The Roses Academy- the Entire Collection

by Tara Brown

  Giselle, who had been tapping her toes annoyingly, sighed again. “Lydia, I need to ask you something.”

  Lydia seemed impatient with her. “This is really important, Giselle. She has almost no time before she must face her father.”

  “I get to see my dad? Will my mom be there? And my sister?” My head spun. “You know where my parents are? Do you know where my sister is? No one will tell me anything about her.” I felt like I might have a stroke.

  “Not the humans, your real parents, dear.”

  Giselle made an exasperated noise. “Fine, whatevs.”

  “Sweetie, I will chat with you in a minute. I need to sort this out before Ophelia has an aneurysm.”

  Giselle waved a hand in the air and rounded the corner, leaving the room.

  Lydia rolled her eyes. “Look, dear, your parents are different like the rest of us. We sort of need you to get up to speed immediately. This is your mother. The blue balls of light are your sisters, and your father is a very bad man.”

  “But they raised me. How did I get there?” I couldn't believe this. “And I can’t just let my sister be missing forever. I have to find her!”

  “I don't know, dear. It isn’t relevant to the story.”

  I was becoming frustrated again. “But they raised me. They love me. You must have some idea as to how I ended up there. Or why my sister got taken the same night you all came!”

  “No clue. They’re not important people to our cause.” She dismissed them casually.

  White-hot rage filled me. “THEY’RE IMPORTANT TO ME, DAMMIT! I NEED TO FIND MY SISTER!” I slammed my fist down as lightning from my other fingertips shot across the kitchen. The lightning hit the cupboards above the sink and blew bits of wood everywhere. I ducked at the sound of the explosion. I lifted a trembling hand up. “Wha—what was that?”

  “Bloody hell,” Lydia whispered, gaping around at the wood particles floating in the air.

  Annabelle poked her head through the massive hole in the wall where the cabinets and counter had been. “I told you. I was saying it. She is trouble. My guards can’t even keep her magic in check. It ain’t even her birthday yet. You Roses is asking for trouble.”

  Lydia frowned at the ghostly maid. “Annabelle, you have to help us. You swore an oath.”

  Annabelle crossed her arms. “I ain’t helping and I ain’t teaching no demon witch how to kill nobody. Oath or no oath, Ophelia’s already dead. She just hasn't died yet. What's the original witch gonna do to me now? She's already in Hell. You ain’t peeked outside lately, has you? No. Miss Lydia, you got bigger fish to fry. The guards is weakened from Miss Thang here, and we be surrounded by a thousand of them fanged devils.”

  I trembled. “How did—why—what—? Did she say ‘demon witch’? Oh my God, it's the Ouija board, isn’t it? Someone has possessed me.” I stared at my fingers again, still in shock.

  Lydia rubbed her temples. “Ophelia, you are driving me insane. Let me finish a sentence, for the love of God. Annabelle, what are you talking about?”

  Annabelle pointed to the front hall. “There be a thousand of them night-walking blood suckas out on the street, Miss Lydia. They got us surrounded. They’ve come for Giselle.”

  Lydia covered her eyes with her hands. “Where is Lorri?”

  “It’s me, isn’t it? They’re here because of me. The wolf brought them here for me. Everything is trying to kill me. I’m dreaming. I’m sure of it.” My panic grew.

  Giselle stormed into the kitchen. “Not everything is about you, princess. That’s what I was trying to tell you, Lydia. Those things have been following me all week. I was in the mall and they were everywhere. Watching me and growling when I went into Neiman Marcus. Like who growls in Neiman Marcus?”

  The spiky redhead, Lorri, flashed into the kitchen with the FedEx guy. “Lydia, we have a problem.”

  “Don't I know it!” Lydia pointed to the hole in the wall I had made. “I have enough problems, Lorri. These are Roses problems. I want them gone from my street.”

  Lorri sneered, “It’s her. They came for her.”

  Arguing erupted in the kitchen. “She’s the heir,” Dorian groaned.

  “This isn’t my problem, Dorian. Jesus. Deal with your own problems and let me deal with Ophelia.”

  “Giselle is the queen, Lydia. This is everyone's problem.”

