by Rachel Angel
It was inconceivable.
It was also frightening to realize that she could be so gullible and easy to deceive.
She thought back to their first encounter.
April had been the one to make her feel at home, to feel welcomed.
Not long after that first day, April had been there to show her the Faery Realm. April had told Harley about her powers and helped her to grow confident with her new and unusual powers.
Damn. The more Harley thought about it, the more she realized how April had been there every single time Harley had felt lost and alone. And every time, April had made her feel loved and safe.
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They’d laughed together. On several occasions, April had made her laugh so hard, she’d even peed in her pants a bit, making April laugh even more.
Harley had often gotten back at April by making her laugh just as hard. April was the only person with whom Harley allowed herself to be silly, almost childish. She’d speak in a funny high pitched voice and pretend to be one of the professors and April would crack up.
Laughing to herself, Harley remembered the day they’d been walking to the administrative building when Harley spoke in her funny voice, causing April to stoop down and pretend to pick a dandelion in order to avoid wetting her pants.
The more she thought of all the good times she’d had with April, the more the deception hurt.
But then she thought of April’s reaction when Harley had announced that she would be staying with Kingsley.
On the one hand April had been happy for Harley, but there had been a strange new tension that had settled in between. Harley had pushed 24
Disruption (Fallen Fae Academy #5) herself to ignore it. At times she’d wondered if April wasn’t perhaps just a little jealous of the love Harley had found.
Then again, April had shown great joy and pride when Harley had had her successes.
Had it all been just for show? Just an act?
Harley closed her eyes a moment, then looked down at her hands as tears of frustration and deception trickled down her cheeks. Just as quickly as the tears dripped off her chin and onto her shirt, she chuckled.
If anyone outside noticed her sitting there staring out the window and weeping, they would surely assume she’d broken up with a lover; that she was heartbroken. Well, she thought. It might not be a lover she was breaking up with, but it was still very heartbreaking.
And what to think of her father?
Not only had it been difficult to accept that he was the Dark Fae, but it pained her to think that he viewed April as his adoptive daughter in the human realm.
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After all these years, all this time apart, why had he never sought to find Harley, to make a connection with her? She was his daughter. She was his flesh and blood. Why did she not matter to him?
It was strange how all her life she’d never known him. Had never even been aware of his existence. She’d never known what kind of man he was and while she’d never deluded herself into thinking he was the perfect man, she had nonetheless expected him to, at the very least, be a good man.
But he was everything but a good man. It was almost enough to make her question her own integrity. How could she be certain that she was good if she had his blood pumping through her veins?
Shaking the thought from her head she stood and looked around the familiar dorm room that had been enhanced with her new glamouring.
At the time of that new glamouring, Harley had fully intended to remain with April. They were new share this nice, new dorm room that was more 26
Disruption (Fallen Fae Academy #5) like an apartment than just a room. They now had their own bedrooms, a true living room and a fully functional kitchen.
All the was missing now was the friendship.
It would be like living in a hollow shell.
“I have to find another place to live,” she muttered to herself. “I can’t spend a semester in here. I can’t live with someone who’s deceived me.”
She looked around and searched for clues about April; who she really was… what she really was. She went through her bedroom, through her drawers and closet. But there was nothing. Nothing that gave her away. Everything looked normal.
Harley returned to the living room and noticed the scarf hanging on a hook by the door.
Her heart weighed by sadness, she picked up the soft cotton scarf April had given her the previous year. As she fingered the fabric, she could still see the smile on April’s face as she’d offered the gift.
“You played your part well,” Harley said into the empty dorm room. “Always smiling, always supportive and always on my side. Always.”
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Chapter 2
Loud shouting finally shook Harley out of her stupor. She headed back to the window and looked out at the wide expanse of lawn across from the administration building.
A large group of people were gathered in a circle, cheering and pumping their fists as they all looked toward the center of the circle.
It was a bright and beautiful day, with the sun shining and not a cloud in the sky. It would have been a perfect day for picnics in the park, throwing a ball around in the field or just strolling the grounds that surrounded the Academy.
Instead, there was something dark despite the bright sunlight.
Harley focused in on the group of students, trying to understand what the shouting was all about.
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Disruption (Fallen Fae Academy #5) It could have been students happy to see one another. It might have been students playing a game of some sort. Or it may have been students who were up to no good.
Judging by the tone of the shouts, Harley sensed it was the latter. The faces of many of the shouters were contorted in anger or the thrill of something ugly to come.
She let the scarf fall from her hand and headed to the door. The school year hadn’t even officially started yet and trouble was already stirring.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have glamoured the campus at all, she thought. Perhaps it had been a mistake to think that the campus could run smoothly without the dean around.
