Page 50 of Satanic Shadow

He lets me up, chuckling to himself and giving Dane a raised brow.

“Now, everyone. We shall begin weaponry. Who here knows how to wield a sword?”

Orsen shakily lifts his hand, wincing still. “Question.”

“What?” Valin snaps.

“Do humans use swords?”

A few students look at me, and I cross my arms. “Not really. They did hundreds of years ago before guns were a thing.”

“Can you wield a sword, little Seraphine?”

I shake my head at Valin. “No.”

“Great. Everyone get back into your pairs.”

As I fix myself, the twins giving me a concerned look, I glance over to Dane. He’s glaring at Valin. The professor shows a student from a different class how to hold a sword properly before he comes over to me.

The hatred there, in his eyes, isn’t about Valin being in my room or the way he shows me how to hold the handle of the small sword. Something happened between them, and Dane despises Valin for it. My nosey self wants to know what that is.

An hour later, Orsen can barely hold himself up without begging for mercy, and Dane is standing unbothered and unscathed with the blade of his sword resting on his shoulder. The twins are limping, but surprisingly, I feel fine. Looking around, I see some students are bleeding.

I grimace at the slash down Orsen’s arm as he holds it to his chest.

Despite this being about human combat, no one understands that we don’t have powers, or run around our realm with swords longer than our limbs.

“May I speak with you after class?” Valin says to me, taking my arm so he can pull me aside. “In private?”

“You may not.”

“You might not think so, but I’m trying to help you.” His eyes flicker to Dane. “There are some people in this academy who cannot be trusted. People who keep secrets and lie.”

I look at the way he’s gripping my arm. “Remove your hold on me, Professor, before I report you.”

I feel penetrating eyes on me as I shrug out of Valin’s grip and catch up to my friends, all three of us stepping over Orsen. Dane just surrounded him with what I can only assume are bats and dropped him on his head.

For no reason.

Orsen is strong—he has his own shelf in the history section and apparently battled regularly in his realm. But up against Dane? He’s as good as dust.

That shouldn’t make me feel things.

I watch as Dane gathers a black mass in his hand and grabs a fistful of Orsen’s hair.

“Fine! I give up! Fucking stop,” Orsen yells. He lifts a hand to try to block whatever his friend throws at him, desperate for it to end. “If you hit me again, I’ll never show you how to send a message again.”

I try not to laugh, but my body shakes, and the sound escapes from my lips. It catches Dane’s attention, and his head snaps up so he can glare at me. Anytime he’s actually deigned to reply to my messages, it’s taken hours, and his response is usually one word and pointless. He still struggles on how the keyboard works, has no idea how to take a picture, and keeps failing the mortal quizzes in class.

“As much as Orsen knows how to fuck, seeing him begging for mercy is a little nauseating,” Mel says.

“Um, hi? I can hear you?” Orsen shakes his head. “This entire day is a nightmare.”

His tall friend doesn’t even help him up. Dane throws his arm out to the side, and the mass that was building in his palm firesinto the arena wall. He turns his back to me and the twins, and cracks his neck to each side as he whips his top off and wipes his face with it.

I gulp, gawking at his impressive back muscles covered in ink. Openly watching him as he tosses his top and says something to one of the girls, and she blushes.

Blushes.