by Lan Chan
The Evil Three grimaced in unison. “Not much different,” Alison told me. Rachel had volunteered to watch Giselle but had almost steadfastly refused to be involved in anything else supernatural related.
Sasha arrived with Roland and Diana. Before I could ask the vamp about Andrei, he eyed me speculatively.
“How are you feeling,” he asked.
I cocked my head to the side. “I think that’s the first time you’ve asked me that since we’ve known each other.”
He grinned at me. His fangs were retracted but there was a shrewd gleam in his eyes. “What?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just checking to see if you have any injuries I should know about. Anything making you feel a bit under the weather.”
My frown must have said it all because Trey scowled. “They’re taking bets,” he told me. “Some moron from Pantheon has set up a pool about whether you or Chanelle will come out on top of the Unity Games.”
The grip I had on my fork grew tighter. “Why am I not surprised?” I said. Clearly there were jerks in all the Academies.
I started stabbing at the scrambled eggs on my plate. “This is just bloody perfect.”
“You’re going to try your best, though, aren’t you?” Trey asked.
“No! I’m not the competitive, stubborn sort at all.”
He flashed me his canines. I thought I saw Winnie squirming in her seat. We both pointedly ignored her.
“All jokes aside,” Trey said, “do you realise just how disastrous it could be if Chanelle wins?”
“Kai won’t agree to the vow even if she does.”
“He doesn’t have a choice,” Trey said. “And in the event that you’re out of the picture, I don’t think he’ll be in the right frame of mind to say no. I’ve been doing some extra study over the break–”
Roland and Sasha made gagging noises. Trey growled at them. “What? Is it so hard to believe that I don’t want to fall behind?”
“You’re a shifter,” Roland said. “Learning all that other junk is pointless.”
Trey’s nose wrinkled. I kicked him under the table to redirect his attention. “Anyway, have any of you read some of the crazy ideas the Nephilim Council have?” He was looking at Sophie when he said this. It was a natural assumption considering she was in closest contact with the Council. All she could do was shrug.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“No, I’m not!” she all but whimpered. “I’m so dead tired I could just crawl under the table and fall asleep.”
Roland scuffed the back of his head. “Yeah, that was pretty noisy last night, wasn’t it?”
“As if you would know,” Trey shot back. “You sleep like the undead and you snore like a mountain ogre.”
He turned his attention back to me. “I read one of the books in the library about how the Nephilim are the oldest of the line of supernaturals. There were a group of them who didn’t want to bring the other supernaturals into the fold at first. They considered us lower beings.”
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” a feminine voice said behind me.
I turned to find a girl a couple of years older than us. The golden glow around her body left little doubt what kind of supernatural she was. Her wheat-blonde hair hung in a thick braid over her left shoulder. Though her bone structure was too wide to be considered conventionally pretty, she had an aura about her that made her appear celestial.
“What did you say?” Diana said.
“Nothing personal,” she said. “Just the truth. Nephilim beats dwarf in the food chain. The sooner you accept it, the easier it’ll get.”
I had to physically stop Diana from stomping over the table, and my food, to get to the Nephilim girl.
“Barbara!” Bradley’s voice called out. The girl lifted her head. The smug smile on her face evened out into the real deal. Of course she was friends with Bradley. “My kind awaits.” Her gaze swept over the table until it landed on me. “See you in the Games, witch.”
“I’m going to give her a black eye,” Diana said, still struggling against me.
“Help!” I asked Roland. He shrugged.
“Let her do it,” he said. “The wench deserves it.”
“Too right!” Diana whisper-screamed.
Astrid walked by and helped calm Diana down by settling her back in her seat. “I think I just sprained my shoulder,” I said.
Sasha and Roland contemplated this. “How bad?” Roland asked. “Enough that you might perform poorly…”
I threw my fork at him. He ducked and it dropped on the floor. It made a loud clanging sound that drew the attention of half the room.
