"I didn’t know ghosts could smell." I throw a pillow at her, then pull my hair up in a quick ponytail, and wrap myself in a robe to answer the door, with no telling who it could be.
I’m still utterly embarrassed by my unkempt hair and state of undress as I realize it’s Eden.
"Sorry, did I wake you? I wondered if you would take a walk with me. I think I’ve sorted a few things out in my head and kind of owe you an apology or something."
I can see he’s trying hard to keep his eyes up on my face, and I quirk the left side of my mouth up at him. "Sure, just let me get dressed."
Chapter Twenty
"I've been playing somebody and it's helping nobody
And her lipstick arithmetic didn't stick
And now I'm sick, throwing fits."
~ Yungblud
I come out of my room as soon as I look more myself, forced to wipe off all my overnight makeup and redo it. I was starting to look like I was dead.
Eden walks me toward the Hall of Dreams, a familiar path even though I’ve only used this exact route one time. It being Sunday means most of the students are sleeping in or relaxing all around campus so we don’t have a big audience, and it’s both something I’m grateful for and something which makes me nervous. Being alone with Eden is dangerous.
I just had a good night with Jak and Saul. They’ve figured out how to coexist, and whatever is between roman and I is settled for now. I don’t need any more shakeups. I need to focus on moving forward with my tribe and getting beyond this awful first quarter to the rest of the year. To getting past my mommy and daddy issues so I can let it go and be my own person.
Even I can admit now that I’ve always thought of myself as independent and different, but I see how I’ve let those two lies shape mine, my opinions, my emotions, the way I treat others, and I don’t know if just copying someone else who’s blood of my blood is the right way to go.
I need to follow my own path.
It’s a tense silence, and a lot’s passing between us unsaid, which I hate the most with Eden. I wish he’d just tell me he wanted to fuck me or kill me and get it over with. It’s the not knowing which is driving me mad and to do stupid things, like take this walk when I already have two perfectly good boyfriends waiting for me tonight in my bedroom.
Then, he stops, turning to me with that same stress he gets when he runs his hands through his hair. Damn it, he’s got to stop that. Someone should make it against the rules for him to do that because it makes it too easy for all the girls to fall for him. I remember watching Holly and Layla even drip off of him whether he paid them any mind or not.
I wonder if it is a harpy thing or just an Eden thing.
"I think...I think we should be friends. If you want to."
"Wow, that must have been painful to get out,” I tease dryly.
"Don’t be a bitch..." he stops when I give him a look, but even as friends, I don’t know if I’d expect anything different form him. "Look, you don’t know my family, but they raised me to be a certain way. They tell me how I should think. How I should feel. Your mother may be awful, from what little I’ve seen of her, and your father not around, but you wouldn’t know how incredibly hard it is. I’ve have been wrestling with even smiling at you at all since the moment we met. I can’t explain it to someone who’s never lived it."
I sigh. "Then don't." I turn to walk away, but then his grabs me, his hand leaving a stinging heat where it lands on my arm
No, I can’t be attracted to him. He’s a jerk of the worst kind. What’s wrong with my body and brain? It’s so wrong, but all I want to do is see him get on his knees and beg for forgiveness. beg for my kisses.
The sickness of hellfire is definitely in me. I have a dark side, and this is making it very thirsty.
"Just, hear me out. I want to be around you, so can we settle for friends?"
"What about Layla and Thane and Holly..."
He cuts me off. "I don’t like them anymore than you do, but there’s only so much I can do without it getting back to my father. but I will help you in any way I can. Okay?"
I nod in acceptance against my will.
"So, tell me something about you."
"What?" I ask, confused.
"Well, if we’re friends, we want to get to know each other, right?"
Loud jeering interrupts the hallmark card friendship moment, and he lets out a curse. "Fuck, just follow my lead, okay. I forgot my brothers were coming in for my birthday. I shouldn’t have brought you to this side of the campus."
My jaw hangs open, but I don’t get to say anything as I see them all. Three boys, older ones, just as perfect as Eden, though two are heavily muscles like linebackers, another tall and thin with facial hair. All with wings so big I worry about them fitting into the hall when anyone else is here. They might whack me on the head with them. Though, I doubt that’s why Eden sounds so tense.
I need to watch my back, and if I thought they hadn’t already spotted me, I would have run.
"Oh, brother, just who we’ve been looking for," one of them says. He has silvery white hair, and I don’t know if this is a natural color for harpies or not.
"But who is this?" the tall one asks, examining me like a bug under a microscope. "Her scent is familiar, definitely a demigod. Oh, brother, what have you been up to without us?” His wide grin is unnerving, and I swear he has more than one row of teeth, like a shark. Of all the things I’ve seen at the academy, this has to be the most nightmarish. Why Eden doesn’t frighten me I have no idea. Maybe they're all a little different.
