by May Dawson
“Julian!” Mia is smiling, panting slightly but trying to hide it, as she raises her hand in a wave.
“Mia,” I say slowly.
She’s one of the girls in my circle. Sometimes I sleep with them. I’m honest about what I want, and it doesn’t go beyond the occasional night in my bed. I don’t want a relationship with anyone.
Sometimes I think that makes me more appealing. I overhear them competing for stupid things. Oh, he called me sweetheart. Oh, he sketched my picture.
As if any of it means anything. There’s only one girl who ever meant anything to me.
But when Mia slips her hand over my forearm, I crook my arm. No point in being rude. The two of us walk intimately close together, and from the outside, we couldn’t appear more different than Everett and Eden, who walk at such a wary distance from each other that they barely seem to be together.
It almost makes me smile. Everett has always been fearless, a complete badass—except where Eden was concerned. That girl has a terrifying side, even when it’s just a disapproving quirk of an eyebrow. She always kept him in line.
Hell, she kept the three of us in line, and that wild card brother of hers that we loved so much, too.
“What are you thinking?” Mia asks, swaying against me. “You looked happy for a second there.”
“How odd, around here.” Everett’s misery is a source of happiness for me now, I guess.
“Is it because she’s here?” Mia asks, and there’s a bitter tinge of jealousy in her voice.
I glance at Mia. She’s exquisitely beautiful, with silver-flecked blue eyes and a platinum-blond pixie cut framing her delicate face.
“You used to be friends, didn’t you?” she presses.
That’s a ridiculous oversimplification.
It’s also a question I’m not going to answer.
“Mia, sweetheart,” I say. I stop, and as she turns to face me, I grip her shoulders with my hands. Her lips tilt up at the affection.
“Yes?” she asks lightly. Her eyes are very bright now.
“There’s no reason to be jealous,” I tell her. “You and that girl? You’re not remotely in the same league.”
A slow smile blooms across her lips. “Okay, Julian. You’re right.”
She took that the way I intended her to, but not at all the way I meant it.
Ahead of us, Everett and Eden reach the Nephilim house. It’s a tall brick building, covered in ivy, like all of them, with a clock tower rising high above the building. I’ve heard a student was thrown from that tower once, that part of the roof used to be stained blue.
The statues directly in front of our house are all angels, which is pretty funny; most of us are the children of neglectful angelic parents. It’s hard to look at the angels as heroes.
But, part of our reformation is supposed to be becoming heroes ourselves.
Let’s face it, humanity is desperately in need of heroes.
The cafeteria is sun-soaked with afternoon light. It’s gorgeous photography light, if I had my camera, but my art is one of the many things I keep mostly to myself. As I sit down, Mia leans her head against my shoulder as Vanessa appears behind me, running her hand over my chest as she presses a quick kiss to my forehead.
“Hello to you too,” I murmur. That would be the end of it, but I catch Eden watching me from across the cafeteria. Her face is perfectly blank, and I know that look. The colder her mask, the more she feels. It’s simply what she feels that’s a mystery.
“Come here, love,” I tell Vanessa, pushing back my chair. She straddles my lap in one quick motion, giving me a delighted grin. From the corner of my eye, I catch Mia’s pout before I raise a finger and my eyebrows at one time, beckoning her over.
I turn my face between theirs, kissing them both in turn. Their lips are soft and shapely, just like their bodies as my hands wander between them. Neither gives me any real pleasure.
Not like the hardness in Eden’s eyes, which I can glimpse from here.
Lincoln drops his tray across from me, exasperation written across his face. “Time to go.”
I make a mischievous face at Vanessa and Mia, but shrug. “What Lincoln wants, Lincoln gets,” I say, and he scoffs at that.
“But we get you tonight,” Mia says, her hand trailing over my shoulders as Vanessa slips off my lap.
“If you’re good girls,” I say, aiming a smack across Vanesa’s perfect ass in her little skirt. She laughs at me as she moves away.
