Otherworld Academy Vol. 1 Capitulo 23
Chapter 23
Levi hadn’t expected to find himself on top of one of the towers. Truthfully, he would have admitted he didn’t know a student could get to the top of the towers, let alone onto the roof. He stood with an arm around Nox and her head on his shoulder as they gazed out across the wide expanse of the Academy, which was a strange cross between Minas Tirith and… he didn’t know what. The building looked bizarre from above, with the wings that sat between each circle of walls, the towers that weren’t symmetrically placed, and the fact some wings stopped dead while others projected through several walls—it looked like a spiderweb from above.
Levi put that aside as he turned to kiss Nox, his hands coming to rest on the small of her back. She snuggled in for the kiss and her fingers tightened in his uniform as she let out a sigh of appreciation, though one of her hands clutched a picnic-basket handle with a fierce dedication. When the kiss broke, she smiled up at him. “Okay, time for dessert!” she exclaimed brightly.
Levi grinned wryly. “Normally I would ask whether we were going to have lunch first, but I can already tell that isn’t going to happen,” he replied with a snort. They sat down on the gray slate roof and Levi took in the view again, this time looking past the building. The way the grass swayed in the breeze was peaceful, and he loved the view of the trees rising farther in the distance. He tugged Nox up onto his lap and she giggled as she settled into his embrace. Then she reached into the basket and dutifully stripped the wrapper off of a small cupcake. Levi felt surprised when Nox turned and fed him the morsel; she looked at him lovingly and placed a kiss on his lips.
“That’s because I love you,” she said with a smirk. The next three cupcakes went into her mouth and Levi reached up to scrub his fingers through his hair. Nox takes her pastries seriously. Flix was flying lazy circles above them, enjoying the open air as she flapped her wings just enough to catch the updrafts. Zuzan was creeping down Levi’s back on her way toward the picnic basket. Levi suspected the squirrel was hoping she could sneak off with a full cupcake of her own. She and Nox seemed to have a game of it and so far, Zuzan’s stealth had never slipped past the elf’s love of desserts.
“We should talk about the mark…” Levi began and Nox raised one eyebrow with a neutral expression. He hadn’t forgotten the fireball she’d thrown at him, but he wasn’t worried she was going to be too upset. “The Director of the Academy has said I’m a Demon Lord, and apparently the people I choose to be intimate with gain power from me, and I also gain it from them. They’re given a mark to show our bonds, and each makes me more than I was before.”
Levi had had no idea how to drop all of that and make it not sound crazy, so he’d decided to just give out the bare details as he understood them. Nox gave him a blank look and slowly lifted another cupcake to her mouth. She stared into his eyes with a sharp, focused gaze, licking the frosting off the confection. She didn’t break eye contact, not even when she started biting into the pastry, and Levi was starting to wonder if he had broken her.
“That… is super cool! Does this symbol mean I’m special? That’s awesome, what kind powers is it going to give me?” she began. The rapid-fire stream of excited questions continued as she slid her tie open and undid her shirt with rapid fingers. The beautiful elf didn’t hesitate to pull her shirt open to reveal the Roman numeral I on the skin of her breast. She looked impatient, and Levi had to clamp his lips shut for a moment to avoid blurting out the first thing that came to mind.
I have no fucking idea, he thought. “I haven’t exactly gotten a lot of answers about what any of this means. The symbol is a number one from an old culture on my world. I think it was put on you because you were the first person I fell for here on Taryl,” he said. Her ears wiggled for a moment, and he was worried she was upset. Then she wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and dragged his face down into her breasts.
“That is awesome! I’m the first in a Demon Lord’s harem! Does that make me the top bitch? Do I get to boss everyone around? Who else have you fucked? Are they hot? Want a threesome?” she asked in a blurring pace. Levi settled his face between her breasts, deciding then and there that he might be in heaven after all. Nothing had gone the way he expected, but he wasn’t going to complain.
He kissed the insides of her breasts above her bra and her breath hitched. His teeth ran over the delicate skin, forcing a shiver from her, and when he bit the top that wasn’t marked with a brand she squeaked. Then she pushed him back a little.
“Hey! No fair distracting me. These are serious questions,” she protested with a scowl. He could tell her heart wasn’t in it—she was flushed and breathing quickly. She nibbled on her lower lip, then picked up a sandwich from the basket and started to break it into small pieces so she could feed him by hand. “Now, gimme answers please,” she said.
“The answer to most of those questions is that I don’t know. Tawny Goldenrod figured out that I was a Demon Lord and came on to me; she’d already been flirting a lot and we ended up having sex. That’s when the number two popped up on her chest. I assume the number one appeared on you while you were on your trip?” he asked, and she nodded in agreement. “Apparently Tawny’s people have a ton of legends about how awesome and powerful Demon Lords are, so she wants in. I think she likes me as well, but we’ll see. She’d probably go for a threesome…” he said, teasing her—she immediately flushed. Her ears jolted upright and he watched them turn red, almost matching her hair.
“Levi, you’re not supposed to sleep with your house mistress! That has to be against the rules or something. You’re going to get in trouble!” she hissed. Her panic was adorable. Levi pulled her closer so he could enjoy having her cuddled up to him.
He took a few minutes to kiss her breathless, enjoying the taste of frosting on her tongue as he claimed her lips. His fingers stroked into her hair to hold her close and she melted against him in a puddle of warm desire. When he broke the kiss, she stared at him in a daze and blinked slowly. “What were we talking about?” she asked. Levi almost squawked when Nox suddenly bolted upright and fell off his lap. The look on his face made him think something was seriously wrong. Nox was staring at the picnic basket, appearing shocked.
