by S. L. Morgan
I felt my palms sweating, and then Tanner gripped my shoulder. “No matter where we go, we’ll all meet up in two to three years.”
“Still Montana, right?” I said in a shaky voice.
“That diner I told you about brags that they make the best pies.” He winked. He was always the positive one, but I could now see the trepidation in his eyes too.
“Well, that’s me,” Vannah said when her name was called.
WTF. “They’re not calling names in order? How un-academy-like of them.”
“That’s not a word, and no they aren’t, so pay attention,” Vannah said. “I love you, Jenna.”
Okay, she was bidding me farewell. What school would I be attending after the Immortal Elitists got their butts out of here? After always getting in trouble, totally pissing the dean off today, and my stubborn attitude, I was probably heading off to the supernatural school of fallen angels or some crazy crap like that.
“Jenna Silvers,” Miss Alicia’s song-like voice rang out, looking right at me with her bright yellow fairy eyes. “Jenna?” she laughed, trying to make it seem like fairies could actually be sweet.
I couldn’t freaking move. My butt was glued to my cushioned chair. My wolf…she wasn’t happy about this either. When my inner Jiminy Cricket seemed to hide in her cage, not liking this at all, I knew something wasn’t right about going to this school. I just didn’t know exactly what.
It would’ve helped if my wolf gave me some reason why she was hiding deep within me, but nope, I was on my own. This royally sucked. My wolf made better decisions than I did, and yes, she was pretty much my alter ego. I thought differently than she. We were two separate minds but still one and the same. It’s how all shifters and their animals within them were.
“Jenna,” Tanner whispered. “Get your butt up before the fairy moves it herself.”
I looked at the horror on Tanner’s face. “I love you,” I told him. “God, I hope you get into this place, I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”
“Two to three years,” he reassured me. “Go. I know that Vannah is going to flip when she sees you!”
I found my feet and unglued my butt from my seat. I left quietly through the back doors, not even having the desire to shove it in the fox girl tribe’s faces.
Once the bright sun touched my face, I glanced around, completely lost for the first time in my life. I should have run off to where Vannah was waiting and assured her she’d have her bestie at IA with her, but I couldn’t. I was seriously heartbroken. How the hell was I over eighty percent immortal?
I heard the door shut behind me only to see another witch who’d made it into IA. I had to get out of here. I had to calm down. I was so screwed. I was going to some elite academy, and with the way my manners were, you’d think I was a rat shifter instead of a wolf. How was I going to manage this?
My wolf perked up at that, and I drew on her strength and shifted instantly. I took off toward the woods, leaping over the rapidly flowing creek and kicking up dust under the pads of my paws. I don’t know why I thought this was a great idea, it’s not like running away was going to solve my problems—it would just screw me worse.
I stopped at the edge of the veil at the thick forest line and sat down, facing a black paved road out in the middle of nowhere. I curled my tail next to me and stared through my wolf’s eyes at the temptation just to step out of the veil and into the human world. Maybe I would never shift back.
“Stop it, Jenna,” I heard Vannah say.
My wolf whimpered, how was she in my head?
“I’m always in your head.” I felt tender hands run along my silky coat, “I brought you some clothes, you need to shift back. They’re almost done loading everyone into a fancy-looking charter bus headed for IA.”
I shifted back, feeling comfort in my best friend’s strength. She tossed me some gym shorts and a hoodie. “It’s all I could find in your locker, and we don’t have time to get our stuff from the dorms.”
“What?” I said, pulling my gym clothes on. “I have personal stuff. They’re taking everything from us? What are they going to do to us at this place, transform us into robots?”
“Quit being so dramatic,” Vannah said. “You’re overthinking. Why did you come out here?” Her eyebrows shot up in humor, “to run away?”
“I don’t run away unless I sense a threat.”
“You don’t even run away from threats, Jenna,” she said dryly. “You face that stuff head on. What’s your problem? I wanted to hug you and be so excited that we’re off to IA together, but your aura is dark and depressed. What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to see my parents again. Now, not only am I going to be three years deep into this lame academy that everyone treats as the best place on Earth, but I’m going to be split from my guys too.”
“Making new friends isn’t the end of the world.” She hugged me, “Don’t forget, we all made a pact to meet up in Montana after the IA releases their students. So let’s go.”
“Three years isn’t that long,” I said out loud, mainly to myself.
“No. It’s not.”
“How’d you know I was here?” I asked her, my mind settling down and beginning to wonder how my bestie teleported to my hidden escape spot.
“Well, Tanner’s over eighty percent immortal, and when he saw you missing, he knew you’d be here. So I teleported here, and voila…here you are.”
I hugged her tightly. “This isn’t going to be that bad after all. Tan’s gonna be there, and so are you.”
Exactly.
“Don’t tele—”
Too late. My witchy friend dropped my stomach when she did her stupid teleporting thing, and the next thing I knew, we were in line, facing the large charter bus and ready to load. Tanner was at my other side in a flash. I smiled at my best dude, knowing if I had at least these two with me, we’d be in and out of this academy in no time. This was actually going to work out well.
