Page 2 of Underworld
I’m not that girl anymore,I thought, setting my jaw as my wings lifted with the challenge.
You better hide, my demon mate, because when I find you, you’re going to be the one bowing to me.
“Are you paying attention?” Yuri asked. She’d been going on about some sort of alarm system for the growing Demonspawn attacks. I’d dealt with my fair share of Demonspawn—I was one of them. At least a third of me was, but Yuri didn’t have to know that.
“Huh? Yeah. Sorry,” I told her as I mentally remembered to lift my wings again. Just keeping them out of the dirt was proving to be exhausting. “I’m a little out of it,” I admitted.
“Understandable,” she said, her playful attitude slipping into a sweet smile. “You’ve been through a lot. Give yourself a break, yeah?”
“I wish it was that simple.” I had a sinking feeling that I wasn’t going to have a lot of time to adjust before things went crazy. If my history was any indicator, I had about thirty minutes before shit hit the fan.
We passed one of the larger buildings that seemed to be formed straight out of the ground with a slab of onyx. I resisted the urge to run my fingers across it. “This place has a whole goth-noir vibe going on,” I said.
Yuri laughed. “I think you’re the first person to call an Academy forged in Hell ‘goth-noir.’?” She nudged me along. “This way.”
Following the vampire, I couldn’t help but notice the students keeping their eye on me. Maybe I was the first student with wings, but wewerein Hell. It’s not like I was the weirdest thing around here.
“People are staring,” I complained as a tingling sensation curled up my neck. I knew if I turned around I’d find half of the students we passed stopped in their tracks.
“Ignore them,” Yuri said, then took a sharp right onto a new path, skipping over one of the molten lava trails. I made sure to keep my wings lifted. I wasn’t sure if burning any feathers would hurt, but I didn’t want to find out.
“We’re going to see Olivia, right?”
“Mhmm,” she confirmed. “She couldn’t meet us at the gate, but after she had a vision of you alive, she sent me right over. I mean, I went willingly. Er, that came out wrong. Iwantedto see you.”
“I get it,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “Let’s just hurry up.” I couldn’t explain the sinking sense of dread that weighed me down, and it wasn’t just my new wings making me feel a hundred pounds heavier. My mates had thought I was dead, or maybe theystillthought I was dead. That realization made me feel sick. “I’ve been gone for three months, right? That’s a long time. I need to see my mates.”
Yuri bopped me on the nose with her lollipop, making me jolt. “Not three months, silly! You’ve been gone much longer than that. Twelve months, to be exact.”
My jaw fell open. “What? I’ve been gone an entire year?”
Yuri shrugs. “That’s what I said, a few months.” She rolls her eyes. “When you’re immortal a few months could easily mean a couple of years. Anyway, it’s not a big deal. Olivia will help you get it all sorted, right?”
I feel sick.
A shadow passed over my feet again and I glanced up, wondering if Cole was messing with me or if something else wanted me dead.
Whoever you are, get in line.
Yuri continued onward, ignoring the plethora of students still staring at us. “Ignore him,” Yuri suggested as she jabbed a finger upward. “He’s just trying to scare us. We’ve had a few minor Demonspawn attacks because of the whole Lucifer versus Sonya war going on, but the barrier does a good job of keeping the riffraff out. Most of the time, anyway.”
So, itwasCole. The barrier, or whatever it was, also did a good job of diluting my connection to him, but he knew I was here.
While I wanted to find a way to speak to him, I needed my loyal Virtues to know I was still alive.
Yuri took me into the dorms and we scaled the stairs. When we reached her room, the door yanked open and Olivia beamed at me. I almost didn’t recognize her at first with her bleached white hair.
“Lily!” she cried as she threw her arms around me.
“Saw us coming, did you?” Yuri asked as her lips lifted on the side. “You’re using your spooky voodoo powers too much, girl. You’re going to burn right through your magic at this rate.”
“Don’t be such a worry-wort,” Olivia said as she dragged me into the room. “Oh, Lily. Iknewyou were alive. I just felt it, even before I ‘saw’ it, you know?”
Tears crested Olivia’s eyes and she quickly brushed them away, but I’d seen her pain. She’d been here for an entire year while the world had passed me by in a blink.
“I’m so sorry, Olivia,” I said as I hugged her. “I didn’t mean to leave you like that.”
She held both of my hands and gave me a stern look, her golden eyes fierce. “Never apologize for what happened to you, you hear me?”
