The Roses Academy- the Entire Collection

by Tara Brown

  “Can you answer me something honestly?” I glanced at him. “Was I a slut?” The words came out before I could filter.

  “Slut? What a deplorable word.” He laughed. “But no. I wish. You were uppity and annoying in a lot of ways, but very dependable and sort of bitchy. A know-it-all is how I would have labeled you.”

  “Oh, I like that.” I smiled. “Thanks. I needed that.”

  Confusion crossed his brow. “You always wore high-heeled boots and your hair was always long and down. You had a fiercely bad tempter. Famous actually among the Roses for killing without conscience or mercy.”

  “What?” Horror crept across my face slowly. “Why?”

  “You hated Dorian more than anything in the world.” He ignored me and continued, “Loved Aleks. Felt sorry for the bloke who’s here, Shane. He was always losing, wasn’t he?”

  “I can’t imagine any of that.”

  “Well, you best start. Lorri’s spicy when it comes to failure.” His tone told me he couldn’t care less. “And her track record with losing has been epic.”

  The hallway was huge and wide, full of amazing paintings and fancy doors. He led me down to a door that was different from the others. It slid into the wall and when it opened my jaw dropped in awe. It was a lab. It was the last thing I expected to find here. A modern, beautiful lab. The kind Blake would cry over.

  Marcus stood proudly. “I knew you would like it.”

  “Oh my God.” I entered, doing circles as I tried to take it all in. “It's beautiful. Is that a hybridization oven? You have everything in here.”

  “That’s nothing. Check this out.” He strolled over to an electrophoresis system like I had never seen before, when a voice interrupted us.

  “Aimes?”

  I turned back and grinned. “Shane. You're okay.” He was different. His face had always been handsome but now it was perfect. Everything was perfect. I glared at Marcus. “What did you do?”

  He walked to Shane. “Ahh, good to see you're back, son. How was the feed?”

  Shane looked down shyly. “Good. Bit of a struggle but I got it.”

  I growled at Marcus, “What did you do?”

  “Turn that judgmental face of yours around, missy. You did this, not I. I saved him. There was only one way to do it.” Marcus scoffed.

  My heart broke. “Oh my God. I'm so sorry, Shane. I've killed you.”

  “No, it’s awesome, Aimes. I love it.” He offered me a sly grin. “And now we can kiss and you won’t kill me.”

  “I have to go.” I winked back to Lydia's, ran up the stairs, and threw open the door. “We need to reset the clock again.”

  Ari laughed. “Not a chance. Why?”

  “Shane!” I covered my face. “I've cursed him. He’s cursed like me now.”

  “He isn’t cursed. He’s saved. The old you always wanted him to be unbreakable. Now he is. You two can be together, normal.”

  I looked to her in disbelief. “I never could have wanted this. He just ate someone for lunch.”

  “You never said you wanted it, but you would have chosen him if he wasn’t mortal. You loved Aleks, there was no doubt. But the more you were away from him, the less you loved him. Your love weakened with distance and time. Now look at you two. He doesn’t even know you and you barely register him. Giselle’s stalking him like a bear in heat.”

  “This can't be the way it was meant to turn out.” I wanted to hit something.

  She lifted my chin. “Aimes, we don’t get to choose the way it is and the way it isn’t. We get to try to fix our mistakes. You have to know that my powers are not the answer. You must know that by now. After everything.”

  “He’s dead. He looks like one of them now—one of us,” my voice trailed off. “He’s so perfect now. I used to love the little scar on his cheek and the way he always had messy hair. Now, he’s perfect. Everything is perfect. It’s not him.”

  “Hey.” She pulled me into her. “It's him the way it’s you or me. We are still who we were.”

  “No. I'm not the same. I know I'm not. I can’t even breathe without smelling people and wanting their souls. I can’t walk down the road without noticing a distinct ‘us and them’ feel to every human I see. I'm not human and I know it. In my heart of hearts, I know I'm a monster.” I backed away and winked.

  I dropped to my knees in the sand and stared out at the ocean.

