Betrayal: An Urban Fantasy Academy Series

by Bob Dattolo

  The temptation to bitch slap him came and went, and we parted with varying death threats from him.

  The rest of the time has been spent on my own. Kaylee seems to be leaning farther from me than before. That honestly kinda hurts, but I get it. I’ll keep watching out for her anyway. She was my only ally going into the trial, and I won’t abandon her even if she doesn’t want to be with me.

  Eva and Tiffany have been annoying bitches when I’ve seen them in various places. More so when we’ve been in the room. They’ve spent a lot of time there and made it clear that they hook up when they can. Too bad for Eva she’s not willing to let it all hang out, because I’ve been her clam jam several times so far. The sexual frustration has been pretty fun to witness. Especially since Tiffany thinks nothing of continuing and trying to get my roomie naked for some fun.

  No, we’re not connecting yet.

  “There you are, you filthy freak!” Levi’s familiar voice gets heads to turn in the caf. I arrived early enough to get a nice corner table all to myself, and he sat at the very next one. Samantha, Parece, Paige, and Riley are on the other side of me. Angelica, Gage, and Kynal are farther along the wall. We’re still connected, but we’re trying not to make it obvious to others.

  “I told you, Levi. You gotta love yourself!” He frowned at my response and it was made worse by soft laughter from others in the group. Especially those that are new.

  I’ve come to find that there are some craaazy strong new students. I’m not sure if they’re stronger than Levi since he’s up there, but they’re up there as well. That means that a ton of people aren’t hiding away from things like laughing at him.

  “I’m gonna tear off your fucking skin, you slag whore. I’m gonna piss in your mouth and make you drink it!”

  Hmm, “I’ve done that, Levi. Having people piss in my mouth? Granted, I was forced into that for years and then the day before the trial when people did it, but that’s nothing new to me. You know I’m a fucking dragon, why you think that would bother me is laughable. You can come over here right now and piss on me and it won’t even stop me eating.” My smile grew, “You’d just better be sure I’m not gonna tear it off and eat it, because that’s an option when someone interrupts my dinner.” I clacked my teeth together.

  He doesn’t smell like fear, which I’m a little shocked by. He smells like pure rage. Actually, worse than the last time I dealt with him before break started. It’s like he’s been marinating in his own rage for months.

  “You don’t scare me! I know what you are, freak. You’re a fucking stricken!” His voice went up, making sure everyone in the caf heard it. I haven’t heard any rumors from the new kids about me other than their conversation, so Eva and Tiffany didn’t seem to tell anyone. He looked around at everyone, “That’s right! She’s a stricken! She’s trash! Inhuman trash! Look at her, fucking white eyes and hair, that’s not dye. That’s her being a freak that needs to be killed! She killed good students last year and she’s sitting there now acting like she belongs here! She killed people while on break! The parents are still hunting for her!”

  Shocked looks by the new kids, with everyone looking this way. So, in for a penny, in for a pound, “Hey, everyone! I haven’t met most of you. My name is Maddie Stricken. As Levi pointed out, I was a stricken. I’m still a stricken by name. Don’t get stuck on that, though, because I have magic again. I can see. I’m a dragon. Yes, I get that I don’t smell like that, but too bad. I am. As for killing students? I only ever killed in challenge. Them against me. I challenged someone that hit me for no reason. As for those four on break? They attacked me. All of ‘em. I didn’t go after them. Take that however you want.” My focus went back to Levi as I stood and began heading for him, “As for Levi here? You’re big and strong, Levi. A gold dragon. Wonderful. You’re huge when you shift. You’re good looking.” His eyes hooded as I smiled again, “Well, the scars tend to fuck that up, but that’s what you get for attacking me again and again. You get to live with the results of that. If you’d only lose the crazy, you might be an okay guy. Yes, I killed your parents, but I’ll say this again for the hard of hearing, they were busy raping and whipping me at the time. They deserved everything I did to them. I didn’t even know they were your parents. They never said it any of the times they showed up to rape me into being unable to walk for a month at a time. So take your anger over that and go fuck yourself. As for you?” I stopped next to him and he stood, facing me, and puffing his chest out, “You’ve threatened to challenge me and kill me at least once a week since I met you. All for not being normal and for being a stricken. I’m still not normal. I’m still a stricken. I coulda changed my name, I just didn’t I don’t see a reason to do it. I don’t feel any shame for being what I am. Why you hate it is beyond me. So here we go again with the threats. You killing me. Yadda yadda yadda. I gave you an out last time to come for me and you didn’t take it. So here it is again.” I raised my hands, “Everyone! Levi Winters has an open call to challenge me at any time. For any reason. For no reason. I’ll accept it. In fact, I’ll give you a reason to do it since you don’t seem to want to take that step.” My slap took him down and sent him tumbling from the table to hit the wall. He very nearly rotated completely before hitting the ground, although I think I stopped from shattering his jaw. His eyes bore into me as he pushed his way to his feet, blood dripping from his mouth and nose, “There we go, Levi. You have an open opportunity to challenge me. I slapped you. That gives you full legal right to challenge me above and beyond me already giving you that ability. You want to tear my skin off? Have at it. Challenge me. I’m kinda sick of your shit.”

