Blessed: Academy of the Seraph

by Brandi Elledge

  After what seemed like hours, we exited the trail to the empty parking lot.

  Hannah rested her palms on her knees, gasping for air. “What do we do now?”

  “We walk along the highway until we can’t walk anymore, and then we find a place off the road to sleep for a bit before we start walking again.”

  Hannah stood tall, shoulders back. All six feet of her started walking like a woman on a mission. I couldn’t have possibly loved her any more than I did at that moment.

  At some point, we started stumbling from exhaustion, and that was when I decided we needed sleep, if only for a few hours. There was a small barn off the side of the road. We could hunker down there until the morning, and then maybe we could bum a ride from someone.

  We entered the barn, and I threw down my shoe, snorting as I realized this whole damn time I carried only one. I must’ve lost the other one a while back.

  I pointed at some hay bales stacked neatly against a wall, too tired to talk.

  Hannah gave me a nod. Taking a nap on the hay was a solid plan.

  Before sleep could fully pull us under, there was a commotion outside the barn. My stomach clenched, and I knew that my gut was warning me that trouble was on the way. I barely had time to process that before two demons came strolling into the barn.

  They could have passed for humans, unless you were up close with them, and that was exactly what Hannah and I were—up close.

  Their eyes were black with the outer rim lined in red. When they smiled down at us with malice, we saw their sharp canines.

  The taller man on the right reached out and snagged a curl of Hannah’s hair. I reached out and slapped his hand, causing him to drop the curl.

  “Oh, what do we have here? She’s feisty. Just how I like them.”

  A rat scurried out from the bale of hay. Feeling a connection with it as I did with all animals, I reached for that power that, up until this point, I kept suppressed and let it unwind. Making eye contact with the rat, I silently pleaded.

  Its tiny head bobbed before it exited out of a hole in the barn wall.

  Through the door that the demons had left open, there was a large tree that began to sway toward me.

  The shorter, more muscular man laughed. “It was that one that got our attention.”

  “Yeah, girly, we were just cruising down the road when your light called to us. So bright. You must not know how to control it yet.” He laughed. “And it just got brighter.”

  The shorter one asked, “Where were you girls coming from? Dressed all pretty-like. It doesn’t make sense, does it, Akkadian?”

  The other demon shook his head. “No.”

  “We were going to a party with our boyfriends. We decided to go our separate ways.” Something in me stopped me from speaking of the academy.

  The taller one crouched down in front of me. “That wasn’t very smart. It will be our greatest pleasure killing someone with so much light.”

  The shorter one shook his head at me. “She has too much light. She’s fully blessed.”

  “You think so?”

  The other demon nodded while Hannah looked at me with shock.

  “Well then, I guess this is going to turn into a real party. We get paid a pretty penny if we bring her in.” He winked at me. “Dead or alive.”

  As he went to grab for me, a group of rats started to bite his ankles. Startled, he fell over backward. The rats squeaked as they quickly climbed up the trunk of his body.

  Outside, the large tree was rocking so hard that I knew what was about to happen as I willed it to do so. I grabbed Hannah’s hand and made a mad dash for the open door while commanding the rats to exit the barn. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them scramble off the demon and hurry toward their hole.

  The other demon was reaching for us just as the tree came crashing through the roof. Expecting it, I didn’t stop, running as hard as I could while pulling a shocked Hannah behind me. The tree crashed down on the barn, flattening it, and I hoped the demons inside.

  We stood in silence for a few seconds.

  “Are they dead?” Hannah asked.

  A sound came from the collapsed barn. Boards began to shift and move as a demon roared.

  “Nope. I think we might have just made them angrier. We need to run.”

  Before I could turn around, strong arms encircled me.

  Hannah’s eyes bugged out, and her face, that was usually snow-white, somehow became even paler.

  Whatever was behind me knew it had caught its prey, and as I began to struggle, the arms tightened around me. How could I get out of this? This was my fault. My friend was going to die because of me.

  The demons crawled out of the demolished barn with a look of fury until they saw my captor. Then the look was replaced with fear. I knew why as soon as I heard his voice.

  My captor dropped his arms away from me before he pushed me out of the way. “Hello, boys.”

  My jaw dropped as the commander walked past me to stand in front of the demons that were currently backpedaling. “Thought you’d have a bit of fun, did you?”

  “Oh, we didn’t know they belonged to you,” the shorter one almost whispered.

  The taller one popped his neck side to side. “What is a fully blessed doing roaming the woods? It seems like she was begging for us to find her.” He gave me a smirk before he made the horrible mistake of charging the commander.

  The commander stood there with his arms by his sides, not even reaching for the huge sword strapped to his back. What was he thinking? Then, at the last second, he stepped to the left while cupping the demon under the chin with his right hand. He spun in a half-circle until he was behind the demon, his left hand across the demon’s forehead. In one motion, he jerked up on the demon’s neck and twisted. The demon dropped to the ground, motionless, before I even registered what had just happened.

  Hannah moved closer to me, and we gripped each other’s hands as the commander very calmly walked to the other demon. As soon as he was in striking distance, the shorter demon decided to go down swinging, and that’s precisely what happened.

