Waking Darkness: A Supernatural Academy Paranormal Romance (Academy of the Underworld Book 1)

by Laney Powell

  He stopped, and set me down on my bed. I scooted back, reaching for my tee shirt. I’d already kicked off my shoes.

  Carrick reached for my hands and stopped me. “Let me,” he said.

  I let my hands drop, feeling my entire body pebble with goosebumps at his words, his tone of voice. A shiver ran through me, and I closed my eyes.

  Carrick pulled on my hands, bringing me up to stand next to the bed. He reached for the waist of my leggings and hooking his thumbs into it, drew the leggings down to my feet. Carefully, slowly, I stepped out of them. He’d taken my panties with the leggings, which I approved of.

  He reached down for his shirt, and pulled it over his head, revealing a toned body, with pecs and abs and so much manly goodness—he was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

  “You’re staring,” he commented.

  “Are you bothered?” I teased.

  “Nope. Please. Stare. I like it.”

  And judging by the bulge in his pants, he absolutely loved it. I loved seeing that he was already hard and ready. He reached into his pocket, coming out with a small bundle of foil packets.

  “Oh! I hadn’t—” I said.

  “Always prepared,” he cut me off. Then he took my tee shirt and lifted it off me. My bra went next—why had I worn one anyway?—and he pulled me close to him. The scent of him, the feel of him, was nearly overwhelming. I closed my eyes to try and balance all the sensations. His hands ran up my sides to cup my breasts and I felt him lean down to me again.

  My eyes were still closed as his lips brushed against mine, and then along my jaw, and down my neck. The warmth of his breath made my nipples harden. And he smelled so damn good, it was almost like I’d done one too many shots. I braced my hands against the chest that went on forever. Carrick bent his head to take a nipple into his mouth, and I gasped as his teeth grazed me, and arched into him. He laughed, my nipple still in his mouth, and the vibration went directly between my legs. I could feel myself getting wet. All this and he’d barely even touched me. I ran my hand down his chest to the bulge in his pants and squeezed. I was rewarded with an intake of his breath, which felt amazing as he licked my breast.

  His hands moved down to squeeze my ass, and I rubbed myself against him. He made a growling noise and leaned into me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down back onto the bed. His weight, his body—it felt amazing.

  Carrick ground himself into me, and I spread my legs to bring him closer. “You’re wearing too much,” I whispered as he kissed my mouth hungrily.

  He was off me and standing as he undid his jeans and slid them off so fast I barely had time to blink. Then I stared. His cock jutted out, hard and ready, and I felt myself get even wetter. How that was possible, I didn’t know.

  “I can’t wait,” I said.

  Without taking his eyes off of me, he reached over to where he’d tossed the foil packets, and tore one open. As he rolled on the condom, he bent down and then settled himself on top of me.

  “You are amazing,” he said quietly.

  I grabbed his ass, pulling him into me, and gasped as he slid in easily. He felt… right.

  “Oh gods,” he muttered.

  “Don’t stop,” I breathed.

  That was all he needed. He pulled back and thrust into me. It wasn’t enough for me. I slid my hands down to his delectable ass, and yanked him to me for all I was worth.

  Carrick wasn’t slow on the uptake, and he pounded into me until I gasped his name, barely able to breathe. Then he did it again, and again.

  It felt like I was swimming in the clearest, bluest water ever. I’d had sex before, but never like this. This felt like… I didn’t know. Something sang throughout me, something that had always been there, but I’d never noticed.

  Finally, we lay together, covered in sweat. I couldn’t remember when I’d been happier. We cuddled together, talking a little, Carrick playing with my hair.

  I slept, although I didn’t know for how long. I woke up to Carrick easing himself out of bed. I admired his body as he moved. He was graceful, and completely at east with himself. I found that immensely attractive.

  “I have to go,” he said. “If I get caught here, we’re both in trouble.” He got dressed and kissed me, and then headed out.

  “See you tomorrow,” his voice was soft, and then the door closed.

