Wings of Redemption (Academy of Rejects #4)

Chapter 1

Skye

The Morning After

I wake with Dmitri's face burned into the back of my eyelids, that ancient hunger still clawing at the edges of my consciousness even as the vision releases its grip.

My body responds before my mind catches up, lurching upright with a gasp that tears through the pre-dawn silence and sends my heart slamming against my ribs.

Sweat soaks through my shirt and plasters my hair to my forehead, and for a disorienting moment I can't tell where the nightmare ends and reality begins.

The bonds answer before I can form a coherent thought. Five distinct presences flood my awareness, each one reaching for me with their own particular flavor of concern, and I realize my mates have already arranged themselves around me in a protective formation.

They must have felt my terror bleeding through our connection while I slept, waiting for me to surface from whatever fresh hell Mother Nature decided to show me.

"Same dream?" Harlow's voice cuts through the lingering haze, his cold hand pressing against my forehead as he phases solid beside me. The chill of his touch is grounding, pulling me back into my body and away from the dark soul that keeps haunting my sleep.

I nod, not trusting my voice yet. Harlow's cold hand stays pressed to my forehead, grounding me, while Stellan's fire flickers low with anxious energy.

The bonds hum with everyone's concern, five distinct presences crowding close enough that I can feel their warmth even before my vision fully clears.

They've been doing that more frequently since Mother Nature's revelation, as if the knowledge of what we're facing has stripped away some barrier I didn't know existed between us.

"The vision keeps repeating," I manage finally, my throat raw.

"Different details each time. Tonight it was Liz.

" I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to scrub away images that refuse to fade.

"Dante fighting something he can't see. The corruption spreading through the sanctuary while we're out here building alliances. "

"Dmitri's already moving." Rumi's voice carries that edge it's developed since we learned what really killed his mother.

The divine fury simmering beneath his skin has become a constant presence, held in check by sheer will.

"Every night you see more of his work. He's not waiting for us to come to him. "

"Which is exactly why we can't turn back." Ambrose doesn't look up, but I feel his attention sharpen through our bond. "He wants us reactive. Frightened. Racing home to defend instead of building something strong enough to actually threaten him."

We've had this conversation three times now.

Every morning I wake from another vision, the urge to abandon our mission and return to Phoenix Sanctuary grows stronger.

And every morning, Ambrose talks us down from the ledge with the patient logic of someone who's survived centuries by thinking before acting.

He's right. I know he's right. But knowing doesn't make it easier to watch my home fall apart from the inside while I'm hundreds of miles away, collecting allies for a war that might end before we're ready to fight it.

"The sanctuary has Dante," Stellan says, shifting closer until his warmth bleeds into my side.

His fire has steadied since I woke, responding to the determination hardening in his voice.

"It has Tamara and the reformed enforcers.

The students have been training. We built something that can survive without us hovering over it. "

"Did we?" The question escapes before I can stop it, carrying all the doubt I've been trying to suppress. "Or did we just convince ourselves that leaving was the right call because staying meant facing Dmitri before we were ready?"

Jade's tail wraps around my ankle, a grounding pressure that pulls my spiraling thoughts back to the present.

"Both can be true," he says, his voice carrying a rationality that surprises me.

"We left because we weren't ready. We're building the network so we will be.

The sanctuary surviving until then isn't about whether we made the right choice.

It's about whether the people we left behind are as strong as we believe they are. "

The silence that follows is heavy with everything we're not saying. We haven’t been gone long, and already the distance feels like a chasm.

The bonds help, keeping us connected to each other, but they can't bridge the gap between us and everyone we left behind. Even with Dante’s reports coming through Ambrose, it fails to capture whatever is really happening inside those walls.

"We need to warn him properly." I force myself to focus on what we can actually control. "Not just updates about our progress. He needs to know what I saw tonight. The specific details about Liz, about the students, and about how the corruption is spreading."

Ambrose nods, already reaching for fresh parchment. "I can write a more detailed contract. But the cost will be higher than our usual messages."

"Then we share it." Rumi's wings fold inward as he moves to join us, the black threads in his aura settling into something more controlled. "That's the whole point of what we figured out, isn't it? No one pays alone anymore."

The contract takes shape under Ambrose's careful hands, green light weaving through words that carry more than simple information. I describe everything I saw in the vision, every detail about Liz's flickering aura and the shadows creeping through the sanctuary's halls.

Ambrose translates my rambling account into precise magical language, building a message that will deliver not just words but impressions, emotions, and the visceral weight of what Mother Nature keeps showing me.

When he finishes, the cost ripples through all six of us at once. Not just Ambrose. All of us, because we're sharing the price, and the price is high. I feel it go. A memory, pulling loose from somewhere deep, and I grab for it instinctively but it's already dissolving.

"What was that?" Stellan asks, his voice shaking. "Something's gone. I can feel where it was but I can't remember what it was."

Ambrose's face is ashen. "The first time all six of us were in the same room together. That's what it took."

The silence that follows is terrible. We all reach for the memory and find nothing, a blank space where something important used to live.

