Page 35 of Demon Reform Academy, Term 3

35

DEXTER

“ B lackthistle had a secret room in his office.” Dusk clicked her pen as she closed a folder on her desk. The sandstone walls of her classroom loomed around us. “If he’s on campus, my guess is that he’d be there.”

Death nodded. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” she replied as Death, Bram, and I rushed out of her classroom and toward the headmistress’ office.

It had been an entire day of asking every fucking staff member and student we came across about the shitty prior headmaster. We had been checking in on Pandora through the guys, but we hadn’t taken a break from searching for Blackthistle.

Truthfully, I felt like I was going to come out of my skin without having my eyes on her. I peeked in on her through the shadows when I could, and when I did, nothing changed. She still lay asleep on the bed with Hunter, Reed, and Skel around her. Her skin was pale and translucent, and her breaths were shallow, each one a ghostly whisper that barely stirred the air.

A weight crushed my rib cage. She looked so fragile, and it fucking tore me apart. But I had to trust that the others were with her—protecting her—so that I could gut the bastard who cursed her.

“I thought you searched the office,” Death growled.

“I did,” I bit out. I personally searched every inch of this fucking campus—including that office. How had I missed a secret room? Was it warded?

“Not enough.” Bram strode forth between us, his footsteps echoing hollowly in the cavernous hall. His eyes were red pools of chaos and desperation.

“I’ve searched every damn corner of this place,” I muttered, frustration bubbling over. “There’s nothing. No signs, no fucking clues as to where he is.”

“We’ll find this fucking room, and we’ll find him.” Death stopped in front of the headmistress’ door. “I sense two souls on the other side of this door.”

The tension grew palpable, a living thing that coiled around us, tightening with every passing second.

Death knocked once.

The door swung open, revealing only one demon. Headmistress Clearwater. “Death…what a surprise. Any luck searching for Blackthistle?”

My gaze narrowed at her.

She was a succubus with black hair that was pulled into an updo. She wore a black pantsuit, and she had the emblem for the academy pinned on her blazer. Her violet eyes were filled with concern. I couldn’t sense any negative or deceptive feelings in her, though.

“Apparently he had a secret room in this office.” Death stepped around her and went inside.

“What?” She backed up and gestured for us to come in as well. “I knew something was off in this office,” she admitted, her voice tinged with disbelief. “I should’ve had my dad search for wards when he offered. I’d thought he was being paranoid… shit . He may be a necromancer, but his magic would’ve sniffed out a hidden room in a jiffy.”

“No need, Verity.” Death strolled toward a bookcase behind her desk. He lifted his hand, and an illusionary ward shattered audibly. A wave of cold air rushed over us, carrying the stench of decay and dark magic. He pushed the side of the bookshelf, revealing a hidden door. “His soul is here.”

“Fates.” She stumbled backward. “Mom’s not going to be thrilled to hear that I was in the same room with a demon tied to dark magic.”

“No kidding,” I muttered, using my shadows to yank the door open.

Blackthistle stood in the center of the small room with a twisted smile curving his lips as if he was expecting us. His wild black eyes gleamed with chaos, a noticeable difference to the vibrant green they had once been.

A raven-shaped manifestation of his chaos magic perched unnaturally on his shoulder, its feathers shimmering with a sickly dark sheen. Unlike the other demon infected with dark magic we’d fought, his body hadn’t succumbed to full corruption. His teeth weren’t rotten, his veins were only barely darkened—a faint webbing across his skin like an unspoken promise of the horrors to come.

The veins were the only sign that he was freshly infected.

“Blackthistle,” Death said smoothly, his deep voice cutting through the tension in the room like a blade.

I never liked that asshole. Killing him would be fun.

“You’re too late,” Blackthistle sneered, his voice a grating rasp that made my skin crawl. His mouth stretched wider. “Rod will take Pandora, and there’s nothing you can do.”

The moment I heard my father’s name, it was like Poppy had poured dark magic into my veins again. A surge of rage ignited within me, and my vision blurred.

Death growled with rage, the low sound rumbling through the office like thunder.

“No he fucking won’t!” I snarled as my shadows erupted from me. They moved with a life of their own, lunging toward Blackthistle in a sharp, viper-like tendril.

The moment it pierced his gut, the sound was visceral—a wet, sickening rip of flesh that filled the air.

