“Home sweet home. Yes. That does make more sense. How do you like it? I’m in the room just through there. We share this washroom, but don’t worry. There are all kinds of modern human conveniences so you don’t miss anything you would have had at home.”
“Is all of this yours?” I asked, my fingers brushing over one of the feather-light brushes overflowing from a silver vase.
“No, silly! I use magic when I get ready in the morning. These are for you.”
My heart skipped. “I really can’t afford—”
“You’re our guest. They’re gifts.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. The King spared no expense in ensuring that you all would enjoy yourselves here.” She clapped her hands together and pointed to my suitcase and backpack, which I hadn’t let out of my sight since leaving my mother’s car. I wasn’t going to let anyone magic them out of my sight. “Now, where are the rest of your things? Are they coming through the travel service?”
Bold of her to assume that I had any other things. But considering the trunks and towering stacks of boxes that some of the other humans had brought with them, I guess it wasn’t too ridiculous as assumption. I wasn’t entirely sure how any of us had been picked. It didn’t seem like our personal essays and transcript submissions would be enough to decide something this monumental, but that was all they’d asked for. What had been made very clear to me, though, was that I was in the definite minority here. Most of the selections appeared to be the children of dignitaries and statesmen. I was a nobody. At least by comparison. I shrugged off Kyra’s concern, my grip involuntarily tightening around my backpack strap. “There is no rest. This is it.”
With a wave of her hand, Kyra send a bolt of magic my way… At least, I was pretty sure that’s what it was, having never really seen magic before. All I knew is that one minute, the suitcase and my backpack were firmly in hand and the next minute, their contents were neatly spilled out all over the bathroom tiles for her inspection. Kyra’s shock paled her already impossibly pale cheeks.
“You’ve left Earth for an entire year and you brought six tunics, a handful of night-dresses and two pairs of denims?”
“First of all, they’re t-shirts, long t-shirts for sleeping, and jeans. And second of all, don’t judge my wardrobe!”
“I’m not judging! It’s just…” She waved her hand again and it was as if nothing had ever happened. The clothes returned to the suitcase and my backpack returned to my shoulder. Was I ever going to get used to the easy, habitual way they all used magic here, like it was a reflex instead of an amazing feat of nature? “Not to worry. They’re wonderful clothes. And so many books! More books than clothes!”
“I like books,” I shrugged, re-shouldering the heavy bag of books slung over my arm. The truth was that books had always been my escape, my way to leave the world of earth and my mom and my crummy life and just let myself get swept away from it all. I clung to books because they were my life-preservers in a rocky storm, the only thing keeping me afloat. Bringing them along with me to Velkin—yes, even though I’d stolen most of them from the local public library system… (Sorry, Mrs. McRopolis)—only seemed right considering that they were the only part of my old life that I had any interest in carrying with me into the new one.
“Then you should see the library here. It’s magnificent. Maybe we could go after supper?”
“That sounds amazing.”
✽✽✽
Unfortunately, there wasn’t going to be any after-supper library trips for Kyra, because when I told her I wanted to rest my eyes for a few minutes, what my body apparently meant was for a few hours. I had no idea that you could get jet-lag between universes, but one minute, it was daylight out, the perfect time to grab a quick power-nap before dinner, and the next minute, the sky outside was dark, the castle was quiet, the clock inched past one in the morning and my stomach was growling so loud I was afraid that I’d wake my snoring pixie roommate.
For awhile, I tried to just shut my eyes and go back to sleep. Tomorrow I’d wake up and rustle up a nice, big breakfast and start the day off fresh. But every time I tried to coax my body off into dreamland, my stomach grumbled, complaining about my lack of movement in a kitchenly direction.
“Okay, okay,” I mumbled in response, throwing off the covers and stumbling out of bed. I’d never slept in anything taller than a sagging couch, so the height of this bed confused my equilibrium, but once I recovered, I headed straight out of my bedroom door and out into the maze of a castle.
Around ten minutes later, when I found myself outside on a great stretch of greenery overlooking a lake, I cursed the fact that I hadn’t paid better attention on the tour. Maybe I’d taken a wrong turn at the bottom of our staircase…or maybe I’d missed a fork in the hallways on the second floor, or…
I didn’t get a chance to finish the thought. I didn’t get a chance to retrace my steps and find something to eat. I barely even had time to breathe before a shadow moved behind me, and spoke with a devastating, dangerous growl, one that activated my every nervous instinct…and a few sensuous ones, too.
“What are you doing here?”
Chapter Four
Anatole
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. The why of it all eluded me. She was not more beautiful, not more gifted, not more politically expedient a choice than any of the other humans in attendance at our school, and she was not even a more preferable choice to any of them. Even the best human was still a human, and therefore completely unacceptable.
But that night, as I lay awake in the bed in the Academy’s Royal Suite and listened to the sounds of a magical night wrap around me, shaking her from my mind proved impossible. No amount of vampires rustling the leaves of the trees while on their nightly hunt or sprites disturbing the damp grass with their evening dances beneath the moon could keep me distracted long enough to purge her from my thoughts.
