Ascend (Celestial Academy Book 1)

by Maya Nicole

  No one sat next to me.

  Figures.

  At least I'd have a seat for my bag.

  Wasn't that the worst feeling in the world? Walking into a classroom and having no one sit next to you? I tried not to let it bother me, but it was becoming blatantly obvious I was the pariah of the school. I had been here less than twenty-four hours.

  "A Corpus Unguis has five small heads with long tongues that have razor like protrusions on the ends. It has thick, almost clear skin that is impenetrable."

  "Very nice. Now, why does this species have that type of exoskeleton?" He wrote down what the student said and turned back to the class.

  Another student was called on. "It eats the fingernails from its victims."

  I watched as he wrote on his notes. I raised my hand.

  "Yes, Danica?" Oh, thank fuck he was using my first name. "Something to add?"

  "It actually only has one head with five mouths. Its head is shaped like a hammerhead shark. I can see how it could be confused as having five heads though. Plus it doesn't eat the fingernails. It pries them off, chews them up, then spreads the substance over its armor to strengthen it. It actually has a serpent like body which is exposed in a few places."

  The room was so silent I could hear my own heartbeat thudding in my chest. Fuck. Now I was that student.

  "Why the fingernails?" I turned to see Oliver looking at me. "How do we kill it?"

  "Usually it steps in when the soul has done something that warrants nonuse of their hands. An eye for an eye type of situation. To kill it..." I bit my lip. I wasn't sure how happy Lucifer would be if I divulged how. "I'm not sure how."

  "Oh, I'm pretty sure you know how. Sounds like you are well acquainted with them. Your last boyfriend was probably a Corpus Unguis." At Oliver's words the class exploded into laughter.

  "Enough!" Mr. Armstrong stood from his desk and stood in the front center of the room, rubbing his hands along his short beard. "Mr. Morgan, that will be five points off your divinity score."

  "But, Mr. Armstrong, she's-" He protested before being cut off.

  "I don't care what your reason is. I won't tolerate bullying in this classroom. If anything we should be grateful we have someone who is knowledgeable about something we hopefully will never encounter."

  The rest of the class I continued my flowering vines and wrote down, instead of volunteering, the errors in the book. I could see how so many demons were misrepresented. They were all confined to hell and it’s not like Lucifer had written the textbook. I'd have to let Mr. Armstrong borrow the book I had on demons. It would blow his mind.

  Once class ended, I ripped my notes out of my notebook and set them on his desk as I left the classroom.

  Besides the hushed whispers and the occasional use of the word devil, I made it out of Uriel Hall and across the quad area to the gymnasium. I didn't love or hate gym class, but this class was Defensive and Offensive Flight Techniques. It was gym on crack.

  There was one big problem.

  I didn't have wings.

  I made my way to the locker rooms and found Brooklyn already in her workout clothes. She greeted me and I quickly changed. Luckily there was no dress code for PE, so I threw on leggings and a tank top.

  "How was your first class?" Brooklyn and her friends were the only ones so far to not throw hate my way, which was a relief. At least I had a few people on my side, or at the very least, in neutral territory.

  She seemed to be on the quiet, shy side and reminded me a tad of Ava. She was shorter than me and had a head full of luscious curls that she wore in a sloppy bun on the top of her head.

  "Oliver had five points taken away because he made some comment about the fingernail demon being my boyfriend. It's like we're in junior high." I shrugged like it was no big deal and I steered us towards the teacher, who looked awfully young to be teaching. "There's a student teaching?"

  "Coach Ferguson? He's a Class II. He's about twenty-five in angel years."

  I stopped in my tracks and grabbed her arm. "Run that by me again."

  "He died when he was ten, drowned in a river. He’s been an angel for twenty-five years, so he is thirty-five in human years, if that helps. Angels stop maturing in their early twenties. If they are older when they die they just stay that way, like Mr. Armstrong. All the really old Class IIIs go to a different academy."