  Guilt and pain were everywhere.

  How could I have done this to him?

  How could I have let them turn him?

  Even worse, how could I have sucked his soul?

  I left him for dead and they changed him. It might have been to save him but it killed the human he was.

  I did this.

  In my pain and suffering, I didn’t hear the sound behind me.

  I didn’t hear the warning sound of uneasy feet on unstable rocks and sand.

  I missed the fact that a hand reached for my mouth.

  I missed it all until the excruciating pain was upon me.

  Screaming, I winked but the pain followed.

  My face was shoved into the grass on Lydia's lawn. Sharp stabbing pain and warmth covered my throat and shoulders.

  “AIMEE!” someone screamed, “WINK TO MARCUS'!”

  In the pain, I tried to reach back at the thing holding me down but my shoulders were limp. Broken.

  I winked, feeling the warm liquid running down my throat.

  In a flash of color and screaming I saw the bowler hat and Marcus. His face distorted in rage.

  Shouts and chaos were everywhere.

  Blue eyes and a sweet face filled my vision that seemed to come and go.

  Warmth surrounded me.

  I smelled laundry soap, deodorant, and sea air.

  I closed my eyes and smiled.

  I knew the warmth surrounding me was Shane. He was carrying me to safety.

  When I opened my eyes I didn’t see him. I didn’t see anyone. I was alone in a room with a fancy bed and enough space to make an apartment on the other side of the room where the fireplace was.

  I blinked and peered around the dark empty place.

  The smell in the air answered the question of where I was.

  I was still at Marcus’.

  Memories of the stabbing pains in my shoulders flooded my mind. I reached my hands around to find my shirt was ripped to pieces but the flesh of my shoulders was intact.

  As if it had never happened, my skin was totally smooth.

  But I remembered the blood and pain.

  I remembered winking randomly, praying someone would take it away.

  I remembered screaming.

  Climbing off the bed, I padded down the wide hallway with paintings and art from before.

  When I reached the massive front sitting room, I could hear voices coming from the far corner.

  Shane stood laughing next to the tall blond, Aleksander.

  “Hey,” I muttered, clearing my throat after it sounded groggy.

  They both turned their heads.

  “Hey.” Shane's eyes sparkled in a way they never used to, like Aleksander's. Like the magic of the immortals had put a spell on them. He grinned. “Aimes, how you feeling?” He sounded normal but I could see he was not.

  “What happened? What attacked me?” Flashes of my own screams haunted the back of my mind.

  “Sorry.” Aleksander seemed grim which was almost impossible as he was so beautiful. “My dad. He attacked you. He has a thing for witches. Must have mistaken you.”

  “For a witch?”

  “You smell like Lydia's house.” He shrugged.

  “Why would your father attack me?” I didn’t understand.

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see the dark-haired girl with the black soulless eyes, Ari. She smiled and waved like a zombie Barbie. “Hey!”

  I lifted my hand weakly and forced a smile upon my lips. “Hey.”

  “So Jon’s in the cell?” she asked.

  Aleksander beamed at m
e, crossing his thick arms. “Thanks to her.”

  Shane beamed, like he knew what they were talking about.

  I knew nothing beyond Jon being the man who killed my mother in the way things were before the time change. “I just winked.”

  Ari grinned. “To Henry. No one hates Jon like Henry does.”

  “What will happen to him?” I ask.

  Boots clicked hard against the ground as Lorri entered the room. “We're going to wait it out with him. He’s a bargaining chip. We can’t kill him until Ophelia turns eighteen. Henry will be allowed to kill him at that time and then Henry will free the spirits of all the girls Jon has killed, thus giving the powers of Ophelia’s sisters to her. We can't have Jonathan knowing where she is now and we can't risk the blue sisters finding her. It’s all too soon. So we will wait for her to be ready to take the power, ready to fight, and strong enough to win.”

  My brain instantly dashed back to the timeline. I pieced it together and crossed my arms. “But if we give Ophelia the power of her sisters it automatically ages her to eighteen, technically.”

