by A. K. Koonce
He really does try to be better for her.
He’s right though. We need to just talk this out.
The four of us leave level headed and prepared to try to fix what I think might already be broken.
But we don’t find her.
And she never comes to class the next day either.
When we do spot her rushing off away from her dorm, she barely even says three words to us.
“We’ll talk later.”
Later.
Twenty-Five
Phoenix
The skin on my arm burns where the holy water touched me a week ago. I could hear the hairs sizzling as they’re torn away from my flesh. Nun’s and their fucking holy water. I wish I could hate her for trying to bless me, but I’m used to Saint’s mother’s odd behavior. She somehow became a comforting nuisance in my life.
When I was younger, and I found my way into her Supernatural safehouse, alone and without enough emotion to care, she had walked up to me and asked me my name and situation. I remember telling her my story in a detached voice, not caring if she judged me.
The nun had merely taken my hand in hers and the gesture had been... affectionate... motherly and something I didn’t understand. I’d promptly pulled my hand away with too much aggression.
She’d merely smiled at me and dipped her fingers in holy water to form a cross against my forehead.
It had burned for days.
Old habits die hard, it seems.
The woman still thinks she can save my soul, make me feel. If only she knew that I’m already saved. That Izara Castillo waltzed into our shitty dorm room and has been my salvation.
It’s a little strange that now I wish I could be that for her. I can’t seem to expel the fragile look on her face last weekend, the tortured whispered words. “It was an illusion. It was an illusion.”
She saved me, but she won’t let me save her. She’s avoiding us. I know she needs time, but this isn’t what she needs. Being separated for days on end, how is this good for anyone?
I have half a mind to toss her over my shoulder and slap my hand against her ass until she’s crying and confessing everything that happened to her. We can turn it into a game of sexual depravity. I’ll make her beg, and she’ll tell me everything I need to know.
Unfortunately, life isn’t that simple.
I’ve been seeing less and less of Izara as the days pass. Ever since we went camping, she’s been more distant. The moment I woke up alone I knew something was off.
I know she’s hiding something, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it pisses me off. It’s like the closer I try to get to her, the closer any of us tries to get, she pulls away. Because she’s afraid of turning illusions into reality?
I wish I could go to hell and rip Osmodeus’s tongue out of his asshole for what he did to her.
But she’s here with us now. She came to our dorm just to trade notes with Malek. It’s a small thing, but she is here.
As soon as she steps close enough, I sidle up behind her, sliding my hands down her sides in a slow, sensual movement that stirs my cock to life. Really, any time I touch her, my cock comes to life. Hell, anytime she breathes I get hard with the urge to slam that mouth straight onto my dick and watch her scrape her teeth and tongue across it.
I’m careful though. I want her here with me. I need her.
All four of us are watching her with hesitant gazes and tense posture.
I bend my head down, the dark strands of her hair tickling my face. With a single breath, they push aside to expose the tantalizing lobe of her ear. My tongue swipes out at it and her whole body trembles, arching closer to me.
“You’re exhausted. Come rest with me, baby,” I whisper, my palms pressing against her hips.
I hear her breath hitch, hear it come out in a rasping pant. She wants me as much as I want her. I can smell the arousal quivering between her legs.
So I don’t understand why she extricates herself from my hold and turns, placing her palms to my chest and gently pushing me away. “Not today.” Though her eyes flash with what can only be desire. “I still have makeup work to do from the first weeks of school I missed.” She takes a single step away from me. “Maybe later though?”
A frown pulls at my features. “Where are you going?”
“To practice with Professor Shade.”
Professor fucking Shade. Of fucking course.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with him.” The words rip out of me on a growl without me meaning them to.
She stills, cocking her head to the side. The gesture is too fucking cute, I almost forget why I’m suddenly pissed.
“Are you jealous?” she asks.
“Jealous? What the fuck? No. I wouldn’t know what jealousy feels like. Just because I have feelings now doesn’t mean you can throw them at me like fucking labels. Jealous? Of fucking what?”
Saint smirks at Syko on their bunk but it only pisses me off more.
“Aww, you sound so defensive,” she whispers.
“I’m not.”
Shit, I think I sound jealous. This must be what Iz’s obsession is with that pop song. This is what Nick Jonas was singing about and I never understood a single lyric until now...
A sarcastic, eat-shit, smirk tilts her lush mouth. “Oh, I think you are.”
She just makes me so fucking crazy.
I growl and take a step forward so we’re pressed close together. “So what if I am?” I loom over her, invading her space, feeling the desire that surrounded her only moments ago turn into something else. Not fear. “Don’t I have a fucking right to be?”
I hate admitting this shit. It’s new, it’s sensations I never knew could exist inside of me coming out in nasty slashing colors. This is the uglier parts of emotions I never understood, that no one ever warned me about.
“Ever since you got back you’ve been keeping secrets. You’ve been spending all your time with Shade,” I sneer the name, “and haven’t been honest with us about anything. Why won’t you let us help you?” My hands grip her hips, and the next words I say, I speak them softly. “Let us help you, baby.”
