War of the Gods Complete Series Boxed Set

by Meg Xuemei X

  But I already knew what their decisions were. Easily.

  First, I’d still go to the school.

  Second, I was still a secret weapon.

  And third, even if I made new friends, I would never let anyone outside our tight circle know that I’d once captured a god and drained him.

  12

  We moved to the large campus suite of Prince Pyrder, since my mates wanted to keep close to me while I attended class. Actually, the whole floor was assigned to fae, and the prince’s suite had six rooms arched like a half ring with a spacious sitting room in the center.

  I’d wanted to live in a dormitory with other students, but my request was denied as soon as it was out of my mouth.

  “You’re a mated female now,” Lorcan grated.

  “To at least two of us, sweetheart,” Alaric said.

  Two and a half actually. Reysalor and I would finish our mating, probably next week. I wondered how we should do this rotating schedule thing.

  I narrowed my eyes. “So?”

  “So you’ll live with your mates like one,” Lorcan concluded.

  He loved to assign me responsibilities. The High Lord was a keeper of traditions and rules, and I happened to be the opposite. If I weren’t his mate, he would have snapped my head off my neck already.

  But then I made his heart beat and gave him many more interesting challenges in life.

  “That’s your old concepts talking, vampire dude,” I said. “I’m a modern woman, who is all about being up-to-date and independent. And I don’t want to tell you a third time that you need to keep up with me.”

  “Most women in this age would envy what you’ve landed, Cass,” Pyrder said.

  Every now and then, his annoying arrogance would pop out, though most of the time he was cool. But then, as I’d mentioned before, Pyrder and I almost disagreed on everything, so I wasn’t even surprised.

  “Tell me, panther,” I said. “What have I landed?”

  Pyrder opened his mouth, saw my sneer and look of challenge, and shut it.

  “We got a better deal with you as our mate, dulcis,” Lorcan said. “Pyrder was only suggesting that you need to learn to compromise sometimes, even as a very modern woman.” He could be smooth as silk as well.

  “I bent a lot for you guys already, as I’ve never bent for anyone before,” I murmured, deciding to retreat.

  I wouldn’t chance riling up my mates too much and becoming a quarrelsome brat in their eyes. At least I’d gotten what I wanted—I was on campus now and enrolled in the school.

  If I kept pissing off the High Lord, he might campaign for us to go back to ShadesStar.

  “All right,” I said on a sigh. “I won’t insist on living in the student bunk.”

  But I insisted on striking out on my own in my first class.

  “Who can pose a threat to me since I’m so advanced in magic, as you all have admitted?” I said. “And there aren’t bad guys here. Everyone is keyed up to fight the gods.”

  “We’re better safe than sorry if one of us is always with you,” Reysalor said.

  “When you first sought me out, you wanted a weapon,” I said. “And now you want to sheath this little knife? Make up your mind. If one of you constantly babysits me, how can I fight the gods when they come looking?”

  “It’s probably a worse idea to even let you fight the gods,” Reysalor sighed.

  “Too late,” I said. “They’ll never give up their hunt for me. And now, with little scheming Phobos running back crying to his daddy, they’ll come for me sooner rather than later, and I need to learn as much as I can before they’re hot on my ass.”

  “They won’t get on your ass.” Pyrder tried to convince himself. “We took out the Goddess of Track and Trace.”

  “Phobos has the seer in his pocket,” I said. “It was her who first saw me and sold me out to him.”

  Alaric pondered. “We need to find a way to disguise Cass.”

  “Give Cass what she wants for now,” Reysalor said. “We won’t win an argument against her, based on my personal experience. All she wants is to wander the campus alone without us even two hundred yards away.”

  The cunning fae heir could cut through my bullshit and knew what I truly desired.

  So, on the first school day, I went to the campus without my mates tagging along. I’d gotten my class curriculum and a map. I couldn’t read the text, but I’d had Boone add the star sign on the map telling me where I should be today.

