with them.” He looked around. “I wonder who could have sent it? It has to be one of the Sisters.”

  “And look—every table has one.” Emma pointed to the four long tables at the head of the Dining Hall where the Drakes, the Faes, the Sisters, and the Nocturnes were seated. Almost every one of them was staring at the giant-sized so
ap bubbles that had suddenly come out of nowhere to hover in the air over their tables.

  “Didn’t you say they showed pictures, Avery? I think it’s beginning to show one now.” Megan leaned forward excitedly. In fact, we all did, wondering what would come next.

  But as the shimmering, rainbow surface of the happy-gram soap bubble cleared, what I saw made my stomach clench and my cheeks heat with shame.

  Oh, no, I thought, feeling sick. Oh please, no!

  53

  Kaitlyn

  Drifting on the soap bubble’s surface wasn’t a rainbow or a unicorn or a happy little meme to brighten anyone’s day. What I saw was an image of me—well, me and Ari. I was curled in the big Drake’s lap and he was baring his throat for me.

  “Drink from me, L’lorna,” he said and the sound of his voice coming from the bubble was faint but audible. “I don’t care that you’re a Nocturne and I am a Drake. The Edict is dead to me—you are the one that I want. The only one, forever.”

  I tried to remember if Ari had really said those exact words. I was usually so dizzy with the feelings I got when I took blood from him, it was hard to think clearly. Still, though I couldn’t be sure, I thought this didn’t seem quite right.

  “But your people will never accept me,” I protested—or my imagine in the soap bubble did. “And I’m a Made Vampire—no one will want me—not even the Nocturnes.”

  “Mierda! I don’t fucking care what my people say!” Ari exclaimed in the bubble. “The Drakes and the Nocturnes can all go fuck themselves, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care if the whole world burns to ashes as long as I can have you, my sweet L’lorna.”

  And then the bubble Ari kissed the bubble me passionately, taking my mouth in a way that was much more aggressive than the butterfly-sweet kisses he’d actually given me in the Drake’s Den.

  But it got worse.

  To my acute chagrin, I saw that the bubble me was giving as good as she was getting. She was climbing all over Ari and rubbing against him shamelessly in a way that made me blush just to watch it.

  “Oh my Goddess, Kaitlyn,” Avery murmured to me. “Is that really what you two have been getting up to in the Drake’s Den?”

  “No, it’s not!” I exclaimed. “Ari never said all those things to me! Well, he said some of them but not that way, exactly. And we never, uh, crawled all over each other like that!”

  But in the happy-gram soap bubble, we were still going for it. I couldn’t help thinking that with all the making out and melodrama, this soap bubble reminded me of the telenovelas one of my childhood friend’s grandma liked to watch. This was before The Fire, of course. I would go over to my friend’s house and her grandma would always shoo us out of the room if there was what we called a “kissing scene” going on, but I still remembered the over-the-top theatrics involved.

  Unfortunately, there was nobody to shoo me—or anyone else watching the happy-gram bubbles—from the room now. Every eye in the Dining Hall was glued to the shiny rainbow surfaces floating above our heads.

  Just as I thought I was going to sink down into the ground from pure mortification, the bubble Ari broke the kiss long enough to announce,

  “You will always be my L’lorna, Kaitlyn Fellows, and no one will tear us apart. Not the Headmistress, or my parents, or any of my people. You will rule by my side as my queen when I take the throne of the Sky Lands and no one can stop me from having you!”

  After this dramatic statement, the scene froze on a picture of me staring adoringly up at Ari. I was hoping the shimmering bubble would pop, but the “happy-gram” wasn’t done yet.

  As the scene of Ari with me in his lap remained frozen in place, a familiar female voice that seemed to be coming from off camera (off-bubble?) announced, “So many questions and so few answers! How did the horribly scarred human girl, Kaitlyn Fellows, become a Made Nocturne? And why did the prince of the Drakes, Ari Reyes agree to feed her with his own blood? Will his people hate him now that he has announced his decision to make this little freak their queen? And will the Nocturnes turn against her too, knowing what a disgusting mutant she is? Only time will tell…”

  And then the voice faded and the scene froze again, this time on an especially mortifying shot of Ari kissing me. Only kissing is perhaps too weak a word—in this case, it looked like he was trying to perform a tonsillectomy on me with his tongue.

  Gross.

  Not to mention utterly humiliating.

  For a moment, I couldn’t say anything. Then, seeing my Coven-mates eyeing me from around the table, I finally found my voice.

