Hybrid Academy Box Set

by L. C. Mortimer

  Erin swallowed hard. She didn’t want to admit that Alicia had bested her in every way. She’d gotten better grades at Hybrid, she’d gotten better boyfriends. Hell, she’d even gotten better girlfriends. No matter what the two of them had done, Alicia had always managed to come out on top.

  “Why?” Erin asked, shaking her head.

  She wanted to know why.

  “Why?” Alicia laughed. Alexander gripped Erin, holding her tightly in place. There was no chance she could run away now. Not that she’d even think about trying. Erin was a strong witch, but she was no match for Alicia and Alexander together.

  She couldn’t vouch for Alexander’s magical abilities, but the fact that he was an old vampire meant he was strong in ways she couldn’t even imagine.

  And he was probably clever.

  And a huge asshole.

  “How many reasons do you want, Erin?” Alicia sneered.

  “Uh, one?”

  “I’ll give you more than that,” Alicia said. “Starting with your brother.”

  “My brother?” What did any of this have to do with Falcon?

  “Your brother never even looked twice at me,” Alicia shook her head. “He only had eyes for Cara. No matter what. No matter how often we hung out and no matter how many times we did spells together, she was the only one that he saw.”

  “He was already married when you met him.”

  “To a mundane,” Alicia shook her head. “An ordinary witch. Ha.” Alicia scoffed and frowned. Erin thought Alexander was tensing, but she wasn’t sure. Was he jealous of Alicia’s apparent desire for Falcon? Erin thought back to when she had been a student at Hybrid. Sure, she and Alicia had spent time with Falcon and Cara, but it had never been a significant amount of time. Then again, Erin had been busy hanging out with Melanie. She’d been struggling to master her spells. She’d even dated a little.

  Had she missed something?

  Then it hit her.

  And she realized just how ignorant she’d been all of this time.

  She’d spent years wondering why Cara and Falcon had suddenly, out of the blue, decided to go on an incredible expedition. She’d wondered what had been so important that they’d left everything behind, including little Max.

  “You were the one who made them go,” she said. “You told them to look for the potion.”

  Why else would they have left behind their baby?

  Even a decade ago, Alicia had been charismatic and engaging. She had always known exactly what to say to get what she wanted. She knew how to work a room and she knew how to work people. She had this strange ability to be able to just understand what people wanted more than anything. Then she could offer that to them.

  And Falcon had always thought it would be wonderful if his wife could shift like he could.

  “Oh Falcon,” Erin murmured. “What have you done?”

  Alicia laughed. It was shrill and terrible and something that made Erin’s blood run cold. What had he done, indeed? If he’d somehow gotten mixed up with Alicia, then that explained so much: Alicia’s hatred for their family, the way the vampires had seemed to be drawn to Hybrid Academy, and how Maxine had been having such a hard time since she started school.

  “What did Falcon do?” Alicia said. “Oh, honey. Where do I begin?”

  “Could you wrap it up?” Alexander interrupted. “I mean, I can appreciate the villainous monologue, but enough is enough, Al. I don’t want to hang out in here.” He looked around the tiny tunnel they were still standing in. Little specks of dust floated in the air, and he fought back an obvious sneeze. “It’s creepy, and you know I don’t like tight spaces.”

  “Fine,” Alicia hissed. “Then back in my office.”

  Together, Alexander and Alicia hauled Erin into the headmistress’ office. They sat her in a chair and Alicia snapped her fingers. Instantly, long, purple ropes threaded out of the chair and wrapped around Erin. She wiggled, testing the bonds, but they were secure. Almost instantly, they vanished, but she could still feel the invisible bonds holding her in place. She wasn’t sure what kind of spell it was, but Erin knew that she didn’t like it.

  “You won’t be going anywhere,” Alexander said, stating the obvious. Erin knew that Alicia was a good witch: a strong witch. There would be no easy escape from this trap. Not for Erin. Not today.

  “Please. Just tell me what happened to Falcon.”

