by Jayme Morse
“I don’t know, exactly. As far as I know, the only ones who know are the leaders of each society.”
“So, Kieran then?” I asked.
Nick shook his head. “No, he’s not the head of the Demon society. He’s only the Headmaster of Demon Blood Academy. It’s his grandfather, Nolan Blake, the current most powerful Demon, who is in charge. And for the Angel society, it’s Cielo North.”
“So, that’s how Kieran knew who Cielo was,” I murmured.
Nick nodded. “Yes. The North family and the Blake family are archrivals. They are the ones who are so hell-bent on gaining control of you.”
“That’s why that guy didn’t want to kill me the way Alice did,” I murmured to myself, remembering his words as they’d searched for me inside Cara’s house.
“You can’t just kill her, Alice. Cielo will be pissed. Our job is to bring her back before they get to her. Not kill her.”
When he had said “they,” he’d been referring to the Demons. Alice and that guy had obviously been sent to bring me back to Cielo before the Demons got to me.
And yet, for some reason or another, Alice had wanted to kill me.
Everything made sense now, all but one thing.
“Zay knew that the Demons wanted me when he brought me here,” I realized aloud, glancing over at Nick. “He knew that the Demons wanted me for their own ulterior motives, and he still brought me here.”
Nick nodded. “Isaiah Turner is the enemy.”
***
Zay
As I headed for my dorm, my mind went through all of the possible worst-case scenarios: that Kieran had done something to hurt Lux, that the Angels had finally come for her. I even considered the possibility that Lux had run away.
It wasn’t until I reached my dorm room that Nick Covington came to mind.
I thought about the letter on my nightstand, the letter that Lux had written Nick, the one I had promised to deliver. The letter I really had no intentions of delivering, in spite of my promise.
Lux may have thought Nick was her best friend back in the human world, but the reality was that he was anything but. She had no idea how much danger her life would be in if she reconnected with him.
Nick was the enemy, though I supposed that the same thing could have just as easily have been said about me.
But there was a huge difference between the two of us: I knew I would never do anything to hurt Lux. Even if someone tried to force me to hurt her, I couldn’t do it. I had fallen too hard for her, too deep. The way my heart pounded and the way my hands shook made me realize how hard I really had fallen. It just made me sad to know that it had taken Lux disappearing for me to realize it.
I realized that what I felt for her went way beyond feelings. I loved that girl with every ounce of my being, and I was willing to do whatever it took to get her back.
That was why I was relieved I had never mailed that letter.
If Nick knew Lux was at Demon Blood Academy, I was pretty sure he would come looking for her. And that was the absolute last thing I wanted.
I knew how dangerous Kieran was, but at the same time, I knew exactly what I was dealing with. I didn’t know Nick well enough to know what he would do to Lux. As far as I was concerned, Nick had already been planning something when Lux had gone with him to the beach. I was certain that Nick hadn’t actually done anything that day because Lux had technically been under my watchful eye that entire time.
When I took Lux from Nick and brought her here… Well, that changed everything. It probably made Nick’s desire to find Lux stronger, since she was more out of reach.
As I reached my dorm room and pulled the door open, my eyes fell on my nightstand and my stomach dropped.
My worst fear had come true.
Someone else had mailed the letter.
Who would have done something like that?
I doubted it was my roommate Toby, a quiet kid who barely even talked to me half the time. He tended to mind his own business and stayed in his own little world. And Toby didn’t even know Lux.
It was someone else, someone with a motive. Whoever it was had snuck into my room and mailed the letter. But who?
I supposed that it didn’t even matter who had done it right now. The damage was already done. I would worry about who the culprit was later. Right now, I just needed to find Lux and get her back to safety.
Then I would never let her out of my sight again.
As it was, I wanted to kick myself for looking the other way. It had just been so damn hard to watch her dancing with Tyler that I didn’t watch her at all. I didn’t think she would disappear.
I thought that Lux would have been fine since all of the other students were there and most of the professors, too. If anyone had tried to hurt her, someone would have noticed. Someone would have done something. At least, that was what I’d thought.
