Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Practice makes perfect.
The abandoned dance studio on the east wing’s third floor is perfect for midnight practice—mirrors along one wall that reflect moonlight in fractured silver patterns, wooden floors worn smooth by generations of students until they gleam like polished bone, and enough space to work without knocking things over.
According to the thick layer of dust coating everything, no one’s used it in years.
The air smells stale and forgotten, with an underlying hint of old rosin and sweat that speaks of countless hours of practice by students long gone.
The moonlight streams through tall arched windows, casting long rectangles of silver across the floor that shift and dance as clouds pass overhead.
More importantly, it’s far from both the light Nephilim dormitories and my room, where Iris might sense my midnight wanderings despite my best efforts to shield my emotions.
The stone walls are thick enough to muffle any sounds, and the isolation feels like a protective cocoon around my secret practice sessions.
I stand in the center of the room, eyes closed, focusing on my shadows while my bare feet press against the cool wooden floor. They curl around my ankles like affectionate cats, responsive to my feelings but not my direct commands. That’s the fucking problem.
After my embarrassing performance in Professor Winters’ class and my conversation with Bael in the library, I’ve been obsessively practicing every night for a week. Progress is frustratingly slow, like trying to write with my non-dominant hand while blindfolded.
“Extend,” I whisper, picturing shadow tendrils reaching toward the ballet barre across the room in a controlled, deliberate motion.
My shadows eagerly shoot out in every direction instead, wiggling excitedly at their freedom like puppies let off their leash rather than forming the controlled extension I’m attempting.
Some reach toward the mirrors, others spiral up the walls, and one particularly enthusiastic tendril explores the dusty chandelier overhead.
I sigh in frustration, tasting dust and failure.
“They’re not pets to be commanded,” says a deep voice from the darkest corner of the room, smooth as dark chocolate and just as tempting. “They’re extensions of yourself.”
I spin around, heart leaping into my throat before recognizing the familiar presence. Even in my surprise, my body responds to his voice—pulse quickens, skin flushing with awareness. “Seriously? We need to discuss your stalker tendencies.”
Bael steps out of the shadows, his tall form materializing as if the darkness itself is giving birth to him.
He wears all black, as usual—dark jeans that hug his legs, a fitted t-shirt that emphasizes his broad shoulders, and boots that make no sound against the wooden floor.
His dark hair falls loosely around a face that belongs on ancient statues of fallen angels, all sharp cheekbones, and perfect features that shouldn’t exist on anything mortal.
“You’re practicing wrong,” he says, ignoring my comment about his creepy habit of appearing from thin air.
“I’m trying, okay?” I snap, frustration bubbling over like a shaken soda bottle. “It’s not like there’s a ‘How to Pretend You’re Not an Ascendant for Dummies’ guide.”
The corner of his mouth twitches, and I catch a glimpse of those sharp canines that mark him as something other than human. “Perhaps there should be.”
He circles me slowly, his own shadows moving with perfect precision around his feet, each motion deliberate and controlled. Up close, I can smell his scent—something dark and masculine that reminds me of winter nights and forbidden desires. It’s distracting as hell.
“The difference between Dark Nephilim and Ascendants is fundamental,” he explains, his voice taking on a teaching tone. “Their shadows are tools, separate from themselves. Yours are part of you—living extensions of your essence.”
“That’s not helpful. I need to make mine look like theirs.” I cross my arms, aware that the motion presses my breasts together but too frustrated to care about modesty.
“You’re approaching it backward.” He stops directly in front of me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “You’re trying to treat your shadows like foreign objects when you should treat them like limbs.”
I can feel the heat radiating from his body despite his normally cool temperature, and it’s making my thoughts scatter. “My limbs don’t have minds of their own.”
“Don’t they? You don’t consciously tell your heart to beat or your lungs to breathe.
Yet they respond to your needs, speeding up when you’re afraid, slowing when you’re calm.
” His green eyes hold mine, and I feel like he’s seeing straight through to my soul.
“Your shadows function similarly. They’re autonomic responses that you need to bring under conscious control. ”
The explanation actually makes sense, which is more than I can say for most of the supernatural bullshit I’ve been dealing with lately. “So how do I do that?”
“Stop trying to command them. Feel them.”
“That’s very Zen and completely unhelpful.”
He sighs, the sound rough with exasperation. “Close your eyes.”
I hesitate, feeling oddly vulnerable at the thought of being blind while he’s so close. Then I comply, darkness flooding my vision and making every other sense sharper—the sound of his breathing, the subtle shift of air as he moves, the intoxicating scent of his skin.
“Your shadows respond to emotion because they’re connected to your essence,” his voice comes from directly behind me now, making me jump slightly.
I can feel the warmth of his breath against the back of my neck, raising goosebumps along my arms. “But they can respond to thought just as readily if you train them.”
I feel his presence circling me; the floorboards creak softly under his weight. His shadows brush against mine, creating a tingling sensation like static electricity that makes my skin prickle with awareness.
“Picture your shadows as extensions of your nervous system,” he continues, his voice dropping lower, more intimate. “Every tendril connected directly to your mind.”
I try to visualize it—my shadows not as separate entities but as additional limbs, connected to my brain like arms or legs. The concept feels strange but oddly right, like remembering something I’d forgotten.
“Now,” his voice is closer again, “reach out with your mind and touch the mirror.”
I concentrate, picturing a shadow extension reaching toward the mirror wall, feeling it as if it were my finger stretching across the distance. The effort makes my head ache, but to my surprise, I sense the cool, smooth surface of the glass through the shadow like an actual touch.
