by Cara Wylde
“Pazuzu and Francis,” Professor Charon started pairing us up. “GC and Caspian, Mila and Merrit.”
Shit. I knew I could kick his ass with my stick, on one condition: that he didn’t use his mage powers. I’d learned some sweet moves from Valentine the first and only time we’d dueled.
“I’m going to show you the basics. Feet apart, make sure you’re well-grounded and centered, shoulders square. The blade is for hitting, obviously, and the handle is for blocking. Try not to hurt each other, okay?”
“How could they hurt each other when you gave them sticks, Scylla?” Valentine landed next to Professor Charon and tucked his wings on his back. His black cloak whooshed around him, ominously. He slammed his scythe on the ground, and the earth trembled subtly. Lately, he’d made a hobby out of reminding everyone how powerful he was. Every now and then, just to keep things interesting, and the students and professors under control, he’d cause a mini earthquake. “What is this?”
“Headmaster…” Mrs. Charon tried to explain herself, but Valentine silenced her with a flick of his wrist.
“Rhetorical question. I’ll tell you what it is. A bad joke.” He turned to us. “Throw away those pathetic sticks and pick up your scythes, Reapers.”
Here we go. I had a feeling the infirmary would be out of beds soon. In the next fifty minutes, to be more exact. I grabbed my scythe and held onto it tightly. I didn’t want to be paired with Merrit, anymore. I was afraid I might actually hurt him. But if I was paired with GC, Paz, or Francis, wouldn’t that be worse?
“Mila, step forward. Let’s show them how it’s done.”
So, you want to beat me in front of everyone? Weaken their trust in the prophecy? That wasn’t a bad plan, come to think of it. I did as I was told. Corri flappity-flapped around my head three times, worried and agitated. She’d seen the result of Valentine challenging me to a duel before. It hadn’t been pretty. No cuts, but he’d left some dark purple bruises on my legs and arms.
“I don’t like this, Mistress. I don’t like this at all,” she whispered.
“Shh! Go sit on Paz’s shoulder. I need to focus.” The last thing I needed was a hysterical pixie to tell me how dangerous it was to fight my father in front of the VDC. If he really wanted to prove a point, then I could easily imagine him aiming to leave more than just bruises. Lucky me I wasn’t afraid of blades.
I grounded myself and held the scythe with both hands. I felt it buzz and tremble, ready for action. The blade didn’t glow red because there was no call for reaping, but the handle knew blood would soon be spilled. Valentine stepped in front of me, confident and relaxed. He made the first move, and I blocked him easily. This was just the warm-up. He advanced, I backed up, he attacked, I blocked. When he took a step back and smiled at me, I realized he wanted me to take charge. With a grunt, I tried to cut him on the cheek. He dodged. It was a dance. I attacked again and again, and he dodged or blocked me every time. I wasn’t making any progress, and he soon started acting like he was bored. When I least expected it, he attacked me viciously, and I barely had time to raise my scythe and stop his blade inches away from my face. I pushed with all my might, preparing myself for the next blow. He was stronger than me. Physically. It wasn’t only that I didn’t yet know enough moves to take him by surprise, but that he was simply taller, bulkier, and stronger than me. When he put all his force into it, I could barely block him and push him away. My lower back was already protesting, and the muscles in my arms and calves started burning dully.
“Good demonstration, Mila. Thank you.”
What? I was confused. That was it? He’d only wanted to put on a show, not finish me and humiliate me?
“If I may, Scylla, I’d like to redo the pairs.”
Mrs. Charon pursed her lips. She was silent for a moment, but when he started calling out names, she stepped up and dared to confront him.
“With all due respect, Headmaster Morningstar, this is my class. I’ve already established the pairs. And I strongly believe that it’s better for the VDC to start with the… pathetic sticks, as you called them. It’s safer this way. I’d like to teach them a few basic moves, first. I see that Mila is way ahead, and that’s marvelous. She can help me make sure we don’t fill up the infirmary with bleeding students. Especially since semester one should have been about teleportation, not scythe fighting.” That last part had nothing to do with the rest of her speech, but she didn’t want to miss a single occasion to remind Morningstar he’d changed the curriculum for no reason at all and made it worse.