  The commander caught the demon’s fist and twisted him around before he performed the same motion he had with the other demon. We heard the crack from where we stood, immobilized.

  The Rocks, Dan and Richard, who we hadn’t even noticed, came strolling forward.

  The commander gave each of us a hard stare. “You might not want to watch this next part.”

  I hadn’t wanted to watch the first part!

  My eyes flashed to Dan and Dick before settling back on the commander. “Wh-what are they going to do?”

  “Burn them to ashes.” He grabbed my arm not so gently. “Let’s go. Keep up, Hannah.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said as she trailed behind us.

  There was so much rage coming off the commander that I feared what he was going to do to us.

  As the trees swayed like a tropical storm was coming, he barked, “Control your emotions.”

  “Trying.”

  “Try harder.”

  We walked until we came to the road. There, he pointed at a boulder on the other side. “Go wait there, Hannah.”

  She bit her lip nervously, looking from me to the commander, before she nodded.

  As soon as she was a reasonable distance away, the commander roughly pulled me to face him. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  My fear of the repercussions was replaced with a wave of white-hot anger. “I’ll tell you exactly what was on my mind. You know those dreams you asked about? Well, yeah, I have them. I’ve had a lot of them, and I can promise you, buddy, that they don’t paint the academy in a good light. Just the opposite, in fact. I’ve seen things. Like teenagers killing teenagers.”

  His brows came together.

  “And tonight, Jase said he saw me dying. Since I’ve stepped onto this campus, I’ve felt Marlie-Beth’s and Angelina’s hate. Not dislike toward me, but genuine hate. What’s with that? There are others
, too, who must be pure darken, and then let’s not forget your encrypted warning. You know, the one where you said my enemies could literally be anyone, including my best friends. You also lied to all the students, claiming you were trying to protect me.”

  “I was!” he boomed. “But you always make it so damn difficult.”

  “Always? What are you talking about?”

  He shut his mouth.

  My mind was boggled. When I had first met him, he acted as if it was I who was a ghost. The way he stared at me was almost haunting. Then he hadn’t been shocked that I had been touched by more than one archangel.

  Hands on my hips, I asked, “Do I know you?”

  He took a step closer. “I think you’d remember me, wouldn’t you?”

  I ignored the heat in my belly. “And for the record, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would die tonight if I stayed at the academy.”

  He bent his knees so he could get eye level with me. “Let me make myself very clear. You should be scared. Your dreams and intuition are probably accurate. However, if you would have come to me, I could have protected you. Instead of trusting me though, you endangered not only your life but Hannah’s, as well!”

  He was right. I hadn’t trusted him, and if I had, maybe the outcome would have been different.

  “I’m sorry. I did what I felt was right at the time. If I hadn’t been so tired, I could have hid my powers better, and the demons wouldn’t have sensed us. I almost got my friend killed tonight.”

  He ignored my apology. “Trust me when I say you will not last a day out here in this mess. I’m surprised you lasted this long, to be honest with you. The minute you became exhausted, you became a beacon. That is how I found you. To think you won’t get tired again in the future is ludicrous. If you stay at the academy, I can help you, but I can’t always be here to save you if you run.” His green eyes were bright with anger but also with another emotion. He was genuinely worried.

  He cleared his throat. “You didn’t come to me because you don’t trust me.”

  My heart clenched at the torment in his tone.

  I avoided his eyes when I nodded.

  “We need to fix that.” He jerked me to him until our bodies were flushed, his arms a warm cocoon around me, yet I shivered.

  I momentarily lost myself, forgetting what we were arguing about. Now that my fear and anger had faded, I could feel that tug in my belly. The one that alerted me when he was near and insisted that I get closer to him.

  “I will find out who planned on hurting you, and I will end them. And, for future reference, don’t ever scare me like that again. I don’t like it.”

  I wet my lips, and his eyes tracked the motion. I swear he let out a low growl.

  “How did you know that I went through the magical gateway?”

  “There’s only one way in and one way out. Plus, I found your shoe, Cinderella. I didn’t need to hunt down everyone in the village to figure out whose foot it belonged on.”

  He let go of me so abruptly that I almost fell on my butt. The Rocks, Dan and Richard, had come up to stand beside him, and he gave them direction. Then he called a shell-shocked Hannah over to us. Before we knew it, we were heading back the way we had just come.

  I dashed a tear away, numbly putting one foot in front of the other. Until I figured out how to permanently hide this light that the demons could obviously see, being out in the open wasn’t safe or smart. I clearly saw that now. There was no way I was capable of killing two demons by myself. At least, not yet. But staying at the academy wasn’t ideal, either. I could feel something bad about to happen. It was in the air, and it was only a matter of time before my dreams of the academy came true.

  We were walking back up the trail when the adrenaline wore off, and the severity of what had almost happened hit me. I felt as if I was about to have a nervous breakdown when the commander dropped back down the trail to walk beside me.

  Gruffly, he said, “I understand why you ran, just don’t do it again. This time, there was no harm. You’re fine, and Hannah is fine.”