"Nobody. She studies with me sometimes. She was just going back to her room."
The third one blinks and then laughs. "You know I don’t buy the studying excuse for a second." He comes close in a flash, starling me and making me jump as he leans down to feel and sniff my hair. "Hmmm, this is Hades' whore of a daughter," he says, and I don’t know how he knows considering we’ve never met. "Did you bring her to share with us?" he asks.
"Don’t touch her!" he says, surprising both me and the gigantic harpy with his hands on me. But all it does is make the other two come close. Eden steps between us in a defensive stance, and suddenly we’ve gone from background friendship to standing up to his brothers to save me.
But maybe it’s because they could kill me, or torture me, or they mean what they say about sharing...
I want to wretch at the thought, but any weakness right now will surely get me in more trouble than I could handle.
"Ooh, don’t tell me you like this one," the creepy brother says. "You know gods are already a problem for us, always thinking they can take our glory and tell us what to do."
"Not to mention who her father is," the big one says.
The one still standing close to me is sniffing the air around me. "Look at her, though, and all that fire, I bet she’s hottttt."
"Get the fuck away from me!" I tell him, a fire ball in my hand.
I tell myself in my head I’m completely in control. I won’t lose control because that could lose me this battle, and I don’t think they'll take Eden’s defense of me lightly. I'll be fighting for both of us.
"The death princess thinks she can hurt us with that little fireball," they make fun and laugh.
"I told you guys to let her go and leave her alone. You came for my birthday. Let’s celebrate it," Eden coaxes, trying to get the focus off me. But these are predators, the real kind. I get it now more than ever before why he was so confused about me. His family is a true nightmare.
"What if we want to celebrate with her?"
I wait for Eden’s reaction to see what my next move would be. If Eden doesn't back me up here and agrees with them, it might be a good enough show for me to take down Eden. Then, they'll laugh, thank me for the good show, and worry more about him than me and I can get away.
"Too damn bad," Eden grits out, and I’m brought back to the scenario of us fighting together.
They make a move toward him, and I throw the fir
e, right at their wings. The feathers burn, falling as ash to the ground.
I know nothing of harpies. they might regrow, but I bet by his brothers scream it’s; damn painful.
I almost forget about the one next to me and have to turn to him as he tries to get his arms around me so he can carry me away.
But I know the rules from my life on earth - don’t get taken anywhere. stand your ground, go for what’s sensitive. In this case, his genitals likely still count, but the rest won’t work other than his wings.
Deidre appears as always in my time of need, and she looks thirsty for blood, her ghost eyes a bright red. She gets behind him and uses her teeth to rip at his wings, getting a good chunk off.
He’s horrified, confused, no idea who did that or how I could be behind and in front of him at the same time.
I let the ghost wrestle with him, only a little sad I won’t see the comical display, as I turn back to Eden and his two brothers.
I shriek in terror as one of them lifts him into the air with talons digging into his shoulders and ripping at them. his face is beaten purple, and the creepy brother is munching on his feet with those awful rows of teeth.
I throw everything I have at them and then some. Fire balls, fire cannons, smoke to choke them, until they drop him and come for me.
Eden stands up, not a lot of strength in him as he controls the air, a tornado now ripping through the hallway, a freight train sound so familiar from living in Dallas assails my ears, and I am almost swept away in it.
"You'll answer for this on break, Eden. You know what our parents will say!" the two call after him as they’re taken out, ripping a hole at the end of the hall to the outside world.
I’m sure we’ll both pay for that.
I fall, feeling faint, not even a small flame coming from fingertips when I try. I didn’t know I could exhaust my magic.
Eden comes to me, his other brother disposed and passed out from the pain of his wings being ripped out and scoops me into his arms. When I look into his eyes, I feel that same thing I did in the cafeteria when I told Layla how she would die.
Only, I can see it so clearly, he never could have died. Harpies can only be destroyed in the lake of fire by commission of the Council. He has no death date.
Chapter Twenty One
"Someone send me an angel
To lend me a halo
I fell in love with the devil
Please, save me from this hell
~ Avril Lavigne
My eyes flitter open, and I roll over, seeing Eden is lying next to me. I’m in an unfamiliar room – his room? It’s very modern, black and white everywhere. There’s one signed poster from a band I don’t know on the wall, and it brings into focus all the things I’ve missed about Eden when he’s been so busy pleasing others. But will last night actually change things?
I go to sit up, and he pulls me to him. I thought he was asleep, but I was wrong. “Not yet, you need to rest.”
“But classes….”
“You think the whole school doesn’t know what happened? I ripped open part of the school last night.” He says it with a grin on his face and a light chuckle. I’m so not used to seeing him like this.
