by Riley London
I came, moaning out his name as my body shook with the wave of an orgasm. I whimpered as Benjamin still moved inside of my body, still caressing my breasts with his hands. He wasn’t finished with me yet, but I was determined to hold on until he’d had his fill of me, even if every touch from him caused me the sweetest kind of pain.
When I felt Benjamin’s hands at my waist keeping me in place on his cock, I knew that I was done for. There was something so impossibly sexy about Benjamin being assertive with me, especially because he was usually so kind and sweet. Him holding me against him, letting me know that he was going to keep fucking me until he was done with me, sent me over the edge yet again and I found myself once again moaning out for him and calling his name.
Although it seemed like the second time I came was enough to send Benjamin over the edge, right along with me. As we both came at the same time, his cock pumped his cum deep inside of me, and my pussy tightened around his shaft even more. I almost forgot about all the pain, all the uncertainty surrounding Charlie, the way he looked so deranged when he was trying to stick a sword through my throat.
Almost.
Moments like that reminded me why I needed all of my boys, not just one. Sure, I could’ve had sex with just Benjamin or Charlie or Zachary for the rest of my life, but my heart just wouldn’t be the same. Even as I moved to lay beside Benjamin on the bed, my mind still wondered if Charlie was safe or at least out of harm’s way for the rest of the day.
If any one of them was missing from my life, I’d be exactly like this, anxious and neurotic and worried beyond belief. I even struggled with enjoying the way Benjamin held me in his arms, my mind still raced with thoughts about Charlie.
“You miss him, don’t you?” Benjamin asked.
“What?”
“Charlie.” Benjamin grinned, turning to look over at me. “You’re thinking about him right now. I can tell. You have that faraway look in your eye.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “The sex was great. I promise. I didn’t think about him at all, you know, during. But right after…”
“It’s okay. I miss him too.” Benjamin sighed. “I’ve gotten used to his presence around the academy, around us. It’s strange to not hear Charlie’s laugh from time to time or have to listen to what he thinks of as jokes.”
“I just want to get him back.” I shook my head. “And I hope I’m not running out of time.”
“You’re not running out of time.” Benjamin’s words seemed confident. “And we are going to get him back, Celeste, come Hell or high water.”
“Probably just come Hell.” I smirked, even though it felt like an empty gesture. “Hey, do you mind sleeping here tonight? I think Zach is out at a party or something again.”
“Yes, probably so,” Benjamin replied. “But don’t be too hard on him. We all handle grief differently.”
“Grief?”
“Zachary misses Charlie too.” Benjamin smiled. “And he’s not too good at dealing with loss, even if it’s temporary.”
I smirked again, but this time it came from a genuine place. It made me happy to know that Zachary actually cared about Charlie too, even though he tried to put on a different façade.
“I’ll stay with you tonight.” Benjamin wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to his chest. “And every night if you’d like, from now until the end of time.”
“That’s really sweet,” I responded, nuzzling into Benjamin’s skin. “But we can start with just one night for now.”
“For now.” Benjamin lightly chuckled.
Nearly as soon as I closed my eyes, resting my head against his frame, I’d dozed off to sleep.
Chapter 12
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Zachary stood over the bed with his sword drawn at his side. “Wake the fuck up!”
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?” I squinted, trying to handle the harshness of the bedroom light which had been flicked on. “Zach, are you okay?”
“Why is he in your bed?” Zachary growled. “Why the fuck is he in your bed?”
“Zach, are you serious?” I shook my head in disbelief. “You weren’t here, so I asked Benjie to stay the night. Why do you care anyway? We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Benjie should’ve known better.” Zachary placed his sword underneath Benjamin’s chin. “How the fuck could you do something like this to me?”
“Zachary, what are you talking about?” Benjamin carefully sat up, avoiding getting further in the way of Zachary’s weapon. “Are you all right?”
“Fuck you. Don’t ask me if I’m all right,” Zachary scoffed, bringing his sword back down towards his waist. He grabbed Benjamin by the arm, pulling him out of the bed until he landed on the floor with a thud.
“Zach! Stop! What the hell!” I climbed out of bed, walking over to where Benjamin had landed on the floor.
“Don’t. Don’t touch him,” Zachary instructed, with his gaze focused on Benjamin. “If he can fuck you by himself, he can get up by himself too.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong!” I yelled. “I swear to God, Zach, if you hurt him—”
“He hurt himself,” Zachary replied, before stomping the heel of his boot down onto Benjamin’s wrist, snapping it in that same moment.
“Sana eam,” Benjamin quietly whispered, looking back up at Zachary. “Zach…what did I do wrong?”
“I’m going to give you a head start,” Zachary answered. “Before I fucking kill you.”
“Zachary, you can’t be serious—”
“You have ten seconds.” Zachary shrugged. “And then, I’m cutting off your fucking head.”
“Zach!” I slapped him right across his face, trying to knock some sense back into him. “What the fuck are you saying? What the fuck are you doing?”
“You stay out of this, Celeste,” Zachary snapped at me. “You’ve done enough already.”
