From the corner of my eye, I spotted the rumpled sheets and heat crept up into my cheeks. I still couldn’t quite believe that I had spent the night cradled between their bodies.
I wasn’t exactly a prude but I certainly wasn’t very experienced when it came to the opposite sex.
And being in a relationship with Riley definitely hadn’t expanded my horizons.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Belial said, his breath hot against my ear. I jerked, and snapped my attention to the other side of the room where he still stood deep in conversation with Azael.
“How can you do that?” The words came out as a hoarse whisper. Across the room, Belial’s lips crooked up in a lopsided smile and he shifted his attention to my face.
Staring into his eyes was like standing at the edge of a high pier and staring into the stormy depths of the sea churning below. I wanted to fall into them, drown in them.
Balling my hands into fists at my sides, I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands and pushed away the desire he awakened in me. It wasn’t right and there was a part of me that felt like I was slowly losing pieces of myself to them the longer I spent in their company.
His smile faded and a chill raced over my skin in response. Something inside of me wanted to make him smile at me again, longed to see the warmth that lit his expression.
“Do you not like it?” He started across the room and paused in front of me. For a split second I could have sworn that uncertainty flickered in his eyes and then it was gone as quickly as it had arrived leaving me to wonder if I’d seen it at all.
“I wouldn’t say that exactly,” I said, not wanting to offend him. “I’m just not used to all of this…” I gestured to our surroundings. “I mean you’ve told me a whole load of new information and given me no time to assimilate it.”
“We’ve told you only the truth.”
“I know and that’s not what I mean. I’m just saying this is all a lot to take in.”
“I thought we were past this, I thought you understood. Do you not understand?”
I shook my head and instinctively folded my arms over my chest. I’d read once in a book that people who folded their arms over their bodies were shielding themselves and in that moment I could completely understand why someone might feel the urge to shield themselves.
“I get it, I just—”
“You’re just not sure if you can believe it yet,” Azael interjected.
“I suppose you could say that.”
“But—” Belial spluttered but Azael cut him off with a shake of his head.
“Leave her be, Brother. She is entitled to have her doubts. We cannot blame her for that. After all, she was failed by our kind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your Guardian should have prepared you for all of this. Without their guidance expecting you to just fall in line with everything we’re saying is absurd.” His expression softened and for just an instance I caught sight of the man lurking behind the mask he kept in place. There was a softness to him, a tenderness that tore at my heart. I knew in that moment that if I crossed the room and took him in my arms he would be mind forever and always. That there would never be a moment of loneliness so long as he was by my side.
And I also knew in that split second that he held the power to irrevocably break not just my heart but my soul too.
I took a step forward, the heat of his gaze drawing me to him like a moth to the flame.
The bell of the elevator behind me dinged loudly, breaking the moment we shared. And just as quickly as his mask had slipped—exposing his vulnerability—it was back in place. The arrogant expression I had grown so used to settled across his features as though it had never left.
“The car is here,” Caro said from somewhere behind me.
“Thank you,” Azael said, gesturing toward the open doorway with his hand. “Shall we then?”
Sucking in a deep breath through my teeth, I swallowed back my fear and nodded. “Let’s just get this over with.”
12
We arrived at our destination in silence. The entire car journey had passed in much the same way. There had been a moment when I’d wondered if perhaps they were going to resort to a physical fight when they couldn’t agree over the kinds of music we would listen to.
Azael of course preferred the more classical types of music. The kind that was soothing for about five minutes before either lulling you to sleep or driving you to distraction.
Belial on the other hand was much more contemporary in his taste. He’d opted for a confusing mixture of heavy rock and R’n’B.
The argument had grown heated until Belial had finally implored for me to intervene.
“You don’t want to listen to his old man crap, do you?”
I caught Azael’s intense gaze in the rearview mirror and shrugged. “It’s not bad it’s just—”
“You see? Nobody wants to hear that shit, Azael. I win.”
“She didn’t say that she—”
“Maybe we shouldn’t listen to anything,” I said quietly, effectively silencing them both.
“What?” Azael half turned his seat to glance back at me.
“I said maybe we shouldn’t listen to anything.”
“Why not?” Belial demanded.
“Because to be honest I’ve got a headache brewing from listening to you old ladies bickering.”
Belial opened his mouth to answer and then shut it again. Narrowing his eyes at me, he turned back to face the windscreen and reached over to shut off the sound system. Silence flooded in around us and I pressed my fingers against my temples in an attempt to massage the growing pain between my eyes.
“I can’t believe we’re supposed to just sit here in silence the whole ride,” Belial grumbled.
“Shut up,” Azael said, his voice gruff. As I opened my eyes, I caught his gaze in the rearview mirror and what I saw there sealed the air in my lungs.
He turned his attention to the road, leaving me to my own thoughts in the back seat.
How had I gotten into this mess? It was just all so ludicrous that I would have found it funny if it wasn’t all true.
Maybe it wasn’t true? Maybe I hadn’t woken up after the attack in the alleyway and I was right now lying in a hospital bed unconscious.
