Fang and Claw: Nocturne Academy, Book 2

by Anderson, Evangeline

  “Please, Papa, let me go!” she begged with tears in her big, dark eyes. “I want to be healed as Kaitlyn has been and I want to see the human world.”

  “Well…” It was clear the Alpha Drake was reluctant to let his dear little daughter go so far away. But just then Saint stepped forward.

  “I will help Kaitlyn and Ari guard Jalli, Your Majesty,” he said. “For my boon is also to go to the human world and attend Nocturne Academy with my cousin and his friends.”

  “You want to go too, Saint?” The Alpha Drake was clearly mystified. “But you’ve always been such a loner—wanting nothing but to be alone in your Drake form.”

  “I want a great deal more than that, Your Majesty,” Saint said. “But considering the way I am considered bad luck, solitude is my only option here in the Sky Lands. Perhaps in the human world I might find a new way of life that suits me better.” He shot a sidelong glance at me. “And maybe…maybe I too may find some healing.”

  I wondered if he was talking about getting therapy or maybe trying medication or seeing if anyone at Nocturne Academy could break the curse on his Drake. Maybe all three.

  “We’d love to have you, Saint,” I said quietly. “You saved all our lives last night. I’d be dead or tied to that awful Pedro Sanchez if you hadn’t come back just when you did.”

  Saint smiled at me briefly.

  “I promised my cousin to guard his L’lorna. I was only keeping my word.”

  “And I will keep my word,” Ari’s father had announced. “Saint, you and Jalli may go to the human world and attend Nocturne Academy with Ari and Kaitlyn on the condition that you come back on the weekends sometimes, so we can make certain you’re well.”

  “Oh, thank you Papa—thank you!” Jalli had squealed, throwing her arms around her father’s neck and giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said, bowing again. “You won’t regret it. We’ll take good care of Jalli—I promise.”

  “See that you do.” Her father gave her one last hug and then set her carefully down. He watched as she hobbled away quickly to tell her mother the good news and shook his head. “If you really can heal her, maybe more of my people can come to the human world for other ailments.”

  “I think that would be a wonderful idea,” I said. But beside me I heard Saint mutter,

  “Not all ailments are of the body.”

  I shot him a swift glance.

  “We’ll do our best for you, too, Saint,” I promised.

  He nodded gravely.

  “Thank you, Kaitlyn. I know you will.”

  So it was with a happy heart that I watched the two newest students of Nocturne Academy come and take their place at our little table in the back of the Dining Hall.

  Jalli had already settled in and was sharing a bedroom with Megan and Emma and me.

  The Norm Dorm was plenty big enough that she could have had a room to herself, but she had admitted to me in a small voice that she was “still just a little afraid of the dark.” So we had moved another bed and wardrobe into our room and Jalli was as happy as could be, staying with the “older girls” even though she was only two years younger than me.

  Saint had been a little bit harder to find a spot for. The other Drakes, knowing his reputation, absolutely refused to have him in the West Tower. It had started to look like he was going to have to sleep on a couch in the administration office when Avery spoke up and invited him to share the boy’s dormitory room in the Norm Dorm.

  Saint had looked at him coolly, assessing my friend and Coven-mate until Avery’s cheeks had gone a little pink.

  “If you knew who I am and what I have done, you would not, perhaps, be so willing to have me sleep with you,” he remarked.

  “Uh, what?” Avery had gone bright red, his blue eyes raking over the tall, dark Drake. “Oh, you mean to sleep in my room. Of course, right,” he’d said quickly. “Well what’s so specially terrible about you, then?”

  “I am a Blood Drake,” Saint told him. “I have killed while in my Drake form. More than once.”

  “Well, it’s not your Drake form that’s going to be sleeping in the bed next to mine, now is it?” Avery asked tartly, recovering some of his poise. “So as long as you don’t plan on shifting shapes while you’re sharing my room, I think we’ll get along fine.”

  Saint had seemed surprised that Avery was willing to share a room with him, even after hearing what he truly was. He had bowed formally and thanked my Coven-mate, accepting his offer of a bed in the Norm Dorm.