  I went back to my table and sat, looking out across a silent caf, then turning back to him, “I’m waiting, Levi. I’ll be here when you want to actually do this and not just talk about it. To be fair, though? Every single time you say you’re gonna kill me? Every time you say you’re gonna challenge me but don’t? I’m gonna slap you just like that. Every. Time. I don’t care if we’re in class. I don’t care if we’re in the hallway. I don’t give a flying fuck where we are. You wanna come at me? Come at me. If not? Then shut the fuck up and leave me alone just like I’ve left you alone. I don’t blame you for the times your father would break my hips with dildoes the size of my thighs tearing me from ass to pussy and then fuck me time after time while your mother whips me until you can see my backbone, shatters my jaw, then makes me go down on her. So you blaming me for killing them is pretty fucking rich.” Another look to the group, “For those of you that don’t believe me? Talk to the dragons. They’ll tell you I’m telling the truth.”

  Shockingly enough, it’s Tiffany that responds, “She is. Completely.”

  Levi walked from the caf, leaving his tray behind. He never challenged me.

  Ryan caught my eye from across the room. I can’t tell if they’re allied up again fully or not. They weren’t together, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much since they came in at separate times.

  Now to see what happens with that. As much as I don’t want a challenge, I’ll do it even if I know I’ll die from it. As I’ve said before, I go out on my decision. Not on someone else’s. And my decision is that I stand up for myself even if it means being killed. Just like I stood up for myself and gave myself to Reggie for so many years and allowed him to do everything to me. I took part in it. It was needed to survive, and my dragon was more than okay with it. Just like all of me is okay with this.

  We’ll see if he shits or gets off the pot. Given his past history, I’m thinking he stays on the pot way longer than anyone would expect.

  After dinner, I wandered a little to see if anyone would try to talk to me. No one did, although some of last year’s kids gave me nods or various short greetings. The newcomers? Nothing like that other than snide comments between them.

  As I hit my room, I found Eva holding her hand, tears in her eyes, with Tiffany holding her arms from the side, “Are you oka…”, she whirled and glared at me.

 
“Hey, girls.” My smile didn’t form like it wanted to as I nodded to my desk, “I told you to not touch my things without my permission.”

  “What the fuck did you do to her!”

  “Me? Nothing. She decided to try to read one of my grimoires again.”

  “I just wanted to show her a spell I saw!”

  “And yet you didn’t ask me first, Eva!”

  She pushed past Tiffany, “I don’t have to ask you, you’re a stricken!”

  “That’s very much my name, but I think you’ll find that’s the only similarity between me and someone with mortmagi in their faces.”

  Tiffany pushed to stand in front of her, “What the fuck did you do! How did you do that! Her hand is burned!”