I didn’t even know her name. A stack of files, courtesy of my father and his advisors, were waiting on my desk: one for every human student now in attendance at the Velkin Royal Academy. Learning her name and everything known about her would have been as easy as flipping through a few leaves of parchment. The idea didn’t sit well with me, though. What could you really learn about someone, human or immortal, from a few words on a page? What would a file on me say, for that matter, and would I want someone deciding my fate based on the scribblings of an enemy? Anatole, prince of Velkin, heir to the Magic Throne and The House Starborn. Legendary good looks. Legendary temper to match. Alongside his younger brother, Adric, he fought against his father’s planned peace with the humans. Avoid at all costs or approach him with as many weapons as you can carry.
Human or not, I would make my own decisions about the character of someone based on my own experience with them, not what one of my father’s advisors had hastily scribbled down about her from her applications. But even with my mind made up, I couldn’t shake her. She danced around the edges of my thoughts, ducking away any time I thought I’d gotten close enough to reach out and grab her.
As the clock struck one-fifteen, I decided that a walk would be best. Maybe I would stumble upon a vampire in the forests beyond the castle and throw myself headlong into a not-so-friendly battle against him. That always worked when I wanted to blow off steam. Energy hummed beneath my skin, the same kind of excitement that always came to me when a fight loomed over the horizon. Fortunately for whatever poor creature I might have come across, though, I never made it to the far edge of the Snow Tree Wood, where the vampires liked to take their evening feedings among the wild deer that grazed there.
Because standing there at the edge of the castle terrace overlooking the forest, was the human. The one whose quietly defiant stare had been haunting me since the moment our eyes locked. An unwelcome wave of rage welled up inside of me. This insidious presence presumed to walk these gardens alone? The gardens my father had planted for my mother and cultivated with the magic of his own
two hands? She dared to stand there against the marble railing, bathed in moonlight, as if she belonged there? My voice dipped to a deep, uncontrolled growl, the kind I normally reserved for only my most dangerous and hated of enemies.
“What are you doing here?”
“What?”
At the sound of my voice, she spun on her heel, sending her rich, dark hair spinning in a halo around her and her scent dancing on the wind. Sweet, like summer wine, even though the night was cold and the seasons were beginning to shake into the cold of winter. Then, as she squared off at me without a hint of trepidation, I got the full view of her.
It was not often that I admitted this. But I had been wrong. She wasn’t average or ordinary or a singularly normal example of human womanhood. Here, outlined in the silver of the moonlight and the glow of the constellations that flooded the dark night’s sky, she was perhaps the most stunning creature I’d ever beheld. Sirens and angels didn’t hold a candle to her.
Just as quickly as softness towards her rose within me, though, anger rose to greet it. I could not—would not—feel such a thing for a pathetic human. And even if I did, I would have to know better than to act on them or inspect those thoughts too closely. Some of the prettiest creatures in Velkin were also its most dangerous; the principle no doubt held true for humans. I would not allow myself to be distracted by this temptress clutching her too-thin shirt to her ample chest for warmth.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that this was the prince’s private balcony. Am I disturbing you, your highness?”
She…she wasn’t afraid of me. And she wasn’t trying to impress me. The force of those twin revelations struck me like a blow directly between the eyes. Oh, Gods. My stomach dropped. The little mortal thought she was teasing me. Striding towards the railing, I leaned against it and looked out over the kingdom that would one day be mine, pointedly staring at the trees and mentally cataloguing them instead of letting my eyes drift to her.
“Your very presence in this realm disturbs me, human.”
“And your dragon’s presence on Earth disturbed a lot of humans, elf.”
Of course. Everything led back to Adric’s stupid, impulsive decision with the dragon. I swallowed back a sigh and squared my shoulders. She couldn’t be allowed to see even a flicker of doubt or weakness in my expression.
“That was a mistake.”
“How?”
“Because whoever let that dragon loose didn’t instruct it to burn every last one of your cities to the ground.”
A lie. Adric’s entire goal in ripping through the veil between our world and their world had been exactly about just that: destroying the world of humans and taking what few prisoners of war he wanted back to Velkin to serve us. But he hadn’t counted on Earth being so big…Or their defences so strong. Not that I would ever admit the Earth’s technical prowess to the human girl. The last thing anyone in Velkin needed was word getting back to the human leaders that the magic folk had been deeply intimidated by the Earth’s many mechanical menaces.
When I became King, I would lead the armies to destroy each and every one of their weapons. I wasn’t going to allow my people to cower in fear behind peace treaties, terrified of the machines and mortals as my father had.
I told the lie about the dragon as an intimidation tactic, as a way to wipe that tantalizing smirk from her pink, moonstruck lips. To my surprise, though, it had the exact opposite of its intended effect. The girl rocked back on her hips, readjusting herself so she had an unfettered view to size me up. Her gaze was hot against my cheek. I wasn’t sure if the sensation was painful or deeply, intimately pleasurable.
She’d caught me in the middle, a place I never reveled in being.
“Gee, whoever gets stuck marrying you is one lucky girl.”