“I see.” He nodded, his brows furrowed. He looked calm and patient on the outside, but I knew him better. He was boiling with anger. Okay, maybe not anger. He thought few people deserved his fiery, unrelenting anger, so he often chose to show annoyance, instead. In this case, he was acting like Professor Charon was a yappity dog that wouldn’t shut up, and he was detachedly pissed off. “Mrs. Charon, let me make a few things clear, and once I do and everyone understands the part they need to play, let’s do our best not to repeat this tiresome conversation. One, this is the Violent Death Cabal. They will not fight with sticks. You want to use sticks, do so with the Merciful Death Cabal, or the Neutral Death Cabal. But don’t force my Violent Death students and my Righteous Death students to play with toy scythes in a sandbox. Two, I thought I explained to you at the beginning of this year why we’re studying scythe fighting and not teleportation. Didn’t I? I’ll do you this one favor and explain again, this time for all present to understand.” He turned to us. “For teleportation, you have your devices. Keep using them until Mrs. Charon can make time for two or three classes on how to teleport on your own in semester two. Learning how to fight is much more important than learning how to zap yourselves from one place to another when you already have a perfectly good way to do it.”
“But why do we have to learn how to fight?” GC asked. “When we graduate and twenty-one of us become Grim Reapers, the old generation will retire, and if we have a few cases when they refuse to retire, yes, we’re going to challenge them to a duel and take them out, hopefully. But other than that, why do we need to be super good at fighting?”
My darling GC had just asked all the right questions in one breath. Our eyes were on Morningstar. The Headmaster pursed his lips, smiled ever so subtly, and nodded mysteriously.
“You never know when a war breaks out and you’re sent to the front lines.” And with that, he turned on his heels, spread his wings, and flew off.
What war? Whose war? Silence fell over the PE class. We were all tense, confused, and our questions had just doubled in number. Mrs. Charon smiled forcefully.
“All right, you heard the Headmaster. You have your scythes, let’s just work in our initial pairs…”
At least, Valentine had forgotten to redo the pairs. I did my best to protect Merrit’s most precious skin from the blade of my scythe, although he proved quite vicious in attacking me. It was a good thing he was also rather clumsy. Caspian cut GC across the chest, GC got mad and struck the mage with the heel of his scythe right in the gut. Professor Charon yelled at them and sent them both to the infirmary. I bit the inside of my cheek. GC would be fine because he was a shapeshifter and he healed quickly, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t worried about him. A few other guys cut each other by accident. Raziel, the angel, ended up with a bleeding jaw, and when Pazuzu hit Francis in the shin by mistake, Professor Charon called it a day.
“I can’t deal with this, I can’t deal with this,” she muttered as she ushered half of the class to the infirmary. “Please take the sticks I gave you and practice the moves in your free time. Otherwise, every class will be a bloodbath.”
“Francis, Francis!” I caught up with him, which was easy since he was limping. “Okay, fine. The cavern. That will be our spot.”
He looked up at me, surprise in his beautiful eyes. “What made you change your mind?”
“Didn’t you hear him?” I whispered, stealing a glance at Crassus
. Was he really not going to tell Valentine a word about my tentative plots against him? “War? What war? Reapers are not soldiers, or warriors, or whatever. We’re just… Reapers. Part of the cycle of life and death. We don’t take sides.”
He nodded. “Tell the others. Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER FIVE
At first, I thought it was safer for all of us to teleport down in the cave beneath the Academy, but then I realized there were a couple of inconveniences standing in the way. For one, Patricia and Joel weren’t students at the Academy, so they didn’t have teleportation pins. Then, only Francis and I could do it, since we were the only ones in our secret, illegal group who’d been there before. And Sariel, but Sariel had refused to join us, or the group chat, for that matter. He had something up his butt, and I was yet to figure out what. So, I told everyone to meet me in my old room. Valentine’s old room, which ex-Headmaster Colin had given to me, thinking I might be able to get into my father’s head if I lived where he’d lived for three years when he was a student of the Academy.