  "How'd he die?" I didn't know if that was a rude question, but if I was going to be asked if I had a pet hellhound or if I had horns, then any of my questions were fair game.

  She shrugged. "Coach Ferguson told us his story the first day of school. Mr. Armstrong doesn't share much about his time before he became an angel. But I think I heard him say he was twenty-seven when he died."

  We waited behind a student already talking to the coach. His eyes widened slightly when he saw me, but he finished his conversation before turning to me.

  "Danica Deville, is it?"

  I nodded in reply.

  When he started to turn away, I cleared my throat. "Sir, I don't have, uh... I don't have wings."

  A hush fell around the gymnasium. I hadn't even realized everyone was watching me so intently. This room sure did echo too.

  "What do you mean you don't have wings? They let you in here without wings? How can you fly with no wings? This is an academy to be a guardian angel!" I was so tempted to roll my eyes at his stupid questions. Had I been back at my old school, I would have, and then I would have promptly been kicked out of class.

  "Flap my arms really hard?" I raised my eyebrows and smiled. He didn't seem amused.

  "You are an angel, right? What class are you?"

  Crap, crap, crap. I had forgotten to find that little important piece of information out. I had meant to ask Mr. Armstrong.

  Brooklyn, sensing my anxiety, stepped forward a little. "Sir, she is half angel. I don't think they have a classification for her yet. Maybe today I can practice hand-to-hand combat with her since she missed first semester?"

  "Good thinking, Russo." He gave me one last look before turning his back to me.

  We made our way over to an area off the main gym. I had tried karate when I was younger and hated it. It was too controlled. What I really wanted was to learn how to throw down on the fly. I already knew how to throw a good punch at the nose though.

  "Thanks. You deserve ten points for that," I said as we approached the door.

  I heard footsteps behind us and turned to see Levi and two other boys. I turned back towards Brooklyn and nearly collided with her stopped body at the entrance to the area we were headed.

  I heard laughter and my stomach clenched. Brooklyn spun around and glared at the three boys holding their stomachs in laughter. I stepped into the room where training dummies were spread at regular intervals and mats lined the floors. Taped to the dummy's heads were pictures of Lucifer.

  Except it wasn't Lucifer. It was a red monster with a contorted face, horns, and red eyes. I went to each one and ripped the paper off. I didn't hear what Brooklyn said to them because my ears had done the strange, fuzzy ringing that happens when I get really pissed off, but the boys seemed to be laughing even harder. I walked over to them and stepped too close for comfort, because their laughing immediately stopped and they backed up a step.

  "Maybe I should summon my father here to show you what he really looks like. And trust me, you don't want to see him when he's pissed off." The boys paled at my words and backed up another foot.

  They didn't need to know that Lucifer didn't have a demon form, or a different face. That's actually what made him so terrifying. He looked almost normal. The almost being that he had a penchant for fancy-ass suits and exuberant watches all while permeating hearts and souls with fear.

  I wadded up the photos and threw them at Levi who jumped back to avoid their touch. I only wished I had the ability to throw fire balls. I turned on my heel and went back into the room with Brooklyn.

  "That was... epic."

  I gave her a tight smile but
it was forced. I didn't want to use Lucifer as a threat, but these angels weren't leaving me with any other choice.

  The rest of my classes and lunch passed without incident. Word had spread that I had threatened Levi and his two friends.

  Good. Let them be scared.

  At least if they were scared of me they would stop being assholes.

  Chapter Four

  Tobias

  This semester was really shaping up to be a shit-show of a semester. Just last week, the dean had called me into her office to meet with her and Chamuel. They told me I would be the advisor of Lucifer's daughter.

  Lucifer's daughter.

  I still couldn't quite wrap my head around that one. Angels weren't fertile. How the hell did Lucifer get a human pregnant? Had he used dark magic? Demon blood?