“Thanks a lot!” I could feel the eyes on the back of my head as I went to pick the fork up. Diana was still seething when I returned. She was bailing Astrid up about it.
“Yes, I know it’s a prejudiced assumption,” Astrid said. “Which is why the Supernatural Council was formed.”
“I read that the Nephilim were against that too,” Trey said.
Being too straight-laced to sugar-coat the truth, Astrid agreed. “Yes, they were. But in the end, they couldn’t risk yet another war when the forces of the Hell dimension were already so great.”
“Funny,” I said. “You don’t learn about this in Magical History.”
“Perhaps not at Bloodline. As best she can, Jacqueline attempts to bring all races together for the greater good. Headmistress Carmichael does not.”
“You went to Pantheon Academy didn’t you?” Trey asked her.
“Yes. It was by far a less positive experience than what I’ve had since I’ve been here as a guard.”
Diana turned on me, her brown eyes smouldering. “I don’t care what you have to do,” she said. “You’d better win these games.”
All I could do was gulp as I glanced down the table and was met with equal conviction in the eyes of the others.
“Uhh...I think we’re all forgetting one thing,” I said. “I’m human, remember?”
Behind me, somebody snorted. As I turned around, every muscle in my body coiled out of instinct. Giselle Hartnett stood a hand-span away, her icy blue eyes boring into me.
12
If it were possible, everyone on the table shrank back. All except Sophie who I thought might actually be asleep with her cheek propped on her elbow. Behind Giselle, Matilda and Rachel stood guard.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. My question was directed at Matilda. After everything that had happened, I still refused to forgive Giselle. It gave me the heebie-jeebies whenever I contemplated being stuck in her body.
“Got a meeting with Nora and Jacqueline to try and get in contact with the Human League,” Matilda said.
“You destroyed Terran,” Giselle accused.
I really didn’t want to get into this with her. Rachel was avoiding making eye-contact with anyone. Matilda was never any help when things needed smoothing over. All I could do was push my chin out and hold my ground.
“It needed to be done,” I said.
“So was what I did.” I took in the soft colour in her cheeks and the sharpness of her eyes. When I’d unbound her all those weeks ago, she’d been almost gaunt. Physically, she was fully recovered. I couldn’t really account for the bat-crap crazy that was her mind.
“You can think whatever you want,” I said. “It doesn’t change the fact that you tried to kill me.”
She leaned over so we were at eye-level. No smile. “If I had wanted to kill you, little sister, you wouldn’t have made it out of the prison that first day.”
Don’t react. A sliver of apprehension trickled down my back. Old habits die hard. My muscle memory was overloaded. “You don’t scare me,” I lied. “So go away and do your lame badass impression somewhere else.”
The lines around her lips creased into a smile’s sinister cousin. “The dwarf is right,” she said. “Whether you choose to believe it or not, these Nephilim monsters will always think they’re better than you.”
With that, she turned
on her heel and slowly walked away. She paid no mind to the fact that the entire dining hall had gone preternaturally quiet in her presence.
“See you around,” Matilda said before she and Rachel followed Giselle. I blew out a breath.
“That better be the last surprise visit we get,” I muttered. “What’s going on with the Human League?”
I had to nudge Sophie to get her to open her eyes. “Huh? Oh, um... they’ve kind of gone a bit silent. Mama isn’t sure what’s happened, but the Council have decided to try and reach out to them this time. They’re a bit worried the League have gone underground and are planning to just out the supernatural community.”
“Are we doing anything about that?”
Sophie rubbed her eyes.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m just tired. After that stupid flare last night, I couldn’t sleep, so I went through my Magical Ingredients textbook trying to match up anything with what’s inside your great-grandmother’s diary.”
As opposed to yours truly who hadn’t even opened any of her textbooks. A siren sounded before I could bail Sasha up about Andrei. The entire dining hall pulsed with anticipation and a little bit of dread. The first morning of each semester was taken up by an assembly. There was a bottleneck at the door. When we finally got outside, the professors were there directing us to where the athletics field used to be.