Closing my eyes, I willed myself to wake up. When my eyes snapped open again it was to find myself sitting in the exact same spot in the back of the car.
It wasn’t a dream and that much I was certain of.
Of course if it wasn’t a dream then it meant someone really was trying to kill me. Several someones and that wasn’t exactly something that sat well with me.
“What do you think?” Azael asked, breaking through my deep contemplation as he set the handbrake, bringing the car to a smooth halt.
“Of what?”
“The Academy?” He tilted his head and I followed the line of his sight to the building we were parked in front of.
I’d been so engrossed in my own thoughts I hadn’t even realised we had arrived.
Turning my attention to the huge gothic style structure we had come to a stop in front of, I felt my breath catch. It was the kind of building I could only have dreamt of and even then my dreams could never conjure something so beautiful.
Red ivy covered the outside of the grey stone walls, obscuring some of the leaded windows set back into the stone.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“It’s draughty,” Belial said, pushing open his door. “If they think I’m sleeping in the dorms they’ve got another thing coming.”
“You’ll go wherever we’re sent.” Azael corrected him, drawing a scathing expression from the other man. “Wherever, Harper wants to be.”
“I’m expected to stay here?”
“You’ve got a choice,” Azael said. “You could stay here in the accommodation provided. In fact, I’m sure the Brotherhood would approve of that the most. Or you could return with us to the Aery and stay there.”<
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The thought of sharing the bed with them again set my skin to tingling and tightened things low in my body. I wanted them with every breath in my body, with every fibre of my being.
“I get my own room if I stay here?”
“Sort of,” Azael said.
“You’ll share.” Belial sighed dramatically. “With the other ladies attending the college.”
“The dorms aren’t mixed?”
Belial shook his head. “The Brotherhood believes our attentions would be better served if we weren’t distracted.”
They had a point but I kept my thoughts to myself. Belial probably wouldn’t appreciate it if he knew what I was thinking.
“It’s a barbaric practice,” he said. “I swore when I left I wasn’t coming back here again.”
Azael shot him a warning look and Belial’s mouth snapped shut.
“Lux doesn’t go here, does she?”
Azael shook his head. “She hasn’t darkened the doors of the academy in a number of years.”
“So I’d be safer here?”
Azael shrugged. “The building is heavily warded, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
I wasn’t. It hadn’t even occurred to me that a building could be warded.
“Well that’s good,” I said unconvincingly, drawing a look of incredulity from Belial. Despite thinking I was the one having problems adjusting to everything, he seemed to be struggling just as much—maybe even more than I was.
The heavy iron studded doors on the front of the building swung inwards as I climbed out of the back of Azael’s car. I expected men clad in robes to greet us, the building definitely had the robbed monk style vibe going for it. Instead, what greeted us were two very ordinary looking people.
The man and woman stood at the top of the steps. The woman was small and rounded; the front of her black skirt was covered in white powdered handprints that looked suspiciously like flour.
Of course, it was probably something dangerous—a substance to blow the doors off a vault, or maybe a powder to dissolve your enemy—it definitely wouldn’t be something as mundane as flour.
She moved down the steps toward us, her rounded face wreathed in smiles. She moved faster than I expected—arms extending to wrap around my shoulders—and she jerked me in against her ample chest. She pressed her face in against my neck and drew in a deep breath.
Was she smelling me?
Before I could say anything she spoke.
“It’s so good you could make it here.” Her distinctly British twang not at all out of place with our surroundings. The scent of baked goods—sweets and cakes—enveloped me like a perfume and I changed my mind about the providence of the white powdered handprints.
“When I got word that you had finally made your appearance I was so excited. As was everyone else, of course,” she added hastily.
“Don’t crowd the girl, Cranter,” the tall lanky man next to her said. As he spoke, she released me, a blush creeping up over her face.
“I’m so sorry, I get a little carried away and—”
“Would you like to come in,” the tall man said, speaking over the woman he’d addressed as Cranter.
Before I could form the words, Cranter’s grip tightened on my arm and she jerked me up the steps after her. I followed, like a kite in the wake of an excited child. My shoulder aching as her pace picked up speed and she pulled me after her.
“You can leave your coat here,” she said, gesturing to a small room off the entrance hall. She never slowed her speed, or even gave me a moment to remove the jacket I wore. Instead, she pulled me along behind her toward a large set of double wooden doors that dominated the opposite end of the hall.
“This down here is the Great Hall where—”
“Cranter!” The tall man’s voice cracked out, echoing in the vaulted hallway. I cringed but fought the urge to cover my ears, they’d probably take it as a sign of weakness anyway and as much as they seemed to be happy to have me here, I had a feeling they wouldn’t take too kindly to the knowledge that I was as green as the grass to the supernatural world I’d been thrust into.
Cranter came to an abrupt halt and I ran into her back. Despite looking soft and unassuming, her body was hard, as though every ounce of weight she carried was formed of hard muscle.
