Fang and Claw: Nocturne Academy, Book 2

by Anderson, Evangeline

  “Oh!” Megan exclaimed, and looked at Griffin with starry eyes. “I see now. He feels for Kaitlyn the way you feel for me!”

  “And the way you feel for me, my Witch Queen,” he murmured, smiling back at her. “I’m going to want to bite you tonight, and drink your sweet blood, you know.”

  “That’s fine,” Megan whispered. “I want you to.”

  “You two should get a room,” Avery said, but he didn’t sound exasperated as he usually did when he gave that advice. “This is amazing,” he murmured to himself, looking from me to the Drake and back again. “It’s just…unbelievable.”

  “I believe it,” Emma whispered and when I looked at her, I saw there were tears glimmering in her eyes. “It’s beautiful. Oh, Kaitlyn—you’re so lucky!”

  Up until that moment, “lucky” was the last word I would have used to describe myself. After all, I had lost not one family but two, and I had been turned into a substandard Nocturne by accident, not to mention being scarred all over my body by The Fire that stole my parents. And yet now, basking in the glow of my Drake’s love, I did indeed feel like the luckiest girl alive.

  This is right, whispered a little voice in my head. This was meant to be.

  And I knew it was true.

  “Do you all believe now?” I asked, looking around. “Does anybody have any doubt that I need to go with him?”

  “No.” Megan shook her head. “We see it now, Kaitlyn. You have to go—you really are his fated-mate.”

  “That’s very clear,” Griffin said, nodding agreement.

  “The two of you belong together,” Emma admitted. “Or, I guess the three of you?” She frowned. “This is still kind of confusing.”

  “Yes, it is,” Avery agreed. He sighed. “But I can’t deny it either. You should go, Kaitlyn, although I have no idea how in the world we’re going to explain it to Headmistress Nightworthy.”

  “Just tell her I had to go,” I said simply. “And in fact, we should probably get going while it’s still dark.”

  The Drake agreed with that wholeheartedly. There was some distance to fly to get to the rift between our worlds, he informed me. And we needed to get started if we were going to make it there quickly with no human interference.

  “I have to go,” I told my Coven-mates again.

  “Not without a hug!” Avery exclaimed.

  “Group hug,” Megan said and put out her arms.

  Right there, standing beside the Drake’s massive head, we all huddled together and hugged. And once again, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. Yes, I had lost my Mom and Dad and little Allegra, but I still had people who loved me and I was so very grateful for that.

  At last I pulled back with tears in my eyes.

  “Thank you, guys,” I said, sniffing and trying not to cry. “Thank you for understanding. I’ll come back if I can, though I don’t know when.”

  “You may be coming back sooner than you think, depending on how Ari’s parents take the news,” Griffin said soberly.

  “I know,” I said, biting my lip. “But that can’t be helped.”

  Behind me, I felt the Drake telling me that it didn’t matter if Ari’s Sire liked me or not—it wouldn’t change his love for me. If we had to, we would come back here and live in some secluded spot in the mountains just so we could be together.

  I wasn’t sure about that, but I was sure that we weren’t going to be parted. There was just no way—not with the connection between us. You might as well try to part gold and silver after the two metals were already melted together—it just wasn’t going to happen.

  “Be careful,” Emma said, smiling at me through her tears.

  “We love you, Katydid,” Avery murmured.

  “Thank you. I love all of you, too,” I told them. Then I looked up at my Drake. “Okay—now how do I get on you?”

  The Drake advised that my friends should stand back because he was going to move. I relayed this message and my Coven-mates stepped back quickly and got to a safe distance. I took a few steps back myself and then the Drake uncurled himself, like giant cat.

  When he rose to his full height, I thought that he might be the size of one of those huge sauropods that had roamed the Earth millions of years before. But again, though he was as big as a dinosaur, he wasn’t built like one and didn’t move like one at all. He had flowing, graceful movements and when he held out one large taloned hand to me, I stepped into it with no fear at all and waited for the spear-like talons to close around me.

  “Wait!” Avery exclaimed, just as the talons were closing. He ran forward and pushed a bundle through the long claws. I grabbed it and saw that it was Ari’s clothing—his white shirt and uniform blazer and trousers. “Not that he doesn’t look spectacular naked,” he murmured, giving me a wink. “But things might get kind of awkward later on without these.”

  “Thank you!” I gripped the bundle of clothes to my chest and the Drake lifted me carefully to his massive back.

  It wasn’t like riding a horse. He put me just behind his neck, but it was much too thick at the base for me to straddle with my legs. Instead, I found a little hollow which seemed to be a dip between two of his immense vertebrae.

  I found that I fit perfectly into the hollow, which was as soft and warm as the rest of him. I curled into it comfortably, sitting cross-legged and waving from the immense height down to my Coven-mates below.

  The Drake asked if I was comfortable and secure and I told him that I was. He informed me that he was going to take off and that we would be flying quite high, but I shouldn’t worry because he wouldn’t let me fall. I could hold on to the ridge that ran along his backbone if I wanted to.

  The ridge he was talking about jutted up like the prow of a ship in front of the little hollow I was in. Leaning forward, I was able to throw my arms around it, noticing that the scales here were a bit harder, though still very warm to touch.

