by Cara Wylde
Yes, I was human. So what? I had the upper hand. The sooner they understood that, the better.
CHAPTER FIVE
After a night of agitated sleep, I woke up drenched in sweat, took a shower, and decided to skip breakfast. My small kitchen was stocked with everything I could’ve wished for, so there was really no point in going down to the dining hall and subjecting myself to the other students’ stupidity. The first class was History, with Mrs. Morgan.
I made my way to the back of the classroom and sat at the farthest desk. I glanced around and noted that Hayley wasn’t in my class. Instead, Davien fucking Krause was. When the professor came in two minutes later, the incubus was still staring at me. It was like a challenge to meet his gaze, but I was determined to ignore him. Right before the lesson started, he grabbed his books and sprinted toward me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered under my breath.
He plopped at the desk next to mine, gave me a triumphant grin, then turned to the front of the class. Mrs. Morgan was talking about this year’s curriculum, which was all about Grim Reapers who’d made great careers in the past and revolutionized the field. Some names would only be mentioned, while others would be the subject of our final papers.
“If you’re lucky, maybe you get Valentine Morningstar,” Davien whispered in my direction.
I shifted in my seat. I was debating whether his comment was worthy of a reply or not, and then the professor threw us an annoyed glance, and I decided to pretend I hadn’t heard him. The supernaturals teaching at Grim Reaper Academy were notorious for a couple of things: one, they didn’t allow talking in class; two, they detested being interrupted; and three, they didn’t appreciate questions unless they expressly invited students to ask them. Breaking any of these three unwritten rules usually resulted in loss of worth points.
Davien leaned in his chair and tipped his chin at Mrs. Morgan. “I bet you could teach us more about him than she can.”
I gritted my teeth. He was silent for the next few minutes.
Mrs. Morgan was a fay. Unseelie. She had long black hair that fell in large waves on her back, emerald green eyes, and sharp features that could only be described as either witchy, or straight up bitchy. From what I knew, she’d never caused Mila any trouble. Her real name was Morgan Le Fay, but no one ever called her that. She had a dark past, apparently, demons she didn’t want exposed. Or at least, so I’d read in some ancient book when I did my thorough research on all the professors.
“It is important to know who came before us,” she said. “History must be treated with respect, and do you know why? We’re not humans.” A quick look my way, and she corrected herself. “We’re not mortals.” I wondered if she was going to give the same speech with Hayley in class. “Mortals regard history as an account of the past, and nothing more. They say it serves to never repeat the mistakes made then. Of course, that’s exactly what happens. It’s because they got it all wrong. We know better. History is not a dry account of past events, it is a mirror. Past, present, future… Concepts. Abstract constructs. That’s all they are. We study the Grim Reapers that came before us because we are them.” She pointed at an NDC girl. “You could be Artemis Moon. Granted she was a false goddess and you are a mage. But you get my point.” She pointed at Ivor Gray, the vampire in the Righteous Death Cabal. “You could be just like your father, Dorian.”
I couldn’t see Ivor’s face, but I noticed how his shoulders tensed. Tale as old as time. The son didn’t want to be like his father. He didn’t say a word, though, and Mrs. Morgan moved on. She fixed Davien.
“And what do I know? Maybe you are the next Valentine Morningstar.” She chuckled, as if she’d just told a good joke. No one quite got it, or they did but were reluctant to show it. She waved it off. “No, I don’t think you are.”
“Why not?” Davien smiled. “He had wings, I have wings…” He spread them wide, as if to prove an incubus’ wings were just as valid as a nephilim’s.
About that… I turned to look at him. I still couldn’t comprehend how an incubus had wings. As far as I knew, succubi and incubi couldn’t fly. They were just a type of demons – lust demons – who preyed on humans and supernaturals, sucked their sexual energy, and then used it to do a bit of magic. Nothing complicated; mostly tricks.
“You don’t have it in you, Mr. Krause.”
I wondered why the professor was humoring him. Had it been anyone else, she would have dismissed him and taken a bunch of worth points for impertinence. Then I saw how she was looking at him. She was under his spell. Damn incubi. They can get away with anything.
“Morningstar was the most powerful Grim Reaper the Academy has ever given the world because he was driven. He had one goal: to be the best. And he didn’t care about the effort, the sacrifices, the time it would take him to get there. He didn’t care about rules, either. That was all he wanted. He never allowed himself to be distracted by emotion. Love, lust, pleasure… As an incubus, Mr. Krause, you are hardwired to seek that and more. Even if you wanted to do something great in your career, you would be held back by your very nature.”
My eyes went wide, shifting between the fay and the incubus. She’d just insulted him, hadn’t she? At least, that was how I understood her words. But Davien merely grinned. He placed his arms behind his head, his whole demeanor and body language exuding confidence and nonchalance.
“That’s okay, Professor Morgan. I don’t want to be the next Morningstar. I’d rather conquer the world with my heart and my… ahem…” He popped his hips subtly. “... than with my scythe.”
I blinked. Maybe I was wrong about Mrs. Morgan. Maybe I was wrong about all the professors at the Academy. Or maybe, since Mila had attended, they’d changed. Many of them had been really cruel to her.
