by Rachel Angel
Declaration: Year 3
Fallen Fae Academy #3
Rachel Angel
Declaration: Fallen Fae Academy #3
Published by Sparklesoup Inc.
Copyright © 2019 Rachel Angel
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
All characters and storyline is an invention from Rachel Angel. Any resemblance to people alive or dead is purely coincidence.
For information, please contact:
www.Sparklesoup.com
1st Edition.
DEDICATION
This is dedicated to all girls and women who are bold enough to be true to themselves.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This is for the Amazing Angels in Rachel Angel’s Royal Readers Group who are great with their enthusiasm, passion, and support for me, my books, and projects. Thank You!
Note
Fallen Fae Academy is a Reverse Harem New Adult Bully Romance Academy Series.
What does it mean to be Reverse Harem? It means there will be three or more love interests for the Female Main Character, she will end up with three or more. Although this takes place at a high school Academy, the characters are 17+ and there are consensual sex, some language, and mature situations.
My name is Harley, as in Harlequin. Plucked from my home from Las Vegas, NV, and placed into a University on an arts scholarship. Suddenly I am the girl the four hottest and most popular boys have decided to "initiate".
This is no ordinary "hazing" ritual, and these boys are no ordinary boys.
This mysterious University looks like any ivy league campus, but it isn't. Step in and you are transported beyond your wildest imagination. I should be ecstatic being here. Except surviving "Initiation" is going to take everything I've got.
Don't let the beauty of the four fae boys fool you. They are as dangerous as they are beautiful. And underneath everything, runs a deep secret. One I need to find out before Initiation kills me.
They think a human is weak. They think I shouldn't be at this university. I'm about to prove them wrong.
Chapter 1
Harley
It had been a long and complicated school year, and though Harley was sad to see her friends go, she was happy to see it end. Despite the summer classes she’d taken the previous summer, it had still been difficult and more time consuming than she had planned, and she really hadn’t accomplished everything she’d hoped.
Now, as she leaned up against the wall of the main administrative building and watched the students drive off to their summer getaways, she felt the weight of the oncoming summer. Would she survive another summer of studies?
“There you are,” April said, coming up behind her. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Hey, April.” Harley glanced down at the April’s luggage. “I see you’re off to another summer of fun in the sun.”
“Not this year.” April’s smile turned to an exaggerated sad grimace as she shook her head. “As it turns out, I have to go and help my folks with their business. Dad said that stocking shelves would help build character.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it’s just going to be a drag. But, what can I do? My parents are paying for me to go here, so it’s the least I can do.”
“The very least,” Harley said with a grin.
“I can’t believe you’re going to stay again for another summer, Harley,” April said. “You’re going to run yourself ragged. You need to get out and have some fun. You know what they say about all work and no play.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Harley said. “I’ll find some way to have fun every once in a while.”
Still shaking her head, April looked at her. “You’re a real glutton for torture.”
Harley smiled. “I happen to like learning, April. It’s not all torture. Besides, the hours of classes I’ll put in over the summer are hours I won’t have to put in later. Hopefully I’ll be able to skip an entire semester. Maybe even a whole school year.”
“Will Oak and Kingsley be staying over the summer, too?”
“No. They’re off to the Faery Realms. They’ve been talking about joining the war for weeks now. I try not to think about it much, but, damn… I’m worried about them.” She looked at April. “If I have the chance, I’d like to go to the Faery Realm to help out however I can.”
“Well, now it’s confirmed.”
“What’s confirmed?”
“You’re crazy. You’re certifiable. Going out to the Realm and do what? Fight?”
Harley shrugged. She didn’t want to argue about it. “I don’t know. It’s just a thought that’s running through my mind.”
“Well,” April said, letting her index and middle finger run through the air. “Let those thoughts just run right on through and out the other way.”
Smiling, Harley looked at her friend. “I’m going to miss you, kiddo.”
April picked up her two suitcases. “I guess that’s my cue to go,” she said with a chuckle. “Not to mention my mom over there who is waving like a maniac.”
“I’ll catch you in the fall.”
“You betcha.” April gave Harley a peck on the cheek and walked off. “Hey,” she called over her shoulder. “Maybe the twins will stay behind and keep you company.”
Harley drew in a long, deep breath and slowly let it out. “I hope not. I don’t think I’m ready to deal with them quite yet.”
“Good luck!”
***
For the third time since getting up that first Monday morning of summer session, Harley looked at her schedule. Her first class was Glamour and Illusions, then Magical Devices then Magical Arts and finally Defeating the Dark Arts.
