by Lucy Auburn
“Concentrate,” Kade admonishes me, catching everything. His shaved black hair only serves to make him seem even more severe when he notices one of his students; suddenly I’m falling from grace instead of buoyed by praise. “Eyes front, sword out, begin from the start.”
Kade moves on, but now that I’ve slipped once I find it harder to get into the groove of things. That mindset I was in, the one I found this morning under Yohan’s watchful eye, becomes harder and harder to slip into. I default back to my old slow movements and forgetful hands that don’t do what my mind tells them to do.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe my Grim powers are broken—not because of the connection with the demons, but because I wasn’t even raised in one of these infamous clans I keep hearing about. After all, Meyer talked about my powers like they should be second nature, but every time I’ve used my ability to sense people’s intentions it’s drained out of me within an hour or so.
Dani Carpenter, dumb little foster girl, can’t even tap into her evil side the right way. I’m supposed to have this super badass Grim nature inside me but one little embarrassment trips me up. At this rate I’ll wind up dead in a ditch, the demons gathered around me shaking their heads at my predicament.
“You okay?” Even Sam notices my melancholy.
“I’m fine. Keep going.”
Block. Parry. Strike and move. But I’m slower now, and even though Sam is a first year like me, he’s taken these classes for longer. He probably even went to some special shifter kid high school. His parry moves past my guard and his blunt blade thwacks against my wrist. I hiss, nearly dropping my sword in response.
And suddenly there’s a voice in my ear, low and close, drowning out Sam’s wincing apology. “You know,” Ezra murmurs, the brush of his hands against my shoulders sending shivers through my body, “in traditional Japanese laido students practice the form without ever facing their opponents or hitting each other. Even the modern fighting styles use wooden swords. But in our dojo in Purgatory, we used sharpened blades and risked being gutted if we didn’t learn the forms. Maybe you’d do this better if you knew blood could be spilled.”
“It’s okay,” I tell Sam, as we each move back into the first form. “I was distracted.”
“Is that what I am, a distraction?” I can practically feel those green eyes simmer as they bore a hole into the back of my head. “You called me here. Alone this time. Apparently your summoning skills have improved.”
Obviously I’m going to have to have a conversation with him, but I can’t do it right here.
“I’m going to get a drink of water,” I tell Sam, because even though he and the other shifters know about the demons, speaking to myself—even if they know the truth—won’t exactly improve my tarnished reputation around here. I’ll have to explain why they can’t see them eventually. I have no idea how they’ll react to our soul bond.
There’s a water jug in the corner of the classroom, with reusable bottles stacked on a table at the side. I take my time selecting one and pouring water into it, murmuring to Ezra in a quiet voice as I do so.
“I didn’t realize I called you here.”
“You must’ve been thinking about how badly you need my help with your sword forms.” He raises his brows and pats the sheath at his hip. “You know, if you compelled me you could use my abilities and knowledge yourself. No training required.”
“I would never do that.” I meet his green eyes, letting my anger and irritation with him show. “I’m not going to use you like that.”
He meets my gaze head-on, something brewing beneath the surface of his expression. “I know you wouldn’t. Which is what makes this that much more painful.”
Now I’m confused, not that it’s a new state of mind for me. “Makes what painful?”
“This. Being bonded like this, knowing it could kill you, knowing it’ll end.” His eyes roam the classroom restlessly. “I don’t know what to do about the fact that being close to you is hurting you.”
“It’s not your fault,” I point out. My water bottle is almost full; I can’t loiter much longer. “I don’t blame you guys for any of this.”
“That’s not the problem.” Ezra is looking at me again, his green eyes intense and undeniable, impossible to ignore. “The problem is that I don’t want to stay away.”
Words bubble up inside me, and this time I don’t press them down and deny them. “Then don’t.”
“But it will be the death of you.”
“I have the talisman to protect me.” My fingers brush up against the strange black opal. “We have this time together, and there’s nothing we can do to change that until I’ve mastered my Grim powers. So let’s just make the most of it while it lasts. It can’t make things any worse than how they are now, and at least we won’t be fighting all the time.”
Those leader eyes of his consider my words, weighing them against the personal responsibility that’s heavy on his shoulders, his desire to always be on the right side of the battle against evil—a desire I can sense, either through our bond or just because I’ve been watching him out of the corners of my eyes, studying him and cataloging everything.
In the distance, Sam calls my name; I hold up a finger for him to wait just a bit longer, and take a long pull on my water bottle. Ezra is still weighing his decision.
“Fine.” I can barely contain my shock. He’s not done speaking yet, though. “One condition: we’ll give into the parts of this situation we can’t change, by no longer fighting every time you summon us instinctively. But no lingering or loitering.”
“Makes sense.”
“And in exchange,” here’s another but coming, “you’re going to have to spend more time studying your Grim powers and less time eating desserts in your room. You’ve got an ID to get into Melisandra’s now, so use it.”
A terrible thing. But maybe I can check a few books out of the library and eat dessert at the same time. Ezra said nothing about multitasking.
“Agreed.”