  I squinted at the map, then stared at the buildings and outdoor corridors and turns in front of me. The classroom would be seven blocks from the dormitories and three blocks from the dining hall, and I’d passed both. It should be around the corner, but I didn’t see any student enter any classroom.

  I was probably too early. I didn’t think other students were as eager as I was, wanting to get to class half an hour early.

  Anxiety shot into me. I needed to make a good impression. I didn’t care about rules, but school rules were different, in my opinion.

  For the first time, I wanted to fit in instead of standing out. I even dressed like most students here—in army fatigues, since the Academy was a military school.

  Then my peripheral vision caught a moving blur. As I pinpointed it, I realized that Hector was on the other side of the campus square. He was far enough away, but he could watch my every move.

  And then, not surprisingly, I caught Ambrosia loitering at my five o’clock. She didn’t even mind me spotting her.

  I was losing the battle with my overbearing mates. The fae warriors would always follow me around, even when they had to do it at a distance. And then at night, the vampires would shadow me. Celeb, Alaric’s hybrid demon guard, would spy on me in between.

  I straightened my back, not wanting the annoying fae to know I was lost in the cobble-stoned square of the campus.

  A leaf tore from a branch of oak tree, floating in the wind, and I let my eyes follow its drift, pretending to be interested in nature, while my mind busily calculated how to ditch the guards.

  I should just cut across the path of a few students and ask them where the heck the classroom was. I smiled humbly at everyone walking in my direction, but no one returned my smile.

  Half of the students had a funereal look, as if there was no tomorrow. And the rest had an air of self-importance. No one seemed to give me a second glance. Maybe that was how they treated a timid newbie in the elite Academy.

  Anyway, they’d all soon go fight the gods’ army, knowing that few would survive. What could one more new recruit do to tip their fate? If I were them, I’d probably look somber too.

  I used to consider myself reckless and bold, but put in this kind of social setting, I wasn’t completely sure of myself anymore.

  I didn’t want to embarrass myself, either.

  A girl who looked seventeen, a stack of books in her arms, scrambled along the edge of the square near a red-tile roof courthouse kind of building.

  She didn’t stalk through the center of the square or puff her chest up like others who had the attitude of the humankind’s saviors. She was trying to avoid attention.

  It dawned on me that she didn’t fit in. Almost all of the students I’d seen, males and females, had a soldier’s build. She was slender with no muscles and a fragile look.

  Maybe I should go ask her about the classroom. She didn’t seem like one who would look down her nose at me, judging by her meek brown eyes etched wide apart on her pale, heart-shaped face.

  Or I could just follow her. Or I could offer to carry some of her books, relieving part of her burden.

  I wasn’t usually shy, but if I made a fool of myself proving my independence, Hector would report back to his princes and I’d never live it down.

  Then the scene suddenly changed before I strode toward the girl.

  A teenage mage lunged at the girl from the outdoor corridor of the courthouse building. She yelped and jumped away, fast enough to avoid being crushed to the ground bu
t not enough to come out a winner.

  Her books dropped from her hands and spread over the ground.

  I scowled at the boy.

  Then another blond boy, nearly the same age, shoved the girl while she squatted to pick up her books. She fell on her ass.

  “Hey, soothsayer, I just touched you,” the blond boy shouted. “Did you see my future?”

  A group of six—five muscled boys of mixed species and one tall fae girl—surrounded the human girl. I now realized some of them had been hiding behind the column, waiting for the human. They’d marked her as their game.

  Some spectators also gathered, laughing, as the gang of six taunted the human girl.

  So this was the Academy? It wasn’t what I’d expected when I had first peeked into it and spotted the students practicing cool magic.

  The fae girl in the gang had the air of the elite class. Her high heels clicked on the ground as she stalked toward the human girl. She cupped the human’s cheeks hard.

  “Still no sight and no words, soothsayer?” the fae girl asked. “Or are you a fraud, trying to get into the Academy for free food? Can you predict whether my great fire will give you an inspiration?”

