Labyrinth Academy 2: Wars: an Urban Fantasy academy romance Page 15

  “Tink?” Rayna suggested, knowing full well she was snarking at the last person who needed it.

  He took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Look, I get you’re bonded to the WillowWisp, that the two of you have some unfounded kinship or something, but she’s not a practical familiar. At least not here at the academy. Maybe after—”

  He didn’t finish that sentence and she knew why. Would she leave the academy when this brewing war either imploded or faded into the shadows? Or would she be permitted to actually graduate? Would she even need to stay the full three years if and when she got her memories—all of them—back?

  Rayna sighed. “If I’m really as old as you say, why do I even need to stay here? This place is meant for newbie supernaturals, not those of us oldies.”

  He smiled at that but let her finish.

  She cupped his stubbled jaw. “We could leave. Go wherever and disappear somehow. You could even keep training me.”

  He brushed his fingers through her hair and swept a thumb over her bottom lip, igniting her nerves with the simple gesture. “We could. But you know why we have to stay. You’re not safe, and until you have full control of your powers, I can’t protect you on my own. Not with those who are coming after you. They’re too powerful for me to take on by myself.”

  A haunted look entered his eyes, and she wondered what or who he was thinking about. His brothers? They hadn’t talked about them since he’d shared how they’d died defying Apollo.

  The very same god who was hunting her down. It had to play on his thoughts and freak him the fuck out on the regular.

  She nodded. “Then we stay. For now.”

  Rayna clutched her pendant, sending a silent apology to Tink as she and Asher walked deeper into the forest to find her a new familiar.

  She wished Asher would talk to her about his brothers, tell her more about them. Even her spotty memories hadn’t revealed anything about them, but she was a hypocrite since she hadn’t told him a word about the Grim Reaper—Erebos.

  Maybe if she opened up, he’d do the same. Besides, she’d procrastinated enough. Way past time to spill.

  “So,” she started as they walked. “We learned about Erebos in Light and Dark Mythos and Deities today.”

  He stiffened beside her. “Erebos?”

  “Yeah.” She stalled for a second, reaching down to pick a cute little flower from the grass. Nothing like the one Delilah had created with her green tea-magic, but it was still pretty. “I think he’s my father.”

  Asher stopped dead in his tracks. “You remembered?”

  Did that mean he knew about Grim?

  “Sort of.” She toyed with the light blue petals, stroking them and keeping her eyes locked on her actions. Away from Asher so she could talk. “The night you found me here, I—I’d had a flash memory thanks to the star-in-the-box. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. I didn’t recognize the man, but he looked like the Grim Reaper with this black cloak and a dark fortress a certain comic hero would love to call his own.”

  Asher didn’t laugh and she wasn’t sure if he missed her joke, or if he was too nervous about what she’d say next.

  “In the memory, I told him I was getting married. To you. Though apparently you’d never met.” She finally lifted her gaze to meet his, his expression guarded and almost blank. “He spoke as though he was my father.”

  “What else did he say?”

  Rayna licked her lips, wanting to bite the words back, but she had to tell him. There’d been enough secrets between them to last a lifetime. She could justify not telling him before now, blaming it on the chaos that had erupted around them, but right now was the perfect opportunity to lay it all on the table.

  “He said—” She sucked in a deep breath. “He said, that with me bound to you, we’d have dominion over life and death. That we’d be undefeatable.”

  Asher gritted his teeth, but he didn’t deny it. Some part of her had thought for sure Grim—Erebos—had spoken total crap, but now she knew.

  It was true.

  She reigned over death.

  Asher was a phoenix, which had to give him some power over life, even if it was just for himself. So he could regenerate when he died. Was there more to it than that? Something neither of them said out loud? Something Asher was hiding from her?

  No. He’d said no more lies.

  “There was more, wasn’t there?” Asher’s voice was laced with something hard and biting.

  Not anger.

  Nothing so simple as anger.

  She didn’t understand her own reaction, but tears filled her eyes, pooling before slipping down her cheeks. Asher caught them, first with his fingers and then kissing them away with lips hot enough to burn anyone else. But never her.

