Chapter 30

After I told Godric I’m all in for his transformation—something changed. Between us. Subtle, yet almost tangible.

Under its effect, I felt his harshness lessening, his exasperation starting to dissipate. I even felt my excitement almost echoing within him.

Everything was going better than I could have hoped as he tested my aerobic fitness—which doesn’t exist—until he brought up diet.

When he quizzed me about my eating habits, he didn’t bother to hide his horror, equating them with a dumpster critter. I told him it wasn’t far from the truth, and proceeded to relate some of my dumpster-diving adventures.

He looked murderous as he said he’ll quintuple my caloric intake. I was thrilled, even if I didn’t understand what infuriated him this much. I didn’t eat that badly out of choice, and I was always starving. I didn’t know what being full felt like until that jet ride.

ThenI said his caloric requirements are no problem since I’ll be stuffing myself with every sugar-laden, carb-rich comfort food this Academy has to offer. I swear he grew a foot taller as he bit my head off.

According to him, I’m nothaving any empty calories.

When I whined, he lectured me on substituting one kind of malnutrition for another, and decreed he’s adding Mortal and Immortal Nutrition to my curriculum. I will learn how to fuel the lethal weapon he’s turning my body into.

I haggled all the way to Ariel Hall, the commons named after the archangel of the spirit of nature and nourishment. He only stopped at the door to tell me exactly what to eat for breakfast. A list for every meal—for the whole semester—would follow.

And what took the cake I’m not allowed to eat? He’s assigning people to watch me, to make sure I stick to his regimen.

Talk about the personal tutor from Heaven!

It was beyond me not to provoke him. It really, really was.

I told him that whomever he put on my tail, good luck having them catch me sneaking in junk. If the Academy has it, it’s finding its way into my belly. I was raised in the next-worst thing to Hell, and if I want to get away with anything, I will.

Whatever improved between us during that gym stint, when we parted, it was on the old hateful footing.

In reality, I don’t mind his menu at all. I either love everything on it, or always yearned to try them. But could I have told him that?

Of course not!

Entering Ariel Hall, I’m taken aback to find it packed with what looks like thousands. It seems every cadet in the Academy is here. Breakfast must be the one meal everyone gets at the same time.

Then I start picking out the Angel-Graced from my year, and I’m stunned to see everyone looking as good as new. Those healers must be really something. Unless the seriously injured are not here, though I doubt it. The number of smiling faces among them also surprises me. Seems they’re heeding Astaroth’s advice, putting Azazel’s terrorist attack behind them, and bent on enjoying every moment they have away from him.

The next thing I notice is the uniforms, the simplified version of Lorcan’s. Our freshmen version is in dark blue with silvery, holographic accessories. Everyone is wearing theirs. Everyone but me, that is. Godric didn’t tell me to bring mine, and I assumed I’d have time to change. He probably meant for me to walk in here disheveled and in sweaty gym clothes, and stick out like more of a sore thumb.

Thanks, Angelhole. More pain that I owe you.

Avoiding appalled glances from the Angel-Graced and condescending ones from the Nephilim, I rush around, looking for Sarah.

We agreed to meet here if Godric was done with me in time for breakfast. I’m on time only thanks to my dismal physical condition. I bet he would have kept me longer, if he found reason to. But there was nothing more he could do with me today. Not before he devised that way-below-scratch training program.

And true to his joined-at-the-hip remark, I’m meeting him—reporting to him—after classes for another kind of training. The mental discipline and stamina kind. No idea what that entails.

When I finally see Sarah, I do a double take. She’s smiling. Grinning, actually.

At the demoness!

Blood shooting to my head, I streak to their table.

Skidding to a stop, legs like jelly, I grab Sarah’s arm and pull.

She looks up at me, smile brightening. “Oh, you’re done! How was it? Tell us all about it as you eat. And boy, will you eat! The food here is, well, heavenly.”

As she giggles, I gape at her, then sweep the rest of the large, round table.

The demoness is sitting next to the roommate I haven’t registered beyond her furious interrogation when I was half-asleep.

