Root Rot Academy: Term 3 Read online

  “Unless that cow ordered the invasion.” I tossed the theory out without much consideration, but fuck me, this all seemed like something that sociopath would do. When both my guys arched their judgy eyebrows, I shrugged. “I’m just saying…”

  “And to what end, fury?”

  “I haven’t worked out the specifics, but, like, maybe to show her leadership skills in a crisis,” I snapped, which made Gavriel’s smirk sharpen. “I don’t know. Whatever. Leave me alone. One disaster at a time.”

  Bjorn’s hand suddenly gripped the nape of my neck, strong and imposing, and he stole a deep, toe-curling kiss before I had the chance to even process what was happening. He then nudged me and my tingling body toward Gavriel. “Look after her.”

  “And where the fuck are you going?” the fae demanded as we both watched him beeline for the stairs.

  “I want to have a little fun,” he purred over his shoulder, eyes dark, mouth curving into something monstrous—unrecognizable but thrilling. “Meet you two out there.”

  I shook my head, still breathless from his kiss, cheeks aflame and belly an inferno. “Bjorn, wait—”

  “Sun’s just set,” Gavriel interjected with a two-finger salute, “but the rays are still out.”

  “Noted.”

  Bjorn then vanished in a burst of vampiric speed, just a shadowy blur darting up the stairs and into the unknown. I huffed and crossed my arms, demanding answers from Gavriel with an accusatory glare. The fae just chuckled and wiped a bit of blood from my chin.

  “If you don’t recognize a warrior with a hard-on for violence at this point, I really can’t help you.”

  Oh.

  Right.

  Viking.

  Almost out of habit, my lower lip slipped between my teeth—then bailed at the first whisper of pain. Still swollen from Bjorn’s kiss, from the fight, from everything, I couldn’t nibble at it like I usually did when thoughtfully digesting something; in this case, Gavriel in his armor. Yes, he was a fucking smoke-show, a warrior from an older, less civilized time, but it also just seemed… right.

  “Looks good on you.” I nodded pointedly to the engraving across his chest, stars and fire, remnants of home to carry with him wherever battle called. Wings folded in a relaxed position, the fae glanced down at himself, then scratched at the back of his neck.

  “Uh, I… Thanks.”

  “I thought you weren’t allowed to wear it again?”

  His jaw clenched. “Well, you know, extenuating circumstances and all that. Seemed stupid to go into a fight without my gear just for the sake of… pride.”

  Sighing softly, I sidled in and took his bloody armored hand in both of mine, then squeezed, unsure if he could even feel it. “Fuck the Ash Court army.” Gavriel’s silver gaze snapped to mine, and I brushed my knuckles up the sharp line of his cheekbone. “This is who you are. Wear it whenever the hell you want.”

  His dark lashes fluttered somewhat as I wiped the black smears away with my thumb, and when they opened fully, emotion shone so beautifully bright inside. But then one blink and it was gone, replaced with a leer that had me rolling my eyes and retreating.

  “Whenever the hell I want?” Gavriel rumbled, cocking an eyebrow and hooking me around the waist. Try as I might to squirm free, the armor made him even stronger than usual. So, I gave him a deadpan look and shoved at his chest.

  “Oh my gods.” His laughter came with a loosened grip, and I slipped under his arm, scoffing. “You’re not wearing your armor when we have sex, you fucking pervert.”

  “You say that now, fury.” The fae whirled around and pointed to his backside with both hands. “But I see the way your hungry eyes track me… You want this armored ass all to yourself.”

  “Ugh, come on.” Grinning, I shoved him toward the stairs, hands pressed between his wings. Desperate as I was for a proper feel, to stroke the gossamer black streaked with greyish starlight, now wasn’t the time. Still, though. How could something look so soft, so silky, and also deflect bullets?

  I blinked, withdrawing as he scaled the first few steps into the narrow darkness, and surrendered to a more pressing thought—one that needed an answer before we left the dungeon.

  “Gavriel?”

  He slowed, then trundled back down. “Hmm?”

