Last Chance Academy

by Alex Lidell

  The hatred filling my blood is enough to make me howl to the moon, the promise of vengeance echoing in my blood.

  “Devinee!” The voice calling me now turns from worry to sheer command. “Devinee, get out of my head. Now!”

  I obey, gripping on to the voice’s strength to drag myself from the historic dungeon into the fresh, cool forest of the now. My mouth is dry, my mind working through what I just saw. Through the fact that while my mind has escaped the darkness of Ellis’s memories, the power buzzing inside my veins is still there.

  Ellis pulls my hand away from his chest, and, from the ache in my wrist, I realize he’s been trying to wrench it away for some time.

  “What… How?”

  Ellis’s face is hard. “Magic. That’s the liquid power you were feeling. The one I was starting to tell you about when you decided to take a trip down my memory lane. It’s the same magic that’s responsible for this.” Lifting his shackled wrist, he shows me his corded forearm, the smooth skin showing no sign of iron poisoning.

  Magic. Inside me. No fucking way.

  “Do you still feel the power?” Ellis asks, his gaze intent on my face.

  I swallow, too many questions filling my mind to form a meaningful sentence just yet. “Tell me more about Sienna,” I ask instead, pivoting the conversation. “Why did she torture you?”

  Ellis’s lips tighten, the lines in his chiseled face growing deeper. “I don’t know, Devinee. I’m not a witch. You’re the one who launched herself into my mind. You tell me.”

  I recoil, though I should be used to his blows by now. Then again, he’s right. I had no right to connect the marks, to intrude into the male’s senses and memories without permission. Even if I didn’t know exactly how the connection worked.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The male sighs, shaking himself. “It was in the middle of the fae-vamp wars,” he says. “Asher and I, both royal bastards, had gotten it into our heads to make peace between the races instead. Cassis and Reese were of the same mind. Call us a rebel force, if you will. To top it off, Cassis was in love with a witch. Sienna, who said she had an idea that might help our cause. We trusted Cassis, and so we agreed to trust her enough to meet.”

  Ellis bristles. “It was a different time, Devinee. A time when being female meant you were assumed to be weak. Meek. And that’s what Sienna acted like—and the four idiots that we were, we never questioned it. Then she’d convinced Cassis to gather us all in her lair. That’s when she struck.”

  “How long did she keep you there?” I shudder, wondering how Ellis could ever look a witch in the face after what I saw there.

  “A decade.” His face closes off again, as if that is the most he’s going to say on the subject. “Then she was killed in the Inquisition, just like all the others. Until you, frankly, I thought we were rid your kind. And until you,” he adds more quietly, “I thought that was for the best.”

  I bite my lip, though he tries to take the sting out of the words by brushing a thumb across my cheek. It can’t. Nothing can take the sting out of the truth, as I well know from the darkness that keeps washing over me.

  “Devinee,” Ellis snaps, his hold on my chin tightening until I’m forced to look at his yellow eyes and nothing more. “What you saw in me, it happened centuries ago. Pull your mind the hell out of there and don’t go back. Ever. Understand?”

  “Of course,” I say, hoping he’ll believe the lie. Because there’s no way I can ever unknow how a witch hurt him and the others.

  Forcing a smile to my face, I swing my attention back to the buzzing inside my blood. “So there’s magic inside me now? Do you think it’ll stay?”

  “You’re a witch,” Ellis says bluntly. “The magic was always there. Now that you can access it, however, an opening spell would be helpful.” He shakes the door of the cage in emphasis, one eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah. Unfortunately, this newfound magic came without an instruction manual.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I spent a decade chained inside a witch’s dungeon,” says Ellis, settling me onto the ground beside him. “I’ll show you what the tracing looks like, and you can try it on the lock.”

  “How do you know I won’t need an eye of newt or toe of frog or something?” I ask, lifting my brow as the male traces something that looks like an Egyptian rune on the dirt floor.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Fair point.” Kneeling on the ground, I use my nail to copy his drawing—which turns out to be a great deal more complicated than I expected. I don’t get it right. Not the first time. Or the fifth. On the fifteenth time, however, as I make the final squiggle thing on the edge, I feel the rune call to the magic inside me. A moment later, the very earth beneath Ellis and me cracks open with a booming scrape of rock and tearing roots.