  Lydia seemed to crack, laughing uncontrollably. She sank onto the debris-covered floor, laughing in sobs.

  She was acting just how I would’ve if I wasn’t still numb.

  I eyed my fingertips again and walked from the kitchen. “It’s too much. It’s all too much. I need this dream to be over.”

  I went back to the front room and knelt on the couch, watching the others on the front lawn and the hundreds in the streets.

  Jake was still sleeping on the couch across from me. I realized then it was an unnatural sleep. Someone had put him to sleep to stop him from being scared. I wished I was asleep too.

  Annabelle hovered next to me. “Are you dead?”

  She spoke but never took her ghostly eyes from the window, “I guess, but I can’t die. Miss Lydia protected me always when we was girls. Blacks was hated and treated badly. Miss Lydia always lied and said I was her slave.” I turned and smiled. “But I was always her friend. I’ve never spent a day as a slave.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Two hundred and forty-six, I think. Me and Miss Lydia was born same year under the same summer moon. Same moon as you. I’m the seventh daughter too. My magic was always stronger than Miss Lydia’s. We lived in Georgia and spent our days learning the magic from my gran. We had to take Miss Lydia from her family. They was not the good kind of witches. They was teaching her the bad magic. We moved from Georgia to here. We fled the hunters.”

  “Hunters?”

  “Bad magic witches. They hunt our kind to take our magic. Good magic’s always stronger than bad magic. Always. But they steal the magic from us and they become strong like us.”

  “That’s sick.”

  Annabelle turned her attention to the window again. “I know it. Me and Miss Lydia, we came here, and she found herself a proper husband and we build this house.” Her ghostly face grew distressed. “They did find us though. They come in the night. The hunters, they find us out. I made my circle nice and big before I died.”

  I gasped. “You died doing the magic circle?”

  Annabelle nodded slowly. “I ain’t never heard of no witch living through making a guard circle like mine.”

  “You knew you would die?”

  “Miss Lydia had the baby in her belly. She saved me too many times for me to not give it back. I told you, I can’t die. I just changed. My body died but my magic is alive. It’s stronger without the body to make it weak.”

  “Lydia had a baby?” I suspected something in the story was about to go very wrong. Something besides the death of the most loyal person I had ever met.

  Annabelle looked dismayed. “No.”

  I left it alone. I was beginning to learn of the hardships the people of the house had faced and couldn’t begin to comprehend what it was like for them all.

  “Why are the vampires here?”

  “They here for Miss Giselle. She gone and died as the only heir to the vampire throne. Marcus kept them in balance. He was their ruler. Never too many vampires or killing people in the streets. Keep the Secret was his law. He wasn’t no good but he wasn’t too bad either. Now he's gone, they could just kill everyone. They need a ruler. The one with Marcus’ blood is the strongest. Their blood calls to her and hers to them.” I loved listening to her speak in her intense Southern accent.

  “Why do they look angry?”

  Annabelle laughed bitterly. “You imagine if some five-year-old girl be your queen. She gets to tell you what to do? She ain’t got no experience as a vampire and now she be the queen.”

  “Ohhhhhh. Yikes.” I was starting to understand all the impossible things I was seeing. I eyed Annabe
lle for another second. “Why do you hate me?”

  “Hate you?” Annabelle stared at me sharply. “Baby girl, I don’t hate you. I love you, just like I loved your momma. All witches love you and yours. I hate what you gotta do. I hate that your life is cursed with his dirty blood. Ain’t no angel got no right to take from a witch the way Jonathan takes from your momma.” She gazed back out the window. “We all cursed. Ever since Miss Lillith was raped in the garden, we been cursed.” She glanced back at Jake. “I’ll protect him if you wanna go on out there and help. They might need you. If it goes badly, do exactly what feels right in your body. The magic will guide you.”

  “Oh, I don't think I should go out there.” I almost laughed at that.

  “You think you should let them try to come in here and get him? He’s an innocent.”

  “Okay.” I stood up and trudged through the long wide hallway until I got to the front door. I opened it hesitantly. I had never seen so many angry people in my life, let alone vampires. One vampire was more than I had ever seen. The whole thing wasn’t a dream. I was coming to that conclusion and I would have panicked, if I could’ve just reached my emotions.