  Then, as Avery and Emma and Megan and Griffin called goodbyes to me, the enormous wings unfurled on either side of the Drake. He flapped them once, as though to make certain everything was in working order and I saw that my Coven-mates looked like people standing in the middle of a hurricane, with their wind and clothes whipping all over the place.

  This was the same sight I’d seen when the Drake had rescued me from the Guardian and then it had struck fear in me. Now, I simply waved again and then held on tight as he raised up into the air and we flew away into the jeweled night sky.

  I remember thinking I had no idea when or even if I would ever return but I had absolutely no regrets or doubts about what I was doing.

  None at all.

  65

  Kaitlyn

  The journey to the place where there was a tear between the human world and the Sky Lands took about an hour and a half. We were very high up, as the Drake had predicted, and it was quite cold if I stuck my head up. But if I huddled into the warm dip in his spine and covered myself with Ari’s shirt and blazer, I found I was quite warm and cozy. I rolled up his trousers and used them as a pillow under my head.

  Listening to the wind whipping by overhead and feeling the smooth working of the Drake’s enormous muscles as his wings beat the air in long, slow strokes, I felt calm and soothed. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until I heard his voice in my mind, informing me that we were almost to the rift.

  I poked my head up to look and saw a wide, shimmering patch in the sky ahead of us which looked big enough for several Drakes to fly through. Despite being so big, it was subtle—you had to look at it just right in order to see it and it was just kind of a sparkly spot in the sky. Avery had once described it as a portal, but the Drake called it “the rift” and explained that it was a tear in the fabric of reality that let Drakes cross back and forth from the human world to the Sky Lands.

  “Will it hurt to go through?” I asked him. The wind took my words but I was touching him, so he understood my message anyway.

  He told me it might tingle, but it wouldn’t hurt and th
at I shouldn’t fear for he would never let any harm come to me.

  Secure in his love and protectiveness, I watched with interest as we entered the rift, the Drake flying right through the middle of the huge sparkly patch.

  As he had said, I felt a tingling all over my skin as we passed through—all except the place on my back, where the scars had changed. There, I felt a strong burning sensation—almost like someone had set my skin on fire.

  I gasped and arched my back, reaching blindly to try and stop the pain, though of course I couldn’t reach my own back. What was wrong with me? What was going on?

  The Drake, who was attuned to my every action and emotion, snaked his long neck around and looked at me anxiously.

  “What is it, L’lorna? What pains you?” I heard his deep voice rumbling in my head. I was learning that he didn’t speak in words unless he felt very worried or very serious about something but I also felt the emotion that accompanied his question—concern and protectiveness for me which radiated through him like steam through a pipe.

  At that moment we passed completely through the rift and the burning pain stopped as suddenly as it had started. It didn’t fade away gradually—it was as though someone had cut the pain sensation cleanly with a knife. My back simply felt normal again.

  “It…it’s nothing,” I told the Drake, reaching out to stroke his nose, because he still had his head twisted around to look at me. “It hurt for a minute when we went through but it’s gone now. I feel fine—honestly.”

  The Drake nosed me very gently, in a concerned fashion and then finally seemed to accept that I was all right. He turned back around and his wing-beats became faster as we flew deeper into the Sky Lands.

  I didn’t understand what had happened with my back, but I put it down to the fact that I had passed from one world into another. Probably the tingling that the Drakes felt when they went back and forth had become a burning for me because I was neither a Drake, nor strictly a human anymore. I was a Made Nocturne—that must be why I’d had more of a reaction to entering the rift, right?

  It was the only explanation I could think of and since the pain was gone now, I decided to put it out of my head and concentrate on seeing as much as I could of the Sky Lands.

  I had been excited to see this new world—this new reality—but I was disappointed to note that I couldn’t see much of anything because it was so dark.

  After about thirty minutes of straining my eyes and trying to make out the landscape, I got drowsy again and curled back up in the hollow of the Drake’s neck to rest. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I had faith that everything would be all right because I knew he would take care of me.

  And knowing that, I drifted off to sleep.

  66

  Ari

  “So you were right,” I said silently to my Drake as he flapped onwards, his vast wings eating up the miles between the rift and my Sire’s palace. “You were right—Kaitlyn took to you at once—the moment she touched you.”

  My Drake rumbled agreement, and though he was gracious enough not to say, ‘I told you so,’ I definitely felt a touch of smugness in his mental tone.

  “Of course she took to me—she is our L’lorna,” he reminded me. “The moment she touched my skin, she felt our love for her.” He made it clear that he felt non-verbal communication—the pure exchange of emotion between himself and Kaitlyn—was much more effective in conveying our love than any silly human words that I might speak would be.

  Well, I couldn’t argue with him there, I admitted grudgingly. No matter how I tried to tell Kaitlyn that she was beautiful and that I cared for her, she still seemed to hold back from me. It was like she couldn’t believe me—couldn’t see herself the way I saw her, as beautiful and perfect.

  But when the Drake told her he loved her, she believed him at once.

