by May Dawson
And I haven’t even run into Everett Kane’s two besties yet, my other two targets.
“I think you’ll be very happy here,” she tells me. “You seem like a bright girl who can fit in and make the most of things!”
Just then, the dean opens his office door and frowns. She hastily says, “Dean Aero! I was just about to give you a call and tell you that your new student arrived!”
“Thanks, Natalia,” he says briskly. He raises his hand, gesturing me into the room.
Aero is a tall, dark-haired man who seems to fit his office, all sleek and modern and dangerous-looking.
“Please take a seat,” he says, smoothing his hand over his suit jacket as he takes his spot at the long, shiny black desk across from me. “I always like to speak with the new students and get to know them.”
“Lovely.” I smile at him as I sink into one of the white leather chairs that face him.
He frowns a bit deeper. Usually, my sweetness-and-light act throws people off; in this bleak shithole, it seems to throw them all the way into suspicion.
Which is unfortunate, because there are three people left on my kill list, and I don’t want anyone to see me coming.
Note to self: dial it down.
Time to act like a reform school kid, I guess.
There’s a quick knock at the door. I glance up to find a tall, cruelly beautiful man with golden hair in waves hanging around his face. His dark eyes are sharp and clever. He looks familiar, and my mind races as I stare at him.
“Ah, Michael,” Aero says, gesturing him in. “Eden and I were just getting acquainted.”
Michael Kinley. He’s the other Sent agent who was there in the hospital.
“Do you remember me, Eden?” Michael says, still standing in the doorway.
“Yes,” I say. “I met you in the hospital.”
He nods as he comes into the room. “You look much better now than you did that day.”
“That’s not much of a compliment.”
He flashes me a cool smile that tells me he never intended to compliment me.
“So Eden, tell me about why you’re here,” Aero says, reclaiming my attention.
He either knows damn well why I’m here, or he’s terrible at his job. Being required to recite their list of sins probably embarrasses most ‘students’.
But I’m not particularly easy to shame, no matter how much I regret my involvement in the Lords. “I joined the Lords of Havoc when I was thirteen. My primary work was a series of thefts and scams to fund the Lords.”
“What did you hope to accomplish as one of the Lords?”
“The same thing we all did. Conquer humanity. Rule the Earth.” Our mission seems like ridiculously heady goals now, for someone who doesn’t even own a pillow or a proper bra. At the time, though, leading humanity seemed like our rightful place.
“You were tried in absentia,” Michael reminds me. “Twice.”
I nod. We’d laughed at the newspapers. Most of the Lords had received death sentences; Julian, Lincoln, Everett, Elliot, and I were all ordered to this lovely school. Once, Elliot had threatened to chuck me through the gate here if I kept tongue-kissing Everett in front of him.
No, don’t think about Elliot’s teasing now. Focus on what matters.
“Those of us who were young enough to be redeemable get to come here instead of the quick death,” I say, to cover the way I’ve been lost in my own thoughts. “Lucky us.”
“You know that this school can still be your death sentence if you do not reform.” Aero doesn’t seem to be particularly affected either way.
“Yes, I’m aware.” That’s why I said the older Lords got the quick death, genius. I was implying that this school is the slow death.
It’s not like I can imagine a future beyond killing the last of the Lords, anyway.
“I seem to recall that you Nephilim have a cute name for the Culling.” Aero glances at Michael.
“The students call it Finals, when the senior students get their nomination.”
Aero grunts. There’s a subtle tension between them when they discuss the Culling. I’d like to know more about how Finals work, but Michael is already asking me another question.
“What brought you into the Lords of Havoc?” Michael asks curiously.
That’s the question I don’t want to answer.
Because the answer has a face, a cherubic face with golden blond curls like mine and intelligent green eyes and a deadpan way of his many, many smartass remarks.
My brother, Elliot.
I can’t see his face in my memory without seeing how it all ended.
Sometimes I remember other sides of Elliott. I remember how when our mother died, he wrapped his arm around me. We were two kids at the edge of a grave, too small to wear so much grief.
I remember him laughing with me in the woods behind our house when we were two under-supervised little kids, pelting each other with crab apples and trying to fly.
I remember that when Everett made me cry during our first fight, Elliot had made me tea and hot cocoa with whipped cream because he wasn’t sure which would comfort me more…
And then he’d kicked Everett’s ass.
But every time I start to remember him, another memory crowds them all out: my brother lying on his stomach, his chin stained blue with his own blood, his eyes staring into the ground, always and forever.
“Desperation,” I say, and although everything I’ve said today is true, that’s the truest thing.
Desperation. That’s still what drives me, after all this time.
Aero nods, glancing at Michael, who must have filled him in on my record. “It isn’t easy being orphaned Nephilim.”
“It’s not the worst,” I say lightly. Being with my grandfather was worse than being alone in the world. The only thing that used to make it bearable was that Elliot and I had each other.
And then I joined the Lords, and once Ever, Lincoln, and Julian and I grew close, it felt like I had a family.
People will commit all kinds of sins to protect their family.
Aero’s gaze swept to Michael.
