Fallen Academy: Year One

Our fingers brushed for a moment as I took the bottle. “Thank you for the water, but are you feeling all right?” I joked.

He chuckled. “Shut up and hydrate yourself, so you can go back out there and keep dancing like an idiot. I’m getting some really good videos to blackmail you with later.”

My mouth popped open. “You’d better be joking. Let me see your phone!” I reached for his pocket but he grabbed my wrist.

“You’ll never know.” He winked.

Oh. My. God. Lincoln winking was nothing like when Noah did it. Noah was an abusive cheesy winker, doling them out all the time. Lincoln had never winked at me before, and now that he had, I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest.

Oh shit. I totally like him. How the hell did that happen?

I was standing there, just stupidly staring at him, when people started screaming. Looking out into the main area of the bar, I could see black smoke filling the air.

“What’s that?” I asked, panicked. Lincoln stood, pulled out his sword and stepped in front of me just as the music came to a grinding halt.

“Demon attack!” someone yelled.

A flashbang grenade went off right at the entrance of the VIP area, and I was blinded by a bright light, the bang was deafening. For the few seconds before the lights had gone off, I’d seen two Brimstone demons in the crowd, and another demon that gave me the chills—that Abrus demon who was set to buy my contract. Terror flooded my system. Why is he here?

Lincoln yanked me to the ground, pinning me under the bar where the stools where.

“Shea!” I started screaming. I couldn’t see anything but huge white circles, my ears still ringing.

“Shea!” I screamed, going hoarse. There was no use, she was probably momentarily deaf as well. My vision started to return quickly, thanks to my Celestial healing, and along with it, my hearing.

Lincoln was caught in some kind of scuffle with the Brimstone demon. They were clanging swords as people ran screaming for the exit. Reaching into my boot, I pulled Sera out.

‘Help,’ I said, unsure what we could do from the ground.

Lincoln’s wings were out now, and Darren had jumped to his side as the second Brimstone demon tried to attack him. Of all the places in the bar to go, they attacked this spot. I was just mulling it over when a strong hand reached down and grabbed me by the hair, pulling me up. Pain shot up my scalp and I screamed, holding onto my attacker’s arm to lessen the strain on my scalp.

“There you are, princess,” The smooth-talking Abrus demon cooed in my ear.

Fear ripped through me at the realization that he seemed to be there for me.

“Brielle!” Lincoln shouted. He was cutting down the Brimstone demon, but not fast enough. The Abrus demon yanked me backward, and started dragging me toward the exit. I slashed out with my dagger, but with him behind me, dragging me with an iron grip, I had no stability. I decided then to pull out my wings and see if that would help me pry myself from his grasp but when I tried to extended them, there was a painful popping between my shoulder blades and they stayed in. He had some kind of magic that was keeping them in or something. Oh God.

A blur of red to my left pulled my attention to Shea. She was crouched about five feet away, farther up where the Abrus demon was walking backward, holding her sharp-bladed disc in one hand.

Oh God. What is she going to—

She sprang from her stance and chucked the weapon at the demon.

My eyes widened as it hurtled through the air and, from the sound of it, sank into the demon’s back.

“Not so fast, asswipe!” Shea roared.

With a roar, the Abrus demon dropped me and I fell onto my bruised tailbone, but he was still holding onto my hair. He flung a hand out, shooting a purplish-black ball of smoke at Shea, which had her gasping on the ground and screaming in seconds.

‘Sera!’ I shouted in my head, holding my useless dagger.

‘Hold me up and close your eyes.’

I did as she asked. We were a few feet from the exit door, and I didn’t fancy being kidnapped.

The second my eyelids closed, a bright light shot out and the Abrus demon screamed, releasing my hair. I fell farther backward, with no way to steady myself, and cracked my head on the ground. Wasting no time, I rolled to my side, eyesight blotchy but intact, and thrust Sera into the demon’s calf muscle, halfway to the hilt. His scream was so high-pitched, that I nearly dropped my blade to cover my ears. It sounded like screeching bats, which was absolutely terrifying.

‘Ew, he tastes awful,’ she whined.

I didn’t want to know what that even meant. ‘Umm, sorry?’

Lincoln leapt into view then, Darren by his side. Both were covered in inky demon blood, and holding their swords up, ready to fight.

The Abrus demon was holding Lincoln’s gaze, but one of the Dark Mages he’d come in with yanked his arm and pulled him out the door. I held onto Sera as she was ripped from his calf and then he was gone. The squeal of tires announced their exit.

