A Demon's Horns: Vice College For Young Demons: Year One

by Marie Mistry

  His voice instantly turned gentler. “You don’t need to go, Lady.”

  I shook my head, hoisting myself out of the pit and all but sprinting away. I could hear the siblings yelling behind me, their argument as loud and as fiery as their hair.

  It didn’t help that I ran straight into Daron.

  “What happened?” he asked, looking at my wild expression.

  “Rina,” I said, the single word answer telling him everything. “Can we… can we just cancel today? I need a moment. She’s right to hate me. I don’t know how she can stand the sight of me.” As a child, I’d always longed for a sibling, and my mother had put her foot down, stating that she wasn’t going through giving birth a second time. If I had had one, and someone told me that my best friend would kill them... “How is Rina still sane?”

  Daron stared me in the eyes intently. “I think you need to sit down and calm yourself a little. You’re probably overreacting.”

  I frowned at him. “Screw you.”

  He thrust an awkward hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean it like that!” He adjusted his glasses on his nose, exasperated. “I meant, look at it logically. You’re so ruled by your emotions at the moment, you could end up making decisions which you’ll regret later.”

  “No, you’re right.” I paced up and down. “Look, I think we’ll have to cancel, Rina and her brother are using the practice pit as a battleground now. I’ll see you in class, okay?”

  Daron shook his head. “I’m not cancelling, we’ll just practice somewhere else. We need to pass this exam, Lilith. Rina can catch up later, but we’ll have made some headway into it.”

  I took a deep breath. “You’re right, I’m sorry you’re caught up in our drama.”

  He ran his hand through his hair again. “Stuff happens, you’re both good people.” His words, though short and simple, were delivered as if they were the result of a lot of contemplation.

  “Where to then?”

  “There’s a space behind the Carnal Tower I’ve used before to practice.” I suggested, reluctantly.

  It wasn’t technically allowed to bring members of other castes back to your caste tower, but I’d seen the line of students leaving the promiscuities’ rooms in the early morning, so I doubted people paid much attention to the rule in Lust.

  “If it’s quiet…”

  “It is.”

  We lapsed into an awkward kind of silence as we walked back to the Tower. From the way Daron examined it as we approached, it was clear he’d never been near it before. When I opened the door and he was confronted by the richness of our common room, he smirked a little.

  “Other Envies say you’re always in the middle of a constant orgy. It’s actually quite quiet.”

  I blushed a little as I led him straight out of the back of the Tower, into the space between the curtain wall and the moat. “We’re not that bad,” I muttered, dumping my bag on the ground. “What’s first?”

  “I think shielding would be the best place to start.” Daron set his bag down much more gently than I had and extracted one of the books we’d borrowed from the library. “Relatively easy to figure out and probably necessary.”

  I turned to read over his shoulder. “You create the shield, and I’ll back it up.”

  He nodded absently, and the familiar incandescent film of a shield formed quickly in front of him. Fortunately, Daron was one of the best in Maddox’s class, so I felt quite confident of our chances of using our psychokinesis together.

  I carefully formed my own wall in my mind, picturing it merging with Daron’s in front of us.

  For a long moment, the shields remained separate, then they weaved together slowly, as though stitched by an invisible thread.

  The sudden pinching sensation in my chest was unexpected, and when it grew to become uncomfortable, I looked over at Daron to find him massaging his breastbone beside his crystal.

  “I think we’re doing something wrong,” I grated out.

  “I don’t know–”

  He cut off as the sensation suddenly released like a snapped rubber band and we both fell to our knees, our shield disappearing completely. I just managed to keep myself from completely face-planting by thrusting my hands out to catch myself.

  “What the hell just happened?” I coughed, my eyes watering. Daron was very quiet, too quiet. “Are you okay?” I looked up at him to find him staring at me in open mouthed shock.

  “Mate,” he whispered, and I felt a sudden, strange surge of satisfaction I knew wasn’t my own.

  Daron was one of my seven, and we’d skipped straight to cementing the bond with this stupid assignment.

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed, trying to get used to the strange sensation of the bond crackling inside my chest. “I didn’t know. You don’t know…”

  He stood on shaky legs and offered me his hand. “I don’t know what?”

  I took it and let him pull me up. I still felt winded from the bond. I was slowly developing a headache, but the moment our hands touched, an electric tingling ran across my skin. I gasped, stepping back and dropping his hand as if burned.

  “There are some things you need to know,” I began. “I don’t know how to explain them.” I touched my horns self-consciously.

  “From what I know, usually, mating is a cause for celebration,” Daron said, eyes following the motion of my hands. “So why are you backing away from me with fear in your eyes?”

