A Demonic Year Two: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Bully Romance (Academy of the Devil Book 2)

by Eva Brandt

  I didn’t recognize them. Most of them were upperclassmen with whom I’d never spoken before. The sole exception was, surprisingly, one of my former housemates, the Voldemort girl. It wasn’t clear what she had against Mikael, but for the most part, she was staying out of it and watching the others do the dirty work.

  The upperclassmen didn’t disappoint. “Your little mistress isn’t here to protect you now,” one of them said. “Isn’t that funny? What are you going to do, angel?”

  Mikael was vibrating with tension, but he didn’t react to the provocation.

  “Are you really that stupid?” he asked. “I don’t need Lyssa to protect me. I can protect myself just fine.”

  “Divine magic is forbidden on campus,” the other student replied. “You are an angel, and as such, any magic you perform is automatically divine.”

  “I am a nephilim. I can cast both types of magic, in case you’ve somehow missed it during the years I’ve been here at the school. Who are you trying to fool? You can’t beat me.”

  “That would probably be true, but we don’t have to beat you,” another student, this time female, replied. “I’m sick and tired of you parading around the school like you belong here. You don’t. You’re not one of us. You never were. You need to stop pretending. And if the teachers aren’t going to make you do it, we will.”

  Demons weren’t creatures that made idle threats. Whenever they said they’d do something, they usually kept their word. As such, I wasn’t surprised when one of the students retrieved a glowing vial and tossed the substance inside at Mikael.

  Mikael must’ve expected something like this. At the last moment, TB leaped forward, and the substance hit her instead.

  I assumed that Mikael had believed whatever was inside specifically targeted angels and so, couldn’t harm TB. In this, he was proven correct. In every other way, he was wrong.

  When the potion struck TB, it dissipated into thick, dark fumes that reminded me an awful lot of the fateful exam where I’d had my first seizure at the academy. That day, Professor Jones had asked us to make the Angel Shield potion, and it was something very basic, which most demons learned about since they were very young.

  But Mikael had been at the school for years and would’ve been exposed to that potion plenty of times. That sort of thing couldn’t hurt him, because like he had said, he was a nephilim and could use both celestial and infernal magic.

  As it turned out, the goal wasn’t to harm Mikael, at least not physically. When the fumes spread and surrounded Mikael, the air around him blurred. The enchantment that had been keeping his wings incorporeal faded. I was still too far to do anything about it, and even if I’d been closer, I wouldn’t have had time to intervene.

  Before I knew it, Mikael’s wings showed up in all their glory. Maybe they’d never been truly gone at all, because at first, he didn’t even seem to realize what had happened. It was TB who caught a glimpse of the feathery appendages first and she hissed in alarm.

  Mikael twitched, turning to look over his shoulder. He paled, and his reaction drew a chuckle of satisfaction out of the upperclassman who had thrown the substance. “You can’t hide behind your familiar and your mistress now, angel. Let’s see what everyone else thinks and feels when the truth is out in the open.”

  There was no more time for doubt and hesitation now. Shiro let out a loud howl and lunged forward at the group. Alerted by my familiar’s outburst, the other students turned toward me. “Well, look who it is. The human who took a nephilim as her familiar. I wonder—”

  He never got the chance to finish the sentence. The ground beneath our feet started to shake, and the upperclassmen collapsed, screaming and writhing in agony. “You might have missed the memo, because you and I don’t share classes, but I won’t let anything happen to Mikael,” I said calmly.

  A part of me was freaking out, because I hadn’t done anything that could’ve made them act like that. But that part was very small, and as far as I was concerned, they needed to be taught a harsh lesson.

  My arrival snapped Mikael out of his shocked trance. “Lyssa, what are you doing here? It’s not safe.”

  “Oh, and I take it it’s safe for you to be alone around these fuckers. Give me a break.” I didn’t ask him why he’d left the greenhouses. That wasn’t important right now. “Are you and TB okay?”

