CHAPTER THIRTEEN(ACCEPTANCE)
1999 Words
MERLINDA POV
I hesitated a bit, but I—
I couldn’t,
The hallway was empty. The bell had rung, and some people were already in class. But neither of us seem to move,
“You’re giving up so easily,” I whispered. My voice sounded smaller “I thought you’d fight for… us.”
Chloe didn’t step closer. She didn’t have to. Her presence took up all the air anyway. “I’m not stopping Merlinda. I’m waiting for you to stop fighting yourself.”
My fingers were on the scarf at my throat. I’d worn it all day. Everyone noticed. No one said anything. Chloe had.
“Do you feel anything?” she asked again. Same answer I’d been choking on. “Even a little. Tell me no, and I walk. I swear it.”
I thought of the library. Her mouth on mine. Her teeth on my neck. The way she’d held me like I wouldn’t shatter, then like she wanted me to. The way I’d let her.
I pulled the scarf off.
Her eyes went straight to my neck. The marks were ugly and pretty at the same time. Purpling at the edges. Hers.
“Yes,” I said. It came out soft “I feel it.”
She didn’t even smile. She just reached out and brushed her knuckles against my jaw, so light I could’ve imagined it.
“Good,” she said. “Because I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”
Then she kissed me.
It wasn’t like the library—frantic, hidden, my brain screaming stop. This was slow. Her hand on my waist, my hands fisting in her shirt. She tasted like mint and trouble and every bad decision I’d never regret.
I made some sound against her mouth. She swallowed it and pressed closer, walking me back until my shoulders hit the lockers. The metal was cold.
“Chloe,” I managed when she moved to my neck, lips ghosting over the marks she’d already left. “We can’t—someone will—”
“Let them.” Her voice was low, right against my skin. “I told you. I’m not hiding you.”
My head tipped back, giving her more. My hands slid up into her hair. She bit down, soft, and my knees actually gave. She caught me, arm tight around my waist, a laugh in her throat that wasn’t mean.
Footsteps. Fast, then stopping.
We didn’t break apart fast enough.
Asher stood at the end of the hall. He took one look—me against the lockers, Chloe’s mouth on my throat, my scarf on the floor—and put both hands over his eyes.
“I’m blind. I’m legally blind. I saw nothing.”
He was gone before the echo of his shoes faded.
Chloe was laughing. Actually laughing, head dropped to my shoulder. I felt it move through both of us.
“Detention,” she mumbled.
“Worth it,” I said, and believed it.
She pulled back, but laced her fingers through mine. Didn’t hide that either.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s be late together.”
And we were.
---
WRITER POV
By lunch, Moonlight High had a new religion, and it was Merlinda and Chloe.
No one had pictures. No one had proof. But Asmodeus’ tech-scrub from last night didn’t cover real eyes. And real eyes had seen.
What they saw was Chloe walking into third period holding Merlinda’s hand. Sitting down. Pulling Merlinda into the desk beside her. Daring anyone to say a word.
Merlinda was red from her hairline to her collar, but her neck was bare. The marks were on display.
Nara, three rows up, smiled with her mouth but not her eyes. She twirled a pen, clicked it, once, twice, three times.
At the back table in the cafeteria, the usual group was quiet. Layla and Ayla shared fries without their usual bickering. Harper nursed an iced coffee like it was medication. Sadie ate, ignored the world, and pretended Darcy and Asmodeus weren’t beside her like guards,
Mia wasn’t eating. She was staring at her hands. Little vines curled around her fingers, blooming tiny white flowers, then crumbling to ash when she noticed people looking.
“Stop that,” Harper hissed, kicking her under the table.
“Can’t,” Mia muttered. “It’s loud today. The ground’s screaming.”
Sadie’s eyes flicked up. “Then tell it to shut up.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Mia said. “Not for me.”
To the others Mia was just the quiet transfer with the weird eyes and the temper. Only the table knew: Mia was the nature wielder.All four, all unstable when she was stressed.
And she was stressed, because the shapeshifters had come for her yesterday.
And they’d failed.
And they’d come back.
---
SADIE POV
“Stop tapping your foot,” I said without looking up. “It’s annoying.”
“Stop breathing,” Asmodeus said. “It’s annoying.”
Darcy took a grape from my tray, checked it like it might be poisoned, and put it on my plate. “Eat.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No,” he agreed. “Children are less trouble.”
Mia’s water cup froze over, then cracked. She stared at it, breathing hard.
Harper put a hand over Mia’s. “Hey calm down, No one’s dying today.”
“Sure about that?” Chloe dropped into the seat next to Merlinda, like she belonged there. Which she did now, apparently. “Because the sky court sent a memo.”
Everyone went still.
Chloe tossed a folded paper onto the table. The seal was silver. Real silver, not paint. It burned a little just sitting there.
I didn’t touch it. Darcy did. He read it, face going blank in a way that meant bad.
“They’re sending retrievers,” he said. “For the ‘anomaly’.”
His eyes cut to Mia.
