DOFAB#3

Chapter Twenty- Part Two

~ KINLEY ~

A fruity, herbal mixed fragrance wafts from my freshly showered hair. Azlan has already left to meet the girls down at the breakfast bar Nadora has set up since none of us our allowed to leave. I can't remember when I last ate anything and my rumbling stomach agrees.

Mandatory meeting for Nadora students at 10:00 a.m. in conference room L3 near the lobby, the flyer stuck to my front door by a clip magnet reads.

Maybe my sister's right. I should check to see where Tristan is. With us being kept on Veltan premises, I can't go to the local bruhka shop to inquire about a lock. It's not like I can haul Tristan's sword around with me. Besides, I need to clear the air. To tell Tristan it doesn't matter if his siren chose me to be the beneficiary of their past doomed love. Only if I do that, I'm putting the entire balance at risk. How can love be the Beast of the Damned's greatest weakness!

"Miss Rylan, please allow our system to update your access." The receptionist in the lobby doesn't give me trouble this time when I ask for admission to penthouse thirteen. Instead, she slides a jet-black key with a royal crown etched into the center over to me. "Congratulations, Mr. Darkos has given you unlimited access to all his benefits as a crown member."

"Do those privileges give me access on using Shadow Enterprise to kill my pat'na or turn him into eternal stone?"

Ticks on a branch, I said that out loud.

"I'm joking." I force a laugh. "First year humor." I accept the access card, grateful the receptionist giggles softly.

"It will get easier." She smiles, her fingers running under the scarf tied around her neck fondly.

I have to maintain my resolve, and apparently watch more what I say. An all-powerful being can't put the love whammy on me and expect me to go along with it. We're talking about the Overlord of the Underworld, the Bringer of the Crimson Tide, the leader of a seven million strong army of the damned. What am I supposed to do? Pretend these given-to-me feelings are mine and just go along with it? No, I must persist that the siren chose me because she's trapped in her nest and needs a wanderer to set her free.

Tristan's wrong. He has to be.

"Girl, where have you been?" Maya loops her arm through mine before I can even think about heading toward the elevator to Tristan's floor. "There is a mandatory meeting being held in the lobby for first years. You're thirty minutes late."

"I overslept." I hold on to my stomach, hoping it won't growl as we pass by the picked-over breakfast spread I missed.

There is no speaker at the podium up at the front of the room when we arrive.

"What's the meeting about?"

"No one knows. Several of the savants are here, but no one has said anything. The headmaster took to the podium when someone came up and whispered something to her before she could say anything. She excused herself, saying she'd be back in a moment. I got worried when you weren't here. Azlan said you'd be down in a minute." Maya and I take our seats.

"Where are the others?"

I don't see the rest of our coven.

Maya points to the adjacent row of seats a few rows up. The overwhelming majority of the room is mortal students. There are so few vampires they're actually difficult to find. The exiled and demons are even fewer, but Nadora doesn't have a robust population of them to begin with. Demons and exiled make up about eight percent of Nadora's total student body, with vampires making up almost forty and the mortals being the largest at fifty-three percent.