Fortune Academy: Year Three - J.R. Thorn Page 0,33
towers of the palace.
The Queen of Hell continued on while I caught my breath. My mates chuckled, including Logan who made a huffing sound that was definitely a dog’s version of laughter.
“Do you want a muzzle?” I threatened him. “Because I’ll do it.”
“Easy there, wheezy,” Hendrik said as I caught up to them. He gave me a pat on the back. “Don’t get mad at the dog. You can do some more training with Dante when we get back and run laps around him later.”
The Hunter gave me a wicked grin that said there would definitely be training in my future with heavy breathing involved.
Pissed off, and now horny, I marched into the hall where my mother had disappeared. “Bunch of bullies,” I grumbled.
The Queen waited at a door where golden light streamed in from the edges as if a piece of the sun waited on the other side. She’d brought Luke with us and she moved aside for him to open the door. “Only one with angel blood can enter this room like this,” she said with a smile. “One on holy ground, that is.”
My eyebrows shot up. “There’s holy ground in Hell?”
Luke popped the door open and I jerked my hands over my face to block the worst of the brilliant light. “Angelstone is powerful stuff,” he said. “If you have enough of it, anything can be cleansed.” He waited a moment for our eyes to adjust to the brilliance before stepping inside.
With a wary glance to my mother, she waved me on in. I followed her mate and a strange tingling sensation ran over my body as I crossed the threshold. A yip came from behind me and I turned around to find Logan with a burn mark on his nose.
Sonya patted the beast, making Logan growl, but she didn’t pull her hand away. “Like I said. Only those with angel blood may enter.”
I didn’t like being somewhere my mates couldn’t follow. “What about you?” I asked Orion. He’d been right there in Heaven with me, so maybe deity blood qualified, although I wasn’t sure he was the “right” kind of deity.
He tested the entrance and while he managed to push a few fingers through, his jaw worked before he retracted his hand. “I could, but it would be painful. This place has some high concentration of purity, kind of like the stuff beyond the gates of Heaven I showed you where only spirits can enter.”
“I promise we won’t stay long,” Luke assured me when I started to bite my lip.
“Yeah, but—” My protest cut short when I turned back to him and gasped. Phantoms of brilliant white wings spanned out from his shoulders and he flexed as he adjusted to the new weight. “How did you do that?” I asked as I took a hesitant step toward him.
He gave me a mischievous grin as he fluttered his wings. “Once you connect with your angel side as I have, you’ll be able to summon your wings too, at least on holy ground where your connection to your heritage is at its strongest.” He waved me on. “This way. I’ll need you to attune to the angelstone so you can take it with you.”
The room sparkled wall-to-wall with diamonds, or what looked like diamonds. An impossible brilliant glow bathed us in light and a headache started to form behind my eyes as I followed Luke further into the repository of brilliance. I forced myself to pay attention, though, and I kept watch for any sign of trouble. The connection to my mates strained under the weight of the sheer power in this room and I didn’t like it one bit.
“This is it,” Luke said as he waded through a thick layer of light that had almost turned solid, as if this end of the room was underwater.
I gulped in fresh breaths of air, finding it difficult to fill my lungs. “Okay, just hurry up.”
He took my hand and waited for my permission before pressing my fingers onto a hot stone.
A jolt went through me and I ground my teeth against a raw, scorching burn that spread out from my insides. “What is it doing?”
“It’s documenting your sins,” he said matter-of-factly. “Angelstone attunes by knowing what impurities are in your body and—”
I cut him off with a scream as pain snapped through me, bringing me crashing to my knees as I tried to take my hand away from the horrible burn.
“Shit,” he cursed, then winced as the stone punished