Sinful Things

19

I touch my mother’s necklace. Its purpose is to help me lie and conceal, and I’m very good at both of those things. As an Ishim and a succubus, my nature is to work from the shadows. But maybe truth is the answer sometimes.

I head out into our shared living room, where Araceli is plopping down on the couch and grabbing the TV remote. I pick up the Family Day flyer off the kitchen counter and bring it over to her, questioning my decision with each step.

“Hey, Liv,” she says, glancing up at me. She sees the look on my face and sits up a little. “Everything okay?”

“Did you see this flyer?” I hold up the Family Day notice.

“Yep. My mom is going to go nuts when she finds out. I’ll never get her to leave.” She rolls her eyes. “Are you worried about your dad coming?”

“No, that’s not it.” I sit beside her on the couch. “You know I joined the Order of the Golden Throne so I could find my brother, and now I’m trying to stop them from the inside.”

“Yeah…” Her nose wrinkles in confusion. “After what they did to Darel, I told you I’d help.”

“They want all their members to perform tasks this year. I just got mine.” I hand her the letter from the Order, which she carefully unfolds.

Her eyes widen as she reads it. “Holy shit.”

I let out a long breath. “I told you I was going to be honest and open with you about everything from now on, and I’m trying to do that. I want to know what you think we should do.”

She reads the paper again and then looks up at me. “I’m really glad you showed me this, and I know it probably wasn’t an easy decision.” She chews on her lip a little, and then tugs on her purple strand of hair. “Okay, I’ll ask him to come to Family Day.”

“Are you sure? It could be dangerous for him.”

“I know, but there’s no guarantee he’ll come anyway, and if he does, then we’ll know to watch out for an attack.” She hands me the gold letter. “Besides, we have to try. If we don’t, they could hurt someone else.”

I throw my arms around her. “Thank you, Araceli. I’m so sorry you’re mixed up in all this. If I could protect you from it, I would.”

She pulls back from my hug and pokes me in the arm. “I’m not the one who needs protecting, girl. You’re getting involved with some dangerous people, people who know what you really are now, I might add. Good thing you’ve got me to watch your back.”

I can’t help but smile, especially since her words remind me of something Jonah once said. Here I am, trying to protect her from the people who want to use her fae blood, and she’s trying to do the same for me. “Yes, good thing.”

She rips up the Order’s note with her nails, and for a second I think I catch a glimpse of that infamous fae cruelty in her eyes. “Whatever the Order has planned, we’ll stop them.”

Chapter Fourteen

Olivia

T

he next month passes in a blur of spring, sunshine, classes, and homework. My classes are harder this year than last, and combined with my extra meetings with Bastien and Kassiel, I barely have time to breathe.

Callan finishes his demonstration of all the different weapons in Combat Training, and now we’re starting to try them out ourselves. As expected, I find daggers the easiest to work with, and plan to pick them when the time comes. We still seethe at each other during every class, but otherwise pretend the other doesn’t exist, which suits me just fine.

The most curious thing is I don’t feel any lust from Tanwen toward him anymore. I wonder what changed? Maybe she found someone else over the break? Or has she finally realized he is the actual worst?

In Fae Studies, we move from learning about the Seelie courts to the Unseelie courts, and on Mondays, Bastien and I do research on famous magical objects throughout history and mythology, like Excalibur. He’s not as fun a partner as Marcus was, but he gets the job done at least. Meanwhile, I keep hoping to find clues about how to find Jonah, but always end up disappointed.

In Angelic History, Kassiel has started talking about migrations of angels and demons to Earth in the past, like during the Renaissance. Did you know Leonardo Da Vinci was an angel? No, me neither. Then, during our private sessions, Kassiel gives me the demons’ perspective on the same lessons—like how they believe Mona Lisa was Leonardo’s secret succubus lover. Kassiel knows all the good gossip, for sure.

In Ishim class, we study how to conceal other people and large objects, which is something I hadn’t learned yet, and it takes a lot of energy. As does everything in Light Control, where we started out by creating little hovering lights to guide us in the dark, and are now making big flashes that can temporarily blind our enemies. It’s exhausting, and all it does is make me hungrier.

Delilah’s trick helps. Every night I set an alarm for 2 AM, and then I practice what we talked about during our meeting. I started with a few rooms on my floor, sending a wave of lust to my sleeping peers, while avoiding Araceli, of course. That topped me off nicely, but it didn’t last long. The next few nights, I spread my powers to other floors, being careful to skip around a lot so no one suspects me. I have no idea what the dreams are about, but I can feel their intensity as I feed on the desire they create. I hope the dreamers enjoy it as much as I do. It's not as satisfying as s*x, but it does the job. For now.