  I stopped myself, took a deep breath and let it out before continuing. “My horns are a gift from the Strange God. A sign that I’m supposedly destined for greatness. When he spoke to me, he told me that I will have seven mates.” Daron’s expression changed quickly to one of sceptical disbelief, and I could feel his hurt and confusion through the strange new bond in my chest. “I’m not lying, or insane or trying to hurt you,” I continued. “Aeron is also my mate, and so is… Rina’s brother.”

  “And the others?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, “All I know is that I need all of you if I’m to survive, but you’re the only one I’ve bonded to. If I’d known, I would have told you before and given you the choice.”

  “Then there’s something you should know as well,” Daron admitted, blushing behind his nerdy glasses. “I really don’t share well.”

  The statement was so at odds with his sweet, geeky self that I didn’t notice him crowding me until I was pressed against the wall of the tower, his hands on either side of my head as he looked down at me from his height. When did he turn from a cute but awkward bookworm into the aggressive man in front of me? And why did I need to kiss him like I needed my next breath? The bond between us sparked and crackled at the lack of distance between us, driving me insane with the compulsion to get closer still.

  “It’s not up to me,” I mumbled.

  “Step away from her.” Aeron’s voice cut through the tension like a knife, and I wondered how much he’d seen.

  “Aeron, he’s one of the seven.” I wanted to talk to him, but I couldn’t see past Daron’s body.

  “And? That doesn’t give him an excuse to crowd you like that.”

  Daron visibly struggled for a minute before the corners of his lips twitched. “It figures that the first mating in over two hundred years would be the most complicated one.” He stepped away reluctantly. “I got carried away, I apologise.”

  “It’s a Succubus thing,” Aeron explained, coming closer. “She draws you in without even noticing.

  I looked up at them both, sheepishly. “Sorry.”

  Daron’s head snapped up. “I thought you were an Aphrodisia?”

  I shook my head. “I wish it were that simple.”

  “Well, I’m a Possession.”

  “I bet that will make sharing difficult,” Aeron commented, the corner of his lip curling in amusement.

  Daron gave a little half smile. “I say ‘mine’ a lot, other than that I’m really not so bad.” He paused. “So, Rina’s brother as well? Isn’t he part of the school’s s
ecurity?”

  I hesitated for a moment before answering. “Rina’s grandmother predicted I would be his mate and get him killed. Apparently, she’s never been wrong.”

  Daron cocked his head to one side. “Well, logically, you have two options. Accept that that version of the future is unchangeable and continue on regardless, or avoid him in an attempt to prevent it, which may end up being the cause of his death in the first place.”

  “You’re a bundle of joy,” Aeron retorted dryly. “I’m sure she must be wrong, Lilith. The Strange God picked him for you, I can’t believe that was to just let him die.”

  “Well, I don’t want to risk it,” I said, “I won’t talk to him or even look at him, and I definitely won’t mate with him. I don’t want another death on my conscience.”

  “He’s already a member of the Knights.” Aeron reminded me. “He was already sworn to your service till death before he even knew who you were.”

  “I think I need to be filled in,” Daron grumbled.

  “We’ll get you up to speed.” Aeron reached out and drew me against his chest, kissing the top of my head. “I came to find you, because there’s an angry looking red-headed girl at the door to the tower demanding your presence. I presume that’s Rina?”

  I groaned. “I’d better see what she wants.”

  “We still have to practice,” Daron reminded me. “We got a bit side-tracked with the unexpected bond.”

  “Tomorrow, after lunch?” I volunteered. “I’ll try and clean things up with Rina tonight, but it’s getting a bit dark for anything now.” It was a lame excuse, but I needed time to compute what had just happened.

  There was a tense moment of silence, and I could feel that he wanted to argue. The bond between us surged with the need to fall into the attraction between us, but Daron seemed on guard for it now.

  “I suppose I’ll see you in class,” Daron said as I moved towards the door.

  “I suppose so.” I lingered hesitantly for a few seconds, my heart crying out from my chest to remain near to my new mate. Aeron seemed to see my struggle and gave me a gentle push, opening the door for me and letting it slam closed behind me. The noise made me wince as it seemed to travel straight to the source of my headache.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself forwards towards the door where Rina was staring at the interior of the Carnal Tower as though its occupants might jump out and accost her at any moment. Her mouth twisted into a scowl the moment she saw me, but overall, she just gave off a defeated kind of aura. I took a deep breath and looked her in the eye as I reached the doorway.

  “Rina I–”

  “Lilith, this is my brother, Blaze.” Her tone was withdrawn but accepting as she stepped to one side to reveal the behemoth in black behind her. “He’s the head of security for Vice.”

  Rina’s changes of heart were going to give me whiplash, I decided.

  “I was going to do as you wanted,” I told her, trying to ignore her brother and his intense presence. “I don’t want to have his death on my conscience.”

  “It’s not up to her,” Blaze insisted, his words commanding my eyes to meet his pale green ones. “It’s between me and you.”

