by Jayme Morse
“Well, thank you.” I racked my brain for something else to say, but fortunately the bell rang then, indicating that lunch hour was over.
Not that it mattered much. I had a feeling that his comments were going to be the elephant in the room, an awkwardness that would just hang in the air between us. Worst of all, there was no escaping him—even if I wanted to.
Zay was going to be following me around for the rest of the day, anyway. Pft, he was going to be following me around as long as I was at the academy.
So much for my plans to not fall for a Demon.
How was I going to stop myself from falling for him when we were going to be forced to spend nearly every waking moment together?
Chapter 14
Lux
As I sat in the classroom waiting for the Deception instructor to arrive, I saw a dark figure move past the window.
I glanced over at Zay. “Did you see that?”
“Did I see what?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“That dark thing outside.”
“I didn’t see anything,” he replied, shaking his head.
At that moment, another dark figure began to dart across the window again.
I pointed at it. “Right there!”
His eyes followed where I was pointing to. Then he shot me a worried glance.
“I don’t see anything.”
I frowned. Whatever—or, more likely, whoever—was no longer there.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked me.
“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, even though the truth was that I wasn’t so sure about that.
Part of me wondered if I had actually seen something, but another part—a bigger part—of me wondered if I was only imagining it.
It made sense that I would be paranoid after someone had nearly killed me less than an hour before. I hoped that didn’t mean that I would forever be looking over my shoulder, worried that another arrow would be aimed at me.
I could hope all I wanted. I knew I would always be afraid now.
At that moment, a guy entered the classroom.
Just like the guys who replaced the window in the cafeteria, he wasn’t wearing a school uniform. Instead, he was wearing all black—a pair of black pants and a black t-shirt that showed off his tan, muscular arms.
As he walked towards the back of the classroom towards where me and Zay were sitting, his eyes locked on mine—and as soon as they had, I wished that they hadn’t.
Unlike Kieran’s eyes, which were a fiery red, this guy’s eyes blazed with red sparks. It almost looked like there were flames flickering inside his irises.
When he blinked, they were gone.
As the guy got closer, I found myself shrinking back into my seat, stirring nervously under his gaze. There was just something about him—and not just his eyes, but something else, too—that made me nervous.
The guy approached where we were sitting and then turned his attention to Zay.
“The Guardians have been talking. Are the rumors true?”
“I guess that all depends on what rumors you’re referring to,” Zay replied with a shrug.
The guy fixated his gaze on me again and pointed his chin at me. “Is this her?”
“Yeah,” Zay replied. “It is her.”
The guy stared at me for a long moment before glancing back over at Zay.
“How could you do this to me? You know that this would have been a great opportunity for me.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Zay replied, shaking his head. “Kieran assigned me to her. You know I can’t just say no to Kieran.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” the guy insisted. “Why would he have assigned you? You haven’t even gone through training yet!” The guy’s voice had risen in anger.
“Look, you really need to watch your mouth right now,” Zay said, shooting a nervous glance in my direction. “And this is something you should really take up with Kieran. It was his decision, not mine.”
“Kieran is a fool.” The guy shook his head angrily. He shot one more glance over at me and then stormed away from us.
Once he was out of earshot, I glanced over at Zay.
“What was that all about?”
“He was just pissed that I got assigned to be your Guardian and not him,” he replied with a shrug.
I frowned. “But why? Why does it matter?”
“He’s a Guardian,” Zay explained. “He’s actually been trained to be a Guardian.”
“Haven’t you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. I’ll probably become a Guardian eventually, but as of right now, I haven’t trained to be one.”
“Then why are you my Guardian?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
If my life was in so much danger, shouldn’t I have been assigned a Guardian who had actually gone through the proper training to keep me safe?
Not that I was willing to believe, even for a second, that there was someone out there who was able to keep me safer than Zay could. Not only had he saved me from falling from that cliff, but he had saved my life twice now. I trusted him with everything.
“It’s just the way Kieran wanted it to be,” Zay replied with a shrug. “I imagine that all of the Guardians are probably wondering the same thing.” He darted his eyes over to meet mine. “They all want to be given the chance to protect you—my brother, especially.”
“Your brother?” My eyebrows rose in confusion.
“Yeah, that Guardian who you just met is my brother,” he explained. “His name’s Justin.”
“Oh.” I paused. “He doesn’t seem anything like you.”
Zay looked like he was about to say something, but before he had the chance, the room went silent as a guy entered the room.
I thought that he couldn’t have looked more than seventeen or eighteen, with short dark hair and a tall, slender build.
As he stood in front of the classroom, he said, “I regret to inform you all that Professor Cranby will no longer be teaching this class. I will be your new instructor. I’m Professor Harvey, but you can call me Aiden.”
A girl who was sitting in front of me whispered, “What happened to Professor Cranby?”