The more she looked at the schedule the more she felt overwhelmed. It was a lot to take on, and without April there to help her out with the fae aspect of her studies it would be even harder than she had imagined. Magic and devices would be difficult, but glamouring and the dark arts would be even harder.
Setting the schedule aside, she finished dressing, pulled her hair back into a high ponytail and headed off to her first class. For the summer session, the Glamour and Illusions class was in the new building just beyond the sparsely wooded area.
When she entered the oversized room, she found a diminutive fae as her professor and a surprisingly large student body. For a summer class, she counted fifteen students, a far cry from last summer’s classes of barely five.
The first class was a basic introduction to Professor Trudy who was a sweet woman with an almost comical high-pitched voice.
“You’ll notice,” the professor said as she swept her arms around the vast room. “I’ve requested quite a large space. Glamouring has its pitfalls. Things don’t always go as planned. Here, you’ll have room to push the envelope and try out various techniques.”
As Harley looked around the large room, she spotted Zed in the far corner. His back to her, he was listening intently to the professor and Harley wondered if he’d seen her enter the classroom. A part of her wanted to sneak out and pretend she hadn’t seen him, but she knew she would have to face him at some point during the summer.
The other question in her mind was Red; was he taking
summer classes as well.
She found her answer to that question soon enough. As she entered her second class, Magical Devices, she saw Red standing by his desk talking to a classmate and he definitely saw her come in.
He quickly excused himself from his classmate and headed over to her.
“Well, now. Isn’t this a nice surprise?” Red said.
“It’s not that nice of a surprise, Red.” Harley turned on her heel and headed to the opposite side of the room where she found a vacant seat.
The lesson passed by quickly enough and after a quick lunchbreak she hurried off to her third class of the day; Magical Arts. To her chagrin, she found Red in that classroom as well.
“Looks like my luck is running thin,” she said as she passed by his desk and continued on to the front row to find a seat.
But when she got to her fourth class, Defeating the Dark Arts, and found that she had both twins to contend with, it was almost too much to handle.
“Seems like there’s no getting away from you guys,” she said as she passed by them.
“Come on, Harley,” Zed said, pulling out the seat to the desk beside him. “Having classes with us can’t be all that bad.”
Grinning, she continued to pass them by and sat up front once again.
As the days passed, she did her best to ignore them. She had no choice. The classes were so difficult and advanced, it took all her energy and concentration to try to keep her head above water.
“Today,” Professor Trudy announced. “I’ll give you all the results of yesterday’s quick and easy pop quiz.”
As she watched the professor walked through the rows of desks, setting each quiz on the appropriate student’s desk, Harley felt her stomach turn. She’d seen the students around her answer the questions with barely a moment’s thought while she had had to sit and think and struggle to find the answer.
“I think you’re going to need a little help in this class,” Professor Trudy said as she set her quiz paper face down on Harley’s desk.
After a long and exasperated breath, Harley turned the page over. The page had a long line of red Xs running down along virtually every answer she’d given. But it’s the grade at the top of the page that told the entire story. Sixty-two percent. It was a horrible grade for what was considered a quick and easy quiz. How would she ever manage when an in depth and difficult exam came up?
Her shoulders a little more slumped than usual, she headed to her Magical Devices class only to have the professor there announce a pop quiz.
Again, her stomach tied up in knots with every question the professor shot out. She had no clue what to answer to almost all the questions, and the ones that she did answer, she wasn’t completely convinced she was right.
“This is going to be one hell of a long summer,” she groaned to no one in particular.
As she headed to Defeating the Dark Arts class, all she could do was hope there would not be another quiz. She didn’t think she could handle three strike-outs in one day.
But as she sat in class, listening to the tall lanky professor, he suddenly turned to her.
“What do you think we should do when we find ourselves in this situation, Miss Harley?”
It was worse than any written quiz. The entire class turned to look at her, to watch her humiliation as she struggled to find any semblance of an answer.
“Anything?” the professor said after a prolonged moment.
“Fight?” Harley softly said.
Frustrated, Professor Holsman looked around the class for another student. He pointed to the girl behind Harley.
“In cases like this,” the girl said, “one should exit the realm, cleanse the path and close any possible gaps.”
“Very good,” the professor said. “And thorough.” He tapped Harley’s desk with the hard tip of his finger. “You should know this. You need to do some serious catching up.”
Feeling defeated, she left the class and looked forward to her next class; Magical Arts. At least she’d been doing well there. She remembered a lot of what she had learned with Kingsley and being good with the arts in general really helped.