  “Falcon is dead,” Alicia said harshly. “That’s all you need to know.”

  A tear slid down Erin’s face. She’d known for years he was gone, but to hear it put so bluntly still stung.

  “Tell me.”

  “I didn’t force him to go,” Alicia shrugged. “All I did was give him a little bit of…encouragement.”

  “You showed him the potion.”

  “I showed him the legend. We found the ingredients. We got to work.”

  “You went with him and Cara, didn’t you? On that trip. You were there. You knew they had a daughter back home, but you still led them into danger.” Erin shook her head.

  “Danger is my middle name,” Alicia waved a hand lightly, as though Falcon’s life had meant nothing. Erin hadn’t missed that Alicia didn’t say Cara was dead. Why not? Why had she been so quick to announce that Falcon was dead, but not mention Cara? Maybe, there was a chance she had escaped. It didn’t explain where she’d been the last twelve years, but maybe there was a chance.

  Maybe.

  “Then why haven’t you replicated the potion?” Erin asked. It had been bothering her, driving her mad. “If you went with them and they’re both dead, then why wouldn’t you make it again and again?” The story didn’t quite make sense.

  “Yeah,” Alexander said, leaning against a wall. The gothic-looking vampire was probably in his mid-twenties when he’d been turned. That is, if he’d been turned. Maybe he’d been born and had simply stopped aging once he got to his proper adult size. She wasn’t sure. “Why don’t you tell the little witch what happened, Al?”

  He sounded pissed about whatever had gone wrong. Apparently, even vampire couples could have trouble in paradise. How interesting.

  “Your stupid sister-in-law destroyed the flowers.”

  “What?”

  “The most important ingredient in the Wolaftiam spell are the ruby flowers. There’s only one place that they grow. Your brother, Cara, and I all went to find them. We were going to make the potion together and try it out.”

  “And something went wrong.”

  “Yeah, Cara went wrong. When she shifted, she knocked the potion over. It poured all over the bed of flowers and killed them instantly.”

  Go Cara.

  Erin stayed silent and tried not to react.

  This was wonderful news. Cara had shifted, but she hadn’t died, right? Was there a chance she hadn’t died? Maybe she was just in her new animal form somewhere. If she was, then there was a chance they could find her. There was a shot at saving her. There had to be. Erin couldn’t get ahead of herself, though. After all, Alicia had her tied to a chair. She had to escape before she could think about trying to find her sister-in-law. Besides, it had been more than ten years. The chances of finding Cara now, after all of this time, were slim.

  But there was still a chance.

  And Erin was an eternal optimist.

  “So why not go back when the flowers grew again?” Erin asked lightly. “Wouldn’t that be the simplest way for you to, you know, take over the world and all of that?”

  “Because the potion itself is not only toxic to the flowers, but the soil. The ruby flowers are gone. Dead. They aren’t coming back. Every herbologist I’ve talked with has agreed. They’re dead forever.”

  “So, what does this have to do with my family?” Erin asked.

  “Maddison found an alternative.”

  “No.”

  “She did.”

  “Nope.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Alicia slapped her hand on the desk. “I’m going to get that book, Erin. I’m goi
ng to find out what the ingredients are that I need to replicate it, and then the vampires are going to rule. We’re turning you all. In a world of animals, we’ll have plenty to eat, and there will be no one to stop us. No one.”

  Alicia snapped her fingers in front of Erin’s face, rendering her incapable of speaking or making noises. It was as though an invisible gag had been placed over her mouth, and she found it impossible to speak. It was even hard to breathe.

  She shook her head, trying to free herself, but Alicia just stood back, crossed her arms over her chest, and stared at her.

  “Don’t try anything,” she said. “And don’t move.”

  With that, Alicia and Alexander strode out of the office, and Erin was alone. She looked around desperately, trying to find a way to free herself. The headmistress’ office was like any ordinary principal’s office. There was a large desk with two chairs in front of it. Erin was tied to a third chair: one she hadn’t noticed before when she’d been in the office.