The girl next to her whispered back, “I was walking past Headmaster Kieran’s office this morning, and it sounded like she died.”
A shiver cascaded its way down my spine. I wasn’t sure why, but I had a really weird feeling about this.
***
Lux
Once class was over, Zay followed me out of the classroom and into the hallway.
He glanced over at me. “Do you have plans this afternoon?”
“I figured I would just hang out in my dorm room,” I replied with a shrug.
Except, I knew that wasn’t what I really wanted to do. The last thing I wanted was to risk spending unnecessary time with Kassidy.
Zay made a face. “That sounds boring. Why don’t you hang out with me?”
“And do what?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“There’s actually this really cool place I’d love to show you,” he replied. “If you want to see, that is.”
“Sure,” I agreed.
“Cool.”
He led me down the hallway to the door of the castle and then slipped outside.
I followed after him, wondering where he could have been taking me. As far as I knew, Demon Blood Academy just sat on that big cliff. While the view was undoubtedly breathtaking, I had already seen it more than once.
Once we reached the top of the cliff, Zay turned to me.
“The place I want to show you is down there.”
He pointed at the valley below us.
“Okay. So, you’re going to fly me there, then?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. We’re going to jump.”
“Jump?” I let out a laugh. “You’re joking, right?” When he didn’t respond right away, I said, “Aren’t you?”
“No, I’m actually being dead serious,” Z
ay replied, shooting a genuine look in my direction.
“Are you crazy?” I paused a moment. “Why am I even asking you that? Obviously, you’re crazy if you actually want us to jump down there.”
“Maybe it’s a little crazy, but not in a bad way. Haven’t you ever wanted to go skydiving before? Now’s your chance.”
“Sky diving without parachutes! It’s a long way down to go without a parachute.”
To prove my point, I found a large rock and tossed it off the side of the cliff.
I waited and waited and waited for the sound of it hitting the bottom. When it became obvious that I wouldn’t hear a sound, I glanced over at Zay pointedly.
“This idea isn’t just crazy. It’s completely insane.”
“You’re so logical, Lux,” he said. “Why not just live a little for once?”
“Live a little?” I folded my arms across my chest. “Jumping off a cliff doesn’t sound exactly like my idea of living.”
“I already told you that you can’t die from it,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, I know, but even if we don’t die by jumping off this cliff, won’t we get… hurt?” I asked. “Breaking an arm or leg doesn’t exactly sound like my idea of fun.”
A faint smile touched his lips. “You won’t break any bones. Trust me.”
I snorted. “Trust you. Trust you. That’s what you always say and then you ask me to do crazy things like jump off cliffs.”
Zay’s eyes locked on mine. “Even if you landed in a position that would cause a human to break a bone, your bone wouldn’t break. One of the best parts about being a Demon is that we have a crazy ability to heal within seconds.”
When I didn’t look entirely convinced, he went on. “Come on. We’re in this together. I’ll hold your hand, if you want.”
“Have you ever jumped off this cliff before?” I asked.
“No, but I jumped off a ten-story building before,” he replied.
I just gaped at him. “Why would you do that?”
A look that I couldn’t identify passed through his eyes, but he simply said, “For fun.”
Jumping off a ten-story building or a cliff sounded like the farthest thing from fun to me. But as I stared at the valley below me, I couldn’t help but wonder if everything Zay had told me was true.
If I jumped, would I really survive?
“What are you thinking?” Zay asked after I went silent for a few moments.
I didn’t say anything, but I reached out and took his hand in mine. I took a few steps forward, so that I was standing at the edge of the cliff. I stared down at the valley below us. It was a long way down.
With my heart pounding against my chest, I did the one thing I never thought I would be brave enough to actually do.
I jumped.
Chapter 15
Lux
As we fell through the sky together, our hands remained intertwined. I was surprised that he didn’t let go—though I wasn’t sure that he even could if he wanted to, considering I was holding on for dear life.
I tried to scream. At first, nothing seemed to want to come out. It was almost as though my vocal cords were paralyzed. Frozen.
But once I finally managed to get a scream out, I couldn’t get it to stop.
The only thing I could hear through the wind blowing all around us was my heart pounding in my ears.
I stared down at the ground below us, feeling panicked. The further we fell, the closer the green grass appeared… and the more nervous I became about how we would land.
And then, almost as suddenly as we had jumped, we went crashing to the ground. We fell into a pile; I landed on top of Zay, whose outstretched arms prevented me from hitting the ground directly or, ultimately, bumping or scraping anything.
“I told you that you would live,” he whispered.
As I lay there pressed against his chest, I could feel his heart pounding through his shirt, beating almost perfectly in sync with mine.
“Yeah, you did,” I replied.
Glancing down into his eyes, I felt something stir inside of me. Those butterflies… they were swarming around in my stomach again. Everything about that moment was just… perfect. There was no other way to describe it.
