Chapter 30 Bechora
It took a little more than two weeks to make note of which of my classmates seemed to genuinely be missing.
Some of them who were absent from class had truly just been playing hooky, while there were others I still hadn’t seen.
All in all, between the six of us, we’d compiled a list of thirty students whose disappearances needed to be investigated.
Shadrie, Zypher, Gabriel, Archer, and even Miles were trying to get information from the missing student’s friends, which was how I found myself arriving alone at Vallynn and Dante’s dorm.
The door opened before I could knock. Vallynn filled the doorway, his gaze sweeping over me and the empty hallway behind me.
“You’re alone,” he said. “I thought Caulder said he’d be here with you and the others.”
“Yeah, well, they’re running behind, obviously!” I snapped, wishing I’d just waited in my room for Zypher or Gabriel to show up and collect me for the meeting Caulder had arranged.
“Come in,” Vallynn said, stepping aside so I could move past him into his shared dorm with Dante.
The space looked exactly like I remembered it from when we’d met to work on a group project last year.
The living area was larger than the one I shared with Shadrie, the seating around the low coffee table clearly more expensive than standard Academy issue.
Their kitchenette was even bigger, practically a full kitchen separated from the living room by an island counter.
The space looked a lot more like an upscale two-bedroom apartment than it did a dorm.
I moved to sit on the sofa just as Dante emerged from his bedroom.
His hair was damp as if he’d just showered and hadn’t bothered to dry it.
It should be illegal for any male who lied as much as he and Vallynn to look as good as they did.
At least this time, the evening wouldn’t end in me leaking succubus allure, while Zypher did everything he could to keep me from climbing one or both of them like a fucking tree.
“Hey,” Dante said, cautiously as he moved to sit opposite me in a recliner. “Where are the others?”
“Running behind!” I snapped again.
Vallynn moved to take another empty recliner situated at one end of the coffee table. “Bechora… I was hoping we could talk. I’d planned to ask you after, but since everyone else is running late, this seems like the best time.”
“No. Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it,” I retorted. Dante opened his mouth to speak, and I cut him off. “Not from you either.”
I leaned back into the sofa, crossing my arms over my chest as if that could hold the anger in place. It didn’t. If anything, it seemed to go from a simmer to a full-on boil beneath my skin.
“Please,” Vallynn said, his voice softer. “Just hear us out.”
“Why should I?” I shot back. “Both of you had plenty of chances to tell me the truth before now. You chose not to. That’s on you.”
Dante dragged a hand through his damp hair, his gaze dropping briefly to the floor before lifting back to me. “We wanted to tell you, really we did, but neither of us wanted to risk putting you in danger.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “Right, because keeping life-altering information from me somehow kept me safe, while the two of you went back and forth between treating me like garbage and trying to get close to me.”
It wasn’t like that,” he pushed, leaning forward slightly. “You think I wanted to lie to you and pretend like you meant nothing to me?”
“I don’t know what you wanted,” I snapped. “That’s kind of the problem, Dante.”
Vallynn exhaled slowly. “Dante was trying to protect me. If anyone deserves your wrath, it’s me.”
“Don’t do that,” I said immediately. “Don’t make this into some kind of noble sacrifice where one of you plays the villain, and the other plays the martyr. You both made your choices.”
Vallynn inclined his head slightly, seemingly accepting my words without argument. Dante didn’t look nearly as composed.
“I wasn’t trying to make him a martyr,” Vallynn said quietly. “I’m simply trying to tell you the truth behind why we made the choice we did.”
“Then, start with the part where you actually explain how lying to me was supposed to accomplish anything? Did you just assume I’d never figure out what this infuriating pull to both of you actually was, because I’m just some dumb girl who grew up in the human realm?”
“No!” Dante replied, slashing his arm in a downward motion.
“There was never any question that you’d figure it out eventually.
Not for me at least. That’s why we were such assholes to you.
Figured the more distance we put between us, the less you’d feel the pull to even start questioning what it was. We wanted to keep you safe .”
I let out a derisive snort. Safe . As if I wasn’t already facing danger without them.
Even without the prophecy hanging over my head, the Academy was cutthroat.
Sure, there was magic that prevented lasting harm or death, but Daena and her cronies had proven last term that it didn’t stop people from getting hurt.
My jaw tightened. “So, instead of trusting me with information about my own life , you decided it was better to keep me in the dark. You never even stopped to consider that maybe knowing what you both are to me, and why you think it’s so dangerous, might actually help make me safer.”
“That’s not—”
“It is!” I cut Vallynn off. “Whether you meant to or not, you’ve probably put me in more danger by keeping me in the dark for so long.”
Silence pressed in at my words, thick and suffocating.
Beneath the anger bubbling in my veins, something else started to creep in.
