Chapter 20

Before I can process this horrifying piece of news, an explosive bang shakes the whole room.

I stumble in front of Sarah, shielding her as I sway around to face the new danger. I only see a statuesque blonde walking in.

Blinking at her, I realize what happened. She flung the already-open door so hard, it slammed against the wall—and cracked it. A jagged fissure has traveled up to the thirty-foot high ceiling.

I remember her at once. One of the four female archangelspawn from Godric’s parade. The tallest, most stunning one.

As she passes us, her gaze sweeps us and the demon with no attempt to meet our eyes. Her expression says it all. She considers she’s fallen into sewers. Sewers filled with maggots. She wouldn’t acknowledge those, would she?

“Don’t tell me—you’re our roommate, too!” I moan.

Her disgruntled haughtiness as she stalks toward the bed at the far end of the room says it all. She puts down her suitcase, opens and starts emptying it. Her precise movements remind me of an assassin methodically disassembling her weapon.

Roommate, check. Hating that fact and us with an abhorrence the breadth of Heaven, check. Another supernatural monster and potential future murderer in residence, double check.

I can only minimize the chances of ending up dead if I move out. Surely the Academy’s room assignment office or whatever can find us—find me—some nice human girls with manageable levels of the supernatural to room with.

My thoughts stutter as the nephilim walks back toward us.

I put myself fully in front of Sarah as she stops midway between us and the demon’s bed.

“Here are the ground rules. I will only state them once.”

Her voice is like strumming a lyre from Heaven—melodic, mesmerizing. Her accent is the same as Godric’s, and like him, her enunciation has the cultured cadence of a higher being. Which she is.

But unlike his voice’s effect on me, hers only strikes icicles deep within my bones. Whether of dread or distaste, I can’t tell. Probably both.

“The ground rules are one rule,” she continues. “That I don’t feel you around. To elaborate, so you never claim miscommunication: You do not come near me, my space or my belongings. You do not sully my senses with your sight, voice, noise, scent and mess. We are prohibited from harming humans—or demons—on the premises. Unless they transgress against us. I consider all of the above transgressions. Commit any of them, and there will be no second chances. I will harm you.”

The demoness only snickers, goes back to reading her magazine. The pervert who seemed to enjoy the pain I caused her is probably delighted at the promise of future mayhem. Of course, she is.

“Whoa, Godawful’s Twin!”

The nephilim focuses on me for the first time, and I get the urge to cower and to punch her in her perfect face all at once. I stand straighter, but she’s regretfully taller than me. She must be at least six feet without the spiky heels she’s wearing. With them, she towers inches over me.

I can’t even have that advantage?

I inject my voice with all the venom flowing in my heart for her and her kind. “I’d rather not see you or even know you exist. I’m requesting a transfer right now.” I toss a gesture between her and the demon. “You two can play Heaven and Hell together to your non-existent hearts’ content.”

The nephilim gives a tranquil tilt of her head that belies the aversion and frustration roiling in her pure-violet eyes. “You’re not transferring anywhere.”

“Watch me, archangelspawn,” I spit out as I start herding Sarah to the door. “I’d rather sleep in a coffin than in a room with you two.”

“That can be arranged,” the nephilim drawls. “However, the assignment of roommates is immutable.”

I turn to gape at her. “Immu—what?’

“It means it cannot be changed,” Sarah whispers at my back.

I toss her a chagrined glance. “I know what immutable means, Sar.”

I’m nowhere as book-smart as she is, but I’m not illiterate! But that nephilim has to be messing with me.

Yet one look at her inhumanly gorgeous face tells me she’s not. She’s probably incapable of it. If she is, and can turn on her sense of humor at will like that cousin of hers, she wouldn’t do so now. She’s as upset about this as I am.

I throw my hands up. “This can’t be! We’re totally incompatible. Why stick us together? Who stuck us together? Your dad and uncles?”

She folds her arms over perfect breasts snug in her otherworldly pseudo-military outfit, the condescension in her amazing eyes deepening. “The Choosing is akin to the Divining. No one has any control over it. And no one can contest it.”

I gape at her. “You telling me the forces of Light and Darkness themselves chose us to be roomies? Don’t they have better things to do?”

She shrugs her majestic shoulders. “It is what it is. Now, I advise that you curb your self-destructive human impulses, and obey my ground rules. This is our status quo for the foreseeable future, and it’s up to you to survive it.”

I’m almost tempted to tell her that her family needs me alive, badly. But I’d also be telling her their need has an expiration date.

Clamping my lips over a hundred inadvisable things, I grumble, “Whatever. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to see my friend off.”

Grabbing Sarah’s arm, I stride away, dragging her behind me.

We’re almost at the door when the nephilim’s serene words hit me between the shoulder blades. “Your friend is going nowhere. She’s one of the five chosen for this dorm room.”

Don’t listen to her, Wen. Keep walking.

But I somehow know this archangelspawn knows something I don’t.

Heart twisting with foreboding, I turn to her. “How can she be chosen by whatever that

Choosing is? Her presence here is totally incidental.”

She tucks a swathe of gleaming, gold silk behind her ear as she exhales. “Nothing is incidental in existence. She’s here because she has to be here.”

“Don’t give me that fate crap!” I cry out. “She has to be free, and away from all of you monsters. That’s where she has to be.”

The nephilim raises one dense, perfectly-plucked eyebrow at me. “Why are you bleating at me? Tell that to the universe.”

I stomp my foot, head about to explode with frustration. “Universe shmooniverse! My friend is human, and humans have no place here. The universe made a mistake this time.”

She gives a disdainful nod. “It’s true mortal cattle do not belong here, unless they’re Angel-Graced mortal cattle, like those wretches we’re being forced to train with.”

“See? We finally agree on something! Regular mortal cattle and hybrid celestial vipers don’t mix.”

She frowns, as if wrestling with the urge to “harm” me, before she shrugs. “But that’s the reason she’s been chosen. Your mortal cattle friend is also angel-graced.”