Fallen University: Year Two

Kingston looked vaguely disappointed, and Jayce shot him a fiercely disapproving look, probably for falling in line with traditional gender stereotypes or something.

“How ’bout you, Kai?” I asked. “What’s your background?”

“Japanese mom, Polynesian dad, Norwegian sire.”

?

?That’s not what I meant.” I rolled my eyes with a laugh. “I mean, how did you grow up?”

“Same way you did,” he said.

“So…you grew up tending to your sick mom and trying to get your absent dad to pay a bill now and then?”

Softness flared in his dark eyes for a moment, an almost tender, protective glint. Then he grimaced. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant I was an infant, then I was a kid, then I was an adult, now I’m a vampire.”

“Ah, leave it,” Jayce said with a shrug. “He’s mysterious, it’s his whole thing.”

“I’m like a Xero-Piper hybrid.” Hannah scrambled a little higher up the rock, scrunching her face up thoughtfully as she checked the wards. “I had that sort of normal childhood until my parents died, then my sister and I moved in with my grandma, who was pretty old and got sick a lot.”

“How did your parents die?” Jayce asked, his voice infused with the empathy that came so naturally to him.

“Car accident.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Going around a turnpike in a storm. Semi going the opposite way lost control.”

“That’s awful,” Xero said. “Sorry to hear it.”

“Didn’t mean to be a downer. It was a long time ago, but I do still miss them a lot. Although…” Her expression fell a little. “Now I miss my whole family.” She shook herself slightly, as if refusing to give in to thoughts that would drag her down into a depression again. “This ward’s good. On to the next!”

We walked along for a while with the uneven, dark stone wall of the school to our left and the broad black and red expanse of the cave to our right.

“Jayce has new hellhound abilities in the underworld. I wonder if that means I’d fly better down here,” Kingston suddenly said.

“Wouldn’t try it in here.” The blond man shuddered, glancing upward. “You run into one of those stalactites, you’ll mess yourself up.”

“Aren’t those stalagmites?” Kingston asked.

“Doesn’t matter what you call them,” I interjected with a chuckle. “They’ll still fuck you up.”

“I’m gonna try it,” Kingston said. “Look out.”

“Wait.”

Xero’s voice was a command that brought all of us to a halt. He stood at full alert, not moving a muscle. I saw his ear twitch, and I focused on my radar, reaching out with my senses. Jayce inhaled deeply through his nose.

The underworld vibe was thickening somewhere to our right. Thickening—and complicating.

Sex. Blood. The musky scent of something animalistic.

The sulfuric, fiery atmosphere grew stronger, and a shudder worked its way up my spine.

Jayce spoke quietly, his voice strained and tight.

“Something’s coming.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Run!”

Xero’s bellow echoed off the cave walls, followed immediately by a chorus of screeches and roars. Each of us shifted into our more powerful demon forms as we followed the wall of the castle, racing back toward the massive entry door. They were coming closer, and there were a lot of them.