Lincoln stares at me. “What’s that all about?”
I shrug. “I’m finding my fun where I can.”
“Mm. Finding the fun is usually not your problem.”
That’s another ridiculous oversimplification, but I’m not going to argue with the grouch. I’m not really interested in Lincoln’s perspective on what my problems are.
“What are we going to do about her?” Lincoln demands.
I don’t have to ask what her he means. He hasn’t even looked in Eden’s direction. His gaze is fixed on me.
Lincoln looks like the perfect angel, as well he should, since he’s Bred; most of us are only half-human, half-angel, but he’s three-quarters angel and one-hundred-percent gorgeous. Lincoln’s eyes are pure, molten gold in a face so beautiful he can’t be mistaken for human; he’s hard to capture in a sketch, because no colored pencil can capture his pure, cruel, glittering power.
I take a long sip from my drink. “Personally, I’m considering sleeping with her.”
His face tightens. “The hell you will.”
I was really just saying it to nettle him, but the idea sounds more appealing the longer I linger on it. I used to adore the girl, but now I don’t. What better way to put to bed—literally—the curiosity I can’t help feeling when I look at her?
“The heaven I will, indeed.” I raise my glass to him in a toast that I know he won’t return. “I bet that girl could use a friend right now.”
“She’s going to rip your throat out,” he says. “After what happened with Elliot, I doubt she feels very sympathetic to the Lords.”
My lips tighten. “She might still be loyal to them. We don’t know.”
He snorts. “It’s your funeral.”
“I should just talk to her,” I say. “Ask her—are you still with the Lords? Or a free agent? Do you want to kill me or…” a smile crosses my lips.
Lincoln leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his powerful chest.
“You’re going to die,” he warns me.
Chapter Seven
Eden
By the time I’ve eaten a silent lunch with Everett, I’m already plotting how I’m going to hide in my room all that night rather than go to dinner. There’s something torturous about sitting across from him. My gaze roams his handsome face, his features that are so familiar. I want to kill him now, because being near him taunts me with memories, makes my heart twist. When he glances up at me and his eyes catch mine, he’s still so damned handsome that it hurts.
I want to hate him so badly that I feel like I’m going to break apart when I feel anything else.
“How long am I going to be blessed to have you as my student guide?” I demand. “You must have real friends to get back to.”
He stands from the table instead of answering. “Come on. We’ve got Nephilim classes. And that’s where we split up.”
Oh, small mercies.
Nephilim classes are held on the first floor of our building. He leads me into a still empty classroom, where Michael Kinley is glancing through his notes as if he’s preparing for class, sipping from something in a travel mug.
Kinley glances up. “Yes?”
“Eden needs a set of books.”
He takes another sip, seeming to consider this as if he might do me a favor. Then he moves to a cabinet in the corner, draws a set of keys from his pocket, and unlocks it. “Don’t lose them. The punishment for losing a book is a trip to the behavior modification fields.”
I glance at Ever, cocking an e
yebrow as I wait for an explanation. This entire place is built for behavior modification. He gives me the faintest shake of his head in return.
So I turn back to Kinley and ask, “Aren’t we already being modified?”
Kinley smiles at me thinly as he holds out a pile of books. “There are far worse punishments than math class and confinement to campus.”
I smile at him as I take the books out of his hands. “I can tell you haven’t been in my math class.”
Ever grabs my shoulder and steers me ahead of him toward the door. “Thank you, sir,” he tells Kinley as he glances over his shoulder, and I have a feeling he just laid the sir on to make up for me. He bangs the door shut behind him and gives him an exasperated look.
Kinley worries him. That’s something to remember.
I turn the stack of books in my hands so I can see the titles. “Ethics for Divine Beings.”
“We call that ethics for assholes,” Everett tells me.
“So you’re self-aware.”
“You’re one too,” he reminds me.
