Runaway Mortal (10 page)

Misha’s pace slackened and she looked over her shoulder at me, her dark eyes gleaming with excitement. “You ready?”

“I guess,” I said with a shrug just as the door swung open and light flooded the alcove.

“Misha, Kat, so glad you could make it,” Sander greeted us with a smirk, looking me up and down in appraisal. I didn’t like that look.

“Uh, hey,” I said, wondering if I should’ve gone for an outfit that covered more.

“Come in.” He ushered us inside and shut the door behind him.

The loud music hit us as soon as we walked in. Once again, I was amazed by how Sander rigged his room so that no sound could be heard outside. There was definitely some major abuse of demon powers going on.

Sander took our coats from us and put them in a pile with some others by the door. “I hope you don’t mind, but Kat and I have some catching up to do,” he said to Misha as he put an arm around me.

I shook his arm off, but he didn’t seem too bothered by this.

Misha glanced at me in question and I made a face in response. “I don’t think we have anything to catch up on.”

Sander cocked his head to the side, a smile creeping onto his face at my rejection. “Come on, it’s rude to turn down the host. It’s my party, let’s chat.”

“Fine, whatever,” I said reluctantly, knowing that he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. “You have five minutes.”

“Perfect,” he said with a smug grin. “That’s all the time I need.”

“Let me know if you need me,” Misha said to me, before disappearing into the dancing crowd.

Sighing, I let Sander lead me over to two chairs that were positioned in the corner away from curious eyes. I slumped down in one, wishing I didn’t have to be in Sander’s company. Why had I decided to come here again? Right, this was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to take my mind off my problems. I was meant to enjoy myself tonight.

“Remind me again why your room is the equivalent of three dorm rooms put together?” I asked, clearing my dry throat. I really needed a drink.

As though reading my thoughts, Sander handed me a glass filled with clear liquid. He leaned closer, his green eyes glinting mischievously. “Only if you tell me how you killed Melkane.”

I stared at him, stunned. Was he being serious? This was what he wanted to talk about? He was a bigger creep than I‘d imagined.

Sander saw the look on my face and laughed. “I’m joking, Kat. My father’s an alumni here, and I’m pretty sure my great-great-great-grandfather’s statue is somewhere in the school. Plus, we donate a lot of money every year. It’s a perk.”

Spoilt, rich kid getting everything he wanted. How original.

“What’d he do, your great-whatever?” I asked, trying to seem interested in what he was saying.

Sander shrugged. “Probably killed some angel, who knows? My family history is pretty boring. I’d much rather hear all about what you’ve been doing all this time you were gone.”

“You know, same old. Kicking butt, being badass,” I said casually, taking a sip of the drink he’d given me. I immediately spit it back into the glass and made a face. It was straight vodka.

Sander didn’t seem to notice. His face was tense with concentration; beads of sweat were rolling down his face. The air around me grew hotter and my skin prickled. I wanted very much to take my clothes off.

I shot Sander a dirty look and shoved him hard in the chest, spilling some vodka on his shirt. “You jerk! Did you really think I would fall for that?”

Since Sander was an ero user—and his abilities were tied to air—he was no doubt the one who had made it so humid in the room. He’d probably been hoping that a few girls would want to strip off their clothes from the heat, but I wasn’t so naïve that I was going to fall for one of his cheap, party tricks.

Sander didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. “Hey, it was worth a shot. I figured you must’ve been pretty lonely on the outside. Why shouldn’t I reap those benefits if you’re willing?”

“Does it look like I’m willing?” Without waiting for an answer, I stood up and stormed off.

All I wanted to do was grab Misha and get out of here. I finally caught sight of her tucked away in the corner with a demon I didn’t recognize. It didn’t seem likely that she’d want to leave considering the way her lips were glued to the guy’s face. Besides, she was having a good time and I didn’t want to ruin that. I’d leave now and apologize later. She would understand my need to get away.

As I turned towards the door, I caught sight of a familiar face. It belonged to the last person I expected to see here. He was dressed in casual clothing, which made him look really young, and was sipping a glass of amber-
colored liquid.

Tyrone was looking right at me, a smile playing around his mouth. He patted the empty seat beside him, and despite the fact that I had wanted to leave a second ago, I couldn’t resist joining him. Besides, I wanted to know how much trouble I was in.

“You know stalking teenage girls is illegal?” I said, dropping down next to him on the loveseat.

His dark eyes studied me in appreciation. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who followed me here.”

Feeling self-conscious, I tugged at my dress. Why had I worn such a skimpy dress? “I assume you’re going to drag me out of here kicking and screaming?”

