Chimera Academy The Complete Collection

by Eva Brandt

  But I kept fighting, even when things started to look bad. And finally, Jared’s light began to dim. The fire was being extinguished, suffocated by my fumes. Encouraged, I finally dared to assault him with tachyon manipulation. I’d avoided that method before, since the amount of energy he was channeling could have easily crippled me. Now, I had an opening and a better chance. Forcing him down, I clutched his shoulder as tightly as I could, reached for my core, and pulled.

  Jared started making choking noises. Somewhere to my right, I heard one of his men let out a low cry. It sounded like a muffled curse word. I took it as a good sign, but didn’t lower my guard.

  The heat between Jared and me increased as he tried to destroy me. It was a good thing my fumes weren’t flammable, because otherwise, we would have blown each other up ten times by now.

  Jared headbutted me in the face, but even then, I didn’t stop. Unfortunately, the move did give him a minor advantage and he managed to shove me off. He was far weaker than he’d been before, but he pressed me down, squeezing my windpipe in a tight hold.

  Spots started dancing in front of my eyes. My vision darkened, and then cleared again. My body fought him with everything it had.

  At the back of my mind, I could feel Typhon’s anxiety and desire to intervene. “No, you can’t,” I told him. “This is just between me and him. If anyone else steps in, it’ll be an all-out battle. Selene will be in danger and I have no doubt that we’ll lose.”

  “That’s the only reason why I haven’t already eaten that bastard,” Typhon replied. “Come on, hatchling. Get up. You can beat him.”

  At this rate, it would be down to which of us could suffocate his opponent first. I was confident that it would be me, since my ability to heal was stronger than his and Typhon could, in theory, keep me functioning even when I had small amounts of oxygen in my lungs.

  Jared’s hold on me started to loosen, his muscles going slack. I was considering the merits of attacking him with a tachyon blast when it happened. A familiar voice sliced through the air, reaching me through my haze of anger, pain, and determination. “Stop. Please, Brendan, stop. Jared, don’t do this.”

  Still trapped in Jared’s hold, I couldn’t say anything. I wished I could have explained, told her why this was necessary. But I could not, and my failure burned me as sharply as Jared’s flame.

  To make matters worse, Jared was far more coherent and able to communicate than I was. “There’s no other way, Selene,” he said, his voice husky and raw because of the fumes. “We have to end it.”

  Selene let out a heavy sigh. “I agree. We do.”

  The next thing I knew, a bright purple power surrounded us and pulled us apart. It was gentle, but determined, and it walled us in, keeping us from reaching each other again. I got up on my haunches and tentatively poked the shield with a miniature tachyon blast. No reaction. The purple shield didn’t even flicker.

  I could have tried again, but I refrained and turned to face Selene. “Princess?”

  Selene crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at me. “Would you look at that? It’s over now. And guess what? I’ve won the trial by fire, and so, the two of you will have to do what I say.”

  “The challenge doesn’t really work like that,” Jared offered, his voice thick with apprehension. He obviously didn’t want to upset her, but he wasn’t willing to abandon the battle either. “One of the two fighters needs to win and decide.”

  “It’s fine, Jar’yd,” the Great Mother intervened. “Yes, this approach is a little unusual, but we could make an exception, this time around. Tell us, young Selene. What do you want?”

  Selene threw the apsid leader a hesitant look. “I think you already know the answer to that question, Great Mother. I want to go back home. I want to see my mother. And from them, from Jared, Brendan, Knox, August, and Pollux… I want them to love me.”

  The request was so startling I abandoned all attempts to investigate the nature of my purple cage. “We do love you,” I said.

  “There’s no one I treasure more,” Jared offered at the same time.

  Meanwhile, Knox and the others made their way to Selene’s side. Miraculously, Knox managed to tame his anger, and when he spoke, his voice sounded gentle and calm. “You’re everything to us. How could you possibly doubt it?”