  “In theory and according to Jonathan. I’m not willing to gamble with that. We have two years to prepare for this war and, honestly, it might not even be enough time.”

  “Well, what do we do for the two years to prepare?”

  “Kill shit.” A spicy grin crossed the redhead’s face. “We train and fix all the things we screwed up on along the way. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to send Daniel a new task for work. You know, so the army of shitheads that he ends up building against us is considerably smaller.” She glanced back at me. “One thing that is extremely important is no matter what, we do not let Marcus kill Hanna and change her.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she was gone. I closed my lips. Everyone was staring at me like I was in charge. My stomach sunk. I didn’t have a clue what to do or why anyone would kill Hanna.

  Ari put a hand out. “We need to make certain your body remembers the training and killing. Are you ready?”

  Shane laughed and shrugged like I was being offered my first drink at a party and he thought I should take it. I took Ari’s hand.

  She held a picture of a place on her cell phone and I winked my eye.

  Chapter 12

  A compelling meal

  Egypt, 2012

  Aimee

  “What do you think?” Ari asked.

  I scanned the desert. “I think if we can get him to come to us, we'll have a better chance of saving some of the women.” I paced back and forth in the sand, scowling. “I hate sand. These boots are new.”

  She laughed and lifted her DC sneakers. “Try these on for sand walking. I've got more in my shoe than this whole damned desert.”

  My phone beeped. I sighed as I pulled it out.

  “What is it?” Ari tried to look.

  “A text saying get here now with a picture of a dark alley from Giselle.”

  “Not again.” Ari winced. “Great.”

  I peered down one last time on the house in the middle of the desert belonging to the piece of shit vampires who ran a drug-blood service. “We need to come back here right away. We need to end this shit but I want the head guy there for it.” I put my hand out. Ari took it and we flashed to the alley. My boots clicked against the cold cement. I still smiled at how strong they made me feel. How I felt just like Superwoman in them. We rounded the corner of the alley to find Giselle standing over the body of a man. His leather shoe twitched.

  Her face was devastatingly beautiful under the dim streetlights as she turned back toward us.

  “Did you come after or did you see him do it?” I asked.

  “After,” she replied. “I was hunting and I smelled him. When I got here, shithead fled, and the man was too far.”

  Ari looked closer. “He’s still alive.”

  “Duh.” Giselle pulled her thick black hair back and crossed her arms over her cute lime-green peacoat. “Dude. Of course he’s still alive. I just ate. I figured Aimes could have this one.”

  Ari was pissed. “You let him live and suffer till we got here?”

  Giselle took a step toward her. “Don’t be such a whore. I was being thoughtful and shit. God.”

  “I’ll fix it.” I hurried to the dying man and crouched down. I gripped his arm where his expensive watch sat and let my power loose. Giselle would have gotten nothing from him, but I ate differently. I didn’t need there to be a lot of life force or emotion the way she did. I just needed the soul to leave the body. I shivered and gasped as his soul slipped from him.

  “I guess he’s just another one.” I pulled off his watch and took his wallet. “A tragedy of the city,” I whispered.

  I felt sick.

  Shane and I hadn’t gotten along since he turned.

  His blood lust was too much for me.

  His friendship with Marcus was way too much for me.

  The dead man below me was his means of bending the Roses Academy rules.

  The man broke one of the Ten Commandments no doubt, making him fair game for Marcus and Shane. I hated the rules Marcus taught him to live by but as long as they didn’t kill an innocent, we couldn’t touch them. Not that I would be able to touch Shane that way. I couldn’t be the one to take his life. I may not have liked him anymore, but I would always love him in some way.

  “So, we gonna finally tell Lorri?” Ari flashed me a sarcastic look.

  “No.” I glanced at Giselle who was twirling her hair. It made me miss my sister for a moment. “We can’t. Shane and Marcus always have a reason for death. We’ll just seem like we’re being tattlers.”