Was it possible that Lux had slipped off with someone who she trusted?
Someone like Nick?
There was no way I could have predicted that any of this would happen, but now that it had I was angry with myself. If I didn’t find her, if she didn’t survive this, I would never forgive myself.
Lifting my mattress, I grabbed the one thing I needed and stuffed it into my pocket so that no one at Demon Blood Academy would notice it.
It was my dagger, the one my mother had given me. It was infused with the blood of an Angel and had been passed down from Demon hunter to Demon hunter.
It was the dagger that I planned to use on any Demon who tried to harm Lux Whitmore.
***
Lux
“How do you know Zay is my enemy?” I questioned, unwilling to believe that any of this could be true. I darted my eyes over to meet Nick’s. “You don’t even know him.”
“Actually, I do know him,” Nick replied. “I don’t know him personally, but I know of him. I know enough about him to know that he’s not on your side.”
“Like what?” I narrowed my eyes at him accusingly. “Tell me one thing about Zay.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you one thing.” His eyes locked on mine. “He’s the one who brought you here.”
“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t make him my enemy.” I was smart enough to know that it didn’t make Zay look good. Not in the least.
“No? How doesn’t it? Zay was following you around for weeks. He almost got to you on the beach that day. He probably would have if I hadn’t gotten there in time to stop him. I watched him disappear into thin air. I knew then that I needed to do everything I could to try to protect you, but before I could even come up with a plan, it was already too late. You were already gone.”
“I just don’t understand how Zay could do this to me.” I shook my head. “He was my… friend.” And more than a friend. I had fallen for him. I had fallen so hard that I wasn’t sure if there would ever be any way to recover from it.
Zay’s face entered my mind then. His smile, the way he looked at me. As much as it sounded completely horrible that he had brought me here, I was so certain that he hadn’t done it because he wanted to hurt me. As hurt and angry as I was at him, I also didn’t believe in my heart that he was the type of guy who would betray me like that, even if he hadn’t known me at the time.
He wouldn’t have gone out of his way to save my life or try to make me comfortable on more than one occasion if his intentions were really all that bad. I was certain of that.
No, I was pretty sure that Kieran had used him as a pawn somehow—a pawn in a sick, twisted game, just like I was. It made so much sense, considering how much Zay seemed to fear Kieran.
I didn’t believe for a second that what I’d had with Zay wasn’t real. I didn’t believe for a second that his feelings for me—the feelings that were there in his eyes, in his smile—weren’t true. They were one of the realest things I had ever known. And I didn’t believe that Kieran, the Demons, or anyone else could stop those feelings. Whatever was blooming between us was unstoppable.
It occ
urred to me then who I should have really been suspicious of.
I turned to Nick. “How do you know about any of this?”
“I’m more involved than you realize,” was his response.
“You’re not a Demon because you don’t have wings,” I noted. “But you’re not an Angel either, since they have wings, too. And yet, even without wings, you can still fly.” Narrowing my eyes at him, and asked, “What are you?”
Nick’s mouth opened to speak, just as there was a loud yell in the distance. It sounded like it belonged to a man.
His green eyes darted over to meet mine. “I don’t have time to explain everything to you right now, but I need you to trust me. We need to get away from here, away from Demon Blood Academy. We need to get back to the human world. Once we’re there, I promise that I will tell you everything about me.” He paused. “Do you trust me?”
Someone else yelled out. More shouts followed as thunder clapped in the distance.
I didn’t know what was going on, but I was fairly certain of one thing.
The Demons must have realized that I had left the dance and, ultimately, Demon Blood Academy. They were probably angry and they were controlling the weather. They were making it storm so that I wouldn’t be able to fly so easily.
They wanted me to be stuck here, in their realm.
Of course, that was all I needed to make up my mind.
Turning to Nick, I nodded. “I trust you.”
Nick Covington may have had secrets of his own—dark secrets, even—but, in that moment, I knew I had no choice but to trust him.
Chapter 33
Katherine Covington
I called my son’s cell phone. It rang three times before I got his voicemail.
I sighed. It was time to do some investigating.