  Chapter Nine

  I rolled over, feeling sore in all the right places. I was bundled in my comforter, and the smell of beach sunshine lingered on the pillow under my head. Carrick. He’d spent the night. I smiled into my comforter, enjoying the memory of him.

  He’d be back to see me tonight. Thank god I still hadn’t been assigned a roommate. I closed my eyes, inhaling the wonderful smell, and let myself relax again. When I felt like I was ready to wake up, I looked at the clock—an old fashioned chime clock—and stared at it, horrified.

  I was late.

  Really fucking late.

  Like, almost fifteen minutes late to my first class. Shit! I sprang from bed, all the nice things I’d been mulling over forgotten, and raced to the bathroom to try and put myself into some kind of order. Or at least to look like I hadn’t spent all night with an intensely hot man. I’d settle for something that didn’t scream ‘just got laid.’

  Within seven minutes, I was out the door of my room, hurrying to my first class, which was history. I’d missed breakfast, and it would be three classes before I got to lunch. Shit, shit shit. The corridors weren’t crowded as most of the other students were in class. If I was lucky, I’d get away with less than thirty minutes late and could claim I overslept. I was thinking over whether or not I had anything due, and if I could look at Nicola’s notes when I heard a boom. I stopped, looking around.

  Then I flew sideways, and into the stone of the corridor wall.

  Everything went black.

  “Raven? I need you to open your eyes,” a woman’s voice said.

  “Don’ wanna,” I muttered. It hurt to talk. It hurt to move. I was pretty sure it would hurt to open my eyes.

  “I know, but I need you to,” she persisted.

  “No,” I said. The word came out in a whisper.

  “I’ll leave you be after I know you’re all right, but first you need to open your eyes,” the woman persisted.

  I knew her voice, but I couldn’t remember her name.

  “Come on, Raven. Please open your eyes,” she said again.

  Allowing my eyes to open a tiny bit, I waited for the wave of pain to pass.

  “Good girl,” the woman said. “Now just a little more.”

  Damn it. Why wouldn’t she leave me alone? I cracked them open a bit more, and then shut them, the light giving me a pain in the middle of my head.

  “Good, that was good,” she said. “I’m going to let you rest, but I’ll be back to check on you.”

  Thank god. I felt her move away, and my body relaxed, knowing that for the moment, I wasn’t going to be putting it in any further pain.

  What had happened? Where was I? Not opening my eyes, I tried to listen to what was going on around me. There were a large number of people. I could hear the murmurs of many conversations, and everyone sounded… stressed. I moved a little, and I felt a sharp pain in my head, at the same time I saw a white light that blinded me.

  That had been a bad call, the whole trying to move thing.

  But at least the woman wasn’t harassing me anymore. There was that. I felt someone come next to me.

  “Raven, are you all right?” It was Nicola.

  I made the effort to open my eyes, wincing through the pain. “What happened?” My voice came out hoarse.

  She leaned over me, taking my hand. I could see tears shining in her eyes. “It was in our classroom. There was a rumble, and then it was like a lightning bolt hit right in the middle of class.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “Everyone was thrown around. No one knows anything!” Her voice lowered to a whisper but even in my
state I could hear the fear.

  “What happened to me?” I asked.

  “The wall of the classroom blew out, and you got caught in that,” she peered closely at me. “Cressida says you’re going to be all right, but sore.”

  I felt myself laugh, and then stopped. That was another mistake. “Is it my head?” I raised my hand to my hair.

  Nicola nodded. “You were bleeding. The instructor moved the stones off you.”

  “From the wall?” I couldn’t remember anything after the boom.

  She nodded again.

  “Is everyone all right?”

  The tears welled in her eyes as she shook her head. “No.”

  “What?” I tried to sit up. I let myself fall back.

  “Elizabeth got hit with some kind of spell. No one knows what it is,” the tears fell down her face. “She…” Nicola stopped.

  “What?” I whispered.

  Her head dropped even as she was shaking it.

  “No,” I said.