  “This…” I motioned halfheartedly to the ceiling as another wave of nausea struck. “This wasn’t you, right?” He blanched, brows almost aggressively knit, which triggered some panicked babbling. “No, like, did Darkwell force your hand with the ward? Are they getting impatient?”

  He hesitated for a moment, then stalked out of the stairwell so we could stand toe-to-toe.

  “How can you ask me that?”

  Yeah, it was a shitty train of thought, but I had to quash it sooner rather than later. So, I lifted my chin and held my ground, hoping that he knew me well enough, that we were strong enough, he wouldn’t assume the worst and hightail it out of here.

  Please.

  “No,” he growled. Once again, the muscles along his angular jaw danced, but after a deep, luxurious breath, he softened. “I’m not Darkwell’s only scout. Probably the only one not on payroll, but no. There are too many of us for them to get impatient… All of Lucifer’s little darlings must submit themselves for judgment to the admissions board. We can’t kidnap or coerce. It’s all free will. He wants willing soldiers.”

  “Okay.” I gulped. “Right. Makes sense.” Gods, what a stupid fucking question. “Sorry, I don’t know why I—”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come down here sooner.” His lips quirked when it was my turn for deeply knitted brows. “Call it square?”

  “Did you know we were—”

  “Security wouldn’t let me through,” Gavriel insisted, his usual confidence faltering as he added, “and I didn’t think we should all be stuck in a cell, you know?”

  He then visibly braced for a verbal beatdown.

  I kissed him instead, right on his bloody cheek, hard and affectionate, and pulled back with a grin. “Smart.”

  Another explosion suddenly rocked the castle. Gavriel yanked me against him, my head tucked under his chin, and held me through the aftershocks. Arms squished between us, I did my best to steady him as well, eyes shut against the dust and debris raining from the ceiling. When things settled, we swapped determined glances, the biting humor I so loved about us gone.

  “I’ve got your back up there.”

  In true Gavriel form, he resurrected a little of our dynamic with a dramatic eye roll and a drawn-out sigh. “Say it right, fury. You’ve got my six, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Oh my gods.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, adrenaline ramping up, magic tingling in my palms. “You are so… so…”

  Gavriel held a cupped hand to his ear, awaiting the insult that never came; I flipped him off instead.

  He returned the one-fingered salute, and just as I was about to shove him up the stairs, Gavriel swooped in so close and so sudden that my matted curls fluttered at the whoosh, lips buzzing with the closeness. Keen, calculating silver eyes assessed every gash across my face, and heat flared under my skin at his scrutiny.

  But then I remembered the scars on his back, his side, his chest, first seen when I wrestled his drunk ass into bed on New Year’s, then revisited in the shower the other morning when he spent the night.

  Sleeping in my bed.

  Alone.

  But, baby steps, I guess.

  “Scars build character,” I whispered with a defiant chin lift. The part of me that had always been strong, the one who chose Alecto all those years back, refused to wilt under anyone’s stare. Let them see what Iris had done. Let them witness her cruelty and decide that she was disgustingly unfit to run an academy.

  Gavriel’s lip twitched.

  “You’ve got more than enough character,” he said gruffly. While everything about him screamed murder, his movements stilted, his expression hard as stone, he stroked the backs of his armored fingers over my face tenderly—lov
ingly. “I’ll fucking kill her. I swear it.”

  I caught his hand and kissed his palm, the armor there swapped for a worn, smooth leather. “Kill them first.”

  He agreed with a stiff nod and a smile that scared me more than a little.

  Yikes. Wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of the swords sheathed innocently between his wings.

  As Gavriel charged up the stairwell, I took a beat to focus—nothing more than a deep breath and a few nervous bounces on my toes. Then, power coursing through my veins, I jogged after him, determined to defend my men, my kids, and my school to the bitter, bloody end.

  20

  Gavriel

  Apparently when they wanted something bad enough, demons swarmed like locusts.

  And they would be dispensed with as I would actual insects: brute force. No quarter. No mercy. No black-eyed fuck would survive the night; if you let one live, same as their six-legged brethren, they would multiply.