At least that’s what I told myself over and over and over again.
Chapter Three
I remained quiet as we loaded the bus, watching a tall, lanky man with long silver hair carefully assessing the newly-selected students as they attempted to board. I had thought I’d seen everything growing up in supernatural schools until one fairy girl was caught trying to sneak onto the bus without the exclusive immortals only permission.
A cloud of gray dust kicked up right as she walked toward the man. At first, his eyes turned creepy white, then the dust came out of nowhere, and in a whirlwind, it snatched the girl off her feet, and…poof!…she was gone. No one said another word after that.
I knew the girl who was whisked away only because of the snobby friend she tried to sneak onto the bus with. They were two obnoxious fairies who forever got away with everything just to get good grades and stay at the top of their class. They charmed their professors with their fairy dust and by kissing their butts at every turn. Now, the stuck up duo was split up, and God only knew where Destiny’s sidekick, Kira, was whirled away to.
At this point, I clamped my mouth closed and shut off my mind. These immortals didn’t put up with crap, and it was already showing. I was betting the hardest part of being at this academy for me would be keeping my mouth shut, my head down, and just getting through the next three years without a whirlwind of dust taking me off to the unknown.
“You’re best to think that way too, Miss Silvers,” the tall dude said as I approached him. “Yes, we are a very strict academy, and for a good reason.”
This dude was mysterious…and weird. Aghhh, stop thinking, Jenna! The man smiled and held out a long arm, motioning for me to enter the bus. I leapt up the steps, seeing some students I’d never seen before were already seated on the plush seats. It was evident that Dark Water wasn’t IA’s first stop on the way to gathering all of their new students. I had no idea where the others had come from, but we were all headed to the same destination.
I took a seat next to Va
nnah. I let out a breath and rubbed my forehead as I noticed that the dark windows from the outside of the bus were a facade. There were no windows on this thing at all.
“I guess they’re afraid we’ll giveaway where the school is if we actually see where we’re going. Why do all academies feel they have to do this to us?” I whispered to Vannah.
“You know that reason,” she answered, reclining some in her oversized seat. “If you knew where Dark Water was and you were successful in your escape, then you could give away the school’s whereabouts to the first human you felt like confiding in.”
“That’s lame,” I said, sinking further into the comfortable seats.
“Why were you out there, anyway? You’re not one for running away from things.”
“I know. At first, I think I really did want to run away from it all, but the more I think about it, I think I’m just curious about my family. I really thought this would be my chance to get out.”
“Why, though?”
The bus jerked without any prompts and then gravity pinned us to our seats like we had hit warp speed.
“Good grief,” I said, gripping the armrests, feeling a wave of nausea overwhelm me. “I’m going to need to shift just so I don’t barf.”
“Here,” Vannah said. She rubbed my arm, and a purple and pink swirl of energy seeped into my skin and headed straight to my bloodstream. My nerves instantly calmed with her relaxing spell. Sometimes it was awesome to have a witch as your BFF. “Feel better?”
I smiled. “Yes. I could fall asleep right now.”
“I know you want to meet your parents, and I back you on that. I just don’t understand why it can’t wait.”
“I don’t know, either. I feel like there is much more to my life, and it will never be complete until I see them again.”
“Do you remember them?”
“No. Maybe that’s why. I’m crazy, I know, but I do and say things that make me wonder if I got certain mannerisms from my parents. If I did, what were they like? Am I an only child? Maybe I have some human in my bloodline, and that’s what makes me feel this way.”
“If you had an ounce of humanity in your bloodline, you wouldn’t be heading off to IA. You know that any human who procreates with an immortal will produce a mortal child one-hundred percent of the time. They can still be supernatural, but definitely not immortal. That’s common knowledge.”
“Well, then, there’s the first clue. Ma and Pa aren’t human, and my ancestral line was never crossed with human blood.” I yawned. “What the heck did you do to me?” I rubbed my arm, realizing I was more tired than I should’ve been.
“I released a little more punch to that spell. You were fidgeting like crazy after I brought you back from your planned escape, and I’m not going to let you show weakness by needing to be in wolf form just to travel on a bus.”
“That’s moving a thousand miles an hour, by the way.”
“Funny how you feel the gravity pulling you,” she said with a smile.
“Shifter. One with the earth, my friend.”
“Attention students, we are arriving at the outer barriers of Immortal Academy. Please pay attention as these rules must be followed after you are dismissed from your seats.” A chime of a voice came over the intercom.
Sounded like another freaking fairy. It was looking as though IA was a fairy-ran school, which was totally going to suck. Fairies were ruthless, and you couldn’t trust them for anything. Well, some were cool—the elves and leprechauns, primarily—but the rest? No.
“Once your rows are dismissed, you will follow one of the masters to Brickhall Theatre where you will then be given your uniforms, dorm room information, and schedules. In exactly two hours you will report back to Brickhall where you will be admitted into the auditorium for introductions. Thank you, and welcome to Immortal Academy. You are our future.”
“Here we go,” I said, glancing over at Vannah. “New school, same crap.”