“If you ask me,” Davien continued, his gaze traveling to me. “She is more likely to be like Morningstar, even if she’s MDC. She’s got it in her. The drive you were talking about…”
Mrs. Morgan cocked an eyebrow, as if she was waiting for me to explain myself. I cleared my throat and straightened my back.
“I… I believe I’m more like Gilgamesh.”
“Truly? Why?”
“He was an explorer.”
“That’s not what Gilgamesh is known for.” She turned on her heels and went to write on the white board: Gilgamesh Akkad, 2500 BC, King of Uruk, Righteous Death Cabal, served for two hundred years. The last detail wasn’t exactly necessary, since in the history of reaping, only Morningstar had refused to retire when his two-hundred-year service came to an end. “He was a leader and an innovator. He proposed the theory that everyone’s string of life is different, and that by observing its color, consistency, and where on the energetic body it is positioned, a Reaper can tell how someone has lived their life, whether they are an immortal or not, and even whether they’d died before and came back to life. Of course, his theory was later proved to be correct. Most of what you will study in Anatomy of Souls this semester is based on the discoveries of Gilgamesh.”
I bit the inside of my lip. Maybe I should have bitten my tongue instead, because I was going to contradict Mrs. Morgan, and I knew it wouldn’t end well for me. But Davien had just been so brash and impertinent with her, and she hadn’t done anything to him. Maybe there was a chance at having a constructive discussion here. I raised my hand.
“Excuse me, I know that Gilgamesh was the first to study the aura and theorize about colors, density, and what they all meant, but I believe he is most known for his ability to cross dimensions. That’s why I said he was an explorer. Before being a Grim Reaper, he was a hybrid who could dream travel. And after he served his years reaping, he returned to his greatest passion – exploring the parallel universes.”
“Hybrid…”
From the tone of her voice, I could tell she didn’t like that I’d called the great Gilgamesh a hybrid.
“He was Unseelie.”
Right. In denial much? Yes,
he was the son of an Unseelie warrior and a mortal woman. That made him a hybrid, and in my stupidity at that moment, I insisted to convince Mrs. Morgan of it.
“As a Grim Reaper, Gilgamesh received immunity from death, but once that immunity was taken back, he returned to being a hybrid who, for unknown reasons, aged faster than fays naturally aged. With an Unseelie father, anyone would have expected that he’d inherited a fay’s long life. Instead, it seemed that he’d inherited his mortal mother. He wanted to live, so when he couldn’t find a solution in our universe, he started traveling more and more, thinking he might find something in the parallel universes. I believe he was right to try. Now we know that some of the parallel universes are slightly in the future compared to ours, and it makes sense he’d have had a fair chance at discovering a way to increase his lifespan by finding future versions of himself who’d presumably succeeded.”
The whole class was silent. Everyone had turned in their seats to stare at me. When I realized I was in the center of attention, I mentally slapped myself. Mrs. Morgan pursed her lips.
“And how do you know all this, pray tell?”
“Err… I… I did some research.”
“Research.” She grabbed the nearest student’s history book and waved it. “None of what you just said is in here, nor in any official historical documents about Gilgamesh and his life before, during, and after his career as a Grim Reaper. Your story, Miss Aleksiev, is simply not true. Rumors. Myths. Legends.”
“I don’t believe so…”
“I don’t know what kind of research you did, or what you understand by research. In this class, we study facts. We study what truly happened, and we base our conclusions on written proof and valid historical accounts. Now, do you have a verifiable historical source, so we can cross check your story?”
“I… No.” In my opinion, direct sources were better than historical sources. Everything I knew, I knew it from Mila and her mother, my Aunt Katia. Katia lived in a parallel dimension, but we visited each other often.
“That’s what I thought. This whole dream traveling business, Miss Aleksiev… Let me tell you my opinion. Very little of how it works and what it brings to us supernaturals is verifiable and reliable.”
“It absolutely is both verifiable and reliable. Studies have been made.”
She shook her head. She was losing her patience. “Studies by a select group of people who call themselves dream travelers, most of them simple humans, not even hybrids. Excuse me as I make the sensible choice of remaining reluctant.”
“Reluctant my ass,” I thought. “You’re just envious that you can’t dream travel. That you can’t dream at all, and you’re stuck in this one dimension with all the other bitter, jealous supernaturals. Playing in your sandbox for near eternity, of course you’d rather believe there’s nothing outside the sandbox.”
I did bite my tongue this time.
“I feel it’s necessary to take twenty worth points, Miss Aleksiev.”
“Why?”
“To make an example of you.” She turned toward the class. “This is History, ladies and gentlemen. It’s not Mythology, and it certainly isn’t Creative Writing. We study the past, we don’t invent stories about the past. Anyone who comes to my class with romantic myths and legends about the Grim Reapers that came before us will find themselves short of worth points by the end of it. Have I made myself clear?”
“I don’t believe this,” I whispered. Mrs. Morgan didn’t hear me, fortunately, but Davien did. He smirked.