  Fact.

  Or, at least, I assumed as much: this was my first opportunity to fight a demon horde, and I rather enjoyed making their sneering heads roll.

  One sword sheathed, the other at the ready, I shouldered through the swinging doors and into the dining hall. Alecto and I had spent far too long clearing this infestation from the kitchens, assisting the staff in removing demons from their domain. There were more than I remembered, and from the disarray and bodies they left in their wake, they were definitely on the hunt for valuables. If something wasn’t up to par, be it living or inanimate, they discarded it—violently—and moved on.

  No telling what the rest of the castle looked like by now, but probably as bloody and disheveled as the dining hall in which I’d sat only hours prior, staring at these very doors, plotting how I could free Bjorn and Alecto from their cells.

  This… wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind, but it got the job done.

  Many of the top chefs were trapped in the hall, obviously having fled at the first sign of trouble—only to stumble into a whole fuckload of it up here. Magic crackled and flashed all around us, punctuated by gunfire and laughter. Tables overturned. Enchanted windows defiled with what looked and smelled like black spray paint. I knew little of demon tactics, but scorched earth was probably a policy they lived by.

  The physical destruction mattered little to me. My primary objective was to whisk Alecto as far from the carnage as possible, maybe even save a few kids along the way.

  A pipe dream: my fury wouldn’t leave one squalling brat behind, which… I suppose I admired about her. But her bleeding heart had slowed us substantially in the kitchen, and as I listened to her fire off hexes, forced to slow to account for her dawdling steps, I figured this leg of the journey would be much the same.

  Across the dining hall, a demon picking through the buffet table silverware caught my eye with his blackened gaze. They had the choice, demonkind, to wear their horrors on the outside for all to see. As far as I knew, Lucifer forbade exposing themselves in front of humans unless absolutely necessary, but for us? Maybe it was supposed to be intimidating, the absence of color, straight black, dark as the pits of Hell.

  Personally, those obsidian orbs just gave the tips of my blades bigger targets to nail.

  The creature raised his pistol, his stance sloppy and his grip lazy, and fired off two shots. I rebuffed them with my forearm guard, deflecting each off fae-forged steel. One would have hit my cheek, the other my shoulder.

  His weapon jammed when he attempted another lousy shot; as he cursed down at the pistol, slapping it like that would fix the internal mechanics, Alecto hammered him with a hex. A blast of bloodred cracked from behind me and slammed into the demon’s chest, hurling him onto the buffet table, where he lay limp and unresponsive.

  With a dribble of piss soaking through his grey sweatpants.

  I wrinkled my nose.

  Amateurs. All of them—fucking amateurs.

  My fury, meanwhile, was a natural. She hadn’t tasted true battle yet, but she held her own behind me, effortlessly casting without her wand, taking down foes—watching my six. No cries. No gasps. No pleas for my assistance. No stumbling. We moved as one, her stopping when I paused, me slowing when she hesitated, fluid in our combined steps. A true partner. Too caring to ever be a soldier, too concerned with the welfare of those around her, but still a solid war companion.

  Good as she was, I still fought the urge to toss her over my shoulder and fly the fuck out of here. Deposit her on a mountaintop somewhere nearby, then zip back for Bjorn and clear house.

  That look in the vampire’s eyes before he disappeared…

  Any demon who crossed paths with him was fucked. End of discussion.

  Fortunately, despite the destruction, the dining hall wasn’t a complete loss. The high-ranking cowards who had left their underlings to defend the kitchen were doing just fine on their own out here, especially after Alecto and I picked off a couple of the more troublesome demons.

  Not a student in sight, we had more pressing places to visit in this castle, and as Alecto headed for the last skirmish, four demons against three warlocks, I caught her by the elbow and hauled her back.

  “Move out, fury,” I ordered, tone deep and commanding, powerful but aloof—too reminiscent of my days directing lesser fae into the fire. I cleared my throat, still unsure if I was even worthy of this armor, never mind dictating battlefield movements.

  “But…” She gestured toward the fray, and I nodded.

  “They’re fine. They can handle it,” I insisted gruffly. “Come on.”

