Fallen University: Year Three

Chapter One

“There’s nothing here.”

The despondence in Jayce’s tone was amplified by the cold echo of the empty cave. It surprised me, in an absent sort of way. He sounded like he’d lost a brother. I’d had no idea he cared so much.

“There’s blood,” Kai said grimly. He gestured around at the dark smears and splatters on the walls and floor. Then he inhaled deeply through his nose, and his eyes flashed predatorily for an instant. “It’s not all Xero’s.”

“How long has it been like this?” Kingston asked.

Kai glanced at him, confused. “Uh—less than a day? We ported back here directly, did you forget?”

Kingston cocked an eyebrow at him blandly. “The inter-planal whatever the fuck, remember? The whole reason we kept missing Dru?”

The dark-haired vampire with toffee skin blinked as realization seemed to strike him. Time worked differently in the underworld than on earth, and we still hadn’t quite figured out how the two timelines functioned.

Kai examined the blood more closely, transforming into his vampiric form in order to maximize his senses. “Hm. Still less than a day. This is all recent. Some of it is still wet.”

My stomach churned. I didn’t want to think about Xero’s spilled blood at all, but the thought of there being a wet puddle of it just about killed me.

But he was still alive.

I knew it in my bones.

I could feel his presence somewhere out there in the wide expanse of the universe, even though I couldn’t manage to pinpoint where he might be within it.

“Search for clues,” I said, pushing down the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm me. “There’s got to be something here that’ll tell us where he went. Or at least give us a vague direction.”

The awful truth was that even if we found something, I wasn’t sure how much good it would do.

None of us knew the underworld like Xero knew it. He had been the only reason we’d made it as far as we had the first time we’d come here. Without him, we were lost. We were all powerful and magically talented. Kai’s blood sense, Jayce’s hellhound tracking skills, Kingston’s wings, my persuasion and shapeshifting abilities were all useful, but I didn’t know how far that would get us without Xero’s knowledge.

The guys fell silent as they did what I asked.

They were still working together, but the unit was fractured. I could feel it, and it seemed to me that they could too; none of them had complained about coming back here, not even Kingston with his business to run or Jayce with his claustrophobia or Kai with his distaste for the war between the Custodians and the fallen in general. I wondered if they missed Xero for his own sake, or if the fracture of my succubus bond with the fire demon was affecting them as well.

Forcing myself not to fall into a pit of helplessness, I went over every inch of the cave twice, and so did each of the men. There was nothing but the smears of blood and singes of fire from the battle.

“We’ll check the other chambers,” I said briskly.

Jayce and Kingston shared a glance, but they didn’t argue. I ignored it. I couldn’t afford to sit here and try to read their feelings, not with Xero missing. I didn’t have the energy to waste, magical or emotional. I needed my group to be whole.

Over the next several hours, we combed the fingers and cracks of the cave with no more success.

Even the main chamber was empty, except for the rotting evidence of our last battle there. It sickened me that Gavriel would’ve just left his minions to disintegrate without so much as a burial, but I wasn’t surprised. The guy was pure evil. And sadistic.

And holding my Xero somewhere on this godforsaken hellscape.

We reached the mouth of the cave with no luck at all. Tears sprang to my eyes and I shoved the heels of my hands against their burn.

Where are you, Xero? Damn it, why didn’t I come back sooner? I will find you, I swear it.

“We must have missed something,” I said. My voice trembled, and I bit my lip. Fuck. Not a good leadership look. “We have to check again.”

Silence hung in the air. I could feel the men’s hesitation, but also their willingness to do as I asked—not because I was using persuasion either.

I didn’t wait for them to convince me that I was wrong, that we’d seen all there was to see. I just turned around and went back the way we’d come, back to the site of the battle where we’d lost Xero. They followed behind as I made my way back to that small, hidden cave at the very end. When we reached it, I stood in the center and focused.

The magic mist was gone. It must have been attached to the stones somehow. The ground was bleached in the spot where we had opened the portal back to Fallen University. Blood spatters dappled the rocks everywhere, except in the natural little nest-like divot where the Temple Stones of the First Order had been before we’d collected them.

I let the scene wash over me, wishing with every fiber of my being that Xero had still been here when we returned. We’d come back as soon as we possibly could, but between getting the school back to earth and getting our asses chewed out by Headmaster Toland, it hadn’t been fast enough.

Fuck, I should’ve come back right away. How could I have been so stupid?

I’d thought maybe Toland would send us back with help, give us reinforcements to go find Xero. But instead, he’d forbidden us from returning to the underworld at all. We were supposed to be taking our final exams right now, leaving Xero to his fate as an “unfortunate casualty of war.”

Yeah. Fuck that.

You know when you were a kid and you would wish for something so hard it almost made you want to throw up? That’s where I was. I was writing letters to Santa in my head, praying to all the gods, putting a wish under my pillow for the tooth fairy that I could find Xero and bring him home. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the wish fill my consciousness.

My sudden gasp had the guys running to my side.

“What’s wrong?” Jayce held my elbow, his blue eyes shining with worry.

“I can feel something. It’s like—like a hook in my gut.” I pressed my hands over my navel, which only amplified the sensation.

“Does it hurt?” Kingston asked, his glittering green eyes narrowing, looking almost academically curious.

“No—it’s like a pull.” I took a few steps to the left and doubled over. “Ugh! Shit. That hurts.”

“Walking toward the pull?” Kai asked.

I shook my head. “No. Away from it. I think—God, it almost feels like my radar, but weird.”

“Everything’s weird in the underworld,” Jayce pointed out, a humorless chuckle falling from his lips. “Do you think it’s Xero?”

I stepped to the right, where the pull was leading me, and almost passed out with relief. Yes, this was Xero’s vibe.

“I know how to find him,” I said, a spark of hope lighting in my chest. “We need to get to higher ground.”

They didn’t question me. I could feel beats of hope and excitement emanating from them, proving again that they wanted Xero back almost as much as I did. It fueled my determination. We were going to get our fifth back, no matter what.

We raced out of the cave and into the canyon, and as soon as we emerged, I held up a hand.

“Anybody sense danger?” I asked, my voice low.

They were all quiet as they put out their various feelers. I put out my own, searching for any presence besides my guys. I couldn’t feel anything but the pull in my gut, leading me irresistibly forward.