  I yelp.

  The cage rocks.

  The earthy maw yawns and settles at about a foot wide, the whole cage now tipping while Ellis and I grab on to each other for balance.

  “Bloody hell,” the male mutters. “Well, we know it works. Now try it on the lock.”

  Taking the padlock, I have him sketch the rune on the ground again while I use a bit of mud to copy it onto the metal. The buzzing of magic inside my blood condenses into a single swarm, and I feel it fill the rune, the metal vibrating against the bars.

  Grabbing me from behind, Ellis throws me to the other side of the cage, his body covering mine as the lock explodes into dozens of shards, some of them flying past my face. When he lets me up, the back of his shirt bloody, I can see his body trembling no matter how hard he tries to hide it.

  “How badly are you hurt?” I ask.

  Ellis shrugs a muscular shoulder in a don’t know, don’t care gesture that I believe. But if it isn’t the wounds from the explosion that are making beads of sweat appear on his brow, then…

  “What did Sienna use the opening spell for?” I ask, making his gold eyes meet mine.

  “Isn’t the name self-explanatory?”

  “No.” My fingers curl. “You made it sound like a harmless little thing, but it isn’t harmless at all, is it? And not just because it worked too well.”

  “I had no choice,” Ellis says unapologetically. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re sitting ducks here. You needed to feel confident to have a chance of this working, and I gave you what you needed. Now, let’s get the hell out of here.”

  I grab his wrist, his breathing only now settling. “Tell me what Sienna used the spell for.”

  “To open us,” he says, holding open the cage door for me.

  32

  Sam

  Ellis is silent and lethal as he leads me back to the Academy, the darkness giving him little pause. As we approach the edge of the wood, he tells me to go directly to the barrack while he drags Asher out of bed to deal with everything.

  “Devinee.” Grabbing my shoulder before I walk off, he levels me with a stern glare. “You stay put. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t even leave your bloody room for drill until I come and get you. Clear?”

  I wasn’t planning to, but I flip Ellis off anyway before heading to my room. The little snarl he sends my way makes me smile.

  The barrack is quiet and dark as I slip inside, the cadets all sleeping off the day. Despite my rude gesture to Ellis, my pulse is fast and shallow as I quickly jog up to my room, the memories of what happened earlier chasing my steps. With distance from Ellis, the power inside me calms, buzzing bees settling to sleep. It’s as much a comfort as a fright.

  My nerves calm a bit at the sight of my door, and I wonder whether my willingness—my want—to hide in my room makes me a coward. I push the thought away. It doesn’t matter, because I wasn’t planning on being a hero to begin with. Between Bernadette’s attacking me and Quinn doubling down on the plan by adding a touch of murder and captivity to the recipe, I’m more than happy to leave the mess to Ellis to handle.

  Ellis. The male’s image comes unbidden to my mind
, sending a flare through my nerves. The man is too powerfully beautiful for his own good—and for mine. We had sex. Great, mind-blowing, thigh-slicking sex—the first I’ve ever had. But that was it. Being trapped in close quarters leads to all sorts of stupidity, and from the way he pulled away from me once the final aftershocks ended, he was already over the coupling. Just because it was my first not-terrible fuck doesn’t make it anything but a fuck. Not to a guy. Not to an immortal male who’s probably had more females than a rabbit.

  Shoving Ellis from my mind, I open the door to my room and savor the familiar sight. My dresser stands half-open, the bed just as unkempt and blanketless as I left it when I ran out. No Bernadette. Her murder hits me anew suddenly, seeming so long ago now. Her multicolor scrunchies sit in a bowl on the corner of her desk, one workout tee slung over the back of her chair. She may have tried to kidnap and murder me, but still, somehow, this isn’t what I would have wished for her.

