by Lan Chan
Two by my count. Trey’s mum was human and so was someone in Kai’s lineage. “Why is it that humans can reproduce more easily with supernaturals?”
“Because this is our dimension,” Sophie offered. For once, her answer wasn’t met with a round of disgruntled hissing.
“That’s right. Humans –” he glanced at me and corrected himself, “most humans, aren’t born with any special abilities. But they are blessed with something we would deadly cherish. Fertility. The rate at which the human race procreates is something that has allowed them to become the dominant population in this dimension. Despite what some might say, there is great strength in numbers. If the humans ever gained knowledge of our existence and decided that they do not care for us, just by sheer numbers, they could overwhelm us. Now, who knows which of the two supernatural species is most likely to settle down with humans? Trey.”
“Shifters and Nephilim.”
“And why is that?”
“For the most part, shifters are often best at Dimension Integration. Unless we shift, our appearance isn’t any different to a human’s. By the time the human realises what we are, they are more willing to accept the mating.”
“Sounds like entrapment,” I muttered.
Doctor Thorne’s dark eyes bored into me. I retracted all my body parts and slunk low in my chair. “What about the Nephilim?” Doctor Thorne asked.
This time, James was all ready with an answer. “We’re just irresistible.”
There was a resounding chorus to the contrary. “You wish!” Isla snapped. “We certainly resisted your attempt to become House Captain.”
“That’s because you’re a cheating bitc –”
“James!” It came out as a deep grumble from the very base of Doctor Thorne’s chest.
“What?” The Nephilim leaned back in his chair, his palms interlinked behind his head in a classic douchebag pose.
“Be mindful of your classmates or don’t be in this class.”
“I don’t take orders from you.” What he implied was that Nephilim didn’t take orders from para-humans.
Dev growled low. “Watch what you say.”
“Or what?” James challenged.
“Or we’ll make sure it’s the last time you open your mouth,” Trey rumbled.
Somebody squeaked. The collective attention turned to where Emily sat. While we hadn’t been paying attention, she’d pushed her table as close to the wall as possible. Now she was practically climbing it in an attempt to get away from the undertone of shifter aggression in the air. How in the world any of these supernaturals mated with each other was beyond me.
“Enough,” Doctor Thorne said. “Whatever your personal beliefs, Mr. McTavish, if you can’t remain civil, you can go and explain to the headmistress that you’d like to be removed from this class.”
“No electives,” Sophie piped up.
For all his bravado, James didn’t move. Oh, so Nephilim did take orders from Amazons? Doctor Thorne was consummately calm, but Jacqueline would rip James a couple of new ones if he dared to utter his grievances.
James’s scowl deepened as the seconds ticked by. When it was obvious he wouldn’t be going anywhere, Doctor Thorne let him off the hook.
“My question remains,” Doctor Thorne said.
Sophie answered quickly to smooth the topic over. “It’s because Nephilim are borne of the seraphim. They are the only line that could have naturally existed in this dimension. And since many of them are guards, they often find themselves in contact with the human population.”
There was a pause. Doctor Thorne studied me. “Which of the Nephilim Houses has historically had the most bonds with humans and other races?”
“House Pendragon.”
I had been waiting for it. Even then the kick in the gut winded me. It made sense. The healers would have the most contact with all the other races. Doctor Thorne opened his mouth as though to hastily brush past the topic when someone raised their hand.
“Emily?” Doctor Thorne said. You could have bowled me over with a sneeze. Did she even have a voice?
She sat there static for a second before she managed to drum up the courage to speak. Her voice, like the rest of her, was reedy and delicate. “Are there many of you hiding amongst the human population?”
The questioned stumped him. Most likely because he didn’t know how much she had already been told, and how much he could reveal to her. I suspected the answer was a lot more than humans would care for.
“There are enough,” Sophie helped him out. “Not so many that they pose a threat.”
That’s where we disagreed. Sophie and I didn’t butt heads often, but she was somewhat immune to the presence of supernaturals in everyday life. It was the difference between growing up in the fold and outside of it. One vampire in amongst humans was too many for me. The one I’d spotted while at Terran still weighed heavily on my mind. It made me realise how sanitised Bloodline made things appear.
“But they...I mean you, have rules, don’t you?” Emily insisted.
“You’re honestly perfectly safe.” I didn’t think he realised he wasn’t blinking. He’d gotten it into his head that eye contact was the key to gaining a human’s trust. Too bad when he made eye contact with someone, his yellow eyes dilated and he stopped blinking. He called it giving them his full attention. Those of us who had been subjected to it called it his hypnotic pre-digestion stare. Like a snake sizing you up before it dislocated its jaw and swallowed you whole.
I coughed. Emily lowered her eyes. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” James drawled. “The worst thing you have to be afraid of around here is Hastings losing her marbles and bringing about the apocalypse.”
“Shut up, James!” Diana snapped. But as I watched Emily tremble in her seat, I knew that was exactly what she was afraid of.
The bell rang before Doctor Thorne could do anything about James’s statement. What could he do anyway when it was mostly the truth? I could, however, do some damage control. As everyone was getting ready to head off to their next classes, I darted between the human curtain the Evil Three often made around Emily.