Next to her is our resident archangelspawn. Five more—two nephilim, two angel-graced—and is that ethereal beauty Fae?—sit on the other side of the table, no doubt the denizens of another dorm room. Only one seat is empty, clearly for me.

Does the Choosing thingy require we stick with our roommates for meals, too? Whatever it is, one thing seems to unite everyone at the table: how they look at me. As if I’m something the cat refused to drag in.

I pull Sarah’s arm again, and it’s like pulling on a sack of wet cement.

She doesn’t want to leave this table?

There has to be some kind of mental manipulation going on here.

I glare around the table again. “Let her go!”

Everyone exchanges disgruntled glances at my tone, some actually baffled. The archangelspawn goes back to eating. The demoness smiles slyly. She gets my vote for the one compelling Sarah.

Sarah pulls me down for an urgent whisper in my ear. “No one’s keeping me here, Wen.”

“You think the monster who almost punched a claw into my brain wouldn’t mess with yours?”

Sarah winces as she gazes at my now-intact forehead. “She said she put something in your wound to make it heal quickly. I guess it was her way of apologizing.”

“She’s a damn liar. I healed on my own. I’ll tell you about it, after I get you the hell away from her influence.”

“I know demonic mind-control well, Wen. She isn’t doing anything to mine.”

“Whatever she is or isn’t doing, it’s enough we have to sleep in the same room. I’m not eating with her, too! Now let’s go, please.”

A slap on my back makes me stumble and almost sprawl over the table. It’s the damned demoness.

“Oh, stop being so melodramatic, and go get your breakfast. Get me pineapple juice and another croissant.” Her gaze sweeps around the table. “Anyone want something else?”

Struggling to straighten up, I snarl at her, “I’m not your waitress here!”

“But you were one, in some base demon’s brothel, too.” She wiggles her perfectly-contoured brows at me. “Among other lowly things.”

Incredulous, I gape down at Sarah. I can’t believe she told them.

Paling, Sarah bites her lip. “Each of us said what we did before coming here. Since you weren’t here, I…”

She stops, slumping in apology, and I pat her shoulder. It’s not her fault these monsters manipulated her.

Apart from the five years we attended school together, Sarah mostly interacted with me and her demoness. With near social isolation and her forgiving nature, she never developed the skills needed to play the vicious power games of the Natural and Supernatural worlds. It’s why I always shielded her from the cruelties of those with no morals and far more power. And I’ll do so here, whatever it costs me.

I smirk at the demoness, provocation set on maximum. I need to keep her focused on me, so she’d leave Sarah alone. “Whatever I did, none of it was lowly. I worked for a living, something I bet you can’t do to save your pointy-tailed ass. But here, I’m a cadet just like you.” Until Godric succeeds—or fails—in making me his experimental weapon. But she doesn’t need to know that. “Whatever I was before, I’m your equal here. Chew on that, along with this disgusting demon-mess you’re gobbling, Brimstone Breath.”

With that, I flounce around, only to stumble. It’s the demoness who stops me from face-planting on the ground.

As her uncanny strength plops me back on my feet, she grins at my chagrin. “Name’s Jinny. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Gwendolyn White.”

Sarah told her my full name, too? What else did she tell her? And was it of her own free will as she believes?

And why is this “Jinny” suddenly being nice to me?

Smelling a demon-sized rat, I look around. It’s only when I see the angels dressed like Azazel’s escorts spread at the periphery that it makes sense. These must be Pax Vis, the oxymoronic peace force, who are mostly Designated Angels of the Dominions order.

Feeling more brazen at their presence, I scoff. “Jinny? What kind of wimpy ass name is that for a demon?”

Her face falls, and she grumbles almost inaudibly, “The demonic joke kind.”

“She believes she may have Jinn in her ancestry on her father’s side,” Sarah whispers so only the three of us can hear. “But she tells everyone Jinny is short for Jinnifer.”

I blink at Sarah, to stop my eyes from bugging out. The demoness—Jinny—took her into her confidence?

What on this messed up Earth happened since I was forced to leave her alone four hours ago?