Blackthistle’s eyes went wide, his weird smile vanishing as he staggered, attempting to clutch at my magic that had torn through him. His literal guts spilled out in grotesque detail, slick coils of intestines and organs slapping to the floor in a chaotic, tangled mess.

He let out a gargled scream, his voice strangled by the agony he was reeking of. He must not have been infected enough to numb him yet—but that worked in our favor.

Blood sprayed in a crimson arc across the room, a metallic tang flooding the air.

“You never should’ve cursed our mate.” Bram’s magic crackled through the room, and Chaos, his manifested wolf, leaped from him with a savage snarl.

The massive wolf collided with Blackthistle in a blur of dark, snapping jaws.

It took less than a second for Chaos to clamp down on Blackthistle’s neck, severing his head with a clean, decisive motion. The crunch of bone echoed in the aftermath, and blood sprayed in a morbid fountain as his headless body crumpled to the ground.

The coppery tang of blood mixed with the acrid stench of sulfur, creating a nauseating blend that clung to my senses. It was a scent I’d known too well, and I couldn’t help the memory it stirred—a dark echo of what my parents had done to Selene and I. It was seared into my nightmares.

“Good job wiping Kalista of a parasite,” Death said, his tone as sharp and cold as the relic he lifted. The artifact gleamed with an unearthly light, hungry to absorb the dark magic seeping from Blackthistle’s remains.

But something was wrong.

“I only wish we could’ve made him suffer longer,” Bram muttered.

“Time is of the essence.” I tilted my head, watching dark magic ooze from the crumbling corpse, thick and viscous, pooling on the floor like tar.

“I know. We needed to kill him to break the curse on Pandora,” he said, glaring as he watched Blackthistle’s body turned to ash. “We can’t waste time.”

“It’s not working,” Death growled, his frustration visible in the tightening of his jaw and the faint furrow of his brow. The dark magic resisted being pulled into the relic. It writhed in defiance. He gripped the relic tighter, its light dimming as it tried to siphon it. “The relic can’t take anymore dark magic.”

The puddle on the floor began to shift, throbbing like a heartbeat. It wasn’t just residual dark magic like when Pandora threw it up—this was alive.

“Oh, dear,” Headmistress Clearwater spoke up, her voice wobbly. “I’ll call Dad. He’ll know what to do.”

Bram’s brows furrowed. “Who is your dad?”

“I have seven dads, but I’m talking about Rowan Clearwater,” she answered with a smile, going to retrieve her tablet. “The firedrake representative on the Supernatural Council.”

I couldn’t care less who her dad was in that moment.

My father, the man who had made my life a living, breathing nightmare had the audacity to want the one being who was mine —my fated mate. He wanted her, and in his twisted mind, that was enough.

The room seemed to tremble, or maybe that was just me, shaking with so much fury I couldn’t fucking contain. My vision blurred, the edges of everything around me going dark as my shadows coiled around me.

I wanted to scream, to tear the demon himself apart limb-by-limb, to make him feel even a fraction of the pain he’d caused me all of my life. But more than that, I wanted to protect Pandora.

The thought of him anywhere near her—touching her, wanting her—was enough to drive me insane. My breathing came out in ragged gasps, and I could feel the madness inside me clawing its way to the surface, demanding to be unleashed.

“Oh, fuck,” Bram muttered, and reality settled back around me.

Slowly, the dark magic on the floor began to dissipate, leaving an unsettling stillness in its wake.

“It’s gone,” Death stated, glancing at the headmistress, who repeated that to her dad on the tablet. “Probably went back to the Veil. We need another Supernatural Council meeting,” Death muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. “Go to Pandora. Stay with her until I can get back. Tell Jenni to find me in the headmistress’ office.”

I nodded, wrapping my shadows around Bram and I, immediately traveling to Pandora's room.

My gaze locked on her as her eyes fluttered open. They met mine as my shadows dissipated. “Dex? What happened?”

Relief crashed over me like a tidal wave.

She wasn’t cursed anymore.

I surged forward, moving between her other mates with mumbled apologies before capturing her lips with mine as Bram told Jenni what Death had said.

Pandora didn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around my neck and kiss me back, and that made my heart fucking swell with so much love I thought it would burst.

All that mattered was that she was awake, and I would fight with every fucking bone, muscle, and nerve ending in my body to keep her safe.