  “I don’t doubt it per se. I think you care about me, in your own way. But assuming that is the case… Is that affection strong enough to make you forgive yourselves and each other? Can we reach a real agreement? Can you learn to fight side by side, with me, not against me?”

  We weren’t against her, but I could understand why she thought we were. We’d really fucked this up. Our actions went against everything she wanted, against her desires to help and rescue her people.

  My first instinct was to make her whatever promise she was asking for. It didn’t matter, as long as she agreed to come home. But if it wasn’t a promise I could keep, it would just tear us apart all over again, in a way that might be unsalvageable.

  “We want that too, princess. And in an ideal world, it would be effortless to have a perfect relationship, one where we’d never fight. But we can’t absolutely guarantee that, at one point in the future, we won’t have to make a choice you might dislike.”

  “I know that. And I understand that as a leader, sometimes you have to make difficult decisions. I’m not asking you to never fight with me. All I want is for you to consider every option carefully and to keep an open mind. Not everything has to end in blood, even if it does involve chimeras and Heliads.”

  “Selene, I understand what you’re saying,” August piped up, “but this isn’t just about us. Do you really think you can trust these people? Can you forgive them for what they did to you?”

  As he spoke, he stared at Selene’s still flat stomach. Like me, he must have figured out that Knox wouldn’t have gotten so mad had the pregnancy been just a threat and not a certainty. But Selene didn’t let that stand in her way.

  “I admit I still don’t know what to think about all this. I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of being a mother. I can always end this pregnancy if I don’t want it and the Great Mother says it’s a possibility, especially so soon after conception.”

  Jared clenched his jaw, but to his credit, he didn’t try to tell her not to do that. “And will you?”

  “I haven’t decided. Jared, right now, I don’t know how I feel about any of you. I’m just… I’m confused. But if you can accept that, if you can be patient with me and with each other, if you can believe that I’ll make the right choices too, I’m willing to try.”

  I understood what she meant. She wanted us to integrate Jared in our relationship in some way. I hated the idea. But on the other hand, we had believed in her when she’d asked us to help her at the mirror trial.

  Maybe she was right. As much as it grated on me to even consider accepting him, we could at least make the attempt.

  I shared a look with the others. Pollux pressed his lips together in a thin line, but nodded. Knox’s shoulders slumped in reluctant acceptance. August stared up at the endless void that shrouded us from above. “It’ll be difficult, Selene,” he said. “We can’t exactly return him to the academy. He’s officially dead and if he shows his face around Tartarus, The Grand Judiciary won’t give him a good welcome.”

  “Of course they won’t,” Jared offered. “I’d be the perfect guinea pig. They already suspected something wasn’t right with me before I left. If I got caught, it wouldn’t end well for me. But there are ways around that, if you try hard enough.”

  I thought about Penelope, whom I’d managed to sneak out of her home with very few resources at our disposal. I thought about Stella, who had somehow survived The Grand Judiciary’s experiments. I thought about Selene, who needed us so much. And finally, I remembered my father and everyone else I needed to eliminate from my path.

  I’d never been a very emotional person, but when I got up and fully faced Selene, a mix of enthusia
sm, anger, and love swirled inside my heart like a whirlwind.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  * * *

  Selene

  After all the agitation my lovers and I had brought to Eos, leaving the place was strikingly easy. The Great Mother was very cooperative and according to her, she could return us to our galaxy almost seconds after the rest of my unit had entered the quasar. I thanked her profusely for her kindness, since it meant The Grand Judiciary would never know I’d been trapped on the apsid home world for a month.

  “You don’t need to thank me,” she said. “You might not be a Heliad, but that doesn’t mean you’re not my child.”

  She briefly pulled Jared aside before we left, presumably to give him some final instructions. As we waited, the rest of Jared’s team approached us. “I suppose you win this one, Selene Renard,” Stella said with undisguised venom.

  “I wasn’t aware we were fighting a battle,” I replied. “Or at least that was never my intention.”