  Taking a piece of wood I whittled into a doorstop a few days ago, I jam it beneath my door, testing it for security. The doorstop holds. My breath eases with that, though I still stay away from the window and keep the lights turned off. I don’t know who I think I’m hiding from, but at least I’m doing something.

  Setting course for the darkest corner of the room—old habits die hard—I—

  A hard hand clamps around my mouth, the dark shadow having moved faster than I thought possible. The cold laughter in my ear sends my pulse into an outright gallop as the scent of rotting meat makes my stomach roil.

  Quinn. Quinn here in my room. Waiting for me in the dark.

  “So, the witch does have power.” His words are honey soft in my ear. “I thought so. When something that should be there doesn’t manifest, add stress. Enough stress, enough motivations, and voilà. A working witch. Here, come take a look at something.”

  Switching his grip on my mouth to the other hand, Quinn pulls a cell phone out of his pocket and taps the screen to show a night-vision-green version of the cage I was in. No sound comes from the device, but the swaying leaves prove that the feed is live, though the battery power in the camera is running low. A tiny slap-on the bastard must have stuck on a tree branch before leaving.

  My chest tightens so hard, I can barely draw breath. A setup. The whole thing was a setup.

  “Ellis will kill you,” I hiss to Quinn.

  The vampire laughs. “Ellis, harm me over a witch? You really know nothing about him. He’ll thank me for cleaning up for him—you were a fuck. Nothing more. Or did you not see how quickly he dropped you once his cock softened?”

  My heart twitches because Ellis did pull away, his face hardening as some invisible wall slammed between us.

  “I can replay that part of the video for you if you’d like,” Quinn offers. “Just in case you had doubts. He came for you because that’s his punishment, the reason he got sent to Talonswood. But he sure as hell isn’t going to do anything but celebrate once you’re out of his hair.”

  Not true. At least not all of it. But some is, isn’t it?

  I make myself snort with indifference. “Have you met Ellis? Does he seem like the kind of male who’d let you put him in iron without retribution?”

  “I’m Count Victor’s son, and Ellis is the Talon king’s bastard. If you think a bit of jest is the worst we’ve done to each other over the centuries, you are even more gullible than I imagined. Now then—”

  I elbow him with all my might, my bone connecting with solid, unmoving muscle.

  Quinn’s grip on the back of my neck tightens painfully, his tone changing to an anger-fueled growl. “Don’t get stupid, witch. Not when I can snap your neck by accident.” He shakes me like a kitten, my bones rattling.

  “What do you want?”

  “You,” he answers. “The first witch in so long with the magic flowing in her blood. It had to be there. It was just a matter of unlocking it. And now, I’m going to deliver you to the count—just as soon as I sample the goods.”

  Shoving me forward, Quinn throws me onto my bed, my shins hitting the sideboard. Panic rushes over me, and I twist, kicking at him as hard as I can. I try digging up the buzzing bees inside my blood—only to find the power gone. Just like Ellis.

  Quinn’s eyes gleam as he approaches, his tongue flicking over his lips as his pants bulge. The dark widow’s peak against his pale skin makes the vampire look like the monster he is.

  I shove myself up, scrambling to get off the bed—the back of my mind noting that Quinn must have a reason for letting me move at all. That he’s just playing with his food.

  I’m right. Just as my muscles flex for the final shove, the vampire is on top of me, his hand gripping my neck, pinning me back to the crumpled sheets while the bed sags beneath his added weight. Leaning his face toward mine, Quinn licks my cheek and comes up grinning.

  “Fear. One of my favorite flavors.” With his free hand, he grips one of my breasts and squeezes painfully. “Pain is my second favorite, if you were wondering.”

  Don’t feel. Don’t feel. Don’t feel.

  I draw a breath past my constricted airway, focusing on each lungful of air. I can’t fight the vamp off, not right now. But I might still get an opportunity. I’ll make an opportunity.

  “Do you know why you’re not screaming?” Quinn asks, his words a painful mockery of my thoughts. “Because you’re smarter than you look. You know no one will come, don’t you? Of course you do. Your own roommate was ready to serve your head up on a platter—what do you imagine the rest of the delinquents here would do if they discovered you helpless?”