As Harley walked out of the dorm, she could hear more clearly the shouting coming from the growing crowd.
It all sounded so vicious and vile.
“Get him!” they shouted. “Get him!”
In the midst of the shouting, there was a sad and unfortunate cry of pain… a whimper, a whine.
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Dreading what she would find, Harley slowly made her way to the crowd. The shouting grew angrier and bloodthirsty, almost murderous.
From the center of the crowd, she could make out more sounds of pain; punching, cracking, slapping, thudding.
It was a sickening cacophony that was made all the more disturbing by the growing and plaintive cries of anguish.
Then she saw them. Standing above the crowd on a small podium, Cici and Ashley oversaw the entire spectacle.
They were glowing, beaming with pride and satisfaction as they looked upon the crowd.
Dressed like fashion plates, they seemed ready to go out clubbing instead of watching a schoolyard fight. Cici had her hair pulled back off her face which was dramatically made up with thick eyeliner, super long eyelashes and bright red lipstick. Wearing a latex white mini skirt and matching tube top, she was as glamourous as a movie star and as striking as any super model.
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Disruption (Fallen Fae Academy #5) Ashley, in black leather skintight pants and a red tank top, wore the same dramatic make up as Cici, but had left her hair loose and flowing.
Sensing Harley’s gaze, they both looked at her. Their eyes narrowed and sinister grins spread over their lips. They turned away from the spectacle in front of them and headed toward Harley.
“So,” Cici said with a charming tilt of her head. “I see that you’ve recovered from the
shock.”
Harley glared at her. “Quite honestly, I doubt I will ever recover from the shock. But then, I imagine that learning of a friend’s betrayal is something neither of you can understand. Allow me to enlighten you; being so betrayed by a friend is not something you get over easily. That is obviously something you two wouldn’t really know anything about that, now, would you?”
Cici and Ashley looked at one another, then burst out laughing.
“Honey,” Ashley said. “Don’t take it so personally. It’s all part of the game. Sometimes you can trust your best buddy to be there for you in a bind…”
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“And sometimes,” Cici went on as she laughed, “you have to figure things out on your own.”
They both shook their heads as they looked at Harley with feigned empathy.
“Well,” Harley said, “clearly we don’t share the same views of friendship.”
Cici poked her tongue into her cheek and looked Harley over. “I’ll tell you what… if my friend let me walk out the door looking the way you do, I would cross her off my list.”
Harley looked down at the plain blue jeans and simple black shirt she wore. Far from looking like a fashion plate, her fashion sense leaned more towards comfort and functionality, especially in times such as these.
“Considering what’s under your fashionable attire,” Harley retorted, “I don’t consider your opinion or advice to be of any worth. You two are even worse than April.”
Cici shook her head and grinned as she took a step closer. “Yeah,” she said in a raspy, almost threatening tone. “It’s going to be fun being back 32
Disruption (Fallen Fae Academy #5) here with you. I’d almost forgotten how enjoyable it was to make your life miserable.”
Harley glanced over their shoulders at the melee behind them. “Somehow, I feel that you two have already begun to make trouble.”
Ashley glanced back and smiled wickedly as she brought her gaze back to Harley. “Oh, that,” she said with a chuckle. “We’re just putting a few recruits up to the test. We want to see what they’re made of before we give them the go ahead.”
“Recruits?” Harley said, trying to hide her concern. She had assumed it was all just a schoolyard brawl. Just students blowing off steam.
She suddenly became acutely aware of the power that Cici and Ashley now had. Without the dean to rein them in, and without the Fallen Fae Boys to maintain some degree of control over them, there was nothing to stop them from turning the entire campus upside down.
Nothing but me, Harley thought.
“Yeah,” Ashely said as she nonchalantly checked out her manicure. “We’re going to need some help whipping this place into shape, and we 33
Rachel Angel
don’t want a bunch of losers on our side. We want people who can put up a fight and put up with a lot of pain.”
“Want to see what we’ve found so far?” Cici offered. “I’m sure you’ll be interested.”
Not really, Harley wanted to say. But she did want to see what the chaos was all about. She did want to see just how depraved and maniacal they could be.
Cici and Ashley turned to the crowd who parted open to let them into the inner circle. Harley, a few feet behind them, glanced at the hungry eyes of the people around her.
There was something bloodthirsty and vile about them, making her all the more anxious about what was really going on.
When Cici and Ashley arrived at the center of the circle, they parted to let Harley get a clear view of the ritual.
Three young men, stripped from the waist down, were on all fours. Thick leather collars were clasped around the necks and they were all tethered to a central post by long leather leashes.
