Headmaster Willms eyes go to me, pleading,begging,and filled with such hatred. Before I can blink, Lucian’s hand closes into a fist and raw, vicious power swallows the headmaster of the Academy…
And destroys him from the inside out.
Twenty-Nine
Malek
Every instinct inside me roars to attack, to protect, to kill. I’ve pushed aside the Change from within me for so long, limiting myself only to the power of the Full Moon. Not now. I can’t.
Not when magic assaults the air, dangerous, deadly magic. Syko flies above me, Saint and Heaven with their vampire speed run ahead of me. Phoenix is at my side, the full force of his demonic self on display in destructive, agonizing fury. Sasha is gliding through the earth by the push and pull of her vines.
When we burst out of our dorm, we are greeted with a blackening sky and a jaggedly opened portal set in the middle of the Academy.
The shock of seeing it forces us into a skidded halt. I stop mid-Change, my features elongated and distorted into a grotesque half man-half beast creature. I drop to all fours, my hand-claws sinking into the darkening earth.
“We’re too late,” Heaven breathes a quiet whisper.
Shade, that devil, he got to Izzy. He got to mymate,and I did nothing to stop it. But I refuse to believe it’s too late. It’s not. My eyes scan through the Academy and I find her before the portal, a hand slamming up to her mouth to stifle a scream. Shade is in front of her, his fist held in the air.
In a split second we see it, a split second in which I catch sight of the headmaster, floating above the both of them and then the next... he explodes.
His body is torn apart with magic. His skin erupts in welts and bubbles that burst into bloody, remnants of the doctor. His remains rain down on the earth and shadows... no, not shadows,demonsscreech and jump, ripping through the guards in a single swipe of death.
Their screams pierce the world around us, and I’m propelled forward by the sound alone. A growl tears from my throat, becoming a vicious snarl to protect. I jump and when I land on the ground again, I’m a wolf. The more savage part of me takes over, demanding and violent.
I rip into the fray of demons, tearing through scaled flesh with snarling teeth. I don’t care, don’t discriminate. All I care about is Izara, my love, mymate.Syko swoops down from above, grabbing at the tail of a demon and lifting it up... up... up…
Then the body comes hurtling to the earth, dying with a splat.
“Stop! STOP IT!”
Everything freezes. The breath in my lungs, the chaotic noises of the fight… everything as that one sweet voice commands us all.
I spit out ichor from my mouth and look up, my eyes taking in Izara’s trembling form.
“Izzy, get the fuck away from him!” Phoenix snaps. There are no more niceties in his voice, just the infinite amount of worry and desperation. Like he’s one single second away from jumping across the space that separates them to reach for her, pull her into his arms.
“He killed the headmaster.” Saint steps into my line of vision, and only the side of his face is visible, but he looks paler than usual.
“You don’t know what he is.” Syko lands beside Saint, his white and gold wings fanning out across his back. “He’s Lucian Morningstar. He’s thedevil.”
Said devil makes no move to attack us, but that bicolored gaze flicks across the line of us with cool indifference. How had we not known? How had we ever thought he was good?
“I know,” Izzy whispers a little sadly. “I know who he is…” She turns to look at him, and the look of tender confusion on her face pushes me to change back into human. She turns back, and her whiskey-colored eyes meet mine. “He’s my father.”
Thirty
Izara
Saying the words feel...right. In a way that they never felt right when I thought of the Messenger of Chaos. I never felt a connection to the Messenger. The thing inside me that prompts my Prod to whisper,He’s family, he’s mine.
Even while he’d just completely destroyed the headmaster before my eyes, my Prod delighted at the destruction, absorbed it while pushing aside my own disgust. Because I recognized the destruction, the taste of that power as something similar to my own.
Like we belong.
Like we were connected.
I register the shock on the faces of my friends, my men. Like they cannot believe I’ve so easily accepted the devil as my father. But nothing else has ever felt like it belonged. Not my adoptive father, not the Messenger... but Shade? He feels right. In a way I can’t explain. In a way I don’t want to.