  Chamuel didn't seem to know, nor did he care. He was all about peace and love. I'm not exactly sure what his thought process was behind allowing her to come to the most prestigious of all the celestial academies. We had standards here and after looking at her rather thick cumulative folder from her human education, she was far below what we would ever allow.

  Besides lackluster grades that resulted in her frequenting summer school, she had a discipline record a mile long. A few suspensions with a day here, three days there. It painted a picture of a troubled young woman.

  Pot in locker.

  Defiance.

  Disruption.

  Assault.

  Did Chamuel truly think we could fix this girl? She might have angel blood in her, but she certainly wasn't angelic. Maybe he was losing his touch because this place was definitely not the place for a half-blood angel that didn't even have wings.

  On Sunday, when she had arrived, I had actually been surprised that she looked normal. A little better than normal. I guess I expected her to be goth or something. I wouldn't say angels ran around in skin tight pants that showed the sharp curve between their ass and hamstrings or crop tops that bared a flat stomach begging to be touched.

  As she walked towards me that first day, I had known I was in trouble with this... woman. She stirred something deep within me that I hadn't even felt when I was human. It repulsed me. She repulsed me. Not because of who she was, but because I was the adult in this situation and she was, well, she was my student.

  At least that's what I kept trying to tell myself.

  Walking back to my room, I found myself thinking about her. She was already being bullied for who she was. Oliver might be top of the class, but his behavior was completely out of line and I don't think he was even aware how out of line he was. We had the other Divine 7 to thank for that.

  They were supposed to be guiding him. Instead they were corrupting him. I wanted to intervene, but there were explicit orders from upstairs that he was to find his own path. Things probably weren't going to end well for him.

  Even the other instructors were out of line. At lunch, Trey Ferguson had done nothing but complain about the half-breed in his class. She had no wings. She had an attitude. I couldn't argue with him there, she certainly had that.

  Then there was Patricia Fisher, the Portrayal of Angels and Demons in Modern Literature instructor. She had docked Danica ten points she didn't even have because the girl had made a comment about her dad not being red. I hadn't docked her points for speaking out in my class.

  I entered the common room of my building and nodded politely at the other staff members lounging on the soft leather sofas. Normally, I'd join them, but I wanted to work on updating our files on demons after the new information I learned today. Danica Deville might not be our ideal student, but she knew things we didn't.

  Turning right at the top of the stairs, I stopped in my tracks as Danica stood outside her door and was wiggling to pull pants on under her skirt. A flash of red caught my eye but her gaze snapped to mine and I looked away.

  What the hell was she doing changing in the hall?

  And were those feathers on the ground?

  Trailing out her door to where she was standing was a small trail of white feathers. Had she gotten her wings? If she had, then I needed to get her to the infirmary because that much shedding wasn't typical.

  "Oh, hi, Mr. Armstrong." She zipped up her pants and stared at me as I started walking down the hall to my door.

  She was at the end of the hall, I was in the middle. I stopped at my door but then turned to look at her before speaking.

  "May I ask what you're doing?"

  Now that I was closer I could see a few feathers in her brown hair and red blotches under her eyes, as if she'd been crying. My chest constricted at the sight and I felt the unwavering desire to step closer to her. To wrap her in my arms.

  "Come and see for yourself. I'm just going to change my shirt in the stairwell." Her normal confident vibrato was absent from her voice as she spoke. I watched as she opened the door to the stairwell and slipped inside.

  I peeked into her room but then moved to stand in the doorway, taking in the sight.

  White down feathers lay all over the room. Everything, and I mean everything, had feathers on it. Her bed. Her dresser drawers that were pulled out. Her desk. Her bathroom.

  My eyes went to the open window and I cursed under my breath. I hadn't thought to tell her to keep her window shut and locked, but how was I to know someone would do something so cruel?

  I moved out of the way as she came out of the stairwell with a black tank top on that had a picture of the devil and the words "I'm horny" on it. I felt her eyes land on my quirked lips as I stared at her chest.

