Okay, next chapter. I'd like more reviews please. But enjoy the chapter!
Eilis's cell phone vibrated in her pocket, and she flipped it open.
"Aiden?"
"Lish?" He seemed relieved. "Where are you?" His voice seemed a bit groggy.
"Walking back to campus. Hey, have you been drinking?" She pressed the nickel-sized red button on the Walk sign pole, watching calmly as cars sped on the crowded street only feet in front of her. He ignored her question.
"Are Willa and Jack with you?"
"No, I left alone. They left to go talk to some guys." The Walk sign flashed, and she began to cautiously cross the busy lane.
"You're alone?" His voice turned panicked quickly, his voice still heavy.
"Don't hyperventilate, Aiden, I'm fine. I do this all the time. And really, you can tell me if you drank tonight, I won't be mad." There was a short silence.
"I had a few beers."
"You okay?"
"I'm fine. But…I'd rather someone be there with you. Were you out with someone in the club?"
"Yeah, Xavier."
"Oh." He spoke bluntly.
"Oh? That's a great answer." She turned the corner of the sidewalk. "What's wrong with Xavier?"
"Nothing." His voice shook. "It's just—"
"Are you jealous you aren't my only guy-friend?" She felt like laughing out loud.
"Just forget it, Lish."
Eilis smiled. "Whatever you say. But you know you're always number one, 'kay?"
"I know."
"Then I'll see you soon. Your dorm?"
"Uh, Lish, I have to go somewhere." There was silence as Eilis tried to keep her boiling anger deep in her stomach. She could hear his unsteady breathing on the other line. Her hands shook as she held the phone. "Lish? Are you there?"
"Oh, yes, Aiden, I'm here." She has stopped walking and began to tap her foot, an action she always performed when she was irritated.
"Don't be mad, Eilis, this is important—" His voice was so muffled now, she could imagine him trying not to fall over.
"Tell me Aiden," She felt like shouting. "What exactly is 'important' in your book? Is it going to see Veng? Or is it going out with Shadow? What exactly is it?"
"Don't do this, Lish. I need to visit an old friend uptown. She's in a bit of a fix. Why are you so mad? Is it about the drinking?" Eilis inhaled deeply, cooling the heated anger inside her.
"I don't know, Aiden." She sighed. "I've been feeling really up and down lately."
"You need sleep." He didn't sound so sure. "A good night's rest. If you have to stay in my dorm for the night that's fine. Just do whatever you need to feel better. Understand?"
Eilis didn't get why he was so anxious all of a sudden. Yes, he was horribly drunk. Yes, he was overprotective; he was her best friend after all. But she didn't understand why he had to be so demanding. She was her own person. She could do what she wanted when she wanted. He was like this even when he wasn't intoxicated.
But she felt somewhere deep in the back of her mind that he was right, and that he should follow his orders. She wanted to defy that voice of reason, but it seemed to be controlling her actions for the moment.
"I understand. I'll see you whenever." She shut her phone as she walked to campus.
As Eilis sauntered across the vast campus toward her wing, she pondered Aiden's over protectiveness, his urge for her to be home, even when curfew wasn't for another couple of hours. She felt a bit irritated with Aiden, how hypocritical he was acting, ordering her to be back by curfew even when he never was. The Onyx Room wasn't ever dangerous, and yes, the streets of L.A. at night weren't what you'd call safe, but it was her home, and she couldn't live in fear of everything all the time. He was acting so weird lately…the shadow thing and now this…she wanted to command him to tell her what was up, but she almost didn't want to be aware of his answer.
* * *
Aiden strapped on his belt and opened his closet, Veng standing behind him. Removing the large, human sized metal box from the top shelf, he beckoned Veng inside.
Veng withdrew a rusty silver key from his pocket, and inserted the key into its partner lock, twisting it right, then left, then right again, a bit slower than usual. The Corona was affecting his motor skills.
The box flipped open with a barely audible hiss and revealed its contents—a red velvet lined interior with special sections, carrying their knives, darts, medicine, a few bottles of salve, explosives disguised as paper-weights, yew sticks, daggers, swords, and pills disguised as cough medicine that could kill within thirty seconds.
Aiden heard a few feint knocks at his door outside of the closet. "Aiden? Veng? It's Ryn and Shadow." The voice was very shaky. Corona could do wonders.
"Get in here. Io called ten minutes ago." Veng hissed softly, so only they could hear.
Aiden heard the faint click of his dorm room door opening and shutting, and the closet door slid open.
"Come on." Aiden slipped his favorite dagger, silver with a black handle and a thorny silver inlay, a few knives, and a bottle of salve into his belt holsters and pockets, and stood back as Veng, Shadow, and Ryn did the same. Shadow stood, closing the box and hauling it back on the shelf, picking at his chipped black nail polish.
"Come on. I don't know if Eilis is coming to stay in my dorm, but it'd be better if we left now." Aiden rushed out to his dorm, the drunk feelings rapidly dissipating, and opened his window silently, gliding out of it with his three partners following him, landing in a kneeling position on his feet. He heard three consecutive thumps on the grass. He stood and brushed off his pants.
"Let's go." Ryn flashed an arrogant smile, still more drunk than his full-vampire friends, and they took off into the night at an inhuman run. Aiden felt immediately free as he watched the moon and its tiny silver companions race by in a blur, the biting cold whipping through his hair, making sharp impact with his tight black clothing.
L.A. at night was breathtaking—one of those places you needed to see within your lifetime. Looking past the gang members and the drug dealers making their nightlife livings in alleys, it was a place Aiden never wanted to leave. He wanted to hold Eilis's hand on the beach at midnight every day.
