seven
"So what exactly is that and why aren't you slaying it to impress us?"
Dragging his gaze from the ominous entity drifting over the room, Obsidian scrutinized the three fledglings that were somehow magnets for mayhem. The one who spoke, Athena, was dangerously close to becoming fallen but she didn't seem to particularly care, having risked receiving yet another mark by not evacuating the academy when ordered.
He didn't bother responding to her because his patience was wearing thin.
All within a span of less than twenty four hours, the fledglings had committed various misdeeds and now demons had barged into the academy. Were they somehow tied? He didn't believe in coincidences. Demons couldn't enter the academy, not with such strong divine wards in place. The only way would be through a summoning in the Veil and no one was insane enough to do that.
And yet the three fledglings who didn't seem to understand the concept of peril proved otherwise.
The wink of a blade in motion drew his attention to the fledgling whose name matched the color of her wings. Lavender. She hadn't disposed of the two swords in her grip and something in him twisted with the vision of her alone in the dorm wing. Untrained. Facing off against a bloodthirsty demon.
Foolish had been too kind of a word to describe her actions. What she'd done was completely stupid. And it prickled at his nerves.
She wasn't even fully dressed and that irked him even more as he took note of the amount of tanned flesh on display. What had she been doing before this? Or did she simply parade around the academy like that? Tempting others as she did him? He bristled at the thought.
The mangled skin of her ankle looked painful and the blood staining her temple had dried. A gnawing urge consumed him to figure out what had happened in the time it had taken him to arrive. He wanted to scold her for her actions. That was normal because it was his duty as an Elite Guard.
But the displeasure bloomed into something that also made him want to lock her up with divine cuffs and place her somewhere no one - except him - would ever find. And that was not normal behavior for a Guard.
Obsidian supposed that irrational nature was bound to have escalated since he first saw her forty years ago, dancing at a club in the angel realm.
He'd only gone to share a few drinks with Rune and North to celebrate the completion of a mission but loud cheering from the dance floor had snagged their curiosity. Followed by pretty lilac feathers. The wings were merely a fraction of her beauty as the angel moved her lithe body to the fast beat. Time had suspended as an array of colorful lights illuminated the shimmer adorning her high cheeks and dark eyes lined dramatically with kohl. Short midnight hair framed a bold face with a mysterious grin and he thought she might've been a mirage of an Egyptian goddess.
He didn't recognize her but he wanted to join her. To slide his hands over the slim expanse of her waist and tug her against his hard body, so he could feel every fluid rock of her hips.
Instead he'd left.
Back then he could easily fight the mystifying desire for an angel he didn't know. If only it had continued to be so simple.
He caught glimpses of her from time to time, shattering the delusion that she was a fragment of his imagination. Sunbathing at the edge of the cliffs. Laughing loudly with friends. Parading around the realm in the midst of games.
Of course Obsidian didn't ever spare her longer than a glance. Until bits and details of her identity seeped into his knowledge. Okay, maybe he went in search of said information but that wasn't important. Elite Guards had access to the records of all angels and he'd learned that she was a disobedient fledgling who attended the academy.
He was admittedly surprised. And spurred on by the revelation. Did some part of him maybe want to tame her? No. He never felt that way about other unruly fledglings. Athena and Ellra were just as errant yet he didn't harbor any fascination towards them.
Lavender was just...different. She was gorgeous, elusive smoke and he was inexplicably drawn to her.
"Do you even know how to use those swords?" Ellra pointed at the weapons her friend held with a raised brow and Obsidian wondered the same.
Lavender huffed in amusement, "Does Santa have a red hat?"
"What?"
"The answer is yes. Santa has a red hat." She lifted one of her swords and struck a pose. "And they call me the samurai angel."
The words that formed from that slick tongue made Obsidian question her sobriety. He had never heard of anyone being called the samurai angel. Let alone a fledgling. Lies such as that made him wary of her.
Wouldn't you be sad if I died, though? Before you got a chance to rough me up in bed?
Her earlier words flitted through his mind. Did she actually want him to rough her up in bed or had that been a meaningless ruse to provoke him? And why did the vision of her naked and tied to his bed for the taking send a twitch straight to his cock?
He shook the image away but gritted his teeth as a new one stole its place. This time she was beneath him, squirming under his weight, both wrists held captive over her head as she stole a kiss. That had actually happened.
The slant of her lips over his own had paralyzed him. After all those decades of evasion, Lavender had made the first move on him.
The smooth and wet glide of her tongue had practically undone him but it was the sharp tang of quicksilver that made him jerk away, a reminder that she wasn't in the right state of mind.
And then he'd gotten angry. Because there were tons of other reasons not to kiss her. He was arresting her, for one. Also, he was a Guard. He didn't fool around with fledglings. There were no rules against it but Obsidian just didn't.
Yet even he couldn't deny the arousal underneath his armor. Enraged with himself, he'd instructed North to carry out Lavender's arrest. It was a stupid decision that plagued him. Had she tried to make a move on his fellow Guard? If so, did North reciprocate?
That only infuriated him more.
Athena sidled up beside Lavender. "Hey samurai angel, can I have one of your swords since you're so amazing and don't need two?"
"No can do, I need both of these to execute all my moves."
"Seriously, Lav?" she whined, "Sharing is caring and I shared that incubus at the club with you guys when I really could have just kept him to myself."
"I didn't ask you to share that incubus-"
"You won't need any weapons, this isn't something that can be fought." Obsidian's voice came out harsher than intended, interrupting the two before the conversation escalated into something ridiculous. Already he wanted to press the matter and inquire who the incubus was so he could slice their head off. Where had his rationality gone?
"So we're not going to die from the scary cloud?" The disappointment in Ellra's tone left no doubt that she'd been hoping for action.
Couldn't these fledglings appreciate the fact that they were alive?
Besides, it wasn't a cloud. It was a shapeless demon attracted to death. Angel deaths in particular. It was crucial that he questioned Lavender on what had transpired. While it was as harmless as demons got and the dark presence surrounding the academy was gone, the skies remained murky.
"No, it won't hurt us but it's also not wise to hang around. This dorm wing will have to be closed off." He expected a reaction from Lavender since she resided here but she was busy chewing on her lip and watching the death demon above them.
The fledglings of the academy may have had morbid tastes and questionable morals but demons had never entered the angel realm ever.
Some minuscule part of him didn't want to believe that Lavender or her friends had any part in it but he also hadn't expected to find her in the Forsaken City, placing bets with male demons. The fledgling was full of surprises and he only had the details of her record to go by. With an investigation of the entire academy, he would get to know her though.
But first, he needed to reconvene with the Guards and report back to the Archangels immediately.