Benjamin got off the floor, before quickly dashing out of the dorm. After ten seconds of silently waiting, Zachary went after him, his feet nearly flying behind him.
“Shit! Shit!” I exclaimed, following after both of them, confused about the entire situation and just hoping that it’d turn out to be some elaborate prank or unfunny joke.
Because this couldn’t have really been happening.
There was just no fucking way.
When I found them again, they were on the roof of the building. Zachary and Benjamin both had their swords out, but Zachary pushed his against Benjamin’s own as Benjamin’s back foot balanced on the side of the roof.
Shit.
If Zachary pushed him even a little farther, Benjamin was going to fall right the fuck off. Since the roof was so high up, there was no guarantee that he was going to fall the right way, even with all his training. Besides, I could tell that Benjamin was more focused on Zachary than figuring out how he might heal himself after falling from a platform this high.
“Stop! What the fuck?!” I yelled, running up towards them both, my own sword drawn as well. “Stop or I’ll make you stop!”
“It’s not fair!” Zachary screamed right back. “Why does he get everything?”
“What are you talking about, Zach?”
“He gets to have a perfect family, a perfect life, even a perfect fucking future. And he also gets to have you when Charlie is away. Why does Benjamin Nash get to have the world, when the rest of us are left fighting over its scraps?”
“I don’t have the world. You should know that better than anybody,” Benjamin replied. “All I have is mounds of pressure on my shoulder that’ll never be lifted. And yet, you’re telling me you pray for this kind of responsibility? You pray for your own unhappiness?”
“Don’t lie to me, asshole. Don’t pretend like you’re just some poor little rich boy who doesn’t realize how good he has it,” Zachary threatened. “If I had even one ounce of what you have, I’d be much further along than you are. And I wouldn’t need the Council to
offer me a seat just because my family always had one. No, they’d be begging for me to sit on the Council, because that’s how good I’d be, that’s how much they’d need someone like me.”
“Zach, please!” I begged, moving to stand next to him. “Please, stop! We can talk about this. Please—”
In the middle of my pleading, Zachary pushed Benjamin just a little further.
My heart stopped as soon as I saw Benjamin lose his footing. His body fell from the rooftop.
Without thinking, I went over the roof too. I grabbed for Benjamin’s body in mid-air, not stopping until I had a firm grip around his waist. I prayed, praying for those wings I couldn’t see to sprout from my back once again, praying for that same ability to fly that I’d managed last year to make a miraculous appearance yet again.
But yet, we continued to plummet, seemingly to our mutual demise. I closed my eyes, trying to brace myself for the pain, the impact of my bones against the ground, when I realized that we weren’t falling anymore at all.
We were stagnant, hanging in mid-air, my arms still around Benjamin’s frame. He looked up at me with a wide grin, his eyes seemingly focused on something just over my shoulder.
“Your wings.” Benjamin’s grin grew even wider. “When you fly, they’re the most majestic pair I’ve ever seen.”
“I wouldn’t know.” I grinned back at him, before I began to fly upwards. I placed Benjamin back down onto the roof, stumbling against its surface.
When Benjamin was safely standing in a corner of the rooftop, I turned to see Zachary collapsed on the roof.
“Zach? Zach!” There was terror in my voice as I walked up to his nonmoving body. “Zachary, are you okay?”
I placed my hand on his shoulder, before turning his chest over to face my own.
And then, I saw his eyes.
They were entirely black, with no trace of his usual green. But when I brought my hand up towards his face, the black from his eyes seemed to fade into nothing, and the green that I was so used to gradually returned.
“…Celeste?” Zachary blinked, looking up at me. “Why are your wings out? What’s going on?”
I didn’t have a chance to answer his question, before I felt something tight around my throat.
Claws.
When I’d touched Zachary’s face, it must’ve sent the demonic energy right out of his body and back into the atmosphere. Whatever had possessed Zachary was extremely pissed off, something I was able to feel in its ever-tightening grip.
I swiftly reached for Michael’s sword, not wasting any time sending its blade through whatever had decided to try to choke me out tonight. When I turned to see my handiwork, I saw a rather monstrous-looking man on the ground with gnarled horns that reached down to his shoulders and skin so pale it was almost translucent.
“Who the fuck is that?” I said, gasping for air, my neck recovering from having a set of claws around it.
“Leviathan,” Zachary replied. “Prince of Hell. Father of Envy.”
Envy.
That would’ve explained Zachary’s outburst earlier.
“Bind him,” I instructed the sword and it seemed to do as it was told as a pair of golden chains then appeared around Leviathan’s wrists.
“Princess…” Leviathan’s words came out as a hiss. “Do you not wish to speak to one of your royal subjects—”
“Nope,” I replied, slicing Leviathan’s head right the fuck off his body. “Go to Hell.”
“Did you mean any of that? The stuff you said?” I asked Zachary as we both settled into our dorm for the night.
“No.” Zachary shook his head. “Not a goddamn word of it. Even when that asshole entered my body to possess me, it was like he wasn’t looking for the truth or any actual memories. He just wanted to sound convincing, I guess. Like his whole agenda was hurting Benjie, through and through.”