  A stream of red fire twirled around the fae girl’s free hand. She wanted to strike fear into the soothsayer first and probably make her scream for fun.

  The soothsayer recoiled from the fae girl’s flaming fingers and almost fell backwards again.

  “Leave me alone, Mellissa,” she said in a small voice.

  “How dare you talk back to the elite?” said a human teenage boy with a dimple on his beautiful face. “You can’t hold a candle to Mellissa.”

  He wasn’t taking care of his own kind. Instead, he was trying to overcompensate for being human. Alaric had taught me about the hierarchy of all species. Humans were near the bottom amid supernatural beings.

  He didn’t deserve to have a dimple. He should have had pimples instead.

  “Let’s rough her up and teach the phony her place,” the human boy said, bending his knee and propelling it toward the soothsayer’s face. If his knee struck her, the girl would have a large black eye. That was what the boy intended.

  Mellissa grabbed the girl’s hair to pin her in place. They thought they had the soothsayer and the fun had just begun.

  I didn’t think so.

  My air current struck out and grabbed the human boy’s knee. A confused, surprised look arose on his face as he found he couldn’t move any part of his body even an inch. I’d taken that precaution. I didn’t want him to swing his fist at the girl in frustration.

  “What the fuck?” He looked around, unable to find a suspect, and turned to the soothsayer with a purple face. “What did you do to me? What kind of voodoo is this?” He struggled to no avail. He was a bug caught in my air net.

  “The soothsayer doesn’t have offensive magic,” said the blond boy who had shoved the girl to the ground. “She’s basically useless.” He scanned the crowd and snarled, “Who dared fuck with us?”

  The crowd peeled off under the gang’s scrutiny. No one wanted to be the next target.

  Reysalor and his twin wanted this bunch to fight the gods?

  The onlookers moved further away. They were lucky that they weren’t in my path while I still had my shit together.

  I stalked toward the gang.

  “Hello there,” I purred. “Mind if I join the party?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” The blond boy trained his disdainful gaze on me.

  “Well, that’s a very good question,” I said good-naturedly. “Because I’d like to know as well.”

  “Another freak,” a long-limbed demon boy said. “We’ve never seen her before.”

  Wow, a demon called me a freak and yet demons were a rarity on the Earth’s surface. How did I know that? Celeb told me.

  “Great!” the blond boy said. “We’ve just found new game.”

  The human boy was still struggling to break my air bonds. The mage who had first jumped on the soothsayer sent his magic to undo my binding, to no avail.

  “What kind of foul magic is this?” The teenage mage turned to me. “Did you do that? How? Release him!”

  “With pleasure,” I said, and waved a hand. “And you can go with him.”

  My air current strung up both boys and flipped them in the air a couple of times before it lost interest and tossed them to a nearby lawn just laid out with fertilizer. And I made sure both cuties landed face down.

  “Have fun eating dirt!” I chuckled and applauded—I know it was immature—before I fixed my gaze on Mellissa, who still gripped the soothsayer’s hair and made the girl arch her head back at a funny angle.

  “I suggest you let go of her hair, cupcake,” I said, “because it’s lame to grab hair in a catfight.”

  The soothsayer widened her eyes at me, as if the whole world around her had vanished, except for me.

  That unnerved me a little. Maybe she was a freak, but I didn’t mind freaks.

  “Lame?” Mellissa narrowed her emerald green eyes. “Tell me how lame this is.”

  “No, don’t hurt her! She’s important!” the soothsayer screamed, but the fae girl’s fire had reached my face.

  The fae had attacked me before I could throw my air current at her or even finish a conversation.

  “No!” Ambrosia called from far away.

  “Stop!” Hector shouted in the distance.

  They zoomed toward me.

  The bodyguards were too late.

  The fae fire, hotter than the burning oven flame, slammed into my face.

  Fae bitch was meaner than I and meant to melt my face. She didn’t even care if the fire killed me in front of so many witnesses, which meant that she had someone powerful backing her in the Academy.