“What gives?” I asked Trey who was the tallest of the boys and the only one who could really see over the crowd.
“We’re being herded to a portal.” For some strange reason, I suddenly felt queasy. Somebody bumped into the back of me.
“You never get the hang of this, do you?” Isla said. She sidestepped me and disappeared through the portal.
Diana had her arm slung through Sophie’s and was leading her through as well. I stood there biting my lip.
“What’s wrong?” Trey asked. The other boys hadn’t even noticed when I fell behind. They were too busy trying to be the first through to the other side.
“I’m not sure.” I could feel my face moulding into an involuntary frown. “I just...I’m not that keen on portals since...” I left it hanging. Trey’s grey eyes widened. We were getting strange looks from the people having to navigate around us.
He took my hand. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
Just before we stepped through to the other side, he wrapped his arm around my back and lifted me. He seemed to think speed was the key to successful portal travel. Unfortunately, the guard on the other side was none other than Kai. Unlike me, Trey wasn’t attuned to Kai’s personal brand of lunatic energy. He was still holding my hand and trying to lead me away from the flow of the crowd.
Kai’s green eyes became slits. For a second, I thought he might shove through the crowd towards us. I raised a brow at him, but it only seemed to make things worse. His focus was locked on Trey. The Tasmanian tiger shifter had turned and was cupping the back of my neck in his palms all of a sudden.
“You okay?” he asked me.
Behind him, Kai started in our direction. I removed Trey’s hands and nodded quickly. “Yep, thanks. Let’s go and find the others.”
I grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt and dragged him around the corner where the flow of students was already moving.
“There you are!” Diana said. She strongarmed me away. Completely unaware of how close he’d come to being punched, Trey disappeared to try and find the other boys. I bit the inside of my cheek as Diana used her solid weight to edge through the crowd. She left me with Sophie.
“Was that Kai I saw supervising the portal?” Sophie asked.
“Ah huh.”
“And was that Trey I saw pretty much hugging you?”
I made a face at her. For someone who was half asleep, she sure as heck saw a lot. “Poor Trey,” Sophie said. “He’s going to get punched for his good deed.”
“He better not!” I snapped. “Not unless Kai wants to get punched too.”
I felt my fists bunching. It didn’t matter that my punch would feel like a gust of wind to him. “He doesn’t get to act all territorial with my friends when he did what he did with Chanelle.”
Sophie gave me a sympathetic smile. “I don’t think logic has anything to do with it when supernaturals go all crazy with mating stuff.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She yawned and put her head on my shoulder. Diana was having a shouldering match with someone just in front of us. “Nobody’s told you?” Sophie asked. “A Nephilim bonding isn’t so different to a shifter mating. If anything, it could be more intense. It’s all the bloodline stuff.”
“We’re not bonded,” I grit out.
“Maybe not physically. But he’s basically given his entire race the middle finger over you. It’s only a matter of time.”
I wanted to contradict her, but Diana had managed to burrow right through to the front of the crowd. The field opened up into an amphitheatre-style stadium. No wonder there had been a big crater in the middle of the Academy.
“Where do we want to sit?” Diana asked. Before I could respond, a shoulder collided with the side of my cheek. Sophie and I went sprawling forward. We would have tripped over the top step if Diana hadn’t been there to catch us. My cheek throbbed.
“Oops,” Chanelle’s silken voice said. “My apologies. Did I break your little witch bones?”
From down a few steps, she seemed even taller and more elegant than she had on the bridge. In stark contrast to my jeans and buttoned shirt, she wore a burgundy maxi dress with matching lipstick. Her hair was gathered in a high ponytail. It swayed out behind her as though an imaginary wind was blowing.
Inside my head, I leaped on her and slammed my fist in her face. In reality, I bit my tongue and turned my back on her. I saw Diana’s face spasm. Sophie clutched my hand. She winced as I clutched back.