What just happened?

Two strong hands wrapped around me, one under my neck and one under my legs, and then I was being pulled into Lincoln’s arms. His eyes roamed over every inch of me.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

If I say no, will he put me down?

“I hit my head.” It wasn’t a lie.

“Bring the car around!” Lincoln barked to Blake, who started jogging out the front door.

“Shea!” I shouted, craning my neck. Then I remembered she’d been hit with some smoke spell.

Noah kneeled over her, hands glowing orange. “She’ll be fine,” he told me.

Her eyes were tearing from coughing so hard, but she met my gaze and nodded.

“Can you walk?” Lincoln asked me.

No. “Yes.”

He set me down and I felt like pouting. It was kind of nice being in those strong arms for a minute.

“Were they here for her?” he asked Darren, who stood at his side.

Darren frowned. “It looked like it.”

Now they were all staring at me. I shrugged. “That’s the guy who was supposed to buy my contract. Maybe he wanted to sell me or something?”

Lincoln’s jaw tightened. “You’re not for sale.”

Holy winker, I really like him. What’s happening to me?

A loud knock came on the other side of the exit door from the VIP lounge and Lincoln ripped it open. Blake was standing there with his car backed up to the doorframe. Another guy was standing with him, tall, broad-shouldered with light brown hair.

“Brisbane! Can you get me the video surveillance from tonight? I want to know how they got in, and what their plan was,” Lincoln barked. He was in warrior mode now, and it was totally hot.

The guy nodded. “On it.” He burst through the entryway and ran down into the lower level. It seemed like he knew where he was going, and since his last name was Brisbane, I guessed he was Chloe’s brother. The one Luke had a crush on.

Luke and Angela appeared with Shea linked in their arms, and walked over to me. My best friend’s eyes were tearing, and it looked like she’d been maced. I had no freaking clue what kind of magic Abrus demons had, but from what I’d seen over the past few days, it was scary-as-hell magic.

Lincoln looked me up and down once more. “You’re not hurt?” he asked again.

My head was throbbing from where I cracked it but it wasn’t bleeding, I pushed a little at my wings and felt them slide out a ways before retracting. Whatever spell he’d had over them was gone. I shook my head to Lincoln. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Get back to school and stay there. No more leaving the grounds. And keep that blade on you at all times.” His eyes flicked to Sera.

‘He’s a sensible chap,’ she noted.

Talk about a sudden change of heart.

It was stupid, but I took the time to wonder if he’d take my key to his trailer away now that I had no reason to go there. That meant no more walking in on him half-naked, which bummed me out.

As Darren was guiding me to the waiting vehicle, Lincoln called out my name. “Three nights a week, from seven to eight o’clock, I want you to take extra battle training with me. This might happen again. Until we know why they want you, we need to be prepared.”

My stomach flipped. Extra training with Lincoln? Just the two of us? I knew he was only doing it because it was his job to keep me alive, but part of me wondered if he liked spending time with me.

I was totally falling for the resident asshole. Except maybe he wasn’t an asshole.

Maybe he never was.

Chapter Thirteen

It had been six weeks since the night club. I was officially employed and loving my job at the healing clinic, which consisted mostly of goofing off with Noah, and sometimes actually helping heal a patient.

Healing people sucked. It hurt. Literally. I healed a cut on Shea’s leg for practice and it hurt my leg. Healers had to be super selfless, which was surprising considering how self-absorbed Noah seemed.

My private training sessions with Lincoln were torture in so many ways. The sexual tension was so thick, I could cut it with a knife. Of course, I had zero clue if he was feeling it too, since he was always barking orders at me, and scowling when I held a weapon wrong. I, on the other hand, was finding ways to touch him—an arm graze here, a bump into him there. I had it bad, and it was pathetic. He’d taken my key to his trailer back, and seemed completely uninterested in me sexually. Meanwhile, I was thinking about the way those water droplets had rolled down his V on a daily basis.

“Miss Atwater?”

My eyes snapped to the front where Mr. Rincor, a Celestial with Gabriel’s power, was shooting glowing sparks out of his hands.

The issue with my studies of light class was there were only two students, a senior named Fred, who had Gabriel powers, and me. Mr. Rincor was his master teacher. With only two students in the class, it was easy for him to tell that I wasn’t paying attention.

“Yep?” I tried to act like I was super extra paying attention. Eyes wide and alert, I pinned them on the professor.