Slaying Year Two (Grim Reaper Academy 2)
He sighed and stood up. Good. My insistence was making him feel uncomfortable.
“You don’t understand what this means,” he said forcefully. “Morningstar’s daughter…”
“But you didn’t know that when Lorna went batshit crazy on me. GC and Paz knew, Klaus knew, and Francis. Did Francis tell you?” He shook his head. “Then, why did you save me? If anything, after what you told me last year, before the finals, I would’ve thought you wanted me dead more than ever.”
“I don’t…”
“What did he tell you?” Francis intervened. He’d finally caught up to the fact that Sariel and I had a secret. And if baffled him. His mossy green eyes were filled with suspicion and curiosity.
“Should I tell him, Sariel? Or do you want to tell him? After all, you guys are childhood friends, and you tell each other everything. You know about his Great Old One, so maybe it’s time he knew about…”
“Mila, what are you doing?”
“No more secrets!”
Francis stood up, fixing Sariel with a calm yet determined look.
“If there’s something you want to tell me…”
“Ugh!” Sariel threw his empty beer bottle at the wall, and it shattered into a million pieces. He ran his hands through his perfect blond hair, closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, he was back
to being calm and normal. “Okay. Fine. I shouldn’t have been in the Violent Death Cabal. I am Merciful Death. I’ve always been Merciful Death, I’ve known the second I got the invitation to apply to Grim Reaper Academy, but I never told anyone. Not even my parents. Especially not my parents. They wanted me to be VDC since day one. Because the Violent Reapers get all the prestige. Because Valentine fucking Morningstar is VDC, and my mom and dad fucking worship him.”
Francis was taken aback. The strange thing was… I’d known Sariel’s secret all this time, but his heated confession still threw me off. The last part, to be more exact.
“There. Now you know,” he told Francis. “Now you both know, and if any of you talks, I’m screwed. I cheated on the entry test, the test no one ever cheats on, and if they find out, I’ll be expelled. Or worse. No one has ever been expelled from Grim Reaper Academy.” He looked at me, his silver eyes gentle and almost warm now. Pleading. “Francis won’t talk because he’s my friend. He’d never betray me.” Francis nodded, even though he was still in shock and needed time to recover. “Mila, my future is in your hands.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “All the more reason to want me dead.”
“No.”
I chuckled sarcastically and started counting on my fingers. “I’m human. I can dream, and you can’t. I pulled that awful prank on you at the Yule Ball. I know your darkest secret.” I looked at my hand. “Hmm… I thought I’d have more. At least five.” I shrugged. “Would’ve been a nice, round number.”
“No. I don’t want you dead. I don’t want you to get hurt, either.”
“Why?!” The fact that he’d changed completely and I didn’t know why was driving me insane. I knew how to deal with a Sariel who hated my guts, but not with a Sariel who looked at me with puppy eyes, urging me to stop asking him uncomfortable questions.
“You’re Mila Morningstar…”
“Spare me, okay? You saved me before you knew…”
“The field trip to Heaven,” he changed the subject in a split second. “My parents want you to join us for dinner after.”
“What?!”
He rolled his eyes. “You heard me. You’re invited to dinner. They want to meet you.”
I laughed out loud. “You’re joking, right?”
“No. They want to meet Morningstar’s daughter. They invite him over all the time, but he keeps ditching them. Says he’s busy reaping. Do me this favor, please? They told me to ask you. I’ll never hear the end of it if you don’t come.”
I shook my head. Suddenly, I didn’t know what I was doing with these guys here. I hadn’t managed to find out a thing from neither Francis, nor Sariel. And now the archangel had dumped this thing on my head. His parents wanted to meet me. Fucking great! And I was going to Heaven anyway, so how could I refuse? It wasn’t like I was busy reaping, like my father.
“Okay, but GC and Pazuzu are coming too.”
“What the fuck?! My father is an archangel, and my mother is a seraph. Do you really think they want to have a false god and a demon over for dinner?”
“No deal, then.”