We all sat on the edge of the guys bed in shock. “How did this happen?” I whispered.
“It shouldn’t be possible.” Kyle said. “The demons don’t have a gate into our realm. The only way they would be able to access this realm and specifically this academy would be … “ he trailed off quietly.
“How?” I asked more forcefully than was necessary. I hadn’t quite managed to get a lid on the box that was my magic and some of the rage was still simmering under the surface. I cleared my throat and tried to force it further down.
“Someone would have to let them in,” Liam said. I swung my gaze to him shocked by what he was saying. There was so much pain in his eyes. I wasn’t sure if what he was reliving was the nightmare that we had seen downstairs or something else. “Someone would have to open a portal on this side, inside the academy, to let it in.”
“That’s … but … why?” I mumbled. The guys just shook their heads. There was no way that we could know. So much death, why would anyone want that?
Kyle suddenly stood up and shook his head. “From now on, no one goes anywhere alone. We pack up this room together and move the boxes into the new room, then we all go to Aria’s room to pack up her stuff and move her in there as well. By tonight we are all sleeping in the same room and sticking together.” He pulled out a stack of flat boxes out of the closet and tossed them on the bed before grabbing a roll of tape from somewhere.
“Aria, can you start taping boxes together and we will start filling them.” He said moving back into the closet and coming out with an armful of clothes on hangers. He was right we needed to stick together. I could keep them safe if they were with me and I had to admit that we had made a good team. I quickly taped together some boxes and the guys literally just pulled drawers out of the dressers and dumping the contents inside. It took barely any time at all to have the room packed up. By the time we were finished we had fifteen full boxes and I had an armful of clothes still on the hangers. There didn’t seem any point in taking them off the hangers just to hang them back up again. The guys grabbed two boxes each and Liam led the way to our new room. We should have been excited about this but it seemed wrong to be happy about anything today.
It turned out that the new room was literally just around the corner on the same floor. Liam had already keyed himself into the door handle so he swung open the door and we all filed in after him. As soon as I saw the new room my breath caught. I had never seen anything like it. The bed was literally the biggest thing that I had ever seen in my life. It must have been twice as big as the last one that the guys had. It would probably comfortably sleep eight people, it was insane. The left hand wall had a small kitchenette in the corner with a table in front of it with six chairs. There was a small seating area with a sofa and two armchairs in the far corner. The bed occupied most of the other side of the room where there were a couple of desks against one wall that had two further doors in it. Assuming that one was a closet given the lack of dressers in the room I wandered over to the far door with my armful of clothes. I managed to shove the first door open with one hip and stumbled through into the biggest bathroom I had ever seen in my life. The vanity held three sinks. There was a door at the back that I stuck my head through and found the toilet. Thank the gods, there are some things that should be done in private no matter how close you are. The shower was similar to the one the guys had before but I paid it hardly any attention as I drooled unashamedly over the bath tub. It didn’t seem right calling it a bath tub. It was more like a small swimming pool. “I will love you for the rest of my life.” I sighed at the bath.
Of course Sykes was the one to then pop his head into the bathroom and look around confusedly. “Did you just profess your undying love to a bathtub?” He asked.
“It’s glorious” I whispered as I walked past him fake swooning. Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite a fake swoon. I could not wait to get my ass in that tub. I walked through the other door, which was in fact a closet, and hung the clothes up on one of the rails. The closet, like everything else in the room was massive and it had various rails, drawers and shoe racks. I walked back out into the room and the guys were already working on unpacking. They had even fetched the other boxes whilst I was, I assume, whispering my undying love to the bathtub. Maybe I am a little bit weird.
As the guys were unpacking, I wandered over the kitchenette to have a look at what was included. There was a fridge freezer which was currently empty so I plugged it in and turned it on. We had a stove with an oven and a couple of cupboards. One of the cupboards had all the pots and pans that we would need and there was a selection of plates and bowls, glasses and mugs. There was even a drawer of cutlery and utensils. Basically, all we were missing was the food. “Hey guys, how are we supposed to get food and stuff for the kitchen, is there a store around here somewhere?”
“Nah, if we put together a list the kitchen staff will order it all for us and have it delivered to the room.” Liam answered. “I already gave them a basic list this morning which should be here later this evening.” Well that was impressively organised of him.
“Right, you ready to get packed up Aria.” Kyle said grabbing hold of a couple of the boxes. “What was it we brought in, three or four.” He said scouting around him for some more boxes.
“Just three.” I said. Liam grabbed one more box and we headed back to the door. My room was on the floor above us and we made our way up the
stairs and down the quiet corridors to my soon to be old room. “It’s so quiet.” I said looking around as I opened the door for them.
“People will be sticking to their rooms where they feel safe.” Sykes said checking out the corridor before positioning himself in the doorway. It hardly took any time at all to pack up my room. Liam emptied the contents of my bathroom into one box and I emptied my dresser drawers into another. My snack box was still filled up as the only things I had taken out of it were what I had eaten. I scooped up my blankets and put it in the last box and put my knife collection on top. My laptop slipped in with my clothes and my ipad and books were already in the room in my book bag which I had been using that day. It was kind of depressing how quickly I could pack my life up. Three boxes was all it took.
We filed back to our new room each carrying a box. We were nearly at the door when we saw one of the teachers making their way down the corridor. “There will be an assembly tonight at 8:00pm in the hall. Be there promptly.” He addressed us before moving along and repeating his message. That was going to get old for him pretty quick. I checked my watch it was only 6:00pm. We had plenty of time.
“Shall we go and grab some food then we can come and unpack for a bit before we need to go to this assembly” I suggested.
