by S. I. Hayes
“Aella?” Professor Excelsior approached me as I grabbed my jacket. It was almost four and I was on my way to meet Dean Baker for our discussion on how to best prevent another riot and resume reintegration without harm coming to anyone else. It was funny how the winds changed so quickly here in New England. Just the past week it was hot as Hades and now it was colder than a Witch’s tit.
I turned to him, looking him up and down, he was an attractive man of about fifty. Long dark hair that curled up just behind his ears and a long face with Roman features. He was a Pureblood Vampire, who was always a bit spotty when asked about his age, simply saying he was old enough to know when something was gonna blow over or not, and knew when to shit or get off the pot. Whatever that all meant.
“Yes, Professor?”
“Might I suggest you leave Collette and Mary behind this time?”
I furrowed my brow. “They’ve been super helpful, though.”
“Um, no Aella, they’ve been manipulating the system for you. The problem is this time, it’s not going to work, and if they try, it’s going to get them hurt.”
“I think that they are big girls Professor, they are going to do what they want either way.”
He shook his head. “I just know what I hear and I hear that they know that they’ve been twisted by the Fey. Once someone knows, they resist. Once they resist, it becomes hard to bend them. Please, just be careful.”
“I will be, Professor. I just suggest you do as I’ve asked and see to it that these kids get taken care of at the rally in the Quad. There are going to be security details and I don’t want anyone hurt. Them or us.”
He sucked his teeth. “I can do that.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed it firmly. “Thank you.” I shrugged into my coat and headed for the door, Collette right behind me.
WHEN WE APPROACHED the Dean’s office there were three Campus Security Guards waiting for us. It was just Collette and I, now I was wishing I’d allowed Alewar and Mary to join us, but I needed them at the protest, needed Mary’s words, her lyrical sets would keep the crowd peaceful, she could do that much without even standing up. They were supposed to do a sit in, showing the peaceful nature of the Otherkind students. Show the abilities of those who could, feats of fancy, magic and whatnot. The three guards tightened up their position, blocking the office doors as we neared.
“I’m Aella Rowan, Deviant Class Representative, I have an appointment to see Dean Baker.”
“Yes, you do,” the center one spoke. “She does not.”
“Oh, come now.” Colette reached out, trying to grasp his arm and he turned, letting her catch his body armor.
“Ouch!” She drew back her hand with a sniffle. “Since when do you idiots use iron?” She held her injured hand protectively.
“Since Otherkind began using your kind to force us to your wills.” The door to the office opened and the School President, Mister Jeter stood in its space. “I didn’t believe it at first, but it all makes sense. Now, do you believe us, Senator Calder. Your own students have been manipulating the College Staff for their own devices.”
Leonas stood inside by the widows. From his vantage point, he could see the Quad. He lifted the blinds and looked down, then looked directly at me.
“They look so peaceful; it would be a shame if that were to change. Come inside dear and have a seat.”
I was grabbed and pushed into the room, the door slamming shut, then out of the corner of my eye I saw Greisen appear in the corner.
“It would be such a shame,” he hissed, grabbing the guard closest to him, Greisen’s bare hands leaving a mark on his bare skin as the man collapsed, bile erupting from his mouth with a froth.
“Too bad no one will ever know who ordered such a brutal assault.” Greisen’s wings came forth as he spun, Leonas hit the floor hard. I shoved President Jeter down so he wouldn’t fall victim, but he lifted his head.
I looked away, but the sound of his death will haunt me, the thud and the squelching roll of his head across the rug as it hit the table leg. Dean Baker screamed like a woman. Or maybe that was me. I hit the floor as he made the rounds. Finally, I saw him descend upon his father, taking him by the head as he had Collette, forcing his fingers down the man’s throat. Leonas gasped and choked on his knees, blood coming up as he tried to vomit the poison back out.
He pushed Greisen back, but he simply thrashed him with his wings. I scurried on my belly for the door, to find it was barricaded shut.
“I’m sorry.” I could hear Collette cry from the other side. “It has to be done this way.”
I tucked myself into the hole between the walls, pulling the filing cabinets in toward me as I watched Leonas being torn to shreds, then Greisen lifted the body, throwing it out the window into the Quad.
My fear was so thick I could taste it as the screams swelled and he turned toward me. Then I realized that it wasn’t my fear I was tasting, it was my acid. In my shock, I forgot who and what I was. My back itched, in fact, it burned as I heard the screams from outside. My mind raced as it imagined the sudden carnage that would ensue when the body hit the ground. The security detail would see it as an act of violence and would attack. The Otherkind would be forced to defend themselves. This would be a bloodbath for both sides.
I couldn’t let this happen. Too many people worked too damned hard for this, for it to fall apart now. I saw it for what it was. A power play, and Greisen Calder was at its center. I stood up, reaching for my weapon as he approached me, his wings covered in gore. His hands dripping in his poison.
“Come now, my little scapegoat. It’s time you had your medicine. It won’t kill you, but it will befuddle you enough that you’ll admit to anything Collette tells you that you did.”