  Mikael pursed his lips, obviously still uncomfortable, but trying to hide it.“We’re fine. It’s just a Revelatio potion. It didn’t occur to me that any of them would know how to make something like this, since Revelatio potions aren’t supposed to be able to affect divine beings. Anyway, I’m stuck like this, for now, but it’ll wear off.”

  I scanned him from head to toe for any further signs of injury, but there were none. “You sure?”

  He arched a brow at me. “You’d realize it if I were hurt elsewhere. I’m telling you the truth.”

  I believed him, and the moment that happened, his attackers stopped screaming and writhing in agony. They didn’t get up, though. Instead, they curled into tight balls, clutching their heads and shaking. On occasion, they’d even let out tiny, fearful whimpers.

  “What did you do to them?” Mikael asked.

  “No idea,” I admitted.

  “Should we get someone to see to them? Or better yet, to you?”

  In all honesty, I didn’t particularly care about providing Mikael’s attackers with first aid. They were demons, and they must’ve witnessed and been hit by magic far worse than mine. Granted, I wasn’t crazy about using magic I didn’t understand on people, but I was still more concerned about Mikael and TB. The upperclassmen made the choice in my stead. “That’s fine,” one of them said. “We’re fine. We’re… just going to go.”

  “Oh, you’re cognizant.” Mikael walked up to the man and pressed him down with his foot. “Let this be a warning to you. I don’t care what you think you’ve accomplished here today. If you try this kind of scheme again, you’ll regret it, and not just because of Lyssa.”

  His wings glowed slightly, and the other student nodded, lines of strain appearing on his face. Mikael smiled, an unpleasant twist of lips that made me wonder how anyone could mistake him for anything else except a very powerful demon. “Excellent. Happy to hear it.”

  He pulled away and returned to my side. “Come on, Lyssa. This trash isn’t worth wasting our time. Let’s get back to the dorms.”

  I still had another class to go to right now, and Mikael knew that very well. If he was asking to go to the dorms, it must be because he wasn’t as unharmed as he claimed. I didn’t say anything about this realization, acknowledging the fact that he likely didn’t want to have his weakness pointed out in front of his foes.

  I took his hand and willed him to understand that I was there for him. It must’ve worked, because Mikael’s shoulders relaxed slightly and he showed no distress or fatigue as we made our way back to our refuge.

  His strength ran out as soon as we were inside the dorm. We got as far as the common room before Mikael went down like a rock.

  I knelt by his side, wrapped my arms around him, and held him close. “I’m so sorry, Mikael,” I said, petting his hair.

  Mikael buried his face in my shoulder and shook his head. “Don’t apologize. None of it is your fault. I made my own choices, remember?”

  “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I’m not responsible for this anyway.”

  “You’re really not,” he protested. “After the way we treated you when you were ill—”

  I covered his mouth with my hand, stopping him from finishing that sentence. It was stupid to linger on past slights when it was all over and done with.

  “You and the others didn’t owe me anything when I first showed up,” I said. “I was just a stranger who intruded on your territory. I understand that. What matters most is the fact that you stood up for me when it counted. You sacrificed your secrets for my sake. That’s pretty amazing.”

  Mikael lifted his head and cupped my face between
his hands. He was so close to me now that I could feel his breath on my lips. “Some days, I hate you, Lyssa,” he whispered. “I hate you because you make caring and forgiveness so effortless. I never had that. The Heavens are just as ruthless as The Infernal Realm, and even when angels proclaim acceptance, they would never forgive me for daring to be the child of a demon. And I hated them for it too, for turning me into something that was trapped between two worlds and would never belong.

  “I found refuge here, at the academy, through Mephistopheles, Stefan, and Mikael. But it was a shelter, not a home. And I thought if I tried hard enough, if I could claim the Hells for myself, I’d finally have a place where I belonged. After all, Lucifer could do it, and as you pointed out, he was divine in nature.

