The brightling was walking in front of us. This one had a rabbit face. It said without looking at us, “Please refrain from doing so. It will cause more unnecessary trouble, and Overseer Agness will send you to more detention.”
“She said she’d talk to me later,” Danna added. “Which is fine, right? She’s their supervisor. Maybe we can get some answers.”
“I want to go home,” I said. “I have plans.”
“What plans?”
Honestly, after Max? I didn’t know for sure, but I wanted a taste of freedom, and this place, despite being so beautiful, didn’t seem like where I’d get it. “Hopefully, ones that don’t blow up in my face. The bigger the dreams, the messier things get, you know?” We moved down more corridors until we stopped in front of an unassuming red door.
“I will be back for you in thirty minutes,” the rabbit-faced brightling said. I hated how the brightlings had fur sticking out from all over. It grossed me out. This one had a puffball of a tail that poked through a hole in its pants. “The overseer is waiting for the rest of the half-bloods to join the gathering. A briefing will start later.”
“Couldn’t you guys have thought of a better name?” Danna asked. “Half-bloods? Might as well call us Muggles.”
“Some of you are destined for greatness.”
“Only some?” I asked. “What about the rest?”
An ominous silence falls between us. My insides chill at the blank expression on the brightling’s face.
“They’re probably going to throw us in a stew and feed us to the Wicked Witch of the West,” I said, breaking the quiet.
Danna shrugged. “Probably,” she replied, completely ignoring that our lives might be in danger.
The brightling turned the doorknob and led us into the detention room. A rusty smell, like that of blood, hit my nostrils. I leaned backward and frowned. “Um, this is a detention room, yes?” I asked, almost afraid to peer over the brightling’s shoulder. Why did the room have the scent of death?
The brightling pulled open the door, revealing more of the insides. “Thirty minutes.”
“Uh,” Danna said, startled. “In there?”
The floor of the room was completely bloodstained. A black chandelier loomed from the ceiling, and statues lined the perimeter. The room was only lit by candles, which gave the place a creepy atmosphere. When the brightling stepped into the room and looked at me with its animalistic, beady eyes, I thought I might wet my pants. There were two others in the enclosure, but I couldn’t see them clearly because the candles didn’t do a good job of lighting the interior. I could tell that one of them was a guy, the other a woman. They both stuck me as pretty aloof individuals.
The two figures in the room were scrubbing the ground. They did it quietly and languidly. It didn’t seem like they were doing a very good job of it, because they didn’t manage to clean any of the bloodstains off.
I curled my hands into fists. I, Cara Valencia, didn’t let my pants get wet. I faced creepy things head-on.
Except for all those times when I told Max to go watch his horror movies by himself.
I was beginning to accept that all of this was real. Either that or I was facing a really bad dream. Regardless, I should go with the flow, because I didn’t seem to be waking from the dream anytime soon.
Why did my dream have to turn into a nightmare? It was going well earlier. The golden vines had looked all princess-y and fun.
The brightling picked up some objects from the corner of the room. When he strode closer, I saw that he carried a couple buckets that had rags draped over them. “The goddess of destruction was abandoned by her lover in this room,” the brightling explained. “So she cursed it to forever be bloody. The overseer is unhappy about having a room in the Sanctuary wasted, so she assigned this to be the detention room. Perhaps one day, a half-blood will be able to scrub the stains away.”
“So we’re here to waste time?” I asked. “Just because some powerful bitch got dumped?” I couldn’t wrap my head around the culture of the Sanctuary. What kind of drugs did Hansel put in my Heineken?
“Do not call the goddesses bitches,” the brightling warned me.
I shrugged. I loved to rebel. Perhaps I ought to hold myself back, however, considering the people I wanted to rebel against were literal gods.
The brightling passed us the buckets. “The overseer believes there should be incentive to avoid detention. If you spend too long not scrubbing, you will receive terrible pain.”
“Terrible pain,” I echoed. “Great.” I raised a brow at Danna, who sighed in return.
