Dark Goddess

by Amalie Howard

  “I have a note. I need to see the guidance counselor about some AP courses I’m taking.”

  “AP? What for?” Kyle asked. “You’re a deity. Why do you need advanced placement classes?”

  She tucked her books under one arm with an earnest look. “If I’m planning to stay in this realm, I can’t exactly be a bum on my parents’ couch. My mom still wants me to get into a good college. You’d be smart to think about that, too.”

  “Hell, no. I promised Carla I’d graduate high school, and that’s it. I’ll get a job working at Sal’s rather than voluntarily signing up for another four years of eternal death.”

  Sera put one hand on her hip. She leaned in, her voice a low whisper. “You knock school, but seriously, where do you think all the demons hide out?” Kyle felt his stomach curl. “High school. College. My dad says teenagers and young adults are more susceptible to possession. They’re not as innocent as children and not as jaded as grownups. The middle ground is the easiest to penetrate and, in some really messed-up cases, the teens even like it. Demonic possession makes them popular, believe it or not.”

  Kyle grimaced. How could any kid enjoy having a demon inside of them? “What do you mean they like it? That makes no sense.”

  “Demons have huge egos. They love themselves more than anything. You don’t think that translates into a bonus to some insecure teenager who’s been bullied half his life? When a kid’s possessed, he becomes insanely confident, dresses differently, talks differently, and basically stops being afraid of anyone. It’s like a creepy symbiotic relationship. The demon depends on the host to exist in the Mortal Realm, and the host depends on the demon for social survival.”

  He’d never thought of it that way, but the theory made sense. “That’s messed up.”

  “Tell me about it,” she agreed. “See, you may want to rethink your strategy about college. Anyway, keep your eyes open and your Azura demon-banishing skills primed. Catch you later.” As they arrived at his classroom, Sera gestured at someone behind him and grinned before heading in the opposite direction. “And try not to hurt yourself.”

  He turned, his gaze colliding with a scorchingly dark stare that made patches of actual sweat break out on his skin. The girl from the parking lot was in his class? Sweet baby Jesus on a skateboard. Closing his eyes, he seriously considered ditching for a moment. He’d been joking earlier about playing the field; the act was mostly all bravado. Girls weren’t into him. They never had been.

  He took a deep breath and entered the classroom, unable to take his eyes off the girl. She was lounging in one of the seats in the second to last row, her boot propped on the chair beside her. Kyle tried to keep his eyes down, despite the immediate response somewhere deep in the pit of his belly, but he couldn’t stop glancing in her direction.

  “See something you like?” Her voice was light, amused.

  He shook his head quickly. “Just looking for a seat,” he muttered, almost crashing into another kid as he backed away, only to find himself wedged in by someone else on her way into the classroom. Kyle sighed, looking around the room—all the good seats were already taken, with the exception of the one beside the new girl, or the front row. His eyes slid to hers, and he swallowed hard. Her lips twitched as if she was enjoying his predicament.

  A boy behind the girl tapped her on the shoulder, then passed her a flyer, and Kyle dragged his eyes away. Her teeth flashed white at something the boy said; something silver glinted in her mouth. She had a tongue-ring.

  Kyle’s knees felt boneless. God, she was hot.

  But hot girls were high maintenance. And way more trouble than he needed this year. He was an Azura Lord now, and he had a mission. Glancing around the room, he spotted an open seat in the far corner that he hadn’t seen earlier and edged his way to the back of the classroom. He took a deep, clarifying breath, and focused on Sera’s earlier words in the hallway. Of course she was right. Even during school, they all had a job to do.

  Sera’s was to guide humanity; his was to defend it from the bad guys trying to take up residence in the Mortal Realm. Demons loved to prey on human flesh, he’d learned. As a Portal Guardian, he could send trespassing demons back instantly. It was also his job to keep an eye on any human souls being lured into the Dark Realms.

