Page 28 of Messenger of Death (Ouroboros Academy #2)

T he bitches in the kitchen called me a menace and as soon as I finished frosting my cupcakes, they suggested I go join the search for the missing students and let them finish dinner.

Ingrates. My frosting was what orgasms were made of.

I tried to see if I could make that a thing now that I knew I was a fertility god, but I’d only know if my magical intention worked if people started clenching their thighs or covering the wet spot with a napkin.

Maybe a cupcake orgasm would dislodge some sticks from some arses. Then again, it also might give those tree fairies some ideas.

I shoved my hand in my pocket and met Sage as she was coming out of her work study. I presented Headmaster Mykene with a cupcake I stole because I liked the woman and I made them. She took a bite without even questioning me.

“Thanks. I’m famished. I worked through lunch. This is delicious.”

“I ordered my secret ingredient when you agreed to let me work in the kitchen. It arrived just in time.”

She paused mid bite and stared at me in horror.

“Oh, it’s this vanilla blossom infused honey from Italy, not psychedelics. Can you have those delivered via courier in the supernatural world? Can I get the link?”

“Definitely not. These are wonderful without the mind-altering substances. Stick to that. Why aren’t you in the kitchen finishing dinner?”

“They have no sense of humor and once my cupcakes were done, they thought my talents would be better suited joining the search before dinner,” I shrugged.

“They aren’t wrong. There are potential witnesses out there only you can speak to.”

Sage slipped her hand in mine and I felt like I won the fucking lottery.

It was weird because all she was doing was holding my hand.

It was the fact that she wanted to and she initiated it.

We picked up Khalid at Professor Kane’s office and he looked like a kid who’d just been told they could eat an entire birthday cake with just their hands.

Pretty sure the only reason we were able to drag him away was that he was also interested in catching who was hurting people.

Lucian was supposed to be doing the useful hacker thing.

I started giggling because I was imagining him hanging upside down in his dorm room like a bat doom scrolling through people’s messages.

If he wasn’t doing that, he should. I might punch him in the kidneys less.

The Prince of Darkness had a full-blown murder board set up when he let us in and he was just such a dork. But a dangerous dork and I might even be starting to like him. He had a map printed up with colored tacks.

“What do we have here?” Sage asked.

“I haven’t gotten into everyone’s messages, but I dug into people’s GPS. I’ve narrowed down who was in the same quadrant when Lola got hurt and Star and Erica went missing. Obviously, it was one of us who disappeared Star, but I’ve been thinking it could have been a vampire who hurt Lola.

“No one can explain how Lola got away when Kira didn’t.

Lola could have left the tent to go to the bathroom, gotten attacked by a vampire, and then herded straight to me because someone thought me seeing someone coated in blood like that would trigger some Vlad the Impaler memory or make me go feral because I’m new.

They covered their tracks by telling her it was her team just in case I didn’t kill her.

The vampires were in the quadrant with us when Lola was hurt. ”

“Who else was with us? We didn’t really run into many other people,” Khalid said.

“There were four teams that got dropped in our quadrant. It was us, Ivar’s team, Mazen’s team, and a team with that guy Adrian who insists he’s the reincarnation of Jesus, even though he’s a blond surfer from Australia and not Jewish.”

Oh, yeah. That guy. Maybe I should stop kicking Lucian in the kidneys and start going after Adrian. He was a bit of a cunt.

“Can you tell which ones were next to Lola?” Sage asked.

“We were all close enough to slip out of our tent and do it. Someone could have left their phone behind. I know someone is about to say something about me doing this in my sleep, but I don’t go anywhere without my phone and all my nocturnal habits seem to revolve around Sage.”

“How sure are we that it wasn’t Ivar and the guys?” I asked.

“Pretty sure,” Sage said. “I don’t get weird feelings around them. I haven’t really been around Adrian and his team much to tell.”

“What about Mazen?” Khalid asked.

Sage shook her head.

“I can feel that he’s capable of evil, but he’s not there yet. Anything could push him over the edge, though. Right now, he operates off his own code of justice. I feel like he’s ready to snap at any minute because no one is taking this as seriously as he wants.”

“Radames?” I asked.

Because he was a little too quiet for me. He never got angry. People like that tended to explode. Or, at least got constipated and cranky.

“He’s in my work study. He doesn’t want anyone’s help to figure out who he is. He’s a preacher’s kid like me.”

“Priest,” Khalid said. “Coptic priests marry. Interesting. We should join the search. Lucian, I don’t want to pull you away from this, but you’ve got some senses we might need.”

I’d give it to Lucian. This was his element. He got way more information than we had before and he still agreed to come with us. Morgana found us as we were leaving.

“Want to hitch a ride on my portal? Oh, what the fuck?”

Ivar came bustling up with Ari, Alexios, and two absolute units of goats. Iman was perched on the back of one of the goats and looked like she would maim anyone who thought about removing her. The goat that wasn’t carrying Iman walked right up to me and head-butted me straight on my arse.

“He likes you,” Ivar beamed.

The goat raked that big, pink tongue straight up my face. Being a nature god was weird. I scratched the goat behind the ear and sat up.

“He would really like it if you didn’t eat him in this life,” I said.

“I know. I already said I wouldn’t. Help me convince them?”

“Uh, sure buddy.”

We finally stepped through the portal. We were able to direct Morgana to close to the place we found Lola and started walking. Sage said the animals wouldn’t go near her, but the fauna would have seen who did it and I could get them to talk to me now.

Except I could feel when we got close to the scene because the fauna was screaming.

And I was the only one who could hear it.

I took off at a run and when I came to the clearing, the grass was all black.

If the plants weren’t already dead, they were dying.

There were ancient trees that looked like they were struggling with rot.

I threw back my head and howled. These were mine. I’d only learned the basics of talking to plants to find out what they needed. We hadn’t gotten to the part of my fairy classes where I actually learned how to heal anything.

Whoever was doing this wasn’t just hurting other people. They were hurting me. Those trees were me. The plants and grasses were me. I felt something just explode out of me.

My friends went flying back, and I passed out.