Jupiter Gate

by Mana Sol

  “Inside here, quick.”

  That was all the warning I got before I was hurled unceremoniously inside a tiny closet. My head banged on the wall, hard, and something clattered to the ground by my face. Before I could try to wriggle into a more comfortable position, someone kicked my bound hand and feet in and squashed me against the wall - then slammed the door closed. Pitch-black. I snarled again, hating them with every fiber of my being. When I got out of here, I was going to make them pay ten times over -

  “We shouldn’t leave her in there too long,” someone mumbled in a hushed voice through the door, and I froze immediately. I could hear them. They didn’t know, and I certainly hadn’t expected the door to be so thin - small blessings. With greedy ears, I inched around as much as I could in the impossibly cramped space and listened hard.

  “Yeah, well, we don’t know yet what they’ll let slide. Someone should come back here in like a few hours or something.”

  “No, just an hour. Those bitches look like they’ll go crying to the Headmistress as soon as they realize they can’t find her on the first go.”

  “Ugh. Well, at least we did the fun part. She’s going to look like a mess when she comes to class in the morning.”

  They giggled again. So they were the ones from my class. I paid them no mind before so I hadn’t recognized them, but now, I would remember their voices. I swore it. And not just that but a few of their names that I’d caught, especially that Iaife.

  “Hey, you guys think we should tell Zed?”

  “Ugh, you need to stop that. Sucking up to him doesn’t work, okay?”

  “I’m not -”

  “Just be like Ravonne and ask him to bed. Maybe he’ll say yes.”

  More giggles, but this time an angry insult from the one who’d suggested letting Zedekiel know what they’d done. Well, at least that meant he was unaware. Until now, I’d been assuming he was at least somewhat behind this - after all, his behavior had been inexplicably off all morning, and it was clear he had been plotting something. Not this, though, apparently.

  When the voices fell quiet outside the door, I renewed my savage efforts to fight off the knots around my hands and feet. They’d even tangled up my fingers so I couldn’t cast anything, although with immobile arms, I would have been too limited to do anything too useful anyway.

  My back screamed in protest as I banged my shoulders and head around in the tiny closet, and a broom fell on top of me to bash me in the face, but I ignored it as I worked the binds, muscles burning and skin chafed raw. And this disgusting rag of a scarf in my mouth, I needed it off my tongue but couldn’t do that without my hands. I needed to get at least one free, damn it.

  When my left finally slipped out, I could no longer feel the fingers, and I had to wait until the blood rushed back and returned sensation to me before I could fight off the rest. I spat out the gag first, making a disgusted sound deep in my throat as I worked my jaw a few times, then hurried to undo the knots around my other limbs. Damn them, what were those fae assholes, professional knot-makers? I clenched my teeth, and even if it weren’t dark as sin already in the closet, I was sure I would have been blind with fury.

  I was glad for one thing, that I hadn’t had to scream for help and have someone coming to my rescue. I didn’t need rescue. I needed payback. I staggered to my feet, banging into the walls again and again before straightening at last. When I reached for the door handle, however, I paused.

  I could get out of here. That was the smart thing to do. Any sensible, logical, smart person would do that.

  Yet I recalled how those little pieces of garbage had whispered how they would come back. An hour? How long had it been? It had to have been at least half an hour that I spent sawing uselessly at my stupidly strong restraints (what were those things made of, what the hell). So…

  No. No, that was a bad, bad idea. I shouldn’t.

  I really shouldn’t.

  Two minutes later, I was putting the finishing touches on two glowing arrays positioned around the doorway, one at the top and one on the doorjamb, the side it would open from. A double inverse propulsion array, both of them, and I grinned and bit my bottom lip even though I accidentally cracked my funny bone against something jutting out from the wall. God damn it, not enough space. It was suffocating in here. But if I stepped out and they were there, if they saw me, I wouldn’t be able to use this one chance, the only one I might get in a long, long time to get my payback.