  “That’s not right,” I told them. “That’s not how it happened at all! We didn’t do those things—didn’t say those things!”

  “Well, you must have said and done at least some of them or whoever sent the happy-gram wouldn’t have had any material to work with to spin the rest of the fantasy images,” Avery remarked.

  “And I think we can guess who sent these ‘happy-grams’ can’t we?” Megan said grimly. She nodded at the doorway to the cafeteria where Nancy and her friends were standing with big, evil smirks on all their faces.

  “But how could she get those images of me in the first place?” I demanded, still mortified at the scene the bubble was showing. “I mean, we were in the Drake’s Den—nobody else is supposed to be able to get in there!”

  Avery frowned. “She would have had to have something that belonged to you to work a spying spell. Fingernail clippings or blood or—”

  “How about hair?” I said flatly.

  “Oh, yes—hair would work.” He nodded. Then he put a hand to his mouth. “Oh my Goddess—so that was why Nancy and her nasty crew tried to cut your hair!”

  Of course I had told my Coven-mates about Nancy’s attack on me with the big silver shears. They had unanimously wanted me to go to the Headmistress but since Headmistress Nightworthy was still out of town attending her Other Education Conference, it wasn’t a possibility. And besides, now that Ari was walking me to all my classes, I felt completely safe and protected.

  Guess I wasn’t quite as protected as I felt, I thought numbly, staring up at the bubble. I guess not every threat is physical.

  Nancy had certainly proved that to be true.

  “But how was she able to use spying magic on Kaitlyn in the first place?” Megan demanded. “I neutered her magic so she could only do nice or benign spells!”

  “She probably used a ‘look over’ spell,” Avery said. “It’s benign magic that parents can use on their kids—kind of like magical parental controls. And of course the happy-gram spell is a good spell too—though I’ve never exactly seen it used for this kind of purpose.”

  “Yeah—this was more like a gossip-gram,” Emma remarked.

  “Try a lying-gram!” I said. I felt sick. “Oh my God, I wonder what Ari is thinking about all this?”

  I looked up and saw the big Drake staring directly at me. Would he hate me now that our relationship had been splashed all over the school? Would he think that I was somehow responsible for all this? Oh God, I really hoped not! And what about the way the bubble had shown him saying that his people could all go screw themselves because he only loved me? He’d insulted the Nocturnes too—and now they all knew I was one of them. Well, sort of.

  That was two large groups of supernatural beings that were both going to be very, very unhappy with both Ari and myself.

  Crap—what were we going to do?

  As I had that thought, all of the huge soap bubbles burst all at once and sweet-smelling droplets rained down on everyone’s heads.

  Up until then, except for the muttering going on at our little table, the Dining Hall had been almost completely silent. I wasn’t sure if it was part of the happy-gram spell or that everyone was just so stunned they didn’t know what to say.

  However, when the bubbles burst, people started talking again—and from the looks they were throwing at me and Ari, none of them were happy with us.

  “Holy crap, Kaitlyn,” Av
ery muttered. “I think maybe you’d better get out of here. Do you see the way the Drakes are glaring at you?”

  “The Nocturnes do not appear to be feeling very friendly either,” Griffin said grimly. “A Made Vampire is considered by many to be an abomination—I am very much afraid they will want to hurt Kaitlyn in some way, simply for being what she is.”

  “Let’s go!” Megan hopped to her feet. We were across the vast flagstone floor from the carpet that camouflaged the entrance to the Dungeons, where the Norm Dorm was located. But if only we could run fast enough and get to it…

  Too late. An angry crowd of Drakes was already storming towards me. They were followed by some equally angry Nocturnes. All of them were shouting and pointing at me and there was disgust mixed with rage on their faces.

  Staring at them, I had the same feeling women accused of being witches must have had during the Middle Ages when the enraged crowd came to burn them at the stake. I was trapped—trapped with no where to run, nowhere to hide.

  Bravely, my Coven-mates stood to defend me. I saw Griffin bare his fangs and Avery was already whispering a spell under his breath. Megan had pulled out a long silver pin and was preparing to prick her finger, Even Emma who had no supernatural weapons to call on, was standing at my side, a defiant look on her face.

  But what could so few do against a mob, I wondered in despair?

  This was all my fault for believing that I could ever be good enough for Ari—for daring to aspire to a place higher than the one I deserved.

  Something was going to happen here—something bad—and I was going to be the cause of all of it.

  54

  Kaitlyn

  The mob of angry Drakes and Nocturnes was almost on us when Ari suddenly pushed through them and emerged at the head of the pack.