  I couldn’t help secretly wondering how that particular arrangement was going to go. Avery was gay—completely out and proud—and most Drakes were known to be extremely homophobic, though thank goodness Ari didn’t fall into that category.

  But so far the two of them seemed to be getting along. They had even formed a tentative friendship and Avery was showing the dark Drake around to his classes and helping him get through the unfamiliar routine of the school day.

  So we were all happy and together again and we had new friends to be thankful for too. I felt I had regained almost everything I had lost.

  Though The Fire had taken my parents from me, it had given me wonderful friends, a Blood-Bonded mate I would love the rest of my life, and the ability to change into a magical being and soar among the clouds.

  Of course, you can’t play cards with peoples’ lives and say, “Oh, I’d trade this for that or his or her life for this or that ability or circumstance” but I felt less bereft now and I liked to think that my parents were looking down on me from the “Sky above the Sky Lands” as Ari’s people called it, and that they were happy that I was happy.

  My new friends and Coven-mates were all sitting around the table. Ari was beside me and I could feel his love through our Bond. Jalli was getting her surgery soon, and Mr. Seahorse was sitting on my shoulder, chiming happily and eating the occasional piece of rare roast beef that I fed him. There was only one thing I needed to make my happiness complete…

  And somehow Griffin seemed to know exactly what it was.

  “Kaitlyn,” he said, leaning across the table to speak to me in a low voice. “I hope you don’t mind, but I left campus last night and told Alexander Breedlove about your new, er, circumstances.”

  “Oh!” I put a hand to my heart. “You mean you told him I’m not a Made Nocturne anymore?”

  Griffin nodded. “We agreed that what had happened was all just a misunderstanding.” He hesitated. “I do not think that you will be welcome to stay at their home anymore, but he did at least agree that you can come and see Allegra on the weekends.” He grinned and nodded at my pet. “I do believe she will love your ‘Mr. Seahorse’ as you call him.”

  And now, at last, I felt like I was so happy my cup of joy couldn’t hold even one more drop.

  “Oh, Griffin!” I exclaimed, my eyes filling with tears—normal clear ones, not the blood ones anymore. “Oh, thank you! You really are the best Coven-mate a girl could ask for.” I leaned across the table and gave him a quick hug before swiping at my eyes.

  Griffin smiled at me as we both sat back down in our chairs again. Megan grinned and hooked her arm through Griffin’s. Clearly she had been in on the secret and was just as happy to see my reaction as he was.

  “I have the best friends!” I said, smiling a rather watery smile at everyone at the table.

  Everyone smiled back but I thought Emma’s smile looked a little forced.

  Avery noticed it too.

  “Hey, Emmers,” he said, reaching over to tap her on the arm. “Why so blue? What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing.” Emma sighed in a way that made it clear something absolutely was wrong.

  “Is it that Morganna Starchild being a bitch again?” Megan asked sympathetically.

  Morganna was the head of a clique of Fae girls who seemed to live to make other people miserable. Because she was so ordinary and nondescript, Emma usually flew under the radar of “mean girls” like her
, but lately the Fae bully had decided to make it her mission to “get” Emma and our Coven-mate had been miserable ever since.

  Emma made a face at the mention of Morganna’s name but didn’t say anything.

  “Uh-oh—I think that’s a definite yes,” Avery remarked. “What did she do this time?”

  “Ugh…” Emma sighed and put a hand to her head. “So she was wearing one of those living butterfly hair barrettes—you know the kind all the Fae girls have this semester?”

  We all nodded. The Fae girls had their own sense of fashion which tended to include a lot of living accessories—either animal or flower—depending on what kind of Fae they were. The butterflies they wore in their perfectly coiffed hair were be-spelled by fairy magic to perch perfectly still and just waved their wings occasionally like pretty living statues.

  I had sometimes wondered if the poor things ever got loose to go look for flowers in the hedges around the castle—I mean, how did they get enough to eat when they were sitting on some Fae girl’s head all day? But the welfare of their living ornaments didn’t seem to concern the Faes at all.