“Sounds like a good idea kitten.” Liam said tucking me under his arm as we turned back to the door. At least now we had the kitchenette I should hopefully be able to keep my rampaging appetite under control.
Dinner was a sandwich bar. The cafeteria was nearly empty. I had never seen it so quiet since I had arrived. I constructed a sandwich of epic proportions which I handed off to Sykes when I saw him enviously eying it before making another, that one ended up going to Liam. I didn’t even pretend that the next one was for me as I passed it to Kyle and then made my own. If it wasn’t under such terrible circumstances this would be quite
nice. We ate in relative silence. I grabbed an apple and an extra bottle of water before we left and headed back up to the room. I sighed when we entered the room. I hated unpacking and now I was doing it for a second time in two weeks. I grabbed the snack box and removed the knives and blankets before shoving it in the kitchen for later. The knives I dropped on one of the desks and the blankets I threw over the back of the sofa. Okay maybe this wasn’t going to take that long. The bathroom box was quickly emptied into one of the drawers in the vanity in the bathroom which just left me with my box of clothes. One of the guys had already dropped the box in the closet and when I walked in Kyle was stood putting his own clothes away. I went for the quick approach of upturning my box and emptying it straight onto the floor. I felt like I could actually feel him cringe. “Don’t worry,” I laughed as I turned and saw the look on his face, like he was literally in pain. “I’m just sorting it into categories before I put it away.” He actually sighed in relief before going back to putting his own clothes away. If I was a meaner person, I could have some fun with this. But today didn’t feel like the day for fun so instead I sorted my pile of clothes into underwear, stuff for hanging and what needed to go into drawers. Once everything was sorted it took hardly any time at all to put away, granted it did help that I didn’t have that many clothes to begin with. I dusted off my hands as I went to leave, Kyle was still working through his own box of clothes. “You need a hand?” I asked.
“Nah, I’ve got this. I like them a particular way.” He said looked at the rail and slightly adjusting one of the hangers.
“I can see that.” I said slowly backing out of the closet. Kyle clearly had his own thing going on here and I didn’t want to disturb his happy place.
“He measuring his coat hangers again?” Sykes laughed.
“Kinda looks like it” I laughed back. I skipped into the room and flopped down onto the bed. “Where’s Liam?” I asked looking about.
“He’s just grabbing the food from the kitchens, they sent an email to say that they didn’t have anyone that could bring it up for us.” Kyle replied organising all of our textbooks and school supplies by the desks. “We could do with a bookcase.” He murmured.
“Wait! What? What happened to us not going anywhere alone?” I asked bolting upright in bed just as Liam sauntered through the door holding another massive box. “Where did you go?” I screeched.
“Erm … kitchens.” He replied looking confused and looking back and forth between Sykes and I.
“No one goes anywhere alone.” I emphasised each word.
Kyle stuck his head out of the closet door. “What’s going on?” He asked.
“Liam went out alone” I said standing up and pointing at him like I was a child telling tales on someone. Liam grinned back at me as he slid the box of food onto the table and began to pull things out of it. Kyle and Sykes both wandered over to rummage through the box and see what they could no doubt munch on. “Erm, excuse me,” I said putting my hands on my hips and pulling what was no doubt a vague impression of a pissed off kitten. Something about these guys seemed to null my badass powers “No one is supposed to go out alone.”
“It’s fine, he was only gone for a few minutes.” Sykes shrugged pulling out a granola bar like it was some kind of treasure.
“Wait, wait a minute. Who exactly is not allowed to go out alone?” I asked suspiciously. They all looked at me and I caught the flicker of guilt that crossed their eyes before they all shrugged and went back to blindly looking in the box. I fucking knew it! “So just me then.” I said narrowing my eyes at them. They at least had the decency to look ashamed for having been
caught out. Before they began looking at random corners of the room like children caught stealing cookies. “You realise that I am more than capable of taking care of myself, right? In fact, probably more so than either of you three?” At that they had the fucking audacity to bristle.
“Aria,” Kyle said stepping forward, “you have to understand, you are our mate.”
“And you are mine.” I insisted. I could see where this was going and fuck me sideways if I was going to take it without a fight.
“Come on Aria. I know you were raised as a human and this is going to be hard to understand, but it isn’t just us that are struggling with this. We have our animals riding us. If anything happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to control my wolf. I would lose myself to his rage. It is hard for us to be able to control our own feelings when we are worried that you could be in danger, when you add our animals to that, it feels almost impossible.” He sighed in defeat and slumped down into one of the kitchen table chairs. Fuck, why did he have to go and say something that made sense. Stupid logic!
“Kyle, I do understand. But you have to see this from my point of view. I am more than a competent and capable fighter. My magic is like a wild fire of rage that sweeps through me. You can’t stop me from jumping into a just fight. It is what I was meant to do. The only thing that you can do, is fight beside me. I won’t hide behind you. I won’t sit by and let you fight my battles for me. But I will stand beside you, I will fight beside you, as an equal and never anything less.” I needed them to understand that I wasn’t going to be some kind of weak mate that would willingly hide behind them. I would never let them stand in front of danger without me. And demons seemed really fucking dangerous. Liam and Sykes came around the table and stood beside me, placing a hand each on my shoulders. Kyle reached forward and ran one hand down the side of my face.
“I know you’re right Aria, but all I can do is promise that I will try.” Kyle said sighing in resignation.
“That’s enough. All anyone can really do is try.” I stood up and slide into Kyle’s lap. He brought his arms around me and I laid my head on his shoulder. “Wow, if this is our first sort of fight, we are totally acing this relationship thing.” I smiled. I felt Kyle huff a laugh beneath me.
