Destiny Awakened

by C. J. Cooke

  “Shit.” I mumbled. There was really no other way to sum it up.

  The headmaster cocked a half smile at my eloquent response. “Indeed. Some believe that the gates should be shut and the realms should be separated. Others, including myself, believe that the damage has already been done and shutting the gates isn’t going to repair the breaches which have been made. This is a problem of our own creation and we cannot abandon the humans to the consequences of our actions. There is a fight coming and we need to be prepared for it.” He said ominously.

  “Shit.” I mumbled again. I may not be eloquent but it really did sum up the situation.

  The headmaster and Caleb had other business to discuss and I was excused so that I could go shower and get to my afternoon lesson. As I left the office the corridors were busy with students getting ready for their next lesson. Or at least that was what I thought they were doing until I closed the door behind me and all of them turned to look at me. What I had thought was just students going about their business was actually five guys lounging around apparently waiting on me. Well wasn’t I Miss Popular right now.

  A dirty blonde stepped forward first, from the build of him, and from what I now knew of the school, I guessed that he was a shifter. “Well, hey there Aria, I’m Ryker and this is my pack.” He said waving a hand over one shoulder.

  Nausea was the strongest feeling I felt right now. He was attractive in a sort of way. But he had nothing on my three. There was something about him that just gave you the urge to either throw up or throw something at him. Especially now that he seemed to think that my silence gave him permission to check me out like some piece of meat. Now I was definitely going to throw up. Words completely failed me so I turned towards my room and went to walk away. That was until a meaty hand dropped down on my shoulder to turn me back. Had to give him his dues, Ryker had balls, or was it stupid, yeah that’s right he was definitely stupid.

  “Hey hey don’t go running away now darling, we just want to introduce ourselves” he said turning me back towards him. I went with a sickly sweet smile on my face. This was definitely my favourite part of the game.

  “Oh I’m sorry I didn’t realise that you just wanted to introduce yourselves to me.” I slowly ran one hand down his chest and a satisfied smile slide across his face as his free hand came up to hold onto my waist. Urgh he was such a dick. I caught the eye of one of the other guys over his shoulder and I could see him silently laughing. He knew what was about to go down and he wasn’t warning the giant douche in front of me. As my hand trailed over his stomach I took a step closer and brushed against the front of him.

  “That’s right baby. We heard about what you did today. A female like you needs a proper mate, a proper pack. I can look past these scars and treat you like you need.” He said running a finger along my shoulder. “We haven’t taken a mate yet, but you baby, you could be good enough to try out for our pack.”

  Thankfully by this point my hand had reached it’s intended target and I grabbed and twisted like I was opening my favourite beer. And the squeal he made would have made any Belieber proud. I think I even heard his friend bark out a laugh behind him.

  “You see the thing is … baby … I just can’t look past this little pickle I’m holding in my hand. I mean at this size is it really any use to you?” I shoved him away from me and wiped my hand on my trouser leg. He collapsed down to his knees once I’d let him go. Perhaps I’d twisted a little too much. I ran one hand over his hair, he was so much like every man I’d worked against back in the human realm. Grabbing a fist full of hair in my hand I bent his head back so that he was looking me in the face. “I suggest that once you get the use of your legs back, that you get up and walk away. I don’t need to see your face again, do you understand me Pickle.” I released his hair and patted his face kindly. If there was any justice in the world Pickle wouldn’t get the use of his pickle back.

  I headed down the corridor heading towards the stairs back to my room. None of Pickle’s pack made a move to stop me or to pick up their alpha from the floor. I’m pretty sure he’d started crying. If I hurried I might just have time to take a shower and get to my afternoon class on time.

  Chapter Ten

  Kyle

  “And that ass!”

  I heard yet another guy comment. Sykes and Liam were both struggling with it as much I was. The comments going around the cafeteria about Aria were grating on us. We may not have declared it to the world, but Aria was our mate and hearing them talking about her like this was about to cause an issue for both me and my wolf.

  “We need to do something Kyle.” Liam said shifting uncomfortably in his chair. Sykes was just tearing into a sandwich like if had personally offended him. “This isn’t going to stop until they know that she is ours.”

  “She isn’t ready, she grew up in the human world. All of this is going to be confusing for her. We need her to work through it in her own time.” I explained just as I heard someone else make a comment about her ass again. It was a mighty fine ass, but it was mine.

  “I dunno” Sykes mumbled. I looked at him expectantly and he continued. “Aria is strong. She’s clearly been through a lot in her life, which we need to do something about by the way. I think that she would want to know. She’s going to want to have control over her life if she had it rough to start with. I think she would prefer to know. It’s been less than a day and she clearly feels something for us already. She’s bound to be feeling the pull and rather than letting it confuse her I think we should be open and tell her what it is. If she needs time after that then we give it to her. We give her all the time that she needs.” Then he tore another huge chunk off his sandwich.

