by A. K. Koonce
The cool air shifts though.
It becomes a panicked strength that gusts across the grass. The fluffy clouds above turn an angry dark shade that shadows out the sun just as thunder booms a quaking roar all around me.
“Syko,” I whisper, eyes big and searching.
But I can’t spot him.
A screeching call gets caught in the reckless wind and my eyes hurt, begging for me to close against the debris but I refuse to look away until I see him. Tiny dots swoop through the clouds like seagulls diving toward an ocean but I can’t make out the creature’s image.
The press of the wind staggers my stance and the shaking crawl of the thunder never halts.
Until something large starts to fall from the sky. Limbs and wings fold in on themselves and I’m already rushing forward against the violent wind. My feet pound over the dirt, my lungs burn and my eyes narrow. I leap with intent, my wings catching the heavy breeze. And the weight of his body pulls me right back down the moment my arms wrap around Syko’s battered body.
Dark eyes look up at me with a half smirk still tilting his arrogant lips. “Heaven was right. He is a jackass.” His groan shakes through him as he stands slowly, my hands still hovering over his tattered white shirt and red lines that are scratched into his dirty face.
“Here weatherwings. Here birdies. Here,” Professor Ravenstorm makes a calling noise with a clicking of his tongue and the moment he speaks, the winds calm, the clouds part, and the sun warms my skin once more.
The winged centaur picks up a brown satchel and his big hand pulls out a fist full of black seed that he tosses down in the grass. The food barely hits the ground when hundreds of darts fall from the sky. I duck in cover and Syko merely wraps his big arms around me and pulls me against his chest.
“Weatherwings,” Syko grumbles from behind me.
Spear like birds hit the dirt beak first and begin frantically eating the treat Ravenstorm is continuing to toss out for them. The creatures are so thin I have no idea where the tiny silver birds are putting it all.
“Weatherwings are creatures with an abundance of static electricity in their feathers. As a defense mechanism, when they start to feel in danger, they use that built up static to scare off their predators. Like cocky boys who think they own the skies.” The Professor’s blue eyes shift to Syko who simply stares back at him like he’s not covered in bird shit and talon scratches.
“Being courteous is a key factor in coexisting with others. Not just when you fly but when you live in general.” He bends at the waist and when he extends his index finger, a petite little weatherwing hops up with a small spark highlighting its talons. “Now,” Professor Ravenstorm says with a happy smile at his little creature, “Who’s next?”
Everyone groans simultaneously.
Clearly, this will not be the easy class I wrote it off to be. I slump into Syko’s body even more and I feel the solidness of him lean into me right back.
“Miss Castillo, I take it you’ve learned from your friend, perhaps?” The Professors inky tail swoops as he turns on four legs and faces me.
Not to ask for favors or hall passes, but haven’t I been through enough hell this week?
“Yeah,” I say with zero enthusiasm.
Syko’s palms slide across my stomach as he slowly releases me and I stand with my wings tucked in against my back like they don’t want to make any sudden movements around the vicious darts still eating merrily on the ground.
“You’ll have thirty seconds,” Professor Ravenstorm says, his lips pouting out to make extra chirpy noises to his preening gremlin of a bird.
My shoulders square.
I have plenty of time. Don’t rush. Don’t listen to the pounding demands of your slamming heartbeat. Do. Not. Piss. Off. The. Satan Birds.
The equivalent to ass demons of our dimension, I’m convinced. But, hey, I took down gargoyle dinosaur demon hybrids. Satan birds shouldn’t be a problem, right?
Right? I silently ask my Prod. The sad part is, she hasn’t shown a stirring of herself since I came back to this dimension. Once more, she’s hidden herself from me like a child throwing a tantrum and storming away.
I’ve discreetly tried to feel for the sliver of the amount of magic I displayed in hell. It’s just not there. I try not to let the heartbreak and anger at that situation collide.
I can do this. With or without her help.
“Go,” Ravenstorm tells me absently.
My feet press to the dirt as my knees bend and my wings take flight.
It’s gentle, calm strokes that carry me higher and higher and higher. And I’m all too aware of the many tiny arrow-like creatures that are zipping by me like it’s a race to the skies.
I level out, the weight of my body pulling against my strong wings. I make the mistake of glancing to my left and getting too much eye contact with the god of thunder bird keeping pace at my side.
Fucking weatherwings.
I notice immediately that they glide through the clouds in groups. A larger one leads and several smaller ones span out behind it creating a V formation. When I get too close to one of the V’s, squawking erupts out of the little one at the end and the big one at the front eyes me suspiciously.
I slow my pace and fall back a bit, finding myself cautiously giving the flock several feet of space between me and them. But there are dozens of V’s. Too many for me to keep track of as I weave and bob around them all.
I’m the weaker link here. Alone without a mate or ally.
Kindness and respect are truly the only things I can depend on right now. And so, I don’t use the full force of my wings. I take the long route instead of a straight line and it’s frustrating but I do finally reach the brick building and descend with delicate slowness.
My feet hit the ground without a sound and Syko’s assessing gaze drags over every inch of me the moment I’ve landed.
