by Ivy Hearne
At a noise behind me, I spun around, only to find Reo trotting up to us in his cat form, as well.
“You ready to see what we can do together?” Jolie asked.
I grinned at her. “I am.”
I’m going to drop the shields on three, two, one.”
As Jolie let her shield fall to the ground, I opened myself to all the magic around me, focusing it and pouring it through the pendant I wore.
The green snaking power slammed out, picking up Jolie’s strands of blue magic along the way and twining with them until it was a braided turquoise rope of strength.
It whipped past his guard and wrapped around the wizard.
He struggled, almost breaking free, and Jolie and I redoubled our efforts.
I had wondered earlier what it would make me if I took all the energy that I had available.
Right now, I was pretty sure made me a survivor.
But as I ripped power out from everything I could find, I realized it could also make me a killer. I could still sense the other parts of this battle waging across the campus, where people’s own magic stuttered and failed them because I had taken it. People who would die if they didn’t get their magic returned to them.
At the same time, I felt the darkness threaded through the wizard’s own magic, taunting me to take even more. It pushed against the magical bonds we had erected around him, eating away at the spells that would save us from the Lusus Naturae.
A tiny voice, like a piece of my conscience, whispered, “Do these ends justify the means?”
Would it do damage to my soul to let so many people die just to save the Academy?
I didn’t know the answer.
But I knew I didn’t want to die. So I gave another hard, ripping pull on all the magic I could find. I threw it into the ropes that held the wizard.
And in that moment, I heard the darkness laugh.
It withdrew completely from the wizard, leaving him with only his own magic. And that wasn’t nearly enough to save him from everything I had stolen to use against him.
Without the power of the darkness to help him resist, the magical bindings that held him suddenly tightened with an audible crack, snapping his bones, crushing his lungs, breaking his neck and spine.
As he fell to the ground, clearly dead, Jolie’s magic dropped from the air around us. Somehow, I hadn’t drawn from her, though her companions—and my own—had all collapsed to the ground.
Jolie rushed to the wizard’s body and peered down at him. A brief expression of dismay fluttered across her features, but when she turned back to look at me, she was all smiles. “We did it. We won.”
I moved more slowly, my feet dragging as I made my way to stand over the headmaster of the school that taught Lusus Naturae.
Our counterparts.
I glanced up at Jolie.
Students like her.
I started to open my mouth to tell her what I felt, when the darkness whispered inside me.
Beautifully done, my child.
We will be back for you.
I shuddered, but Jolie mistook it for horror at the dead body in front of me. “It’ll be okay. This buys us all some time. I’ll go back to the Lusus Naturae school, let them know that I him die.” She stared at me earnestly. “It’ll be too chaotic for our people to fight for a while.”
I frowned, then nodded at her dumbly. “That’ll be good,” I said.
“I’ll be back in touch. But Kacie?”
At the same time, Souji and Reo both bumped my hands with their heads. I reached down and buried my hands in their fur, taking comfort in the familiar feeling.
“Yeah?”
“I want a new world,” Jolie said. “One where the hunters and the Lusus Naturae don’t fight, don’t kill one another every chance they get. And I think together, we can make that happen.”
I swallowed, but I nodded. “I’m in.”
As she and Logan and Ranger turned to jog away, to go back to the Lusus Naturae, I knew that there was more at stake than simply creating a world where the Lusus Naturae and hunters were at peace.
The entire world itself might be at stake.
With the very last of my magical strength, I pushed what power remained in me back out to the people I’d taken it from. When it was all gone, I collapsed to my knees, holding back tears.
I was still there when the rest of the Academy found me.
And as they approached, I heard the darkness whisper to me as it withdrew.
See you next year.
And with a laugh as dark as the power possessed, it disappeared.
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Hunters’ Academy returns next fall with Year Two: Mandatory Attendance.
In the meantime, want to know how the Lusus Naturae train their own operatives?
Get ready to read Jolie’s story!
Academy of the Damned: A Hunters’ Academy Novella Series
Episode 1: Wicked Witchcraft
At the Academy of the Damned, everyone is a monster. Even me.
Six weeks ago, I stole the Academy’s most prized possession—a magical stone rumored to have the power to save the world from destruction.
Now, everyone’s in an uproar to find both the stone and the thief who took it.
No one knows I gave it to the one girl who might be able to use it to overcome the darkness coming for us all.
Well, no one other than the two guys I trust most—Logan, who’s a vampire, and Ranger, a werewolf. But the longer the search continues, the more likely they are to betray me.
If I can get away with it, my theft might save us all, even the monsters.
Like me.
Academy of the Damned is a brand-new Academy series set in the world of the Hunters' Academy.
Coming Summer 2019
Episode 1: Wicked Witchcraft
Episode 2: Devilish Divination
Episode 3: Sinful Sorcery
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The complete Hunters’ Academy: Year One Collection will be available Summer 2019.
Keep an eye out for Hunters’ Academy: Year Two, beginning Fall 2019!
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Hunters’ Academy Books
Hunters’ Academy 1: Entrance Exam
Survive or Die.