Something I didn’t really want to consider.
But as much as I clung to my anger, I knew I was just as bad as the males sitting across from me.
They weren’t the only ones who’d kept a bond from me.
Caulder had as well. He’d secretly sent me potions, helped me, and kept our mate bond hidden behind rules and technicalities with his position as professor.
I’d been hurt, and even angry, when I found out the truth, but not like this.
Maybe it made me a hypocrite, but I couldn’t just let go of the way they’d treated me while keeping such an important piece of information secret.
Dante shifted forward first, as if he couldn’t sit still under the weight of the silence anymore. “Then tell us how to fix it.”
The question caught me off guard. My lips parted, ready to snap something back— you can’t, or you already screwed that up —but the words stalled before they could make it out. The truth was, I didn’t know what fixing it even looked like, and I hated that almost as much as I hated them right now.
“You don’t get to skip to that part,” I said instead, grimacing at the slight tremor in my voice. “There isn’t some quick fix, where you say the right words and suddenly everything’s fine.”
“We know,” Vallynn said.
Dante nodded in agreement. “We’re not looking for quick. We’re looking for… anything to get us on that path.”
My fingers curled slightly against my arms, nails biting into my skin. “You want something?” I asked. “Then start with an apology, and after that, don’t lie to me anymore. About anything . I don’t care how small you think it is. I can’t even consider forgiving you if I can’t trust you.”
“Done,” Dante responded immediately.
Vallynn didn’t hesitate either. “Agreed”
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “That almost felt too quick.”
Dante huffed out a breath. “Because it’s not hard, Bechora. We should’ve been doing that from the start.”
A knock at the door saved me from having to respond.
Vallynn let his gaze linger on me a moment longer before standing from his seat and answering.
My friends and mates were crowded in the hallway, with Shadrie wearing a particularly vengeful expression as they pushed past Vallynn to enter the room.
Without a word, she beelined it to the couch where I sat and settled into an empty cushion beside me.
Gabriel settled on my other side while Archer and Zypher placed themselves on the floor near my feet.
Caulder took the chair Vallynn had vacated, and Miles perched on the arm of the couch beside Shadrie.
“Just say the word, and I’ll ice their dicks,” Shadrie whispered to me, causing me to bark out a laugh that had everyone looking at me.
“Let’s get through this first, and then we can talk about it,” I replied.
The room settled after that, tension still thick but no longer suffocating.
Caulder leaned forward slightly, steepling his fingers as his gaze swept over all of us. “Let’s get to why we’re here.”
What followed blurred into a steady exchange of information.
Vallynn and Dante were surprisingly forthcoming with what they knew aboutthe king’s actions.
Neither had a clear answer about his motives, though they both shot me pointed looks when they detailed how they’d rescued several supernaturals from the king’s clutches, while arriving too late for others.
The most surprising bit of information they had to share was about the Dean.
According to Dante’s father, she was an elf, not the fae she pretended to be, though I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Caulder explained the suspicions I’d raised and the missing demon student Zypher had brought to his attention, before Miles rattled off the list we’d compiled.
Zypher added what he’d gleaned from the demon students, though there were only three of their names on our list. Gabriel followed with what little he’d learned from the vampires, explaining their secretive nature meant they likely knew more than they’d shared.
Archer and Shadrie, the most social of the bunch, had a wealth of gossip from the rest of the student body.
In almost every case, it was assumed but not confirmed that the students in question had simply left the Academy.
Only five names on our list could be confirmed as actually having left.
In each of those cases, they’d either had their magic binding witnessed by a fellow student or called their friends on campus since leaving.
“We should check out anything the Dean keeps stored in her office,” Vallynn said once all the information was shared. “And maybe check the records room, directly. It could be that something was misfiled and Mrs. Fiodh just couldn’t find it because of that.”
“I highly doubt the Dean will simply grant us access to either place,” Caulder replied.
“Even with you being the Crown Prince, and especially not if she’s involved somehow.
The best option is to have Mrs. Fiodh look for the records of the students on this list. Brownies have access to the records room. ”
“Do you really want to risk putting her in danger if there is something bad going on here?” Dante challenged. “I’m with Vallynn on this one. If we can’t gain access the right way, we break in.”
“A good, old-fashioned B and E? I’m game,” Archer grinned.
“As much as I hate to admit it, they have a point,” I added.
“I don’t want to put anyone in danger if we can help it.
Between all of us, there’s plenty of magic to get in, search around, and get out before anyone notices.
If we’re wrong, great. If we’re right, we’re not drawing attention to an innocent bystander who just did what we asked of them. ”
Caulder let out a soft growl before nodding sharply. “Fine.”
Archer clapped his hands together in glee. “Awesome! So, who’s teaming up and when do we want to do this?”