  Chapter 7

  Bow, bitches

  Everything moved in slow motion as I walked out onto the front steps.

  Lorri was stone-faced, watching everyone. She appeared scared.

  Sam rounded the corner of the house with Lucas in wolf form. His worried eyes met mine.

  When he glanced back at Lucas I could hear his whisper, “Vampires?”

  Lucas nodded his wolf head and gave a low whine.

  When Sam came up next to me, some girl from the vampire crowd was tilting her head and smelling the air in his direction. He peered down at the blood covering his clothes and gave a goofy grin. “Oops.”

  “You’re bleeding.” I felt concern for him, even though he’d brought me here and made me feel funny about him.

  “No. It’s not mine. It’s vampire blood, ironically enough.” He chuckled but the vampires didn't laugh.

  Finally, Giselle descended the front steps and made her way through the small group of us. She seemed uneasy, her eyes flickering back at us.

  When she got to the middle of the grass my insides twisted into knots. “Uhm, thanks for coming. Apparently, we have a small problem. I’m not sure how this happened, but I'm your new leader.”

  Sam frowned at Lucas and whispered, “Oh shit. This is going to be bad.” Giselle glared in his direction. He smiled at her. “You got this.” He didn't sound convincing.

  I swallowed hard, suspecting she didn't have this at all. And I didn't even know her.

  “Uhm, is there anyone who has any questions?”

  The group began to laugh and heckle her from the guards.

  “You’re no queen, just some bitch Marcus made for fun!”

  “Step down, woman!”

  They paced as if ready to cross the line any second and kill everyone.

  Sam looked down at the wolf and then me. “This is not good. They’ll never follow her.”

  The wolf snorted. Dorian strolled over to us. “She needs our support, not our criticism,” he warned with his tone.

  “Support? In what? This suicide?” Sam whispered back at Dorian. “How could you tell Aleks that it was a good idea to have Marcus turn her? Everyone knows his vampires are the royalty of their kind.”

  Dorian frowned. “We all assumed there was at least a handful of his blood left. No one imagined Giselle was the last of his.”

  Sam laughed spitefully. “Well, that was a great gamble. You just made Giselle the vampire queen. Jesus.”

  Dorian growled and stepped past us, addressing the crowd, “The new queen has our support. Mine and Lorri’s.”

  A large man at the edge of the guard laughed. “Black angel of death, was it you who took our father?”

  “No. Marcus was like a brother to me.” Dorian shook his head. “It doesn’t matter who killed him. Your blood tells you who the rightful heir is. Her name is Queen Giselle.”

  Giselle blushed. “Oh, just call me Giselle.”

  A cry shot from the crowd. “We will not kneel before her. She is barely a week old.”

  Giselle was clearly insulted. “Hey, I’m twenty-one, asshat.”

  The crowd jeered and erupted in anger again.

  “Black angel of death, you can’t expect this to rule us for the next thousand years?”

  “Let us kill her and make our next ruler someone powerful.”

  “You angels overstep your bounds.”

  Aimee walked from the front of the house to the edge of the crowd.

  “SHE IS A MURDERER. YOU HOUSE MURDERERS HERE. THIS IS A HOUSE OF HYPOCRISY!”

  “GIVE US THE DEMON!”

  I was mostly lost.

  I didn't understand how Dorian the FedEx guy could be called black angel of death and why they hated Aimee, but this wasn't helping Giselle.

  Lorri put a hand in the air. “Aimee works for me and is allowed the protection of my laws. The laws of the Maker. Marcus lived by these laws and Queen Giselle will abide by them and enforce them as well.”

  “You have no rights, Lucifer. You fell. You have no right to reign over us.”

  “Only our true ruler will rule over us.”

  Lorri rolled her eyes. “Idiots.” She glanced back at Giselle. “Be ready to kick some ass.”

  Giselle gulped. “I don’t really fight, Lorri.”

  “You will now.” Lorri looked at Sam.

