Kavara tapped her foot impatiently on the floor in a beat nobody recognized but her, looking wistfully at the door. “Why did I answer the summons?” she muttered under her breath. The other eight students who had gathered murmured their agreement, all of them tired of waiting.
They had all heard the call of an Alpha. Though it had been pained, the command of an Alpha to a Beta or Omega could not be ignored, not without great amounts of pain, and suffering through that pain would have left them vulnerable to other attacks. None of the Daeva Institute’s top ten had been willing to risk their hard-earned points, not even Yoppa, and so they were gathered in an empty room of the school building, waiting impatiently for the demon that would complete their numbers, the demon who had called them.
“What I don’t understand is why you came.” Cormac, who’d been forced to abandon Zakeri, looked sideways at Ashe.
The excitable demon flushed a delicate red, dropping his eyes and fidgeting in his seat. As an Alpha himself, he would have felt no need to listen to the call. He could have, however, been drawn by an entirely different person. “I just… I was bored and needed to get out of my room before I went stir crazy,” he lied with a shrug, glancing at Cormac, only to drop his eyes again when he found the red-haired demon staring at him.
“Jesus, you two, get a room,” Catlyn snarled. They all looked at her, but she just sneered before taking aim at the wall and pulling the trigger. The bolt flew true, the fifteenth to become part of the growing portrayal of the Institute’s insignia.
Ashe’s face turned a whole new color of red, brighter than Cormac’s hair; the other demon laughed, leaning in his chair to put his face close to Ashe’s. “Do you want to get a room with me, little fox?” he murmured, trailing a finger down Ashe’s sensitive tail.
The smaller demon squeaked and almost fell out of his seat, stammering something unintelligible as he shoved his chair away from Cormac.
Cormac smiled, and it had promise written all over it. He opened his mouth to say something that likely would have sent the smaller demon over the edge, and nobody wanted to know what would happen then. Everybody but him was therefore relieved when the door opened, slamming against the wall before almost rebounding into the demon that had shoved it open.
Abriel threw out a hand, catching the door before it could hit him; it was a miracle that he didn’t wince, with the force the door must have hit him with. His frosty blue glare focused on the door, and it burst into flame beneath his fingers, consumed by hellfire in a matter of seconds. The other demons stared at him, wide-eyed, as the angry eyes turned to them.
“I’m glad you all came.” His voice was tight, and he didn’t sound very glad. In fact, he sounded like he was about to burn the whole school down, the flames at the tip of his tail blurring as it whipped back and forth. Even Ashe, whose power was theoretically equal to Abriel’s, flinched back at the raw fury.
Only one of them remained calm, and only because he made a habit of pissing Abriel off given any opportunity. “Why did you call us here, Abby?”
“Don’t call me that,” Abriel sounded more inhuman than ever, and even Cormac flinched that time.
Still, despite having been cowed a little, Cormac didn’t back down. “Whatever makes you happy, princess,” he said, waving a hand in the air like he hadn’t just been thoroughly intimidated.
“Shut your mouth, Cormac,” Malred said mildly, “Unless you’d like me to shut it for you.” The demon’s grip tightened on the long, spiked club that was his weapon of choice; it fit with his long, gothic jacket and tall, buckled boots.
Cormac opened his mouth, but a well placed kick jabbed the heel of Kavara’s boot into his leg, and he shut it with an audible click. Having silenced the problem child, the other eight members of the top ten looked expectantly at the demon who’d claimed the top spot since a month after his arrival.
“What have you come to ask of us?” Yoppa asked quietly, politely, her hands folded on her lap and her violet eyes calm.
Abriel took a deep breath, her placid strength helping him to regain a small amount of his control, enough to allow him to be rational again. Rational enough that he looked at the ashes of the door with a guilty frown before turning back to the waiting demons.
“I’ve come to put a price on a demon’s head.”
The nine he’d called sucked in sharp breaths, all of them wide-eyed and stunned. It had happened before, demons offering up something in order to have higher ranked demons take somebody out for them. Never before, though, had the Institute's highest ranking demon sent others after a demon- because he had always been able to take care of them himself.
“This student has stepped far outside his bounds, risen above his station, and I won’t stand for it. There are rules for this kind of thing! He can’t just go around killing anybody he pleases!” Abriel continued to rant, but nobody was paying attention. Their gazes had turned to his hands, to his left wrist, taking in the double zeros, and they finally understood.
“You want us to take down Zakeri,” Cormac said. He sounded horrified; he couldn’t even imagine taking his scythe to the funny, sweet, confident boy who’d become his friend as soon as they sat next to each other in class.
Kavara, too, looked a little disturbed by the thought of it- but it didn’t stop her from asking the next reasonable question. “What’s the reward if we manage to take him out?”
“I will devote my energy to hunting down the remaining number of students you need to take out in order to graduate,” Abriel said with complete confidence.
Mouths fell open, eyes widened once more, and breath caught. They all knew what that meant; Abriel would trap other students, making them easy kills. The struggle to gain points wouldn’t be a problem, and they’d graduate in no time. And after even a month playing the Institute’s games, any demon would be desperate enough to do anything to graduate and escape that hell within Hell.
The nine demons exchanged glances across the table, each of them contemplating it, judging their morals and strengths against the greatness of their need to be gone. One by one, they made their decision, until they were all looking at Abriel again.
“If you’re in, let’s make a plan.” Abriel took a seat at the head of the table, his hot anger turning into something icy and cold that let him think and plan and hate.
“And if we’re not?” Cormac asked, meeting Abriel’s frozen eyes straight on.
“Then leave now, before I have to lock you in the basement for a week.”
Cormac shuddered at the thought of it; the Institute’s beast demons, the ones they sent after students that tried to escape, were kept down there, and they were very unpleasant creatures. Being stuck down there with them for a week would be enough to drive even the strongest demon out of his mind.
Cormac was the first to walk up and leave, quick and confident strides that would ultimately take him to the boys’ dorm and room 27, which he had recently learned belonged to Zakeri. After a moment of silence, the twins followed him, neither Ieuan or Padraig interested in risking what kills they’d managed to tally up in a mission they silently agreed was useless. Having seen three of their compatriots leave, Catlyn and Hassan found it just that much easier to walk out.
“Anybody else?” Abriel asked, looking around at the circle of demons that remained. The top six were all that was left, only Cormac missing from the highest circle of students at the Institute.
Yoppa shook her head, red-orange hair flipping into her face. Kavara, shrugging, delved into her bag for something to eat while they hashed out the plans, and Malred settled in with a slightly bored expression. Only Ashe seemed torn, looking back and forth between the door and the other Alpha. After a few repetitions, he gave up with a defeated sigh. “Fine. What’s the plan, then?”
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