We know it happened because we're here, because the bonds exist, because we wouldn't be standing together if we hadn't found each other.

But the actual moment is gone. The feeling of it, the details, the way it must have felt to realize for the first time that this was real, erased.

When Ambrose's hands tremble slightly as he releases the message into the ether, five other hands reach for him without hesitation. We hold him until the trembling stops, until the green light fades and the contract shoots away toward Phoenix Sanctuary

Dawn breaks while we're still tangled together, pale light filtering through the trees and painting our campsite in shades of gold and shadow.

Harlow lingers beside me while the others start breaking camp. He does that sometimes, staying close when everyone else begins moving, like he's waiting for the noise to cover whatever he wants to say.

"You saw more than you told them."

I glance at him. His pale eyes are distant, tracking something beyond the treeline that has nothing to do with the physical world.

"The vision showed Liz dying," I admit, keeping my voice low enough that only he can hear.

"Not just acting strange. Dying. I didn't want to say that in front of everyone when we can't do anything about it from here. "

He's quiet for a moment. "I've been seeing it too.

Not the same way you do, but the edges of it.

Futures where Phoenix Sanctuary is emptier than it should be.

" His hand finds my wrist, cold fingers pressing against my pulse point.

"Carrying the worst parts alone doesn't protect them.

It just means two of us are drowning instead of one. "

"Since when are you the emotionally mature one?"

A ghost of a smile crosses his face. "I'm dead.

It gives you perspective." He holds my gaze for another beat, something passing between us that doesn't need the bond to communicate, two people who see the dark futures and choose to keep walking anyway.

He leans in to press a soft kiss to the edge of my lips, lingering there for several moments before letting go of my wrist and turning toward camp.

"Tell them about Liz. Not now, but soon.

They deserve to know what we're walking toward. "

"We should move." Jade is the first to pull away, his demon form rippling as he stretches muscles that have been coiled for too long. "Ambrose's surveillance picked up Council presence about six miles east. If we swing north, we can avoid them entirely."

"Or we can walk straight through." I push myself to my feet, testing my legs and finding them steadier than expected. "I'm tired of skulking around like we have something to hide."

A sharp, surprised laugh comes from Rumi. "The Praestes wants to pick a fight with Council bureaucrats before breakfast. I think I'm rubbing off on you."

"You're definitely rubbing off on me. That's not the point.

" I reach for the bond marks on my arm, letting my essence rise to the surface until the symbols glow with soft pink light.

"Dmitri's power comes from making us hide.

From convincing everyone that different means dangerous, that connection means weakness.

Every time we sneak past a checkpoint or avoid Council territory, we're playing by his rules. "

"And every time we announce ourselves, we give him more information about where we are and what we're doing," Ambrose counters, though I can feel his reluctant agreement bleeding through our connection. "There's a middle ground between hiding and painting a target on our backs."

The compromise we reach involves walking openly on the main road but keeping our more obvious features concealed.

Rumi tucks his wings away, Jade shifts to a more human appearance, and Harlow maintains just enough solidity to pass for alive.

Only Stellan remains unchanged, his fire burning slightly at the center of our group, without being fully shifted.

A fire elemental traveling with companions isn't too far outside the normal.

It's enough to raise eyebrows without triggering alarms.

The first checkpoint appears three hours later, a small outpost manned by Council officials who look like they drew the short straw for remote assignment.

Their eyes go wide at the sight of us, six figures moving with the kind of unconscious synchronization that only comes from deep bonding.

One of them fumbles for a communication device, probably trying to figure out whether we warrant a report to someone higher up the food chain.

"Purpose of travel?" The lead official's voice cracks on the second word. He's young, probably fresh out of whatever training program the Council runs for its bureaucratic arm, and the fear rolling off him is sharp enough to make Jade's nostrils flare.

I let my authority settle over my shoulders. "We're heading north to visit allied communities. Diplomatic outreach on behalf of Phoenix Sanctuary."

The name gets a reaction, though not the one I expect.

The official's eyes narrow slightly, recognition flickering across his face.

Phoenix Sanctuary has most likely been in the news since Stellan's demonstration and the hunter scandal, but out here in the remote territories, the stories have probably been filtered through Council propaganda.

We're troublemakers at best, dangerous radicals at worst.

"I'll need to see documentation," the official says, finding his footing now that he has a reason to be suspicious.

"You'll need to let us pass." I don't raise my voice or let any threat creep into my tone.

I simply state a fact, letting my essence underscore the words with quiet certainty.

"Unless you'd like to explain to your superiors why you delayed a diplomatic mission sanctioned by the sanctuary that just exposed Council corruption to the entire world. "

The checkpoint clears in under a minute.

As we walk away from the stammering officials and their hastily abandoned paperwork, I feel Rumi's amusement bleeding through our bond.

"Sanctioned diplomatic mission?" he murmurs.

"That's a generous description of wandering through the wilderness collecting strays. "

"Perception is reality," Ambrose says, approval warming his voice. "If we act like we have every right to be here, people will believe we do. Dmitri's spent three centuries convincing everyone that his way is the only way. We can use the same tactics against him."