by Jayme Morse
I shrugged. “I got skills, I guess.”
“Well, this certainly changes things. It’s, by far, the most interesting thing to happen around here all week,” Kassidy said. Climbing off the bed, she smoothed out her skirt. “I’m dying to meet her. What is she like?”
“I don’t know. Just a girl,” I replied with a shrug, even though I knew that wasn’t true.
I’d been following her around for weeks—long enough to know that she wasn’t like any girl I’d ever met before.
“So, where is she?” Kassidy asked.
“She’s with Kieran right now.” I paused for a moment. “I’m not sure yet how much he’s told her. I know he’s not going to tell her everything, but either way, you should be really careful about what you say.”
“I’m not a total dumbass, Zay. I know,” she replied with an eye roll as she slipped into her shoes. “I still can’t believe you brought her here. Did she come willingly?”
I shook my head. “No. I guess I can thank Alice for how easy it was to get her here.”
Kassidy glanced over at me sharply. “Alice? Alice Kauffman?”
“That would be the one.”
She frowned. “What does she have to do with any of this?”
“She tried to kill Lux,” I explained. “It really was perfect timing. I swooped in and saved her.”
“Kieran would have killed you if you hadn’t.”
“I know.”
“Lux must think you’re some sort of hero,” Kassidy replied with an eye roll.
“Actually, I am some sort of hero. There’s a good chance Lux would be dead right now if it wasn’t for me.”
Except, the truth was, I hadn’t saved her to be a hero. I knew I would have swooped in and saved Lux, regardless of the hero factor or Kieran killing me if I didn’t. There was no way I could have just left her there to die.
She may have thought that I’d given her the choice to go with me, but that was only because I hadn’t wanted to piss her off. I would have picked her up and carried her off, kicking and screaming, if I had to.
“Well, I know one thing.” Kassidy stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against mine. As she broke away, she whispered, “You’re my hero.”
I frowned as I glanced down at her. “How do you figure? I’ve never saved you before.”
“You didn’t need to. You’re still my big bad Demon boyfriend. That’s hero enough for me,” she replied with a sly smile as she slipped out into the hallway.
With a sigh, I followed after her. She was already about halfway down the hallway when I caught up with her.
“Kassidy, that thing you said back there—” I started to say, but she interrupted me.
“Relax, babe. I know. You’re not my boyfriend. We’re not a couple. We can’t be a couple,” she replied, rolling her eyes at me exasperatedly. “But we do love each other, don’t we?”
“Yeah.” I guess, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say that aloud.
I couldn’t.
Not here in the middle of the hallway... or at all, for that matter. I knew Kassidy well enough to know that she wouldn’t take it well. It would put a rift between us that I wasn’t quite ready for.
“Then it doesn’t really matter if I call you my boyfriend when we’re alone together, does it?” she asked in a low voice—low enough so that the other people wandering the halls wouldn’t hear us talking.
“I guess not. I just don’t want you to make a habit out of it,” I told her. “If you get too used to saying it, you might slip up at the wrong time.”
“I won’t.” Then she turned back around and headed in the direction of Kieran’s office.
I followed after her, mostly because I wanted to make sure she didn’t say the wrong thing in front of Lux when she finally did meet her.
But a part of me knew that I would have been headed in that direction, anyway. A part of me knew that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stay away from Lux Whitmore for long.
She was just so damn addicting.
In the weeks since I had been following Lux around, waiting for the perfect opportunity to bring her to Demon Blood Academy, I couldn’t help but feel entranced by her and her infectious smile. There was no doubt that we were from two completely different worlds, more than she could have possibly known. But that wasn’t the reason I had found her to be so intriguing.
No, it wasn’t what set us apart from one another that had piqued my interest; it was what set Lux Whitmore apart from everyone that had me wanting to know her better.
I wasn’t sure what it was about her exactly, but she was nothing like any of the girls at Demon Blood Academy. In fact, she didn’t seem like any other girl I had ever known before. From what I could tell, she seemed confident, independent, and cautious, yet carefree all at once.
Maybe none of those qualities should have surprised me considering Lux had more or less been fending for herself all these years, but she was the furthest thing from what I had been expecting. And I had given a lot of thoughts over the years as to what she might have been like.
It had always been a mystery to me, a mystery that I’d never been entirely sure that I would ever get to solve. I hadn’t been sure if me and Lux Whitmore would ever get to meet.
But now that we had met? To say that I was pleasantly surprised would have only been an understatement. There was just something about her that made me feel drawn to her like a moth to a flame.
Of course, I was fairly certain that the feeling wasn’t mutual—and, even on the off-chance that it was mutual, it wouldn’t last for very long. A girl like Lux wouldn’t have been interested in a Demon like me.
Once she found out the truth about who and what she really was, she would understand that she could have just about any guy she wanted.
She would forget all about me.
Kassidy and I reached Kieran’s office just as the door opened. Lux stepped out, a stone-cold expression on her beautiful face, followed by a frustrated-looking Kieran.