“Never said I wasn’t. But I am self-aware.”
“Are you?” Ever gives me a hard look.
The bell rings. “I’ll see you here after classes,” he tells me.
“Not if I see you first,” I say, with a smile.
“So clever,” he says, taking all the pleasure out of teasing him. Although I wasn’t really teasing. Being anywhere near Everett drains me.
Everett leaves me in the hallway and goes into the same classroom Julian and Lincoln have entered, not that I’m keenly aware of the three of them at all times or anything.
In the classroom, a few girls glance at me then toss their hair as they turn away from me. Oh, Nephilim girls being nasty. Here’s my surprised face.
Most of our parents raise us to be snobs. We’re better than humans, better than other paranormals.
But are we, really?
Especially when our upbringing has left most of us so obnoxious we can’t even tolerate each other.
I know what to expect, at least, thanks to Everett. Our special angel classes revolve around theology, ethics and history, and—not that anyone would phrase it this way—making ourselves useful. Gabriel teaches ethics, Michael Kinley, the head of the house, teaches theology and history, and a female teacher named Esther teaches us combat techniques in the yard so we’ll be better suited to working for the Sent one day.
The Sent are the Nephilim-run organization that deals with demons and the Lords. I grit my teeth at the thought of classes to prepare me to be an angelic lackey for the Sent; I’m not sure the Sent are any better than the Lords of Havoc, even though their philosophy is a bit cleaner. The good guys aren’t supposed to seek world domination—or at least, they don’t have the bad manners to talk about it.
When Gabriel walks into the front of the room, my heart beats a little faster. It’s solely because I know him, because the one and only other time I’ve seen him besides my welcome committee, I was at my most vulnerable.
“Good afternoon,” he says. “You have a new classmate, Eden Greyson. Eden, would you introduce yourself, please?”
God, I hate him.
I rise to my feet and flash a bland smile around the room. “My name is Eden Greyson. I’m your new classmate.”
Then I sit again.
Gabriel, to his credit, doesn’t react at all.
“I expect you’ll all make her at home,” he says, glancing around the room. “You all should be here for each other. You know how tough it can be here.”
After classes, some of my new friends show me how much they intend to make me feel at home. I’m heading out into the hall when I catch Mia and Vanessa glancing at me and giggling. Stupid me, I assume it’s just catty talk. I’ve underestimated reform school kids.
Someone wrenches my book out of my arm. I burst into motion without much hesitation, slamming into their back, but they’ve already tossed the book to someone else.
Julian’s just walked out of the classroom door, and I catch his frowning face as I slam the girl who threw my book in the first place face-first into the wall, then go after my book.
I’m not stupid, I know this is a trap one way or another. But I’m not going to let my books walk away and catch one of the school’s many and varied punishments, either.
To my surprise, the girl who grabbed my book runs through campus and… throws my book into the woods. I frown at her, confused.
I want to pummel her, as she stares at me with a wicked smile, but I don’t want to get in trouble for fighting either. She threw my book into the woods for a reason, and I turn to look behind me, but there’s no one there. It’s just her and me. I thought maybe this was a set-up to get me someplace a bunch of kids could jump me.
“Is this your weird hazing ritual?” I ask. “Flinging people’s belongings into the woods? Could this be your kink, possibly?”
She shrugs. Then she turns and walks away.
I stare as she heads back into the Nephilim building. Then I shake my head. I don’t know what the behavior modification fields are, but I’d like to get through my first day of school without the wrath of my instructors. Keeping my guard up, I carefully head into the forest.
As I wade through thorny brambles that catch around my ankles and step over branches, I pull a face. I’ve always been a city girl.
I found my book facedown, pages spread out so some of them are bent, under the branches of a spreading tree. What a travesty. I frown as I pick it up, then dust the dirt away. I smooth down the pages before I close the book so they’ll heal, with only a bit of a crease, hopefully.
