Chapter 15 Awakened #2
I made it into class just as a buzzer sounded and the door hissed closed with an audible click. I blinked at it and tested the doorknob. Yep, locked. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Lily Fallen. Glad you could join us,” came the cool voice of a professor that sounded oddly... familiar.
I turned to find four students kneeling on the floor, each with a vial in hand and the professor looming over them.
The professor was none other than Kaito himself. What the fuck was he up to?
If I didn’t have my powers, I would have thought Kaito a stranger.
He gave me a once-over with complete professional decorum, his silver streak in his hair perfectly in place, but I felt the lust between us just hovering underneath the surface.
I wanted to mess up his hair and all it would take was one touch to set those flames alight again and he’d be mine.
As if he sensed my thoughts, he narrowed his eyes and pointed to the last open spot on the floor.
Right, behaving. I can do that.
I gave Kaito a healthy glare in return, because he knew very well that he’d made me rush all the way across campus just to get here and he’d better have a damn good reason to make me jump through hoops.
“All of you are here because you’ve struggled to awaken your supernatural gifts,” he said, pacing in front of us. He brought me a vial like the other students were holding.
I took it and turned it sideways, grimacing as the black liquid inside sloshed slowly to the side.
“This is an experimental class,” he continued, marching away from me.
“You are the lucky chosen few to get this last chance before more drastic measures are taken. Usually students who do not respond to the Awakening Arena are taken to the Monster Arena.” He turned, as if for dramatic effect. “Also known as the West Wing.”
I rolled my eyes.
The other students didn’t seem as amused by Kaito’s demonstration.
He was trying to scare me, but it wasn’t working.
If he really wanted to frighten me he should have had someone else teach the class.
Kaito had far too much invested in me for me to fear for my well-being enough to bring out my supernatural instincts, much less fear for my life.
Kaito clapped his hands and the students startled. “Drink your vials. You will be taken into a trance and there you will face your worst fears. You won’t be in mortal danger, but your mind won’t know the difference.”
Oh.
The students stared down at their vials. One girl popped off the cork and tossed the contents back with a determined grimace. We all watched her as she slowly closed her eyes and went still. The air around us popped and the girl’s skin took on a grey sheen.
“All of you now,” Kaito said, no emotion in his voice at all.
I swallowed hard and looked back at the vial.
What was in this stuff? Would I react badly to it?
My body liked to fend off any dangerous magical interventions, but Kaito had said that this wouldn’t be dangerous.
It would just feel dangerous, so my defenses might not try to fend it off until I was already in the trance.
I hesitated long enough for the other students to have taken their vial and go into similar statue-like trances.
Kaito kneeled and gave me a weak smile. “I’m sorry to trick you here, but the Dean didn’t give me much time.
” He lifted my hand and popped the cork off the vial.
“You know I wouldn’t do anything to put you in danger. You can trust me.”
Our connection electrified between us from the mere graze of his touch and I sucked in a breath.
I ran my finger up the left side of his cheek, following his tattoo into the silver streak of his hairline.
He leaned into it, then flinched away. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” I admitted.
As much as I wanted to believe that everyone had a secret agenda, Kaito was one of my Virtues.
His soul was slowly intertwining with mine.
.. I could feel it and my heart ached, wanting to explore more of him.
I needed to know his hopes, dreams, and I needed him to know me.
“Then take the vial,” he said, lifting it to my lips. “This is how I can help you.”
I pushed it away. “Are you sure? My instincts won’t come out if I’m really not in danger. I can’t be so easily fooled.” Melinda had tried her mind tricks on me, as well as many students at Fortune Academy. I didn’t see how some black goo would work either.
He nodded. “I’m sure. Please, just trust me.”
Sighing, I relented. I still didn’t believe him, but I did trust him, so I parted my lips and allowed him to tilt the contents into my mouth.
I expected the black liquid to taste as vile as it looked, but it eased into my system like a fine wine and filled my senses with nostalgic memories that wouldn’t quite come to the surface. I fluttered my eyes closed and let the sensation wash over me as I sighed.
“That’s it,” Kaito said, his voice sounding distant now, “let it guide you home.”
Home. I didn’t know where that was, but with the magic coursing through me, I had a feeling that before I’d lost my memories, before I’d come to Earth, home felt like this.
When I opened my eyes again I was in a world of pitch blackness, but I wasn’t afraid. I was familiar with this darkness. A low hum surrounded me with a steady thump as if I was in my mother’s womb.
I stretched out my fingers and grazed the thick blackness that encased me. This was home. I could remember it now, before I found myself on Earth. Before I was Lily Fallen.
I was Lilith.
Panic took hold as the memory came back to me. I wasn’t home, I was trapped in the Incubus King’s basement, trapped in darkness where he hoped I would rot away and die. I wasn’t the daughter he’d hoped for.
My mother... she would save me. But how?
I ran through the darkness and hit something hard. I beat my fists against it and screamed. Trapped. I couldn’t die. I was an immortal of unnatural proportions.
I was a demonspawn.
This was the other third of my evil heritage that I’d been suppressing. The place where I’d come from before Earth had been hell itself.
Hunger laced through me with such violent pain that I doubled over and cried out. No, this couldn’t be true. This couldn’t be happening. My worst fear was being a monster and now it was revealed that I was the worst monster of all.
When I went to wipe the tears from my face my fingers scraped across hard skin and my stomach dropped. Sharp fangs poked from my teeth and I knew that I wasn’t the pretty face everyone saw me as in Fortune Academy. This was what I really looked like underneath.
The rune across my arm burned hot, retaliating as if denying that this was my true form.
Fresh pain laced through me and I curled up in a ball, for the first time feeling like I was going to die, not because I was trapped in a memory, but because of what I was.
I deserved to die. I deserved for Dante to find me right now and plunge a dagger in my chest like he’d done to Jess.
That was all my instincts needed.
I wasn’t just a creature from hell. There was something more…
something pure. That supernatural part of me awakened and billowed a wave of light through the darkness, banishing my fears and nightmares with searing determination.
A heavy weight settled on my back and a soft draping sensation fell over me.
I pressed my fingers to my face again, finding the skin smooth, the fangs gone.
What the hell was I?