“You must be Lux!” Kassidy chirped, giving her a loose hug as she approached her. “I’m Kassidy. I’m going to be your new roommate.”
“Actually, why don’t you show Lux to her room right now, Kassidy?” Kieran suggested. “There’s something that I need to discuss with Zay in private.”
Lux’s eyes flitted over to meet mine then, as if she had realized, for the first time, that I was standing there. Not that it really surprised me all that much.
To her, I was a nobody. A complete stranger that she had no interest in ever getting to know. And that stung. It already felt like I was a part of her life since I had been watching her from the sidelines.
Now that she was here, I could go back to my normal life.
As her eyes held mine for a moment, I noticed that the color of her irises had already changed. One of them was almost a perfect match of my own, but the other was a lighter shade of blue.
I wondered how Kieran had explained that to her.
“Okay, that would be great,” Kassidy replied with a grin. “Come on, Lux.”
Lux stood there gazing at me, as if she was frozen in place, for a few moments longer. Then, without saying a single word to me or Kieran, she broke our stare and followed after Kassidy.
I watched their backs until they were gone: the girl who I had spent forever believing I had a future with, and the girl who had only known about me for less than a day and who made the future seem so hopeful.
“She’s different than I was expecting,” Kieran commented once they were out of sight.
I glanced over at him with raised eyebrows. “Different how?”
“Just… different.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t even begin to put it into words. “Come into my office, Zay. We need to talk.” Kieran led me into the room and then closed the door behind us.
“I’m all ears,” I said as I sat down.
“First off, I want to thank you for bringing her in. You know that there will be a reward for
what you’ve done.”
“I’m not deserving of a reward,” I replied, shaking my head.
Kieran stared at me, a look of confusion in his eyes. “How aren’t you?”
“All I did was bring an innocent girl to safety,” I replied with a shrug.
“Speaking of safety.” The Headmaster glanced over at me sharply. “Lux mentioned that you told her she was in danger.”
“It isn’t a lie,” I pointed out with a shrug.
“That may be true, but you weren’t supposed to tell her that, Isaiah.” Kieran’s eyes clouded over with his annoyance. “It made her ask questions—questions that I didn’t know how to answer. Now she wants to know why she’s in danger, and there’s no way I can tell her why without telling her the truth about everything.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You will make no further comments that even hint that her life could be in danger. If she asks you why you mentioned that she was in danger to begin with, then you will lie and tell her it was all a part of your plan to get her here. You will not let her know that you have even the slightest clue who Cielo or Alice is. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah, I got it,” I muttered under my breath. I could feel myself growing irritated. As the Headmaster of Demon Blood Academy, Kieran had the final say in what went on, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “Is that the only thing you wanted to talk to me about?”
“No, there’s more. I want you to be Lux’s Guardian.”
“Me?” I asked, completely taken aback by this request. Never in a million years would I have expected I would be entrusted with something so important.
“Yes, you.” Kieran paused. “Is that a problem?”
“It’s just that I can’t understand why you would choose me. I haven’t even gone through my Guardian training yet. If you’re looking for someone to keep her safe, I’m not sure that I’m the best guy for the job.”
“Actually, you are,” Kieran replied.
I frowned. “How do you figure?”
“Because she trusts you, Zay.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. “She told you that?”
Kieran shook his head. “No.”
“Then how do you know?” Then, realizing how he knew, I narrowed my eyes at him. “You went inside her head, didn’t you?”
“I needed to know what she was thinking,” he replied with a shrug. “And it helped me learn that she trusts you far more than I ever would have thought she would. That’s a good thing. Trust is very important right now. We just ripped this girl away from her life, away from the human world... where she was about to be killed. Trust isn’t an easy thing to build, so we need to take advantage of the fact that she already trusts you with ‘every ounce of her being’,” he said, making air quotes with his fingers.
“That’s what she thought? That she trusts me with every ounce of her being?” I just gaped at him, surprised that Lux actually thought that way about me.
I really thought that I had messed up with the way I had acted towards her on the beach. I had tried to play it cool, but I was pretty sure that I had only ended up seeming like a creep. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I would have ever been able to bounce back from that.
“Yes,” Kieran replied with a nod. “So, from this point on, you are officially assigned as her Guardian.”
“Okay,” I agreed with a nod. The truth was that I was pretty sure I would have agreed to do anything Kieran or anyone else told me to do to keep Lux safe. “Is that all?”
Kieran nodded. “Yes. You may go.”
“Thank you.”
As I left his office and stepped back out into the hallway, I headed in the direction of the dorms. I made a silent promise to myself then.
I was going to be the best damn Guardian Demon this academy had ever seen. I didn’t have a choice. I needed to be.
The truth was that Lux needed far more protection than almost anyone who had ever come to Demon Blood Academy.
Not only did she need protection from the outside world, but I was pretty sure that she also needed protection from the dangers that lurked within these walls.
