Validus Vale Academy 2 (Essence Bound #2)

Chapter 1

I’m dead.

Dead. D E A D. Dead.

How do I know?

Because I’m not breathing.

Yet strangely, my body still has sensation. A low, resonant thrum vibrates under my skin, an electric buzz, as if my veins were filled with bees, not blood.

Added to that, an annoyingly bright light is burning through my eyelids. When I shift slightly, something sharp digs into my hip.

A rock?

A claw??

I instinctively suck in a breath, but there is no air to inhale.

Duh. Because you’re dead, Theo.

So why does pain exist in the afterlife?

Then, another sensation.

Oh shit.

Something or someone is moving my corpse. And I can hear muffled sounds, like I’ve got cotton balls stuffed in my ears.

I open my eyes.

A beautiful face swims into focus.

A beautiful face with aqua-blue eyes.

“Tee-Tee? Baby, are you really here?”

A tear falls onto my cheek, jolting me out of my stunned state.

“DONOVAN!”

The name rips from my throat, and I’m up, wrapping my body around him.

As his lips brush mine, I know a moment of perfect peace. Our noses nestle against each other, but no breath mingles in this still, strange atmosphere. “You found me,” he whispers.

After what could be minutes, or perhaps hours, Donovan leans back slightly. I cup his face in my hands, reveling in the contact. His hair is wild and matted, and those beautiful turquoise eyes? Argh, they look so haunted, but he’s here.

My lovely man.

My lovely, lovely man, who looks held together by a single fraying thread.

“Oh, Tee.” His voice sounds rough and unused.

“Hey,” I whisper, rubbing his cheek, his beard. “I love you.”

“Oh, Gods. I love you too, baby. So much.”

“So, I guess we’re dead, but it must be heaven if we’re together.”

“We’re not dead, babe. At least I don’t think so.”

What?

If we’re not dead, then what the fuck? Suddenly, it all comes back in a rush. The portal, the voice, the others…Wes! “Where’s Wes?” I twist around, the movement bringing a wave of dizziness. “WES!”

"Keep it down, dud,” an annoyingly familiar voice drawls. “My head is killing me.”

Blinding light sends dark spots dancing before my eyes. When my vision finally equalizes, my gaze is resting on Cosmo Drakeward. He stands a few feet away, and beyond him are the bodies of Ludo and Alexis.

“No…” Oh Gods.

“Relax. They’re no more dead than the rest of us,” Cosmo says, rolling his eyes at me.

What does that even mean? I look back at Donovan.

Donovan.

It’s my Donovan. “Are you real? Where's Wes? What’s happening?”

He settles me against him. "One thing at a time, Tee-baby,” he croaks. “I just need to hold you for a minute.”

OK. I can do that. I will give Donovan Hart anything he wants. I lean into him, and immediately feel the stark outline of his ribs. “You’re so thin, are you hurt?” I push up his tattered shirt, revealing an array of bruises and scrapes.

What has he been through?

Looking around, I take in our surroundings: endless, bleached sand and white rocks. “I’m so confused. And, and, why am I not breathing?”

Donovan gives a sad sort of smile. “Can’t give you an answer to that, but the no air thing is standard around here.”

Around here. Where the hell is here?

OH SHIT. “We’re in hell?”

Seems decidedly likely, seeing as Cosmo is with us.

“Don’t think so, babe.” Donovan grimaces. “I've no little red devils to report, and to be honest, I could have done with their company.”

“What about your newfound powers, Dono?” Cosmo asks. “Don’t they give you any information?”

Powers? What’s he talking about? I’m so confused.

“Nah, bro. I’m truly a one-trick pony.”

Donovan turns his attention back to me and delivers a weary version of his crooked smile. “I’m fucking ecstatic to see you, Tee, but I really wish it wasn’t in this place.”

I shake my head. “We’re together again, which is the only thing that matters. We can face anything if we’re together. It’s that simple.” I let out a weird airless sigh. “Where’s Wes? Does he know I’m here?”

Silence.

When I look at Donovan, his face is devastated.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and his grip on me tightens. “I couldn’t get to him. I tried and tried.”

Couldn’t get to him? “What do you mean? Is Wes safe? Where is he? Where is he, Donovan?”

Donovan shakes his head and pain slices through me.

Before I can ask more questions, a voice enters my head.

—Nymph?—

Ludo. But his voice sounds weak, wrong.

I shift from panic about Wes to panic about Ludo. “Back in a minute,” I say, releasing Donovan and crawling across the sand toward Ludo’s body.

Lu pushes himself onto one elbow, squinting and blinking.

“Are you OK? Are you hurt?” My voice wobbles a little, and I sternly tell myself this is not the time to freak out.

—OK, yes. What about you? What’s wrong?— His thoughts are faint, like my antenna is not tuned in correctly.