  I see a black mark, but it’s not too bad, “What did I do? I warned her not to touch my things without permission. I think I’ve been pretty clear about that. Yet she decided to do it again. Now she knows not to do it without permission. Whether or not I ever give it will depend entirely on how I get treated. I have no reason to be nice when I’m treated like shit. I started out being nice.” I tilted my head to the side at the posters overlapping onto my side of the room, “Sort of like I haven’t stopped her from hanging something on my side of the room. I haven’t stopped her because I’m easy like that. I haven’t stopped her to see how far she’d take it. Then I’d decide how to respond based on that.”

  “You won’t do shit to her, it’s two against one!”

  Instead of responding to her, I smiled and waited. And waited. And waited. All the while, their scents kept changing, heading towards worried at my lack of response.

  Finally, Eva asks in a soft voice, “Is it okay if I hang those things on your side?”

  Will wonders never cease? “That’s fine with me. If you have more, I want to be asked again. I don’t really have much to hang and didn’t hang anything at all last year, but I may do that this year.”

  Back to Tiffany, I tilted my head, “Isn’t it easier just to get along? No ruffled feathers. No anger. Just peaceful coexistence.”

  “I’m not a fucking bumper sticker, you stunted little twat!”

  “No. You’re not. You’re an 18- or 19-year-old dragon that can’t see past my white hair, eyes, and scars and somehow thinks my utter lack off fear at there being two of you means that I’m actually terrified of you. I’m willing to get along. I am.”

  “How…how did you do that? With the spell?” Eva gets the question out before Tiffany can further fuck this up. She was going to, too. I can tell that it’s a fight for her not to go off.

  “Charms. They’re wonderful things. Did you know you can create an electrical charge with air movement? It’s very cool.”

  Tiffany tugged her hand, “C’mon, we need to talk.” They left me behind, where I smothered my laugh before plopping on my couch.

  Ahh, prevarication. What I said sounds like an answer, but it wasn’t. Not at all. Charms really are wonderful, and you really can create an electrical charge that way. None of which has anything to do with what I did. I wonder how long it’ll take them to figure that out?

  Chapter 19

  Unlike last year, almost everyone I’m familiar with and have anything to do with is in my classes. Levi and Ryan lead the bunch. Then Samantha, Parece, Riley, and Paige. Angelica, Gage, and Kynal. Eve and Tiffany are in there. As are other new students that I’m just starting to get names for. Christie is Parece’s roomie. She’s an earth mage and seems okay so far. Destiny is there, Angelica’s roomie. An air mage. Then April, Kaylee’s roommate. Although Kaylee isn’t in my classes. She’s the one glaring miss. I’ve heard other names, but it’s mainly the new kids that stick out to me. Cleo, an ice dragon, Stacey, a fire mage, Jason, bronze dragon, Brody, earth mage, and Cesar, water dragon. There are others, obviously, but those new kids seem to really stick in my head.

  My classes are pretty much a repeat of last year, including the order. Instead of basic magic, we have intermediate. Then the same weird combination of English, history, and social studies. Then magical practical application, lunch, affinity focus, and then dragon focus.

  No idea why classes are in the same order, but I’ll take them.

  Intermediate magic is taught by Mr. Giamatti. Salvatore, to be exact. He’s an earth dragon and seems to know his stuff. He didn’t react any particular way to me when he saw me, telling me that he was given information on me.

  He ignored the various comments people would make to me. Including the ones from Levi.

  Who seems to be trying to avoid being slapped.

  The English travesty class is taught by Tempest Taylor. She’s a water mage and is amazingly flamboyant. She looks like she should be teaching an art class, not something like what we have. She’s good, though, so I have to give her credit for that.

  Practical application is taught by Lizbeth Karuthers. She’s an air mage. Also good at her job. She avoided the comments like a pro and didn’t get involved.

  Lunch was lunch, and I sat by myself. Again.

  Affinity focus had me at my own table yet again, although Mr. Timmons didn’t make any comments either. He’s a fire mage and liked to show off little spells that made the class laugh. He’s funny, which helps. I’m kinda sad we didn’t have him last year.