It's not much of a school motto—not as inspiring as, say, “Let us give light to the world,” or “Knowledge is liberty,” or even just “Light and Truth.” Those are all real school mottos. So is this one. It belongs to the Hunters' Academy. And now, so do I.
Since she was twelve years old, Kacela Deluca has suffered debilitating migraines. On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, she learns her headaches are the result of untapped psychic abilities. She's given a choice: continue to suffer or leave behind everything she knows and join the Hunters’ Academy. The only catch? If she doesn’t pass the entrance exam, she’ll die.
A teen with blocked psychic powers, a panther shifter who can't—or won't—shift, a secret academy, and the power to defend the entire world...if only Kacie can unleash her potential before it's too late.
Fans of Vampire Academy, Mortal Instruments, Harry Potter, and Dragon School will love Hunters’ Academy!
Entrance Exam is episode one of Hunters’ Academy - expect a new episode every month beginning Fall 2018!
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Hunters’ Academy 2: Winter Break
Santa’s Claws have come to town…
The worst part of having to stay at the Hunters’ Academy over the winter break is the pure boredom of it. With most of the other students away for the holidays, Kacie has little to do but read and watch movies…and practice all the hunting moves she learned in her first semester.
When her boredom sends her on a run into the nearby human town, she discovers something horrific preying on the local children. But of everyone still on campus, she’s the only one who can see it—and that means she’ll have to put those hunting skills into practice much sooner than she expected.
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Hunters’ Academy 3: Crash Course
If the course load doesn’t kill her, one of her teachers might.
Having passed the Entrance Exam, sixteen-year-old Kacie DeLuca is ready to buckle down and learn to be a true Hunter. But the Academy’s headmistress has hired a new instructor—a former member of the Lusus Naturae, the self-described “freaks of nature” with dark plans to subjugate humanity.
When a student’s mutilated body is discovered on campus, all signs point to the new teacher’s guilt, and Kacie might be the only one who believes in her innocence. Worse, Kacie’s magics instructor has been assigned to investigate the murder and seems determined to ignore crucial evidence.
With no clear sense of where everyone’s loyalties lie, Kacela is about to get a crash course in what it really means to be a monster hunter.
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Hunters’ Academy 4: Independent Study
A Hunters’ Academy Short
She’s on the Dean’s list. And not in a good way.
When Kacie DeLuca broke through the psychic blocks the evil Lusus Naturae placed on her, she thought she was free to complete her studies at the Hunters’ Academy.
She was wrong.
Now that she’s able to use her powers, the monsters are more determined than ever to keep her from becoming a full-fledged hunter, sending agents to attack her at every turn.
But Kacie still doesn’t know why they’re targeting her in particular, and the Academy’s new headmistress isn’t sharing what she knows.
So Kacie and her hunting partner set out to track down the truth on their own—and run headlong into danger of the worst kind.
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Hunters’ Academy 5: Valentine’s Dance
It’ll be a hell of a dance.
When a fire threatens to engulf the school the night of the annual Valentine’s Day Dance, Kacie and her friends at the Hunters’ Academy must determine if it’s an accident or the work of the Lusus Naturae, even as they fight to save the Academy itself.
Valentine’s Dance is episode 5, a special for readers of Hunters’ Academy—expect a new episode every month (and some special stories in between, too!).
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Hunters’ Academy 6: Spring Break
Monster-hunting’s a beach—and then someone dies.
Kacie is planning to spend yet another school holiday at the Hunters’ Academy, prepared to be bored out of her mind—even her hunting partner Souji is going home this time, though he doesn’t really want to.
So when Souji's brother Reo invites Kacie and Souji to join him in a low-level monster hunt at a beach resort, they both jump at the chance to change their plans.
But of course nothing in their world is ever as it seems, and before long, the three of them are fighting for their lives.
In order to survive, they’ll need more than one lucky break—and they’ll have to learn how a sea serpent terrorizing a small beach community connects to events at the Hunters’ Academy, over a thousand miles away.
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Hunters’ Academy 7: Standardized Testing
It’s the biggest test of her life—and she doesn’t know what to study.
With the threat of the Lusus Naturae and the dark presence Kacie senses moving toward the Hunters’ Academy hanging over them, both the students and their instructors are under pressure to prepare for a showdown unlike any they have seen before.
But how can Kacie train when no one will even tell her how she can use her powers to help them win?
Coming in April 2019.
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Hunters’ Academy 8: First Year Final Exam
She’s survived this long—but her final exam’s a killer!
Kacie squares off against the Lusus Naturae and ends up in a fight for her life. If she survives, she’ll never be the same again.
And neither will the Hunters’ Academy.
Coming in May 2019.
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About the Author
Ivy Hearne spends her days dreaming of heroes and monsters and the heroines who tame them. She writes young adult paranormal romance and urban fantasy, and fully expects to find herself someday transported to a world of fantasy and magic, where her snarky tendencies will win her the respect of the realm—and probably a crown, too.
To keep up with all the latest releases, you can sign up for Ivy’s newsletters here.
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