We were thrust into the punishment room—that was what I’d decided to call it—and the door shut behind us. I wanted to test out what the brightling had warned about, so I stood there, doing absolutely nothing for about a minute. An ache crept up the back of my spine and grew in intensity. I winced, attempting to bear it. I failed. “Holy cucumber pie,” I said. “This is terrible.”
Danna, with her endless amounts of energy, got to work quicker than I did. She dropped to the ground, dipped her rag into the bucket, and began scrubbing. “Cucumber pie?” she asked. “That does sound terrible.”
I mimicked her actions, kneeling on the bloodstained ground. I hated the scent of iron and wanted to rub it out from my nose. It made me want to gag. Some of the blood was dried, while parts of the ground had liquid blood spilling over it. I alternated between the slippery and dry portions. Every time I cleaned away some stains, more appeared. My work was meaningless, which only served to tick me off.
“Fuck this,” I said. “I could be surfing the internet for the answers to life right now.” That was what I was supposed to do after a breakup, right? Lengthy stretches of breakup articles awaited me on the web, and I had to read them to reassure myself that I wasn’t alone in my pain.
“You go to the internet to find your answers to life?” Danna asked. She scrubbed more vigorously than me. I didn’t know why she tried. Then again, her defined shoulders told me that she was fit, so she probably didn’t need to think twice about wasting all that energy. It must have been all those cartwheels as a cheerleader that toned her up.
I scrunched my nose. “Google is a wonderful tool.” I took my cell phone out from my pocket, risking the pain that came from not working. “It’d be useful to plug what we’d just experienced into a search engine. I’m not sure if they have reception here.”
“Nope,” Danna said. “They don’t. Which is one reason why I freaked out. I couldn’t tell my teammates that I’m not showing up. I’m just curious why all the men here are so tall and in animal costumes.”
“You should have tried pulling one of their masks off.”
“You think it’s a mask? Maybe they’re genetic mutants. I’ve heard of scientists these days doing that a lot. Making rabbits glow and stuff.”
“They can really do that? Give men animal heads?”
“I mean, glowing rabbits. Half-men, half-animals. Is that so far a stretch? Next year, they’re going to make pigs fly.”
One of the figures we’d been ignoring cleared his throat. “They’re not mutants.”
We both looked at him. I hadn’t paid much mind to him because it was so dim, but now that I did, I couldn’t look away. Before me was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen—more so than Hansel, even. While Hansel exuded charm, this man portrayed pain. His face was a mask that seemed to hide a thousand mysteries. His jaw was angular, but not too wide. His nose was a thin, slender column that led to perfectly symmetrical, full lips. He had long raven hair that he’d tied in a ponytail. It fell loosely over his shoulder and chest. I wanted to run my fingers through that hair. Even in this dim light, the shocking turquoise of his eyes shone. They reminded me of the sea on a cool evening.
My eyes trailed down to his body. He was slender, but muscular, and the long-sleeved, collared black shirt he wore hugged his frame neatly. He, like us, had to scrub the floor. The blackness of his outfit hid the bloodstains. My jeans, on th
e other hand, were covered with splotches of them.
“They’re not mutants,” the guy repeated. “They’re brightlings, ancient servants of the goddesses. Cursed to follow orders for the rest of eternity.”
“Cursed?” I asked. “They seem well adjusted to me. They’re calm, on top of having a complete lack of personality. When they insult me, I’m not sure whether they’re being respectful or ass-pussies.”
“Ass-pussies,” the gorgeous man echoed. “Never heard that one before.”
“My invention. I need royalties every time you use it. That’ll be ten bucks.”
He ignored my jab and continued, “The brightlings were once vassals. They failed miserably in their duties, and so they were given animal heads by Agness, the goddess of flora, and are forced to serve the half-bloods endlessly.”
“You’re throwing terms at us we don’t understand,” Danna said. “What in the world is a vassal?”