“I’m…I don’t know.” Ludo tenses, his gaze flicking over my shoulder. Donovan squats next to us, placing a possessive arm on my back.

—Who is this?—

“He’s Donovan. One of the men we were looking for.”

—Yours?— Ludo's thoughts are sharper now.

My eyes flit between Ludo and Donovan, a certainty blooming in my chest. “You are both mine,” I say, leaning my body into Donovan but taking hold of Ludo’s massive hand at the same time. “Donovan, this is Ludo. He’s, he’s…”

I want to say Ludo is absolutely vital to my very existence, but I don’t know how my long-lost boyfriend will take that right now. “Ludo is important to me.”

Donovan clears his throat. “If Theo says you’re important, then I guess that’s good enough for me.” He gives Ludo a wary nod.

—Where are we, Nymph?—

“I don’t think any of us know,” I tell him. “It’s certainly not the regular world.”

“Yeah, you’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” Cosmo mutters from behind me. “Even a shit-hole like that has oxygen.”

—I’m not breathing— Ludo’s eyes fill with a heavy sorrow —I wanted more life with you, my nymph—I wanted to become worthy of you—

Tears prick at my eyes at the sadness of that statement. I lay a hand on his bicep, then try to send mental waves of love and warmth to the point where our bodies touch.

—What are you doing? I feel…—

“What, Lu, what do you feel?” I murmur.

—For a moment I-I-—

I wait for him to find the words.

—For a moment, I don’t feel broken—

His eyes dart away, and the connection between us breaks. I catch movement from the corner of my eye.

“Pulu?”

Alexis!

I give Ludo and Donovan quick smiles, then race over to my professor. Launching myself down onto the dirt, I run my hands all over his hair and face. Alexis peels his eyes open.

“Wha?” he groans, blinking against the stark light. “Are you alright?” His eyes search my face, then move on to look around the foreign landscape. “Where are we?”

“That’s the question of the hour.”

I see the second Alexis realizes he’s not breathing; his eyes widen and he takes some empty gulps.

“Helvetti! No air?” Alexis’s expression swiftly changes.

“Incredible; I think raw magic is taking the place of a breathable atmosphere.” He scoops up a handful of the bleached grit, letting it sift through his fingers.

Instead of falling straight down, the dust drifts in slow, spiraling loops.

“The physics here are completely rewritten.”

Suddenly, he drops the sand and grabs my face between his hands, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. “Are you OK? This energy is intense, pulu.” He scans me from head to toe. "Tell me you aren't hurting. Tell me you can handle this."

"I'm fine, Alexis. I promise," I assure him, covering his hands with mine.

He pulls me into a hard, brief hug. “If that changes, you inform me immediately,” he commands against my hair. "Immediately."

When I murmur my agreement, he lets out a breathless sigh. “Good. Now, Maximus?”

Shit. I hadn’t even thought of Alexis’s cousin.

“Max isn’t here,” Donovan replies, coming over to stand next to me again.

“And nor is Wes,” I add, “but this is Donovan.”

Alexis looks around some more, brow furrowing deeply. “This is where we arrived after we went through the portal?”

Cosmo kicks a rock. “Yep, after your special student got us dragged into the light, we ended up in this fucking airless desert. So get your shit together and contribute something helpful, professor,” he growls. “I thought you were supposed to be a genius or something.”

Alexis straightens and turns his attention to Donovan. “If Maximus and Wes are not with you, where are they?”

When Donovan rakes a hand across his face, looking wrecked, I stand and quickly wrap my arms around him. “Donovan hasn’t had the chance to fill us in on everything yet, we all just woke up.”

“Well, if you’d stop pawing your little harem for a moment,” Cosmo tries and fails to take a deep breath, “maybe he’d have a chance to share some pertinent information.”

Alexis is immediately in Cosmo’s face. “Drakeward,” he snarls, twisting the collar of Cosmo’s stupid cashmere sweater in his grip. “Watch your mouth.”

Ludo steps in front of me, like he’s worried I’ll get tangled up in a brawl.

“Yeah, Cos, cut it the fuck out,” Donovan adds, shaking his head. “Aren’t you over that bullshit by now?”

Alexis releases his hold while Donovan stares Cosmo down.

After a minute, the tension eases.

Cosmo doesn’t apologize, of course, but he does soften his tone.

"I just want to know where Wes is. And where the fuck we are.” His usual arrogant mask drops and for once I see sharp, naked worry on his perfect features.

“Look, Dono, putting aside the horse body thing, can you start from the beginning? "

Horse thing?

My beautiful Donovan pushes the long hair out of his face, and my heart cracks as the usual sparkle doesn’t show in his eyes.

“It’s a long, but mostly boring story,” he says, squatting down onto his haunches, looking like an exhausted caveman. “So get comfortable.”