“I’m sensing that you should probably tone down your attitude until you get your bearings here. Look what happened to Kira. I’m pretty sure this school isn’t messing around.”
Our row was next, and so I patted my bestie’s hand and stood up. “That’s what worries me. Who knows, maybe this school is the best thing that ever happened to us.” I glanced around the bus, seeing Tanner had found some cute chick with bright pink hair to mingle with while on the magic bus ride to never never land. “Looks like Tanner already fits in,” I said with a laugh.
“That boy will wind up busted before he knows it. A shifter flirting with a pixie? Sort of stupid if you ask me.”
“At least all eyes will be on busting him and not me.” I nudged my friend and followed her down the aisle and off the bus.
When we stepped off and our feet hit the glittery, lime green grass, I felt like we’d been brought to supernatural paradise. My eyes—which had excellent sight thanks to my wolf—took in the most majestic place I’d ever seen. This place shimmered, sparkled, and swelled with beauty underneath a brilliant white sun.
From where we stood, all I could see was a colossal, silver brick building. Next to the golden entry gates were two brick columns that swept up and created a vibrant archway that students were walking through and toward the steps to the open doors of this place.
Brickhall Theatre was being written—and I mean being written over and over with some invisible magic pen with glittery gold ink—on a black plaque that was placed on each column that the archway was built up from.
“This is where we go.”
“You think?” I answered my best friend’s soft voice. “Is my witchy friend shocked for the first time in her life?”
“This place. The magic. The talents. It’s so…” She gazed up at the shimmering white steps we were headed to. “It’s unreal.”
“Yeah. Don’t let the looks deceive you. Part of me thinks this place is pretty on the outside and probably freaking black as sin on the inside.”
“So we have a pessimistic new student. Wow. Most students are enamored at our beautiful school,” a raspy voice said as we entered into a luxurious atrium.
I glanced over to see a woman in an elaborate gown offering a warm smile that literally forced me to smile back. “I’m just acting new,” I rattled off, not knowing how to answer.
“You’ll catch on.” She winked, nodded, and then we followed the group down the large floor to ceiling window-filled hall.
“You okay?” Vannah asked, snatching my arm, and flooding my body with warmth from her energy. “That was a vampire, and she just made you look like a bumbling idiot. I’m sorry, I should have snapped you out of the soothing spell I cast on you before we got off the bus.”
Coming to, I looked over at Vannah’s dark and flawless skin, seeing pink touch her cheeks. I could tell she felt like crap that she put me at the mercy of a friggin vamp.
Humans had a funny idea of what vampires were. They weren’t the bloodsuckers that all of the books and movies portrayed. Most vampires fed off of the physical energy of their prey instead of their blood. Once they sucked out a person’s energy—supernatural or human, mortal or immortal—they could do a real number on their victim’s mental state, making them do almost anything they wanted. I shouldn’t have been surprised that a vamp didn’t resist the first opportunity it got to make a shifter—one of their most hated supernatural rivals—look like an absolute dumbass.
It wasn’t Vannah’s fault she threw me at the mercy of the haughty creature, but I couldn’t have her protecting me to the point of hurting me at a new place like this. I needed control of all my senses.
“I promise to behave and keep it cool, so long as you promise no more spells unless I’m dying. Cool?”
“Dying? She laughed. “Girl, we’re immortal, and unless I missed something in Professor Mark’s class, immortals can’t be killed, but I know what you mean. No spells, period. I feel horrible for putting you at her mercy.”
I glanced over my shoulder to where
the vampire once stood. “Don’t feel bad, I’ll get my revenge.”
“That’s your first mistake,” a deep voice said from out of nowhere. “Revenge is not a word you want to use at IA,” he said, walking at a brisk pace.
“Great, you’re already getting busted,” Vannah said as I studied the robust guy with pitch black hair walking past the line of new students marching in the hallway.
From behind, the dude was gorgeous. You could see his back muscles flexing in his tight, navy polo shirt, which was tucked neatly into his slacks, and the shape of his…
“Jenna,” Vannah said as I almost ran into the line of stopped students. “Pay attention.”
The dude who interrupted my conversation had stopped and stood off to the side. His hair was tamed and smoothed back on the sides. The top was cut short, but you could see where he had some wave to it. He glanced our way with his dark brown irises, and the girl chatter kicked up like that gray dust that hauled Kira away from her best friend. I couldn’t say I blamed any of them.
This guy had a perfectly symmetrical, utterly gorgeous face. Strong jawline, biceps stretching the short sleeves of his shirt—must have just worked out—this guy was perfect, and it was all probably going to be for nothing because he was a warlock or something.
His brooding look made his jawline flitter with apparent frustration. I watched as a beautiful, leggy, raven-haired girl, who surprisingly matched this dude’s tall height, approached him from the side, and a smile lit his face when he spotted her. As if he needed any more help on looking like the most gorgeous specimen I’d ever seen, that smile sealed the deal.
“Quit gawking. You look like every other helpless girl waiting in this slow-moving line,” Vannah said with annoyance. “Sheesh, you’d think a school like this would have their admissions part down. Let the witches do it or something. This is ridiculous.”