  I swallow, and Quinn’s smile deepens. “That’s right. They’ll be getting popcorn. Or come to the door in hopes of collecting whatever scraps I leave. No one ends up in Talonswood for being an upstanding citizen. Why don’t you try it for yourself, Samantha? Scream. Beg.”

  His grip on my breast tightens, and it’s all I can do to bite back the howl of pain I can tell the bastard is seeking.

  Quinn’s nostrils flare. “Beg!”

  33

  Sam

  Beg. Surrender. Yield.

  My heart pounds, my breaths quick and shallow. Blood rushes through my body so quickly that my vision narrows, my muscles tight and ready—with nowhere to go.

  I’ve been here before. Have met so many Quinns. Immortality is not so different from humanity when it comes to power.

  “This is how quickly a vampire is going to take you down, Devinee.” Ellis’s phantom words hiss through my memories, the bed beneath feeling rough as sand. “He is going to take you down and rip into your jugular, and then he’s going to drink all the blood pouring through that little, fragile body of yours. Now, tap out and get the hell off my pitch like you wanted.”

  Like I wanted. A shudder runs through me. Like I wanted. Ellis is an arrogant ass. A hard-as-nails ass who gave me no mercy on the pitch but knew exactly where each of his strikes landed. Who offered me his pain as collateral, because I would not trust him otherwise.

  Quinn is wrong. Ellis might not like me, but if I call him, he will come. Somehow, after everything, I trust him enough to know that. My hand curls into a fist, the brand on my palm tingling as I concentrate my thoughts on the male who’s been inside me. Who can help me now. Who can hurt me more deeply than anything Quinn could ever do.

  My heart pauses, frozen in a sudden rush of fear that has nothing to do with the vamp on top of me. Shoving though it, I holler anyway. “Ellis!”

  Quinn slaps me across the mouth, blood spattering onto my tongue. “Your fuck buddy is not even in the building.”

  “Ellis,” I shout again, using all the air in my lungs. My call bounces off the stone walls, the closed window. Echoing and repeating itself. My mark tingles again, my need for Ellis waking the liquid power inside my blood. The primal raw truth beneath the call makes the air inside the room move. “Ellis, help!”

  The air swirls as if trying to carry my words outside, the small phantom breeze picking up with each heart
beat. More and more. My hair ruffles, Quinn’s eyes widening in confusion as a gust of wind strikes his face and continues moving. Swirling. Crashing into the window, and again harder, shattering it to bits, just like his damned phone.

  Quinn shoves away from me, twisting into a fighter’s crouch toward the small explosion.

  Inside the room, the wind picks up even more as I feel Ellis’s answering call tugging on the bond inside me. The male heard me. Is coming. Is close. I don’t know how I know, but I do.

  The swirling air turns into a small cyclone that clips the edge of my writing desk, breaking the wood.

  Holy hell.

  I dash for the door. Yank on it, hitting the very doorstop I pushed into place.

  “I’ll kill you, bitch,” Quinn growls, his sharp canines on full display as he grabs my hair and uses it to slam me into my dresser.

  Pain rakes though my body. The storm picks up with it. Outside, voices are starting to shout, the broken window apparently having gotten attention. Someone bangs on the closed door. The handle rattles. The noises meld together as the pain and magic flare, the strength I felt in the cage with Ellis filling me once again. Raising my arm, I shove at Quinn with everything I have.

  And a wall of air throws the vampire across the room.

  “Devinee,” Ellis shouts from the hallway. “Open the door! It’s me.”

  I glance over my shoulder toward the door, but don’t move. Now that I have Quinn pinned against the wall, I don’t dare let go. The air cocooning him is moving so fast that it presses into his neck, cutting off his breath. I wonder how much air vampires actually need, whether Quinn can survive long without breathing. I wonder whether I care.

  Grabbing one of the wooden splinters from my shattered writing desk, I advance on the vamp. Darkness fills me. Darkness and cold and pain. My heart calms, my eyes narrowing on the vampire’s chest. My hand tightens around the makeshift stake.