  “Right,” Emma said. “So she was wearing this Monarch Butterfly—a really big one—in her hair at breakfast and then in our third period trig class, I noticed it wasn’t there anymore.”

  “So where was it?” Megan asked, frowning.

  Emma sighed again.

  “That was what Morganna asked the teacher. She said someone had stolen it and made a fuss until Mrs. Foozle made everybody empty their book bags so Morganna could see it wasn’t there.”

  “Only I’m guessing it was there,” Avery said dryly.

  “It sure was—when I turned out my book bag, it fell right out.” Emma shook her head, looking miserable “I have no idea how it got there but it was crushed like somebody had stomped it flat, the poor thing! And of course Morganna pointed at me dramatically and said, ‘She stole it! She took my valuable living barrette! I demand that Emma Plunkett be sent to the Headmistress at once!”

  She made her voice snooty and bitchy, doing an excellent rendition of Morganna, which would have been funny if the circumstances were different.

  “Crap,” Avery muttered. “What a bitch!”

  “What did Foozle do?” Megan asked, referring to the Trigonometry teacher, who was almost as old as our ancient English teacher, Mrs. Wainright.

  “She listened to Morganna, of course—what else?” Emma said, her tone full of frustration. “She always listens to the Faes—I think she’s in awe of all their sparkly prettiness. So I got sent out of class—which was embarrassing enough— and wasted time going to the Headmistress’s office where I had to explain that I didn’t steal Morganna’s expensive live butterfly barrette and while all that was going on, I missed the trig test, which Foozle says I’ll have to make up ‘on my own time.’ Only I don’t have any spare time—I’m working every night this week. But if I don’t make up that test, I’ll fail trig and lose my scholarship,” she finished in a rush and put her head in her hands.

  “Oh man, Emmers—I’m sorry,” Avery said, reaching out to put an arm around her. He gave her a gentle squeeze before letting go. “Seriously, it sounds like Morganna Starchild is trying to give Nasty Nancy and her band of Merry Witches a run for their money.”

  “She’s a mean girl, all right,” Megan said grimly. “As for Nancy, she and her crew are on kitchen duty for the rest of the year and she’s been forbidden to do any magic at all outside of class. So at least that takes care of her.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that—Nancy Rattcliff had a way of being nasty no matter how you tried to stop her. But Morganna Starchild wasn’t far behind her in the mean girls department.

  “I hate Faes!” Emma burst out and I saw that her eyes were suspiciously bright. “I mean, I don’t hate all of them—I wouldn’t hate one that was nice,” she went on, swiping at her eyes with a napkin. “But none of them are nice! They’re all so stuck up and nasty, just because they’re prettier than everyone else.”

  Unfortunately, I had to agree with her there—most of the Fae who attended Nocturne Academy weren’t very kind. Avery always said they were too pretty to be nice which seemed to be true. The Fae were perfect themselves—at least to look at—and had no patience for anyone who wasn’t.

  Fae girls look like Instagram Influencers times ten with wide, almost-anime eyes, perfect bodies, and gorgeous poofs of pastel hair. And Fae guys are almost as pretty as the girls. As a result, regular humans look like toads compared to them—or at least, that’s what most of the Fae would have you believe from the way they shunned us. Or them, I supposed—I couldn’t really call myself human anymore, though I had been human long enough to sympathize with my friend.

  “I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time, Emma,” Megan said, reaching out to squeeze Emma’s arm. “I didn’t know your scholarship was dependent on your grades.”

  Emma’s tuition to Nocturne Academy was being paid by a mysterious third party who preferred to remain nameless and anonymous. We sometimes speculated on who it might be. My own guess was her absent father, who had abandoned her mother not long after Emma was born.

  “Well, it is dependent on my grades.” Emma sniffed again. “Whoever is paying for it told Headmistress Nightworthy that I had to make ‘top marks’ in order to keep getting the scholarship.” She sighed.

  “It’s too bad you don’t know who your mysterious benefactor is,” Avery remarked. “You could write him or her a letter and let them know what’s going on.”

  “You think they’d take ‘being bullied by fairies’ as a good excuse for failing trig?” Emma exclaimed. “Thanks, Avery, but I sort of doubt that.”

