Descending Into Darkness (Moonlight Academy Book 2)

After a long and very tedious discussion, we all agreed that Alexa should head back to Bucharest with us. She said she had nowhere else to go and I wasn’t prepared to ask her any awkward questions in front of everyone. Maybe I had become a little soft hearted since joining the Moonlight Academy, but she no longer wanted to harm me so there would be no sense in attacking her.

Lachlan was sitting next to me. He was exhausted, he must have really lost a lot of blood earlier on. He rested his head on my shoulder and that unexpected warmth started dancing around my core.

The atmosphere in the van wasn’t great. We were all tired and wounded. This whole trip hadn’t gone according to plan at all. And Marco wasn’t helping, he was babbling in Italian all the way back to the city.

Alexa was quiet and I was curious about her story. I knew that Leonidas was alive, but I never suspected that he was so involved with Elite. My magic had almost let me down tonight and I was angry with myself.

I should have killed him when I had a chance, but he was an ancient vampire and they didn’t die easily.

I didn’t reveal to anyone in the group what that mage had told me the night he died. He believed that I was the chosen one, that I was more powerful than I realised.

All these thoughts were circling around in my head. I was desperate to get my memories back, to figure out who I was before I had been turned into this monster. My family was out there, they were possibly from London, that would have explained how I was able to understand and speak English. The accent wasn’t particularly strong, but even Oldman mentioned that I sounded like her.

Apparently the fae community in the United Kingdom was strong.

“Jaymin, we’re here. Come on,” Lachlan nudged me after several hours of driving. I’d fallen asleep eventually. It was raining and I saw Karina running towards the entrance of Elite. “I didn’t ask why you decided to drag her with us, but now, I need to know.”Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

Alexa was standing outside, she was staring at the building, looking mesmerised. She must have recognised the signs and the brand. Any supernatural in Romania knew about this place. At least that’s what I was led to believe.

“I don’t think she has anywhere else to go, so I thought we might make use of her. She has incredible skills Lachlan,” I said, thinking maybe this was a bit silly. I had never taken responsibility for anyone in the past.

Lachlan grabbed my hand and helped me out of the car.

“All right, let’s just hurry up. I need to get out of these clothes. I can smell shifters everywhere, just don’t tell Karina I said that,” Lachlan muttered when we ran to the entrance.

“Come on Alexa, you can stay with us tonight and we’ll figure the rest of it out in the morning. We are all a bunch of trained killers, so please whatever you hear, keep it to yourself,” I told her.

“Trust me, I’m done with this shit. I owe you everything for not finishing me off in that cave,” she said.

She seemed to get the hint. I still had no idea why I’d spared her. She was supposed to be dead. Sooner or later I would know if I’d made a mistake or not.

“Goodnight Jaymin, I trust you’re going to be alright, especially after everything that happened?” Claude asked, right before I was ready to disappear. I could have sworn that he was trying to wind up pretty boy.

“I’m fine Claude. Goodnight.”

It was time for us to leave before things escalated. Lachlan was already clenching his fists, but I pushed him forward and gave a sign to Karina to bring the witch along with us.

Once we got upstairs, we pointed her in the direction of the showers to freshen up first. We all wanted to relax, but there was only one bathroom. Alexa seemed grateful enough and she didn’t ask any other questions. Overall, her aura hadn’t changed much, but Judas didn’t seem thrilled.

“She tried to kill you Jaymin. I don’t think it was a very good idea bringing her here. We should turn her in to the authorities,” he told me.

“That’s in the past now. It sounds to me like an ancient used a compulsion spell on her. Who knows, she might be useful, plus Jaymin still needs to tell us what happened in that cave,” Lachlan said.

I was surprised that he was taking my side.

“I saw that ancient vampire Leonidas. He talked about vampires that are here in Elite and they are working for him,” I explained, rubbing my forehead. “He killed that shifter–Marisas’s boyfriend right in front of me and then he just vanished. Then the witch showed up. He must have known that I was there.”

“Then it seems that we have wasted a lot of time concentrating on the wrong supernatural,” Judas growled.

“The ancient was talking about the trials. Apparently the killer was involved in them. I don’t really know what he meant though,” I told them both.

“We can discuss it all tomorrow. I’m going to heal. The smell of shifters is driving me insane,” Lachlan complained and then vanished inside his room.

Judas just waved his hand and closed his eyes. It looked like he was agreeing with Lachlan for a change. Karina was setting the sleeping bag out on the floor when Alexa came out of the shower. It was very late, so we all decided to get some much needed sleep. I was certain that Alexa wasn’t going to strangle me in my sleep. She had at good vibe radiating from her and I was certain that we could all trust her, well at least for now.