“As fun as that sounds, no. I have better things to do with my time.” There was a twinkle in his eye as he said this. “It just so happened that I wanted to come here tonight, and then lo and behold, I catch you and Misha sneaking off to the very place I wanted to be at. It’s like we are synced,” he said with a flirty smile.

“I thought SRECON agents were all about protocol and stuff, or did your evil demon side come out to play?” I asked with a laugh.

“We don’t have an evil side, just a different perspective on life; one that’s more than happy to use your choice of venue tonight.” He raised his glass in my direction as though he was toasting me before taking a gulp of his drink.

“So torturing souls in Hell for an eternity is a different perspective on life?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You actually believe in that old wives’ tale?”

I shrugged, finally relaxing in my seat and surveying the room as we spoke. “Hey, I figure if there are demons then why not a hell?”

“For someone who’s best friends with a demon, you’re mighty discriminatory towards us.” He flashed me a smile that was white against his dark skin.

I considered this for a few seconds. “Misha’s the exception.”

He leaned in closer, his eyes dancing. “And I’m not?”

I pushed him back playfully as another laugh escaped my lips. “You still didn’t tell me what you’re doing here.”

Tyrone sat back in his seat, his expression suddenly serious. “I overheard some demon kids talking about the party, so I thought why not? Veritas has been chewing my brains about some rule that I had apparently broken a week ago, so I wanted to have some fun.”

“Ah, yes, Very Tassels always has to be the googy-goody,” I said.

“Very Tassels?” Tyrone asked, the smile returning to his face. “You know, her name is Veritassen, right?”

“Yes, but she’s very stuffy like tassels,” I explained.

“That makes no sense.”

I shrugged, and then remembered that something was actually bugging him. “So why don’t you just transfer to another Triad? You can do that kind of stuff, right?”

Tyrone frowned and downed the rest of his drink. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

I was about to ask why, but didn’t manage to get that far because the door suddenly burst open with a resounding crash. Tyrone jumped to his feet, his protective instincts kicking in, and pushed me behind him. I nearly fell back down on the loveseat, but managed to steady myself.

Some girls in the corner screamed as they clung to each other. Misha was alert as usual—her hands furiously on her hips—looking more annoyed than scared by whoever had broken down the door, probably because she had to come up for air.

The bustle of activity made it hard for me to catch sight of who it was. But then a voice spoke, and I recognized the furious tone immediately.

“Everyone, get out. Except Katerina Lyrille.”

Shit. It was Loire.

Chapter Ten

The room emptied out in ten seconds flat—the only two who were brave enough to remain were Tyrone and Misha. Even Sander had bailed on his own party.

It felt like my heart was racing a hundred miles a second. This was worse than being caught by your parents because I didn’t want Loire to see me as a child. I wanted him to see me as an equal, and breaking rules really wasn’t helping my case.

Loire walked further into the room and stopped right in front of Tyrone. “What are
you
doing here?” he asked, his voice laced with accusation.

Tyrone seemed uneasy as he placed his glass down. “I, uh, heard there was a party here and came to break it up because it’s, um, part of my service to the school.”

Loire stared him down. “We both know exactly what you’re doing here. Veritas isn’t going to let you off easy for this.” It was a chiding worthy of Very Tassels. If she were here, she’d be proud of her protégé.

Tyrone jerked forward—startling me—as if he was about to hit Loire, but he straightened himself up instead. Loire didn’t break eye contact, his expression grim, and finally Tyrone walked out of the room without saying anything.

Feeling exposed, I sheepishly met Loire’s icy gaze.  No wonder Tyrone had backed down and left. The way Loire was staring at me made me want to shrivel up and disappear.

All of a sudden, his expression softened as his eyes flickered over my body, like he was really seeing me. He actually looked stunned for a few seconds, and I silently cheered at my small victory over him. He’d never seen me dressed like this before and clearly he was caught off guard.

“What are you doing here, Kat? Do I have to tie you up to keep you out of trouble?” he asked, regaining his composure.

“As fun as that sounds, no.  And I have been staying out of trouble!” I insisted.

Loire didn’t seem convinced. “That’s why you’re here at a party mainly consisting of demons, and consuming alcohol.”

“I didn’t have any alcohol!” I cried, and then shrank back as Loire stormed up to me and forced my mouth open.

It was unnerving how close he was to me. Unnerving and kind of hot.

He sniffed my mouth and pulled away from me. “Are you really going to keep lying to me? I can smell it on your breath.”

I was about to argue with him, but then recalled how I’d mistakenly taken a sip of vodka. “I forgot,” I mumbled, avoiding his raging eyes.