Zuzan was eating one of her cupcakes. The squirrel sat on the top of the wicker basket with her prize held between her front paws. She had her head stuffed into the ivory frosting and the noise of her chewing was surprisingly loud. Her stub tail was standing upright, and her left rear leg was bouncing against the lid. The squirrel was practically quivering from what Levi assumed was a massive sugar high. Nox stared at her, heartbroken.
“My last cupcake! How? No, no! It isn’t fair! How did she finally get past me!” she demanded as she turned to look at Levi. “You tricked me! You and your beautiful lips and amazing kisses! You set it up so she could get to my last cupcake… I’m going, I’m going to… Oooooh!” she stomped a foot and Levi collapsed backwards. He was laughing too hard to remain upright as she dove on top of him and pretended to pummel him with her fists. She was still protesting his betrayal when he rolled on top of her and kissed her into silence.
Levi had no intention to stop the kissing this time. He had missed Nox, so he thought this was a marvelous time and place to show her. His hands slid up the back of her uniform to knead the skin over her shoulders. Just as he put his fingers to the clasp of her bra, the sun seemed to fade and things grew dark. Levi twisted his head to look up, mostly to see if they were about to get rained on. What he saw instead hit him like a bucket of ice water—he rolled to the side to fix his glasses and get a better look.
Five ships were sailing the sky above them, each the size of an aircraft carrier from Earth. The hulls were a bronze with an odd gray tint, and they had a pair of balloons trapped in wire mesh supporting them. Each of the arrow-shaped vessels tapered toward the rear only to flare out again; a mechanism supporting three rotating propellers formed a sort of tail. Midway up the sides sat another pair of propellers, these mounted perpendicular to the vessel. Levi assumed they were to guide the ship when it landed. He noticed huge gears and realized the big turbines could be rotated. Blasts of green vapor spewed out the sides of the ships from time to time, and Levi caught sight of a number of hatches, panels, and ports, some covered with metal shutters and others marked by crystal domes. The vessels had a logo painted along the side, big enough to make out from the ground. A roaring lion’s head was encircled by a black flame. He looked to see Nox, counting on her reaction to guide how he would feel about the small fleet he was witnessing in motion.
Nox appeared alarmed at the sight of the ships, and she spun to look at Levi. She swung to sit up and began doing up her blouse immediately as she stared at the sky. “It’s the Costilian Empire!” she hissed as she pulled herself up and then gave him a hand. “They’re aggressive and don’t have a treaty with the school. This could be an attack—it wouldn’t be the first time another dimension has attempted to take over Taryl.”
Levi reached down to pick up his cane while he sent out a thought to Flix, the dragonet diving to land on his shoulder with enough force to stagger him. Zuzan let out excited, frightened chirps as she raced up his pants leg and onto his satchel. She stared up at the ships and chittered. Levi scratched behind one of her small ears in an effort to comfort her. “What do we do?” he asked Nox. He hated the fact that so much of this world was alien to him—he didn’t enjoy feeling confused about what was going to happen.
Nox tugged her jacket up to expose her forearm and Levi saw the beautifully designed fox emblem. She touched it, and then her lavender eyes flashed as she took in the information. Following suit, he touched his raven and took in any important information from the magic tattoo. All Raven House students, please report to the common room—House mistress Tawny Goldenrod. When he turned to Nox, he saw she was adjusting her uniform. “You have to report to your wing too?” she asked.
When he nodded, she kissed him deeply, and then grasped the basket’s handle. The pair shot through the hatch and down the ladder to get to the room below. Levi made sure the entrance was locked the way it had been when they’d gone up onto the roof. He had to watch carefully to try and learn the twists and turns to get to this spot, though Flix hissed in displeasure at being bounced each time he ran down a flight of stairs. Zuzan chittered and clutched the strap of his satchel as she climbed back up until she rested on his shoulder. The squirrel let out a series of chirps that caused Levi to cock his head.
“What do you mean you don’t think they’re dangerous?” Nox asked, which caused Levi to stumble. Flix flapped her wings and trilled sharply, so Levi’s eyes swung to Nox.
“Did you understand her?” he demanded, prompting Nox to look confused. Zuzan chittered again and Nox nodded her head.
“I did! You’re right, Zuzan, I didn’t sense unusual mana gathering around the ships, but that doesn’t mean they’re peaceful. They might not be powering up the cannons at the moment. Ships that big can do a lot of damage just by dropping heavy rocks on buildings below them,” Nox said. Levi took in the smile on her face; she looked happy to understand Zuzan.
The squirrel chittered sadly, so Levi scratched the back of her soft head. He switched to scraping his nail along the base of Flix’s horns after they got down a pair of rickety ladders, since he wanted the dragonet to calm down. He really didn’t want his companion to blast anything at a bad moment. Flix settled, then chimed a few times with that odd crystal sound she made. Levi caught himself wishing that he understood her better—he was sure those sounds were important. He glanced at Nox, but the elf didn’t show any sign she could understand Flix. He wasn’t sure how he’d have felt if his lover ended up communicating better with both of his tamed companions.
He shook his head at the ridiculous thought and made sure to kiss Nox deeply before they got to the communal wing that led into Fox House. “Raincheck on what we started upstairs?” he asked. She flashed him a smile and nodded, then motioned for him to take the secondary halls that would take him to Raven House the fastest.
“Count on it, Levi Walker, I am not done with you yet!” she promised as she spun to dash toward the common room for her group.
Levi clasped his cane, and it shrank so he could slide it through a strap on his satchel. Then he began to jog toward the stairway that would take him up into the tower. He saw a lot of other students rushing around and realized that every student in the school had to be running for their common rooms at that moment. Is this a good surprise, or are we going to be fighting an invading army in a few minutes? he wondered.
His eyes began to glow red; he was determined to protect the few new friends he had made.