Chapter 5
Lux
As Kassidy led me to the dorm rooms, I took in my new roommate. With her short black hair that was streaked with blue and the dark eyeliner that heavily framed her eyes, Kassidy seemed so fun and quirky.
As I followed her through the hallways, I got the sense that everyone else thought so, too. She seemed to be extremely popular at Demon Blood Academy.
Every guy stopped dead in his tracks as she walked past him, and every girl either knew her by name, gave her a hug, or gave her a shy, tentative wave—the type of wave you only gave someone who you wanted to introduce yourself to, but weren’t sure how.
“So, how was the ride here?” Kassidy asked, glancing over her shoulder at me.
She didn’t seem fazed by all of the attention she was getting, which meant that she was used to it. I was pretty sure she was the Regina George of Demon Blood Academy.
I hesitated for a moment. “It was… interesting.”
“I guess that’s one word for flying with a Demon for the very first time,” Kassidy replied with a giggle.
As we rounded the corner, I found myself colliding with someone. A pile of books went flying to the floor. A girl with chin-length, cornflower blonde hair bent over to recollect them.
I knelt on the ground to help her pick them up. The blonde girl glanced over at me sharply. Her amber eyes, which were more orange than red or gold, locked on mine. “Watch where you’re going.”
“I-I’m sorry,” I replied as I handed two of the books to her. “I really didn’t mean to bump into you.”
“Well, don’t ever do it again.” Her voice was thick with warning. “You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
I wasn’t certain, but I could have sworn that the girl’s eyes flashed with anger.
“Sienna, that’s enough,” Kassidy said sharply. “It’s Lux’s first day here.”
“Lux?” Sienna glanced over at me with wide eyes. “You’re Lux Whitmore?”
I nodded. “Yes, that would be me.”
“Wow. You are nothing like the way I expected you to be,” Sienna murmured as she stared me up and down.
I raised my eyebrows at her. “What did you expect me to be like?”
Sienna’s glossy lips twisted into a smile. “Pretty.” Then, without saying another word, she walked away from us and continued her way down the hallway.
I just stood there, completely dumbfounded. I didn’t care that this girl who I didn’t even know didn’t think I was pretty. It was just the fact that she had the audacity to actually say it that shocked me.
Not that I should have been surprised. Sienna was a Demon, after all.
“I’m sorry about that,” Kassidy apologized. “Sienna can be a real bitch sometimes.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” I replied with a nod.
“Don’t worry. She’s currently taking private lessons with my brother, so she shouldn’t be in any of your classes,” Kassidy assured me. “If she gives you any trouble, just let me know.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at her. “Your brother goes here, too?”
“Well, he did. You’ve actually already been acquainted with him,” Kassidy replied. “Kieran is my brother.”
“No way!” I wasn’t able to hide my surprise.
“Yup.” She smiled. “I know we don’t really look that much alike, aside from the dark hair.”
“Yeah, I never would have guessed.”
As we reached the door at the end of the hallway, Kassidy said, “And this would be our dorm room.” Pulling the door open, she stepped inside the room.
I stood in the doorway and just stared.
Kassidy’s dorm room was nothing like I would have expected. The room was a stark contrast to her tendency to gravitate towards dark hair and makeup.
Both beds were covered in pink ruffled comforters. The walls had been painted a lighter shade of pi
nk and were covered in cliché sayings like, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain,” and, “Shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
Kassidy glanced over at me. “I hope you like it, but we can always change the décor if you want.”
“I like the décor,” I replied with a shrug. “I’m not going to be here for very long, anyway.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re not?”
I shook my head. “No, I promised Kieran that I would give this place a try before I leave, but I already know I don’t want to be here. There’s just no point in staying.”
“Actually, there is a point in it.” Kassidy sat down on one of the beds and glanced up at me. “You do realize the entire reason we’re all here, don’t you?”
Shaking my head, I sat down on the bed across from her. “No. No one’s said the exact reason. At least, I don’t think they have. I mean, Kieran said the reason was to intervene before I got my wings and stuff. And that the purpose is to train us to be the ‘best’ Demons we can be.”
And that reason didn’t seem like a good enough one to me. I could teach myself how to be a good Demon. Why did I have to learn at Demon Blood Academy?
“Yes, that’s the reason we’re all here—so that we can become the best Demons we can be,” Kassidy agreed with a nod. “Do you know what happens to Demons who don’t come to Demon Blood Academy or to those who leave too soon?”
“No.” In fact, Kieran hadn’t mentioned anything about the potential consequences of not attending the Academy. If he really wanted to keep me here, shouldn’t he have spelled them out for me?
“They become the type of Demons who wreak havoc in the human world,” Kassidy explained. “They become the type of Demons who possess innocent humans—the type of Demons who are the reasons why exorcists exist.”
I just gaped at her. “It’s possible for us to actually do that?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s just one of the many, many horrible things Demons were born to do,” Kassidy replied. “At Demon Blood Academy, we’re taught how to keep those natural urges and desires under control. If you don’t go through your training, your abilities can get you into a lot of trouble. You might even hurt a human without even trying.”