  Kyle, of course, could travel to Xibalba if he needed to, but it wasn’t something he enjoyed, exactly. The seven hells that made up the Dark Realms appealed far too deeply to his darker nature, drawing his more wicked instincts to the fore. Lust, pride, ego, power. The temptation to sin was always there, thanks to the tainted blood of his father, the Demon Lord of the seventh and lowest dimension of hell. Kyle couldn’t trust himself when he was in Xibalba. And the Trimurtas didn’t trust him, either. They were only allowing him to remain in the Mortal Realm because of his relationship with Sera.

  Sera was a goddess, and one of the strongest. Though she had chosen to remain in the Mortal Realm with her family, she was the consort of one of the Trimurtas Lords, Lord Devendra. Some thought she had chosen him over Dev, but deep down, Kyle knew better. Sera cared about him—loved him to a fault, even—but she’d made her choice. And it wasn’t him. That was the way of things, and because he was in love with her, Kyle knew he would accept whatever she was willing to offer him, even if it was only friendship. And the truth was, he liked Dev, too.

  Love triangles freaking sucked.

  Lost in concentration, he didn’t notice that someone had slid into the empty seat in the back row. Crap. That meant he would be stuck up front. As he walked past her for the second time, he took another look at the new girl and froze. She was staring right at him, her inky eyes dark and intense. He couldn’t help but notice her dewy skin—the color of deeply brown polished stone.

  “You’re back,” she said with a smirk, eyebrow raised. Once more, Kyle realized he’d been caught gawking. “I’m Kira. We met in the parking lot, right?”

  “Kyle,” he choked out, almost butchering his own name. He collected himself with a strangled breath, searching for something clever to say. “And we didn’t officially meet. You tried to run me over with your motorcycle. Great way to make friends, by the way.”

  Wonderful. He sounded like a wounded Goody Two-Shoes.

  But Kira chuckled, throwing her head back and exposing a long bronze throat. All eyes in the room went to her—the girls, with envy, the boys with poorly masked longing. Kira didn’t flinch, keeping her own gaze focused on Kyle as if he were the only one there. She toyed with the silver stud on her tongue between her teeth. “Yeah, sorry about that. I kind of have speeding issues—and road rage. Not a good combo.”

  Despite Sera’s warning looping in his head, he nodded to the seat beside Kira, the one she’d propped her leg on. “That taken?”

  “It is now,” she said, removing her foot slowly and smiling as she pushed it toward him so that the edge of the metal nudged his calf. He flinched. For some reason, it felt as though she’d touched him herself.

  “Thanks.” The warm scent of cinnamon wafted toward him as he settled in the seat. Trying not to breathe, he opened his English textbook, determined to avoid making an idiot of himself.

  Kira leaned toward him. “So, who was the redhead you were talking to before? In the hallway. Girlfriend?”

  “No, Sera’s . . . my friend,” he said quickly. Kira’s eyes widened with a strange look, but it was gone as fast as it had appeared.

  Kyle shifted uncomfortably as a surge of guilt flooded through him. It wasn’t like he and Sera were together. They were just friends. He could flirt with a girl if he wanted to, especially if said girl was flirting back . . . which, however inconceivably, Kira seemed to be doing. “Are you a transfer student?” he asked her.

  Kira nodded. “I moved from the city.”

  “City girl,” Kyle said. “It’s a big change from Manhattan up here in the boonies.” He pointed at the window with an overly bright grin. “Out here, we have these really cool things—called grass and trees.”r />
  “I know, right?” she joked back with an elegant shrug of her shoulder. “Though I’m not a huge fan of the outdoors. I miss the buildings and the streets in the city. It was structured. Ordered.”

  New York City? Order? Kyle frowned at her strange choice of words, but quickly smiled to try to hide it. He found the city too overwhelming, but different strokes for different folks. “Well, let me be the first person to officially welcome you to Silver Lake. It’s a small town, but everyone’s pretty friendly.”

  Except for the demons, he thought just as Mr. Moss walked in and rapped on his desk. “I can show you around after school if you’d like,” he added quickly.

  “I’d like that.”

  For the rest of the class, Kyle was acutely aware of the girl beside him . . . the way she smelled, the dark gleam of her skin, the soft movements of her body, her overall magnetism. Not only was she striking to look at, she practically oozed self-confidence. He wasn’t the only one staring. Everyone else seemed to be peeking over at her whenever they got the chance. Normally, kids at Silver Lake High School would give the new kid the once-over, and then life went back to normal. But this girl held them all in thrall.