  “Oh, wasn’t it? What did you intend then? To—?”

  Danadu grabbed Stella’s wrist, cutting her off mid-sentence. “We know. We’re just concerned about what’s going to happen to our friend.”

  “Jar’yd might have been originally human, but he’s a Heliad now,” Kallios pointed out. “He could get seriously hurt.”

  “He always ran that risk when he was living undercover at the academy,” Knox shot back, unimpressed. “Were you just as concerned then?”

  Viu’an slapped Knox with a massive tentacle. “Of course we were. And anyway, it’s different. At the time, your people didn’t know who and what he was.”

  “I understand that,” I replied. I took his tentacle and squeezed it gently. “But Jared has already said he’ll be careful, and I’ll do my best to make sure no one gets hurt.”

  Nobody said anything after that. Jared joined us and together, we all made our way to the waiting chimeras. The cockpit of the Sphinx was already open, and she was eagerly waiting for me. “I’m really sorry about all this, Selene,” she said as I slid inside. “It’s my fault.”

  “It’s not,” I replied. “And I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have lashed out against you so viciously.”

  Yes, Sphinx’s lie still hurt, but she’d always warned me that I was too soft-hearted and she’d only been trying to protect me. And at the end of the day, she was a chimera. I couldn’t expect her to have human morals or care about every single person in the world.

  In a way, I’d broken the vow I’d made to her, and that was another thing I regretted. But it wasn’t too late to fix it. The bond between us still remained in place. It was badly damaged, but we could mend it. Already, I felt it healing, just because I was in physical contact with my friend.

  I relaxed against the seat and allowed the neural link to bind us together once again. For a few seconds, pain rushed over me, but it was muted and sedate. When it vanished, mere seconds later, it left behind the familiar feeling of rightness I hadn’t even realized I’d missed so much.

  I clutched Sphinx’s controls convulsively, wishing I could figure out my relationship with my lovers with the same ease. Suppressing my anxiety, I forced myself to focus on the silver lining. “It’s not all bad,” I said. “Pollux was reunited with his sister. And then there’s the baby. Having a baby is always a gift.”

  “Not for everyone,” Sphinx offered tentatively. “Are you looking forward to it?”

  “To be honest, I don’t really know. I haven’t fully adjusted to the idea. But I suppose I’ll have some time at my disposal to decide.”

  Brendan had said that if I kept the baby, he’d pass it off as his. That would give the child some protection, since no one would try to attack the next heir of the Chimera royal family, even if I was the mother. Or so I hoped.

  So much of our tentative plan was relying on hope. Honestly, it would have been much easier to stay here in Eos, where we were safe. But that wasn’t an option, not when we’d left so many people who needed our help behind.

  Jared didn’t team up with the rest of his group, instead choosing to hitch a ride in one of Scylla’s tentacles. Once he was in position, the helix behind the throne started to spin. The Great Mother brought her hands together and in her eyes, I could see the birth of a star.

  The next thing I knew, we were out in space, and the shields of the Sphinx were going crazy, the sensors screaming in protest at the attack they’d just perceived. It hadn’t actually been an attack, of course. It had been a way to transport us to safety and we’d gotten to our destination in one piece. Brendan’s private vessel, the Venom, was right in front of us.

  When we landed on the ship, I half-expected my lovers to start fighting again. I left the cockpit of the Sphinx quickly, ready to intervene if needed. I shouldn’t have worried. They all seemed perfectly happy—or at least willing—to go through with our plan.

  “We’ll take you to Terra and if anyone asks, we’ll claim our trip was because we got impatient and we wanted to pick Selene up,” Brendan told Jared. “But be careful and keep a low profile. Selene’s mother might be able to help us, but she has her limits and with Penelope there, I’d rather not dump too much on her shoulders.”

  Jared nodded. “Don’t worry. I know how to mingle with the Terran population. I won’t stick out in New Washington.”