“First lesson.” He motions with his chin towards the practice mats. “Get better at using that sword, or I swear the next time I’m corporeal I’ll show you what a sharp blade can do to the unwary. At the rate you’re practicing, you’ll wind up dead in a ditch. I’ll help coach you.”
Great; now instead of one take-no-prisoners drill instructors I’ve got two.
I just hope this means that from now on, Ezra will stop glaring at me and clit-blocking me. I can’t take much more of this grumpy version of him.
As I get back into position opposite Sam and let my hand drift to the handle of my katana, Ezra calls out, “One last thing: no sex. I saw the way you looked at Sebastian.” He takes his place behind me, close enough I can feel the brush of his soul against mine, even though there’s no warmth to his incorporeal form. “Summon us to the shower again and I’m afraid of what might happen. He’s shown a reckless willingness to break our agreement not to get involved with you, and it’ll fracture our bond if he breaks his word. You’ll tear the four of us apart if you’re not careful. So keep your naughty dreams in dreamland. This quartet doesn’t play solo.”
Sam and I are about to draw our blades from our sheaths, so I can’t respond to Ezra’s words.
If I could, though, I’d tell him it’s not a duet I dream of when my mind wanders.
I’m very firmly of the opinion that when you get a set of four, you keep all the players together. Even if that means things get messy.
Chapter 12
Classes are over, but my day isn’t. Even though my ever-hungry stomach is grumbling for some food, as soon as history class lets out I make a beeline for the stairs up to the library.
As I do so, I pass the memorial to Kayla and wind up stopping beside it. There are flowers, notes, cards, various pieces of memorabilia, and a few battery-operated candles. Looking at all the love for her, I feel a dull throb of pain in my chest. We may not have exactly gotten along—no one would be putting us in the Hall of Fame for BFFs—but
she didn’t deserve to go out like she did.
And there hasn’t even been any justice. Sure, her killer technically died last night, but in reality someone else was pulling the strings. I wasn’t even able to figure out who.
“We’re doing this thing one at a time now, huh?” Sebastian’s voice behind me is quiet, but his presence is anything but. Appearing in front of me with those sharp baby blues aimed right at my face, he gives me a roguish smile and pushes up off the wall, stalking close like a predator—one whose open-mouthed assault I’d gladly meet. “I think I can guess why you summoned me.”
“Look.” I motion towards the framed photo of Kayla; spinning on his feet, he looks at her and stills. “She’s dead. Just like that. It could’ve just as easily been me.”
“Ah.” He runs a hand through his black hair, somehow turning it from tousled-and-sexy to incredibly-messy-and-sexy. “So it’s pain that brought me here to you.”
I bite my lower lip. “Sorry.”
“I’m not.” He turns and cocks his head at me, eyes taking in my every inch—not in a checking-me-out kind of way, but more the way a nurse would look at a patient. “Wherever you are, however much you’re hurting, I’ll be there for you. To take away your pain. Just say the word and make me corporeal.”
As his fingers reach up to brush my cheek, the touch of his soul sparking against my skin, I realize that a tear has fallen from my eye and betrayed me. It’s rolling down my face to dangle at the edge of my jaw, childish and weak; choking down the rest of the tears, I wipe it away and try not to feel anything at all.
Abruptly, a question comes to the tip of my tongue, one that will change the subject. “What agreement do the four of you have?”
“What?”
I hear footsteps behind me, and briefly move to let a few students trickle down the stairs towards the dining hall, which is open for post-class stress-induced binge eating. Spotting the empty loveseat and chairs in the study nook, I slip over to it, and Sebastian joins me.
At least if I talk to him here there’s less of a chance of the other students seeing me and deciding I need to be institutionalized—or worse, reminding them that I’m a Grim.
“Earlier, Ezra visited me, like the ghost of grumpy Christmas or something.” Sebastian snorts at this, and I feel pleased I’ve managed to wring some amusement from him given how typically bitter or intense he is. “He mentioned that uh, if anything happened between you and me,” someone stop my face from catching on fire, “it would violate some kind of deal or something and tear you guys apart. He made it sound very serious.”
Sebastian dismisses this almost instantly with a vague wave of his hand. “It’s just Ezra and his rules. He was raised in Purgatory, and it’s made him kind of a hardass because he thinks he has to protect us from ourselves or something.”
I blink at him. “He was... raised? You mean like, he was a child or something?”
“No, he sprang fully formed from Lucifer’s spread-open ass cheeks.”
An inappropriate joke and a reference to Greek mythology at the same time. There’s that sense of humor that Sebastian tapped into when he severed a dick with his bare hands. “I guess it just didn’t occur to me to imagine you guys as children. You were kind of disemboweling people when I met you.”
“All creatures were born at some point, Dani. Except the gods, though who knows—the bastards might very well have come out of their mothers’ vaginas.” He shrugs, making it clear he has no interest in theological theory. “Demons are born human.”
“Oh.” I blink. “They haven’t covered that in class yet.”
“It doesn’t surprise me.” He motions around towards the walls and grounds of the academy, taking in the Gothic architecture, the verdant green grass outside, even the pillows strewn on the floor and the flowers wilting at the foot of Kayla’s photo. “The academy doesn’t have any interest in understanding demons. Even Grims aren’t interested in much besides learning better ways to use and control us.”