  This was such a bad idea. A reckless idea. I was supposed to be too smart for this, too controlled. But Addy knew me better than I knew myself, that my specialty wasn’t really Thaumaturgy.

  It was being petty.

  I clutched one scarf in my hands, letting it loop loosely in my grip. The other draped over my shoulders so I could reach it as soon as I needed it. I checked the arrays again. Yes, all in good order.

  Bad idea, my other side chided me. Bad!

  But, oh, God, I wanted to do it so bad, anyway.

  I waited in the darkness, pretending to scold myself until at last, at last, the door swung open and someone stood before me in the doorway.

  I didn’t hesitate. I triggered the arrays, and the inverted propelling sigils flared bright for one brilliant instant before a vast suctioning force manifested with all the vicious strength I had poured into the spells. The shape lurched, then hurtled toward me, sucked in by the vacuum -

  -and only too late did I realize my mistake. I tried to negate the magic and cast a Dispel to cancel the propulsion, but that was my spellwork. Which meant it was flawless, perfectly timed, and all I got for my effort was a wrenched arm when the shape crashed into me and sent me into the wall so hard it knocked all the air out of my lungs in a pained wheeze. The door slammed shut as well, bathing both of us in darkness so much thicker than it had been before. That would have been bad enough, but then the sound of something loud and rustling deafened me, just before I was crowded even harder against the wall. I knew that sound. That was the sound of wings exploding out of someone’s back, and I knew because there was only one person it might be -

  “What the hell is this, Blair Kaine.”

  I closed my eyes.

  God damn it.

  27

  I could have handled a fae, especially if it had been a twiggy one. Catch them as soon as they came flying in courtesy of the inverted propulsion trap, then truss them up like a scared little pig while the others fought to open the door against the suctioning power of the arrays stamped into the doorway. It was going to have been glorious. I would have paid for it in blood later, I was sure, but at least for that moment, I could have enjoyed the sweetest kind of victory as I did to one of them exactly what they’d done to me. My skin was still burning with the symbols they’d etched on my skin, whatever they were, and I’d intended to give a few marks of my own. A bit blacker and bluer, but still tit for tat.

  Instead, I’d gotten someone twice my weight cannonballing into me, and I hadn’t stood a chance. Squashed into the wall, crushed by a rock-solid chest and crowded even more by feathers literally in my face, and most invasive, feeling a warm breath fanning down my shirt where the top button had popped off in the chaos.

  My plans were always perfect. Exceedingly.

  “Please get your wings out of my face, Zedekiel.”

  “What the hell were you even doing, Blair.”

  “Let’s not dwell on what might have been and try to fix this problem we’re in, okay?”

  He made a disgruntled sound in my ear. “Undo your spells. Right now.”

  “I’d like to, believe me, but I can’t because you’re crushing my hand and the other one is tangled in your wing. I need to point at the arrays to negate them, so can you please just put those things back. Why did you even take them out in the first place?”

  He paused, trying. “It was reflex. And I can’t.”

  “What?”

  “I said I can’t.”

  “Why can’t you!”

  “They
’re…agitated now.”

  They were agitated? What about me! They were taking up every inch of the closet that our bodies weren’t already occupying. I hardly knew where I ended and he began, thanks to this massive feathery bullshit choking all the air out of this place. And out of me, too. Well, nothing else to it. I squirmed in the corner, ignoring the painful, sharp whatever-it-was on the wall pressing against my shoulder blade. I just needed my hand free, and -

  “Stop moving,” he barked in my ear, and I stopped to give him a fierce, disbelieving glare even though he would never see it in the darkness.

  “Do you want to get out of here or not?” I demanded, then began moving again. “And can you at least try to be useful, if you don’t mind -”

  “Stop touching my wings, Blair!”

  “They’re literally all over me, Zedekiel!”

  “Stay still for one minute -”

  An odd sound made me pause for a second, but when I didn’t hear it again, I continued my vigorous efforts. “If you’re not going to help, then just be quiet while I fix this,” I snapped. “Move!”