Just then, something prickles my ankle with piercing pain. Expecting a bug bite, I lift my leg, only to find a tiny spear, no longer than a toothpick, jutting out of my ankle. A line of rope like dental floss hangs from the spear.
The sight makes my heart pound in my chest. I hastily yank the spear loose, turning to head for the sunlight and grass that lay outside of the woods. The Nephilim house is so close; I can see it through the trees.
Another pin-prick pain in my calf, and then another in my opposite ankle. I decide to race out of the gloom of the forest, only to have something wrap around my ankles. I fall, crashing heavily into the underbrush, slamming my forehead into a tree limb on the way down. My head spins sickeningly, and I try to get my bearings as I stare up at a dozen tiny blue insects with bows-and-arrows that fly around me menacingly. I raise my hands to sway them away, trying to protect myself from the arrows that fly now into my face and arms.
One arrow sinks harmlessly into the breast of my blazer, but more of them find their mark in my palms and face. Some of the tiny winged monsters jump onto my body, beginning to pummel me with miniature axes that split my skin, and I try to sweep them away.
“Get away from her!” Julian commands as he wades into the forest. He’s got an old-fashioned, big tank water gun, a Supersoaker, and he shoots the insects with it. As the stream of water hits them, they spiral out of the air and crash into the brush.
He flings it over his shoulder by a rope strap, as if he carries this ridiculous water gun into battle, then bends toward me. His eyes are concerned, but the smirk on his lips makes me want to smack him—if only everything didn’t hurt so much.
“Ever forgot to mention the Myrmidions, didn’t he?” Julian murmurs, right before he draws me up against his chest.
Of course he did.
Everything is Everett Kane’s fault, isn’t it?
I hesitate, not sure if I should put my arms around Julian’s neck for balance or not. The Myrmidions chitter behind us in a soft language I can barely hear as he strides toward the entrance to the woods.
He catches my hand, a faint smile across his lips as if he can read my inner debate, and guides it up to his shoulder.
I give up and loop my arms around Julian’s neck. My head hurts too much to fight it. But the two of us touching each other doesn’t mean a thing.
Chapter Eight
“What happened to you?” Julian scolds me as he carries me out of the woods.
I frown up at his handsome face. “Your girlfriends, I think.”
His jaw tenses. “I see.”
“I assume they were bullying me on your orders,” I add.
“You’d be wrong.” His lips quirk up into a faint smile. “I want to bully you myself.”
He lays me down on the grass under a tree, and I wince as I sit up, my hand going automatically to press an ache in my side.
“I don’t understand,” I say, pulling my shirt up to see the bruises already blooming across my white skin. There are gashes across my legs from the Myrmidion’s axes, and they aren’t healing. I look up at Julian with a frown, only to find his eyes hungry as he looks at my skin too, before his gaze meets mine.
“They dose us with Break,” he says calmly. His hands sweep confidently over my legs, yanking out the spears with competent, careful movements and a distinct lack of sympathy. He goes on, “We’ve got the best food at this school in our cafeteria, but if that’s not enough to lure you in, if you stay away too long, Kinley and Gabriel and Esther will force it down your throat.”
My eyes widen.
“They don’t want super-powered bad kids,” he says with a shrug. “It just makes sense.”
Stupid me, I’d actually thought Gabriel might be on my side in some way. The thought of him forcing me to consume Break makes panic clutch my chest. It would be just like it must have been that day the Lords tried to beat me to death…
I don’t have any memories of the day my brother was murdered, but I’ve imagined the scene a thousand times. I wonder if Julian watched me like he is now as someone forced my jaws apart, so the Lords could force Break onto my tongue. Or maybe Everett held my arm still to make sure a needle didn’t tear my flesh as they injected it. Maybe I should ask the guys.
“I want to talk to you about what happened the day Elliot died,” Julian says.
His words mirror what I was just thinking so perfectly that I stare at him, perplexed.
He chews his lower lip as he studies me.