I didn’t want to snoop, but I knew I had to. It had been more than twenty-four hours since I had heard from him, which was much longer than he typically went without touching base with me. I couldn’t help but feel worried about him.
Entering his bedroom, I glanced around. I didn’t see anything on his computer desk. It was completely bare.
Lifting up a pile of folded laundry, that was when I spotted the envelope that was lying on his dresser.
Grabbing the long, white envelope, I sat down on Nick’s bed. Even though I knew I needed to know what was inside, I also couldn’t help but wonder what the contents of the envelope might have been.
My mind, of course, drifted to the worst possible scenarios. Betrayal. Destruction. Death.
I tried to shake the thoughts away, not wanting to jump to conclusions just yet. There was always a chance that I was wrong, that Nick had really gone to a friend’s house and had forgotten to call me. But I doubted that could have been the case.
Some might have thought that I had been born a worrier, but I hadn’t always been this way. At one point, I had been carefree, without a worry in the world.
But that had all changed recently. Ever since Lux Whitmore had come into our lives, I knew how much danger our lives had been in.
I was afraid that whatever was in this envelope would tell me just how much danger we were in, and how much time we had. I recognized the red seal on the envelope.
It had come from Demon Blood Academy. The fact that the Demons had our address on file was enough to scare me.
Sliding my manicured finger beneath the flap of the envelope, I pulled out the letter that was neatly folded inside and began to read:
Dear Nick,
I’m sorry I never answered your text. Things have been crazy. It’s a lot to explain, and I’m not sure if I’m even allowed to tell you everything that’s happened.
I just want you to know that I’m okay. I’m sure that people probably think I ran away. I suppose that’s true, in a way—I did go willingly, but there’s so much more to it than that.
Nick, this is going to sound strange, but I’m afraid that I might have done something to hurt you. I just want to make sure that you’re okay.
Can you write back to me and let me know if you are? It’s really important to me to hear back from you.
Love ,
From,
Lux
I could feel an angry heat rise to my cheeks. The letter pretty much confirmed all of my beliefs about where my son had gone. Crumbling the letter in my hand, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed a number.
There were three long, drawn out rings before the phone was finally answered.
“What is it?” a familiar voice asked.
“It’s begun,” I said into the phone.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Then we must move quickly. We don’t have a lot of time. You must leave for Demon Blood Academy now.”
“I will,” I replied.
Dropping the phone to the bed, I stepped out onto my son’s balcony. I urged my wings to come out and then lifted myself into the air.
I had suspected for months that Nick had been falling for Lux. I had watched their friendship blossom and then spread like weeds, consuming his every thought.
He had denied it, of course. Nick wasn’t foolish. There was no way he would have admitted to me that he was in love with the girl. It was his destiny to kill her, after all. It was what he had been born to do, what he had been raised to do.
To be frank, the whole thing had made me sick.
The only reason I had even allowed Lux to enter our home—the only reason I had shown her any decency—was because it seemed safer to keep an eye on her. The closer Lux was to us, the less likely she was to slip away.
As the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And Lux Whitmore was the enemy.
Of course, if it had been up to me, I would have just killed the girl myself from day one. But that wasn’t allowed.
Lux Whitmore was “special” they all said. A force to be reckoned with. The only one who possessed enough power to kill her was Nick. It was a concept I didn’t understand.
If my son was the only one who was powerful enough to kill Lux, then why was he so damn weak?
I didn’t believe that my son possessed more power than anyone else. Nor did I believe that Lux Whitmore was as hard to kill as everyone seemed to believe.
Besides that, I wasn’t naïve. I knew there was no way my son was about to kill the girl. No, he had fallen too hard for her, too deep. He had allowed his feelings for her to take over, clouding his judgment between right and wrong.
But that was okay. I didn’t care what everyone else thought. I had never believed that Lux was as strong or as powerful as the others, but I was about to find out for sure. I was determined to prove that my own suspicions were right.
I was going to take down Lux Whitmore, if it was the last thing I did.
The Demon Blood Academy series continues in Term Two.
Books In This Series
Demon Blood Academy
Demon Blood Academy: Term Two
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Books By This Author
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