Fang and Claw: Nocturne Academy, Book 2

by Anderson, Evangeline

  “I certainly hope so, Mr. Darkheart,” she retorted tartly. “All right, we’ll start at the beginning.” She looked at me. “Miss Fellows, how exactly did you become a Nocturne?”

  “Well, it was my fault,” I confessed. “But honestly, Headmistress, it was a big mistake…”

  I explained about letting Allegra bite me after she had nightmares at night and how I had never thought anything of it until I started feeling sick and not being able to eat human food.

  “And now the Breedloves have kicked me out and I’ll never see Allegra again!”

  My eyes filled with blood tears as I relived the awful pain of losing the little girl I loved so much. I had been pushing Allegra’s loss to the back of my mind for the past few weeks but now it all came flooding back again.

  “If you throw me out of Nocturne Academy, I have nowhere to go,” I told the Headmistress in broken tones. “Please, don’t throw me out, Headmistress—or send me to one of those awful colonies for Made Vampires!”

  “It’s all right, L’lorna,” Ari murmured, putting an arm around me and offering me another one of those beautifully monogrammed handkerchiefs he carried around. “You’ll always have a home with me, I swear it. And no one will send you anywhere you don’t want to go.”

  “That is another matter we need to discuss,” the Headmistress said, frowning at him severely. “What were you thinking, Mr. Reyes, to mark a non-Drake female and claim her as yours? More to the point, what do you think your father, the Alpha Drake and ruler of the Sky Lands is going to think about it?”

  Ari lifted his chin defiantly.

  “I don’t care what my Sire says,” he growled. “My Drake chose Kaitlyn and my heart followed his. I cannot help who I love—and I wouldn’t even if I could! Kaitlyn is the one I want and my Sire will have to deal with it.”

  “He most certainly will,” Headmistress Nightworthy said grimly. “Your marking of Kaitlyn sent a surge of power through all of the Other spheres—including the Sky Lands. Your father has already sent me a message, asking that you return home at once.”

  “At once as in right now?” Avery asked, before Ari or I could say anything. “Because you do realize, Headmistress Nightworthy, that Ari is Kaitlyn’s only source of nourishment. If he leaves, she’ll starve, er, thirst to death.”

  “No, I did not realize that.” The Headmistress turned her ice-cold blue eyes on me. “Why, may I ask, Miss Fellows, are you not drinking bagged blood as most Nocturnes do?”

  “Because she cannot,” Griffin said calmly. “Her system rejects it on contact.”

  “He’s right,” Emma put in. “The minute it goes down, it comes right back up again. Have you ever seem someone vomit blood?” She made a face. “It’s pretty gross.”

  “Being a Nocturne myself, I have beheld such things, Miss Plunkett,” the Headmistress said dryly. “However,” she continued, turning to Ari. “Your father has requested that you come home alone. So I am afraid Kaitlyn will have to stay here and we will have to find her some other, er, donor.”

  “Headmistress, as you are a Nocturne yourself, you know very well that allowing one you have marked to take the vein of another goes against every instinct,” Griffin said, frowning. “You might as well tell a man his wife will have to sleep with another male while he is gone.”

  “That, Mr. Darkheart, is a rather melodramatic analogy, don’t you think?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “I don’t!” Ari exclaimed. “Dios, Headmistress, do you really think I’ll go back to the Sky Lands and leave my avowed L’lorna behind when she is in mortal danger every moment she is here without me? And before you accuse me of being melodramatic also,” he went on, “I am not only speaking of Kaitlyn’s need for my blood. I’m talking about the way the fucking Guardian tried to eat her—and wants to eat her still!”

  The Headmistress’s lips thinned down to a white line.

  “Mr. Reyes, kindly watch your language while you are in my presence! And what in the world do you mean the Guardian tried to eat Miss Fellows?”

  “He means exactly what he says, Headmistress,” Megan said. “Not long after you left for your conference, Kaitlyn fell in the lake around the castle—well, she was actually shoved in by some idiots who were roughhousing—and the Guardian tried to eat her.”

  The Headmistress frowned skeptically.