“Very nice, Miss Castillo.” Professor Ravenstorm looks so pleased with me I think I might be his new favorite pet and I can’t lie, I’m pretty proud of myself too despite how tired my wings are from the short flight. “Took you thirty-seven seconds though so try to do a bit better in the future.” He adds with a tight smile that tosses all my pride right into the trash.
Motherfucker.
Sixteen
Saint
If I thought she had a bad week in hell, it must have been a walk in the park compared to her first day as an Elite.
The expectations in this place sucks harder than any vampire ever could.
She closes her door behind her and I just watch as she tosses her binder on the floor and begins stripping out of her uniform.
Now this, this is a welcoming. I watch the curve of her spine as she arches her back to pull off her white sports bra.
“Bad day?” I ask and every part of her halts in place, the smooth underside of her breasts pushing against her half lifted bra as she slowly turns her head to find me perched on her windowsill.
“That’s totally an invasion of privacy,” she accuses, lowering her arms and planting her palms on the perfect curve of her hips.
Fucking wet dream in the making here. Hellacious heavenly wings lifted, Izzy in just her skirt and bra, she has no fucking idea that I’m more turned on than intimidated by this dominant stance she’s holding.
“I knocked on the window but no one answered.” My palms lift innocently but it doesn’t distract her glaring eyes. “I missed you. Is that what you want to hear? I missed you and I hate you being so fucking far away.”
She melts. That frustration lining her brow fades away at the sound of my total honesty. Her hands slowly lower and she takes tired steps toward me that make my fingers dig into my palms to stop me from reaching for her before she’s close enough. And then her smooth skin is sliding beneath my palms and she’s right between my legs, letting me hold her as her hands sneak beneath my button-down shirt to blaze a path up my ribs.
My fangs are out before I can stop them.
; Christ. Fucking premature fanging.
“I miss you too,” she hums, her nose grazing along my throat in a hypnotic way that makes me hold her harder.
Why am I so damn clingy?
Phoenix would never say it, but I know I come on strong sometimes. My mother says it makes me more loveable. Mothers think all shitty traits are loveable though. That’s like their job.
Last night, and how hard Syko pushed to get to know me, slips through my mind. And now Izzy’s in my arms just because I was blatant with her…
It seems stupid, but the proof is glaring me in the face.
I need to fucking try. Like really try.
Just be honest. Be open. The people I care about want to know my real feelings.
I should share them.
“I think we should have a threesome with Syko,” I say as my fingers stroke through her long glossy hair.
Her body stiffens, and she pulls back slowly. Her dark eyebrows lower and it’s a subtle thing, but she’s moving out of that sweet embrace we had little by little.
Fucking honesty… I’m as terrible as Phoenix right now.
“I meant, I think we… Would you want to meet my mother?” I blurt out and I wish I could pick up those fallen words the moment they tumble out.
Fuck, I’m bad at this. Just being myself is apparently a considerably harder task than I ever realized. But I’ve never had to open up with anyone before. I never loved anyone enough to do it, and maybe a big, fucked up part of me doesn’t really know what love is. I’ve had a shitty enough example of it in my life. My father can’t even give me scraps of love—if he even feels it at all. I learned early on not to beg for it. It’s easier to keep everyone away so they don’t have that opportunity to disappoint me the way my father has all my life.
“Your mom?” The smallest smile is fighting against her lips to be let out.
God now she’s smirking at me.
And I’m smirking at her.
“Is she like your dad?” Her body is back against mine now and I feel slightly better. Maybe I’m not fucking this up as badly as I thought.
“No. Not at all.” I shake my head hard. “She’s a fucking saint honestly. She’s human. She’s... the best fucking person.” I breathe all that out like my personal life weighs on me in a way I’ve never realized before.
“Is she really a nun?” Izzy’s skeptical look pierces into me.
“She is. I think my father seduced her as a fuck you to the Pope but people aren’t stupid. He used her. Her and her offspring are his link to the powerful people of the human world. My mother is the Pope’s most trusted advisor and I know my father didn’t fuck her for petty reasons.”
“Really?” Her wild attention on me pushes realization into me. My father is a shitty person. I’m told he becomes increasingly worse with every century that slips by. And he makes me a shitty person just by association. Just being related to him makes me feel… tainted.
Does Izzy think that?
I stare into her deep dark eyes and I see my own warped reflection there as I toy with her hair and try to keep her close to me for as long as she’ll let me. I don’t want to let her go.
“He’ll call in favor someday. I know he will. It’s been decades but my father is nothing but patient.”
A twisted churning starts up in the pit of my stomach as I try to feign interest in her pretty hair. I really do love the way it feels beneath my fingers. It’s calming. Even if I do feel like I might vomit if she doesn’t say something soon.
“How did something so cruel make something so sweet?” she whispers, her lips ghosting along mine as she stares intensely into my eyes.
My teeth nip at her lower lip first. “I’m not sweet, Izzy,” I rasp back, biting her lip a bit harder and running the tip of my tongue along her mouth when a single drop of blood slips out.
She tastes like fucking honey and a vast explosion of life itself.