  As I step into dragon focus, a ton of eyes turn to me. Including an adult that’s unfamiliar to me. He smiles as soon as he sees me, “Ahh, you must be Maddie?”

  “I am. Are you Mr. Christo?”

  He nodded, longish hair moving with it. He’s an ice dragon, so the light blue stripes stand out on his black hair, “I am. It’s wonderful to meet you at last. I heard a lot about you last year, obviously. I was at your challenges as well. Those were…eye opening.”

  Ugh, I’ve avoided commenting on them so far, “Definitely not something I want to repeat.”

  “I hear you. I did my time here. Three years of pure warfare.”

  “You say that like you know that for a fact?” I read an article by a guy that served multiple tours in a war zone as a member of the special forces. He has PTSD from his time here, not what he had to do during actual war.

  “I did. I served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the first Gulf War.”

  “Jesus, really? They let you serve that long?”

  He shrugged, “Curse or benefit of being us. I may be 190, but I look just as young as the kids coming out of bootcamp.”

  True, he does. “That’s crazy.”

  “Nature of the beast. Now, if you’d care to join us? We’ll be shifting soon and running people through some things to see where they stand.”

  “Sure? I can do that.” Turning away from him, I moved to the cubbies in the wall and stripped, putting everything in an empty cubby. No, they don’t have locker rooms for us. We’re dragons. None of them care and I sure don’t. Hell, that girl has a tampon in that she has to take out, and she does it without a care. In a little bit here, her vagina is going to be much, much larger than it currently is. It helps that dragons don’t really have a period as humans do, so she’ll get some respite from that. Just a bit.

  All of my classmates are staring at me as I join the semi-circle facing our naked teacher. He has his hands on his hips as he counts everyone, finally nodding, “Okay, that looks like the last of us!” He clapped, getting full attention to him, “Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to your first day of your second year at the academy!” No cheers from the group, which he doesn’t seem to expect based on his smile, “As I told some of you, I’m your teacher, Mr. Christo. Marc Christo, if that matters. For the purposes of this class, please call me Mr. Christo. If you come up with a nickname for me, run it by me first before you use it where I can hear it.” That got some soft laughs and another smile from him.

  “Now, as you’re all aware? This is dragon focus. We’re here to work on our dragons!” His shoulders twitched and he stood taller as he looked across us, spending more time on me, “I am the dragon portion of this relationship. I welcome
you to our class as well. Our focus during this time here is to work on you as a dragon. Most of us don’t spend enough time shifted, so we can be iffy in the air. Landing. Taking off. Seemingly simple things. We will work on that. We will spend some time working on casting spells while shifted. We all know that’s a weak point for us, so we need to make sure that part of us is as strong as it can be. We can rely on our inherent resistance to magic to protect us, but I believe we’ve all seen or heard of dragons being killed. There were several dragons killed in the first year’s trial. While they were shifted. If any of you follow along, the Rodriguez’s? From Hollywood? They were scarred across their face a few months ago. While shifted. We are not immune to spells, but we are resistant. So, with that in mind? We will work through some basic things today as I test each of you. We’ll be working on your shifting. I’ll have you do some basic takeoffs and landings. With and without a perch. Some speed runs. Then we’ll test everyone with a simple spell. This isn’t pass or fail or anything like that. You won’t be graded. But it will tell me who may need remedial focus on certain areas.”

  He looked at each of us again, “Now, who wants to go first?”

  When no one volunteered, Samantha raised her hand, “I’ll go?”

  “Wonderful! You’re up. Wait a moment, I’ll be shifting first.” He shifted, working through everything in about 20 seconds, which is very, very fast. After he stood and shook himself, he smiled to us, “Now, Samantha? Can you change for us?”

  “I can?”

  She shifted as everyone watched. Then he moved closer to the huge outdoor area. The massive hangar-like doors are open, and that allows us to go in and out easily. She had to show him taking off from standing. Then jumping. Then running and leaping. Then from a perch. With each one, he had her do a basic maneuver, then land. He studied it all. Once she was down at the end, he hit her with a basic blast of ice spell that broke apart on her scales, barely nudging her.