  Suddenly, Sera’s words popped into his head again—the stronger demons are nearly undetectable. Could Kira be possessed by one of them? For a second, Kyle wished that Sera was in this class. She would have known in an instant. Then again, Sera hadn’t said anything about the girl earlier in the parking lot or in the hallway—and she would have. He was being paranoid.

  His breath caught in his throat as he felt a gentle tug on the sleeve of his T-shirt. Kira’s breath was warm on his neck as she leaned toward him. “Hey, do you have a pen I can borrow?”

  “Sure.” Handing over his only pen—and mentally cursing his idiocy—his fingers grazed hers, direct skin to skin contact this time. Red-hot spirals shot through his hand and sank deep into his chest. He snatched his arm away.

  One of Kira’s elegant eyebrows rose, a frown puckering her smooth brown forehead. Had she sensed something, too? Unlikely, though it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility. Some humans had extrasensory perception—a real ability, as he’d learned. Most of the Ne’feri, human fighters who defended the Mortal Realm from evil forces, possessed some form of it. They worked with the Daevas, guardian spirits on earth, to protect the Mortal Realm and were trained to dispatch demons just as effectively as their immortal companions.

  His skin tingled, and his paranoia surged back in full force. No human girl could make someone feel like this, could she?

  Or maybe he was overreacting. After all, he hadn’t exactly had a lot of contact with the opposite sex over the last few months while he’d been mooning over Sera.

  Kyle took a deep breath, trying to focus. Kira’s confidence made him pause. Despite being oblivious to everyone else, she seemed to be all too aware of the effect she was having on him . . . as if she was enjoying making him squirm. Could she be a demon?

  He had to be sure.

  Leaning back in his chair, he cleared his mind and let his senses reach outward, just as Sera had said to do. Demons had to be felt, not seen. And she said it would feel oily and scummy. Drawing on his newly enhanced Azura abilities, he let his consciousness push toward Kira. After a minute, it encountered hers.

  Mortal.

  And definitely not scummy. Kyle could see flashes of her in an instant—pieces of her childhood in Manhattan, her last school, her recent birthdays—and he couldn’t help feeling intense relief as he pulled away. If she had been a demon, or possessed by one, he would have had to banish her, no matter how hot she was. Shaking his head and glancing to the left, his eyes connected with hers.

  “What?” he asked Kira.

  “You were staring at me like you were in some kind of weird trance,” she said in a low voice. “It was borderline creepy.”

  “Oh, sorry,” he blurted out, going red. “I was thinking about homework and zoning out.”

  “Homework on the first day?” she asked.

  “I like to study.” Immediately regretting the lie, he studied his open textbook. With Sera, his feelings had grown over time, but with this girl, the attraction made him stupidly tongue-tied. Though, apparently, a convincing liar. Kyle frowned.

  Lust was one of the seven deadly sins. And a definite path to Xibalba.

  So was pride. Yes, he was a powerful Azura Lord, but he was also just a teenage boy. Without a girlfriend. He had nothing to lose, and if Sera could make the effort to befriend new people, so could he.

  He felt Kira’s eyes settle on him again. “That makes one of us,” she whispered. “Maybe you could give me a few pointers sometime?”

  Kyle wasn’t dumb enough not to realize that she was interested. She was practically asking him out. He smiled at her as he forced his fears to subside. “You bet.”

  Senior year seemed to be off to a promising start.

  SECRETS

  Sera bent over a table tucked between the library stacks, staring at the tiny lotus-flower flames that danced in the middle of her palm. Being a reincarnated deity—not to mention the conduit between heaven and hell—wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be.

  It made her important. Responsible for the survival of the realms.

  And Sera wasn’t entirely sure she was up to the challenge.

  She flipped her palm over, watching the flame flicker between her knuckles like a dancing coin. It returned to her palm and she curled her fingers into a fist, snuffing the fire flower out.