Michael straightened and said, as if he gave this speech over and over, as if Aero had just pulled his string: “If you spend your time well here, your past will be forgiven. You’ll be trained in combat skills over the next few years—prepared for a life spent in service, as one of the Sent.”
I almost scoff at that. The Sent are the good guys, as far as humans are concerned. They’re the angels who protect humanity from the demons—and from the Lords of Havoc. They’re the law, and the Lords are the outlaws.
But I don’t trust the Sent much more than I trust the Lords.
“What do you want to get out of your time at this school?” Aero asks.
“A second chance, “I say. “A life when I get out of here.”
That’s the first time I lie, but I look straight into Aero’s black eyes, and I don’t think he can read the lie. I am very good at falsehood.
My life ended the same day Elliot’s did. I’m living on borrowed time.
He nods. “Well, I hope you will prove to be redeemable, Eden. Natalia will have your schedule.”
It’s too bad I’m spending that borrowed time on some epically boring shit.
It sounds like I’ve been dismissed, so I stand, smoothing my skirt over my legs. The skirt is short enough that it would have scandalized my grandmother. Aero’s eyes follow the movement, lingering on my thighs.
I don’t visibly react to the creepy feeling that sweeps up my spine. I’ve killed far scarier men than Aero, and suddenly my heart beats fast with the familiar thrill of being underestimated.
“One last question,” Aero says, his gaze still on my thighs.
“Mm?” I ask, folding my hands demurely behind my back. No one has any idea how much blood my hands have spilled since Elliot died.
“What have you been doing the past two years that everyone has been looking for you?”
“Gri
eving,” I answer, and that’s true, too.
In my own way.
CHAPTER FOUR
Everett
“HOW WAS AERO?” I ask Eden as the two of us head into the small cafeteria at the Nephilim house.
“He’s a creep,” she says simply. She glances at me sideways as she scoops eggs onto her plate, but then holds whatever thought she almost voiced.
“What is it?” I demand, my voice coming out harsh.
“Nothing.” She heads out of the serving area ahead of me, drops her tray on an empty table, and takes a seat in one graceful motion. “I saw Michael Kinley too. What do you think of him?”
My lips press together. There are three Nephilim instructors on staff, and while I believe Gabriel means well, each of them are harsh and miserable in their own unique way.
“That great, hm?” she asks, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. There’s something so sexy in every movement she makes.
At a table across the room, Julian and Lincoln look toward us curiously. Eden never misses a thing; I’m sure she noticed them. Everyone in the room watches her curiously. We don’t often get new Nephilim students. There are so few Nephilim to begin with.
“I usually sit over there.” I drop my tray across from her and jerk my chin toward a group of other Nephilim.
She looks up at me, wearing the same placid, smiling expression that she’s given me all morning. It’s a mask, and I want to slap it off her face. I miss the real Eden.
“Then sit over there,” she says, her voice level, before she begins to eat her eggs.
“I would, but I’m on babysitting duty.” I sit across from her and take a long sip of my coffee.
She doesn’t respond to that. She just continues eating.
“You know, our time together is going to be dull if you never talk,” I tell her.
She wipes her mouth daintily. “What do you want to chat about, Ever?”
When I don’t answer, she goes on, “I noticed you don’t have a harem of eager females draped all over you like Julian. Do you want to discuss why that is?”
Of course, she noticed that Julian is surrounded by women. He always is.
I look her dead in the eyes. “Well, Eden, I never got over you.”
I deliver the words in a deadpan voice, and she smiles a faint, wicked smile, her eyes cold.
It’s easy to tell the truth to Eden’s face when she’s so convinced I’m a liar.
We eat the rest of our breakfast in silence. I’m about to get up and dump my tray when Julian rises from the table. One of the girls takes his tray—of course she does—as he saunters toward us, his posture relaxed, his hands in his pockets.
It’s a lie, of course. I know Julian well enough to read him, even if we haven’t talked in a year. I don’t know which of those girls is his favorite, or even if he genuinely likes any of them. I don’t know what his grades are like, if he misses his mother, or if he’s still drawing.
But I know everything about him that matters, and I can predict what he’s going to do before he knows. Julian’s always had a habit of surprising people—including himself—but he used to be my best friend.
“Eden, what a pleasant surprise.” He stops at the edge of our table, his eyes raking her up and down. There’s a hungry edge to his gaze. He always had a thing for her, and a sudden pulse of jealousy runs through me. Mine. She’s mine. He adds, “I thought you were dead.”
She sets her fork quietly on her tray and swallows before she looks up at him and smiles. “And I hoped you were.”
“That’s no way to talk to an old friend,” he chides her. He looks as if this is all one big joke to him.
“If you wanted a pleasant reunion, maybe you shouldn’t have beaten me and left me for dead.”
For a second, real emotion flashes across his face. It’s gone so fast I’m not sure Eden even sees it.
“Well, I didn’t do a very thorough job of it, did I?” he asks, cocking his head to one side as he studies her, that smirk still fixed across his lips.
She looks up at him, something cold and cunning in that smile of hers that was always so magnetic. “You’ve always been sloppy, Jules.”