  Giselle added, “We always do. They always find the bad humans. I never get that lucky. I thought I had one the other day. He was dragging some little kid down an alley but then I grabbed him. He had a priest robe on and the white-collar thingy.” She motioned where her throat was. “So I knew he wasn’t bad. The damn kid probably was though.”

  “You know priests aren’t all good, right?” I asked, almost speechless. Ari's eyes shifted at the comment. I’d helped her clean up an orphanage once. It was aggressive at best.

  Giselle shrugged. “Anyway, I don’t get how Shane always finds the bad ones.”

  “Dude, they probably compelled them to do the bad shit and then ate them.” Ari scoffed.

  A flash of understanding whipped across Giselle's face. “Oh my God, do you think? Wow, that’s pretty smart actually.”

  Ari stared at her blankly. “Don't even think about it.”

  “Hey, I don’t need to compel them. I've learned how to do it so I don’t have to take it all. I haven't killed anyone in like six months. It’s not the same but at least my record’s clean. Lorri’s such a nag about the humans dying.”

  Ari's head turned. “You smell that?”

  I already had the scent. “Hands in.” We flashed just as hellhounds rounded the corner of the alleyway.

  “Hellhounds?” I stalked across Lydia's grass and opened the front door. “This is so messed up. It’s like the world is getting worse.” I glanced back at Ari. “What can we do about him?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head. “I really thought when Shane turned into one of us, he would be a Rose.”

  My insides ached. “Yeah well, neither of us is responsible for the fact he and Marcus have the bromance of doom. No one saw that coming.” I’d come a long way in my guilt over sucking his life force. I knew it wasn’t my fault. Had I known I was cursed, I never would have been alone with him.

  That was Dorian’s fault.

  When we got to the kitchen, Sam waved from where he sat at the counter. He, Giselle, Ari, and Ben were my saving graces in this world we lived in. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” I sat next to him and nudged him. “What have you been up to?”

  He blushed. “Not much. You know.”

  “Spying on Hanna?” Ari said as she sat on the other side of him.

  His eyes darted at her. “What? No.”

  We all lau
ghed.

  Giselle sat across from us at the table and grabbed his hands. She closed her eyes and moaned, “God, I love you.”

  He pulled back. “Stop doing that.”

  “I can’t.” She flashed him a gorgeous smile. “Sammy, it’s just a little sip of the siren.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “It feels violating and wrong.”

  We laughed at him.

  Giselle rolled her eyes. “Boys can't be violated.”

  He looked aghast. So did Ari.

  The air swirled warm and the icy-blue eyes were the first thing I saw.

  He smiled sweetly, but the haunted look was still there. It never left.

  With his father trapped in a dungeon under Marcus’ massive castle, Aleksander was getting no joy. He used to live on the emotions and healing from the families of his father's victims. Now he had nothing to sustain him.

  Giselle beamed at him, “Hey, sexy.”

  He blushed. “You say that to everyone.”

  “So?” She winked. “Doesn’t mean I don’t mean it when I do.”

  “Keep it in your pants,” Ari groaned. “God, you're the worst succubus ever.”

  Giselle stuck her tongue out.

  “No, I met one who was worse. She tackled this siren I knew in Greece to the ground and sucked her dry right in public. It was sick. Giselle at least only takes a little.” Sam shuddered.

  “Gross.” Ari seemed like she was about to gag.

  I glanced over to Aleksander. “What's going on?”

  “Nothing much.” He leaned on the huge counter and shook his head. “We go for Ophelia today.”

  “Today?”

  We'd been planning it for almost two years. Ophelia was the start. The catalyst of the beginning of the end.

  “I noticed Lorri was feistier than normal and Lydia’s been running around like a chicken with her head cut off.” Sam glanced behind his shoulder.

  “Ophelia knows us all though, right? She remembers the way it was before?” Giselle always got confused on the timeline.

  Ari’s eyes lowered. They usually did when we talked about before. She still regretted turning back the time. Sam was like a brother to me and his being alive told me she’d made the right choice. I couldn’t imagine living in a world where he didn’t exist.