  I didn’t question him on that one. If he’d managed to stay under the radar at Chimera Academy, as a tamer, he’d be able to fool the Unblessed Terrans who’d never had contact with a Heliad in their lives.

  “Do the High Priestess and Lady Welton know about your bolder plans?”

  Brendan shook his head. “No, and I want to keep it that way. It’s still treason and the less people know about it, the higher our chances are to succeed.”

  “I agree. I’ll keep my mouth shut then and wait for your message.”

  As planned, we left Jared in the outskirts of New Washington. As he made his way toward the city on foot, we headed to the temple.

  The Venom was too massive to land anywhere near my previous home, so instead, upon our arrival, I used the Sphinx to travel to the surface. My lovers didn’t come with me, having decided to give me a few moments in private with my mother.

  “Just make sure you let her know you’re coming back to Tartarus Base with us, all right, Selene?” Sphinx requested. “I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea.”

  “I’ll tell her. Don’t worry, Sphinx. I’ve made my decision and I’ll see this through.”

  I fully intended to keep my promise, but it was a little hard to do so when my mother greeted me inside the temple.

  She took one look at me and her shoulders slumped. “Oh, Selene. Was it the Sun-Dweller?”

  It didn’t take a genius to realize what she was referring to. “It was. I think I’ll be keeping it, although… Mother, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me close to her chest. I buried my face in her shoulder and allowed myself to cry.

  In a few hours, I’d have to return to Tartarus Base and be Acting Pilot Renard. In a few hours, I’d have to resume my fight and start mending my relationship with my lovers. But for now, I could just let go and fall apart.

  If I wanted to win the battles that were ahead of me, I couldn’t afford to be just a human being. I had to be steel, tungsten, and diamond, like a chimera, and I had to be fire, like a Heliad. I could only hope these tears would wash away my weakness and help me rebuild myself anew.

  Epilogue

  Wesley

  Meanwhile, on Tartarus Base

  The moans, grunts and pained cries reached my ears from the moment I walked into the Titans’ Pit. I hid a grimace, wishing I hadn’t been forced to come here today.

  But I’d learned a long time ago that wishes were for fools, so I kept my head down and didn’t stop walking. I’d grown inured to the violence and abuse women suffered here. It was ugly and horrid, but it was always a good distraction and kept pe
ople from noticing the more dangerous things that were going on.

  As I walked through the Pit, I ducked around countless men, some half-dressed, most smelling like sex or lust. In the various alleys, I caught glimpses of the sex workers who made a living here. Today, there had been no alarms, so I assumed nobody had died.

  When I got to Persephone’s Plaza, I found things the same as usual. Countless Terran women were lined up like cattle, and various men were taking turns on their holes. Most of them didn’t even eat, as the men here got a kick out of saying the sole food source of the whores was semen. The drones in the Pit made sure the bodies of the whores didn’t give out and they had at least a few hours a day to go to the bathroom, but beyond that, they were basically objects.

  I wasn’t proud of it, but I’d taken advantage of their services more than once. Such women didn’t care that I was part machine. For them, all clients were the same, and if I didn’t hurt them and paid well, they were more than thrilled to take my cock.

  But today, I wasn’t here for such questionable enjoyment. I had other goals. Beyond the rows of women getting fucked, beyond the crowd of jeering men, a secret was hiding.

  The alley I entered didn’t look much different from the ones I’d passed, beyond the fact that it was empty. A few couples were having sex inside, but I walked straight through them—literally. The holograms were only there to make sure no unauthorized individual managed to sneak into our meeting.

  After the third hologram registered my presence, the wall to my right parted, revealing a hidden entrance. I stepped inside and cursed to myself when I realized I was late.

  The rest of our group had already arrived and when I came in, they stopped in the middle of a heated argument. “Ah, Commander Trevor,” our leader greeted me. “You’re here.”

  “My apologies for the delay,” I replied. “There was a minor problem with Charon’s Barge and the staff asked me to look over their systems.”