  "So, yeah." She crossed her arms over her chest, which only made my focus on her breasts worse because it pushed them up. They'd probably fit perfectly in my hands.

  No. No they wouldn't.

  I looked down the hall, away from her. "I can call the custodian to come and clean this up."

  "No! I... just let me take care of it." Her voice cracked and that made me ache to reach out and touch her.

  To touch her, just like I had wanted to on Sunday.

  God, how I had wanted to touch her.

  "I'll get us some supplies to clean this up."

  I went to the supply closet, which was right across from her room, and grabbed black trash bags, brooms, and dust pans. I was a shitty advisor. I should have shown her around yesterday. Instead, I had run for the hills because she made my dick twitch.

  We worked in silence for a few minutes before I let out a frustrated grunt and threw the broom down. "Who the fuck did this?"

  I hadn't been that angry out in the hall, but now that we were trying to clean up the feathers, I was furious. Down feathers were the most annoying of all feathers. They stuck to everything and were so fluffy it was hard to pick them up, even with a broom and dustpan.

  "I think it's pretty obvious angels did it, don't you?" She threw her broom down too, but with much less force than I had, and went to her refrigerator. "The assholes better not have put feathers in here."

  She let out a puff of air as she opened the door and there were no feathers. Once the door was open, several drifted to the inside of the door at the bottom.

  "Want a soda or water?" She took out a Diet Dr. Pepper and a bottle of water and held them out to me.

  I grabbed the water and she looked relieved I hadn't taken the soda. I tilted my head a bit to the side and took her in as she popped the top and drank half the can in one go. She could have been a spokesmodel in a commercial with how sexy she looked drinking it.

  "Why are you helping me?" she asked before putting her can on the counter and grabbing a bowl out of the cupboard.

  She reached down and scooped up a bowl of feathers. Her face cracked into a grin at her ingenuity.

  "Why would I not help you?" I started scooping feathers again.

  "You're a dick."

  I wasn't expecting that, that was for sure.

  I paused mid scoop and looked up at her looking down at me. "What do you mean?"

  "You think I'm repulsive. You all d
o." She spoke in an even tone that didn't give away any emotion. Either she was strong as fuck or had already come to terms with how the others felt about her.

  "I don't think that. What gave you that impression?" My chest felt a little tight. Had I given her that idea? If she only knew how completely untrue her words were.

  "The way you talk to me, look at me, flinch away when I get close." She lowered to her knees and continued scooping. "I would have at least expected the teachers to be more accepting."

  I remained quiet. What was I going to tell her anyway? That the looks I gave her were more of an outward expression of the disgust I felt towards myself for getting a hard on for her? That when she got close to me I wanted to move away so I didn't do something stupid?

  I couldn't tell her any of that.

  Sure she was eighteen and of age, but I was her teacher.

  Plus, I was old. Like died when I was twenty-seven during World War II old.

  She let out a frustrated sigh and sat down in the feathers.

  "How do angels get their wings?" Her hands lowered to the feathers beside her and she gathered them in her hands and watched the feathers drift down as she released them.

  I continued to work and stopped near the dresser. "Well, there's a few ways..."

  I struggled to find my words at the sight of her panties and bras laying in a heap on the floor. They were covered with feathers, but it was pretty obvious she liked lace. So much lace.

  I turned quickly and moved away, hoping she wouldn't notice. She did.

  "I'm lucky they didn't do anything to those, otherwise I'd have to go commando."

  The thought of her without panties under that white skirt of hers made my dick twitch and start to harden. Shit.

  "So, wings. Well, some are born with them. Class I, like Oliver Morgan. Class II usually get them immediately upon entering heaven. The rest of us have to go through a vetting process to make sure we are worthy."

  "Lucifer didn't exactly explain all this stuff to me." She glanced up at me before she turned her attention back to playing with the feathers at her sides.