Her eyes gloss over with tears, her throat working as she swallows. “You want to know what happened?” she whispers, and the words sound dangerous, filled with spite and venom. But I take them like they’re my own elixir. “My father, the Messenger of Chaos, had a demon steal me from the Academy. He took me to his palace in hell where he shoved me onto a throne and kept calling me groemmel, his daughter, and I can’t close my eyes without hearing that voice in my mind; or seeing Osmodeus again while he shoves visions of my Prod killing the people I love, over and over again down my throat. So forgive me if I go to the only person at this Academy who can help me get my shit together. Even if it’ll take months of learning and staying away from you, to protect you.” Her breath hitches.
Malek steps closer and goes to reach for her, but she pulls away in a jerking, scared move.
“Don’t,” she commands tightly. “Just give me a bit of space. I—I’m sorry. I have things I need to sort through.” A strong breath comes out her nose and a tight smile curls at her mouth that I know is fake. “Professor Shade is helping me work through it. He says my powers are easier to control in hell because that’s where my Prod is from and this dimension messes with my magic and makes it uncontrollable. He thinks there might be a way to either train me, or find someone who can help bring a tiny piece of hell to me; like an amulet I can wear or something that’ll help me control my powers better.”
“What?” Malek demands.
She slashes a cutting glare his way. “Don’t judge me. I’m doing this for all of us. I’ll see you later, alright? I’m running late.”
I don’t get another chance to say a word, because she flaps her powerful wings and soars away from us out into the hall, and I know there’s no way I can follow her now.
So I watch her go, a bad feeling twisting in my mind and my gut.
Though I ca
n’t quite place what it is.
Twenty-Six
Malek
Something about her words gives me pause.
An amulet from hell to help control her powers? Bringing a piece of hell to her? There’s… there’s no way to do that, is there?
And even if there is, it can’t be safe.
As far as I know, and from what we’ve learned at the Academy, hell is warded by the angels and they are the only ones who can open the doorways. Sometimes there are rips in the fabric of dimensions. That rip is how the demon Osmodeus was set free in the first place. It’s how demons can find themselves in this dimension to procreate with humans and create the Prods.
It’s one thing to visit hell in interdimensional travels and bring back a useless souvenir for class. That’s what the traveler partner is for. They guide with magic, towards the rip in the fabric of dimensions and into wherever we need to go. They don’t actually create doorways.
The rules of traveling through dimensions are complicated, but what Izara says shouldn’t be possible unless Shade plans to be her traveler. How could he be? When we went to ask him to help us find Izara, he said he couldn’t.
But it looked more to me like he wouldn’t. Didn’t want to.
As a matter of fact, he hadn’t looked any type of way. Surprised? Worried? He hadn’t shown any fucking emotions at all.
The instinct in my gut tells me something is seriously wrong with this whole scenario. How does Shade plan on bringing a piece of hell to Izzy?
Fuck if I know.
But I’m damn well going directly to Shade to find out.
Twenty-Seven
Syko
Hours later Malek bursts into the room like a wild animal. His eyes glow that feral yellow color and his nails have turned into sharp curved talons that pierce into the leather-bound book he holds in his hands.
“You okay there, Cerberus?” Saint jokes, his own eyes glistening with feline delight.
Malek ignores him and tears through the bedroom, flipping over mattresses and dropping to look under the beds. Growls tear from his chest as he rips covers from mattresses. “Where is she?” he growls, the voice more guttural and wolf than human.
“Okay, seriously, calm down dog boy and use your words instead of barks.” Heaven flicks her hair over her shoulder in a gesture of annoyance. Sasha peeks at Malek from over the vampire’s shoulder. “Enunciate clearly. Who. Are. You. Looking. For?”
“Izara.”
“She’s with Shade,” Phoenix growls, crossing his arms against his burly chest. “Where the fuck else?”
I feel the anger and bitter resentment in those words. I feel a sliver of it myself. Izara has spent most of her free time with the professor. I don’t like sounding like a jealous boyfriend, I’ll leave that to Phoenix, but it’d be a lie to say it doesn’t bother me.
She claims he’s helping her go through things. Things that we obviously can’t help her with. Being told we’re useless fucking hurts, but shit, I didn’t ever press or tell her to back away from the teacher because I’ve seen him around the Academy with other Prodless. I’ve seen him try to help. And Izzy… she fucking trusts him. And it’s her decision, who she wants to confide in.
Even while I think it’s a strange decision.
It’s still hers to make.
“Well, we need to find her. Fucking now. And never let her near him again.” He storms to the door which is suddenly blocked by Phoenix. The demon and the wolf face off. Any amiability we’ve harbored in our mutual hate for the professor and our shared love for Izzy dissipates. Because of Phoenix’s rising anger, and Malek’s wild desperation.
“Slow the fuck down.” Phoenix pushes his big palms against Malek’s chest in a single gesture of dominance. The wolf snarls and Phoenix’s eyes are consumed with hellish black.
“Here we go again,” Heaven sighs.
Sasha claps, like this is all a game.
It’s not. There’s something about this moment, the way Malek looks… it’s off, and it sends the hairs along my arms rising.
