The Roses Academy- the Entire Collection

by Tara Brown

  Marcus plucks his safari-styled jacket. “This is Dior.” He says it as though she’s way off base.

  “He never got to drink your blood yet?” She snorts.

  I bite my lip and stare up at him. He instantly gets broody. “We were on our way now.” He forces a smile at me. “She finally lost.”

  Lorri turns back toward Henry who is still grinning. He’s been doing it for days, all the times I beat Marcus black and blue at chess. “Lydia got a message that Henry found them. Rydal is in New York, an odd place for him. And Whit is in the bayou.” She gives us an expectant grin. “Time to kill some assholes.”

  “Whit’s in the bayou?” I cock an eyebrow.

  “I imagine he’s kissing up to Momma Holt, begging her for forgiveness.” Lorri rolls her eyes.

  “That’ll get him far.” I scoff.

  “Do you want to get dressed in something less tacky and we’ll mosey over to New York and deal with Rydal first?” She nods her head at the door.

  I get up but Marcus’ jaw drops. “There is no way in bloody hell she is leaving this goddamned house until I am done snorting up the last of her blood like that movie I loved so much from the eighties.”

  “Scarface.”

  He points at me. “That's the one.” He gives me a look. “I won. Fair and square.”

  I tilt my head in disbelief but he’s indignant.

  “Fine, but I still won and you owe me.”

  I laugh. I can’t even help myself. He’s having himself a fit.

  “I owe him. So if he’s coming to New York and we’re killing Rydal, I’ll stay at Marcus’ hotel.” I don't hate feeding vampires, and I don't hate Marcus so I don't mind the deal.

  It’s Lorri’s turn to look surprised.

  “I suppose that will have to do, but I expect some serious room service.” Marcus folds his arms.

  Even Henry rolls his eyes at that one.

  We travel to New York and check into our hotels. When we are done I’m still gagging from the traveling. Marcus snivels about not liking the room and wants a better one and Lorri snips at me, “Henry tracked him, and Brandon and Landry are there watching the place. We need to go now. Right now.”

  Marcus reaches across her and wraps an arm around my waist. “I need an hour, Lorri. One hour.”

  Lorri looks ready to batter and deep-fry his ass so I lift my hand to his, sizzling his skin. “After Rydal. I want him dead before he finds another witch to eat.”

  Marcus mutters something about welching on a bet. I roll my eyes and follow Lorri to the elevator. Marcus comes along, still grumbling. When we get to the doors she puts her hands out and winks us away while no one is looking.

  Every time Marcus pouts she snaps, “You said a day, it’s been five. God knows how many more witches are dead.”

  The building Rydal is in is creepy as cold sin. It’s tall and has gargoyles on it. I never did understand the need for a gargoyle. Why not have flowers or sculpture? Why have a big scary creature no one likes?

  We walk up to the front door. Brandon gives me a grin and looks at Lorri. “Landry is still up there, sitting down in the hall on the ninth floor.”

  I look up, knowing I’ll be able to spot him from the window outside the room. A thought crawls into my brain, tickling like it has the legs of a millipede. I put my hands facing down and push, using the wind to lift myself.

  Using the wind and the magic, I can fly.

  Lorri doesn't sound impressed on the ground below but I don't care. I can fly. I feel like Wendy Darling.

  I hover at a sliding door but the people inside don't reek of sin and pain, so I float upward past the next balcony, onto the next one, stopping at the fourth sliding glass door. I know he’s in there the moment I am within ten feet of the door. He’s in there and he ain’t alone. I push myself to the patio and jump onto it. My leisure suit isn’t badass like my leather pants but it’s comfy.

  I push the door open, realizing too late that the noise of the city immediately gives away the fact that I’ve opened a door.

  Rydal comes around the corner with no shirt on. He scowls and scans the room. “How’d you get in here?”

  I shrug, keeping my eyes on him but watching my peripheral as well. “Flew.”

  “Ya can fly now as well, lass?”

  “You’d butter your butt and call yourself a biscuit if you knew half of what I can do.”

