Fallen Academy: Year One

Raphael looked to Lincoln, who was just glaring at him with barely contained anger.

“Prophecies are fickle. If I tell you that you’ll trip and break your leg, and you do, then did you break your leg because you were meant to, or because I planted the seed in your mind?” Raphael asked.

“Sir.” Lincoln bit out that one word, and it was enough to set the tone.

Tell us or we’ll unleash the full rage of two people who don’t like being kept in the dark.

Raphael nodded. “The prophecy states that a young girl with black wings will go into the underworld, and kill Lucifer, ending the war.”

This isn’t happening. I’m still sleeping.

I laughed then. A maniacal, “I’m losing my mind” laugh. Lincoln was staring at me with worry, eyebrows furrowed, mouth dipping in a slight frown.

“That doesn’t mean it’s you, or that the prophecy will come to pass. The future is always changing—”

“Why do I have black wings? What am I?” I’d asked many times, and he’d always danced around it, conveniently leaving that part out.

Raphael took on the face of a father then, one who was about to tell a child their cat had been run over. “You’re a beautiful soul who was empowered with gifts from me, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel and…”

He paused and I leaned forward, though I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.

“Lucifer.”

He actually said it, spoke my worst nightmare out loud. Not that I could conceive of such an awful thing, but pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen to a human—being endowed with powers from Lucifer himself—had happened to me. Hooray….

I shook my head vigorously. “No. No, you’re mistaken.” Bile rose in my throat.

Denial. I would fly and live there forever, because there was no way I was accepting that as truth.

My eyes flicked over to Lincoln, who stood there slack-jawed, staring at me like I’d sprouted an extra head.

Raphael moved closer to me, and I took a step back. “I don’t want comfort. I want the truth!” I shouted at him.

He frowned. “Of course.” Then he walked over to the desk, and produced the box and knife from my blood ceremony. “Lucifer’s emblem, the snake, lit up when I tested you.”

Shock ripped through me at such concrete proof, my eyes filling with tears as denial turned to shame.

“That’s not fair!” I yelled as the tears overflowed, and trailed down my cheek. “I didn’t ask for this. You love talking about free will, well I didn’t will any of this. I was an innocent five-year-old girl when you”—I jabbed my finger at him as the rage built within me—“and the rest of the angels started a war, infecting my people. Innocent humans were turned to freaks because of you!” I shouted.

Hurt crossed Raphael’s face. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

Lincoln winced. “Brielle.”

“No. Leave me alone.” I turned and burst out of the door, blasting past Noah, Blake and Darren, who were stationed on either side.

I was dark. Shea had made me promise I wouldn’t let her go dark, and I was the one who did. Not just any dark magic ran through my veins—his did. Lucifer’s. The Devil. Freaking evil incarnate. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it.

I ran harder, pumping my legs to take me to the open field where I knew I could be alone. Everyone was still sleeping, the sun just starting to rise. I wanted to fly far away from there, to another country, and never speak of it again. Live an entirely new life.

If I was Lucifer’s weird little stepchild, would the demons ever stop coming for me? Especially if they believed in some prophecy, where I was going to kill him?

Really? Me, an almost nineteen-year-old girl, go into the depths of Hell and kill the Devil? I laughed as more tears streamed down my face.

Footsteps sounded behind me, and I whirled around to Lincoln. I just stood there, chest heaving from running, tears covering my cheeks. I was a hot mess, and I was still wearing my dress from the ball.

“I’m evil,” I whimpered. I had to voice my fears out loud to someone—why not him? He was probably there to lock me in my own area of the school, where they could keep an eye on me.

His face contorted in agony. “No. Never.”

He pulled me by the shoulders, and crushed me into his chest for a bear hug. As those strong arms wrapped around me, his scent washed over me, mixing with the warmth of his tight muscles, I felt so safe, so at home.

Lincoln Grey was hugging me. Hard. Like he didn’t want to let go.

Maybe I am still sleeping.

“We’ll figure this out together,” he promised.

What?

I looked up into his eyes as he looked down at me, our lips a mere agonizing inch apart. “Together?”

He nodded. “Yeah. You’ve grown on me. You’re mine now.”

“You’re mine now.”

My brain barely had time to process those delicious words, when his lips claimed mine in a tender kiss. It wasn’t heated like the one on the beach; it was soft, exploring, and over all too soon.