Sarah’s face blazes crimson as she winces at Jinny. “I hope you don’t think I’ll blurt out any secret you tell me, Jinny. I just tell Wen everything, and she’s the world’s best secret keeper!”

Jinny slams me with a death glare. Me, the one who received the secret, not Sarah, the one who spilled it. But it’s clear Sarah already enjoys a special status with the demoness. How that happened, I can’t begin to tell.

It should make me feel better, since that means Sarah is maybe safe from her. But it doesn’t. Why, I can’t begin to tell, either.

My stomach grumbles so loud Sarah giggles. “Oh, go get your breakfast. And try not to heap everything on your plate like I did.”

“It all ended up in a ‘demon-mess’ as you can see.” Jinny points to the jumble on Sarah’s plate. The exact thing on hers.

So did Sarah emulate Jinny, or the other way around?

What on this monster-infested Afterworld is going on here?

Head spinning with the implications, I walk to the food station at the end of the gigantic hall.

As I approach, the smells of delicious food hit me so hard, my legs tremble. Then I see the details of the open buffet and I almost faint.

To think this spread that far surpasses any royal feast I’ve ever seen is available for free. And around here, it’s only breakfast. If I didn’t dread my and Sarah’s fate in this place, I would have been ecstatic to stay for the food alone.

And if I weren’t afraid of committing another form of social suicide, I would have fallen on the serving plates in a frenzy, cramming my mouth and hoarding everything. I could easily become a glutton if I’m not careful.

Not that Godric is leaving it up to my willpower. I just “made” one of the people he has watching me. The Select chef at the omelet station.

As soon as I approach him, he starts making one. He’s done by the time I reach him, according to Godric’s exact recipe. I give him a baleful glance instead of thanks, and move on to gather the rest of today’s supremely-healthy, calorie-dense breakfast menu. It amounts to the quantity of food I ate in a week. Let’s not even mention quality.

After I load my tray, and with all the liquids sloshing in their glasses, I start my wobbling trek back to the table Sarah won’t leave. She seems oblivious to how precarious our position here is, how dangerous these she’s treating as newfound BFFs are.

Engrossed in fuming, I don’t notice the barricade of muscle until I bump into it, tray-first. I don’t even have time to cry out before the tray is magically caught undisturbed in large, male hands.

Raising my eyes, expecting Godric to be checking on me, I find myself looking into the literally glittering turquoise eyes of another celestial stunner. I know at once what he is, and where I saw him. In Godric’s parade.

His incredible eyes crinkle at the corners as he holds the tray away from my groping hands, his accent that posh one of his cousins’ as he says, “Uh-uh. Get your bearings first.”

“Sure, as soon as your bulk stops blocking the horizon.” I reach for the tray again, and he only keeps it out of reach. “Give it back!”

“How about I give you an escort back to your table?”

“How about you give me the damn tray and go block some major highway?”

He only grins at my surliness. “Accept the offer of steady hands, angel-graced. You don’t want to add crashing that ridiculously crowded tray to your pathetic resumé of sweaty gym clothes and leash.”

Argh. He got that right. I have too much against me already. All thanks to Godric. And to think I stupidly started to mellow towards him because he promised to torture me into shape.

I still narrow my eyes at his relative. “What does my disastrous standing in Sinister Academy matter to you, archangelspawn?”

He barks a laugh, deep and nerve-tingling. “Is this what you call Godric?”

“Nah, him I call Angelhole and Godawful, among other things.”

Another boom of laughter, and if possible, it makes him even more gorgeous. This guy is really way up there in looks. I’d even say Godric-level, just all golds and bronzes, the sunset god to Godric’s midnight one.

“I’ve got to be there when you call him any of that. I never thought the day would come when someone, let alone a human, called that bastard out on his shite, and to his face, too.”

“Not a member of Angelhole’s fan club, huh?” I say, marginally warming to him.

He rolls those jeweled eyes. “Bloody hell, no! It’s enough of a bane being secondborn.”

“Yeah, tell me about it…” I stop, blink up at him. “Wait…secondborn? Does this mean you’re…?”

He gives a mock-bow. “Gideon, Godric’s half-brother, at your service.”