He laughs and ruffles her hair before moving away to the entrance to the cafeteria. She doesn’t react, not with the faintest dirty look, not with the tensing of her jaw or the faintest curl of her fingers into fists. It’s as if she felt nothing.
Or as if her feelings are buried so deep that no sliver of emotion can break through.
But the entire exchange leaves me with a sense of foreboding.
He’s always been sloppy, and I think she intends to make sure he pays for it.
I think she’s going to make us all pay.
CHAPTER FIVE
Eden
“WHY DIDN’T Lincoln come say hi to me?” I ask Everett as the two of us settle into the lecture hall for our next class.
He shrugs.
“You and your old besties don’t hang out anymore,” I say, and the faint twitch downward at the corner of Everett’s mouth tells me that I’m right. “Why?”
He flashes me some serious side-eye. His face is handsome, chiseled; even his side-eye is sexy. “I thought you didn’t want to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk about me,” I correct. I walk my fingers playfully up the sleeve of his black blazer, heading for his shoulder. “I want to talk about you. I’m the perfect woman.”
He scoffs at that and leans forward, away from my touch, grabbing his leather bookbag from between his feet. “You can share my book. We can pick your own books up after lunch.”
“Thank you!” I exclaim with false enthusiasm. “You are such a good student guide!”
He shakes his head and settles into his seat, rigidly focused on the instructor who’s just come to the front of the room.
I let the noise of the roomful of paranormals and the droning of the teacher fade. I need to find a way to reconnect with these guys so I can get inside their defenses. Getting Everrett as my guide threw me at first, but it’s a good thing. I’ll have forced proximity to wear him down; I need to make him suffer a bit for our shared past, then forgive him.
Well, then I’ll ‘forgive’ him.
Really, I’ll forgive him when he’s staring at me with dead eyes, slumped over with my blade buried deep in his heart.
The thing about Nephilim is that we take some serious killing, as Gabriel said. We live to a relatively normal human age—although we look better doing it—but we heal so rapidly that it takes a lot to bring us down.
Take off a Nephilim’s head or keep a blade through their heart disrupting blood flow long enough, though, and we fly off to Heaven for real.
Everett shifts in his seat, and his elbow brushes mine. He smells good, like sandalwood and a hint of orange. I go very still in my seat, suddenly acutely aware of an urge to shift in my seat, to cross my legs, and lean toward him. I don’t let my body betray me anymore, not even with my body language.
But when I replay the moment I opened the door to my room and found Ever there, my heart begins to race. He’s so pretty for a villain. My body can’t be blamed for its treasonous response to him. Every time I remember Everett touching me, it was sweet.
My last memory of him is of lying curled against his body, my head on his broad shoulder, my thigh thrown over his. His fingertips stroked circles across my naked back.
I don’t remember anything from the next day.
I fell asleep safe with my head on Everett’s shoulder, and I woke in a hospital bed, in agony.
I’d been dosed with Break, the street name for the drug that slows an angel’s natural ability to heal. The same thing was in Elliot’s system according to the autopsy.
That was why I’d woken up in so much pain. I had a shattered cheekbone, a broken nose. I’d swallowed several teeth that I’d never appreciated as fully as I should have. I had a concussion and someone had kicked my ribs in until they splintered in two.
This
handsome boy next to me must have stood by and watched. I doubt he helped them beat me, but I could be wrong. I’ve always been sentimental.
When I was a girl, I judged it and its inhabitants—winged or otherwise—as more good than bad. I thought the Lords of Havoc fought for a righteous cause, trying to prevent humans from hurting themselves. I thought Everett was good, and I thought I was too.
I was so misguided.
I wonder if I can get my hands on some Break, come to think of it.
CHAPTER SIX
Julian
AS I STRIDE from our classes back toward our side of campus, I see humans and witches loping off in all directions. They look so much like us, but shabbier, drabber versions. Then I enter the broad path that leads through the woods from the quad to our house.
Everett and Eden walk back ahead of me, and my gaze keeps being drawn to her. She’s not carrying any books, and her long blond hair falls over her shoulders, cascading down her back. Everett looks so tense, his shoulders must ache. He thought she was dead. Hell, he mourned her.
The truth is, angels or humans, everyone looks shabby and drab next to her.
“Julian!” Mia is smiling, panting slightly but trying to hide it, as she raises her hand in a wave.
“Mia,” I say slowly.
She’s one of the girls in my circle. Sometimes I sleep with them. I’m honest about what I want, and it doesn’t go beyond the occasional night in my bed. I don’t want a relationship with anyone.
Sometimes I think that makes me more appealing. I overhear them competing for stupid things. Oh, he called me sweetheart. Oh, he sketched my picture.
As if any of it means anything. There’s only one girl who ever meant anything to me.
But when Mia slips her hand over my forearm, I crook my arm. No point in being rude. The two of us walk intimately close together, and from the outside, we couldn’t appear more different than Everett and Eden, who walk at such a wary distance from each other that they barely seem to be together.
It almost makes me smile. Everett has always been fearless, a complete badass—except where Eden was concerned. That girl has a terrifying side, even when it’s just a disapproving quirk of an eyebrow. She always kept him in line.