  “He wanted me to join him,” she forced out. “He spoke of the coming wars. Even back then he knew, and he wanted me by his side.”

  Asher growled and held her tighter, fingers almost punishing they gripped her so hard. “Darkness and death.”

  “What?” She pulled back to meet his eyes. “How did you—”

  “You’ve been moaning it in your sleep ever since the infirmary. I knew something had happened, but I didn’t want to force you to tell me. Not after…” He trailed off, but she knew what he meant.

  Not after he’d lied to her.

  Instead, he gave her space to process it and talk to him when she was ready.

  Was it possible to love him even more?

  He held the back of her neck and kissed her, mouth moving over hers in a gentle caress so at odds with his tight grip. “No more secrets, Rayna. That’s what I promised you two months ago, but now I need you to promise me in return.”

  She nodded. She hadn’t meant to keep it a secret. Hadn’t meant to lie by omission. But she had. Keeping shit from each other wouldn’t help. They needed to be a united front if they were going to get through all of this. “I promise.”

  He let out a slow, deep breath. “Then what else did he say?”

  More tears fell down her cheeks in icy trails. “He said we’d conquer the world and take the throne that was destined for the Primordials.” She swallowed against the rock that had formed in her throat. “He wants to rule together. Father and daughter. Darkness and death.”

  Seventeen

  “What do you think?” Rayna asked Asher.

  Professor Matthis had just run through no less than five options for her new familiar, but she had no clue which was the right fit for her. Asher knew her better than anyone, so he had to be the best person to help her choose.

  Not that Matthis was all that pleased with her looking to her phoenix soulmate for help. As a Centaur—part man and part horse, which made for the most confusing combination on an anatomical level—the professor seemed offended she’d trust Asher over him.

  “It’s not about what I think, Rayna.” Asher rested a hand on the small of her back, an innocent touch, yet it sent tingles all the way up her spine. “It’s which creature you bond most with.”

  “That would be Tink.”

  He laughed. “Besides the WillowWisp.”

  Matthis trotted closer. “Did you say WillowWisp?”

  “Yeah, did Headmistress Hale leave that part out?” Rayna cringed, wondering what the hell Matthis would think. “I bonded with a WillowWisp during my trials. Apparently, that’s not acceptable, so here I am looking for a replacement so Headmistress Hale can banish my current familiar. She said something about preventing any damage to my soul.”

  The last thing she wanted was a replacement, but there’d be no more arguing with Hale.

  Matthis mumbled under his breath, then shooed the creatures he’d gathered. The black Orthros puppy, the one Delilah had fed her magically-grown flower to, had already wandered off, his two heads battling as they tried to catch the Fae’dra—a tiny serpentine dragon with the wings of a butterfly.

  Various shades of blue, Mishi the Fae’dra flitted around, whizzing from the Orthros puppy. The poor g
uy was still nameless but growing fast. He’d doubled in size in the last two months, greatly outweighing Mishi, but looked like the mismatched two got along well.

  While it was obvious neither of them were the right familiar for Rayna, she giggled as the two played, darting between the trees and dodging Matthis when he tried to send them on their way.

  The Chimera—Kelsey—lay snoring beside Asher. She was a real cutie, with the body of a medium-sized lion cub, huge curling horns like a big ole goat, and a forked tongue that slithered out of her mouth as she slept.

  “Go on, now,” Matthis said to Kelsey, jostling her awake even as she swatted her scaly tail at him. “Where is that teaching assistant when I need him? I could’ve sworn I asked him to be here an hour ago.”

  He continued to grumble as he ushered Inka along the path, trying to speed up her somber pace. Matthis said she was a rare breed of Vaegle, a white, elk-like creature with three long, bushy tails, a great mane of a lion, and antlers that looked more like huge tree branches. She’d been the most timid of the lot, staying safely behind the trees as she watched the rest of them.