“They’re the male servants of the goddesses. We live in a matriarchal system, where the goddesses are curators of Haven. Men with powers form teams to protect the goddesses, and only the most worthy, able to help their half-bloods to excel, are allowed to live life as a vassal.”
“Are you one?” I asked.
“I’m about to be assigned as one. The groupings are left to the chiasma. It has chosen my half-blood for me.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“Yes,” he said, but he didn’t elaborate.
I kind of wished he’d be on my team, if only so I could appreciate more eye candy. The way he carried himself also made it seem like he had many layers to his personality, and I wanted to spend time peeling away those layers, to find out more about him. It wouldn’t hurt to peel that shirt off him, either. A girl could never have enough muscles to gawk at. Pity that Max had none. He had a one-pack, which I’d convinced myself to love.
Good riddance. Not that I had anything against one-packs—they were fluffy and cuddly—but Max had refused to take care of himself. Reminiscing on the past, I wondered why I even fucked him. Why did that Asian chick fuck him? Maybe he’d lied and pretended he had money. That couldn’t be further from the truth. He’d lived off me.
“So, you’re telling me,” Danna said, pulling me back from my ruminating, “that we’ve been brought here to be goddesses and—” She winced. While listening to the mystery man, she’d forgotten to scrub the floor. She quickly got to work again. “Damn it. How long have we been doing this for?”
“Five minutes.”
“There’s another twenty-five minutes of this crap?” she asked. She sighed, then pulled her attention back to our new revelation. “We’re supposed to have a team of men to serve us? That sounds too good to be true.”
“The curriculum is difficult,” the mystery man said. “It’s better to have support. Plus, you don’t want to fail it.”
“What happens if you do?” I remembered asking the same question to the brightling who’d brought me here.
His features fell flat. “Nobody knows, which is the scary part. The half-bloods who don’t make it are never seen again.”
“Huh,” I said, cringing at the queasiness of my stomach. “Creepy.”
“The name’s Liam, by the way,” the mystery man said. “We’re going to see each other around a lot.”
“And why is that?”
He sniffed. “We’re going to share the same halls. Maybe more.” He got back to working and paid less mind to us. I had a dozen questions to ask him, but he was beginning to back away from us, so it seemed like he didn’t want to be bothered.
Danna and I glanced at each other, then proceeded to scrub the floors while talking about our backgrounds. I didn’t tell her anything about Max, but she found out about my foster mother, Lydia, and how she’d created an empire, with her core business model revolving around cupcakes.
“She owns Crazy Cakes?” Danna asked, her voice rising by a couple notches.
“Mhm,” I said. “And a few other companies.”
“My girls and I love it. I see its commercials all the time. You must be rich.”
“Not me. Lydia is. She sends me money, but I don’t want to rely on it. I’m all about personal responsibility, you know?”
Danna rubbed the tip of her nose with the back of her hand, leaving a couple of bloodstains there. I pulled my upper lip up in disgust. “But she’s not your mom?” Danna asked. “You said foster.”
“I had a rough childhood.”
“Sheesh.”
Danna told me she’d had it easy. Her father was a hedge fund manager and her mother was a housewife who spent all her time caring for her children. She had two siblings—an older sister and a younger brother. I’d always wondered what it was like to have siblings. A big family. Lydia adopted me when I was twelve because she was getting old and lonely. Sometimes I compared myself to a puppy. Lydia had personally told me that she was debating between me and a golden retriever from the shelter.
I still missed her, however. The last time she flew into town was three months ago. She’d given me my own apartment even though I insisted I could earn my own rent. And that already felt like I was taking too much from her. Sometimes I wondered if I’d gotten too much freedom from Lydia. Freedom was nice, but without the love of a mother…
Damn, I was starting to think of myself as a sob story. I was a strong, independent woman. Or Ms. I-don’t-give-a-fuck, as I liked to call myself. I had no time for internalized bitching.
Danna’s expression turned sullen when she finished telling me about her life. “I miss home already, and it’s only been a few hours. I’d been seeing this guy, you know? Been trying to get his attention for months, and he’d finally confessed to me. We were supposed to go on a date this weekend.”