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Disruption (Fallen Fae Academy #5) Their faces were bloodied, but not from any fighting or blows. It was the blood of the poor animal in front of them. Torn apart, it was difficult, if not impossible to identify what type of animal it had been. Its heart and other organs lay half eaten on the ground while the three men growled their lust for more.
Another young man, dressed all in black and heavily tattooed in the face, came up behind them with a long thin branch and whipped their behinds.
The young men grimaced and winced. After a second, they asked for more.
Cici glanced back at Harley. “This is only the beginning,” she said. “New recruits are put through this initial hazing ritual, and then we test them even further. It’s a pleasant way of reading their thirst for blood while analyzing their ability to endure pain.
It’s a neat show.”
A neat show? Harley was not only disgusted by the spectacle, but appalled by the crowd’s enthusiasm for such a display.
Ashley turned and reached out to touch Harley’s nose with her fingertip. “Don’t worry, 35
Rachel Angel
sweetie. We’ll be sure to let you know the moment we schedule the next one.”
“Yeah,” Cici added. “We wouldn’t want you to miss out on the fun.”
“You know damn well that the Academy’s administration will never allow this,” Harley said.
“You’re only able to get away with this now because the staff hasn’t fully returned.”
“Plenty of them have returned, Harley,”
Ashley argued. “They just don’t care.”
Cici giggled. “That, or they’re just too afraid to try to stop us.
There was something so disturbingly evil in her laughter. Something so deeply sinister. It sent a chill up Harley’s spine, and as she clenched her fists in frustration, she was also drenched a wave of despair.
“Why are you doing this? What’s the point?”
Harley said.
“You know,” Cici said as she reached for a lock of Harley’s hair and fingered it with vague interest. “I used to really enjoy spending my time with Kinglsey and Oak and Zed and Red. They 36
Disruption (Fallen Fae Academy #5) were all such fun boys. We had some good times together. We played tricks on the new arrivals. We threw outrageous parties. And we had the wildest orgies. Yeah, so much fun. We fucked their brains out, and – they – loved – every – minute – of it.”
“Until you came along,” Ashley said with a grimace. “You turned them into mush.”
“You turned them into dull boys.”
“You’re just angry because they preferred being with me instead of you,” Harley shot at them.
They simply huffed in response.
“You’re jealous because they fell in love with me while the only thing that you had to offer was lust.”
They shrugged.
Ashley beamed. “Well, that part of it sure was fun.”
“But, as you were both able to assess, it’s not enough.”
“No matter,” Cici said. “We’re beyond that now.”
“Yeah. We’ve decided to replace them with a newer, fresher and more thrilling band of boys.”
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“We are creating a whole new Fallen Fae Boys leadership. It’s going to be great. Maybe you’ll even want to join us.”
“I doubt it,” Harley said.
Clapping joyfully, Ashley looked all around her with excitement. “But it is all so wonderful.
Soon we’ll have dozens of strong, sexy and beautiful young men at our beck and call.”
She grabbed her breasts in a vulgar manner that attracted the eye of everyone around her.
“And,” Cici added. “We’re going to have some pretty fierce women in the mix as well.”
“Of course,” Ashley agreed. “And they will all be bound to the Dark Fae.”
After whipping the young men’s backside a few times, the man in black with the thin branch put the sole of his big black boots to the men’s bloody rumps and pushed them to the ground.
The crowd applauded and even the men lying on the ground seemed gleeful.
“You’re both fools if you think you can r
eally get away with this,” Harley said.
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Disruption (Fallen Fae Academy #5)
“You can always try to stop us,” Cici said with feigned innocence and purity as she batted her exaggerated eyelashes.
Ashley came up close to Harley. In a menacing manner, she put her hands on her hips and stared into Harley’s eyes. “I would sure love to see you try to stop us. I’m just itching to get my hands on you.”
Although Harley had no idea how she could ever stop them, she knew that she would have to at least try. Perhaps she could recruit a few of the more honorable students to take her side.
“Believe me,” Harley said in her most biting tone. “I will stop you!”
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Chapter 3
Harley wandered the campus grounds for a good part of the afternoon. On the one hand, she admired the work she’d done with the buildings and grounds, and she was proud of it. Her glamouring of Fallen Fae Academy was spot on.
Each building, whether it be the Law Building, the Arts Building or even the Athletics Department, had the best of both worlds. They all had modern features, like the solar panels, UV
protectant glass windows and state of the art alarm systems, and it was all dissimulated behind beautiful architecture, classic trimmings and elegant lines.
Beyond all the beauty of the architecture, inside every building were classrooms that optimized learning, dorm rooms that fit the personalities of the individual students and a sports 40
Disruption (Fallen Fae Academy #5) complex that would even make a professional sports team envious.
But on the other hand, what was the point of it all now? Harley wondered.