  Stars above, that bitch had really done a number on her face. Six diagonal pink lines streaked Alecto’s flesh, narrowly missing both eyes, splitting open the corner of her lips. Bjorn must have worked some toxin miracle right away because the scarring should have been much, much worse.

  Rage lanced through me.

  I’d never forgive myself for not being there.

  I hadn’t even realized what was happening, holed up in my office and muddling through the mess my new hires had left for me that fateful night.

  If I saw Iris now, I would return the favor tenfold and blame it on a demon.

  With pleasure.

  Despite her injuries, despite stinking of death and demon blood, her sunflower sweater stained black, Alecto was radiant—always would be. Beautiful. Vivacious. Alive.

  Nothing could take from that, and had I the time, I would prove it to her. Scars build character. I knew for a miserable fact they didn’t; they were nothing but painful memories, wretched and permanent, and the second I could, I’d make my snooty roommate Seamus heal those fuckers into oblivion.

  She shouldn’t have to carry that for the rest of her life.

  True to form, Alecto resisted me at first, twisting her arm and edging toward the fight, but when one of the blood-spattered warlock chefs made a demon literally explode, her tune changed. Soon enough, we jogged through the dining hall together, then out the main doors into the underground corridors, muffled calamity seeping through the ceiling.

  And smacked right into another group of prowling demons.

  Grinning, I brought both swords out to play, deftly deflecting gunfire, then slicing, dicing, and stabbing my way through the six. While I could have handled them on my own, Alecto played a crucial role in taking them down, using stunning spells to immobilize them—making the kills simple. Efficient. Sword to the brain, neck, or heart.

  Then decapitation.

  It was the only surefire way to end them. Demons were a complex species, as vast and varied as fae. Some returned to the mortal coil as spirits, only permitted to possess humans and damn their souls. Others, the fouler of the lot, those who had already proved themselves to Lucifer, were granted the use of their bodies again, made lovely by a dark angelic touch. Hauntingly beautiful, most demons, men and women alike. Easier to lure prey when you were breathtaking.

  These ones… were fine.

  Stupid. Ill-equipped for battle and too reliant on guns.


  Odd.

  As I rid the last of his head and punted it down the corridor, I couldn’t help wondering why they only used pistols. Demons had their own dark energy to manipulate, different from the magic of fae, a variant of those used by witches and warlocks, and powerful in its own right. Persuasion, destruction, chaos. They didn’t cast spells, per se, but sins.

  Yet this lot swept through Root Rot like an invading human army.

  So, perhaps they weren’t demons at all, but rather the deranged spirits of those desperate to prove themselves.

  And that meant… they lacked the preternatural healing abilities of Lucifer’s favored. I erred toward decapitation because there was no healing a severed head. Leave a thread of sinew, a tenuous bit of spine, and in time the demon would recover. They couldn’t regenerate a new limb.

  “None of this makes sense,” I muttered, crouched by the headless demon at my feet and poking at the oozing wound I’d left in his chest. Sure, they bled black, but so did the possessed.

  And if these were only possessed humans… we were still killing the humans.

  The spirits slunk back to the ether as failures, while these meatsuits were just… gone.

  “It isn’t healing,” Alecto noted breathlessly, her hand on my shoulder as she leaned over to scrutinize the corpse. “Didn’t even seem to start.”

  “Not a bad thing.” A quick scan showed none of his injuries had started to clot. Right. Not a great look, butchering possessed humans, but some were complicit in their possession. Some prayed for it. “The possessed are just marginally stronger humans.”

  “But I always thought possession demons were on, like, probation or whatever.”

  Hardly the time or place to debate the morality of it all, not when I’d caught three fuckers trying to rape Alecto in the dungeon. Had I been slower, had I not known where they were, she would have been just another corpse.

  A mutilated corpse, most likely, her body defiled in life and death.

  No. No, frankly, I didn’t give a fuck that these might just be possessed humans. Two beings in this realm mattered—plus Jack, technically, for Alecto’s sake—and the rest could sit and fucking spin.