  Whether she wanted it or not, Sera couldn’t change who she was. Not only was she Lakshmi reincarnated—consort to Lord Devendra and one of the three female rulers of Illysia known as the Tridevi—she was also born of a Sanrak deity and an Azura Lord. As a result, she was the only goddess who could walk all three planes of existence. It was a power that many had coveted—none more so than her own uncle, Lord Azrath. Several months ago, he’d released the Kali rakshasa demon in an attempt to usher in the KaliYuga, and tried to use Sera’s powers to create a portal he could use to enter Illysia. And he’d almost succeeded.

  But then, Kyle and Dev had saved them all.

  Her stomach fluttered as she thought of Dev. He was her other half, and he always would be, even though she had chosen to remain in the Mortal Realm, where she couldn’t be near him. It had been months since she’d seen him last. He had offered to return her to Illysia, but she hadn’t been able to leave her family—her father, her mother, her brother Nate.

  And Kyle.

  He needed her more than ever now. Just because they had narrowly escaped death in Xibalba didn’t mean either of them were free. The latest rakshasa infestation was only the tip of a very monstrous iceberg. After they’d halted the KaliYuga in its tracks, they’d hoped to strengthen the wards between the realms and keep the rakshasas in Xibalba where they belonged. But somehow, demons were once again appearing in the Mortal Realm—a quiet, consistent, and noticeable number of them.

  Which made the Trimurtas, and everyone else who’d nearly died to save the realms, very uneasy.

  “Hey, Sera.” A quiet voice interrupted her thoughts. Beth Davenport. Like her parents and her recently initiated brother, Beth was a part of the Ne’feri Order, but she had graduated from Silver Lake High the year before.

  Sera blinked. “What are you doing here?”

  Beth smiled at her confusion. “I’m taking a year off between high school and college. I’m helping out in the library. How was your summer?”

  Sera recalled her parents mentioning that the Davenports had gone to Europe . . . something to do with the other Ne’feri Orders and coordinating a global effort against the new demon influx. They wanted to neutralize any threat before it became an infestation. Sera couldn’t help thinking that she wouldn’t have minded visiting Paris or London for a couple months. Instead, she’d been here. Killing monsters.

  So Sera almost laughed at Beth’s question about her summer. “Not bad,” she whispered, though th
eir corner of the library was deserted. “You know, banishing rakshasas and starting my last year of high school. All in a day’s work, right?”

  “Glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  Sera grinned. “Sometimes I think it’s the only thing keeping me sane. How was Europe?”

  “Eye-opening. Mind if I sit for a minute?”

  Sera nodded at the seat on the other side of the narrow table. “Go ahead. Can’t beat a free period right before lunch. It’s just too bad Kyle isn’t in many of my classes this year. It kind of sucks, actually.”

  “How is he doing?” Beth asked tersely, running her fingers through her short hair. “With the changes and everything?”

  Sera knew that Beth trusted her, but she’d never been a big fan of Kyle.

  “He’s doing okay, I think,” Sera said, then frowned as a thought suddenly occurred to her. “Wait, did you take the year off because you really need a break between high school and college? Or because you wanted to keep an eye on him?”

  Beth shrugged as if she’d been anticipating the question. “It’s complicated.”

  “How?” Sera asked. “The Trimurtas made him an Azura Lord—they trust him. That should be enough for the Ne’feri.”

  “He’s still Ra’al’s son.”

  Sera leaned forward, an edge to her tone. “He died to save the entire Mortal Realm from an apocalypse demon—and any part of him that was tied to Ra’al is gone. You know that. He’s proven himself a hundred times over.”

  “Maybe. I know you trust him, Sera, but—”

  She cut Beth off, her voice shaking. “I do. Completely. He sacrificed himself for me, for all of us. And you’re treating him as if he’s some kind of demon-spawn leper.”

  Beth extended her arms in a conciliatory gesture. “Look, calm down. I’m just doing what I’ve been told, that’s all. I hope to the gods that you’re right about him. But there’s been a lot of talk . . .” she trailed off, looking around uneasily, as if she expected someone to be listening in. “You missed the last Ne’feri meeting.”