When he pulled back, he brushed his fingers through my hair. “When I met you, I was in a dark place, fresh from the loss of my family, but something about you lit me up again, made me care again. I tried to fight it, to look for reasons why this wouldn’t work, but I can’t anymore.” His thumb stroked my jaw, and a pulse of heat shot straight to my gut.

Whoa. I had no words for that announcement.

“Tell no one of this news. Except for Shea.” Then he switched to battle mode. “I’m going to double your training. I want you to become a lethal demon-killing machine by the end of the year. Pass the gauntlet, and get accepted into year two. It’s the only way to keep you safe,” he declared.

My mind was still on that kiss, that declaration that I, Brielle Atwater, lit him up inside. But then reality came crashing down—I was Lucifer’s daughter, for all intents and purposes.

“What if I go dark?” Black throat-choking magic flung from my mouth, after all. We certainly couldn’t ignore that.

He shook his head. “Not possible.”

Denial. I used to live there.

“Lincoln, I appreciate your faith in me, but if I go dark—”

Grasping both sides of my face, he cupped my cheeks. “Brielle, you annoy the shit out of me sometimes, you’re stubborn as hell, you don’t listen, and I’m pretty sure the black magic you choked the Abrus demon with is super-dark stuff, but you are not evil. I know your soul.”

“I know your soul.”

Lincoln must’ve spent a lot of time with his nose shoved in those poetry books I saw in his trailer. Though I wasn’t complaining one bit.

I’d heard rumors of those who went completely dark, and ended up committing suicide after being surrounded by such evil all the time. A twenty-three-year-old Dark Mage killed herself in our building just last year.

“Wait, I annoy you?” I asked, confused, and his laugh warmed my stomach, bringing a smile to my face. “You’re the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.” I winked, turning the gesture against him for once.

He kissed the tip of my nose. “Well aren’t we quite a pair?”

Lincoln Grey and I are a pair. What alternate universe is this? I’d wanted to kill him when I first met him, but now I wanted to see him dripping wet in his towel again. That V needed its own instant replay.

“Now what?” I asked.

His hands fell from my face and he gritted his teeth. “Now we train. I’m going to teach you everything I know, above what I should for your first year of schooling.”

“I’m already tired just thinking about it.”

He nodded. “You should be. I’m no longer going to go easy. It won’t do you any favors in the end.”

Stepping back, I crossed my arms and glared. “Excuse me? Go easy? I saved your ass back at the dance from those bees, remember?”

He chuckled. “No, Sera did. And if they kidnap you, that’s the first thing they’ll destroy. You need to become a weapon—your hands, your mind. I’m going to make a weapon out of you, Brielle.” He ended the last sentence with a sinister look.

Shit. Sounds scary.

I shrugged. “Couldn’t we just go on a date instead? Movies, maybe?”

His face didn’t budge and I groaned.

“When do we start?” I slept on a frickin’ couch last night and he’s injured, so he better not say—

“Now. Go change,” he commanded.

I groaned even louder as I succumbed to my fate.

The next few months were going to suck.

And suck they did.

Lincoln trained me harder than ever before. I was falling asleep in class because I was so exhausted from the extra workouts, but the past few months had been pretty great otherwise. Fred and I had remained friends, and he actually started dating Angela with my blessing. Lincoln and I were going strong, only verbally abusing each other 60 percent of the time.

“Get up, woman!” he roared.

My boy toy stood over me, sword drawn, the tip pressed into my neck slightly. “If you would allow me a weapon, this would be a fair fight!” I snarled at him.

Our make-out sessions, back in his trailer, were epic after a really good training session of talking shit to each other. I kept trying to go all the way with him, but the age thing freaked him out, even though I’d turned nineteen two months back, in November. I also might’ve let it slip that I’d only had sex once for thirty seconds. Now he kept calling me a virgin.

“Demons don’t do fair fights. Get. Up,” he growled, the blade tip tight to my neck.

He was definitely a bit psycho, but his looks more than made up for it. Weren’t we all a little crazy, after all?

“You have a blade to my neck. If I get up, I’ll bleed out,” I explained, in case he was off his meds or something.

He shrugged. “Think of something. Use dark magic, bend light, kick me in the balls. Just do something.”