by Callie Rose
We were both breathing hard, completely spent and sweaty, our bodies plastered together as we made inarticulate noises of exhaustion and satisfaction.
Finally, Jayce dipped his head to kiss the back of my neck. “Well, that’s one hour down. Just a few more to go.”
I swore his cock hadn’t softened at all, and when I wriggled my ass against him, he thrust into me in little pulses.
“Mmm,” I murmured. “Got any ideas how we can fill another hour?”
Pro tip: killing time becomes a whole lot easier when you fill that time with mind-blowing sex.
Jayce and I passed out on his bed so late that the sky was already beginning to redden outside, and by the time we woke up the next morning, we had to rush to class. Lessons passed in a hazy blur, and then the five of us met up and headed to the little secret room above the library.
Kingston put the phone on speaker again and dialed the number Dru had given us. There was a lot of interference, but eventually it connected.
“Finally!” Dru answered. “I’ve been waiting for hours!”
“Well, we’re right on time on our end,” Kingston said with a scowl, and I hid a smile behind my hand.
Every once in a while, the aristocratic man’s history of helping his father run the family’s empire came roaring to the surface, and the tone of his voice made me think of how he probably sounded in a business meeting when one of his underlings sassed him.
“Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. In fact, it gave me time to solve the whole problem. To figure out what happened to you, and to the school.” Dru sounded excited, and I unconsciously leaned forward, infected by his enthusiasm.
“Yeah? What?”
“Okay, so the Fallen University building was originally a castle built for a demon king in the underworld. He went to war with Gavriel’s predecessor over a disagreement about earth; that is, what to do about the people who lived there.”
“Let me guess, Gavriel’s ancestor or whatever wanted to turn all the humans into fallen, and the other dude disagreed?” Jayce huffed a breath through his nose.
“Exactly. The owner of the castle took a vow to protect humanity from Gavriel’s predecessor. He performed a combination transport and binding spell on the castle to tether it to earth. It was extremely sophisticated, but also incredibly simple.”
“Simple is good! We like simple,” I said eagerly.
“I said simple, not easy.” Dru’s voice held a warning tone. “I very much doubt that this will be easy.”
“What is it?” Xero asked, his tone edging as close to impatience as I’d ever heard from him.
“It’s a collection of porous stones. They soak up magic like sponges, but you have to have just the right ones in the right order infused with the right spells in order to make it work.”
“What stones? Where do we find them?” I asked.
Dru sighed. “I couldn’t possibly tell you where to find them, but I can tell you what they’re called. They’re the Temple Stones of the First Order.”
Xero bolted upright and stared at the phone as if it would bite him. “Wait. Say that again.”
“Uh—the Temple Stones of the First Order?” Dru repeated.
Xero rubbed his face hard and groaned. “Fuck. And we need how many of them?”
“One of each color and size. The colors are red, blue, white, yellow, green, purple, black, and silver. You’ll need a small—about the size of a plum, I believe—a medium—think grapefruit—and a large. Watermelon-sized. A total of twenty-four stones.”
Jesus. Twenty-four? Why couldn’t it have been one? Nice and simple.
“What do we do with them?” I asked.
“They need to be replaced in the room where the original ones were. There should be a schematic in the school’s secret files. Toland will know where to look. The important part is to get the stones back to the school. There’s a decent chance the original owner enchanted the room to arrange the stones in the correct order automatically once they’re brought into the space.”
“And the spells?” I asked.
“Worry about all that later,” Dru said sharply. “I’ll keep looking for information, but that’s all I have right now. You need to figure out a way to get your hands on those stones. Nothing else matters until you have them.”
“We’ll get them,” Kingston promised with a lazy wave of his hand. “There are rocks for the taking around here.”
“They aren’t just any old rocks.” The Custodian sounded like he wished he could step through the phone and shake Kingston.
“Don’t worry about him.” Xero took the phone, lifting it a little closer to his mouth. “I know what we’re looking for.”
“Good. Then hurry up. It’s getting crazy here on earth. Things are… well, we need all the backup we can get. Call me when you procure the stones.”
Dru hung up, and as soon as the line went dead, every eye turned to Xero.
“So? What are we looking at, Xero?” I asked, unconsciously fisting my hands as I braced for the answer.
He shook his head and ran a hand over his short hair. “I’ve heard of them. When I was in Gavriel’s army, I heard that name mentioned. The Temple Stones of the First Order. They’re incredibly powerful, which means they’re precious and well-guarded. At least, the ones above ground are.”
“You know where to find them in the raw though, right?” Jayce asked worriedly.
“Ehh—I know how to find clues on where to look. I worked in the mines for a while when I first came here. Gavriel likes to break his new recruits with hard labor and promises of food. Hit a little too close to home for me.”
Jayce winced. “I bet the cave we transported into isn’t one of those mines, is it? That would be too easy, I guess.”
Xero shook his head. “No trace of them anywhere I’ve seen. Besides, this is swamp land. The stones will be found in desert climates.”
Everybody wilted slightly. I had a feeling we all knew what the options were, and none of us liked any of them. I skipped ahead of the uncomfortable part, focusing on something relatively simple instead.