  This time, when the odd noise seeped into my ear once more but louder and decidedly more intense, I froze. I stopped moving, stopped talking, stopped thinking, and suddenly I realized exactly what position we were in. He was crushed against me, chest to chest and hips to hips, with one arm jammed between mine and the wall. And if he couldn’t feel every line of my body the way I could feel his…

  “You need…to stop…moving…Blair.”

  I wished, abruptly, that I hadn’t figured out what the strange noise had been, or why his chest was suddenly heaving against mine in the darkness. I wished, too, that I couldn’t feel his breath on my neck, ghosting down my blouse, or the way his wings quivered around me in a way that was both ominous and thrilling. I also wished I didn’t recognize that hitched, hoarse rasp at the bottom of his voice, one that I wasn’t stupid enough to misunderstand. I closed my eyes.

  “Please,” I said in a deceptively serene voice. “Please tell me that’s not what I think pressing on my thigh right now.”

  He didn’t answer. He did, however, move something that made me realize there was yet another problem I hadn’t noticed that was way too close to my skirt that had ridden up. His fingers brushed against me, perilously close to my rear, and I jumped at the cool searing sensation that pierced its way down my leg. At the lurch, he made the strangled noise again and sharply bowed his head, banging it against the wall over my shoulder. “I told you to stop.”

  His wings were now crowding me even more than before, which thankfully distracted me from something else pushing against my leg. But those wings were the only reason I was stuck here at all. I tried to breathe shallowly, turn my head and give him as much room as I could, but just then, an intoxicating pulse of Nephilim aura washed straight through my body and set me aglow from the inside. I shuddered minutely. Couldn’t help it. And judging by the way his breathing quickened, I knew he’d felt it.

  Oh, no. Please, no. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be sitting on top of a fae right now, crowing and gloating, not trapped in a closet with a Nephilim who was apparently as healthy as any young man could hope to be.

  I waited a long moment before I could gather up the nerve to speak. I was afraid even a single syllable would worsen the situation, but we had to move, damn it. “Can’t you…tuck them in?” I asked quietly. “Are they, uh, hurt?”

  “I’m…trying.”

  Trying. A thrum of anger ran through me. I couldn’t even get my wrist mobile enough to cast a Dispel. He was making an idiot out of both of us. “How can your wings be this” - I fought with myself, considered dropping it, but forged on anyway - “sensitive? You blocked my whole spell last week with them. You deflect magic with them. And physical attacks.”

  “It’s different,” he seethed.

  “What is?”

  “Between offensive touches and -” He paused. “…Inoffensive ones.”

  I blanched. “Look, I never…I’ve never meant to grope you, or anything, so don’t blame -”

  “It’s not you,” he said impatiently. “It’s me. Just be quiet and let me calm down.”

  …Him? It was him? What was that supposed to mean, I wanted to ask, but that was the part of me bewitched by the Nephilim aura now pouring out of him unbridled. I knew what the answer was. Thank God the sensible part of me was dominant, and somehow, even with a Dispelling sign to protect me, I felt the pressure of his influence lose its oppressive edge. It was still there, thick and suffocating, but somehow I was floating above it…I think.

  “All right,” I said slowly. “But I need you to do something.”

  “What.”

  “Can you take your hand out from under my skirt.”

  He cursed, quietly.

  “It’s fine,” I lied. “Just uncomfortable. Your hand is burning hot.” His breath hitched again. Great. I’d thought I was helping. “Or not. You do you. I just…once your wings are fine and you, you tuck them back in, I can cancel the arrays…”

  “What did you even have them up for? What were you planning?”

  “Nothing that actually happened. So. You know. No need to worry about that. Let’s focus on this, okay?” It occurred to me this was the second time he’d sabotaged my plans for vengeance. I grit my teeth, beating back anger because right now, I needed to stay level and calm. “Why are you here?” I asked. “They were going to let me out eventually. Or did you think I was going to do something to them?”