  Last to fly off was Edora, a Luminettia, as she spread out her magnificent wings and pushed off from the nearby tree stump. She didn’t look all that different from a regular bird of prey while she’d perched on the fallen log, her gray feathers pretty unremarkable. But when she took flight, her long, elegant tail glimmered in the sunlight. It twinkled and caught every hint of light, sparkling with a million facets like a diamond.

  “Now.” Matthis turned to smile at Rayna, somewhat creepy with the gleam in his brown eyes. “If you’ve already bonded with a WillowWisp, few magical creatures will be willing to tie their souls to you.”

  “Tie their what-now?”

  “Their souls, child. How else do you think bonds form?”

  “I—” she started, but he barreled ahead, talking over her animatedly.

  “Hale should’ve warned me, of course, but I suspect it slipped her mind.” He grunted under his breath. “The faculty here have so little consideration for my creatures and their potential. All far too interested in their students and which discipline is better than the other. Spiritual versus Physical. Physical versus Psychic. And of course the Spirituals think they’re far too lofty to even consider competing with the Psychics. What a load of twaddle.”

  Matthis waved a hand through the air, gesturing for her and Asher to follow him.

  “Which do you belong to?” Rayna asked, more than curious about how he fit into the curriculum since she hadn’t spotted Magical Creatures on any of the schedules she’d seen.

  “Well,” Matthis said, leading them down a winding path with his hooves clomping against the stones. Along the edges, colorful flowers bloomed to life as they passed, following their movements before they closed back into buds and went still. “Technically, I fall into the Magical Creatures classification, but they like to overlook that here and lump me with the Physical Realm. It’s a sort of gray area, you see.”

  “Right. Gray area.” Rayna hid her frown by turning to Asher. He gave her a tiny smile and took her hand, running his thumb over the back of her fingers. “And what exactly will happen to Tink—uh, my WillowWisp, when I bond with a new familiar?”

  Matthis grunted. “Well, usually, an individual like yourself could bond with any number of creatures, magical or otherwise. However, in the case of a banishment, we have to sever your current bond as we create a new one. To prevent the damage to your soul, as you already pointed out.”

  “But what happens to my WillowWisp?” she asked.

  Matthis met her gaze, his eyes sympathetic. “No damage, of that I can assure you. I would never allow any magical creature to be harmed. But…I won’t lie. The severing of the bond can be difficult for both parties. Which is why we need to find the perfect replacement for your specific needs before we move ahead with the process.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that one bit.

  But she did feel mildly reassured that Matthis was looking out for Tink and not just her. She couldn’t bare it if the Wisp was harmed. Asher squeezed her hand in silent support.

  “Professor,” Rayna said as they walked further down the path. “Do you mind if I ask where we’re going?”

  “Of course not, child.” He pointed an overly hairy human arm at a clearing up ahead. A meadow? Long grass swayed in the breeze and tiny flowers poked their heads up as though reaching for the sun. “That’s our first stop. I have another idea if this one doesn’t work out, but I’ve got a good feeling about my friend over there.”

  Rayna squinted at the meadow, sure she couldn’t see a damn thing down there, but maybe she was missing something. After all, the Fae’dra was smaller than her palm. If this creature was the same size, she’d only spot it once she was up close.

  Asher laughed, then leaned over and placed one finger under her chin, tilting her head up to look at the sky.

  She gasped. The black, winged horse she’d seen the first day she arrived at the academy, the one she was drawn to. He flew high above them and Rayna was sure there was something else up there soaring with him.

  “There’s a reason you felt the pull right from the start,” Asher whispered into her ear.

  In a daze, and nearly tripping—twice—because she couldn’t take her eyes away from the winged horse, Rayna followed Matthis down to the meadow. The black beauty descended, slowly winding down to smoothly land in a small clearing, between the tall grasses and tiny flower heads.

  A nearly identical twin landed beside the Pegasus.

  Only this one had a pure white body and wings, and it sported an actual freaking horn in the center of its head. Its mane, longer and more flowing than the Pegasus, started white but ombred down into shimmering gold to match its gleaming horn.