At least I didn’t have a love story to worry about. My mind reached back to Hansel. He’d listened to my problems and given me more than Max had in three months with that simple action. But Hansel was just another passing cloud. A small blip in my life I shouldn’t care about. I didn’t know when I’d ever meet him again, if ever.
“The both of you sound happy,” a woman said. We turned our heads to the fourth person in the room. We’d left her alone because she seemed so aloof. She was dressed like a typical emo chick, with deep shades of eyeshadow dabbed all over her eyelids, and had fishnet stockings stretched over her legs. She looked at us from under her long black fringe. “Wonder how long that will last for.”
Yikes. She sounded depressed.
“Um, hi,” I said. “And who are you?”
“Miley,” she said. “I hate my life.”
“Ookaay… What’s so bad about it?” Was she upset because the Sanctuary was a terrible place? Had her friend been murdered? Did she get her heartbroken?
“They gave me green peas for lunch,” Miley said. “I hate green peas.” She sighed and looked at the ground morosely before continuing to scrub.
I paused and lifted a brow at her, uncertain whether to feel sorry for her or laugh because her complaint was so pathetically minor.
“Ignore her,” Liam said, wringing his rag over his bucket. The rag dripped red. “That’s Moping Miley. She’s never happy about anything.”
“And why not?” I asked.
She gave me a daggered look from her corner, but I tried to ignore the way that creeped me out.
Liam shrugged. “No idea. She just likes to be sad all the time. Threw a fit after getting green peas today, and that’s why she’s here.”
Moping Miley began sobbing. She moved closer to one of the four walls as her sobs increased into a wail. “Nobody ever likes me.”
Should I comfort her?
“Life isn’t so bad,” I said.
“It’s horrible!” She tossed her head back and banged her fist against the wall. I jolted and pressed my rag too hard against the ground. I almost slipped forward. “Horrible. Horrible!”
I whistled softly and turned away. Miley was crazy. She needed therapy. Stat.
&n
bsp; Just then, the door opened. Bright light streamed in, washing out the dimness of the candles. “Liam, your shift is over.” It wasn’t a brightling who fetched Liam, but another man. I couldn’t get a good view of him from this angle and lighting, but his frame was gigantic and his voice sounded deep and masculine.
Liam stood. I realized that he’d been bent over the entire time he was in here. When he extended his frame, the glory of his stature was emphasized. I wanted to slide my tongue all over him. I mentally slapped myself for giving in to my inner pervert. He adjusted his collar, tugging it from his neck. Giving me a glimpse of hard muscle underneath.
I’d stared for too long, and the pain from pausing came. I muttered a soft curse.
“Is the Sanctuary that bad a place?” I asked Liam as he stalked away.
Liam glanced over his shoulder, giving me another clear look of his angled face and sea-green eyes. “You’ll find out.” He slipped out the room and shut the door behind him, casting us in dim light again. I wasn’t afraid of the lack of light but being so close to Moping Miley did freak me out a bit.
Four
I glanced at the floating platform in front of me and pointed at it. The brightling behind us—the same rabbit one who’d led us into the detention room—wanted us to step onto it.
Over us, the sky was a mixture of purple and oranges. Sunsets were beautiful everywhere, but the ones in the Sanctuary had an enrapturing quality I’d never seen before. The floating platform was surrounded by ivory pillars. It looked like an elaborate magical elevator.
“I might fall, trip, and die from this,” I said. “I’m not exactly the most graceful person around.”
“That is nonsense,” the brightling said. “All half-bloods are blessed with dexterity and grace.”
“You don’t know me very well.”
Danna, with her utter lack of self-preservation, hopped onto the platform and did a couple of star jumps. “This is really cool. How do you think they made it?”
“I still think I’m seeing it because someone drugged my beer.” I wasn’t wearing a watch, but if I did, I’d be checking the hours and wondering when I was going to wake up.
Goddess Academy: The Complete Reverse Harem Collection Page 3