  “I don’t want to be the reason you die,” I whispered. “You don’t even know me. We can just forget all about it.”

  “I heard what you said in the chapel,” he reminded me, his eyes roaming my body, then snapping back to my face. “You will die without all seven of your mates. I know my duty and my fate, and I’ve accepted both. My sister was out of line telling you anything about it.”

  “You can’t mate me out of duty,” I protested, rubbing my temples.

  “Believe me, it’s the last thing I think about when I look at you,” he grumbled.

  “Ugh, TMI,” Rina muttered from behind him. “Look, she’s too tired for your bullshit right now, Blaze. Can’t you see she’s swaying on her feet?”

  “Sorry,” I apologised. “It’s been an exhausting day.”

  “What have you been doing?” Blaze asked, as his eyes once again ran over my body, lingering, before he forced his gaze back to my face.

  “The usual,” I muttered, dimly wondering how much longer I could stand upright while the room was spinning. “Accidentally mating my classmates, six hours of remedial etiquette training, discovering horrific prophecies about how I’m going to kill people.”

  “Who mated you?” Blaze demanded. “We only knew about Aeron.”

  “Daron. But I didn’t know…” Suddenly I was looking at two of him. I sank down onto my bum in the doorway. My brain got caught on the way the two siblings were blurring together.

  “Lilith, this is important.” Blaze was talking to me, I realised. “Lilith, have you fed today?”

  My head seemed so heavy. “Had a sandwich.”

  “I’ll take that as a no.” Rina’s voice sounded less snarky than usual.

  “Mating takes a lot of power out of you to form the bond. She’s probably just running low, which is why it’s getting harder to keep my hands off her with every passing second. I’m surprised her mate didn’t immediately claim her.”

  “Aeron,” I mumbled, “I need Aeron.”

  The earth started to move, and after a few moments I realised it was because Blaze was carrying me. “I’ll find him.”

  For a moment, all I could see was the fire of his tousled hair, and I reach up to touch it. “Pretty,” I whispered.

  Rina sniggered somewhere in the background, but I didn’t care. Blaze groaned as he kicked open the door at the back of the tower.

  “Aeron. She needs you,” he announced. “Take her away from me right now, because I’m this fucking close…”

  “What the fuck?”

  “She’s running on fumes from the power it took to create the mating bond,” Rina explained as I was ripped from the warm set of arms into a cooler embrace. “And her Succubus side is sending out signals that are making me question my sexuality.”

  “I can fix that.” A gentle hand stroked my face and I leaned into it, losing consciousness for a few seconds.

  “Sorry,” I muttered again.

  “Not your fault, Baby Girl.” I felt the sensation of sheets beneath me, and dimly wondered how long I’d been out. “God, you’re gorgeous.” He pushed my skirt up and my thong down before running a finger through my wetness. “I’ll make this up to you, but you’re so damn wet and you’re shredding my control with that thing you’re doing.” He still paused, seeming uncertain. I totally understood, he felt like he was taking advantage of me. I knew he wasn’t, but I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes right now either.

  “I need you. Now.” I gave him permission.

  Rough hands gripped my breasts and squeezed the perfect amount before I felt him slide home. I came on the first thrust, and I was so out of it I barely even noticed myself falling into oblivion when Aeron jetted his own relief within me, filling me with power.

  Chapter 20

  I awoke to Aeron kissing his way across my skin.

  “Mmmhmm,” I moaned as he followed the curve of my hip.

  “Are you awake yet?” he asked.

  “I could be…” My mind was fuzzy for a few seconds of bliss, and then the penny dropped. I jerked upwards. “I mated Daron.”

  “Yes.” Aeron’s careful response seemed consciously measured. “You did.”

  I ran a shaking hand over my horns. “Shit, I mated Daron and stroked Blaze’s hair.” I met his even stare with my own wide eyes. “What do I do?”

  “Well, breakfast is in half an hour…”

  I stared at him. “I don’t think I can eat.”

  He shook his head. “You need to. I spoke with Blaze and Daron whilst you were asleep. They said you only had a sandwich yesterday.”

  I groaned. “There’s never enough time,” I complained. “I missed breakfast because I was so tired from Hadrian’s impossible task of fixing up the old stadium, then I had Alicia’s dance class which went so well that it overran, a
nd I had barely enough time to grab a sandwich before lunch was over. Then I had to get to practice with Rina and Daron, which went badly because Rina took over the practice pit with her argument with Blaze, so I ended up mating Daron by accident… believe me I wanted to eat, it just never happened.” My brain finally caught up with what he was saying. “Wait. You talked with them? About what?” I pushed myself up.

  He gave me a crooked smile. “A bit of this and a bit of that. I don’t think the three of us could be more different. You realise Blaze has already graduated this place? He made head of security within the first six months he was working here.”