“Good.” She turned to me once more, then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the class. “And secondly, we’re not in the Dream Traveling class. Be my guest to talk about your wild theories with Mrs. Rachel Crane, who I believe teaches Introduction to Dream Traveling.” She said the human teacher’s name with slight disgust. “Dreams and fantasies about parallel universes have no place here.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but then realized that was exactly what she wanted. It wasn’t worth losing more points because of a jealous supernatural. Mila had almost lost her life because of it. I sank into my desk and hunched my shoulders over my notebook. I spent the next half hour doodling, because everything that she dictated or wrote on the white board, I already knew. In fact, I knew the History book by heart, and I also knew it was far from being comprehensive. Morgan Le Fay liked to think that supernaturals were different than humans, but what she liked to think had nothing to do with reality. The truth was that, just like humans, they also interpreted and twisted history to fit their purposes and feed their egos.
The bell rang, and I rushed out of the classroom. As I rounded a corner, Davien caught up with me.
“Hey normie, wait up!”
I picked up the pace. The hallway was empty. I heard him spread his wings – a soft whoosh of feathers. Two seconds later, he landed in front of me. I looked at him with wide eyes. He was gorgeous! He flew like he moved – with grace. His feet touched the ground soundlessly. The smirk on his lips told me he liked what he saw in my eyes – awe. Okay, but I couldn’t help it. Some creatures were simply awe-inspiring. As long as Davien didn’t open his mouth and demonstrated what an arrogant jerk he was, I didn’t mind staring at him. When it came to eye candy, I was pretty basic myself.
“She’s a bitch. She shouldn’t have fucked with your worth points.”
“Well, she did.”
“Your story was way more interesting than her lesson.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a story. Everything I said about Gilgamesh is true.”
He shrugged. “I believe you.”
I sighed. “You do?”
“Yes! I mean, you’re a dream jumper! You know things beyond this dimension. And you published studies, for fuck’s sake! You’re an expert in your field, and she was a bitch to dismiss you like that. In fact, do you know what I think?”
He tucked his black wings and stepped closer to me. When he entered my personal space, I was tempted to take a step back, but I resisted.
“What?”
I could feel his breath on my face. It smelled fresh and minty, and I briefly wondered whether he’d popped a mint just before running after me.
“The supernaturals who dismiss you are close-minded idiots. They have all these cool powers, yet they get tripped because they can’t dream. They’re pathetic.”
I couldn’t help the smile tugging at my lips. It was nice to hear this from him. It was nice to feel supported and understood. To feel seen. I looked up at him through my long lashes. He was two heads taller than me. After a few seconds, his intense gaze made me blush, so I tried to look away, but instead I ended up staring at his lips. He leaned in, and I leaned in. It was all on instinct. I’d allowed an incubus into my personal space, and now there was no way out for me. I was trapped in the sweetest kind of trap. His hand came up to cup my cheek, and I almost moaned at his touch. Rationally, I knew that his skin gave off unique pheromones specifically designed to attract both females and males, but I didn’t care. It felt nice. He felt nice. And he might not have been the healthiest choice as a partner, but the truth was that I wasn’t looking for a partner. It wasn’t like I was a virgin or a prude. I’d lived for over two centuries on Earth. I’d had my fair share of good and bad relationships, good and bad sex. The only oddity was that I’d steered clear of supernaturals and only gone out with humans. Less complications. But now that I was surrounded by ridiculously hot males from all supernatural species, I wasn’t going to lie to myself and not admit that I was very curious to see how these bad boys were in bed.
Davien’s lips met mine, and I closed my eyes and lifted myself on my toes. My chest crashed against his, and I felt him take in a sharp breath. He wrapped an arm around my waist. I shuddered. Our tongues battled for dominance. I wanted to touch him, run my fingers through his red hair, but I was holding my books in one hand, and chose to fist my skirt with the other. If I gave in completely, I wasn’t sure I would be able to st
op. Davien walked me backwards, pushing me against the wall. He parted my legs with his knee and pressed his thigh against mine. I felt his erection, and that made me so horny that I suddenly considered just telling him what I wanted. No games, no puzzles. We were two adults who could give and receive pleasure, then move on and mind their own business.
Right?
Not sure…
Because there was something at the back of my mind, a voice, whispering that this wasn’t real. His kiss wasn’t real, the way he grabbed at my clothes possessively… That wasn’t real, either. He was an incubus, and I was under his spell. He was the master, and I was his puppet. But even with the voice getting louder and louder, I couldn’t stop. I wanted more of him. I wanted to taste him, tease him, have him. I sucked on his tongue, released him, and grabbed his bottom lip between my teeth. My panties were soaked, and I felt like my bra and my shirt had shrunk one size. My round, hard breasts pushed against them, by pebbled nipples desperate for friction.
The next thing I knew, someone yanked Davien off me, and I whimpered at the loss of contact.
“What the fuck, dude?” Davien groaned.
“What the fuck? I’ll tell you what the fuck!” Seth yelled. He threw Davien against the opposite wall and punched him right in the jaw.
I dropped my books and cried out.
“Did you think you could take advantage of her?”
“Seth, he wasn’t…” I tried.