  Sam, as if reading Lorri’s mind, walked to Giselle. “A rage will fill you. Let it take you. The power is in you. Ignore everything but what the rage tells you to do.”

  To me, his advice sounded similar to Annabelle’s.

  Giselle frowned. “Dude, look at me. I’m not a fighter. I’m not even a lover. I’m a shopper and a hella good makeup artist.”

  “Remember all the training you had? You did great then.”

  Training? She didn’t act trained.

  I hoped someone would do something rational but Lydia’s eyes were locked on Giselle’s and she wasn’t moving.

  “You got this, Giselle.” Aimee fiercely stepped to the side and watched the crowd. Her gray eyes were molten steel. Her black tank top was stained in blood but it was hard to see. She wore blood-red leather pants and huge, dark-brown knee-high boots. Black stains and dried bits clung to her everywhere.

  Lorri put a hand in the air again, stilling the frothing crowd of savages. “Bring a challenger. We will have a fight to the death for the right of royalty.”

  The crowd erupted. Part excitement and part argument over who was eldest.

  My stomach tightened and my knees went weak.

  “Did I mishear that?” I asked the wolf. He shook his wolf head.

  I’d officially landed in Wonderland.

  A man was shoved forward.

  Dorian’s jaw clenched, seeing the man. He was tall and strong looking, but not muscular. He reminded me of Eurotrash. They all kind of did.

  “The death?” Giselle asked nervously.

  Dorian took his turn at convincing her, “You have the strongest blood here, Giselle. You have all of Marcus’ strength inside you. Call to it. Ask it to assist you. That vampire cannot beat you, no matter what. Marcus would have laughed at him.”

  Giselle turned back to the front door and threw up in the bushes.

  The crowd laughed at her.

  Sam changed. Something about him shifted and my head snapped in that direction.

  I licked my lips and moaned slightly.

  I wasn't alone.

  Everyone did the same.

  Dorian grinned. “It almost feels like cheating, having you here.”

  Sam smiled and tried to ignore the blush crossing his cheeks. “It is cheating. There’s no doubt.”

  The vampires were being affected by Sam, the same way I was. Their eyes dilated first. They sniffed the air. Fangs bursted everywhere.

  Giselle covered her mouth as a desp
erate look crossed her eyes.

  Lorri spoke sharply to Giselle, “Not you, you idiot. Keep those fangs in your mouth, for the love of God.”

  She took deep breaths and dropped the hand.

  The challenger frowned. “Is that a siren?”

  Dorian laughed. “Where? Surely one of us would have eaten a siren by now.”

  The male pointed at Giselle. “Is she a siren and a vampire? Marcus has cursed us.”

  Sam laughed as they accused Giselle. But I knew it was him. I could smell it on him. I could taste him in the air. And Dorian was right, I wanted to eat him alive.

  “Why do they think it’s me?” Giselle whispered.

  Sam whispered, “I don’t technically exist, Giselle. They assume the siren is the most beautiful girl here. If you are a siren and the vampire queen, then they will be as servants to you in every way.”

  Giselle was obviously lost which I joined her in.

  Aimee directed Giselle, “Command them to kneel. We need to see how many will defend her, just in case.”

  Lorri nodded.

  Giselle cleared her throat again. “Uhm, I would like it if you would kneel, please.”

  Lorri rolled her eyes and grabbed Giselle by the crotch. “Like you have a set, Giselle.”

  I jumped back, startled.

  Giselle shouted against the assault, “KNEEL.”

  Several dropped to their knees, but the others appeared to be fighting it. Their legs wobbled against her command.

  The tall Eurotrash stood freely, smiling. “Enough with the theatrics, Lucifer.”

  Dorian grinned at Giselle. “You ready? You have to kill him. He's a traitor to your kind. He’s probably the reason Marcus’ bloodline is dead.”

  Giselle was clearly worried. “How did he kill them?”

  Lorri sneered, “He likely has an army that Marcus never knew about. I guarantee it. Marcus was so obsessed with other things that he missed it.”

  Dorian laughed. “Like his sirens.”

  Giselle surveyed the group of people surrounding her. “I can’t do this.”

  Lorri gripped her arm. “Do it or die. Those are your only choices.”