by Eva Chase
Academy of the Forsaken
Book 2 in the Cursed Studies trilogy
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
First Digital Edition, 2020
Copyright © 2020 Eva Chase
Cover design: Rebecca Frank, Bewitching Book Covers
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-989096-59-8
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-989096-60-4
Created with Vellum
Contents
Free Story!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Next in the Cursed Studies trilogy
Consort of Secrets excerpt
About the Author
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Chapter One
Trix
Have you ever experienced déjà vu—the sense that you’ve lived through a specific moment before, even though you know it isn’t possible?
I hadn’t. But looking across the campus lawn toward Roseborne College as damp spring air laced with the scent of roses licked over my skin, I had a feeling like that ten times over.
I’d walked up the gravel path in front of me to that looming Victorian mansion more than once. I’d been here what felt like just a couple of weeks ago, full of the determination to get answers about my foster brother’s disappearance. At the time, I’d thought I’d just arrived.
That had been a lie. Beneath my clearer memories of my last venture through Roseborne, fragments of other arrivals, other defiant marches up to the front of the school building, drifted through my mind. I couldn’t tell how many different versions of these first minutes on campus I’d been through. All I knew for sure was that it wasn’t déjà vu, some inexplicable but unreliable sensation. I really had lived through this exact moment several if not dozens of times before.
This time, this once, I remembered.
I dragged in a breath to steady myself. My lungs flooded with the floral odor that wafted off the rosebush that clung to the entire stone wall surrounding the campus, even though the actual blooms were sparse. After everything I’d been through here, it wasn’t exactly a comforting smell, but it reminded me of how much was at stake here—not just for me but every student in the place. How careful would I have to be if I wanted to save any of us from the staff and their unnerving powers?
Forcing my hands to relax at my sides, I strode up the gravel path to the imposing building. I half expected Jenson to come sauntering out with more of the caustic remarks he’d thrown my way on my last arrival, but no one emerged from the school at all. The front steps creaked under my combat boots, and the door squeaked open at my tug.
A few students ambled through the foyer as I came in, the planes of their faces turned harsh by the light of the chandelier overhead. One of the girls glanced my way and let out an audible sigh. The guy beside her rolled his eyes without even fully looking at me.
They obviously knew I’d failed yet another attempt at unraveling the college’s mysteries, at least as far as the staff were concerned. They assumed I was going to go through the same motions of searching for my foster brother and being baffled by the school’s practices as I always had before when I hadn’t remembered.
But I knew where Cade was now. I knew about the emotional and physical torment the professors dealt out on a whim. I knew their powers were somehow tied to a twisted, blossom-less rosebush that was reverberating with unsettling energy in the secret basement beneath our feet.
If I showed that I knew any of that, the staff would realize their most recent attempt to wipe my memories and reset my progress here hadn’t stuck. Lord only knew what shit they’d put me through then. No, I’d much rather leave them in ignorance while I figured out how to best screw them over.
I could already see one change had been made in light of my most recent attempt at unraveling the school’s secrets. The matching suits of armor still stood, gleaming, at either side of the grand staircase that led to the second floor, but their metal chests were bare. Someone had removed the massive shields they’d held the last—and presumably every other—time I’d been here. I guessed I wouldn’t be using that trick to bash through the padlocked basement door again.
I let my gaze skim over them and settle on the door to the dean’s office at my left. That was where I’d started my search before. If I hadn’t known that Dean Wainhouse was a malicious, not-quite-human prick, it was where I’d have turned again. Since I was pretending I didn’t know that, what else was there to do? I stepped up to the door and knocked.
The dean answered a few moments later and peered down at me over his hooked nose in an uncomfortably familiar pose. His pale skin held a silvery tint that matched the hair slicked back from his forehead. That tint had shone starker on both him and the professors when they’d surrounded me in the foyer last night.
My pulse stuttered as that image flashed through my mind, but I forced my mouth into a hopeful smile. “Hi! I’m Beatrix Corbyn. I’m looking for my brother.”
“Your brother?” Dean Wainhouse repeated, his brow furrowing. Apparently he was content to go through the motions of pretending he didn’t know my story already. Didn’t he get as bored with this charade as the students did?
I’d just have to keep playing along. “Cade Harrison,” I said. “He got a spot here on scholarship, came at the beginning of the school year.”
There was that slight hint of a grimace, there and gone so quickly I almost missed it. The dean pushed the door farther. “Come in, and I’ll see what I can tell you. I’m Dean Wainhouse, and I handle student affairs here at Roseborne College.”
I already knew how this would go too. He’d make a show of asking a few more questions, tell me he had no idea who the hell Cade was, and send me on my way. I’d just have to see if I could get anything more out of this interaction without him noticing how purposeful I was being.
Stepping into the large room with its sitting area and broad oak desk, I glanced around as if taking in the space for the first time. Actually, I was checking for any details I might have missed the few times I remembered getting a look at the space before. Were there any secrets tucked away in here that I hadn’t uncovered?
The puzzle box on the desk caught my eye like it had once before. Hmm. Today, my very “first” day here, I could get away with more in feigned innocence than I’d be able to later.
As the dean tossed off a few remarks and questions about Cade’s supposed enrollment, I gave my answers by rote and eased closer to the desk. In a casual gesture, I picked up the puzzle box and turned
it over, my fingers tracing the lines in the varnished wood, feeling for pressure points.
“Pretty cool,” I said, as if I was looking at it out of idle curiosity and nothing more. Through my lowered eyelashes, I checked the dean’s expression.
Nothing in his face suggested he was concerned about what I might find there, and I didn’t hear anything shift inside the box. Maybe it was empty, a diversion and nothing more.
“Yes,” he said. “I inherited it from the dean before me. I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than I already have about your brother. If he attended classes here, I’m sure I’d know.”
Same old story, same old lies. I set the puzzle box down, resisting the urge to chuck it at his falsely apologetic smile. “Can I check around a little, talk with some of the students and see if any of them saw him come by?” I asked. I needed to set up the groundwork for why I was sticking around.
The dean lowered his head in a stiff bob. “That’s acceptable, as long as you don’t interrupt anyone’s work.”
“Thank you.”
One hurdle crossed. I emerged into the foyer with a creeping sensation spreading over my skin as I held back all the comments I’d have liked to hurl at the guy. I know what a sick asshole you are. You’re not fooling me anymore.
Maybe I should be grateful for the years upon years with asshole foster parents who’d quickly taught me that it was better to keep your mouth shut about your complaints unless you were in a position to actually hit back. I managed to hold my tongue.
Soon. Roseborne’s staff wouldn’t get away with the horrors they orchestrated here forever.
My feet carried me a little farther down the hall to the row of portraits that hung there. The one with Cade’s subtle signature, the sketchy starburst that matched the birthmark on his arm and the scar I’d cut into my own arm years ago to match, remained untouched. I studied the figures in the paintings—different types of paint, different styles, but with each of the four young men and three young women depicted wearing the same burgundy jackets over white dress shirts.
I’d seen them before in another way, hadn’t I? Down in the hidden basement in the room that held the warped rosebush, there’d been photographs fixed to the wall. I hadn’t gotten a close look at them in the wavering light, but they’d been wearing the same uniform. The only difference was there’d been eight down there and only seven portraits stood before me up here, although the faint discoloration on the wood paneling at the end suggested there might have been another hung there before.
Who were those people? Past students from a time when the college had insisted on uniforms? What did they have to do with the weird powers that infected the campus?
Before I could think very much about that, sneakered feet murmured across the floor. “New here?” the boy who’d joined me said in a mellow voice with a slightly hoarse undertone, familiar and much more welcome than anything else I’d recognized yet. “You look a little lost.”
I had to restrain the grin that wanted to leap to my lips as I turned to face him. The sight of Ryo Shibata’s boyishly soft features, made edgier by the silver eyebrow ring and the bright green streaks that shot through his smooth black hair, sent a flutter through my chest. The flutter set off a nervous jolt in turn.
Ryo had been the only student here who’d been friendly from the start of my last few weeks navigating this place—friendly and sweet, and passionate when he decided to be with an intensity that gleamed in those golden eyes. From the wisps of memories that had reached me from further back, he’d stood by me and tried to make the horrors of the college easier to cope with a whole lot more times than that.
From what I’d gathered, Roseborne collected students with some sort of destructive past. I didn’t know what crime had brought Ryo here or what his punishment for that crime was, but he cared about me… and I’d started to care about him. More than I should? How much could I truly count on him when he didn’t really know me?
I shoved those questions aside and smiled back at him with a restrained warmth that I hoped would look normal to anyone watching. Everyone around us would assume that as far as I could remember, he was a stranger. He wouldn’t expect me to remember him either.
“I am new, actually,” I said. “Maybe you could give me a hand?”
Ryo’s eyebrows twitched slightly upward. Maybe he’d caught something in my expression that suggested I was more aware than I was letting on. I needed to talk to him—to the few people here who’d proven they were willing to help me—if I was going to have a real chance of overcoming the beings that ruled this school. I could handle a hell of a lot, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think I could overthrow a bunch of supernatural dictators all on my own.
“Sure,” Ryo said easily. “What did you need a hand with? I could show you around the school if you’d like.”
Yes. We needed a place to talk where the staff weren’t likely to overhear. This building wasn’t really secure. The possibilities flitted through my mind.
The carriage house. Pretty much no one ever used that, from what I’d seen.
I kept my tone innocent. “You know, I was curious about that building off to the right of the school—the one that looks like some kind of old-fashioned garage? Could you show me how to get in there?”
“Not a problem.” He motioned for me to follow him, studying me with even more curiosity than before. If he did suspect that something was up, he knew better than to press the subject here.
He led me out of the mansion and across the lawn to the long building with its three wide doors that would have admitted carriages a long time ago. I didn’t really need Ryo to escort me—the entrance wasn’t locked and opened easily at his nudge—but it bought us the privacy I wanted.
Ryo turned to consider me as the door clicked shut behind us. In the dim space with the aroma of old wood and leather rising around us to cut through the ever-present roses, I couldn’t stop my mind from slipping back to more intimate moments we’d shared here. Just last night, we’d fucked on one of those padded benches. From the glimpses I’d gotten into previous journeys through this place, that hadn’t been the first time, even though I’d thought it was at the time. It’d been good. It’d been exactly what I’d needed.
Without letting myself second-guess the impulse, I stepped forward, set my hand against his cheek, and kissed him.
Chapter Two
Trix
Ryo’s breath stuttered in surprise against my mouth, and then he was kissing me back hard, his fingers tangling in my hair as if he thought that would help him hold me here. A sharper heat sparked low in my belly, but now wasn’t the time to get overly distracted. After a moment, I forced myself to pull back.
His eyes gleamed even brighter than before as he stared at me. “Trix?” he said, both hopeful and hesitant to give more voice to that hope.
“I didn’t win the day, but I beat them a little this time,” I said. “There’s a lot I need to tell you. But not just you. Can you find some excuse to get Jenson and Elias out here?”
Ryo beamed at me, so brilliantly another of those flutters passed through my chest. “I’m sure I can figure something out.” He paused, as if he couldn’t quite tear his gaze away from me. “It’s good—so good—to have you really here.”
My voice came out quiet. “For me too.”
He hurried out, and I wandered farther into the carriage house. The main hall down the middle of the building held a few of those leather-padded benches, but I felt too restless to sit down. Eagerness and uncertainty clashed inside me at the thought of seeing the other two guys who’d helped me in their own ways. Who’d offered me a sort of devotion that was only just starting to make sense.
The three of them returned together, but Jenson took the lead. He strode into the carriage house in mid-sentence: “—understand why I might not totally trust your judgment?”
His coolly confident voice trailed off when he caught sight of me. He came to a halt, his bright blue eyes fixed on my face, h
is tall, slim form held with his typical nonchalance. The artful scruffiness of his cinnamon-brown hair and the slight crook to his nose gave him a roguish air that he wore well.
“I’m back,” I said, the corners of my lips quirking upward as I waited for his full reaction. “With a lot more of my mind than they think they left me with.”
My recent associations with Jenson Wynter could best be described as “chaotic.” The last time I’d made my arrival at Roseborne, from the moment I’d approached the school, he’d begun a campaign to try to harass me into leaving. But here and there a playfulness had started to come out between the barbed jabs, and eventually he’d been able to make it clear that he’d been an asshole in an attempt to protect me from the torture the college subjected its students to.
The bits I remembered from times before only reinforced that revelation—while leaving me with more questions this didn’t feel like the right time to ask.
Jenson blinked at me, and then a smirk stretched across his face that was nothing less than triumphant. “Holy fuck,” he said. “Look at you. Wait until those pricks find out they messed with the wrong girl.”
The third guy in our strange sort-of coalition had come up beside Jenson. With his buff, broad-shouldered frame wrapped in one of his usual suits, Elias DeLeon gave the impression of someone to be reckoned with before he so much as opened his mouth. His expression stayed stern as he took in my exchange with Jenson, his dark brown eyes alert with thought.