“Didn’t hurt me.” Benjamin shrugged. “Well, you almost killed me, but I figured there was something off with your words tonight. You’re usually not so open with your disdain of me.”
“What disdain?” Zachary replied.
“Exactly.” Benjamin chuckled. “I knew that you didn’t hate me, Zach. Not even when that demon was making you say such awful things. Besides, I knew you’d never be upset with me about sleeping with Celeste. In fact, I’d argue that you’d be fairly proud about the situation.”
“I would be and I am.” Zachary patted Benjamin on the back. “Good job, buddy.”
“Have demons always been able to possess angels?” I asked. “I thought they could only possess humans or people like Charlie.”
“Princes of Hell aren’t exactly like regular demons,” Zachary continued. “They have a lot more power than we’re used to dealing with directly.”
“And I fear they’re only getting stronger the longer they are on the surface.” Benjamin sighed. “We’ll have to find a way to slow the rest of them down, at least until Celeste is able to bind them.”
“Slow them down?” I asked. “Are you implying that there’s a way that we can track down these assholes before they come for us?”
“Maybe,” Benjamin answered. “But it’s going to take more research to be sure. Of course, we could always summon the princes, but I’m not comfortable with doing that again. And I think our best chances will come when they least expect it.”
“I agree.” Zachary nodded. “Summoning them just lets them know that we’re coming and we don’t want to catch them when they’re actually ready for us.”
“Okay.” I nodded too, agreeing with the general conversation. “So, what do we need to do next?”
“Next? We go to sleep. Get our energy up. Figure the rest of this shit out tomorrow.” Zachary turned over in his bed. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Benjamin said, giving me a sweet kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”
“See ya,” Zachary quickly offered as he fluffed the right side of his pillow.
“See you in the morning,” I whispered to myself, watching Benjamin walk out of the room.
Chapter 13
All of the students were assembled out on the quad, even though we hadn’t been told why we’d been asked to come out here in the first place. It was after lunch and I was still dealing with the fact that none of the other angels wanted to make eye contact with me, or even stand too close to me either.
Thankfully I had both Benjamin and Zachary on either side of me as we stood underneath the warm sun and waited for something to happen. Eventually, Mr. Toorin came to stand before us with a bright smile on his face.
“Students of Angel Academy!” he started. “As you know, after her expert handling of the cafeteria incident, Mrs. Deveraux has decided to go on a well-deserved vacation. We believe that once she’s able to replenish her lost energy, she’ll be back in no time, once again able to lead us all.”
Vacation?
Was that the lie that the Council really wanted to go with? They wanted us all to believe that Mrs. Deveraux would’ve gone on vacation after something so serious had happened on campus?
Wow. They really didn’t know her at all.
“In the meantime, we’ve decided to have an interim leader of the academy—”
“Is it you?” one of the students in the audience asked.
“Oh, heavens no.” Mr. Toorin laughed. “I have enough on my plate just trying to get all of you to turn in your assignments on time. No, no, no. We’ve decided to bring in someone with years of experience, as they were once a student here, and they also served on the Council in the past. We believe that they’re going to be fair and just, but also kind and understanding to the students who may need it.”
“Who is it?” another student called out.
“Yeah, who is it?” Zachary called out from beside me, adding onto the other student’s question.
“Yes, I’ll introduce him now, even though he truly needs no introduction.” Mr. Toorin nodded towards someone who was walking towards the cr
owd of students. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Benjamin Nash the Fifth!”
The Fifth?
I looked over at Benjamin, who had a stunned expression on his face.
“Your dad is going to be the new head of the academy?” Zachary asked Benjamin, who still looked so concerned.
“I…I guess so.” Benjamin blinked. “Strange. He didn’t mention any of this to me this morning.”
“You talked to him this morning?”
“Yes. He called me before breakfast, but I thought he just wanted to catch up.” Benjamin hummed. “I guess that was his way of hinting at his newfound position.”
“Calling his kid who goes to the same school that he just took a job at is his way of hinting that he might be starting work there soon?” Zachary shook his head. “No offense to your dad, but it sounds like we’re fucking doomed.”
“We’re not doomed,” Benjamin replied. “My father is a great man. He’s just…cryptic at times.”
“Great. Cryptic. Exactly what we need right now.” Zachary turned to face the quad again.
“I think it’ll be kind of cool to meet your dad.” I offered a smile to Benjamin.
“I think he’d be delighted to meet you too.” Benjamin smiled right back.
And that’s when I heard Mr. Toorin loudly cough, before he placed a hand on Benjamin the Fifth’s shoulder. “Sorry about the rowdiness of the students, Mr. Nash, but I imagine that you’ll be able to cure them of that particular ailment.”
“One can only hope so.” Mr. Nash grinned, staring back at us all. “Just to get this out in the open, yes, I am the father of Benjamin Nash, your classmate there.”
Mr. Nash tilted his head in Benjamin’s direction. “But I want you to know that our relationship does not mean that he’ll receive any special treatment from me. Every student here at the academy is equal in my eyes, and you’re all starting off with a blank slate.”