  Then there were bookshelves full of potions, enchanted objects, and books.

  But that was it.

  Erin couldn’t see a way to free herself.

  So that was it.

  Maxine was going to be taken by the vampires, just as Maddison had been, and everything was going to end. It was all going to be over, and for what?

  Because Erin felt like she needed to address something dumb?

  She felt like she needed to be the one to call out Brax?

  Why hadn’t she just stayed quiet?

  She tried to shake her head, but she couldn’t move. Alicia’s magic was too strong. Erin should have been faster. She should have cast a counter spell as soon as she realized what was happening, but she froze. She got scared, and flustered, and she froze.

  She was an idiot.

  And she sighed.

  What was she going to do?

  They had trapped her in one place, but they couldn’t trap her mind, so Erin was going to think. She had plenty of time before they came back. Who knew how long they’d be gone for? It could be hours. Hell, it could be days. She wasn’t going to waste it, so Erin started thinking.

  And plotting.

  And coming up with a plan.

  Chapter 4

  I squeezed into the narrow seating area with Kiera and Patricia. I held Boo in my arms as I sat down and pulled him close. Even in his shifter form, Henry was very mild mannered. Oh, he could be moody and wild, but right now, he was unusually calm. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe the fact that the auditorium was so crowded was getting to him.

  Maybe he just wanted to be close to me.

  Either way, I held him in my arms and looked out at the crowd around us. There were students of all ages and backgrounds. While most of the Hybrid Academy students were in their late teens or early twenties, there was the occasional 30-year-old student who had pursued a non-magical career and later decided to come back to school for something else. Many of the students were returning ones, but there were plenty of newbies, as well. I noticed many familiar faces and a few not-so-familiar faces. I had high hopes for this year, though, and I knew that by the time the end of the year rolled around, most of us would be close friends.

  “It’s really busy,” Kiera commented, looking around the auditorium. Magical banners hung from the rafters in various colors. Each color represented a different type of magical creature. Purple was for shifters, for example, which was part of the reason my own robes were purple. There were all sorts of hybrids at the school, and no two were entirely alike: there were demons, angels, shifters, fairies. There was everything in-between.

  “Yeah, it’s busier than usual,” Patricia agreed. She looked around the room, but she didn’t necessarily seem happy about the fact that there were more students. Everyone was rowdy: talking and laughing. There was an air of excitement here, and we were all looking forward to what was coming next.

  “Why do you think that is?” I asked.

  “There was a big advertising campaign this summer,” Patricia said. “My dad works for some local news websites and he said that ads for Hybrid Academy were running non-stop.”

  “Really? Why?”

  Hybrid Academy had always prided itself on being very exclusive, at least from what Aunt Erin had told me. There had been times when attendance was lower than usual, but it had never been a big deal because the school was supposed to be kind of quiet and low-key. It was supposed to be a place where elite hybrids could come together and perfect their magical abilities.

  It wasn’t supposed to be jam-packed full of magic users.

  Yet it was, at least this year.

  “This seems like a bit much,” I said as someone tried to push past me to a seat on the opposite side of me. I tried not to cringe as I was bumped and jostled. It wouldn’t do anyone any good to have us all in bad moods, but something felt a little bit off about the way orientation was going.

  “Hey, where’s Erin?” Patricia asked, suddenly looking around, but it was practically impossible to see through the crowd. “She’s not back yet?”

  “She went to talk to Alicia,” I shrugged.

  It was a little strange, though. It had been almost half an hour since Erin left, and orientation was going to start at any moment. Erin and Alicia probably wanted to catch up, but Alicia was known for being prompt and on time. It was weird that Erin wasn’t back yet. As far as I knew, she just had to talk with Alicia about Mr. Brax’s comments to Patricia. Erin might not have children of her own, but she was kind of a mother hen. She was always trying to stand up for other people, especially people she perceived to be weaker or needier than herself.

  Still, it was weird that she hadn’t come back.