“Touch me and I’ll take your hands, you feeble little worm.”
“Ahh, if only you weren’t tainted by my Dragon Daddy, I’d have liked to fuck you, just for sport.” He slashed at me with his wings, just missing me as I ducked, spinning out, jumping up onto the table and sliding across the bloodied mess. I caught the Quad out of the corner of my eye. The people were running, there was smoke as far as the eye could see and people were just screaming. The security detail was grabbing and slamming Human and Otherkind alike to the ground and hitting them with batons and cattle prods. I slid to the edge of the table.
My heart racing, I waited as Greisen ripped the door open pulling Collette inside, holding her by the throat.
“Cooperate little baa, baa or I’ll kill her.” His talon like fingers clawed at her throat, making her bleed.
Tears ran down her cheeks in a black mess as she sobbed.
“Leave her be, you bastard,” I snarled, feeling the acid in my throat.
“Do you have your phone?” he asked calmly, scratching her deeply. She clung to him, tearing at his arms.
I stayed poised to attack, but nodded yes.
“Send my father a message to come here, tell him you need him.”
“He won’t come. He hasn’t yet.”
“That’s because you haven’t asked. Only called, he’s somewhere he can’t get those calls. But something tells me he can feel you are in distress... Now.”
He flung his hand at me, the poison hitting me in the chest. It burned instantly. My scales jumped to the surface to protect me, but it only seemed to make it worse.
“It will take a bit longer to work on you, so I suggest you get on with it, before I come over there with the full dose.”
I could feel the paralysis in my chest, it was already becoming hard to breathe. I pulled out my phone, watching as he refused to loosen his grip on poor Collette. She was just a dopey little girl that got sucked into his fucked up world.
I opened up my messages to Sig and typed. I could feel my body burning, feel the rings in my back as my whole body arched. If I was ever in need, if I was ever going to make a decision about my path, it was now.
I dropped the phone on the table, sliding it toward Greisen, but it w
as stopped halfway by the muck and grime. The carnage outside was more than I could deal with. It had to be stopped and I was the only one left to help Alewar, who was fighting tooth and nail out there, trying to keep Mary safe. I could see them out of the corner of my weary eye. Her fiery red hair was a whirlwind beneath him as he shielded her from the onslaught of the campus security.
“That’s not being a good little kitten, I’m sick of defiant little kitties. Do you know what happens to defiant little kitties?” He dragged his claws across Collette’s fragile little throat and she folded to the ground like a puppet who’d lost its strings. “They get fixed.” He flew at me and I flipped myself off the table, my lance behind me, severing the laces to my corset piercing. I could feel the burning and the itching, the undeniable pain as it wracked my body. I didn’t care, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to save my people. My people were outside this room. They were in pain, they were unjustly being harmed and I was the only one to stop it. I dodged his next attack and tipped myself out the third floor window, praying that my wings would finally unfurl.
chapter 80 ryane
“SO YOU MEAN TO TELL me that it’s been a week and in that week not only has Sig gone missing, but the entire program at Grigori has fallen apart and Aella has taken over the Deviant Class with Greisen Calder as her Advisor?” I sat, biting my already chipped nails, trying to even them out. “What the actual fuck?”
I looked at Herlihy, who had joined Gage and I in the living room, with complete horror. “You knew about this?”
“Actually, this is news to me. Had I known, I would have stepped in. Apparently the Senate is keeping me out of the loop as to the goings on at Grigori. That is something I am not happy about. Leonas Calder is on the board there. He would have been more than aware of all of this.”
He stood up, I must make preparations for an interrogation now. This is all highly suspect, especially after his nephew’s involvement in Keegan’s kidnapping, in the spring. We were putting it as a power grab by one ousted family member, but now with this having happened...” He turned toward me. “Do you think you may be able to help Aella turn this around? Talk some sense into her perhaps, before it blows out of control completely?”
“I can try?”
“Well, she should be susceptible to your suggestions. Hell, you can command Sig, so why not her?” Gage chimed in. “If that stupid Museling can get her to do what Greisen wants...” Gage went quiet. As Herlihy and I looked at him suspiciously.
“I- it was something I heard them talking about as I was coming to in my cage after the moon. She made Aella unfurl her Dragon at some party. It’s why she doesn’t have her wings.”
“I didn’t know she didn’t have wings?” I whispered. “How do they do that to a Dragon?”
“It’s a ceremony with barbaric rituals and spells that curse them under the skin until they meet certain requirements. For Aella, she needs to find a balance between her heart and her head. They need to be on the same page for her to become whole once more. She needs a cause to fight for.” Herlihy half smiled as he shook his head. “Perhaps everything does happen for a reason, and perhaps you need to go to Grigori as quickly as possible.”
I nodded, standing up. “I need to grab a few things at Samuel’s, then we can go. Gage you can take me, yes?”
“You are the Bosslady, but what about the Bossman?”
I looked at my would be father in law, who shook his head no.
“It’s to be just us, then?”