“Open your eyes,” Bael commands softly.
I do and gasp. A single shadow tendril extends from me to the mirror, perfectly straight and controlled, touching the glass exactly where I intended. It moves when I mentally direct it, tracing a pattern across the mirror’s surface like a dark finger painting.
“I did it!” I can’t keep the excitement from my voice, grinning like an idiot at my reflection in the mirror.
“It’s a start,” Bael acknowledges, but I catch something that might be approval in his tone. “Now try moving something.”
My gaze falls on a pencil someone left on the windowsill, probably decades ago based on the dust coating it.
I focus on my shadow connection, extending it toward the pencil and wrapping around it like invisible fingers.
It takes intense concentration that makes sweat bead on my forehead, but I lift it a few inches, then roll it across the sill with painstaking care.
“Better,” Bael says, and I’m surprised to hear definite approval in his voice now. “Again. The book this time.”
For the next hour, he puts me through increasingly challenging exercises—moving objects that get progressively heavier, creating specific shadow formations like weapons and shields, maintaining multiple shadow extensions simultaneously while he calls out rapid-fire commands.
It’s mentally exhausting but effective, like doing CrossFit for my brain.
By focusing on shadows as extended body parts rather than separate entities, I gain precision I never had before.
My shirt clings to my back with sweat, and my legs shake with exhaustion from the concentration required.
“Enough,” he finally says when I’m swaying slightly from exertion, catching myself against the ballet barre. “You’ve made good progress.”
I sink down onto the floor, leaning against the mirror wall and letting the cool glass soothe my overheated skin. “It’s still not perfect. In class, I’ll have to maintain this concentration while also answering questions and pretending to be normal.”
“It will become more natural with practice.” He sits beside me, his shoulder almost but not quite touching mine. I can feel the heat radiating from his body, and his scent surrounds me like a dark embrace. “You have a natural aptitude.”
“Lucky fucking me,” I mutter, though secretly I’m pleased by the rare compliment from Mr. Stoic and Mysterious.
We sit in silence for a moment, our shadows mingling on the floor between us like lovers’ hands intertwining. The sensation is strangely intimate, like holding hands but more... fundamental. More connected to who I am at my core.
“Can I ask you something?” I say finally.
He inclines his head slightly, which I take as permission.
“How did you become my guardian? You said you’ve been watching my family for generations, but why you specifically?” I turn to study his profile, noting the way moonlight catches the sharp angle of his jaw.
His expression remains neutral, but his shadows momentarily still, betraying his discomfort with the question.
“Your bloodline has produced Ascendants since the First Fall,” he says carefully, his voice taking on a formal tone that suggests he’s told this story before. “After the purges began, those of us who opposed the slaughter arranged protection for certain families with the potential.”
“There are others like me?” Hope flares in my chest at the thought that I’m not alone in this.
“There were. Few remain now.” His eyes fix on the moonlight patterns on the floor, and something painful flickers across his features. “I was assigned to your family eight generations ago, after proving myself trustworthy to the Shadow Council.”
“The what now?”
“A story for another time.” He dismisses the question with a gesture that brooks no argument. “What matters is that I’ve watched over your ancestors, waiting for another Ascendant to emerge.”
I study his profile, the sharp angles softened by moonlight that makes him look almost ethereal. “That’s a long time to wait.”
“Immortality provides patience,” he says simply, but I catch a hint of weariness in his voice that speaks of centuries of loneliness.
Another question burns at the back of my mind, one I’ve been afraid to ask since the night of my transformation. “In the park, when you touched me... what was that? You said something about a mate bond, but then refused to explain.”
His shadows react instantly, reaching toward mine before he visibly reins them in with an effort that makes the muscles in his neck tense. “You’re not ready for that conversation.”
“I think turning into a supernatural being with wings and living shadows qualifies me for the full disclosure package,” I counter, frustration making my voice sharper than intended.
He rises in one fluid motion, shadows gathering around him like a cloak of living darkness. “Another night. We’ve done enough for today.”
As he turns to leave, frustration spikes through me like lightning, and my shadows react without conscious direction, shooting out to wrap around his wrist before I can stop them. We both freeze, startled by the contact that neither of us initiated.
The sensation is electric, a current of energy passing between us where our shadows connect that makes my entire body tingle with awareness.
His eyes widen slightly, then darken to the color of a forest at midnight as he looks at me.
For a moment, I think he might close the distance between us, might finally give me answers to the questions burning in my chest.
Instead, he gently disentangles his shadows from mine, though they seem reluctant to separate, clinging to each other like opposing magnets fighting natural law. The loss of contact leaves me feeling strangely bereft.
“You’re learning faster than I expected,” he says, his voice rougher than before, like he’s fighting for control. “Tomorrow night, same time. We’ll work on shadow concealment techniques.”
Before I can respond, he steps into the deepest shadow in the corner of the room and simply vanishes, leaving me alone with the moonlight and the lingering sensation of our shadows’ connection like an echo in my bones.
I stare at my hands, watching my shadows curl around my fingers like living ink that responds to my every emotion. What the fuck just happened? That moment of connection felt significant in ways I don’t fully understand, like touching a live wire that lights up parts of me I didn’t know existed.
As I make my way back to my room through the silent, sleeping academy, my bare feet silent on cold stone floors, I can’t stop thinking about the look in Bael’s eyes when our shadows touched—recognition, desire, and something that looked almost like fear.
Whatever this connection between us is, it’s getting stronger. And I have a feeling it’s going to complicate everything.