  “You’re right. She’s strong and we shouldn’t treat her as anything less than that.” I nodded in agreement.

  “Ten Drakons that I bang her before the end of term!”

  “Let’s get out of here. I can’t listen to this anymore.” I strode away from the table riding the anger that burned through my veins. My wolf was straining to be released. He wanted to rip into everyone around us. She belongs to us, me and my brothers, no one else was allowed to touch her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Aria

  After my run in with Pickle and his pack, I ran back up to my room and quickly showered and changed. Thankfully the uniform isn’t as stripper chic as I had first thought but it’s still pretty ridiculous. I’m twenty for god’s sake. I don’t need this in my life right now. I just made it to the afternoon class before the bell went and slipped into a desk conveniently in the middle of my three guys. I had Liam to the left, Kyle to the right and Sykes was stationed in front of me. Liam slipped a sandwich onto the desk for me and when I looked up at the teacher they just smiled and nodded at me to go ahead. Apparently, they knew that I had been in a meeting with the headmaster whilst everyone else was eating. She walked over to my desk as I started eating and placed a fat textbook in front of me.

  “Good afternoon Aria, I am Professor Pax. You’ve only missed a few lessons but you will probably want to read this book to help with the background knowledge that the others may already have.” She smiled gently at me. I decided straight away that I liked her. She was tall, slim and had a gentle smile that made you instantly trust her. I had no idea what her race was. I wasn’t even sure if you could tell just by looking at someone. That should probably be one of the questions that I ask the guys before I embarrass myself. “If you have any questions just let me know and I can always set aside some time to tutor you through some of the basic information that you may be missing.”

  “Thank you, I really appreciate that. I’ll give this a go first and then let you know.” I said pointing towards the book which she had given to me. If was about two inches thick with a black hardbound cover. The only writing on it were embossed gold letters reading “Angelic History.”

  Professor Pax walked back to the front of the class and took a seat on the edge of her desk facing everyone. “Right class, we left off
discussing the disappearance of the Angels during the Galvinae Wars and the various theories which have revolved around this. If you could open up your textbooks to page 118 we can start from there. Can someone give me a brief explanation of the war for Aria please?” She asked addressing the class. I quickly pulled my textbook and notepad out of my bag and grabbed a pen. When I opened up my textbook at page 118 I was greeting with a painting of a hoard of demons facing down a smaller army of people.

  Everyone around me was shuffling around in the chairs and opening up their books. Conner who was sat at the front of the class and had been operating the simulator this morning was the first to speak. “The Fae battled with the demon race the last time that they tried to overtake this realm. They made an alliance with the angels and managed to push them back. At the final battle the angels never appeared and the Fae were left alone to face the demon army. The Fae won but were decimated in the process. The demons were sealed into their own realm where they have remained. After, the Fae were so enraged by the abandonment of the angels and the other races not assisting them that they withdrew from this realm into their own.”

  “Very good Conner.” Professor Pax said. “And what was the consequence of the Fae leaving this realm?” She asked.

  “They stole the majority of our powers to do it.” Huffed Della from the back.

  “No,” Professor Pax corrected. “The Fae held a true connection with the natural realm and it was through them that the majority of the natural magic flowed. When they severed this connection by leaving this realm the flow of natural magic was greatly reduced and those of us remaining had less access to it.”

  “It was selfish.” Della huffed again, clearly not liking being corrected in front of the rest of the class. “They knew what would happen and they left anyway.”

  I tentatively raised my hand not quite sure what the process was here if I wanted to ask a question. Professor Pax just smiled at me. “Yes, Aria.”

  “Why didn’t all the races fight against the Demons?” I asked.

  “That is a very good question Aria.” Professor Pax stated.

  “No it’s not,” Della scoffed. “They weren’t our problem.”

  “It seems like a Demon race that wants to take over your realm should be everyone’s problem.” I countered.

  “And that is exactly the point.” Professor Pax said standing. “There were two sides to the argument. A small band of the other races did come together to stand with the Fae but the majority refused to assist. Those who refused did so on the grounds that it was not their job to police the demons. Historically, it had always fallen to the angelic race to police them. Over the years their presence became less and less in this realm and it was felt that this was the cause of the demons finally rising up against us. Essentially, even with the stronger Fae connection to natural magic the rest of us didn’t have the strength to stand against them alone. It would only be if the races came together that we would have been strong enough but you have to remember that we had been through centuries of segregation. The realm was not as it was today. They refused to stand together. With the lack of an angelic force the Fae were the only ones who stood up and fought to preserve the way of life that we know today. Those that banded together to help them agreed with what I expect your viewpoint is Aria. We all live here and it was a threat to all of us if the demon race were able to talk over. It was for the greater good to stand up and fight.”