Her fingers dig into my sides as my hand fists in her hair and we both play this balancing game of keeping a sliver of heated space between our parted lips. I breathe in her heavy breaths and all I want is to hear her panting and screaming my name.
“You’re not as bad as you think you are, Saint.” The way those full lips draw out the syllables of my name stirs right down to my cock.
“I’m not as good as you think I am either,” I say with a smirk, our noses touching intimately.
It’s a game now. We aren’t kissing. We’re touching but it’s just a light brush of hips and a faint tease of breaths along wanting mouths. It’s a give and take, a push and pull that leaves us fucking the air between us rather than each other.
And it makes me fucking insane.
The slam of my lips against hers tears a gasp from her throat that shoots through my veins and pumps right through my useless heart. The flick of her tongue against mine is a consuming thing that has me teetering there at the edge of the windowsill, a second from falling to the earth or falling into complete bliss.
The quietness of the room is a telling thing. I pick up on another heartbeat before I ever hear the sound of delicate footfalls.
“You two are hot,” an encouraging voice says.
I press one more slow kiss to her lips before she steps back with a shaking breath skimming between us.
“Hello, Sasha,” I say without every looking away from Izara’s sexy, hooded eyes.
“Your sister will be here soon,” the fae girl threatens in the most nonthreatening way. It’s more of an amused statement. Like a lazy guard taunting a prisoner with a stick.
My eyes roll but it only amuses Izzy even more.
“I have to go,” I whisper and it fucking kills me.
“I thought you missed me,” Izzy pouts, kissing the side of my neck slowly before dragging her teeth across my skin and sucking hard.
Fuck.
Yes.
Bite me.
My eyes close as my hips subtly rock against her.
“I miss you so fucking much,” I groan against her throat, inhaling the scent of her so deeply that I can almost smell the wetness between her thighs.
“Then stay,” she says with a brush of her lips against the shell of my ear.
“I’ll see you this weekend. I’ll stay with you all fucking weekend. I’ll fuck you so good you’ll be packing your bags and moving right back into our dorm just to be closer to my orgasm inducing cock,” I tell her with the slightest bite of my fangs.
She giggles into the crook of my neck and I glance up to see Sasha rolling her eyes at us.
“You know I miss you, right?” Izzy’s voice is so serious it’s hard for me to listen to. Her soft hand slips beneath my jaw and she forces me to meet her eyes. “I want you, Saint. Not the orgasms you can give me.”
Fuck. Why is honesty so hard for me when it comes easily to her? Sarcasm is always the safer route in my life. Her telling me she wants me... what am I supposed to say to that?
“I want you too,” I finally whisper and my throat hurts when I say that. I love the way she’s looking at me right now. It’s just hard for me to process. So I don’t. “But those orgasms, that’s a bonus, right?”
Her eyes narrow on me but she’s losing the fight against the smile on her lips.
“Bye, Saint,” she whispers, her mouth taunting mine with the small amount of space she leaves lingering between us.
I claim her smile for myself. I kiss her hard, deepening the kiss until she moans against me and maybe I won’t leave. Maybe I’ll stay here perched on her window frame forever.
Until the door knob rattles with a turn, and I free fall the fuck out of that room before I have to hear my sister say that fucking nickname one more time.
The violent slashing wind ripping at my limbs and body mirrors the emotions spinning in my chest. It’s a beautiful, terrifying feeling that I want to cling on to and push away all at the same time as I fall.
But I guess love does that.
Seventeen
Izara
Warm sunlight kisses the horizon in blooming colors of pinks and oranges. My first day back is almost over. But my detention work is just beginning.
“Slather the bricks, don’t swamp them,” Professor Moore demands with a bellow of his croaking voice.
And I thought I was done with Professor Toad. Unfortunately, it seems he volunteers for after school detention time.
Perfect.
I scrape my metal spatula across my recycled brick that’s missing about forty percent of its actual size. What’s left of it is a cracked and jagged little square but as I know firsthand, Academy of Six doesn’t put the budget into its first years. This will do just fine for the rebuilding of Dormitory J.
My poor jagged brick is placed on top of the others I’ve been building up. I’m... twelve bricks in. About four inches off the ground.
This. Is. Going. To. Take. FOREVER!
A puff of air pushes from my lungs, blowing my inky hair around my face as I glare down at the insignificant work I’ve done over the last hour.
“This cannot be the most successful way to do things around here,” a voice like pure disappointed seduction says.
I look back from the spot I’m kneeling at on the dirty ground to find Heaven assessing the work myself and five other students are doing.
“This is a pathetic sight to see, Izara.” Her deep red lips purse and she dusts her hands off in front of herself as if by simply being here she’s become dirtier.
Clad in a clinging dress the color of wine with black pantyhose underneath, her whole outfit—heels included—looks like it repels dust just by being on her. She’s immaculate, beautiful as usual.
I’m in a dirty gym uniform with wet cement stuck to the front and dirty knees with holes in them. I’ve never felt less glamorous in my fucking life.
“I couldn’t agree more,” I grab another crumbling brick and repeat my process of slathering not swamping. “Why are you out here?”
She leans against a tree and crosses her legs in a comfortable stance that says she might linger for a while.