  “Well, we can come to the I-Scream diner and help you study,” Megan offered. “I’m awful at math myself but Griffin is a whiz at it.”

  “Ari is pretty good too,” I said, offering my Bond-mate as well.

  “Thanks guys.” Emma sighed. “But I think I’ll just try to go in to class an hour before breakfast and take it then. Foozle is an early riser and I’m sure I can catch her before the day starts.”

  That was going to make an awfully late night and early morning for poor Emma, I knew. But suggesting that she drop one of her shifts at the I Scream Diner to take the test, instead of doing it early after working half the night and almost no sleep, wasn’t an option. She and her mom had a crappy little apartment on the bad side of the little town of Frostproof, where Nocturne Academy was located, and Emma had confided to me that they were barely scraping by, even with her working as many shifts as she could at the diner.

  Saint, who had been sitting quietly and listening to us talk, spoke up.

  “I know I’m new and I haven’t been here long,” he said. “But just point this Morganna female out to me and I will tell her that she must leave you alone. If need be, I can bring out my Drake—he doesn’t like females,” he added, with a reddish gleam in his black eyes.

  “No, no, no!” Avery exclaimed, turning to him. “Slow your roll there, Tall Dark and Scary. You cannot let your Drake out on school grounds—not even to scare the Bitch Princess into submission.”

  Saint frowned. “I wouldn’t let him hurt her—I would only scare her a little.”

  “Avery is right, Cousin,” Ari said anxiously. “You really can’t let your Drake out while you’re here. It is strictly forbidden.”

  “Besides, Saint,” Jalli said softly. “You know how your Drake, uh, reacts to girls.”

  “He is only hostile to those who try to tame him,” Saint said. “But if allowing him to come out here is forbidden, then I am afraid I cannot help you,” he said to Emma.

  “Uh, thanks anyway.” She gave him a wan smile. “It was nice of you to offer.”

  “You’re welcome.” Saint nodded.

  “I’m really sorry she’s giving you so many problems, Emmers,” Avery said, turning to Emma again. “I wish you had some supernatural power you could use to deflect Morganna’s bitchiness. If you were a wit
ch, I could teach you some spells.”

  “But I’m not a witch. Or a Drake or a Nocturne and thank God, I’m not a Fae. I’m just a plain old human nobody,” Emma said glumly. “And that’s all I’ll ever be. I don’t even know why whoever is paying my way is footing the bill to send me to a supernatural school in the first place. It seems like such a waste when I don’t have a speck of magic in my entire body.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll find out sooner than you think,” Avery said, grinning at her.

  “And it’s not a waste,” I said firmly.

  “Kaitlyn is right—we need you, Emma—and we’re behind you all the way,” Megan told her. “If there’s anything we can do to help you deal with the Morganna situation, just let us know.”

  “Thanks,” Emma smiled gratefully. “But I think I’ll just have to wait it out. Eventually she’ll get tired of picking on me and move on to someone else.”

  She had a point, I thought. For girls like Morganna, there was always someone else to pick on. Still, it didn’t seem fair that Emma had to put up with being the flavor of the month for the nasty bully. I wished there was something I could do to help my friend and Coven-mate. But other than doing a partial shift myself—which didn’t really count since in my new form I was always sort of partially shifted—I couldn’t think of a thing.

  “It’ll be all right, Emma—we’ll stand by you through thick and thin,” I told her, giving her moral support since I couldn’t offer anything else.

  “Thanks, Kaitlyn.” She smiled at me.

  “Who knows?” Avery speculated. “Maybe it’ll turn out you’re a Drake in disguise or a sexy Vampire, or you have latent magic powers or something else special and exciting just like Kaitlyn.” He leaned across the table, grinning at her. “Maybe you’ll even find out you’re a disguised Fae noblewoman and you belong in the Seelie Court.”

  “Bite your tongue!” Emma exclaimed. “I’d rather eat nothing but cafeteria food for the rest of my life than find out I was one of those stuck-up, snotty bullies!”

  She poked at the orange-covered glop on her tray meaningfully, making her point.