The adrenaline rush, the perfect feeling… it all boiled down to the fact that I had done it with Zay at my side. It was the first real adventure that the two of us had willingly taken together, and the truth was that I couldn’t wait to take more.
At least, I hoped that we would get to take more adventures together.
Even though I hated to think it, the truth was that I had a feeling Zay would end up taking most of his adventures with Kassidy instead of me, that this would be a one-time, freak occurrence that would never happen again. And the idea that it might not happen again disappointed me.
I tried to shake the thought away. It wasn’t like it was even my place to get jealous. Zay may have been my Guardian, but he wasn’t my boyfriend. He was entitled to date Kassidy or anyone else, for that matter.
Besides, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t fall for a Demon. And I was going to do my best to try to follow through with that promise, even though a tiny voice at the back of my head told me that it was already too late.
In that moment, I was positive that I could have just stayed there, listening to his heart beat for an eternity. But I couldn’t do that.
As I tried to push myself up, I found my chin hovering just above his. Our faces were so close to one another that I could feel his breath against my neck.
I couldn’t help but think that we were about to kiss. I wanted to kiss him, and I was fairly certain that he wanted to kiss me, too. But instead of giving into the temptation, I quickly pulled away from him.
The last time I had kissed someone, it had completely ruined the friendship. I wasn’t about to do that again any time soon… especially not with Zay, who I couldn’t have avoided even if I wanted to.
Rolling over onto the grassy ground next to him, I stared up at the stormy sky.
“That was so exciting,” I said breathlessly as I tried to allow my heartbeat to go back to normal.
I actually couldn’t believe how enthralling jumping off that cliff had been.
There was no doubt that it had been completely nerve-wracking and absolutely terrifying, but at the same time I couldn’t ignore the adrenaline rush that came with it. It had been like going on a rollercoaster, except so much more intense.
Zay smiled at me. “Yeah, it was pretty fun. Now, wait until I show you the cool thing.”
“Oh, yeah. I completely forgot that the reason you brought me down here was to actually show me something,” I realized aloud. “Though I’m not sure that it could even begin to compare to that jump.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it so much. I was pretty sure that you were going to squeeze my hand off,” Zay joked as he pulled himself up off the ground.
Getting up myself, I laughed. “Well, that would have been a small price to pay for making me jump, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t make you jump,” he replied pointedly. “You actually made me jump.”
“How do you figure?” I asked, glancing over at him sharply.
“You grabbed my hand and then you jumped. I wasn’t the first to jump, nor did I push you off that cliff.”
“Thankfully for you. If you had pushed me, I would have killed you.” I laughed, but when I glanced over at him, the look on his face told me that he didn’t find it funny. “Sorry. I was just kidding, you know.”
“Death isn’t something to joke about,” Zay replied before darting his eyes to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” I replied quietly, unsure of why he had taken so much offense to that joke. We were Demons, after all. It wasn’t like we could die.
“It’s okay.” He shot an apologetic glance in my direction. “I just lost someone close to me recently. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“Don’t apologize. I understand.” I paused. “Are the r
umors about that professor true? Professor Cranby?”
Zay’s eyebrows lifted in question. “What rumors?”
“I overheard a girl in class say that she heard she died,” I explained.
“I don’t know if it’s true.” He paused for a moment. “But it really wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Professor Cranby was a Crow.”
“A Crow?” I asked with raised eyebrows. “As in… a bird?”
“No, she wasn’t a bird. She was a full-blooded Demon. The Crows are a secret society of Demons,” Zay explained, staring ahead of him as we walked across the field. “When Demon Blood Academy was first founded, it began as a sorority. Later, it evolved into what some might consider a cult. You used to need to be born into it, but new Demons are always being recruited.”
“How do you know Professor Cranby was a member if it’s a ‘secret’ society?” I questioned with raised eyebrows.
“Once Demons go through the initiation to become a Crow, a mark—or tattoo—appears somewhere on their body. They all have the same mark… a black feather,” he explained. “I went to Professor Cranby’s office once to ask a question about what we were learning. She didn’t know I was coming, so I guess I caught her off-guard. Her stockings were off and I saw the tattoo on her foot. It was the black feather. When she realized that I’d seen it, she was completely horrified. She asked me not to tell a soul.”
“Did you?” I asked, glancing over at him.
He shook his head. “No. Believe me. I have no intentions in ever getting involved with the Crows. They’re a very dangerous group of Demons.”
“Dangerous how?”
“Let me just put it this way. They are the absolute worst Demons you could ever encounter,” he replied.
“I don’t understand. If they’re so bad, then why would Professor Cranby work at Demon Blood Academy? The whole entire point of the academy is to train good Demons.”
“It took me a while, but I figured out the reason. Since the Crows are a secret society, a lot of the members do their best to remain inconspicuous. Who would ever suspect that a member of the Crows would work at the academy?” Zay pointed out.