  “I don’t know what I want any longer. It was so much easier before, so much easier to never ask myself any questions and just fight for power. And that’s why I hate you.”

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “There’s nothing wrong with your feelings, remember? And I can love enough for the both of us.”

  It was a little funny, because a few days ago, before Necromancy, we’d had a conversation that had been the exact opposite. But I realized now that he was nowhere near as confident as he was trying to appear. How could he be, when he was struggling with something far greater than I could hope to comprehend?

  A single tear flowed down his cheek and he collapsed on top of me, shaking. “I’m trash, Lyssa. Those students were right. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere. I shouldn’t exist.”

  He was hyperventilating, and I hated that I couldn’t help him more, that I couldn’t just magically wipe away the years of self-hatred torturing him. But even demonic magic had its limits and at the end of the day, I was still just a human pretending I could handle a world I had no business being in.

  “You’re not trash,” I told him. “And you’ll always have a home by my side. In the meantime, let’s try to stick together, okay? Like we planned. You keep telling me to not run off on my own, but then, you go and make the same mistakes I do.”

  Mikael didn’t reply. He just held me tighter, as if he was afraid that I’d disappear or escape him.

  In his painting, Leviathan wriggled around, restless. And not for the first time, I wondered if maybe I was looking for my answers in the wrong place.

  I had made my choice already, and that was to start this crazy relationship with the princes of the school. Backtracking now would not help me. There was only going forward. But if that was the case, I had to pinpoint the right path, for all of us.

  At the rate we were going, we might find that The Academy of the Devil wasn’t a place we could stay for much longer.

  * * *

  I never did go back to my classes that day, which, naturally, didn’t end well. Ironically, it wasn’t a teacher who came to see me. It was Callum and Stefan. They burst into the dorm room I shared with Mikael like they owned the place, completely ignoring the fact that this wasn’t their house.

  “Lyssa, we heard what happened. Are you…”

  Callum trailed off when he caught sight of what I was doing. Stefan’s eyes went wide. Their reaction would’ve been almost laughable if not for the seriousness of the circumstances.

  I continued grooming Mikael’s feathers and answered, “We’re both fine, although I’m pretty sure those upperclassmen who attacked Mikael might not be. How did you even hear about the whole thing?”

  “Polyphemus caught a glimpse of the scene. Apparently, he intended to intervene, but you made that unnecessary. I heard he notified several teachers that your familiar had been injured, so you’re officially excused for the day. But he wasn’t very clear on what had happened to either of you.”

  “It was just a very powerful Revelatio potion,” Mikael replied. “It should wear off in a couple of days.”

  I decided not to mention his earlier breakdown, since that hadn’t been a physical injury. It was more related to his mental state, and that was a secret I would keep for Mikael, even from Stefan and Callum.

  “So, I take it now you have to wander around with your wings visible?” Stefan asked. “That’s unfortunate.”

  “That’s one way of putting it, yeah,” Mikael replied.

  “Having angel wings isn’t unfortunate,” I said at the same time. “It’s not a handicap. And even if it were, Mikael shouldn’t be treated as a lesser being because of it.”

  “We know that,” Callum offered calmly. “But you have to see that this will make matters worse for Mikael in the school. It’s not like he can hide in the dorms. And that’ll affect you, in turn.”

  “I honestly don’t care about myself that much right now,” I answered. “We all need to take a step back and reassess, because what we’re doing isn’t working.”

  As I spoke, I rubbed the base of Mikael’s wing. He let out a small moan of pleasure, which made Stefan shift restlessly in his spot. “I don’t think you petting Mikael like that is conducive to having a coherent conversation, Lyssa.”

  He was right, but now that I’d started, I couldn’t stop. And Mikael did need to relax a bit. I’d well and utterly fucked up everything else, but this, at least, I could do.

  “You know, you can make a nephilim come simply by rubbing his wings,” Callum piped up, as if guessing my thoughts. “The nerve endings in their spines and on the wings themselves are very sensitive.”

