Chapter Forty-Five #2
Zypher chuckled, the sound filled with mischief. Thrackborne’s composure cracked for the first time since I’d met him in the parking lot of Sinful Seduction. Scales rippled along his exposed forearms, and I felt Gabriel tense beside me as Zypher laughed harder.
“Everything I have done has been to protect you,” Thrackborne snapped, surging to his feet.
“If I had acknowledged our bond, one of us would have been forced from the academy! Neither of those things is an option, not when there are forces at play you can’t comprehend. Dangers that will rip you to shreds!”
“Fuck you,” I gritted out. “You’re what, thirty-something, and rather than tell me that like a fucking adult, you chose to hide what you are to me? How fucking childish!”
“Two-hundred-thirty-five, actually,” he replied, the calm in his voice betrayed by the smoke curling from his nostrils.
“What?” I demanded.
“I’m not thirty. I am two-hundred-thirty-five, though the lifespan of my kind would put that on par with a human in their thirties.”
“Jesus Christ! I thought Shadrie was joking when she said you were two-hundred-something.” I snapped, throwing my hands in the air and whirling on the others. “Anyone else want to drop an age bomb on me, now’s the time.”
“I’m only twenty-two,” Gabriel shrugged.
“I told you my age when we met,” Shadrie added.
“I’m nineteen,” Miles said meekly.
“I am twenty-four, Dilectus,” Zypher said before grinning at the professor. “I knew you were a bond brother.”
“Are you serious right now?” I demanded, causing Zypher’s smile to drop. “You knew and you didn’t tell me either?”
“After what my mother experienced with Adam, I refused to risk putting you through that, Dilectus.” Zypher’s tone was soft enough to temper my anger.
My shoulders slumped forward as I turned to face the dragon again. I leaned forward, my hands curling into fists on the edge of his desk.
“You could have told me,” I said, quieter in the wake of Zypher’s admission.
“You could have trusted me enough to tell me the truth. Instead, you sent me gifts in secret and lied to me. This whole time, I’ve been drawn to you, thinking something must be very wrong with me to be attracted to another male when I already have two mates.
It was all I could do to keep the guilt from consuming my thoughts.
” My voice cracked. “You could have told me the truth at any time, and I wouldn’t have had to spend all this time thinking I was a horrible mate to them. ”
“You think I wanted to hide the truth from you?” he asked, pinning me with his amber eyes.
“I have waited for you for centuries. I searched the human realm for you and came up empty. It wasn’t until I caught your scent in that parking lot that I finally found you.
It nearly destroyed me to realize I couldn’t claim you without risking your life. ”
“You stole the choice from me, Thrackborne,” I snapped.
“Caulder,” he murmured. “If you’re going to address me as anything now that you know the truth, it will be my first name.”
“Fine,” I spat. “Caulder. I know the truth now, so you have to decide. You either want this bond, or you don’t.
” I held my hand up, silencing him before he could speak.
“I’m not saying I forgive you, but no more hiding from it.
No more lying to me about it. We get to know each other.
You prove you’re worthy of being mine, and then I’ll decide if I’ll accept you and the bond.
” I could practically feel Zypher’s pride in me rolling off him from where he stood behind me.
Caulder’s jaw clenched, and he nodded in understanding. “Then, come what may, I am yours.”
The sound of a siren tore through the room, causing me to jump.
“What is that?” Shadrie yelled to be heard over the sound.
“Something is wrong,” Caulder called back, moving to stand between me and the door to his office. “We need to get to the quad now.”
“Isn’t it safer in here?” I yelled, my hands pressed to my ears in an attempt to drown out the noise.
“No, the quad is the only place all the students can be gathered and informed of the reason for the alarm,” Caulder answered before pinning his gaze on my mates and jabbing his fingers in their direction.
“Keep her safe. The Dean’s shield should hold, but we don’t know what we’re about to walk into. ”
Without another word, he stormed into the hallway, leaving us to chase after him.
