Chapter 56: Father's Wrath
Kilson’s entire body trembled with barely restrained fury as he processed Angel’s confession. His grip on her shoulders tightened painfully, his fingers digging into her muscles for one long, agonizing second before he suddenly released her as if burned. He turned with a snarl, his broad back blocking her view, his focus laser-locked on the cell door.
Crow stood frozen behind the threshold, just outside, his silver eyes wide through the small, reinforced window. He’d heard everything.
“Papa, no!” Angel scrambled forward on the cot, her legs tangled in the blanket. She grabbed Kilson’s arm, pulling him back with all her strength. It was like trying to bend steel. “Please, don’t! Don’t be disappointed in me. I can’t—I can’t handle any more heartbreak right now.”
Kilson didn’t turn around. His voice was a low, dangerous vibration. “Is it his?”
Her silence was answer enough. It screamed in the small, dank space.
His anger, a palpable heat radiating from him, seemed to swell, pushing at the walls of the cell. She could feel him trying to contain it, the effort making the tendons in his neck stand out like cables.
Through a fresh wave of tears, she sobbed the words out. “He’s my soul mate. He couldn’t control it. I couldn’t control it. It was beyond us.” She dragged in a shuddering breath, the confession about Marjorie tumbling out next, a desperate counterweight to the first. “I ripped Marjorie’s heart out of her throat and I consumed all the souls she had trapped in her body. She was an instructor here. What is my punishment going to be?”
Kilson remained silent, still processing her words from before. Soul mate? The concept hung in the air, a profound, inconvenient truth that changed everything.
Finally, he turned. The rage was still there, banked behind his eyes, but something else had softened the edges. Grief. Regret. A love so fierce it hurt to look at. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, his lips warm against her clammy skin. She saw the slight glisten in his own eyes. “Angel,” he said, his voice rough, “I have missed most of your life. But don’t think that there’s anything you could do now to push me away. I’m here with you always now. Forever.”
He pried her hands from his arm, his touch gentle but firm. He stood, a mountain of resolved fury, and went to the door. The heavy metal creaked as he yanked it open.
Crow, Silas, Amber, Leo, and Alyce stood clustered in the dim corridor, a frozen tableau of concern. Their eyes darted from Kilson’s thunderous expression to Angel’s tear-streaked face on the cot behind him.
Kilson didn’t speak. He moved with a predator’s speed. He grabbed Crow by the collar of his black, button-down shirt, crumpling the fine fabric in his fist, and drove his other hand forward.
The crack of the punch was sickeningly loud in the stone corridor. Angel felt it—a sharp, sympathetic tug deep in her soul, in the bond that connected her to Crow. She heard the distinct crunch of cartilage.
“Stop!” she screamed, launching herself off the cot.
Kilson didn’t stop. He used his momentum to shove Crow backwards, slamming him into the opposite wall. Crow’s head bounced off the stone with a dull thud. He offered no resistance, his body going slack, his arms hanging at his sides as Kilson pinned him and began punching him again, hard, precise blows to the face and torso. Blood streamed from Crow’s shattered nose, painting his lips and chin crimson. He just took it, his eyes open and vacant, fixed on some point past Kilson’s shoulder. The acceptance in his look was worse than any fight-back.
“You bastard!” Kilson roared, spittle flying. “You touched my daughter! How dare you! I warned you!” Each accusation was punctuated by another jarring impact. “And you fucked up and got her pregnant, you bastard!”
The words landed in the hallway like grenades.
Amber gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Leo stiffened, his eyes going wide. Alyce muttered a stunned, “Holy shit.” Silas simply closed his eyes, a weary sigh escaping him.
Angel grabbed her father’s rock-hard bicep, pulling with all her might. “Kilson, stop! Please!”
In his blind rage, Kilson wrenched his arm back to swing again. His elbow caught Angel square in the chest, knocking the air from her lungs in a sharp whoosh. She stumbled back, her heel catching on the uneven floor, and landed hard on her side, a jolt of pain shooting through her hip.
Kilson immediately stopped. The fury vanished, replaced by instant, gut-wrenching horror. “Angel—”
But Crow was already moving. A dark blur, he surged up from the wall. He didn’t attack Kilson. He simply placed his own battered body between Kilson and Angel, who was clutching her ribs and coughing on the cold floor. He crouched in front of her, a bloody, broken shield, his arms spread wide. His silver eyes, one already swelling shut, were clear and deadly focused on Kilson. He was protecting her. From her own father.
He still hadn’t processed the words. The confession. The reality. All he saw was Angel on the ground.
The corridor was utterly silent, save for Angel’s ragged breathing and the drip of Crow’s blood onto the stone between his boots.
Kilson stared at Crow’s protective stance, then down at his own hands, slick with another man’s blood. The fight drained out of him, leaving him looking old, and hollow, and utterly lost.
From down the hall, a calm, dry voice cut through the tension. “A most impressive display of paternal concern, Kilson. And of professional decorum, Professor Drusus.”
The Headmaster stood there, having approached without a sound. His hands were clasped behind his back, his expression unreadable behind his glasses. He glanced at Angel, still on the floor with Crow guarding her, then at Kilson’s bloody knuckles, and finally at the stunned audience of students.
“The infirmary,” the Headmaster said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “All of you. Now. We have a great deal to discuss, and the detention block is neither the time nor the place.” His gaze settled on Crow. “Professor, you will see Miss Delacroix there. Kilson, you will walk with me. And you will explain to me why I should not have you both permanently expelled from these grounds for brawling like common thugs.”
He turned and began walking away, his footsteps echoing with finality. The spell broke. Alyce hurried forward to help Angel up, casting a nervous glance at Crow’s ruined face. Leo put a steadying hand on Amber’s shoulder. Silas merely shook his head, a faint, grim smile touching his lips.