  “Maybe it looked like he was about to eat her, but the Guardian does not have an appetite for either human or Other flesh.”

  “No.” Ari shook his head. “He was going to eat her—of that I am positive.”

  “Oh? And how can you be sure of that, Mr. Reyes?” the Headmistress demanded.

  “I know because he told me,” Ari growled. “Or rather, he told my Drake when I changed forms to rescue Kaitlyn.”

  Headmistress Nightworthy’s eyebrows shot up.

  “You changed to your Drake again? When I expressly forbid you not to, Mr. Reyes?”

  “I had no choice,” he said shortly. “If I had not, Kaitlyn wouldn’t be standing in front of you today.”

  “He’s right!” Megan exclaimed, defending Ari. “We all saw it—the Guardian opened its mouth and tried to eat Kaitlyn!”

  All my Coven-mates nodded and Headmistress Nightworthy sighed.

  “All right, Mr. Reyes—what exactly did the Guardian tell you—or rather, tell your Drake when you rescued Miss Fellows?”

  “He said that he wasn’t usually attracted to anything but fish flesh but that Kaitlyn smelled so delectable that he had been unable to help himself,” Ari told her. “He further said that he couldn’t promise not to eat her in the future.”

  “What?” I cried. “You never told me that!”

  “Dios, Kaitlyn!” He spared me a quick, apologetic glance. “I didn’t want to frighten you.”

  “Well, what exactly did he say?” I asked, thinking of how huge the Guardian’s crocodilian jaws were and how sharp his teeth looked.

  Ari raked a hand through his hair.

  “He said he couldn’t promise not to eat you, especially if you were covered in the ‘delicious spice’ again.” He shrugged and looked at the Headmistress. “I have no idea what he meant by that—I assumed what drew him was Kaitlyn’s new scent as she was in the process of turning into a Nocturne at that time.”

  “No—that wasn’t it at all!” Megan said. “I know what he meant by the ‘delicious spice.’ Kaitlyn, don’t you remember?” She turned to me, but I was reeling from the news that the Guardian apparently still wanted to eat me.

  “Um…what?” I asked, feeling slightly nauseous.

  “The spice! Remember—the paprika-looking stuff that Nancy ‘accidentally’ spilled all over you in Home Ec that same day you got knocked into the lake and the Guardian went for you?”

  Her words jogged my memory. So much had happened between the fateful day I had become a Nocturne and now, that I had almost forgotten what had seemed like simply a minor cruelty at the time—par for the course for Nasty Nancy and her friends.

  “Do you mean the same magical MSG stuff they put on that shepherd’s pie-type casserole?” Emma asked, frowning. “The stuff that tasted so good I couldn’t stop eating it and I was sick all night?”

  “Yes, exactly!” Megan exclaimed excitedly. “It must be the same spice—it makes anything smell and taste so delicious, you can’t help eating it even if you know you shouldn’t. Nancy and the Weird Sisters were testing it out on the casserole and when they saw how well it worked, Nancy ‘spilled’ a bunch of it all over Kaitlyn and got someone to knock her in the lake!”

  “Not just ‘someone’ Ari said grimly. “She was speaking to two of my countrymen—two other Drakes earlier that day. They were the ones who pushed Kaitlyn into the lake. I saw everything from the West Tower before I dived down in Drake form to save her.”

  Headmistress Nightworthy looked like she wanted to give herself a big, fat face-palm.

  “And once again, Nancy Rattcliff is involved,” she muttered. “Why am I not
surprised? And why, oh, why did I ever swear that oath to her mother never to expel her? That girl will be the death of me!”

  “I’m sorry, Headmistress Nightworthy, but trying to get Kaitlyn eaten by the Guardian isn’t the only way Nancy is involved in all this,” Megan informed her. “She was also the one who sent you and everyone else those ‘happy-gram’ bubbles.”

  “Which were not showing true images,” I put in anxiously.

  “And nearly caused a riot,” Griffin pointed out. “In fact, one could make a case that Ari had no choice but to claim Kaitlyn as his fated-mate in order to protect her from the fury of both the Drakes and the Nocturnes.”