“Let’s go,” I told them. Diana sputtered but I was already stepping past her.
“What was that?” Diana huffed as we sat.
“Just ignore her.”
I chose a middle row of seats because I figured it would be easier for us to blend in. All around us, Bloodline students were filling up the column. There were four columns in total. I guessed it was one for each of the four magical schools. I’d like to say I lost sight of Chanelle in the throng of bodies, but she stood out like a rose amongst the weeds. She glided down the steps toward the front near the stage. I kept hoping for her to twist her ankle and go flying over but of course nothing of the sort happened.
I exhaled quietly, willing the anger to subside. Diana prodded my ribs. She sat on my right while Sophie was on my left. “What gives?” Diana said. “You should have knocked her block off.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. If I didn’t keep a lid on my rage, I might end up blowing the amphitheatre up. If the Councils disapproved of me now, how would they feel about me then? It wasn’t worth it.
Diana regarded me with a strange expression on her face. “Humans! In our world, if some wench tried to hone in on my man, I’d shave her face off in a second.”
“Feel free to be my proxy,” I said before I could clamp down on the snark.
She nudged me. “I knew it!” she said. Then she glanced over my shoulder at Sophie. “Both of you are way too complicit.”
I wasn’t sure where she was going with this until I followed her line of sight. Max was sitting a dozen rows in front of us. He had his elbows rested on his knees. Evan was on his left. Gwen sat in front. The seat on his right was an aisle seat. It would have been empty if not for the group of girls I didn’t recognise. One of them was leaning over Max. If she wasn’t careful, she would fall onto his lap. I had a feeling that was the point.
Gwen kept trying to engage him in conversation to get the other girls to back off, but they were having none of it. When I looked at Sophie, she was strangling something imaginary in her hands.
Before I could think what to do about it, a freak wind ripped ove
r the seats and sent a couple of the girls sprawling. They landed on their feet, but Max’s roaring laughter had them snarling. They walked away. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Scanning the crowd, I found Brigid a couple of rows back from where Max sat. She lowered her hand and returned to her conversation with one of her minions.
Well I’ll be damned. It seemed that inter-Academy rivalries were stronger than some old grudges. Maybe I didn’t need to do anything about Chanelle. Maybe Brigid would do it for me. If Kai didn’t stop her by jumping in front of Chanelle. Speak of the devil, he ambled his way past us to the empty seat beside Max.
Before sitting, his head turned towards us. I avoided his gaze. Any fallout was mitigated by the crackle of magical feedback. That was the universal signal for sit down and shut up.
We did the sitting down part, but there was just too much excitement in the air for the crowd to quieten down.
After a couple of false starts, Professor Eldridge blew an ear-piercing whistle that shattered the noise of the crowd. The whole place went deadly silent. It was nice to see she had the same effect on the students from the other Academies.
The heads of the four Academies were lined up on stage. Today, Jacqueline wore a storm-cloud-grey suit. This one had gold running along the lapel. She was in ankle boots instead of heels. How she’d managed to get down the stairs was beyond me.
Jordan Knight, headmaster of Dominion Academy, took several steps forward so that he was almost lined up with the edge of the stage. Behind it was a building that was made of white stone with golden trim.
“Students,” Jordan said. His voice carried clearly over us despite the lack of a megaphone. “Welcome to the new semester.” He paused for uproarious applause. I followed along with the crowd even though my enthusiasm for it was less than stellar. “You will no doubt be aware that this is a Unity semester. And a very special Unity Games at that. Our community has had some unsettling times recently. Now more than ever, the bonds we create with each other must be unbreakable.”
My jaw clamped. Somebody in the vicinity of where Chanelle sat catcalled. “There damn well is a bond!” she shouted. Laughter and applause erupted from the Pantheon students. The Fae on the stage smiled beatifically, but she shook her head and they quietened down. I could feel the eyes of half the Bloodline Academy students on me. There were hundreds more from the other Academies.