With an energized sense of purpose, Harley left the class, grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed off to the library. She intended to take Professor Holman’s advice seriously. She had to catch up.
“I’m going to start thinking that you’re following me,” Red said as he came up beside her.
She’d just settled down on a long table with a pile of books and was in no mood to chat.
“Believe me,” she said. “I have better things to do than to follow you around.”
“I find that hard to believe considering the number of classes you have with me, and now this.”
“Most of the kids here are taking more or less the same classes. It’s pretty normal that we cross each other’s path on a regular basis.”
“That might be so,” he said with a boyish cock of his brow. “But most of the kids are only taking one of those classes. You have two classes with me, one class with Zed and another one with both of us. That’s an awful lot of studying.”
“Well,” Harley said as she picked the first book off her pile, set it down in front of her and opened it. “That’s what I’m here for, so if you don’t mind…”
“You’re lying,” he said.
She glared up at him.
“Don’t deny it. You’re overwhelmed. I can tell. I might not know you inside and out, but I know enough about you to recognize when you’re frustrated, when you’re unhappy and when you’re stressed out. And believe me, girl, you are stressed out.”
“Wrong. I’m excited and invigorated. You don’t know anything.”
“When you’re excited, you glow and radiate positive energy. Now your skin is red and blotchy, and you have a nervous edge to your voice.” He pushed back her pile of books and sat on the table. “You need help.”
“Ha,” she snorted. “And what? You think you’re the one who can help me? Get serious.”
“You underestimate me, Harley. Why don’t you just give me a chance. You helped me last year. I just want to help you in return. I’m really good with magical devices.”
Angry with his intrusion, Harley slammed her book shut, shoved her chair back and stood. “Maybe I’ll get more work done if I just head back to my dorm room.”
His boyish grin faded as he reached out to take a hold of her forearm. “Don’t go,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to scare you off. I really thought we could just work together. Remember when we used to study together. Remember how much fun we had.” He looked around them. “We’re alone here. We can just sit back, take it easy and help each other out. At the very least it’ll be a little less lonely working together.”
“I’m not lonely at all, Red.” She pulled out of his hold and was about to walk away.
“Okay, fine,” he relented. “Have it your way. I’ll leave you alone. I’ll go sit over there.”
“Thank you,” she said firmly setting her books back on the table. “I appreciate that.”
Red headed over to the other end of the long table and sat down. For the next half hour they each studied on their own.
One by one, Harley went over the questions to the pop quiz she’d so miserably failed. She found the answers to the first three questions in the first book from her pile, but she was having trouble finding the answer to the fourth question.
She flipped through the pages of the book, but found no reference to that fourth question. She opened the second book and found nothing, then she noticed Red just sitting there staring straight ahead.
“Are you blocked?” Red called out when he noticed the direction of her gaze.
Harley nodded.
He stood and came her way. “I’m having trouble with how to light the darkness when the realm is under the rule of fallen faes but the darkness is brought on by rogue faes.”
Harley didn’t want to admit that she was having issues with that same problem.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “I can’t really help you with that.”
“Aw, come on, Harley,” Red said, feigning profound pain. “Help a guy out.”
“I can’t,” she said with a shrug.
Red looked down at her quiz pages and pulled out her Magical Devices quiz. “You’re having trouble with magical devices. I thought it was only with Darkness you had issues with.”
Harley yanked the quiz out of his hand and shoved it back under her darkness quiz. “It’s none of your business one way or another.”
“You know, I happen to be very good with magical devices.” He pulled the quiz back out from under her other pages. “Like this problem,” he said, pointing to the fifth question. “I figured this one out. It’s actually pretty simple once you know it. It’s all just common sense.”
“Really?” she said in a flat tone. “Well, looks like I’m all out of common sense.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Red said. “It’s the kind of common sense that comes from years of dealing with this sort of thing. You’re still new to all this. Give yourself time, Harley. The common sense of the faerie realm will come.”
“Great,” she said dryly. “Thanks for the advice.”
“Look,” Red said pointing to the diagram she’d drawn as a response to the question. “Instead of doing this,” he said, taking his pencil and crossing out what she’d done. “You should have put this here. This way the magical device is more straightforward. You know, sometimes we tend to just complicate things too much. All you have to do is simplify things and it works better.”
Harley looked at the changes he’d made to her diagram and nodded. It all made sense now. Just with the simple changes he’d made she suddenly saw everything so clearly. “Just simplify it,” she muttered to herself.