I considered his words, and several more people moved forward, lining up to sign their names one by one.
My gaze went over to Stiles and then to Headmaster Torne.
I had a decision to make, and I could feel the importance of it all the way down to my bones. I could walk out of here right now. I could leave this place, leave Thibault, and go back home to Aunt Marie. I could tell her the truth about not getting a placement in the council. I could try to get some low level vamp job befitting of my societal classification.
I could see my entire life playing out if I did that. Being stressed to the max, trying to juggle taking care of Aunt Marie—who’s condition would only get worse—and working at a sucky, unfulfilling job that didn’t challenge my intellect or my drive. That road was safe, but it was a dreaded road I’d been trying to run away from my entire life.
So when my feet carried me forward, I wasn’t all that surprised. When my hand skittered across the paper to sign my name, I didn’t even try to talk myself out of it. I had to make my life and Aunt Marie’s life better than that dismal future. Despite the unease I felt, I had to do this.
Every single student signed the paper. I’m sure they all had their reasons, probably not all that different from mine. We were immortal. Positions of power were everything to us.
As soon as the last student had signed and taken their place in the center of the room, two of the guards moved forward and started rolling up the black rug beneath our feet. We had to shift around each other awkwardly as the carpet was moved away, and I nearly fell against Cheryl before straightening up again.
By the time I saw it, it was too late.
With the rug now gone, we saw what was painted at our feet. A circular design on the hardwood floor that had harsh, chalk-white lines with dozens of pentagons interconnected and an empty space in the middle where we stood.
It was a fucking ritual circle. For demons.
I’d seen them in plenty of textbooks to know what they looked like, and sometimes even in newspapers of rituals gone wrong. Supes would sometimes get cocky and think they could mess with the underworld, but it was ridiculously tricky and rarely worked the way they wanted it to.
Demons were different than the rest of us. We were immortal, sure...but high level demons were nearly impossible to kill, and their abilities were unrivaled. Supes were not supposed to fuck with demons. Hell, even low level creature demons were said to be fucking viciously powerful.
The four supernatural breeds may run this world, but that was because demons let us. I didn’t need to be a genius to know that this was incredibly dangerous and not something we should mess with.
I guess I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, because a female shifter at the edge of the circle shook her head. “Oh, fuck that. No one ever said anything about messing with a demon ritual. Did you hear about that lady that ended up with three dicks when she tried to summon a lust demon?” she asked, looking around at the rest of us. “Not one. Three. Three fucking gigantic dicks that hung down to her fucking knees. Nope. No way. Not happening,” she rambled while throwing her hands up. She looked scared shitless at the sight of the ritual circle. Thick brown fur gathered on her knuckles, warning of an impending shift.
“That was because the people performing that ritual were uninformed. I can assure you that we’ve perfected this ritual, and your safety has been taken into consideration. We wouldn’t risk your lives needlessly,” Hafferty said with a placating look on his face.
“No, I’m not doing it,” the shifter said, her voice becoming muddled with a panicked growl.
Hafferty cringed, as if he were about to tell her a terrible inconvenience. “Unfortunately, you’ve already signed the contract. You are no longer permitted to back out.”
Her eyes widened, and more fur bloomed across her skin. “What? No. I want out!” she shouted before trying to run. As soon as she tried to leap over the lines of the circle, her body slammed into an invisible force. She stumbled back, shaking her head in a daze from hitting it so hard, and looked over at movement from four of the guards. They were surrounding our circle, holding their hands up and holding an invisible barrier around us. Air elementals.
The shifter girl growled, and then her skin tore away and her body grew, and a fully shifted grizzly bear stood in her place. The bear slammed against the barrier over and over again, making a few of the elementals wince.
A water elemental stepped forward, forming a sphere of water, and shot it toward her, engulfing her head. The grizzly roared, but it was drowned out by the water flooding her mouth and nose. The students beside her tried to help, but they were pushed away by another barrier, and even when one of the fire elemental students threatened to attack Spector personnel, he was overtaken immediately.
The grizzly thrashed around and choked until she crashed to the ground, blacking out from lack of oxygen. She hit the floor with a resounding thud, and the water splashed away from her head. In that second, every student in the room seemed to realize at once that this was not what they thought they signed up