My mood shifting at the thought of my father’s sudden marriage announcement. Truth be told, even when the expectation was that I would marry an elven girl, I hadn’t been enthused by the prospect. All of the most likely candidates were beautiful, yes, and cultured and talented and perfectly suitable candidates, but...the thought of a political match always filled me with unease. My parents’ match had been a happy one, a common elf falling for the future king of Velkin. I’d never been under the illusion that I’d marry for love, but I at least wanted to be happy.
And none of the oh-so suitable elf-maidens making up the royal class made me happy, just as no human could ever make me happy.
“It’s an honor, I’ll have you know, to marry the heir to the Velkin throne,” I said, dryly.
“And have to sit next to you for an eternity? Yeah. I’d rather chew glass.”
The human had spirit. Saboteur or not—and I was definitely leaning towards saboteur at this point, given how little regard she clearly had for me—I couldn’t help but admire the way she held her own against me almost as much as I hated it.
“What is your name?”
“Why would I tell you? I know you’ll just call me human or puny mortal anyway.”
The impulse to use my powers, to glamor her into submission, were strong. As part of the accords between our two peoples, using magic to inflict harm upon a human was strictly forbidden, so I resisted the urge. But...there was still one power I had that I could use over her, a power that had nothing to do with magic. Seduction.
I let my voice relax from its growl into something like a purr, the kind of hushed whispering that always got me exactly what I wanted from women. “I could just pluck the information from your mind, you know. Elves are talented in the…” I let my eyes flicker down to her lips, then moved in closer, just a little closer, just close enough that she would notice and feel how small the distance between us really was. I sensed her emotions shift in the air; whatever was happening between us, she felt it too. “...persuasive arts.”
“Or you could just ask nicely,” she breathed, still defiant though her vibrant brown eyes were slightly glassed over.
“I’m a prince. I don’t ask for anything.”
Her face flattened into that sardonic look she’d been shooting me every time one of her quips passed her lips. And she pushed away from me, strutting backwards as if nothing had just happened between us. “Then you can pound sand.”
She’d...she’d tricked me. Me, the prince of all Velkin, a future ruler, and this little mortal had just tricked me. She’d made me think she’d fallen into my trap only to turn it on me. My jaw tightened.
“You’re a mortal. You don’t get to defy me, do you understand? One day I will rule Velkin and I will make sure that your kind are never so impertinent again. You will curse my name and-”
“What is your name, then?”
I don’t know what possessed me. She didn’t have a hint of magic about her, but something about the way she looked at me then called to something deep inside my long-dead soul, stirring until I couldn’t stop myself.
“Anatole, Prince of Velkin and The House Starborn. But you already knew that.”
She laughed, a sound like a long-forgotten song all at once coming back to you, half-remembered and all-too familiar. “You have your own Wikipedia page. It’s not hard to know everything about you.”
“Then I’m at a disadvantage, human. What is your name?”
“Carolyn. I’m Carolyn Connors.” The name suited her. It wasn’t beautiful by the standards of magic folk, but there was a simplicity to it that I could appreciate. It suited her, like a sunset suited a beach. “And you should know something, your highness.”
“What’s that?”
“All I care about is surviving this year and making it back to Earth with a degree that’ll get me into a good college. I don’t need you. And I’m not afraid of you.”
And I knew that she meant it. Which only made her even more of a threat in my eyes. I’d never before, not in my entire life, met someone who wasn’t afraid of me. Even my parents knew the power I had, the potential I carried within me, and sometimes, w
hen they thought I wasn’t looking, that fear colored their faces.
Anyone who didn’t fear me was either stupidly brave or just plain stupid. And I had a feeling that she was the former.
“You should be, Carolyn Connors. You should be very afraid.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The wind whispered conversations to one another, the east antagonized the west and vice-versa, but neither of us spoke. Our gazes snagged on one another, holding fast because neither of us wanted to look away first. I counted seven gold flecks in her eyes and was about to move on to the eighth when a voice cut through the dark night.
“Anatole? Anatole, are you out here? Anatole—”
A groan fought its way up my throat; I swallowed it back. Ariedre was one of those formerly oh-so eligible elf-maidens who always clung around thinking that I’d choose them for my bride once I took up the throne. The only difference between her and the rest was that we had...well, I’d made some mistakes with her in the past that I wasn’t going to repeat again, and now she thought we were destined to be together. No doubt she’d been searching the castle all day for me...which was why I’d been expressly avoiding all of the places I thought she might look.
Turning away from the bannister, I moved to acknowledge her—all willowy limbs and an over dramatic pout and shock-white braids—but before I could even manage it, she spit out a vomit of words in Carolyn's direction, her face scrunching up in a mask of distaste.
“What are you doing with this thing?”
“Nothing,” Carolyn said, her upturned chin defiant and bold even in the face of Ariedre’s cold, calculating malice. She went to take her leave. “We were finished here.”
“I did not dismiss you,” I said, when what I really meant was, please don’t leave. But Carolyn didn’t hear the subtext. She didn’t stop walking away, either.
Magic Exchange: A Supernatural Academy Romance (The Velkin Royal Academy Series Book 1) Page 3