“Are your on drugs, or am I dead?”
“No,” he says as he pulls me in for a kiss that leaves me feeling like I’m the one on drugs. And when he stops, I push myself into another one. This is a high like nothing else now. I know instantly I can’t be complete without him. I don’t know why that is, after all the mean things he’s said and all the other boys who’ve come around wanting me, but it’s him or nothing.
“Ember, we can’t just kiss all day. Don’t you need to talk to Saul and Jak?” he says, sobering me up instantly.
“Yes, I do, but what to I tell them? I have no idea.”
“That’s up to you. Whatever you want. I’d like to think it involves me, considering the way you’re kissing me, but after all I’ve done, being confused and all, it’s deplorable and I don’t expect anything from you. Especially after what you saw last night of my family. They’ll never accept you.”
I shiver, remembering his brother’s grubby hands on me. “No, I wouldn’t want them to accept me. No offense.”
“None taken. Just let me have one more hour with you, then, and I’ll let you go,” he says, and I gasp, climbing on top of him only to have him groan at me.
“You could do that? Then, you must not feel what I do.” I pick his hand up and place it on my heart. He looks down, and I know he wants to slide his hand further but behaves himself. He has more control in that department than the other two. But he’s waited this long too. I hate that he’s teased and taunted me like we’re in elementary school.
“Beautiful,” he says, and I feel how much he means it.
“I want to be with you,” I tell him, tracing random designs on his chest over his black shirt, leaving me also wondering what’s underneath. “But could you even do that to yourself? You heard what your brother said.”
“Yes, and I also saw you defending me against them at the risk of your own death even though I can’t die. Not by their hands.” His words are so soft it’s hard to believe he was ever so mean.
“So, this is the real you?”
“I don’t even know what that means anymore.” He places a hand behind his head, the other wrapping up in mine before I lean down to kiss his intoxicating lips.
“Then, we’ll figure it out together. Can you handle this? I’m not just going to leave Saul and Jak.”
He takes my hand and brings it to his face, smelling my scent. It seems to be a thing among supernaturals, I guess. “I have forever to live, and you live a long time. Someone like Jak still has a human life span and who knows how long an incubus will stick around with you once he grows into his nature. I have plenty of time with you. I don’t need to be jealous. I’ll take what I can get for now.”
He grins, of course he can’t be all nice, but then he would be so bringing anyway. He wouldn’t be Eden.
MY Eden.
“Alright, we need to go tell the others and get the fight over with.”
“Perfect timing, I told them what happened to you. They were pissed, but they wouldn’t fight right now.”
“Ooh,” I say, siding over him one more time as he grabs at my ass. “So manipulative.”
I slide off him before I change my mind, and he takes my hand as we are in this together, leaving the room to go find them, wherever they are. But instead, what I find, standing in front of my room, is my mother.
“Who’s that?” Eden whispers, pulling me back and out of sight.
“My mother, I wonder why she’s here.”
“You want me to go?”
I shake my head, knowing she won’t care I have a boyfriend, in fact, she’d probably be fucking ecstatic. “No, not right now. I don’t want you to leave.”
“Okay.”
We walk up to her, and she wraps her arms around me, my hand still hanging on tight to Eden. I’m afraid he’ll disappear and someone will convince him to change his mind. It’s like if I tell enough people he will have to stick to his commitment to me. I don’t know why I feel so paranoid about him over the other two, but it just feels so desperate. Maybe it’s the wings; he can get away so easily.
“Em, I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. For not telling you. Roger is taking me on a trip during Family Day, so I can’t be here, but they let me in to see you early for a few hours. We have things we need to talk about.”
I purse my lips at her. “Are you going to tell me the truth?”
She sighs. “It’ll be hard, but yes, all of it.”
“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll meet you downstairs in the study area,” I tell her. I don’t want her in my space, plus I want Eden waiting for me when I get back.
I take him into my room as she walks off and go inside, a smile on my ace. “You’re officially my prisoner til I get back.”
“Oh, I can handle – wait, why is Hades’
scepter in your room?”
“What the fuck do you mean, I’ve never even seen..” I look to the cobra where he points and see it sitting there plain as day.
Things just got hell-a complicated, and the next quarter is going to be insane.
Time for me to complete my ring of amazing boyfriends, solidify my place here, and get Hades absolved, because he’s locked up in Tartarus. He can’t possibly get me his scepter. He wasn’t lying.
And if they don’t listen, then I’ll get strong and declare war on the Council.
Want to know what becomes of Hades and his daughter? Keep reading in the second book, Daughter of Hades, on pre-order now and coming October 2020!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BHSH1X1
Bane of Hades (Guardian Academy Book 1) Page 12