  Rayna stared with wide eyes, not believing what she was seeing. Some things she’d thought really were total myth no matter how fantastical the academy was. “A Unicorn?”

  The two horses wandered closer, butting into each other playfully, their manes mingling and blowing in the breeze.

  Matthis stepped forward to greet them, the human part of his back straighter than before, if Rayna wasn’t mistaken. Perhaps pride? Or maybe he felt a kinship with the winged horses. “Correction, child. This here would be an Alicorn. Winged like her Pegasus mate, but with the horn of a Unicorn. They’re even rarer than the Pegasus and Unicorn combined, but ain’t she a thing of beauty?”

  She sure was. “Wait, did you say mate?”

  Matthis beamed and nodded. “We’re very fortunate to have them on campus. They’re exceptionally shy creatures, and you hardly ever catch them together because both have been hunted to near extinction.” He stroked the Pegasus’ mane gently, chuckling when the Alicorn nudged her head at him for attention. “But they feel safe here. Protected within this realm and by the academy security measures.”

  Better not mention there’d been an attack two months ago. She didn’t want to frighten them off. They were gorgeous, each of them stunning in their own rights, but together? They were awe-inspiring. So beautiful her breath caught just watching them.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Matthis said. “Come and say hello. They won’t bite, I can assure you of that.”

  Rayna stepped closer to the horses. Slowly. So she didn’t spook them. The last thing she wanted was for them to go flying off again.

  “That there is Miss Sunshine.” Matthis stroked the Alicorn down the wide bridge of her nose. “She’s a showoff, and a moody sweetheart, but if you pet her just so, she’ll be butter in your palm.”

  Asher laughed, but Rayna wasn’t sure she wanted butter in her palm. She placed a hand on Sunshine’s nose as gently as she dared. Velvet soft hair greeted her skin, silkier than anything she’d ever touched.

  “Like you mean it, child.” Matthis chuckled as Sunshine nodded her head closer. “She’s not made of glass, you know.”

  Not even a minute later, the Pegasus stuck his m
uzzle into Rayna’s hair and she didn’t dare move a muscle. She went rigid, her hand frozen on Sunshine, halfway up to her horn. A wet, cold nose sniffed at her neck and then blunt teeth nibbled on her ear.

  She didn’t know if she should laugh or cringe.

  “Now, Midnight, is that any way to say hello to your new friend?” Matthis chided, but his voice was full of amusement.

  “Midnight and Sunshine?” Asher asked, stepping up beside Rayna. The Alicorn instantly turned to demand attention from him, forgetting Rayna even existed as the two got better acquainted.

  He stroked down her neck until she was practically leaning her head on his shoulder. Totally smitten with him. Rayna couldn’t blame Sunshine. She turned to putty in Asher’s hands any time he touched her as well.

  Matthis held up his hands. “Hey, don’t blame me for their names. They picked ‘em out themselves.”

  Midnight flapped his great wings and nudged Rayna’s hip, almost sending her to the ground. Of course the Magical Creatures professor merely laughed and trotted back. “Why don’t you take them for a test flight? I think it’ll help to establish the beginnings of a bond between the two of you.”

  “It worked?” Rayna asked, her hand buried in Midnight’s mane.

  Matthis smiled. “Not yet. We’ll have to sever your ties to the WillowWisp before your bond with Midnight here is sealed. But you’re well on your way.” His smile turned into a full on chuckle. “You wouldn’t be standing now if a bond was impossible.”

  Right.

  That didn’t freak her out at all.

  Despite the twinge of trepidation, Rayna was eager to take flight. She boldly climbed up onto Midnight’s back even as her nerves kicked into hyper drive. Sure, she’d wanted to fly, but…this didn’t feel safe. There wasn’t even a saddle or reins she could hold onto. She’d fall on her ass before they even got a foot off the ground.

  Which was better than falling from several feet into the air.

  But still not something she wanted to try out.

  Matthis patted Midnight’s hind. “Don’t worry, child. No one has ever fallen from a Pegasus they’re bonded to.”