It wasn’t easy to sneak out of my dorm when Crassus stood guard by the door and followed me around every time I made the tiniest step. Corri didn’t want to get involved, and I didn’t blame her. I didn’t want to get her in trouble, either. Another week in the Blank was not an option, and a secret organization started by me, my guys, and my friends wasn’t worth the risk. But Klaus was a mage, and since he’d started dating Joel, he’d become bolder and braver. He was always looking to impress his boyfriend, and distracting Crassus long enough for me to sneak out was the perfect opportunity. Actually, distraction wouldn’t work with the Unseelie soldier. We all knew that much. Instead, he gave Patty a sleeping potion that she poured into his wine when he had dinner with the other Unseelie guards, and by the time I reached my room, thoroughly followed by him, he was so exhausted that he could barely see straight. Tiptoeing around his hunched, sleeping form was easy. Getting to the lower floor and down the corridor to my old room with two guards patrolling back and forth was the hard part. We weren’t supposed to be out and about after 8 PM, and it was twelve past eight. Patty and Joel didn’t have any restrictions, but Francis, GC, Pazuzu, Klaus, and I did.
When it came to magic potions, Klaus wasn’t the best mage. It didn’t help that he’d refused to take the Alchemy optional because, in his own words, “potions are boring”. A simple sleeping potion was one thing. A potion that allowed the drinker to assume the form of someone else was an entirely different shebang, and we gave him one week to get the recipe right. He failed.
“The plan was too complicated, anyway,” Paz had said when Klaus had admitted he couldn’t do it. “We need something simpler.”
And that was how Paz ended up using his telepathic abilities to lure the two Unseelie guards away from the stairs, and then away from the corridor, so I could reach my old room. He cleared my, GC’s, and his path first, to make sure it worked.
“Okay, we’re here. Now what?” I was beyond excited. And scared. I’d left Corri in my dorm and told her to keep an eye on Crassus.
“We’re bringing the others,” Paz said, stepping closer to me, “But not before…” He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me against him.
I melted under his possessive touch. GC came from behind and leaned in to leave a wet trail of kisses from my shoulder to the back of my ear. I closed my eyes and moaned. We hadn’t done anything in such a long time, and we were alone now. Against all odds, we were alone in this old, cramped room, and we didn’t have much time at our disposal, but we had enough. Francis and Klaus couldn’t leave their dorms without Pazuzu’s help, but Patty and Joel could show up at any time.
“Ten minutes,” I breathed. “I want you both so much, but we only have ten minutes.”
“More than enough for me,” GC whispered. He proceeded to undo his belt and pull down his pants and underwear. He pushed me against Paz and lifted my skirt.
“Wait…” My red tights were in the way, as usual. Proper dress and decorum at all times my ass. I was getting tired of wearing the same stupid uniform. I pulled them down, got rid of my ankle boots, and stepped out of them and my lace panties at the same time. I was dripping wet, and my core was begging for Paz and GC, for my guys, my lovers… for their hard cocks. “Take me.”
Paz held me tightly as GC pushed his cock inside me from behind. I clawed at the demon’s chest, my lips seeking his. GC grabbed me by the hips and held me in place as he fucked me hard and fast. We were both desperate. My teeth pulled at Paz’s lower lip, my tongue moved against his, pushing deeper, wanting to taste all of him. A kiss wasn’t enough. I wanted to kneel, pull his pants down, and take his cock into my mouth. I moved my hand down between us, sneaked it inside his uniform slacks, and grabbed the prize I was craving. He was hard and wet under my touch. I wrapped my fingers around his length and pumped him lightly, as much as the strained position and GC thrusting wildly from behind allowed it.
“Oh my God, so close,” I moaned.
The false god had been inside me for three minutes at most, and I was already coming apart. I’d been too distracted by Morningstar, his rules, and his changes to realize how unfucked I was. GC came inside me with a grunt, his fingers digging into my flesh. The feel of his hot seed filling me threw me over the edge. I hadn’t yet recovered from the mind-blowing orgasm when Paz pulled me away from GC, causing his cock to slip out of me and his cum to tickle down my inner thighs.
“Mine now,” he growled.
He lifted me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. When had he rolled his pants down? The tip of his cock was at my entrance, and I impaled myself on it, too impatient to wait for him to thrust in. I bounced on his lap, knowing full well that he was perfectly capable of supporting my weight.