“What happened?” Phoenix demands.
“What happened is that Professor Shade isn’t who he says he is.” He slams the book at Phoenix and it flops open to a page. The demon grabs it before it can slip from his grasp and turns it over, eyes scanning the book. “I did a little digging,” Malek continues. “After I heard all that bullshit Shade was brainwashing Izzy with, I decided to take a closer look at the legends of hell and look what I found.” His claw tipped finger slams against the page, nearly ripping it down the middle.
We all crowd around them to get a better look at the moving images and the words on the page.
‘Lucian Morningstar’s one true goal is and always will be the complete destruction and control over earth. An ancient legend exists that hell can be brought to earth with a ritual performed by a hell and angel spawn to open the gates of hell and unleash demons upon earth.’
“Sound familiar?” Malek growls.
“No. Izzy isn’t angel spawn. If she were nephilim, I’d know it.” Angels… connect the same way that demons and angels clash, angels can spot their own with a look.
“Not nephilim blood. Not partly angel, half angel. Half angel, half demon.” He tears the book from Phoenix’s hand and flips through the pages, stopping on one.
“Her blood didn’t taste like demon…” Saint whispers and I’m suddenly reminded of how he compared Izara and me.
I shake my head even as Malek hands the book back to Phoenix. “An angel would never procreate with a demon.”
“But it isn’t impossible.” Malek gestures at the page with impatience. “It’s probably hard to detect with demon blood coursing through her veins.”
I look over the demon’s shoulder and onto the page Malek indicated. “The devil is a shapeshifter. These are the last images of him anyone was ever able to capture.”
My heart pounds and I feel all the blood drain from my face as I take in the pictures. Pictures of Lucian Morningstar with tall pointed horns and black smoking wings. Wings that look familiar. Beneath that, images of his human face throughout time. Faces of men in similar build and looks, but with one feature that sets them entirely apart from the rest.
Bicolored eyes.
One black. One gold.
“Shade is… he’s…” I can’t seem to form the words, and my thoughts are racing. Izara. He has Izara, and he’s going to use her. And we have to find her, to protect her.
“Shade is the fucking devil.” Saint’s entire body tenses just as mine does.
The book tears in Phoenix’s angry grip, papers flutter to the ground. The sudden stillness that settles over us all is preternatural. We are predators, all of us, even me, and the woman we love is in danger.
“Wouldn’t the Academy have known what he is?” Saint, for once, doesn’t sound sarcastic or teasing. The glint in his eyes is dimmed, an expression of worry pulling at his features. Like he doesn’t quite want to believe it, but deep in our veins, in our bones, in our souls, we all know it’s true.
“This Academy is shit and so is their library and education system. I had to steal this book from Shade’s apartment.”
“But—Izzy—a hell and angel spawn? Her father is the Messenger of Chaos, and he’s pretty high up in the demon hierarchy, but…”
Phoenix interrupts my confused thoughts with a curse. “Groemmel,” he whispers like a dark curse.
I blink. “What?”
“Izzy said that the Messenger kept calling her ‘daughter’ in ancient Ifrit. Groemmel, she said he kept saying.”
Malek frowns. “But ‘groemmel’ means…”
Phoenix shakes his head. “I know. Groemmel doesn’t mean daughter.”
“Then what the fuck does it mean?”
Phoenix and Malek share a look. “Groemmel means ‘sister.’”
“And we all know who the father of the Messenger of Chaos is.”
Lucian Morningstar.
Fuck.
; “We have to find her.”
Twenty-Eight
Izara
I confessed too much. I know that. I know I shouldn’t have. I’m still thinking about our argument hours later as I leave my dorm to meet Shade again for our evening session.
It’s just that my men already treat me like I’m broken, a fragile glass doll. The most fucked up part? I feel it. I feel weak. I’ve felt it since coming back. And I hate the look in their eyes.
Like I’m pathetic.
Like I’m weak.
I don’t want to be weak and reckless.
They have to understand why I’m doing this, why I trust Shade, and why I have to bring in an essence of hell.
It’s hope. A foolish hope perhaps, but it’s all I have left. To save myself. To save my men from the destruction of the thing that lives inside me. The thing I fear will never be controlled.
But I have to.
My wings flap in powerful strokes at my back, pushing me through the air. I weave my way around the other winged Prods in the halls and push my way outside.
Warm setting sunlight washes over my face and a gentle wind snags against my long hair. Flying tangles it; I should really braid it back. The thought is lost as I veer left and into the copse of black, skeletal trees.
I dodge the maze of black bark, past fingered branches that seem to reach for me until I land in a clearing to find Professor Shade waiting for me.
Today, he’s not wearing a sweatpants suit, which is odd. He rarely ever wears anything else. Today he’s in a sleek black suit with a white collar shirt, the buttons opened to reveal the solid panes of his chest.
Gold cufflinks decorate the wrists of the suit. He’s clean cut, his hair slicked back with one lone strand against his forehead.
I land in front of him, my wings fanning out and causing dust to fly in a cloud around us, a smile on my face.