Aiden almost forgot the threats that could be a danger to them—rebel witches or werewolves or rogue vampires, hiding along the street corners, watching, waiting. But they wouldn't try to strike now—not when Io was so urgent—the weapons were purely for emergency, and to acknowledge others in Io's court that they were her guards.
Ryn slowed his inhuman sprint to a jog, and then to a walk. Aiden and his other two companions followed suit, walking alongside Ryn in a line, approaching the old high-rise.
The High Council's court hall was located in an old nineteen fifties skyscraper that used to be owned by a renowned fashion magazine. Io was born in L.A, and she had no desire to leave it, so she moved her council there. They were not happy with moving from the ever-interesting sights of Chicago to the even weirder streets of Los Angeles, but if they defied the High Power, who knew what she could do them.
Only Aiden knew, however, that Io was far too gentle to ever do such a thing.
Io was fond of Aiden as he had saved her youngest sister Brannagh from Glen, the witch Power a few years ago, and she was forever grateful. It also left Glen with an eternal grudge against Aiden, which meant all witches weren't very inclined to like him.
Like he cared.
The lights were never off in the antique building, with the exception of the conference room and the Power's quarters. The rest of the rooms were engaged every second of the day, communicating and negotiating with the other Races across the globe for their respective King or Queen. Io's high-rise was one of the few places where the Races lived without physical conflict.
Aiden leading, the four entered the brightly lit building, feeling out of place with their tight black clothing and emergency defense weapons, when the bustling residents were donning cream, light blue, and sliver clothing of flowing silks, Queen Io, the lightest of the lamia. Her soul was intact, beautiful, even. She was kind, fair, and gentle, and for being only seventeen and the High Power, she had a steady and just hand, and an eye that never missed a heartbeat. She was the most balanced monarch that the Powers had seen since her father, not volatile like Glen, lethargic like Caanan, or timid like Terrias. She was a trifle of all those things, and much, much more. Aiden had a strong relationship with Io—she was a sister to him. He remembered clearly when her father, Alexander, died suddenly when she was tenderly thirteen, leaving her as the very last heir to the lamia throne. He remembered her ripping sobs at the coronation. He recalled with great clarity when the whole fiasco with Eilis came to light in the United States court, and how she was so furious at her father that he had been killed by Glen's court when he had gone to try to speak to them, and that he had left her with such a burden that was one of the most pertinent issues in the history of the court. He remembered how alone she was, how Terrias was her lone comfort, for as an ordinary lamia, Aiden did not feel it proper to visit her regularly.
But she had held the powers together, if only by a splitting hair sometimes, they were not on the verge of chaos.
Yet.
The four boy tracked large, muddy boot tracks across the spotless cream tile. The gold and yellow-marbled desks and tables, and the ornate golden seating continually mesmerized Aiden, and especially the hand painted ceiling that could have been the sky. It reminded him of Michelangelo's work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, except this was a blue as vast as the sky, and seemingly as high up. The stark white clouds were fluffy as they appeared on a bright, sun-filled day in L.A, harp playing and bow and arrow wielding cherubs with curly, copper hair and plump cheeks, gliding across their sky like an allusion. Though, it wasn't. It was pure magic.
The air around them was thick with competing auras that together could be intoxicating to a mortal, but only slightly tempting to them. Shadows flitted through the air from the vampires, the scent of dried herbs and raw magic from the witches, a sunlit glow from the fey, and the feeling of fear, hate, violence, and something feral coming from their fellow wolves.
Humans, the fifth race, did preside in Io's court, but they were mostly pets of the other four races. Io didn't permit this, but it didn't keep them from doing it. As amazing as Io was, she couldn't know everything. There were severe punishments, however, but for many, it was well worth the risk. Witches often utilized humans as test subjects for new dark spells, which was additionally prohibited, but in their world, rules were moot. They were more like guidelines---not just to the witches, but everyone.
The legal humans were mostly highly paid blood donors for the lamia; a resource Io had been encouraging Aiden to use, but he had just begun his self-boycott of murder. He was taking baby-steps.
If Io had her way, all lamia would be required or drink or order blood from human donors, but she had enough common sense to know that this law would cause a huge coup d'état that could last countries, and war between the Races, and the Fey didn't have to power to side with the lamia, for Terrias would side with Io despite her actions. He would support her court.
It was like the high powers were standing around one ultimate prize-eternal power. They were all daring for someone to reach for it first. One tiny shift in balance could cause the entire council to crumble, which wouldn't bode well for the humans, who were defenseless unless the Races could find a way to coexist. The courts of the other world countries, who depended on the court of the United States, the strongest power at the moment, next to the United Kingdom, who had the largest number of vampires than any other country, and Ireland, the largest population of faeries. Between the Races, it was a stare-down—who would blink first?
The boys moved into an empty, spotless, glass elevator, amused by the sight of swift faeries, cleaning the mud their boots had left behind them.
"You seem off, man." Veng mumbled to him. "What are you thinking about?" He looked exhausted, rubbing his black ringed eyes. He yawned, stretching his arms.
"Hey." Ryn narrowed his eyes at Veng. "No room for that in here."
Aiden and Veng ignored him. Aiden finally said, "I'm thinking about the court…and Io."
"She's trying her best." Veng eyes the numbered lights near the elevator ceiling, counting down the floors until they reached level 107, his shadows lightly caressing his moon-pale flesh. "We should be honored that she trusts us enough to guard Lish."
"She knows we care for her, and of all people, we'd take any length to make her safe."
"True." He shrugged. "But still."