“This isn’t enough,” I moaned, looking him in the eye. “I want so much more… So much…”
“Well, get rid of your father first, and then we can fuck non-stop. How’s that?”
He was close, and I was close, too. I’d never come so quickly and desperately in my life. My walls throbbed around his shaft, my pussy needing his seed, needing to milk him dry. Even though we weren’t fucking as much as last year, I was still on the pill. Whenever the opportunity for a good, cathartic shag came up, I wanted to enjoy it fully. I opened my mouth and screamed in pleasure, not looking away from his handsome face for one second. I came, and then I came again, and when my third orgasm shook my whole body, he shot his thick load deep inside me, so close to my cervix that it made me spasm and moan in delight. After another minute, he put me down.
“Still want more?”
“Oh, you have no idea.” And he really didn’t. As I looked for my panties and struggled to make myself look decent again, I couldn’t help but make scenarios in my head. Three quick orgasms hadn’t been enough. They’d barely taken the edge off. I imagine how much kinkier it would have been if Francis had been there to watch us. He’d done it before, and I doubted he’d turned into a good boy since then. I didn’t know him well, I still had a long way to go to figure him out, but if I knew one thing about Francis Saint-Germain, it was that he was kinky as hell. He liked to watch me get fucked by my boyfriends. And what else did he like? I couldn’t help but wonder. Did he like Sariel, like Lamia, Pazuzu’s mother, had suggested?
“Hey! Are you okay?” GC took my hand and squeezed it lightly.
“What? Yes.”
“You spaced out for a minute there…”
“Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind.” Yeah. A lot. My phone vibrated. Sariel replied to my last message, briefly and boredly, as usual. Sariel. Last year, had he really been interested in me, or had all his awkward flirting been because of his mother, who wanted to see us together? So much had changed. He had changed. I didn’t know what to think of him anymore, but as the days passed, I was starting to realize that I kind of missed him. “We should get the others here.”
Just as I said that, Patty and Joel sneaked in. My he
art jumped in my chest, my hand going to my ribcage. I pulled at my shirt and smoothed down my skirt. My uniform blazer was lying in a corner. I went to get it. That was close. I fantasized about being watched by Francis, and maybe Sariel, why not? But not Patty and Joel.
“All right, give me some space,” Pazuzu demanded. He sat on the bed, cross-legged, closed his eyes, and focused. He had to find the Unseelie guards on Klaus’s corridor in the MDC tower, and then on Francis’s corridor, here. Once he had them, all he needed to do was to plant thoughts in their minds. They would interpret them as gut instincts, and they’d follow them without question. They were harmless, too. Like… the thought that they’d heard something down the hall, which directed them that way and gave Klaus the minute he needed to sneak out of the room and go down the stairs. Once he was out of the tower, it was up to him to hide in dark corners and behind curtains, sneak around the rest of the Unseelie guards, and make his way to us.
I tapped my foot impatiently. They should have all used the teleportation devices to get to the meeting point. They all knew where my room was, and except for Francis, they’d all been in here, too. But Paz had wanted to try his mind at telepathy and see if he could do it. He was either trying to impress me, or he was right, and it was a good idea to check if we could sneak around like this, without teleporting from one place to another. There were just a couple of steps from here to the other room, and once we were down the secret staircase, the Unseelie had no chance of finding us.
It was taking too long. “Screw this. They should have teleported.”
“Shh,” Paz admonished me.
Patty leaned in to whisper in my ear. “It’s good for him to practice his telepathic skills. Just in case.”
“In case of what? Teleportation is the safest way,”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I have a feeling.”
Patty and her feelings… You’re just scared. Not that I wasn’t. When Klaus finally entered the room, I let out a heavy breath of relief. Joel jumped into his arms. The merman was significantly taller than Klaus, slender and graceful. He had dark blond hair and beautiful azure eyes, like the ocean in the depths of which he was born. When he walked, it was as if he danced. It was clear he would’ve been more comfortable had he afforded to wear his fish tail all the time. When he was on land, his long, dark blue tail turned into two elegant legs. So elegant, that I was almost envious. As a guy, he was more graceful than I was.