  I couldn’t quite believe it, but I was actually almost jealous of my own Drake. Which was foolish in the extreme—it was like being jealous of myself—it didn’t make any sense. But I couldn’t shake the feeling, even though I knew it was ridiculous.

  My Drake felt my emotion and told me not to worry. Kaitlyn would feel the same love and affection for me that she felt for him by and by, he promised. But first, things had to change a bit.

  “What things?” I asked him.

  But strangely, he couldn’t seem to tell me. He only repeated that I should wait and be patient. Wasn’t Kaitlyn worth waiting for?

  “Of course she is,” I said. “What do you think I’ve been doing all these weeks if not waiting to bring her to me? To us?”

  Very well then, my Drake informed me. I would simply have to wait a little longer.

  And then he flew on into the night, towards my Sire’s palace and the reckoning that awaited us there.

  67

  Kaitlyn

  I dreamed of my childhood as I slept. Dreamed I was little again, my skin unscarred, my life simple and untouched by pain or loss. I was five or six and I was dozing in the back seat of the car.

  We were on a family vacation and Mom and Dad were up front. They were murmuring in low voices and I caught my name—Kaitlyn—as they did, spoken in tones of love and caring. My Mom was telling my Dad about some precocious thing I had done and Dad was shaking his head and saying, “That’s our Kaitlyn—she’s a handful,” with laughter in his voice. I saw the light of the dashboard reflecting off their beloved faces and knew that they would love me forever.

  Safe, I was safe with the people I loved and we were never going to be parted, I thought drowsily. We would be together forever and no one and nothing would ever separate us…

  Then I drifted deeper into sleep and knew no more.

  When I woke up, I was being held in someone’s arms. Someone big and muscular who smelled really good—slightly spicy and wild but also warm and comforting at the same time. His smell made me feel safe and protected. I curled closer to his broad, bare chest and sighed happily, my hand coming to rest over his heart which I could feel like a slow and measured pulse under my palm.

  Wait a minute though…his bare chest? And who did I know that I felt so comfortable with I could sleep in his arms?

  My eyes flew open and I saw Ari looking down at me. He was lying on his back and I…I was lying draped all over him, I realized in horror. Not that we hadn’t been close before—he always held me in his lap when he fed me his blood. But he usually had clothes on, at least. And now he appeared to be naked!

  Or was he? A quick look down showed that he did have trousers on—well that was a relief, anyway. But why was he bare from the waist up?

  Looking down at myself, I saw the reason. The night before I had put on his shirt and blazer to keep myself warm on the Drake’s back. I was wearing both of them still, though they were much too big for me.

  “I didn’t want you to be cold,” Ari told me, apparently reading my thoughts. Wait—could he read my thoughts like his Drake could? I didn’t think so—we didn’t seem to have the same connection that I had to his other half, for some reason. But maybe what I was thinking was plainly written on my face.

  When I thought that—thought about him reading my face—I realized that the protective sheaf of hair I always kept over the left side had been lifted and moved. Had Ari been staring at me while I slept—studying the scarred side of my face?

  Even though he had looked at me before and even kissed me there, the thought was still slightly horrifying. I smoothed my hair down quickly, hiding my scars as best I could and scooting away from him.

  This movement produced a rustling sound and I saw that we were lying under a giant tree that seemed to extend hundreds of feet into the air. Our bed was a pile of the most enormous leaves I had ever seen. Seriously, each one of them was as big as a twin-sized mattress and at least two inches thick. Piled all together, they made a cushy little nest. What was this place, anyway? And why was everything so big?

  “We’re in the Sky Lands,” Ari told me. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the lea
ves, though I thought his clear amber eyes were sad, maybe because I had scooted away from him so quickly. “We’re not far from my Sire’s palace but my Drake and I thought it would be best to stay here for the rest of the night so I could feed your thirst before we meet my parents.”

  “Oh, um…okay.” I wasn’t sure what else to say and I still felt shy of him. He looked so perfect, lying there in repose, half-naked and mouthwatering on the bed of enormous leaves. “When is your Drake coming back?” I blurted, before I thought about it. “Um, I mean, I really liked him.”

  Ari gave me a sad smile.

  “So I noticed. You seemed to believe at once that he cared for you, while the issue of my own affection and caring is still somehow in doubt.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I said uneasily. “I just don’t really…feel worthy of it.”

  “Because of the way I look?” He asked, seeing me staring at him.

  I shook my head and looked away.

  “No. Because of the way I look,” I admitted in a low voice. He could have had any girl in school and yet he had chosen me—I still didn’t fully understand why.

  Ari frowned. “Don’t you know by now, Kaitlyn, that outer looks don’t matter?”

  “I’ve heard they do to your people,” I challenged him. “I’ve heard Drakes don’t think a scarred or deformed woman is fit to be seen in public.”

  “Superficial fools,” Ari said shortly. “Cabrones. They know nothing of love and their Drakes’ wings fly barely above the ground.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant but I thought it was an insult.

  “You need to feed,” he told me, turning his head to one side, to expose a prominent vein in his neck. “I don’t want you to feel hungry or malnourished, especially when you meet my Sire and Mother.”

  My stomach twisted with hunger and my throat was as dry as a desert but I stayed where I was.