“Just us, is just fine.” Gage put his arm around me as he fished in his pocket for a bit of beef jerky. Apparently he just had it there, marinating. He’s a strange, strange young man.
Chapter 81 Sig
NEEDING TO COME UP for air, feeling a deep pain suddenly in my chest, I came out of the archives where Father and I had been working diligently, looking for loopholes and connections to the Otherkind families, hoping to find an easy fix to the split between the Vampires and the Fey. Since the Teague Family was now the Patriarchy the only fix was to marry Keegan off to one of the Fey. That wasn’t going to happen, unless there was another suitable male heir. We had found a passage that stated Herlihy could name knights to his house, as well as Lords, and other higher officials, and that these people could be considered family. This could well be the in we had been looking for, but who would he appoint? Who, from the Fey Hierarchy would they marry to seal the rift?
“You okay there, son?” Father asked as I rubbed my chest harder, the pain was getting worse and I felt it like nothing I had ever felt before. My scales were coming to the surface and I noticed these splotches of discoloration on me.
“I- um, I don’t rightly know, Father.”
He came over to me, and looked at my chest, wide eyed. “You, son, are bonded to that lovely little hatchling of a Dragonborn.”
“Huh? No, how do you figure? I’ve sworn no fealty to her, made no proclamations to her.”
“Do you have anything on your person from her?” I shook my head. “Did you take anything from her of great value? A bauble? A lock of hair, perhaps, it could be something so tiny you wouldn’t even realize it meant anything to her, but if it does and you have it...”
“Her virginity... I took her virginity, Father.”
“Well, that- uh... that would certainly do it.” He half-laughed. “But that, what you are seeing there, that’s distress. She’s in trouble, boy.” The look on his face said there was more, but I didn’t have time to hear it.
I stood up, slamming the chair backward, my heart leaping out of my chest. “I can’t stay here, I need to go, I can’t- if she’s hurt or worse...” I moved to the left and my phone went off. I looked down, realizing I still had the damned thing. It hadn’t made a peep in days. Days. I’d been here for days, so wrapped up in all this craziness that I had stayed away from her, from everyone, who knows what had been going on. I saw I had a voice mail from Ryane.
I clicked that first.
“Sig, you fuck where are you, you go AWOL on us and the world goes to ashes! Grigori is on fucking Defcon one! The whole place is up in smoke! The Deviant Class has been attacked by the Campus Security Squad and the Local PD has gotten into it! It’s all over the news! We can’t get within six blocks of it! Babe, I don’t know where Aella is! She’s in there somewhere! You gotta find her!”
I hung up, then saw the text from Aella, marked only ten minutes ago.
At Grigori, I need you. They need you. I’ll do what I can till you get here. Hurry. I love you...
I dropped my phone, rubbing my chest, looking at my father. “What could do this to her, to me through her?”
“Not much, my best guest? A Dragon’s Poison. It causes paralysis, hallucinations, mental disfigurations and in Human’s, immediate pain and death. For one of us, it’s a lot of pain and possible paralysis, depending on the potency and locations, a certain amount of confusion. Acts of Valor, or cowardice depending on the Dragon.”
“Knowing my girl, she’s about to do something really stupid, ultimately brave, but completely bonkers.” I hugged my father, who then grabbed me, pulling me in tighter. “If you wait a God damned moment you won’t have to go at this alone. I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t even have your weapon.”
“Do you think I would hide it somewhere I couldn’t retrieve it when I needed it?” He eyed me with a smirk.
“Just follow me out and we’ll retrieve yours first.”
ONCE OUTSIDE, WE CLOAKED and flew about twenty kilometers west towards the College, then landed in a field devoid of any life except a few crows.
“What, is this where your weapon is?”
“Sort of and no. My weapon has been many places, but never here until this very moment.” He put his hand on my forehead.
“Father?” I questioned him as my stomach lurched, and he tilted my head all the way back.
“Gral delshcked Ulshek,” he chanted as his fingers worked into my forced opened mouth, stretching past my t
eeth, “Gral delshcked Ulshek, Inferinm Rlman!” As we stood there, I felt my Dragon release and as it did so the tightness in my jaw laxed and from my now loosened muzzle, he pulled a sword of bursting flames. He stood back, blowing out the fire, revealing a snake blade of about two feet in length with a hand and a half handle made of bone.
“You my son, have been my sheath, since you were but a babe. You have been my chosen Master, my immortal tie to this realm. You two boys are the cause for which I will forever fight.” He smiled as I regained my Human shape. Dropping to the ground.
I looked up at him with tears in my pained eyes. “I had no idea we could house a second weapon.”
“You can house the weapon of your father, or the weapon of your own forging, so long as it comes from your flesh or blood. The magics will bring it to you in time. You are young yet, you will see, once you have had your first hatchlings.”
I laughed. “I doubt that will happen, especially if we do not get a move on. Father, there is urgency to this issue of mine. We must move.”
“Aye. I understand.” He leaned forward, thrusting his sword into his back, and unfurling his flame touched wings once more. We cloaked and took back to the air, Hell bent on retrieving my woman.