Alone in the corridor, ignored in his cell, Regir watched the bloody, messy procession move away, his pale hands still pressed against the glass.
Alone in the corridor, ignored in his cell, Regir watched the bloody, messy procession move away, his pale hands still pressed against the glass. The silence that settled after them was thicker than the damp air, humming with the echoes of violence and confession. He slid down the cold wall to sit on the floor, drawing his knees to his chest, and wondered what it felt like to have someone fight for you, even wrongly.
Back in the bright, sterile infirmary, the air tasted of antiseptic and unresolved fury. Angel sat upright on the same cot, the nurse’s cool hands guiding a humming sensor plate over her abdomen. A soft, greenish light emanated from the device, casting weird shadows on the white walls. Crow stood rigidly by the door, one side of his face a swollen, purple masterpiece of broken capillaries, blood crusted under his nose.
Kilson paced like a caged bear a few feet away, his knuckles raw and gleaming. Silas observed from a corner, leaning on his ranseur, a statue of detached analysis. The Headmaster stood between them all, a fixed point of unnerving calm.
“You assaulted a senior instructor on academy grounds, Kilson,” the Headmaster stated, his voice devoid of inflection. “The disciplinary code is unambiguous.”
“He touched my daughter,” Kilson growled, the words scraping his throat raw.
“A fact I was aware of,” the Headmaster replied, shifting his silvery gaze to Crow. “As I was aware of your inappropriate entanglement with a student, Professor Drusus. I chose to observe its development, given Miss Delacroix’s… unique circumstances and rapid ascension. Now that it is catastrophically public, I must address it.”
Angel flinched on the cot. “He’s my soul mate,” she interjected, her voice tight. “It wasn’t just some—”
A slight, almost imperceptible shake of Silas’s head from the corner stopped her. His pale eyes held a warning: Let him speak. She bit her tongue, the argument dying hot and unsatisfying in her chest.
The Headmaster continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Expulsion is the standard sanction for such a profound breach of ethics, Miss Delacroix. For you, and likely for the professor, given the violence that has now occurred.”
The word expulsion landed in the room like a lead weight. Angel’s hand instinctively moved to her stomach. Crow’s shoulders stiffened further, a fine tremor running through his frame. Kilson stopped his pacing, his anger momentarily frozen by a colder dread.
Suddenly, the door burst open with a force that made the wall shudder.
Amber, Leo, and Alyce tumbled into the room, Asura slipping in behind them with an apologetic wince. They were a breathless, determined cluster of interruption.
“You can’t!” Amber blurted out, her face flushed.
“We were, uh, we heard,” Leo stammered, his hands held up in a placating gesture.
Alyce shouldered past them, her freckles stark against her pale skin. “If you expel Angel for being with her meister, then you have to expel me, too,” she declared, her voice sharp. “I’m dating Asura. And I’m pretty damn sure we’re soul-bonded.”
A stunned silence filled the room. Kilson’s eyes widened, darting between Alyce and the stoic, dark-haired Asura.
Amber and Leo exchanged a quick, fierce glance. A silent conversation passed between them in a half-second. Amber took a step forward, squaring her petite shoulders. “And I’m dating my weapon partner, Leo. We’re soul-bonded mates, too.”
She looked directly at the Headmaster, then at her father, a defiant spark in her eyes. “So? Are you going to expel all of us?”
The Headmaster regarded them, his expression unreadable. The nurse continued her scan, the green light pulsing softly over Angel’s midsection, an incongruous rhythm to the tension. He steepled his fingers, the leather of his gloves creaking softly.
“Well,” he said slowly, drawing the word out. “I very well could.”
He let the threat hang, watching the hope drain from their faces.
“But,” he continued, his tone shifting to something drier, almost conversational. “If I pretend I didn’t hear any of your confessions just now… and if I acknowledge that Miss Delacroix, having independently met the requirements by consuming a witch’s soul and her collection of lost spirits, has become a Death Scythe…” He paused, looking at Angel. “She can graduate immediately. Effective this moment.”
He turned his head slightly, encompassing Crow in his gaze. “There are no rules against staff members dating other staff members.”
The room held its breath. The hum of the sensor was the only sound. Angel stared, not comprehending the sudden pivot. Crow’s one good eye blinked slowly, as if processing a complex equation. Amber’s mouth had fallen slightly open. Kilson looked like he’d been slapped with a fish.
“The soul scan is complete,” the nurse announced, her voice cutting through the silence. She lifted the sensor plate away. “There’s no internal trauma. The fetal resonance is strong and stable. Everything is… perfectly fine.”
A collective, unconscious exhale seemed to sweep through the room. The knot in Angel’s chest loosened a fraction. The immediate, physical threat to the tiny, unknown life inside her was gone.
The Headmaster gave a single, slow nod. “Congratulations on your graduation, Professor Delacroix. And on your… other developments. We will discuss your new teaching duties tomorrow.” His gaze swept over the stunned faces of the younger students. “As for the rest of you, your continued enrollment is contingent upon your discretion and your performance. Do not make me regret my selective hearing.”
He turned and walked toward the door, the crisis officially managed, the rules bent into a new, precarious shape. He paused beside Silas. “A word, Mentor?”
Silas pushed off the wall with a soft grunt and followed him out, leaving the rest of them in the infirmary’s stark light, surrounded by the lingering scent of blood and the dizzying aroma of reprieve.
Angel looked from Crow’s battered face to her father’s stunned expression, then to her friends’ mixtures of relief and panic. She was a Death Scythe. She was pregnant. She was, apparently, a professor now.
The reality of it, vast and terrifying, finally crashed over her. She leaned forward, buried her face in her hands, and let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob.