Hybrid Academy Box Set

by L. C. Mortimer

  But there was something different about Alicia.

  Something that Erin didn’t like.

  Erin walked along the corridor, carefully feeling her way down the narrow space, and she thought about Alicia’s reaction to Maxine coming to Hybrid. She had thought that Alicia would be thrilled to have a legacy student at the academy, but Alicia hadn’t been. Not at first. In fact, she’d seemed almost…angry.

  Oh, Alicia hid her emotions well, but there had been something in her eyes that Erin didn’t like.

  It wasn’t just anger, but fear.

  Alicia and Erin had spent years apart, and when you were away from someone for a long time, you didn’t always notice just how much they could change or adjust. Sometimes you didn’t see the little things that made them not quite the same.

  You didn’t see that they were getting a little mean.

  You didn’t see that they were getting a little jaded.

  Alicia was both of those things. Erin hadn’t raised her suspicions to Max. She hadn’t even raised them to Maddison. She simply couldn’t be sure that Alicia wasn’t the same sweet woman she’d always been. It was just an inkling she had. There was just something strange.

  Another day, she’d try to find answers, but right now, she needed to get to the office before orientation started. It wasn’t fair that Brax was giving Patricia a hard time. He shouldn’t be bullying her. He shouldn’t be berating a student who was trying her hardest. No, Patricia hadn’t always been Erin’s favorite person. She had never been her favorite person, actually, but she was still a person who deserved to be loved.

  She deserved to be treated right.

  Nobody deserved to be treated poorly or like they weren’t important.

  Especially not a student.

  Erin went up some steps. She stopped and peeked out a tiny hole that opened into a hallway. Some students were walking by.

  “This is my first year,” a boy was telling his companion. “I wonder what sports we’ll play.”

  “There will be a lot,” the other boy said. “My mum said chess is really big here.”

  “That’s not a sport,” the first boy said.

  “It is the way I play.”

  The two kids laughed and kept on walking. Erin shook her head and kept going. She went down a narrow step, around a corner, and then straight in a line until she reached the door that opened directly into Alicia’s office.

  Perhaps this wasn’t fair, though.

  Maybe she shouldn’t be bursting in like this, even if she was in a hurry. A witch was many things, but polite was one of them. Sneaking in the back door? That wasn’t very polite. Regardless of her current relationship with Alicia, Erin had always prided herself on being kind, and besides, it had been a year since she’d seen Alicia. A lot could change in that amount of time.

  Was it okay to simply show up at someone’s office when you hadn’t so much as spoken to them in a year? How would Alicia react to something like that? Perhaps Erin should go back to one of the other exits and use those.

  Yes.

  That’s exactly what she would do.

  She would forget about the orientation and being late. They could talk in the halls if they had to, after all. There was still time to find Alicia and ask her about Brax. As the headmistress, she needed to be aware when a teacher was causing problems. It could reflect poorly on the school, after all, and Alicia cared about nothing more than Hybrid Academy.

  Erin turned and prepared to step down from the little ledge she was on. She was going to go back to the last exit and make her way through a couple of hallways. Then she could go into Alicia’s office using the main door, but then voices caught her attention, and Erin stopped moving.

  She stilled, listening.

  And then goosebumps covered her arms.

  There were two voices, and they were coming from Alicia’s office. One was familiar and one was not, but Erin was very aware that she shouldn’t be eavesdropping. She shouldn’t be listening in like this. Not when it mattered so much that she speak with Alicia. Anything said in the office of the headmistress was private. It was a closely guarded space that was nearly sacred in nature, but Erin couldn’t make herself move.

  She was frozen, rooted to the spot, and she was listening.

  “Absolutely,” one voice was saying. It was Alicia. Erin would recognize her old friend’s voice anywhere. “It won’t take long for us to get our hands on it. Not this year. They’re so carefully warded when they’re away from the school, but here…”

  Erin’s blood ran cold as she realized that Alicia was talking about Maxine.

  Who else could she be referring to?

  Erin had taken so much care to keep Max carefully warded when she wasn’t near the school. Her wards weren’t nearly as strong as the ones Cara and Falcon had been able to apply to their child before they left. Erin couldn’t do blood magic, after all, but she could do other things. She could make Maxine seem to be practically unnoticeable when she wasn’t on campus.

  And Alicia had taken note.

  She was talking about Maxine and Maddison’s spell book now.

  She was discussing how she was going to get her hands on them.

  It was the book, really, that the vampires had been after when they’d taken Maddison away. They’d kidnapped her in order to try to get her notes about the Wolaftiam spell. It was something they’d been after for years, but they’d never been close. They knew the ingredients they needed, and they knew the legend of the potion, but actually finding out where each special ingredient was located? That had been a mystery to the vampires. In fact, it had been a mystery to both Erin and Maddison. They’d spent most of the summer trying to track down where the different items were located so they could find more leads about the disappearances of Cara and Falcon, but oh, they’d come up empty so many times.

  Why was Alicia talking about this now?

  Why was she discussing this in her office just moments before the year’s orientation was scheduled to begin?

  Erin stepped closer to the wall and pressed her ear against it. She could hear them even more clearly now. Whoever Alicia was talking to seemed to know all about Maxine, and the book, and the potion. Erin’s blood ran cold as she thought about what this meant. She hadn’t told Alicia very much about her niece at all. There were some secrets that Erin guarded with everything she had, and Maxine’s true identity was one of them. She didn’t think it was imperative that Alicia, or any other teacher at Hybrid Academy, know what had happened to Maxine in the past.

  Still, Alicia seemed very aware that Maxine was not only important to the vampires, but that her grandmother possessed a book full of research, spells, and information.

  And Alicia seemed to want that book very much.

  But why?

  The man’s voice came.

  “Here they let their guards down.” He made a tsk sound with his tongue, and the sound sent a shiver through Erin’s body. “Here they think they are safe.” Erin could practically hear him shaking his head.

  “Nobody is going to think twice about letting me get near the child,” Alicia said. “And if Erin is as big of an idiot as I think she is, she’ll leave the book with her. It’ll be easy to take.”

  “She didn’t last year. The book was never close to you at all.”

  “Last year was different.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” the man’s voice sounded angry, rough. “You always say this. You always say that this year will be the year, but it has been many years.”

  “It was different,” Alicia said, demanding. “Last year was entirely different from all of the others.”

  Erin pictured the woman stomping her foot. Alicia always had been quick to anger. It had been one of the things that had torn them apart, eventually. Erin wasn’t perfect. Not by any means. She wasn’t the type of person to jump to anger as a first resort, however.

  “They didn’t bring the book last year and you were too busy trying to keep Elkridge from spilling your s
ecrets to do anything else.”

  “It was unlucky that the girl caught him changing the creatures back.”

  “It was unlucky he even decided to make an antidote,” the man said. “We won’t need one.”

  “Why not?” Alicia asked. “You don’t think it’s a good idea to have one in case someone accidentally ingests the potion?”

  “The vampires will never be so insane as to do that.”

  “You never know.”

  “I do know,” the man said. “And now that I’ve turned you, you’d do well to listen to me.”

  Wait.

  Erin held her breath as she realized what the man had just said. He’d revealed a secret. It was one that Alicia must keep very closely guarded because if anyone knew, she would be cast out as headmistress immediately.

  Alicia had…turned?

  Erin had heard of vampires turning humans into the blood-sucking creatures only in legends. She didn’t think it was something that anyone actually did. After all, it wasn’t like werewolves could transmit their forms to anyone else. Werewolves were born: not made. It had been the same for vampires, or so she’d always thought.

  Now, she was starting to realize that the world wasn’t quite as black-and-white as she had thought it was.

  Especially when it came to someone she used to know.

  No, here the world was blurry, and nothing really made much sense. Erin had always prided herself on being in control of everything around her, but with this…

  Well, this was out of her hands.

  She stepped closer to the wall. She pressed her hands against the wood. Then she moved, carefully, toward a little hole that opened into the office. She would bet that Alicia had long ago forgotten about this little spot. It had been a place where she and Al had once spent their time peeking into the headmaster’s office to eavesdrop and find out which teachers he was planning on firing. The previous headmaster had been a bit of a clown when it came to keeping teachers on staff. He was constantly letting people go for the most minor of infractions.

  Now, as she peered into the room, she was surprised to see Alicia not only standing with the man she had heard, but embracing him, as well.

  And her blood ran icy as she recognized who he was.

  It was Alexander: the vampire king.

  It was the man behind everything.

  He was the one who had caused Maddison to go missing. His crew had taken her, captured her, and held her captive while searching for her spell book. The book had been carefully hidden away, though. Even Alicia hadn’t been able to get her hands on it. Not without revealing her secrets, which were, apparently, quite bigger than Erin could have ever imagined.

  “I always listen to you,” Alicia said. She ran her hands up the man’s chest, and she looked at him longingly. Yeah, it was safe to say that Alicia was enamored with him.

  “Oh, my dear queen,” the man said. He stroked her cheek softly and looked at her. “You have no idea how much this is going to change.”

  “We’re close.”

  “So close.”

  “As soon as we have the book.”

  “The vampires believe they have an idea of where the coven is located,” Alexander said. “They will have the book with them.”

  “Good. When will they snatch the witch? She’s been evading my grasp for weeks now,” Alicia said, and Erin thought back to the previous weeks. Strange things had been happening all summer. She’d constantly felt as though she was being watched or followed, but she’d brushed it off as simply being paranoid or nervous. She’d warded Maxine, as well as herself, and she’d never been approached by anyone strange or unusual or dangerous. Still, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that someone had been keeping a close eye on her.

  She’d taken on a lot when Max moved in, and although Maxine was a more than capable adult, she was also very new in the world of magic. There were many things Max didn’t understand about safety and protocol and staying under the radar.

  To say Erin had been worried constantly for the last three years would be an understatement.

  “As soon as she leaves today,” the man said. “You believe she’ll be here to drop off her niece, correct?”

  “Of course,” Alicia said. “Erin comes every year.”

  “You should have grabbed her before.”

  “We didn’t know where the book was before.”

  “We still don’t.”

  “But we’ve found her home, her nest, and we’ll be able to go through it until we find the book. If the old woman is there, she’ll give it up once she knows we have Erin and Maxine. She’ll do anything for them, and we aren’t taking her captive a second time.”

  Alexander smiled, and it made Erin’s blood run cold.

  So, this was it, huh?

  This was their end game.

  This was their evil plan.

  They’d been biding their time, letting each piece of the puzzle fall into place, but now it was all over.

  Now it was go-time.

  Now it was time for them to make their move.

  Once they had Erin, they’d have leverage. If they managed to get Maxine, too, they’d have more than enough to convince Maddison to not only turn over her spells and her research, but herself, as well. Maddison was a wonderful woman, but there was only so much a single woman could do. Asking her to avoid turning herself in was one thing. Asking her to let her granddaughter die was another.

  And Maddison was no quitter.

  She would view giving up herself in exchange for Maxine’s life a worthy sacrifice, but it was one Erin didn’t want the woman to make.

  The vampires couldn’t get her book.

  Together, Erin and Maddison had managed to piece together what happened to Cara and Falcon. Cara and Falcon had gotten the recipe for the potion, but Erin and Maddison had done more than that: they’d found supplements to the original ingredients that would work in the same way. They’d spent the summer working through book after book, legend after legend, and they’d discovered that the list of ingredients for the spell could be manipulated based on your geographical location.

  Ruby flowers were no longer necessary.

  There were alternatives.

  And oh, Erin did not want Alicia to get those alternatives.

  She’d thought for awhile that there was something strange about Alicia. Now she realized what it was. She’d been turned. Alicia was no longer simply a magical witch. She was a vampire now, too, and she was no longer looking out for the good of the students.

  Forget talking with Alicia about Professor Brax.

  There were bigger fish to fry today.

  Erin turned to move back down the tunnel. She needed to get to Max. Her niece was going to have to opt out of her third year of school. For that matter, Kiera would need to, as well. Alicia likely knew how close the girls were, and if that was the case, then Kiera could be in serious danger. If Alicia really was a vampire, then she wasn’t above making dark and evil decisions. There was no doubt in Erin’s mind that Alicia was the type of person who would grab Kiera if it meant she could be used as Bait.

  Erin loved her niece dearly, but she wasn’t sure if Maxine would be able to resist trying to save her friend if she was captured.

  Erin certainly wouldn’t.

  This was all happening so quickly. The day wasn’t going anything like Erin had expected it to go. In fact, she quite thought they’d be preparing for orientation, sitting nicely during a few speeches, and then unpacking all of Maxine’s magical items from home. Erin didn’t think she’d find out her old buddy was secretly completely evil.

  Damn.

  Talk about an unpleasant twist.

  Erin took a step away from the wall, but the light on her wand flickered, and she slipped just a little. The sound that came from her shoes as she slid on the hard work flooring was almost undetectable.

  If you were a human.

  But Alicia and Alexander were not humans.

  They weren’t de
mons.

  They weren’t faes.

  They were dark vampires and they had hearing that was even better than that of a shifter’s. She was no longer looking through the hole that led into Alicia’s office, but Erin knew without a doubt that the vampires were looking at her: directly at her.

  She paused, holding perfectly still, but it was too late. Her heart seemed to beat out of her chest as she counted silently in her mind. One. Two. Three. Four. How long until they came for her? She held perfectly still. It didn’t matter, though.

  They had noticed her, and that meant it was all over.

  There was no way she could get to Maxine before Alicia did.

  There was no way she could escape from the woman at all.

  There was simply no way.

  Still, Erin was a fighter, and she wasn’t about to stop trying. She would do whatever it took to protect her niece, no matter what the cost, and so Erin started to run. She’d made it just a few steps when she heard the walls around her breaking. The vampires had come after her. They’d thrown themselves through the sides of the tunnel: one before her, and one behind her.

  Then they grabbed her, digging their nails into her skin.

  Erin opened her mouth to scream, but Alexander clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “There, there,” he said. “None of that, now.” He looked over at Alicia. “Friend of yours?” He asked.

  Alicia’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Erin. How had they ever been friends? Erin should have realized long ago that Alicia was up to no good. She should have realized that the headmistress didn’t have her heart in the game. She should have known that no matter what, Alicia always looked out for herself.

  How had Erin allowed herself to be tricked?

  Alicia motioned for Alexander to move his hand. Erin opened her mouth to scream, but Alicia shook her head.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” she said.

  “Why the hell not?” Erin spat out.

  “Because I’m about to go acquire one little shifter witch from orientation,” Alicia said. “And if you want me to play nice when I get her, you’re going to have to show me that you’ve earned it.”