* * *

“Oldman is going to be here soon, so tell me what your exit plan is?” Lachlan had accosted me when I was on my way to the bathroom in the early hours of the morning. He’d nearly given me a heart attack, sneaking up on me in the darkness.

“Dear lord Lachlan. It’s like five in the morning! Do you think my brain is working so early?” I asked him, thinking that he needed to stop hanging around, waiting for me outside my room.

“It should, you’re part fae,” he muttered. “Do you really think that witch can be useful to us?”

I started massaging my forehead, wondering if he ever rested.

“We need to get inside the trials building, and maybe Alexa could help us with that. Right now, we can’t get in there, even with Oldman’s endorsement. She has valuable skills and she could change our appearances if needs be. We both know that we have to stop the killer and close this case as soon as possible. We have been here long enough,” I told him, thinking to myself that his scent was incredible.

We hadn’t even had a chance to talk since that terrible dinner at his father’s place.

Things between us were still complicated.

“Good thinking batman,” he said and then to my utter surprise, he turned around and left me alone.

The craving for his blood came back, tickling the back of my throat.

I shook my head and went back to bed. Alexa was snoring loudly. She was stretched out under the blanket. In the end, I managed to fall asleep for another few hours.

By the time I arrived to a late brunch, Oldman was already at the table. She greeted me with a smile. It was a good idea after all that I had put some decent clothes on.

Alexa was there too and Oldman asked her to stay when she got up to leave.

“Right, so now that you’re all here, I can safely say that Alexa here is going to join the team,” she announced, throwing everyone in the room completely off guard. “I had a very long chat with Lachlan this morning.”

This was not at all what I expected, but I should have known that Lachlan was planning to use her. I was a bit pissed off that he was taking all the credit though.

Judas looked outraged, Karina clapped and Marco seemed bored. This was happening faster than anyone of us expected.

Maybe Oldman was searching for another way out and she was being put under pressure to act.

After all, we had been in Bucharest for weeks and time was running out. An awkward silence filled the space.

“Fantastic,” Marco said, scrolling through his phone.

“I understand that might be a bit of a shock to all of you, but it’s only for this assignment. I have clearly stated that I can’t promise her anything else after this. We need to close this case as soon as possible. Holland is pressing the board to let the school handle the murders, so we haven’t got much time left,” she explained, standing up.

I was right. Oldman was under pressure to get things done.

“Have you actually run any background checks on her? I mean no offense, but we don’t know anything about her,” Judas spoke again, pointing over at Alexa. The witch’s expression was unreadable.

None trusted her, but that was to be expected.

“I have. As soon as Lachlan called me. Alexa can tell you more about her past if she’s comfortable with that. For now, you all have a job to do. I believe Lachlan will fill you in on the details,” Oldman said, giving me a wink. Moments later, she was gone and I was still confused.

The awkward silence stretched for some time around the table after Oldman left. My stomach was growling and I really needed to refuel my energy. We all knew that we had to solve this case, no matter what.

“Right, there’s no point beating around the bush. We have to get inside the trial building, figure out who is involved, and eliminate them as quickly as possible. Holland will probably find out that we accessed the academy’s trials building shortly after we get in. He will want to get rid of us after that, but at least we’ll have completed the job. Well, you guys know what I mean. We have one shot at this, so we need to plan every detail well,” Lachlan finally said.

I wondered why he had told Oldman about Alexa alone. He should have included all of us. We were one team after all.

I had to talk to him about this.

“Yeah. True. Once we access the building, we keep an eye out for the vamp that reeks of dark magic,” Marco stated.

“How many trials are happening at the same time? We need to make sure that at least one person is taking part in every damn one,” Marco asked and I realized that he had a good point. “Leonidas’ vampire is going to be there to bring the other vampires in, to make sure he passes the trial.”

“It won’t be more than five at a time, so we should be okay to cover them. We just need to make sure that each one of us joins one group, so we won’t miss anything,” Lachlan explained.

“But how do we figure out if a vamp is a bad guy? They are all going to try to pass the trials. Most of the students that get to that position have been practicing for years.”

“The mark, dear Lord, now I remember. Leonidas was talking about some kind of mark on the vampire’s neck,” I said, jumping up like something was burning my arse.

“Now we are talking, so we just look out for a vamp with a mark,” Karina added.

“And then what? I mean this all sounds way too risky. We are going to be locked up in a trial building with a potential killer,” Judas asked. I guess he had a point. We needed to figure out how we were going to disable the vamp. I guessed cutting his head off wasn’t going to be an option then.