“Oi!” Harlow shouted. I had ducked right beneath her arm.
“Just give me a second.” She rolled her eyes. The bored expression on her face wasn’t very frightening.
By now Emily had realised I was within touching distance. She pulled her textbook to her chest as a shield. When she brushed a strand of hair over her ear, her hand shook. My radar was scanning out of control for any signs of an impending vision projection. It was the reason why none of the others had left the room.
“I know you’re scared of me,” I told Emily. She looked in every direction besides mine. Seriously? “To tell you the truth, what you can do scares me too.”
Her head tipped up. “I don’t mean to –”
“I know. Just like I didn’t choose to be Lucifer’s scion. I get that you don’t want to be around me. But I’ve got a lot on my plate and it would be helpful if you didn’t pile on with your predictions too.”
She swallowed as though something was caught in her throat. Twice she tried to pick up her bag. The second time, she hooked the strap at the wrong angle. It spilled over with the zip gaping open. Half a dozen bottles rattled out onto the floor. She startled and tried to swipe them all back. I stopped a bottle from rolling away with my foot. Bending down, I caught the script on the label just before she hastily snatched it from my hands. Benzodiazepine. Anxiety medication. It had been so long since I’d needed or been in contact with human pharmaceuticals that the sight of them shocked me. I didn’t know why. Emily was the poster child for anxiety.
The second warning bell rang. “We’re going to be late for Herbology,” Winnie reminded me. I stepped back to allow Emily the space she needed to breathe. This hadn’t gone at all like I had hoped. Before they disappeared through the door, Emily turned back around to me. Her lower lip was actually trembling. How could I possibly elicit such terror? I was barely over five fo
ot!
Sometimes, it wasn’t about size. “What else have you seen?” That had to be the only explanation. She blinked a couple of times.
“It’s not about what I’ve seen,” she said. “It’s about how many times I’ve seen it. In every combination. No matter what the circumstance, the outcome doesn’t change. You destroy everything.”
She walked out the door, leaving me there feeling as though the weight of the world was on my shoulders.
16
It was only after we arrived back at the dorm from dinner that Sophie asked me what was wrong. “You’ve hardly said a word.”
The light above our door was flashing. That was all I needed right now. More idiots wanting to sell the perfect supernatural wedding. Ignoring it, I nudged off my sneakers and dropped my things on the floor beside the bed. “Just thinking.”
“About what Emily said?”
“About everything.”
Sophie started collecting her things for a shower. “Don’t let it get to you. Prophecies can often be wrong. We see everything through the filter of other people’s minds.”
“How often are those people humans who can’t be mind wiped?”
She stopped in the middle of laying a towel over her arm. “Not often, but that doesn’t negate the point. She doesn’t know you.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Walking over, she sat down on the bed beside me. “It has everything to do with it.” I glanced down at my hands. All evening I’d considered the way my body had betrayed me over summer break. The anxiety attacks and nausea had subsided substantially since returning to school, but I suspected that was because Kai was closer. The angelfire from his bond was healing me more efficiently. Rather than feel comforted, it made me anxious. There was no way I could allow myself to become dependent on him. The walls felt like they were closing in. As a result, my flight response was going haywire.
“We’ll figure this out,” Sophie insisted.
“What if we don’t?”
“We will. We have to. How is it fair that after everything you’ve been through, Lucifer gets his way?”
When I didn’t answer, she squeezed my knee and left. “Don’t let any vampires in while I’m gone.”
“Ha. Ha.” It reminded me I hadn’t checked in on Andrei for a while.
Like the perpetual man-child that he was, Andrei lived in a penthouse apartment in the vampire city. Directly behind where he set up his mirror was an obscene nude portrait of a generously endowed woman. It meant that through mirror call, his head was conveniently wedged right in her crotch. The fact his hair was bed-rumpled when he accepted the call told me everything I needed to know. I tried to make my voice as cheerful as possible just to irritate him. “Good morning!”
“Urgh. Why are you calling?”
“Hey! I’m doing you a favour, remember?”
He scratched at the light stubble on his face. “If you can call this a favour. I thought you said you knew how to summon.” He took in the walls of my dorm room. “Anyway, it’s a moot point now you’re back at the Academy.”
“Actually, genius, if you had bothered to get your head out of your ass for a second, you would know that I have special permission from the elite guard to leave the Academy if I need to in the name of research.”
He stopped digging around for earwax and blinked. The crazy bled back into his eyes to cover up the boredom. “So we’re still on for the weekend?”
“If you’re awake. Is this how you’re going to spend the rest of your life?”
He smirked at me. “At least I have a life. From what I hear, you’re going to be shackled to a bedpost in Seraphina shortly. Have you heard the rumours that Captain Nephilim is restoring Pendragon Manor? Between you and me, he’s lost his mind. Unless of course your little venture into the human world yielded results I don’t know about.”
He laughed at the clicking of my jaw. “So you can’t drag yourself out of bed to do anything besides listen to MirrorNet gossip? Did you ask Victoria for the personal items I mentioned?”