  “She was sitting right in front of your seat,” Nicola said.

  Then we both burst into tears. I didn’t know Elizabeth all that well, but she’d been nice.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. I was finally let out of the infirmary, which had overflowed from the infirmary itself to a classroom near it as well. Nicola and Carla walked me to my room, and as they were helping me into bed, an imp came into the room bearing a tray. I didn’t know if this was normal, and I was too tired and sore to care.

  After Nicola and Carla left, I sat in bed, contemplating the tray of food. I knew I should eat. I knew I needed it. But all I could see was the face of Elizabeth.

  A knock at my door made me jump, knocking against the tray on my lap. “Come in,” I called. Then I wondered if I’d been stupid—someone had just been killed. Maybe—

  Carrick came in, his face creased with worry.

  I’d forgotten, in all that had happened today, that we’d planned to meet.

  He came over to the bed, and sat next to me. “Are you all right?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I’m still here.” I couldn’t get Elizabeth out of my head.

  Carrick put his arms around me and I allowed myself to fall into him. Normally I preferred to depend on myself, but today had taken it out of me.

  Carrick stayed for a long time, until I told him he needed to go. We both knew that if he was caught with me, even if we were both adults and had a right to do what we wanted, there would be shit that neither of us wanted to deal with.

  He kissed me tenderly, and even as I couldn’t help marveling at how beautiful he was, I was glad that he was giving me some space.

  “How about another try?” he asked. “When you’re not feeling beat to hell?”

  “I’d like that,” I said.

  He kissed me again, and I felt a stirring below the waist. But only a stirring. Everything else fucking hurt.

  Carrick got up from the bed, and at the loss of his arms around me, I felt cold. For a moment, I considered asking him to stay, damn the rules. But he was at the door, giving me a longing look that made me wish I wasn’t so hurt—and then he was gone.

  Thankfully, he’d moved the tray to the other bed, so after he left, I snuggled down into the bed, glad for the fireplace and the general coziness of the room made me feel safe in a way I hadn’t all day. I wanted to call my dad, go back to New Castle, and forget all about this damn school. That was my thought process as my eyes closed. What I needed tonight was to sleep and rest.

  A roaring filled my ears, my head. It was so loud and reverberated through my skull and body and I felt an ache like nothing I’d ever felt before. Whatever was making the noise was angry, angrier than anything I’d ever heard. I tried to close my eyes and cover my ears, but I couldn’t find my hands. There was no escaping it.

  Then the roaring died, and I was in the dark. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel my body—I opened my mouth to scream and nothing came out.

  “You have escaped, but only for a time,” a voice hissed, the words threading themselves around me like snakes.

  “What?” I screamed, but the sound disappeared into the darkness around me.

  A booming sound pierced through the black, and then I sat up, heart pounding. The room was dark, the fire had died down, and was a dull amber that seemed to burn far away from me. My breath burst from me and I held my chest as I tried to get my breathing to catch up with my heart, or slow down my heartbeat. One or the other had to happen soon—I felt like I was getting less and less oxygen, rather than more, with each breath.

  After what seemed hours, I was able to breathe. “What the hell was that?” I asked the dark room. Thank god I didn’t have a roommate right now. She would have carted me right back to the infirmary. I wondered if I got hurt enough if they’d send me home. That might not be the best way to get out of here.

  I closed my eyes again and pulled the blankets up over my head, blocking out the room, the fire, and everything that I could, like I’d done when I was little.

  Maybe it would help. Maybe not. But at the moment, it was all that I could do.

  The next week was more of the same. The class that had been blown up, Spellcasting, was moved to a different room. All of the sirens were on edge. How could we not be? It was our class that had been targeted, even as Madame Perpetua made sure to let the school know that she felt the attack, while aimed at the school in general, had been hit randomly.

  The sirens, along with everyone else at Darklight, felt quite differently.