  “How long ago was this?” I asked frowning.

  “The final battle was won eighty nine years ago.”

  “Wow, so only four generations ago the races all hated each other enough that they would rather die than stand together?” I asked.

  “Essentially, yes.” Professor Pax answered. “There was no solidarity after the war either. It was a long time before we saw any kind of peace.” Sadness flickered across her face. Now I understood why the academy was so important. It there was so much bad blood that extinction felt like a better option, getting them all to even come to a school together must have seemed like an impossible dream. I understood now what an impossible task that the headmaster had taken on.

  The rest of the lesson was spent looking at the angelic involvement in the early stages of the war. It was hard work and I took more notes than anyone else seemed to but I suppose they grew up around this and already know all of this stuff. After that the rest of the day was ours. The usual schedule was two lessons in the morning or one if it was combat, two in the afternoon and then everyone was free to do what we wanted. For me the schedule was even lighter, but if there was one thing that I was taking away from my first lesson, it was that I needed to do an absolute tonne of background reading. I felt like I had so much to learn just to catch up but I was determined to do it as fast as I could. If what the headmaster was predicting was going to come true I didn’t have time to waste.

  I was walking out of the classroom with the guys and joking about when I suddenly walked into a solid wall of muscle. I bounced back off it and Sykes caught me chuckling and set me back on my feet. Liam and Kyle both slipped in front of me creating a wall between me and whatever man-gorilla had just got in my way. It was adorable really that they thought I needed protecting. It was going to get old pretty quick though if they continued with it.

  “Kyle” the man-gorilla growled. “We’re just here to have a talk with the new girl.” He smiled down at him. Well it was more of a grimace. Far too much teeth. Someone should really try and help him with that. It was more constipated than scary.

  I shouldered my way between the guys and went to barge past man-gorilla. “Fibre, definitely need more fibre.” I said patting him on the shoulder as I walked past. I glanced over my shoulder to see the confused look on his face as I was checking if my guys were following. The two sides seemed to be engaged in some kind of stare-off which, I will be completely honest, I had no idea about. My guess is that it was some kind of male dick measuring contest. Probably best not to get involved. Eventually man-gorilla looked down and Kyle did the sexiest half smirk that I honest to god thought I might have done a little mini swoon for a minute.

  “Her name is Aria, and she belongs to us” Kyle stated before pushing his way past man-gorilla, taking my hand and leading us all away.

  We all silently walked back to my room and the guys waited for me to open the door before we all filed inside. Something weird was definitely going on and I definitely hadn’t missed the belonged to us comment. On one hand, yeah obviously I did. On the other, hello I met you yesterday and ask a girl first!

  “Explain” I said slumping down in the armchair and dropping my bag on the ground beside me. Ordinarily I would go for the bed but I didn’t want to get pulled into one of those cuddle situations like last night that melted my brain. I needed to think for this conversation.

  “After combat this morning, you basically made yourself top mate material. Every single male shifter in the school was talking about it at lunch. They’re all going to want to compete for your attention.” Liam explained.

  Okay. I suppose that made sense in an animal planet kind of way.

  “They can’t have you,” Kyle said pacing in the small space in front of my door. He was clearly agitated but I wasn’t understanding where this was coming from. My confusion must have been showing.

  “Don’t you feel it?” Sykes asked me quietly while looking down at the floor.

  If he meant the feeling of rightness that came over me when these three were around me then obviously. But I wasn’t going to be the first one to jump in and say that to three guys I only met yesterday. I didn’t know how to voice how I felt without making a fool of myself. Liam must have realised from the look on my face that I was struggling with how to put it into words and took pity on me. “You belong with us Aria.” He simply said. And all of the air just rushed out of me with relief.

  I stood up and caught Kyle’s hand on his, what felt like, millionth time past the foot of the bed. He just stopped and looked at his hand in min
e in confusion. I could feel a vibration in him and somehow instinctively knew that it was his wolf’s agitation that was causing the pacing. I couldn’t wait until I finally got a chance to see them all shifted. I wasn’t sure what I should say but in the end it was obvious. I yanked him closer to me, stood on my tiptoes and gently kissed him. He didn’t move at first but then his arms came around me. He opened his mouth to me and I felt his tongue swipe across the seam of my lips asking for entrance. I opened my lips just as I heard Sykes whisper “I guess she does feel it.”

  Kyle kissed me until my knees felt weak and I was definitely in the realms of having been kissed silly. I was currently cuddled up against Sykes on the bed with Liam sat next to me with my legs across his lap and Kyle had pulled the desk chair in front of us.

  “You must have some questions.” Kyle asked.

  “I’m not crazy? You all feel like this, don’t you?” I asked feeling a little ridiculous now.