  I chose to not address the obvious question of how the fuck he even knew that. By now, it was pretty obvious that he and Mikael were more than friends too, so this didn’t come as a big surprise.

  Instead, I decided to put the information to good use and started a massage that was a little more insistent. Callum smiled at me and sat on the edge of the bed, while Stefan just stood there, staring, as if not knowing what to do.

  Mikael responded beautifully to my touch. His eyes drifted shut and all lingering tension faded from his frame. “You know, maybe it’s not so bad to have wings after all,” he said lazily. “This is pretty great.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Stefan rumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Was he pouting? That was a little adorable. Did he want to be groomed too? He didn’t have wings, so that would be a little difficult, but we could figure something else out if he was so interested.

  If Callum felt the same, he didn’t show it. Instead, he reached for my hand and guided it slowly, showing me how to touch Mikael in the best way. Mikael grunted and slumped against Callum. “You’re a terrible person, you know that, incubus?”

  Callum chuckled silently. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “And it’s not?”

  “In this case, it isn’t.”

  Stefan abandoned his resistance and joined us in bed as well. “Come on, Mikael. Face it. You know he’s never going to let you have Lyssa to yourself, no matter what the circumstances might be.”

  I’d sort of realized that was what Callum was doing, but before I could toss something at Callum’s head for turning this into another gigantic dick measuring contest, Stefan crushed his mouth to Mikael’s. Mikael tensed, but only for a moment.

  He then started to respond with far more enthusiasm than I’d expected. His spine began to grow even hotter beneath my fingertips and a jolt of energy coursed over me. And that was when everything went horribly wrong.

  Stefan jerked Mikael away from me and Callum so abruptly we ended up ripping out some feathers. “You don’t fool me,” he said. “Don’t play this game, angel. It doesn’t suit you.”

  Mikael landed a few feet away from the bed. He steadied himself with ease and straightened his back. He extended his wings and the black feathers glowed like threatening, onyx daggers. “Doesn’t it? And here I thought I understood myself better than you did, animal.”

  Stefan bared his fangs at Mikael. “You understand nothing. You know nothing.”

  What was happening here? Why were they fighting now of all times?

  “Hey, wait! Stop! What
are you—?”

  Callum grabbed my wrist and shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t intervene.”

  “What?” I asked him, a feeling of betrayal rushing over me. “But Callum, why?” I’d been trying to help Mikael, to relax him. What could warrant this behavior?

  “Trust me on this one,” Callum said. “Mikael needs to be reminded who he is. He needs to understand that he’s an angel and a demon at the same time.

  “Right now, he’s afraid. There is a pressure building inside him. He needs to exorcise it. And unfortunately, if he tried to fight other students at the school, he’d get you in trouble. Stefan is the best option. There’s almost no injury he can’t heal from.”

  I could understand Callum’s logic. This was one of those moments when I had to accept that my lovers were demons and they occasionally needed things I couldn’t grasp or provide.

  Callum wrapped his arms around me, immobilizing me and keeping me from trying to do anything stupid like jumping between the two men. As I watched Stefan and Mikael leap toward one another, I considered my options and alternatives.

  They were using their claws and elemental fire magic. At first, I was alarmed, but I’d seen them fight far more seriously. It soon became obvious that they weren’t trying to hurt each other, not permanently, at least. Stefan made no attempt to shift or lunge for Mikael’s throat like he had in the past. He raked his claws over Mikael’s chest, and even if Mikael did try to dodge, the attack still hit him, leaving behind thin, bloody scratches. The injury was ugly, but not serious enough to incapacitate or slow Mikael down.

  Something dark fleeted over Mikael’s face, and his eyes lit up with an ominous glow. “It looks like I’ve been a little careless lately, puppy. Have you been missing your training lessons?”

  “You could never train me,” Stefan rumbled. “I’m not yours to train.”

  “You’re nothing more than a beast. You belong to anyone who can fuck you hard enough to make you kneel. I’m sure I can qualify.”