One
Saint
If we were smart, we’d be hiding like the other Prods of Academy of Six. We’d take shelter in the barricaded dorms away from the lashing destruction and hellacious fires.
It’s safe to say we are not smart, though. Because Malek, Syko, Phoenix, and I stand looming above it all on the rooftop of the main office, high above the new hell that’s crashed into Academy of Six. The world down below doesn’t look as familiar as it once did. Cavernous rocks stand tall within the woods as ice and snow cling to the branches of strange willowy trees that I’ve never seen before. Blue and red fire blooms across the dark forest, consuming everything around it in flickering tendrils. The thick smell of ash and sizzling flesh saturates the air, choking my lungs with every shaking breath I take. Smoky wind catches my dark hair and flings it into my eyes, but I never take my gaze off her.
And Izzy, she never takes her gaze off her father—Professor Shade, the devil himself. Her back and stark black wings are perfectly straight against the iron-wrought throne. Fiery lines glint along the veins of her wings and illuminate her pretty, but glaring, bicolored eyes.
She’s like a shattered version of herself. Like catching a glimpse of the beautiful girl I met over a year ago in a dark, warped mirror.
“You think she’s still in there? Or do you think it’s entirely her demonic Prod?” Malek asks me in a cutting whisper. It sounds harsh, like he doesn’t really want to say what he just said.
But we’re all thinking it.
“She’s still in there.” Phoenix folds his arms firmly over his chest, his attention locked on where she sits among the screaming hell spawns, the enormous Messenger of Chaos and the devil who did this all. “She might seem distant, but she’s still there. She’s still the same woman who made me—” His voice cuts off, but I can almost hear the wordslove herslip from his parted lips.
This is a shit hole mess. None of us has a clue how to cope with the fact that the woman we love is down there at the center of the hellish circus. She… did this. She chose her father over us.
My throat tightens as I think about my own parents. To be honest, if my father praised me and took an interest in me the way Shade did Izzy… I probably would have unleashed hell for his sudden affection too. It’s completely screwed up, what love does to you. It hurts, what she’s done, but I can’t say that I don’t understand it.
My attention shifts to the explosion of power that’s raining down chaotic magic on the demons just two buildings over. Kayos’s image flickers in and out of focus, static light pulsing around her as she tears into the creatures clawing through the dirt like they’re nothing more than insignificant flies buzzing around her. Blood and body parts surround the little blonde girl, and her eyes shine manically in the moonlight.
Syko’s big black eyes shine as he watches her with a sort of amazement in his smooth features.
She’s waited for this moment her entire life, it seems—to be unleashed without repercussions and let that savage side loose. She can take care of herself, no longer needing big brother to dance around her emotions. Just as the thought flitters through my mind, her magic rips through a demon the size of a tree and splinters his whole body into pieces.
Wow. She can definitely take care of herself…
My gaze shifts across the flickering fires, the slamming of bodies into brick, and the snarling of flicking, evil tongues. And then, I spot a horde of demons gripping the gates. They pull with all their might, but the iron never bends. Some climb higher; they reach the spiked points at the top of the gate, just to scream out in pain and fall to the ground all over again.
“The demons can’t get over the academy gates,” I whisper, my brows scrunching together as I watch it all.
“Of course they can’t,” Heaven drawls. “Nothing gets in or out of Academy of Six without absolution. The entire place is warded. High honored donors like Daddy and me have unlimited absolution.”
Of course he does.
“Of course Daddy does.” I echo my thoughts exactly. “That’s why you’re able to haunt my lost soul.” During the little blip of hell opening up, I make time to give my sister a nice glare, but I just can’t seem to fully manage the scowl.
Everything’s a fuckery of a mess right now.
Heaven sits on the far edge, holding Sasha in her arms while the fae girl shivers against the cold. The two of them are well hidden and hunkered down below the brick ledge, but how long can we all really stay here?
I won’t leave. Not while Izzy is surrounded by danger.
But we need a plan.
“If we stand here with our dicks in our hands long enough, he’s going to break the ward.” Phoenix’s gaze shifts over the destruction of it all, and I can see his beautiful mind churning away. He thinks like them.
Because he’s just like them.
“We need to guard the source of the barrier. Whatever magic is containing this shit, we need to get to it before he does.” Phoenix turns, and it stuns me that he looks to Malek first. “We need to go. We need to find someone who knows how the academy magic works, and we need to get there. Now.”
Just when you think the two of them are on the same page, they’re fucking not.
“I’m not leaving her. Are you out of your damn mind?” Malek holds the incubus’s gaze while every muscle in his body strains. He wants to be down there. He wants to protect her.
His beast demands it. I can tell.