“You forgot?” he asked in disbelief. “That’s the best you can do? That was the case you were going to make in front of Delware if you got caught? That you
forgot
? Do you think Parla Hampton will go easier on you next time?”

My mouth tightened at his words. He knew the Parla threat would get to me, and it had. My last encounter with Parla Hampton had been degrading and I didn’t want a repeat of that. But Loire pushing my buttons made me angry beyond comparison.

“I can’t believe you would use that against me after the way he treated me last time! You were there! You saw what happened!” My voice wavered as I desperately tried to keep my tears at bay. “You know he’s cruel.”

The pools of his blue-grey eyes were dark. “Well, maybe you should’ve thought about that before you decided to dress like
that
, get drunk, and throw yourself at guys.”

His words were like a swift kick to the gut and I felt my resolve start to crumble. How could he say those things to me? How could he be so cold?

“That’s not what I was doing!” I argued.

“Your actions show otherwise.” His nostrils flared and he stared away from me, like he couldn’t stand to look at me anymore. “You’re immature, you’re reckless, and you have no respect for anyone, not even yourself.”

“That’s not fair,” Misha said, breaking her silence. I was grateful for the interruption because I was on the verge of tears and I didn’t want Loire to see how deeply his words had hurt me. “Kat just wanted to have fun. It was just a stupid party.”

Loire turned his head towards her, his expression stony. “That’s all well and good, but Kat is under investigation for a murder. She could get into a lot of trouble over this. You knew that and you still brought her here; what does that say about you?”

Misha’s face turned red and she glared at Loire like she wanted to electrocute him. The air crackled around her, and I knew she was doing her best to control her temper.

“Luckily,” Loire continued, turning back to me, “your other friend was more concerned about you.”

“What?” Misha exclaimed. “Anna tattled on us?”

Loire glanced over at her levelly. “I swung by your dorm to tell Tye something and when none of you were there, I paid Anna a visit. She told me about the party.”

Misha’s face contorted with anger. “Why would she do that to us?”

“Clearly she has a lot more sense than the both of you put together,” Loire said, folding his arms across his chest.

Misha muttered something under her breath. She was clearly seething about Anna, but didn’t say anything else to Loire. Anna’s actions weren’t my biggest concern. Her morals required her to always do the right thing and I couldn’t hate her for that. The only thing going through my mind was that Loire had more or less called me a whore. I couldn’t move past it for some reason.

“You really need to stop following me around. This is getting old really fast.” My embarrassment was channeling itself into anger towards him.

“This is my job and I take it seriously. Following you around is not fun for me. I was hired to make sure you stayed out of trouble. For some reason, I thought it’d be easy, but, boy, was I wrong.”

“Well, find a job that isn’t so pathetic where you have to babysit a teenager!” I hoped my words had gotten to him the way his words had gotten to me. It was hard to tell from the look on his face, since his expression hadn’t changed from cold fury. I needed to get away from him and the hurt he had caused me.

Grabbing Misha by the arm, I hightailed out of Sander’s palatial room, never wanting to lay eyes on Loire again. No one made me feel as angry and frustrated as he did. He had this annoying way of making me feel like a child without even saying a word.

“Seriously, there is something very wrong with Anna!” Misha’s voice broke into my thoughts as we hurried down the stairs and into the courtyard below. Oddly enough, I wasn’t mad at Anna, just like Misha didn’t seem mad at Loire.

“You know she always has to do the right thing,” I said as soothingly as I could in my rage. They had just started talking again and I didn’t need them being mad at each other over something so trivial. “She’s an angel, it’s part of her DNA.”

Misha stopped once we were in the courtyard and shot out an electrical charge. It flew past me and hit a stone pillar with a “bzz” sound. “Yes, but there is such a thing as loyalty, isn’t there?”

“Anna has many traits, but disloyalty is not one of those.” Loyalty was important in our friendship, especially since we shared so many secrets between the three of us. “She didn’t tell anyone why I ran away or where I went.”

Misha snorted in contempt, narrowing her eyes at me. “Oh, please. You really think that was her doing? I literally had to track her everywhere just to make sure she didn’t tell Uncle Troy what you were doing.”

“I’m sure it was tough on her,” I reasoned, knowing how hard it was for Anna to lie. “She was just trying to look out for me”

Misha fell silent, her face strained with confusion. I knew she loved Anna just as much as I did, but I also knew how much this was getting to her. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I guess I just didn’t expect her to give us up so easily.”

“So, that’s what you think of me?” a voice asked from the darkness.