“How do we explain to Toland where the rocks came from or how we knew to get them?” I asked. “Assuming we do get them?”
“Let’s worry about that after we see whether or not we survive this.” Kai frowned, his dark eyes glittering.
“Survive—what, exactly?” Kingston kept his tone carefully neutral.
“We’re going rock collecting,” I said with a hard-edged grin.
“Uh, you know Toland won’t let us do that.” Jayce grimaced.
“Toland won’t get a chance to stop us,” I shot back. “We’re sneaking out and getting this done. He and the staff have had plenty of time to figure all of this out, and they haven’t managed to do it. I’m not about to roll over and die just because surviving means breaking a few stupid rules. Besides, you heard how Dru almost threatened to turn Kingston in for having a contraband phone. For all we know, Toland’s under another blood oath to automatically expel anyone who breaks a rule that big. We can’t risk telling him. So we sneak out and do this ourselves.”
My words had their intended effect, and everybody quickly came around. Kingston was on board with not telling Toland, but less enthusiastic about trying to find the stones ourselves. Kai wasn’t too happy about it, but he muttered something under his breath about not letting the rest of us idiots go it alone. Jayce quickly slipped into adventure mode, and Xero looked relieved. Finally, his previous stint in the underworld was going to be useful.
We sketched out a rough plan for how to get out of school grounds undetected, and then we rose from our seats in the cramped little room.
“You guys get supplies.” I cast my gaze over all of them, feeling a strange urge to stare until I’d memorized their features. As if some part of me knew we were heading to our doom. “I’m going to make sure we have a way to get back inside once we return.”
“You’re doing what?!”
Hannah
’s amber eyes widened in horror.
“We’re sneaking out to find the stones that will take us back home,” I repeated patiently. “Xero knows where to look. It’s our one shot at getting back to earth before the wards fail and Gavriel imprisons us all.”
A flash of steel that I’d only seen once before, during the battle outside, hardened her eyes. “I’m coming with you.”
I shook my head. “You can’t. And I mean that. I need you here. We’re going to have to get back inside somehow, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to get underworld artifacts past the wards.”
That stopped her. She pursed her lips thoughtfully, then shook her head.
“No, you won’t,” she agreed. “Not unless they fail completely. All right, I’ll stay here and work on a way to bring them down just long enough for you to get the stones inside.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at her, then pulled her into a hug. “We’re going to get out of here—make it back to earth. I know we are.”
“God, I hope so.” She squeezed me tight, her grip surprisingly bone-crushing. “But just promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“That you will all come back alive. Even Kai.”
“All right, fine. I won’t kill Kai.” I snorted a laugh.
“Good, because I don’t know if I could stand to share a room with you if you were one guy short. That would be like the great coffee shortage all over again, only a thousand times worse.”
We shared a chuckle, but her words left a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to imagine what it would do to us if somebody got killed. What it would do to me.
The bond between us would break—Cassandra had told me that. So their death wouldn’t kill me.
But all the same, I was pretty sure I’d die inside.
“All or nothing,” I said firmly. “We’ll all get back together, or we’ll die trying to save each other.”
“Do that first one, please.” She spoke into my hair, and I felt a shiver wrack her body. “I’m not a huge fan of the second.”
Her voice held all of the emotions that her words were trying to downplay. Worry. Fear. Tentative hope.
We finally released each other, and I leaned back to meet her gaze.
“I’ll do my damndest.”
Chapter Eighteen
It was absolutely breathtaking.
When we stepped out of the cave and into the ruddy sunlight, the terrifying beauty of the underworld was more than I could have imagined. Massive black peaks scraped the sky far in the distance, and a swamp stretched out far to the left. To the right, a great gnarled forest of black, blue, and dark purple trees took over the landscape. Our cave appeared to be part of a mountain range, all porous and pocked as if a volcano had exploded and its spillage had instantly frozen in a jagged wave.
“Which way?” I asked, swiveling my head from side to side.
Xero pointed at the mountains in the distance. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think those are the Devil’s Claws. The mines should be on the other side of them, but we might get lucky and find some on our side.”
“Let’s hope,” Kai said grimly. “How do we get there? Swim?”
Xero hesitated, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. “The swamp is full of killers,” he said. “Tiny ones that you won’t notice until it’s too late. The forest has its own creatures. Larger, but just as deadly.”
“I’ll take the devil I can see, thanks.”
I started off in the direction of the forest, stepping carefully, as if I might tread on a landmine at any second. A moment later, I heard the guys follow. Xero caught up with me, then pulled ahead.
“Let me lead,” he said gently. “I know what to watch out for.”
“Like that miniature harpy?” I pointed over his shoulder, my heart kicking in my chest like a startled horse.
He spun around and swiped at the woman-bird, who was diving at him. He connected with her midsection and sent her flying into the swamp. Her body hit the water with a splash, and even before she was fully submerged, she was set upon by thousands of tiny silver fish. The water churned, red with blood and white with froth, as they consumed her alive. Her screeches died out after just a second, and clean white bones popped to the surface of the water a moment later.