  He went from wanting to murder me to attempting to comfort me? Strange man. What was even stranger was the gravitational pull I felt toward him every time he was near. Yes, he was the most beautiful male I had ever seen, but that wasn’t the reason behind me wanting to be close to him. It was something else. Something that ran deep. It was a connection that I’d rather ignore than deal with. I currently had too much on my plate as it was.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, craning my neck to look up at him.

  His green eyes bore into mine, causing my breath to hitch. Lost in the moment, I tripped over a root and barely had time to stumble before he snagged my arm, stabilizing me. Just when I thought he’d let me go, he kept his hand on my arm.

  Feelings I couldn’t understand or control were surfacing. I had barely met this man, yet I craved his touch.

  “Here is something I can share. I need you to trust me. You are demonstrating higher power levels than most, and you haven’t got the brunt of your gifts yet. Let the dreams come. Pray for them. Figure out all the answers to your questions. And if you allow me to help you, I’ll train you so that, the next time you come across demons, you will be the one they fear.”

  “Can …? Can you tell me why I’m different than the others?” I asked.

  “Yes. Do you think you can wait until tomorrow when we’re both not exhausted and can think more clearly?”

  He was right; I was drained. Exhaustion was wearing me down as we continued to walk back toward the academy.

  I looked down at the hem of the red dress. It was the first dress that I had ever worn, and now it was completely ruined.

  “You’ll have more dresses,” he said.

  Unconsciously, my brows drew together. “Can you read my mind?”

  “I wasn’t reading your mind.” He chuckled. “You were always just easy to read.”

  “There you go with that always again. Care to elaborate?”

  “I could,” he said, “but maybe this is something I want you to figure out all on your own.”

  I tripped again; this time on the hem of my dress that was coming unraveled.

  The commander swung me up into his arms, saying, “Your feet are bloody,” as a way of an explanation.

  I started to argue. I mean, who could possibly carry someone in this position up a trail for more than an hour, which had only become steeper with every footfall? Well, the Rock, Dick, had thrown me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Still … But the commander wasn’t even wheezing, so I didn’t say anything. I seriously doubted there was much that man couldn’t do.

  I let out an unladylike yawn, and then I laid my head on his chest. His breath hitched, making me think that maybe my feelings weren’t just a one-way street, and that was the last thing I remembered before I took a much-needed nap.

  I awoke the moment we crossed the veil. There, he placed me back on my feet and clasped my hand as he walked me to my dorm, while the Rocks walked a laughing Hannah to her room. Students were out and about, and everyone who saw me with the commander in last night’s gown started talking. It would help if he let go of my hand, but I had decided after my little stunt that it was best not to argue with him right now.

  Without a word, he escorted me directly to my room then left. I then changed out of the once beautiful gown and into an oversized T-shirt and crawled in my bed, thankful that Remy wasn’t there to pester me with questions because I needed sleep.

  I slept the whole day away, missing my opportunity to talk with the commander about my lineage, but that night, the dreams came.

  The fifteen angels were in an abandoned house.

  Ariel spoke up. “Our wings will always be black now.”

  “We made a mistake,” Michael said. “One that we would probably repeat, but nonetheless, we’ve apologized and we’re moving forward. We will display our wings with no shame.”

  There were a couple of nods.

&n
bsp; Sandalphon gazed at his brothers and sisters. “There is something I’m not understanding. Lucifer and his tribe are no selfless good-doers; why did they leave their mark on the ones we touched?”

  “More importantly. what will it do to them?” Ariel asked.

  Raziel spoke up. “Technically, we carry the same label as them—fallen—but we are very different than our dark brothers and sisters. Our power is still pure, no matter the color of our wings. We passed through hell to get to earth. We did not linger or choose to stay for a long period of time. Lucifer and the others are dark angels now.” He paced in front of the archangels. “We knew how much to give to each human in order to save them from the disease that spread. Yes, they have special little gifts now, like good immune systems or great intuition, that they’ll pass down to their children, but other than that, they won’t be altered.”

  Gabriel gnawed on her lip. “But if the fallen … the dark angels added their dark powers …”

  The room grew quiet.

  “If the dark angels were powerful enough, their touch combined with ours … well, it’s going to turn those humans,” Raziel said.

  “Into what?” Ariel asked.

  “Immortals.”

  Gabriel had known before this all started that something bad was going to happen, but in her wildest dreams, she never imagined that they would create something that should have never existed in the first place.

  The next morning, there was a knock on my door. I was drowsy as I got out of bed in my oversized T-shirt. Last night’s dream had left me feeling haunted. I needed to find out what had happened to the humans and the archangels, and the only way to do it was to go back to sleep and hope the dreams came back. First, I had to get rid of the commander who was about to beat my door down.

  I swung the door open to find him frowning down at me.

  “You didn’t show up to your first class today.”

  I had nothing to say, so I just shrugged and stared at his chest.

  “Get dressed. I want to show you something.” I started to argue, but he said, “You have five minutes. After that, I’m coming back in to get you. So, get dressed. You can walk or be carried out of your dorm in that sad shirt you wear to bed.”