Zypher and Gabriel flanked me as we raced behind the dragon toward the quad.
We arrived to find it full of students and their families.
I caught sight of Lucifer over the crowd and motioned toward him.
Zypher nodded in my peripheral and waved a hand above the mass of people surrounding us.
Lucifer seemed to sag with relief as he pushed his way through until he reached us.
“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked, my words echoing over the crowd as the sirens cut off abruptly.
Lucifer shook his head, just as a screen shimmered into existence above us. Dean Femirea’s voice rang out, quieting the worried whispers, as a scene began to play out over the projected illusion.
“Attention students and staff of Blackthorne Academy. Effective immediately, students are prohibited from leaving campus.”
My eyes focused on the illusion as a shimmering wall came into focus. As it panned out, thousands of humans appeared, military tanks and planes peppered throughout their growing numbers.
“The supernatural realm is under attack. In order to assure the safety of all Blackthorne Academy students, the King has ordered us into lockdown. Parents will be permitted to return to their homes and are expected to shelter there,” Femirea’s voice continued.
“Something’s not right,” I muttered, reaching around Gabriel to tug on Miles’ shirt sleeve. “Do you see it? Those people, they don’t… they don’t look right.”
Miles frowned and squinted at the screen.
“Father, you must invoke Aegis Maleficarum. You must invoke it now,” Zypher hissed.
I didn’t bother sparing the exchange any attention. I was too focused on the strange shimmer that seemed to wrap around the humans on the summoned screen. “Please tell me you see that, Miles.”
“I see it,” Miles said finally. “I don’t think those are real humans.”
“Then what are they?” Gabriel asked, having overheard us.
Miles squinted harder. “They… they look like illusions, but I don’t understand why nobody else seems to notice they’re not right.”
Caulder growled low in his throat, a thick puff of smoke blowing from his nose. “The King,” he snarled. “This is his doing.”
“Why would—” Shadrie started.
Caulder shook his head. “I can’t explain that here.
” He turned to face me, his hands reaching out as if he meant to grab me before he caught himself.
“You must go with Lucifer now, Bechora. Only demon law can get you off academy grounds now, and if the things I uncovered while looking into your magic are true, you need to access their archives before you return.”
“I can’t leave. What about everyone else?” I demanded.
“I will keep your friends safe. Your… mates will be able to leave with you. As long as Lucifer invokes Aegis Maleficarum, you and your claimed mates will become his wards. You will fall under his rule. The demons were smart in their negotiations with the academy. None of their kind are subject to the Fae King’s orders on these grounds. ”
Caulder nodded toward Zypher. My demon mate pulled me into his side and turned to his father. “Do it. Do it now.”
I opened my mouth to speak. To argue for another way.
I couldn’t just leave Shadrie and Miles behind, not after everything we’d endured in the trials.
I lurched forward, reaching out for Caulder, my soul screaming that I couldn’t leave him behind either.
Not when I’d only discovered he was mine.
Not when I knew something was seriously wrong outside the academy’s wards.
I barely heard Lucifer’s voice, clipping out a melodic cadence as Zypher and Gabriel pulled me back.
A sob tore from my throat as I struggled against their hold.
Caulder watched me with sad eyes as the pitch of Lucifer’s voice rose, his words whipping into a frenzy.
I heard the ground crack open before I felt it, the stone warping beneath my feet, before I fell.
I screamed, my hands lashing out to grab anything I could find.
The darkness swallowed me whole, air whipping past me for what seemed like hours, and then it just…
stopped. My mouth snapped shut, my throat raw from screaming, as I took in my new surroundings.
“Welcome to my home, Dilectus,” Zypher spoke from beside me. My lower lip trembled, and tears threatened to spill over my lashes at the realization that I was no longer at the academy, my friends and dragon mate left behind. “I promise we will find the answers you need and get you back to them.”