  “I’m sure one could, Mr. Darkheart,” the Headmistress snapped. “But I’m in no mood to have such a case put before me right now. Ari is supposed to go and Kaitlyn is supposed to stay.”

  The fact that the nearly unflappable Headmistress had slipped and called Ari and me by our first names let me know exactly how upset she was. I felt sorry for her, but also scared for myself.

  “Why should Kaitlyn stay?” Ari demanded. “To get eaten by the Guardian? To be starved to death with no blood to drink? Or perhaps you’d like to let that vrota, Nancy have another chance at killing her some other way?”

  The Headmistress’s eyes narrowed and she drew herself up and looked at Ari.

  “I’m sorry you are worried about Miss Fellows, Mr. Reyes,” she said in icy tones. “But may I remind you that the safety of the students in this school is my purview, not yours? Now that I know Nancy Rattcliff is involved, I will take extra measure to make certain Miss Fellows is safe. And I will find her someone else to drink from while you are gone to the Sky Lands.”

  Ari’s face grew dark with fury.

  “I do not want Kaitlyn taking any blood but mine! I don’t want to leave her alone here—she is mine!”

  “That will be quite enough of that, Mr. Reyes,” Headmistress Nightworthy said tartly. “You cannot own another student.”

  “You don’t understand!” Ari’s eyes were going from amber to gold with passion. “It isn’t only that I own her, it is that Kaitlyn owns me. She has my heart and the heart of my Drake. Once a male’s Drake settles on a mate, you cannot part them!”

  “Oh, yes I can,” the Headmistress said coolly. “You are excused, Mr. Reyes. Please return to the Sky Lands where your father is waiting for you. As for the rest of you…” She turned to survey the rest of my Coven-mates. “I’d like you all to stay here this weekend with Miss Fellows until I can make other security arrangements.” She looked at me. “Under no circumstances are you to leave Nocturne Academy, since that would involve crossing the lake, Miss Fellows. We will work this problem out in time, but for now, I want you to stay put.”

  “Yes, Headmistress,” we all said—all except Ari. He turned stormy eyes on Headmistress Nightworthy and then looked at me and I saw that his eyes had gone pure gold.

  “MINE,” he growled again in that deep, thunderous voice I knew belonged to his Drake.

  I couldn’t help myself, I flinched back at the intensity of his glare and the possessiveness in his voice.

  Ari said nothing at my swift movement, he only studied me as though memorizing my face, and then turned and stalked out of the Headmistress’s office.

  I watched him go and wondered if I would ever see him again.

  59

  Ari

  I was so angry I knew I had to leave. My Drake was too close to the surface and he, too, was angry—enraged, in fact, at the idea of our L’lorna being given to another in order to feed.

  “No one! She must touch no one else—feed from no one else!” he roared, so loudly my skull ached.

  “She won’t,” I promised, though I had no idea how to keep my word. “We won’t allow it—somehow we’ll stop it.”

  But how?

  I didn’t know but right then I knew that I was not going to leave Kaitlyn behind to the tender mercies of Nancy Rattcliff. That vrota had already tried to get her killed twice—once by the jaws of the Guardian and once by an angry mob.

  I had half a mind to let my Drake burn her to a crisp—that would have been the penalty for attempted murder of a male’s mate in the Sky Lands. But I knew things didn’t work the same here, in the human world.

  Reluctantly, I decided I would have to leave the punishment of Nancy Rattcliff to the Headmistress.

  But that didn’t mean I had to leave Kaitlyn to her as well.

  I felt my determination rising as I stalked down the stone hallway. I wasn’t sure how I would manage it but I swore to myself that my little L’lorna was coming with me…

  All the way to the Sky Lands and beyond.

  60

  Kaitlyn

  “Hey—you wanna talk about it?” Megan sat down on the battered old blue couch beside me and put a comforting arm around my shoulders. We were back in the Norm Dorm and I was trying to get myself together after the scene in the Headmistress’s office.

  “Hi Megan.” I looked up from my contemplation of the fire. “There’s nothing to talk about, really—he’s gone.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, hon.” Megan gave me a squeeze and I sighed and let myself lean against her.