Twice now I’d tried to summon his family. Both times nobody had showed up. We needed a personal article from somebody in his family to strengthen the connection. Too bad for us Andrei had gone into a fit of rage and burned down his family’s estate. Now we had to resort to begging Victoria for help and she was about as receptive of the idea as I was of releasing Lucifer.
“I’ve been warming her up to it.”
I rapped my fingers on the bedside table. “Can’t you just sneak into Castle Amos and borrow it?” I made air quotes around the word borrow.
“Do you think she just leaves things lying around? After what happened with Artemis, she’s got more guards in that place than in Seraphina.”
“What’s her problem anyway? Shouldn’t she be happy we’re trying to clear your family’s name?”
Darkness bled into his eyes. “I said I’m trying.”
“I don’t even know why I bother with you.”
Leaning forward, he flashed me with his fangs. “Because I’m the only one who doesn’t make sad eyes at you like you’re a lame puppy.”
“No. You only threaten and insult me.”
He yawned. Getting through to him now would be a miracle. Since he was so kind as to poke holes in my emotional wounds, I decided to fight fire with fire.
“I might be a bit late on Sunday. Astrid is having brunch with Dorian and she wants me to help her pick out something to wear. But I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
Satisfaction was seeing the flare of red in his irises before I cut the connection. It only took a little white lie to achieve it.
The logic of what we were doing played over in my mind when I tried to get some sleep. It was likely that Andrei’s family had given in to the bloodlust and started murdering people for no reason. But Andrei wouldn’t stop digging until there was nothing left to unturn. In the same way I kept trying to find alternatives to this prophecy despite all evidence to the contrary. It kept me awake long after Sophie was snoring softly. Nothing in this life was fair. I’d made my peace with that long ago. So why was I still trying to grasp for something I knew didn’t exist? I really was an optimist.
It left me wholly unprepared for the nightmares that stole all the warmth from the world. In them, I was a bystander as Bran and Carlos died over and over again. Any way you looked at it, I was responsible for their deaths. Whether by choice, omission, or design.
When the bell sounded for witching hour, my mind snapped awake as though it was eager to face reality rather than stew in a past that couldn’t be changed.
I found myself mindlessly trotting along the path to the Grove. Fellow night-time marauders were already at the perimeter. Phoenix bounded over to me when he scented me. The yowies called out in their scratchy voices. We stood in a ramshackle line. I patted the hair on Phoenix’s neck and sighed.
The yowies sniffed at the air that was practically stewing in Arcana scent. One of them stuck their tongue out in the hope of catching fumes. I didn’t think it worked. Disgusted by the turn of events, the yowie growled, spat on the ground, and turned tail back along the shadowed brush towards the billabong.
Phoenix barked. “Go. There’s no sense in hanging around here.”
He cocked his head to the side. “I’ll be fine.”
Fine was a relative term. It escalated when I heard footsteps scraping against the gravel. Even without the heightened awareness of the bond, I knew it was Kai.
“Stalking them isn’t going to make it better,” he said, appearing on my right. He was in his sweats and a white T-shirt. I took a fraction of a step away from him.
“I wasn’t stalking. It just happens to be on my way to the billabong.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “And what might you be doing in the billabong at this time of night?”
None of your business! “Summoning a Rainbow Serpent.”
He glanced up at the sky. “It’s not the right time
of year.”
Wasn’t it? I hadn’t the slightest clue. Thanks to that semester at Terran, I’d had to skip the class on Australian mythological creatures.
“Anyway, no time to waste.”
He caught hold of my wrist when I tried to turn. I yanked back without any expectation of him letting go. I wasn’t disappointed. “Nobody else is around. You can stop shooting death rays for a minute.”
I couldn’t help smirking. “I knew you’d fall for that movie!”
He returned my grin, and it was like all the stars in the sky weren’t bright enough to overshadow him. “The parts of the movie I saw weren’t bad. I was just a little preoccupied with everything else.”
Heat crept up my neck at the spiral of memory that gripped him. I had a sudden realisation of how perfectly we’d fit in that movie recliner. How good it had been to sit in the dark and pretend to be just an ordinary couple. Thank goodness for the cover of darkness. Kai turned his face up towards the light. It was only then I noticed his eyes were grainy.
“What’s wrong?”
He massaged his temple with the heel of his palm. “Couldn’t sleep. Bad dreams.”
It was too much of a coincidence, but I didn’t press the issue. The topic of the bond was off-limits. Thankfully, he didn’t push. Not about that anyway.
“Are you just going to skulk around in the dark until they change their minds?”
“No. I plan to pretend they don’t exist.”
“Very mature.”
I threw my arms in the air. “What more do they want from me? I tried to apologise. They wouldn’t listen!”
He regarded me for a moment. “How about losing the attitude and apologising with a little less hostility?”
“Attitude?” My voice went up an octave.
He waited for my indignity to subside. When it didn’t seem likely, he sighed. “You stole a lot of fruit.”
“How many times do I have to say I didn’t mean to?”
“Semantics. You know how protective they are. You didn’t even ask. Just rolled in there like it was yours.”