I lift my chin. “I’m interested. So tell me.”
A little smirk crooks his face, and his blue eyes flash. “Oh, I know you’re interested in me, Dani.”
I give him my best withering glare, even though I can feel my cheeks turning red. I wonder if phoenix flame will spurt out of me from sheer embarrassment. “I’m serious. Tell me.”
He weighs me with his gaze, then gives a short nod and sits opposite me in the study nook. “Very well. But it’s not exactly fun or scandalous, I have to warn you.”
“I want to know anyway.”
It’s true, I realize as soon as I say it. The demons have been a mystery I wanted to discover the moment I saw their shimmering not-quite-human forms. The energy that lives beneath their skin, that I sense in Sebastian’s heated blue eyes, was what kept my feet firmly rooted to the ground when I should’ve been running in the opposite direction.
That night on the cliffs, I stayed because I wanted to know what they were, and felt a pull towards them I couldn’t explain. Maybe this time I have left with them would be best spent satisfying that curiosity.
Especially because understanding them better may make it easier to bring them back to me once I’m sure I can make it so our bond doesn’t kill me.
“I’ll tell you everything, then.” Sebastian leans back on the absurdly pillow-covered armchair, his incorporeal form passing through a fluffy white pillow at his back, and stares broodingly out the window. A little pink kitty face on a tiny round pillow is staring at me from over his shoulder, and it’s more than enough to ruin the handsome bastard effect he’s normally got going on.
I’d laugh if I weren’t so sure he’d figure out a way to kill me for it.
“Each of us lived a mortal life at some point, one that we no longer remembered after we made our way down to Purgatory. The older you are when you make it there, the more of your old self you retain—that’s why Lynx has an accent, even though he hasn’t spent a day of his demon life in the Caribbean.”
I blink. “Oh. And you?”
“I know some French, mostly swear words, but I have no idea how much of it is connected to the human life I lived and how much comes from being around Lynx.” He rolls his eyes a little. “Being part of a quartet with him means learning things whether you want to or not. He has a tendency to narrate out loud.”
“I’ve noticed.” Whereas terse Sebastian is speaking more words to me now than I think he ever has, maybe even more than Lynx—which is saying something. “So you were all... people. And you just became demons?”
He looks away, his jaw tightening, shoulders hunching slightly, and there’s something about it that makes me wish I could hug him. I could do it—I could draw him onto this plane, make him corporeal, walk over to where he’s sitting and just plaster myself on him right here, right now.
It’s more than a little bit tempting.
But as I lean forward to do it, the black opal chicken foot (fuck my life) necklace swings out of my shirt, reminding me what’s at stake. And while I’ll never claim to be someone who makes good decisions, I’m pretty sure that in addition to the fact you’re not supposed to lose your virginity to four demons, you’re also not supposed to risk dying because of it.
That doesn’t stop me from wanting to see what it’d be like to kiss him again.
Apparently if I were in a horror movie I’d be that chick who dies first, ass up in the wood chipper.
Sebastian is still brooding. I force myself not to reach for him. Finally, his jaw loosens slightly, and he answers my question.
“We didn’t become demons the way you became a phoenix. It was a punishment. One we were forced into in order to atone for our sins.” His mouth twists bitterly. “Ezra was only fourteen when he died, but apparently The Powers That Be decided he deserved near-eternal punishment anyway. The most fucked up part is the fact that they took away our memories of our mortal lives. So I don’t even know what I’m atoning for. And I definitely don’t feel like the person I was
right after I died.”
This news—everything about it—floors me. Up until now the demons have been like an elemental force of nature in my eyes. They just appeared, like Sebastian said, fully formed and already demonic. It never even occurred to me that they were born or made.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” He leans forward on the armchair, hands on his knees. “I’ve seen hundreds of examples of humanity’s worst since I was called to serve as a demon. I’ve given pain and taken it away. Whoever I was as a mortal is gone, and I’m glad for that. I have no interest in being human. Their selfishness, their cruelty, the way they hurt most those who have trusted or cared for them. I’m glad I’m not one of them anymore. And you should be too. You shouldn’t be ashamed of who you are.”
I find myself fiddling with the sleeves of my blazer. “I’m not ashamed.”
He crooks a dark brow at me. “Aren’t you? I’ve seen you, Dani, even when you didn’t realize you’d summoned me. You care what these people think, and you shouldn’t. Being a Grim is just another part of you. And just like I don’t have to define myself by the sins I committed as a mortal, you don’t have to define yourself by a legacy passed down by people you never even met.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I admit.
“You should.” A warmth suffuses me, one only he can give. “We were both remade when we died, Dani. So embrace who you are now, and let go of all your doubts.
“As for the agreement between the four of us about not getting involved with you—well, there’s a way to break it.”
His sudden change of topic confuses me for a moment before I remember that it’s the reason why we sat down to talk in the first place. “How would you break it?”
The smirk that turns up the corners of his mouth is suggestive from start to end. “We all agreed that if you want all four of us we’ll take you.”