Misha and I pressed against each other, surprised to find Anna materializing from behind us. Her face was taut, like she was struggling with several emotions at once, and I immediately felt guilty for speaking about her behind her back.

Misha stepped forward and I grabbed for her arm, not wanting an altercation to happen, but she pulled away from me. “I can’t trust you with anything anymore. I don’t know if you’ll just run off and tell someone about it.”

Anna’s eyes glistened with tears. “I was looking out for Kat. I didn’t want her to get into trouble. I know what Parlum is like—the rumors of what they do to people, I don’t want that for my friend.”

Misha let her anger get the better of her. “Look, I get it, okay? You’re an angel and your first priority is being a goody-goody, so maybe you should spend more time with your own kind and leave me and Kat alone.”

“That’s not fair!” Anna clenched her fists as tears escaped her eyes and rolled down her face.

Misha turned her face away, and I had a feeling it was because she couldn’t stand to see Anna cry. “And it’s not fair what you did to us. Honestly, I don’t care anymore. Just stop doing me any more favors, okay?”

In the darkness, Anna emitted a miserable cry and the air around us tingled with magic. The next second, Anna was gone. She had teleported out on us.

Feeling crappy about the entire exchange, I headed back to our room with Misha storming ahead of me.

I pulled out my phone and sent Anna a text apologizing. I would go to her later and comfort her, but so much had happened in one night that I needed to take it all in. I would try to resolve their disagreement in the morning when my head was clearer.

***

The next morning Misha was still in a bad mood from what she now referred to as “Anna’s betrayal” and barely spoke as we got ready for Supernatural History. I was trying to figure out the best way for my estranged friends to reconcile, when there was a soft tap at the door.

Misha paused in the middle of styling her perfect curls. “That’s probably Loire. Awkward.”

Biting down a mixture of uneasiness and embarrassment, I pulled open the door, already wondering how I was going to get through the next eight hours with him. Honestly, I would take Veritas right now over him.

But Loire wasn’t outside. It was a young girl, her eyes large and frightened as she stared at me. From the glaring, yellow badge pinned on her shirt, I realized she was a school messenger. The school sometimes used the younger students to send messages around the school if they didn’t have a telekinetic angel or air demon at their disposal.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Um, K-Katerina, I have a note for you,” she said, stumbling over her words.

Uncurling her fist, she handed me a scrunched up piece of paper. I took it, amused by her behavior, and opened it up.

Kat-

Meet me in the downstairs courtyard in 10 minutes.

-Loire

“Screw this!” I swore so loud that I made the little girl jump.

She stepped away from me, alarm spreading across her face like I might explode. “I’m so sorry!” she cried, close to tears, and bolted down the hallway before I could say anything to console her.

Misha appeared behind me and leaned over my shoulder to read the note. “Ooh, a secret meeting with Loire? I guess he liked what he saw last night.”

Meeting up with Loire was the last thing I wanted to do right now. I’d rather just go to class, which was a first for me, and zone out. I didn’t want to be alone with him after the things he’d said to me last night.

“This sucks,” I grumbled, tossing the note aside and grabbing my bag. “He was a jerk last night.”

“He was.” Misha nodded in agreement. “But, man, did he look hot all pissed off like that.”

Rolling my eyes at her, I headed out the door and downstairs to the courtyard, my mind thinking up the various scenarios that could play out. I didn’t get why Loire wanted to meet up instead of just coming up to the room like he usually did. I mean, I was glad all three of the SRECON agents were loosening up about guarding me, but this was a little out of the ordinary.

Though, if Loire wanted to have a private conversation, the Unity courtyard was the best place to do it. Most of the rooms in Unity were empty so there wasn’t much traffic of students coming through here.

It made me nervous that he was already there waiting for me. And of course he looked hot as usual in that well-fitted, black uniform. Damn it. If only he wasn’t so good to look at. I wasn’t a boy-crazy kinda girl, but guys like Loire only came along ever so often.

“Hey, I brought you breakfast,” he said, handing me a brown paper bag.

“Thanks.” I took it from him reluctantly, surprised by the gesture, and peered inside, relieved at finding no sign of eggs.

Loire nodded at a wooden bench. “Let’s go sit over there.”

The Unity courtyard was pretty pathetic looking and only had four benches as décor. There wasn’t even a fountain like all the other dorms had.

I made sure to put some distance between us on the bench as I pulled out a blueberry muffin and bit into it, waiting for him to say something first.

He sighed, twisting his body towards me. He actually seemed nervous, which was a big difference from his usual cocky self. “Alright, I don’t do this a lot.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m sorry I implied you were throwing yourself at guys last night. I guess I overreacted a little.”