  “You’re a good friend. I know all this messed up your weekend plans.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Megan said briskly. “Our only plans were to cook and eat dinner with Aunt Delli. She was going to teach Griffin how to make her famous goulash.”

  “So you see, I must thank you for keeping us here,” Griffin remarked, coming to sit on the other side of Megan. “Otherwise I would be cooking human food at this very moment.” He made a face and I had to laugh.

  “All right now, you brought this on yourself, you know,” Megan remarked, looking at him pointedly. “You’re the one who said human food was like eating dirt or sand.” She looked at me. “I told my Aunt Delli he’d said that and she was horrified. She wanted to know how in the world he was going to cook for our children if we ever have any.”

  “Um, can you have kids, though?” I asked. “I thought it wasn’t certain when you mixed two kinds of Other.”

  Megan shrugged. “I’ve been doing research and it’s not certain one way or another. But if we can’t have them the regular way, we’ll adopt. There are lots of Other orphans that need homes.”

  “And if the children we either have or adopt are of the human-type variety—that is to say if they eat food instead of drinking blood—I must be able to cook for them, apparently,” Griffin said dryly.

  “Yes, you must,” Megan said. “Because I am not going to be doing all the housework and cooking and cleaning by myself. We’re splitting the chores fifty/fifty.”

  “I don’t really mind,” Griffin remarked. “I am well content to do the dishes and vacuum, or whatever else you desire me to do.” He shrugged. “I just don’t think I’ll be a very good cook, since human food doesn’t taste like anything to me.”

  The sight of the two of them getting so domestic tugged at my heart. Would I ever have that kind of love with anyone? The kind where we talked about having kids and who’s turn it was to do the dishes?

  “Aren’t you two getting a bit ahead of yourselves?” Avery said. His voice came from above us and I looked up to see him standing on the spiral staircase that led down into the Norm Dorm. “I mean, you’ve still got a few more years before you set up house together,” he said.

  “I believe in being prepared,” Megan said crisply. “Did Emma get off, all right?”

  “She’s fine. I took her to work at the I Scream and drove straight back here, as per the Headmistress’s orders,” Avery said. Headmistress Nightworthy had relaxed her order that our entire Coven had to stay in that weekend when Emma explained to her about needing to work.

  I knew that when she missed a shift, her little family—which consisted of only Emma and her mom—suffered for it. They were barely scraping by as it was. If some unknown benefactor hadn’t been paying for Emma’s tuition, she never would have been
able to afford the outrageous cost to come to Nocturne Academy.

  “Well, why are you hovering up there, Avery? Come down and join us,” Megan said, motioning for him.

  “So I can join in your discussion of impending domestic bliss when I’m not likely to ever have any of my own?” Avery made a face. “I don’t think so. Besides, I have someone here who needs to speak to Kaitlyn.”

  “Who?” My head jerked up and my heart started pounding.

  “Who do you think?” Avery grinned at me and then called up, “It’s all right—come down.”

  My heart seemed to catch in my throat as the trap door at the top of the spiral staircase opened and Ari came into sight. He nodded at Avery.

  “Thank you for granting me entry.”

  “Of course—mi casa es su casa.” Avery made a sweeping gesture of welcome with one hand. “Come on in.”

  “Avery, you know he’s not supposed to be here!” Megan’s eyes were wide. “We’re in direct violation of the Headmistress’s orders—we could all be expelled!”

  “Or we could keep our mouths shut and let Ari talk to Kaitlyn,” Avery said waspishly. “Since when are you so set on following the rules, Miss Edict-breaker?”

  “Oh, all right.” Megan sighed. “I just don’t want us to get into any more trouble than we’re already in.”

  I was aware my Coven-mates were speaking, but their conversation was just background noise to me. I only had eyes for Ari as he came down the spiral staircase and came to stand in front of me.

  “Please…” He looked at Megan and Griffin and Avery. “Could I have a moment alone to speak to Kaitlyn? What I have to say is for her ears alone.”

  I saw the disappointment in Avery’s eyes—he loves juicy details—but they all nodded.

  “Of course,” Griffin said diplomatically. “We can retire to another room and I will beat Avery at cards. Again.”