She smiled up at me and for a moment her eyes shifted, the bright green disappearing to be replaced by two black coals that blazed with an inner light.
I jerked away from her and took a step backwards into the solid warmth of Azael. I knew it was him the moment our bodies touched. Feeling him against me was like coming home and I had a flash of something akin to a memory as his warmth seeped in through my clothes.
A growl rumbled up from the depths of his body and the sound reverberated through my spine. It sent a spiral of warmth zipping through my body and I tilted my chin up to look into his face.
His gaze was fastened on Cranter but his eyes blazed with the silvery light I’d grown accustomed to seeing.
“She is not your toy, Cranter,” Azael said.
“She’s for all of us,” Cranter whined. “You’re not the only one who gets to bask in her warmth.”
With my back pressed to Azael’s body, I felt his muscles tighten as her gaze slid back to my face.
“She’s right,” the tall man who had brought Cranter to a sudden halt moved around Azael. “The Brotherhood has said she is for us all, not just you.”
“Harper is not for your amusement,” Azael warned. “She is here because—”
“Her power is for us all,” Cranter said, taking a tentative step forward. Her gaze was still locked on my face.
“She is standing right here,” I said, cutting across the argument I could feel brewing.
Cranter and the tall man next to her froze as though I was some kind of performing monkey who had spoken for the first time.
“Forgive us,” he said, bowing his head at the neck. “We have waited such a long time for you that we have forgotten our manners. I am Jeckel.”
“Azael is right,” I said. “I’m not a toy and I’m not for fighting over either.”
“But you favour them already,” Cranter said. “I can smell their sex on your skin and it’s not fair that they have been allowed to indulge before anyone else.”
Heat washed up over my neck and straight into my face. I’d been right, she had actually been scenting my skin when she’d hugged me.
“How dare you,” I said, anger causing the heat I could feel in my face to flame.
“Is this true?” Jeckel said, but he addressed the question over my head to Azael instead.
“I just said, I’m standing right here,” I said. “Don’t ignore me now that you’ve insulted me.”
Jeckel cast a cursory glance in my direction before returning his attention to Azael.
“You have tried to bring her into her gifts before we have all had our chance to make an impression on her?”
“We haven’t done anything,” I said hotly.
“It’s true,” Belial said, moving up next to Azael. “Harper is capable of making up her own mind and she hasn’t yet chosen us.”
Jeckel glanced back down at me, his gaze hungry as he let his attention wander over my face and down over my body as though he were mentally undressing me.
“You’re sure you haven’t yet sipped her nectar?”
“Holy shit,” I swore, straightening up and facing him down. “You don’t get to speak to me like that.” Without thinking about it, I jabbed my finger in against his chest, causing him to take a small step backwards.
“Just who the Hell do you think you are, asking questions like that? I’m not a piece of meat to be shared among you all. I’m a—”
Before I could finish, Azael wrapped his arm around my waist and jerked me off my feet. He crossed the hall and pressed me into the corner, his broad shoulders and chest blocking my view of the rest of the room leaving me with no choice but to look up into his furious gaze.
“You forget yourself, Harper. Here you are a guest and—”
“If this is what being a guest gets you here—being pawed at and treated like nothing but a sex-doll—then I want no part in it. You can take me home right now.”
Azael pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “We have been over this before,” he said, his tone that of a patient parent with a willful child. “You cannot go home. You are being hunted. You are safest here and the Brotherhood has said—”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. The Brotherhood said I was to attend the academy but what about what I want in all of this, Azael?” As I said his name, he opened his eyes and stared down at me with his silvery gaze. Standing so close to him—his breath warm against my skin face—was like standing next to the sun. His gaze took on the same hungered expression I’d seen in Jeckel and Cranter’s eyes but while I’d been disturbed by their attentions with Azael it was different. There was a part of me that felt I could match his hunger with one of my own.
He dipped his head towards mine and without truly meaning to I leaned into him.
“There are things you must learn, Harper. You are vulnerable to monsters like Cranter and Jeckel until then. And if you push too hard the Brotherhood might decide to throw you to the wolves so to speak; before you are ready to face them. I would protect you from that. Let me try.”
My breath caught in the back of my throat. There was no denying the threat in his words—not that Azael was threatening me—but he spoke of the threat I faced at the Academy. He shifted slightly so I could see past the edge of his arm to where Cranter and Jeckel stood, their gazes trained on our position.
I’d watched a wildlife documentary once where the lions had looked at a baby gazelle in much the same way Cranter and Jeckel were staring at us now. Never before had I been subjected to something like it and there was a part of me—a very large part of my self-preservation—that urged me to turn tail and run. But I also knew if I did that I would be putting myself at greater risk, not to mention the risk I would pose to the man currently shielding me.
“What should I do?”
Azael let out a breath, the tension in his shoulders loosening almost imperceptibly.
Fallen Angel: An Urban Fantasy Reverse Harem Bully Romance (Dark Hearts Academy Book 1) Page 8