  The rumor that was still going at week’s end was that the Concilium was tired of dealing with us, the Underworlders, and this was their way of making us less of a problem. While I thought killing a student went a bit far, it really showed me how strong the divide was between those the supernatural world classed as Underworlders and the rest of the supes. It wasn’t good. Part of me wanted to call Margiana and tell her, but the whole ‘no cell phones’ thing got in the way.

  So I drifted along with the rest of the students, listening, and getting shitty sleep every night.

  The dreams had continued. Not only that, they were worse. I always heard the same voice, and it was full of menace. It scared the shit out of me, frankly.

  But I didn’t tell anyone. My scary dreams were my problem to manage.

  I didn’t tell Nicola or Carla or Bettina—I didn’t want them to think I was falling of the deep end. Even if I was, it was my deep end.

  Until one night, I woke up with someone shaking my shoulders.

  “Hey, you have to stop screaming,” the voice said.

  I blinked, trying to see who was in front of me, who had a hold of me. The room didn’t even have the glow of the fire. Opening my mouth to scream, I found the sound cut off by a hand over my mouth.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to hurt you, but I was passing, and I heard you screaming. If I take my hand away, can you not scream my ear off?” The voice was easygoing, accented, and male.

  I nodded.

  The hand moved away.

  “Can we please turn on the lights?” I asked.

  There was a movement next to me, and the other hand lifted from my shoulders. I felt the weight of someone getting off the bed. Soft light filled the room as the light between the two beds clicked on.

  A boy—a man, really—stood next to my bed. He was tall, and wiry, rangy looking. He reminded me of a picture of a wolf I’d once seen. The wolf had been hunting in the winter when the picture was taken, and the eyes of the wolf were completely still as the photographer took his picture.

  This man was the same, although I didn’t think we had wolf shifters at Darklight.

  “Who are you?” I asked, and I was pleased to hear that my voice was firm. “Why shouldn’t I call Madame Perpetua, again?”

  He shrugged. “I’m Mikhail. Mikhail Andrek.”

  I raised my eyebrows. He spoke like I should know his name.

  “I’m a vampire, second year.”

&
nbsp; “Raven Nox, siren. First year.” I stuck out my hand. He took it, and his hand was cool in mine. “Aren’t we all supposed to be back in our rooms?” The school had a midnight curfew normally, but with the attack in the last week, it had been pushed back to nine o’clock.

  “You are. I have things that have to be done,” he shrugged. “Are you all right?”

  I looked at him, and then shook my head. “No. I’m having nightmares.”

  “Obviously,” Mikhail said. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Can you make them go away?” I asked, not really expecting a serious answer.

  “No, but maybe I can help you see what is causing them,” he said. “May I?” He indicated the bed.

  I should probably toss him out, but I really wanted to know who it was that kept showing up in my nightmares. This was already old.

  “Can I put my hands on your head?” he asked, scooting closer.

  “Okay,” I said, thinking this felt a little hokey.

  “Close your eyes,” Mikhail said firmly.

  I closed them, and his cool hands touched my temples. Pain exploded as everything went dark.

  Chapter Ten

  “Raven, wake up!” The voice said. I could hear a touch of urgency.

  I opened my eyes to see the ceiling, and a man’s head in my line of vision. What the hell? Sitting up abruptly, I banged into the guy leaning over me. While I was in bed.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  I stared wildly at him, and then realized this was Mikhail Something-or-other, and he’d tried to see my nightmares. “I take it you didn’t see anything?” I asked. This time, I didn’t care that my voice shook. “I think I need to just try and sleep.”

  “No, I saw something,” Mikhail said.

  “What?” I focused on him now.

  “What else is in your family?” Mikhail asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why would something that feels a lot like a demon be interested in you?”

  I shrugged, trying to ignore the thrill of fear at his words. That thing in my head was a demon? The only demons I knew were like Xavier, and not one of them felt like whatever it was that was scaring me each night. “All I know is that I’m half siren, and I didn’t even know that until I came here. I don’t know anything about my mom. She disappeared. It’s not my dad, so,” I shrugged again. “I don’t know.” My eyes met Mikhail’s. “I wish I did.”