I looked at Rathik, my tail in my hands to keep it from twitching behind me. I tried to keep my ears up, too, but they drooped no matter how hard I tried. “You’ve been rather quiet. Do you really feel the same? I’m not infertile, though I’m not sure we could crossbreed anyway since our races are so different.” I asked him.
“Oh, you totally can,” Dr. Frankenstein said. “I’ve seen them.”
“Them?” I asked, my eyes widening. I glanced at my parents, but they were staring at Dr. Frankenstein like they could make her explode just from their glares alone.
Lucifer snarled. “What have you been doing in the Sahara Desert, Doc?”
She blanched. “Uh...”
“We can take precautions to prevent that,” Rathik said and shrugged. “I’m not too worried about it. Hopefully, by then, you’ll be a little more over your fear of snakes.”
This was really happening? They were really okay with being tied to us?
“Wait,” Frances gasped. “If we are all tied together and Bogden and Loralie are immortal, does that mean—”
Lucifer beamed like a proud parent. “I told you they were smart! Yes, it seems the reincarnation cycle has ended.”
Baba Yaga moaned and then fainted on the couch, her head falling over into Rathik’s mother’s lap.
Everyone stared in silence.
“Frances, I think you should get an award or something,” Dad whispered. “You’re the first person in history to make Baba Yaga faint.”
The room erupted in laughter once again, but this time it was something we could join in on.
Life returned to normal, or as normal as a monster academy could be. The guys declared themselves our boyfriends and took their jobs as our protectors very seriously.
Some students were scared of us, but most treated us like Ainsley did. She asked a billion questions and kept trying to convince us to merge again.
Lucifer gave us strict orders not to merge unless it was an absolute emergency, though.
He had also smacked the backs of our heads when he learned that we were trying to protect not only our families, but him as well. “I am perfectly capable of protecting myself from some humans,” he’d snarled.
We knew he was right, but at the time we weren’t really thinking about how strong he was.
The next months passed quickly and before we knew it, the prom was upon us. We'd been lectured because we had skipped so many planning meetings, but offered to spend a ton of our free time decorating for it. We did feel bad that we had ended up only attending one meeting, so we did a ton of work preparing and gathering everything we needed for decorating.
Ainsley twirled in front of the mirror, her bright pink dress had a tattered hem and showed off her color matching freshly painted talons. It had taken her an hour just to curl her hair, but it looked gorgeous and bounced as she moved. “Tonight, is going to be amazing,” she squealed.
I smiled and pulled my tail through the slit in my dress. “I’m actually looking forward to a dance for the first time in my life,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “That’s because you have the hottest guys in the school for dates. I need to find some new wing women or I might be single forever.”
Loralie pulled her black lace gloves on and then patted Ainsley on the head. “You’ll find the right male for you, Ainsley. I can feel it.”
“Don’t you usually just sense death?” she asked, her mouth open in horror.
Loralie smacked her arm, and Ainsley cackled before returning to examine her makeup one more time.
Frances brushed down some of my tail’s fur. “Let me help.”
“Thanks,” I said with a smile in the mirror. “It’s hard to see it well.”
“Ready?” Loralie asked from the door.
She wore a black dress that hugged her curves, had a corset around the waist, and tied up in the back with bright purple laces. Her lace gloves and fishnet stockings completed the look.
I checked my reflection, adjusting my hair around my ears before nodding. “Yep.”
The four of us walked with wide smiles out of the dorms and to the multipurpose room in subfloor five where all events were held.
We had spent two days decorating the room for our Heaven and Hell theme. Instead of the usual splitting of top and bottom for heaven and hell, we had split the room in half. One half of the room was decorated in dark purple and black with red flames in small pits lined with skulls. The other half of the room was decorated in white and gold with some splashes of red to commemorate the angels who had been slain by Lucifer.
We had gotten Lucifer’s approval for the theme first, of course. To our surprise, he had been thrilled with the idea.
Lucifer sat on a throne of papier-mâché bones and wood crates designed specifically for him, in a beautiful half white and half black suit, and smiled as he watched the students dancing before him.
We waved to him as we headed to the center of the room, not wanting to stand in the doorway and block it.
He waved back and resumed watching everyone else while tapping his foot along to the beat of the music.
There were several parent chaperones and much to my dismay, my parents were among them. As was my grandfather who I could see dancing with my grandmother.
Were chaperones allowed to dance? Not that anyone would likely tell my grandparents to stop, or that they would listen.
“Where are they?” Frances asked, fidgeting with the flame pendant necklace Dante had given her.
We had all finally opened our gifts from them and found that they were gifts that related to them specifically with a note asking about starting to date. Mine had been a pendant with one of Rathik's scales encased in resin. Loralie's had been a ring shaped like a raven with the wings wrapped around her finger.
The guys denied it, but we were certain they had gotten together to plan out the gifts.
“They said they would meet us here, right?” Frances asked.
I set my hand on her shoulder. “Relax, they’ll be here.”
“Who will?” Rathik asked behind me.
The three of us spun around and in sync, our mouths dropped.
Rathik had on a dark green suit that reminded me of his scales and had his hair slicked back. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him look so handsome.
“You expecting someone else?” Dante asked. His suit was a burnt orange and the flames of his hair were low and shaped like spikes, glowing a neon blue.
“You look beautiful,” Bogden told Loralie, holding out a black orchid corsage.
“You look really good in a suit,” I whispered and then wished I could take the words back.
Rathik smiled wide and kissed my cheek. “Thank you. You look gorgeous, as always.”
“Care to dance?” Dante asked and held out a bent arm to Frances.
She nodded, gulped, and then slid a shaky hand into the crook of his elbow.
“Milady?” Rathik asked, bowed, and held out a hand, palm up.
I set my hand in it and curtsied. “Milord.”
“Nerds,” Loralie whispered behind us.
Rathik spun me out into the middle of the dance floor and I was certain I didn’t stop smiling the entire night and well into the next morning.
Life wasn’t perfect. There were still a lot of unknowns and uncertainties in our futures, but as long as we had each other, I knew we could make it through anything.