Chapter 2
Chapter Two
“Stop,” I say. “This is fucking ridiculous. You will do this or you will be kicked out for bullying each other. Do you understand?”
Jayden steps up next to me with his arms held loosely at his sides, ready for an attack should one come. “You guys are acting like petty toddlers having a tantrum. Shape up or ship out. This is your only warning.”
There’s a lot of grumbling but the students finally back down. They wanted to mutiny over not being able to pick their own teams. This is ridiculous.
“Everyone, you have thirty minutes and then meet at the training yard. This starts now.” I wave them all off.
“Do you think maybe you were too hard on them?” Adrian asks.
“No, this needs to end or the war that’s coming is already lost.” I square my shoulders.
“But if we just told them about Apollo, then maybe they would realize that this feud is stupid,” Thad says.
“I don’t think that’s what will happen,” Raven says.
“They could have a point,” Jayden says, thoughtful.
“What?” I round on him. “That’s not a good idea. Yes, it will vindicate the Apollo kids but the Athena and Aphrodite students will have it even worse. Especially after what Mia did.”
“We put too much faith in them when we announced who the players were and lines were drawn and look what happened. They turned on each other like rabid animals.” Raven crosses her arms.
“I don’t know,” Thad says. “It could prove that perception is off and they should look at the person and not their parents.”
“You’re talking about my brothers here. You’re giving them way too much credit. Do you think they have thought provoking moments like that?” Raven raises an eyebrow.
I kick a rock by my boot and start moving. Am I wrong? This could be a terrible idea. It could all blow up in my face, but I don’t have an alternative.
“I don’t think Dax would appreciate being lumped in with the others,” Thad points out.
“He has his moments but for the most part, he’s an idiot too. I’m telling you, Beth is right and if we want any chance at winning this war, they need to train.” Raven loops her arm through mine and we walk away from the others to the training grounds.
“I was just playing devil’s advocate, baby,” Jayden says. “I think this is the best solution. Hopefully they take it seriously.”
“They better take it seriously. I hope they are too tired and exhausted to start shit with each other when we go to the temple of Hermes and get his item of power back.” I lean my head on his shoulder.
“You’re right, though. The Athena and Aphrodite students who are still here don’t deserve the treatment they would get if we outed what Apollo has done.” Raven bumps me with her shoulder.
“Shit,” I say and change direction. “We need to go check on Draven.”
“What do you think she hit him with?” Raven asks.
“I don’t know but it couldn’t have been anything lethal, right? That would have been way over the line.” I shake my head.
“He’ll be okay.” Jayden squeezes my hand.
“He has to be because we need him for what’s coming, and if he’s down for the count, I might just strangle Bethany,” I say.
“Same. He’s the only Hermes student we can trust,” Raven says, then gags. “Who would have thought those words would ever come out of my mouth?”
“He’s gotten a lot better since the mission to save Artemis.” Jayden shrugs.
That coming out of his mouth just shows how much Draven has changed. If even Jayden is standing up for the guy you know he’s done some work on himself.
“He has come a long way since the mission to get Ares’ shield back. It’s almost like night and day. I just hope he’s okay.” I chew my lip, nervous.
“He’ll be fine, baby. Let’s go see for ourselves and then come back to train.” Jayden wraps an arm around my back, pulling me close.
“Okay.” I sigh. “I think that will make me feel better.”
“It definitely will,” Raven says.
Jayden opens the door to the academic building and we make our way through the empty halls. It’s eerily silent in here with everyone out getting ready for training. Classes have stopped for the most part because battle training takes precedent right now with war looming over our heads.
When we are almost to the healers’ offices, we hear a crash, then a high-pitched scream follows. It’s coming from the healers’ offices. Weapons at the ready, we rush inside but what we find is unbelievable.
Raven bursts into laughter. “What the hell happened here?”
Kira spins around with her hands raised as if she’s going to fight us. She blinks and slumps her shoulders as she turns back to Dax and Draven. Draven has massive scaly black wings and his eyes are nearly black.
“What did she do?” I ask. “How the fuck do you have wings?”
Draven tilts his head to the side. “I don’t know. She used a spell I have never heard of. I’m not even sure if this was her intention.”
“Okay, so do you know if those are permanent or if you can like retract them or something?” I ask. “Maybe we should get Greyson. Are you a shifter now?”
“I don’t know. The pain when they ripped from my back was excruciating. Why aren’t you freaking out about this?” Draven raises a brow at me.
“Well, we are all pretty much freaks now.” I point to myself, Jayden, and Raven.
Raven scoffs, “We are not freaks. We are fabulous.”
“I mean obviously,” I agree. “We are also crazy powerful hybrid type creatures. If this is permanent, then Draven needs help figuring out limitations, like can he fly? How do we test these things?”
“Your brain is beautiful, baby. You don’t even react to weird shit anymore. You just figure out how to run with it.” Jayden kisses my temple.
“What good does it do to freak out about shit we can’t change?” I ask.
It doesn’t do anyone any favors to freak out. What’s done is done and now we need to adapt to this new revelation. Find out as much as possible about what this means and how we can use it to our advantage.
Dax grins. “The wings are pretty badass.”
Dax runs a finger down one of the scaled wings and Draven shudders. “Uhh, maybe don’t do that again. They’re… sensitive.”
Kira raises a brow at Draven but he avoids her eyes and not so subtly adjusts himself. This time it’s me who bursts into laughter when Dax’s eyes widen and he takes a step away from Draven.
Kira elbows Dax in the side as he opens his mouth, probably to say something crude, and he snaps it shut before anything comes out.
“Thad, can you go get Greyson? I think he’s the only one who can help with this. What did the healer say?”
“Nothing,” Kira grumbles. “They’ve never seen anything like it before, so we have no idea what’s happening.”
“We need to talk to that bitch Bethany and find out where she learned it and what it’s supposed to do,” Raven says with a snarl.
“While it’s cool, people shouldn’t be throwing magic around like that. She could seriously fuck someone up with it.” My shoulders slump.
“Agreed,” Draven says. “I don’t know that I would want to reverse it, though. Once the pain stopped, I felt powerful, like I can do anything.”
The wings on his back twitch and flutter behind him.
He turns to the side to get a better look and I gasp.
They are exactly what I would imagine a dragon’s wings would look like.
They are onyx with veins and tiny bones running all the way through them.
There’s an almost leathery appearance to the flesh on the wings. It appears delicate.
“That’s your choice if we can even have it reversed. We also don’t know if this is permanent or not so you may not have a choice in the matter,” I say.
“We will figure things out as they come, like we always do.” Jayden squeezes my hip.
“What’s going on,” Greyson says and then gasps. “What the hell happened to you?”
“All we know is that my sister used some strange magic and it gave me dragon wings.” Draven shrugs.
“Can you retract them? You can’t go out in the world with damn dragon wings. That will tip off the humans to our existence for sure.” Greyson steps forward.
“I don’t know. I think that’s why Beth called you here.” Draven glances at me.
“None of us know anything about shifting.” I shrug. “You seemed like the best resource.”
Raven loops her arm around Greyson’s. “How do you shift between your forms, babe?”
“I don’t know that it will work. I have an animal counterpart and just tell him to shift when I want to shift back and I imagine myself in my human form.” Greyson rubs the back of his neck.
“Can you just imagine yourself like you were?” I ask.
“I’ll try, but what if I do and I can’t get them to come back?” Draven asks.
“Maybe we should get him a mirror?” Kira asks. “That way he can study what they look like so that he can visualize them when he wants them to come back.”
“That’s an excellent idea.” I nod. “Learning to fly or having eyes in the sky could be a game changer on a mission.”
“Yes, absolutely.” Jayden nods.
Adrian grabs a full-length mirror while Greyson gets another one and they position them around Draven so he can see his back. It’s a bloody mess at the place where the wings ripped free of his back. My stomach roils a little but nowhere near as bad as it used to at the sight of so much blood.
“All right, you have a good image of them in your mind?” Greyson asks.
“Not yet,” Draven says. “Let me see if I can spread them out a bit to see them more clearly.”
Draven’s brow furrows in concentration and a second later, the huge wings are spread out in a ten-foot wingspan behind his back. He flexes his shoulders and the wings flutter a little behind him.
“That’s fucking wicked,” Dax says.
“Okay, now imagine your back the way it was before the wings came out.” Greyson points to the mirror.
We all watch in fascination as the wings slowly retract beneath his skin the flesh knitting itself back together like they were never even there.
“I didn’t realize how heavy they were until they were gone. I feel lighter and I’m starving,” Draven says.