  I sighed. I’d expected my first school experience to be anything but this.

  Bitch had no idea what my power grade was. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t know exactly how powerful I was, either. I was stumbling along as I unveiled my own magic.

  I was a mystery even to myself. I smirked at that thought.

  The fae fire came from Earth, and Earth magic was my affinity. No one could have more Earth power than I, since somehow I was its kin. That meant I could eat the fire, just as I ate anything and everything.

  I opened my mouth and sucked in her red fire. When the last trace lingered on my skin, I smacked my lips.

  Mellissa stared at me in horror. “What kind of freak are you?”

  “One of a kind, and you’re extremely rude,” I said. “But I may forgive you if you give me stronger fire.” I snapped my fingers. “C’mon, fae cunt. Give me more.”

  Her face reddened in rage and humiliation. I bet no one had ever called her cunt all her life. Well, she was just as cunt as Jezebel.

  The soothsayer’s eyes turned completely round, then she giggled.

  Hector and Ambrosia reached me. They both carried longswords. Hector had one strapped on his broad back, and Ambrosia had her fae blade with a decorated silver hilt leaning against her long leg.

  They cut in between Mellissa and me, shielding me.

  Ambrosia twisted her leather-clad body and looked at me over her shoulder, while arching an eyebrow. “Now you ate fire and called a nice fae girl cunt?”

  Hector stared at Mellissa. “How dare you attack Cass!”

  Mellissa’s red face drained of all color. Every fae knew the fae prince’s fearsome captain.

  “I don’t even know who she is,” Mellissa said. “I’ve never heard of her. No one has heard of her. She just jumped out of nowhere and started attacking us. And we were doing our job patrolling the campus. High Council member Noah entrusted us with the duty.”

  The other minions all nodded to support her, though their eyes darted around nervously. They didn’t seem to want to hang out around me—the new game—anymore.

  “Patrol duty?” Hector asked. “All I saw was you and your gang bullying a defenseless girl.”

  “The Academy
isn’t a place for freeloaders,” Mellissa said. “Amber shouldn’t be here. She can’t even defend herself. I don’t buy it that she has a psychic gift. All she’s done is hum that the One is coming while rolling her eyes to the back of her head. She’s a crook. She shouldn’t get free lodging in the Academy!”

  I pushed through and squeezed into the space between Hector and Ambrosia. I was ready to brace my hands on my hips to get my bearing and show my attitude, but I realized that I had done that way too often. So I pressed a hand on each of Hector’s and Ambrosia’s hips instead.

  They both slanted me an odd glance.

  “I was making a point to show that we’re a united front,” I said. “Anyway, you wouldn’t understand.” I turned to Mellissa. “Amber is no longer defenseless, because I’m taking her under my wing. You, on the other hand, have to prove you can defend yourself.”

  Mellissa glared at me. “Who gives you the right to order me?”

  She wanted to call me cunt as well, but she couldn’t get rid of the social and cultural inhibition.

  “Cass ranks way higher than you, Mellissa,” Ambrosia said. “Go near her again, and your entire family’s titles will be stripped.” There was a satisfaction to the fae warrior’s tone, which gave me the impression that Mellissa’s house wasn’t all that nice in the fae community.

  “You two should not give Mellissa a hard time,” I said. “She and I were just being friendly. She fed me nice, yummy fire that was hot, hot, hot! And now, I must give it back to her. I don’t like to take other people’s stuff without returning. It’s not polite. You guys have been teaching me manners for a while. So where are my manners? Here!”

  Mellissa’s eyes went round. Before she could zoom away, I opened my mouth and poured out her red fire with a little twist—my blue dots of fire adorned her red like pretty little stars.

  I was a vindictive bitch, no doubt about it, but I wasn’t too nasty. I didn’t want her dead. I was just envious that she had such pure, silky, golden hair reaching her waist.

  With fondness, the magical fire traced and licked away all her hair.