  “Clearly, you were.”

  “So you came here to make sure you intercepted it?”

  “And it looks like I did. But now I have to wonder why you planned to trap someone in here with you. There’s not a lot of room in here, Blair Kaine.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not the size of the average fae. The plan was not to end up -” I broke off. ‘End up grinding’ was not a pleasant reminder to give him when he was still fighting down very obvious evidence of his physical discomfort. Or extreme physical comfort. Something. Maybe I shouldn’t think about the pressure on my thigh at all, I suggested to myself.

  “Progress?” I asked a moment later. “How are we doing now?”

  “You…your breathing. It’s on…my wings.”

  He was fighting to keep his sentences together now, and I sucked in a sharp inhale when I felt him lean into me even harder. And fuck me, but I shuddered again and wilted, withering under something that wasn’t quite Nephilim influence even if I tried to convince myself it was. Because I needed an excuse, a proper excuse for why I was letting long, warm fingers inch up the curve where my thigh met my rear, a proper excuse for why I wasn’t completely furious at the way my breasts were pressed against his hard chest, a proper excuse for -

  I shouted. I didn’t know what I shouted exactly, just that it was desperate and determined as I jerked against him hard to wrench my numb hand free. My face was fever-hot as I slashed through my still-spinning arrays with a motion of my hand, but that was just the price of what I had to do. Having to hear the guttural, primal groan from Zedekiel’s throat at my sudden movement or the way his hips stuttered against mine for an instant - inconsequential. What was important was that we were free, I told myself as we tumbled out the door that slammed open, hinges splintering, and that was that.

  I continued to tell myself that even as I scrambled to get off of him when we landed on the hallway floor in a tangled mess. I couldn’t meet his eyes as he lay there, massive black wings fluffed and his hair mussed and a keen glow in his blue eyes that looked drunken, craving -

  I fell against the wall twice in my haste to escape, but I didn’t get more than a dozen steps before I realized we weren’t alone. At the end of the short, dim hallway, Addy and Genie stood frozen mid-step, staring at me. There were still expressions of urgent concern and fear in their faces - they must have been looking for me, I realized belatedly - but then, Addy’s eyes drifted to the sight behind me. I didn’t follow her gaz
e, but I knew she was looking at Zedekiel, who had probably yet to get up from the floor. Then she looked back at me. Me, with my ruined hair, wrecked clothes, red-faced and a mess.

  Silence.

  “Okay,” she said slowly with forced cheer. “I guess we found you. We should get going now, okay?”

  I swallowed. I was ready to explain right here and now what had happened, that things weren’t what they looked like, but now was not the time. I could still feel Zed’s aura radiating like a furnace behind me, and I needed to get away from it. From him.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  28

  “It’s not what it looked like.”

  Addy threw her hands up and turned to face Genie, who chose that moment to look up at the ceiling from her nest of blankets on the floor. I knew too well now her way of pretending to be absent from the moment so she didn’t have to contribute to it. So, what? She wasn’t going to choose a side? I gripped the armrests of my chair and grimaced.

  “I already explained to you what happened. And that’s it.”

  “He had a boner!”

  “That wasn’t part of the plan. Obviously. How was I supposed to know he was the one coming back instead of the others? Do you think I did all that because I wanted a quick hump in a dusty closet with the assholes who did this to me?” I gestured at my face with a sharp twitch of one hand before returning it to the armrest. “I can’t even Dispel any of this. And if you think it doesn’t look bad now, just wait until tomorrow morning.”

  “What, how bad is it going to be?”

  “I’m going to look like someone took charcoal to me and drew a map of the entire Citadel all over my body.” I turned my hand over and examined the thin lines and swirling script scrawled all over the skin. They were still translucent but in a day… “This is old writing. Probably slurs. I’m not fluent enough in it to translate, but I don’t need to. And if you think that what happened was deliberate on my part after what his friends did to me, then you don’t know me at all.”