  Hybrid’s orientation always started on time. Alicia believed there was no excuse for lateness or tardiness, and she ran the school with an iron fist. She should have been back by now. It was just another thing that seemed strange.

  Something was bugging me about Hybrid Academy today. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was except that everything felt just the slightest bit different, and not in a good way. Maybe it was the way the students weren’t sitting quietly or excitedly the way they usually did. Maybe it was because there were so many new faces.

  Maybe it was because the orientation was scheduled to start about three minutes ago and there was still no sign of Alicia.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said, suddenly realizing, and my heart skipped a beat or two. Tension filled me as I looked around the room. I had the feeling that something very bad and very unpredictable was about to happen.

  I didn’t know what it was, but I knew to trust my gut and to trust my heart. If there was one thing I’d learned since becoming a witch and developing my magical abilities, it was that those “gut feelings” were something you could never ignore.

  “What are you talking about?” Patricia asked.

  “No,” Kiera said. “I feel it, too.”

  “Bail?” I asked.

  “Bail.”

  Together, quickly, the three of us got up and slipped out of the auditorium. I held Boo tightly in my arms, careful not to jostle him too much. My cat might be a shapeshifting boy, but that didn’t stop him from being fussy and whiny if he felt I was being too wild for him. Nobody liked to be jostled or jerked around, least of all, my cat.

  Patricia, Kiera, and I let the doors close behind us and then we hurried down the main hallway and over to a side corridor. Once we were out of the main hallway, we stopped and calmed down. Anxiety filled me and my heart was racing. What the hell was going on today? Kiera seemed nervous, too, and she bit her lip as she looked around, waiting for something to happen.

  Patricia just stared at us.

  “What was that all about?” She asked. She motioned back to where we’d come from. “We’re missing orientation. I mean, that’s fine and all because it’s not like we’re first-years, but what’s the deal?” Despite her words, her voice held no judgment. She wasn’t upset that we’d left. She was merely…cu
rious.

  “I just…something’s wrong,” I said.

  “Yeah, Erin should have been back already. She’s not, and that’s concerning.” Kiera fidgeted. I could tell she wanted to let her wings out, but she didn’t dare. She didn’t need to be drawing attention to our little area, and when Kiera was nervous, her wings glowed very brightly. It was both cute and horrifying at the same time.

  “More importantly,” I said. “I have a feeling like something really bad is going to happen.”

  “It’s just orientation,” Patricia said slowly, but I wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. The reality was that I knew it was weird to back out at the last second. I knew it. I knew what I’d done, leading my friends out of the auditorium, was a strange thing to do. I understood that, but I also felt like it was the right choice.

  I just couldn’t verbalize why.

  “You didn’t feel something strange in there?” I asked. “Honestly. Did you feel anything?”

  Patricia shook her head at first, but finally, she nodded.

  “I thought I was just having a mini demon freak-out,” she said. “But something is definitely wrong. First, Brax totally went crazy on me over something stupid. Then the auditorium was full of unfamiliar faces, and not to be all weird or discriminatory, but a lot of those people looked…well, old.”

  They had looked old, and not in the way that non-traditional shifter students looked older than the rest of us. Those students still had a passion on their faces that showed just how excited they were to learn and experience the world around them. No, the students in the auditorium had looked…experienced. Wise. They had looked almost shrewd, and it was a strange way for students to look during their first year at a new school.

  But then realization washed over me, and I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been for thinking that I would be safe at a place like Hybrid Academy. In the past few years, I’d learned so much about magic and myself that sometimes, I forgot about the most important thing: safety.

  And I wasn’t safe.

  Not by a long shot.

  I realized why the students looked strange. It hit me suddenly: so hard that I couldn’t breathe. My chest hurt and I dropped Henry-as-Boo and reached for my heart. Everything felt…tight. I didn’t want to say the word. I didn’t want to admit what I had realized because I should have suspected this long ago. I should have known that when I returned for another year at the school of my dreams that something terrible would happen. It was too much to hope that year three would be safe. It would be too much to hope that this was the year I finally got the answers I was looking for.