Mia’s vines shot across the table, knocked over Harper’s coffee, and died. “I’m not an anomaly.”
“You’re a nature wielder at a human school,” Asmodeus said. “You’re the definition.”
“They can’t have her,” I said. It came out colder. Everyone looked at me.
I didn’t want the war. I didn’t want any of it. But I had five people at this table who were mine, whether I asked for them or not. And Mia was one of them.
“She stays here,” I said. “Figure it out.”
Asmodeus studied me. “You sure? Sky court doesn’t ask twice.”
“Then they’ll get the same answer twice,” I said, and stood. “I’m going to class.”
Neither of them stopped me. They followed, of course. But they didn’t stop me.
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MERLINDA POV
Chloe walked me to class. Holding my hand. In the hall. With people watching.
“You don’t have to,” I said for the third time.
“I want to,” she said for the third time. Then she stopped outside my door, and kissed me quick, hard, like she was making a point.
When she pulled back, her eyes were dark. “Still good?”
My lips tingled. “Yeah,” I breathed. “Still good.”
She grinned,“Good. Because I’m not done.”
She walked away before I could combust.
I touched my mouth. My neck. I was smiling like an i***t.
“Merlinda.”
Nara. She was leaning against the wall, sweet, harmless, perfect. “Can we talk? It’s about Chloe.”
I just sighed,
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HARPER POV
Mia was going to blow.
We were in the old gym, the one they never used because the floor was cracked and the lights buzzed. Best place to train. Or lose control.
“Again,” I said. “Small. Just earth. No fire.”
Mia had her hands out. The ground rippled. A sprout pushed up, then a sapling, then a tree that punched through the ceiling.
“s**t!” I dove as tiles rained down. “Mia!”
She was shaking. “I can’t—it’s too much. They’re coming, I can feel them. The retrievers. They feel like static in my teeth.”
“Then we get louder,” I said, getting up. “You’re a nature wielder. Act like it.”
“I’m not—” She cut off, eyes going wide. “Harper, down!”
I dropped. A spear of ice flew over my head, impaled the wall.
Mia was staring at her hands. “I didn’t—”
“You did,” I said, standing slowly. “Earth, fire, water, ice. All four. That’s why they want you.”
“I don’t want them.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want any of this. I just want to be normal.”
“Normal’s overrated,” I said. “Come on. Again. This time, you aim.”
---
CHLOE POV
My phone buzzed.
LUCIFER: Report. Status of the degel. Status of the wielder.
I stared at it. I was supposed to be his spy. His eyes in the human world. I was supposed to watch Sadie. Keep her alive, but weak. Let her get hurt, like he said.
I wasn’t supposed to care.
I wasn’t supposed to be kissing her sister in hallways and wanting to rip Nara’s face off for looking at her.
I typed back: Degel uncooperative. Wielder located. Threat level: high.
I deleted threat level. Replaced it with: Protecting wielder. Advise.
His reply was instant. Do not protect. Observe. If wielder falls, degel will rise. That is the goal.
I turned my phone off.
Across the quad, Merlinda was talking to Nara. Nara’s hand was on her arm. Merlinda looked uncomfortable.
My vision went red.
I was across the quad in three seconds.
“Take your hand off her,” I said.
Nara blinked, all innocence. “Chloe! I was just—”
“You were just leaving,” I said. “Now.”
Merlinda stepped away from Nara, closer to me. That was all I needed.
Nara’s smile didn’t drop. “Of course. We’ll talk later, Merlinda.”
She left.
I grabbed Merlinda’s wrist, not hard. “You okay?”
She nodded, but her pulse was fast under my fingers. “She said she knew things. About what we did.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing! I swear. But Chloe… she had pictures.”
Someone was watching us.
And they weren’t done.
---
WRITER POV
Night fell on Moonlight
In the sky court, silver hounds were loosed. They had no eyes, only noses, and they smelled power. They smelled earth and fire and water and ice.
They smelled Mia.
In Hell, Lilith watched a mirror. It showed Sadie, laughing at something Asmodeus said. It showed Darcy handing her a jacket. It showed Mia making flowers grow in Harper’s hair.
“Useless,” Lilith hissed. “She’s supposed to be breaking, not bonding. Send the hounds. Send the shifters. Send everything.”
In a dorm room, Nara held her phone. On it, a photo of Chloe and Merlinda kissing. She hit send.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Wouldn’t it be a shame if the sky court saw this? Angels don’t kiss demons, Merlinda. Not if they want to stay angels.
And in Sadie’s house, everyone was asleep.
Except Sadie.
She stood at the window, watching the street. The mist was back. Coiling. Watching.
She didn’t know about past lives. She didn’t want a throne. She didn’t want war.
But war was coming anyway.
Mia rolled over in her sleep, and the house plants grew three inches.
Asmodeus, on the couch, opened one eye. Darcy, on the floor, didn’t sleep at all.
They were guarding her.
She didn’t ask them to.
She didn’t have to.
The mist outside formed a hand, pressed against the glass.
Then it was gone.
But the message was clear.
Soon.
- Writer
