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We walked through the empty halls hand in hand, each of us drawing strength from the other.
Like I did with Kai.
The thought flitted through my brain in a flash, and I grimaced as I pushed it away. I still didn’t know what to do with all of that. But when I saw Kai sitting three rows behind my group, hunched over and glowering at everybody, I couldn’t stop the memory from flooding back. The way it had felt when he’d drunk from me. The feel of his pointed teeth against my wrist, sharp as tattoo needles. A shudder of fear and excitement that had trickled down my spine.
I tried to catch his eye, and I was sure he noticed, but he deliberately ignored me.
“Fine, be that way,” I breathed, frustration making my chest feel hot and tight.
Kai never had been fully on board with any of this—he’d resented the succubus bond from the second we found out what it was. Maybe he was just pissy we’d had an actual bonding moment.
Or, I thought as I looked around at the crowd of students in various stages of shock and hysteria, maybe he’s reacting to the same thing all of them are.
He’d lived on earth out of sight and undetected for years, going to great lengths to avoid both the underworld and Fallen University entirely. He was probably upset that his efforts had been thwarted on both counts.
I settled in between Xero and Jayce, with Kingston and Hannah on either side of them. A small burst of pride flared inside me that I managed to avoid looking over my shoulder at Kai as Headmaster Toland took the podium.
“Your attention please.” His voice rang with power, and even the most hysterical student shut the hell up to listen.
“I regret to inform all of you that we are, in fact, in the underworld. The school and everything—and everyone—within its walls have been transported into a cave on the surface of the underworld.”
“How?”
“Why?”
“Gavriel will kill us all!”
Hysteria rose into an indecipherable babbling, and I rolled my eyes. This wasn’t the first time all of the formidable monsters at this academy had been reduced to a panicky mob, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
“Silence!” Toland’s powerful bellow practically blew my hair back. His voice was magically enhanced to make it louder, but the pure power that resonated in it was all him. The room fell silent once more, and he fixed a stern gaze on the crowd as he continued. “Our wards are holding. We are invisible to Gavriel and his army. They cannot sense our presence, and as we are hidden inside a cave, they won’t see us unless they’re looking for us—which, at this point, we don’t believe they are. We appear to be in a fairly uninhabited area. Truthfully, we were lucky. We could have landed in the center of a marketplace.”
“But why are we here? Did we all fail our finals?” The girl who asked pressed her fists to her mouth, watching for Toland’s reaction with big, gray eyes.
“No. This was not a punitive measure,” the headmaster said gently. “Just as with the sprites and damage to the castle, this was deliberate sabotage. We don’t know who is responsible or how they did it—yet. But we will find out. And we will find a way home.”
“I know who did it.” Sonja tossed her red hair over her shoulder and rose from her seat, turning in place to scan the massive room. After a dramatic pause, she pointed a finger in my direction.
“It was her!” she declared loudly. “Piper and her fuckboy minions. They weren’t at their finals. None of them were! They had to have done it.”
Toland sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose as he glanced at me. I was on my feet already, marching toward her. After everything I went through to try to stop this from happening, she was going to accuse me of causing it?
Yeah, fuck that.
“You know what Sonja?” I gritted my teeth. “I’ve had it! I’m sick of your shit. You’ve had a problem with me since the day you, Dru, and Kyle picked me up and brought me here, and we’re going to settle it right fucking now.”
“Oh, you want to go, bitch? Let’s go!”
In the next heartbeat, she shifted into her demonic form with an ear-splitting roar, growing a foot taller and wider as twisted black horns sprouted from her fiery hair and the whites of her eyes turned black.
I just bared my teeth, still advancing on her with my hands clenched into fists. Whatever. She’s scarier when she’s playing Queen Bitch of the Mean Girls.
Demons were easy to handle. Especially since I was one too.
I started to shift into the biggest, meanest form I could conjure up, but before I could complete the shift, four sets of hands grabbed my arms and pulled me back.
“Let me go!” I shouted. “I’m gonna end her!”
“Yeah, and how’s that bloodthirst going to look when Toland finds out about Owen?” Kingston’s hiss in my ear brought me up short. I melted back into my usual form and glared at Sonja.