Jayce shuddered. “I don’t like these options.”
“Maybe you should scout ahead,” I suggested. “With that super speed of yours, you’re the best for the job.”
“Um, excuse me? I can fly over the forest and find a path,” Kingston pointed out.
“I can melt into the shadows,” Kai added. “Stealth can be more important than speed, you know.”
I nodded, narrowing my eyes at the forest before us. “Sounds like you should all go. Xero and I will follow behind. Kingston, keep track of the other two from your vantage point. Don’t want somebody getting lost in there.”
Each of them shifted into their demonic forms and disappeared in a flash. Xero and I walked close to one another, our shoulders brushing and our senses at full alert. The trees had looked closer than they actually were. When we finally reached them, I saw why; they must have been a hundred feet tall, all twisted and full of tangled branches.
“Those trees aren’t alive, are they? I mean, obviously they’re alive, they’re plants, but—” I looked doubtfully at a branch which looked suspiciously like grasping claws. “They aren’t going to suddenly wake up and start attacking, are they?”
“No,” Xero said without even a shadow of a smile. “But if you come across a bright purple flower as big as your head, run. They’re carnivorous and somewhat mobile.”
“Fantastic.”
He squeezed my hand. “I’m pretty sure we’re too far north for those. But—just keep your eyes open.”
Yeah, that won’t be a problem.
I couldn’t imagine I would ever be able to close them peacefully again. Between the fight outside the castle and what we’d encountered so far in the landscape of the underworld, I was set on nightmare material for a good long time.
Xero and I skirted the woods, sticking to the no man’s land between the forest and the swamp. At first, that space was wide enough for us to walk side by side, but after a while we were forced to go single-file. Xero kept me in front of him. Apparently keeping an eye on me was more important than being the leader, but I wasn’t complaining. It wasn’t like I had fireballs to protect myself with.
“We’re out of land,” I said after we’d walked for a while in silence, stopping short suddenly. The woods had reached the swamp, and the sliver of beach we had been walking on was replaced by a black tangle of slick, wet roots. They lay horizontally enough that we might be able to cross them, but I didn’t like how slippery they looked. One false move and we would be fish food.
No fucking thanks.
Xero put his hand on my shoulder as he peered over my head. “Yep. We are.”
“So—into the woods, then?”
He shook his head. “Not without the others. We’re already split in too many directions. Worst thing we could do right now is lose each other.”
We sat with our backs to a giant tree and looked out over the swamp.
“It’s so much more… alive than it looked from my room,” I said. “All those bugs and fish and things out there. I still can’t figure out what those are though.” I pointed at the ivory fingers pushing out of the swamp.
“They’re probably giant ribs,” Xero said matter-of-factly.
“Like… the ribs of giants?” I asked, feeling stupid for rephrasing but not quite sure I was understanding.
“Yeah. There aren’t a whole lot of giants here anymore. Gavriel considered them nuisances and lesser beings. Well, lesser-lesser beings. Everything is lesser in Gavriel’s opinion. He’s real into himself.”
I laughed, then jumped as my own laugh came back at me from the treetops.
“Real mocking birds,” Xero said, nodding upward. “They match voices and everything. G
reat for framing people.”
I gave him a sideways look and he blinked at me innocently.
“Have you ever done that?” I asked.
“Not recently,” he dodged with a slight grin. “It’s a rough world in here. Vicious animals around every corner, just waiting to devour you. The most dangerous ones used to be human.”
“I guess we all do what we have to do to survive.”
Reaching over, I gave his hand a squeeze. I knew he had a lot of hangups about his previous time in the underworld, but I wanted him to know he’d get no judgement from me for anything he’d done during that time.
Then I heard an excited whoop from overhead and stood, shading my eyes as I searched the sky. A moment later, Kingston flew into view, carrying an extremely exuberant Jayce on his back.
“This is awesome!” the blond man shouted.
“This is awesome, awesome, awesome, this is awesome!” the birds shouted back.
I shuddered. “Ugh. That’s fucking me up.”
“You get used to it,” Xero assured me. “Hey, where’s Kai?” He shouted up at Jayce.
“Right here,” Kai replied.
I looked around but didn’t see him.
“Up there.” Xero pointed to the tree behind me. Kai was perched on a high branch, eating some of the provisions we’d brought.
Kingston landed a moment later, bucked Jayce off of his back, and shifted into his human form. He shook himself and grinned.
“We found a path through the woods,” he announced. “But I’m going to need to spend most of my time in the air, keeping an eye on the route. These guys got lost twice.”
“I wasn’t lost,” Kai retorted, his angular features pinching in a highly offended look. “I just didn’t know where Jayce was. As far as I’m concerned, that means Jayce was lost.”
“I knew exactly where I wasn’t the whole time, thank you very much,” the man in question said with a self-deprecating grin. “But, yeah, no, we need Kingston up there, or we’ll be lost for actual days.”
“You didn’t see any big, bright purple flowers in there, did you?” I asked nervously, shooting a glance toward the thick, ominous forest.