  He seems lost but then gives up on the comment. “Why are ya here?”

  “I missed you. Ain’t that sweet of me?”

  He pulls back, glancing around. “You alone?”

  I nod again.

  He tilts his head to the room next to us. “I’m not. Ya want to meet my friend?”

  “I do.”

  He holds his hand out, motioning for me to walk past him. But I know it's a witch in the other room. I can sense her like a duck on a June bug. I take a deep breath, readying for battle. I pause to give him a smile before walking into the room. “Whit, I don't want to fight anymore. I just want this over with. If you turn your brother in, the Roses will be lenient.”

  He narrows his gaze. “They’re offering deals?”

  “Yeah. You can’t be eating witches and you have to find Rydal. He’s the one they want anyway.”

  I wonder how much of this Rydal’s believing. I need him to think he can trust me and come to the Roses Academy without a fight.

  He takes a deep breath and nods. “I’ll consider it.” He puts his arms around me, dragging me in and smelling me. I’m almost confused on which one it is, but he called me lass and Whit hardly uses the word.

  I let him lead me into the room. The girl I smell is unconscious. Rydal holds his hands up, still pulling the Whit act. “I swear, last one.”

  I exhale loudly, acting displeased, rather than disgusted. She’s alive at least. I hurry to the bed, touching her neck. She’s barely alive. I look up at the ceiling and call them. My head gets hot as the healing spirits enter me. They flow down into my hands, filling my entire body with heat. The girl gains back her color and warmth and then sits up on the bed, screaming blue murder.

  I wrap myself around her, shaking my head. “I found you, it’s okay. You’re safe, I swear.”

  She’s shaking and crying, pointing at Rydal. “Mo-mon-monster.”

  I rub her back, looking back at his mischievous face. “At least try to look guilty and mournful.”

  “You weren’t kidding. I have never seen a witch pull healing from the air like that before. What else can you do?”

  I hear the Roses, probably the same time as he does. He jerks his head, but I pin him against the wall of closets as the door opens. He breaks through the air holding him. So I blast him with fire. He screams as it burns a hole into his abdomen. Lorri is in the room, winking me and the young witch out as Dorian and Marcus both attack Rydal. I flip him the middle finger as we fade. We land outside a hospital with sirens everywhere. We’re behind an ambulance. The red flashing lights make me feel like I might have a seizure at any second.

  I peer into the girl’s eyes, compelling her blue stare with mine. “You don't remember anything about the last week. Go on home and go to bed. Eat and rest and you’ll feel better. You got a bump on the head but you’re okay. Go inside the hospital and tell them you need a cab home.”

  She nods weakly.

  She turns and stumbles out into the driveway of the hospital and into the emergency exit.

  Lorri shakes her head. “You save them all the time, don't you?”

  “It’s hard to imagine how badly he’s treated her this last couple of days. I'd want to forget.” I shrug. “Where’s Gwen?”

  Lorri’s eyes darken even more. “With her daddy in Romania. She’s one of the people put in charge of making him a case study file for the Roses Academy training. Whenever we come upon a hive of this type, we make a case study so that the next Roses being trained have knowledge of how things can work in different situations.

  She grabs my arm and winks us b
ack to the hotel. Dorian and Marcus are in the alley where we stop. Marcus slips his hand into mine and squeezes lightly. “Good night all. Let me know when you would like to meet us for Whit’s massacre.” He pulls me into the hotel and down the hall to the elevator. When we get to the top floor he grins. “You ready or shall I order some food first?”

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  When we get inside he nods at the shower. “Go clean up.”

  “Yes, sir.” I salute him and walk toward the bathroom.

  When I’m up close to the mirror I feel weird looking at myself.

  Something has come over me.

  I like Marcus.

  I like him a lot.

  I know what’s about to happen, and I’m not uncomfortable. I want this.

  I don't even care that he wants to drink my blood. I want to drink his.

  It’s an oddity, all of it.

  I pull off the ridiculous lavender suit and step into the hot shower. He steps in after me. “I miss the modern ages of fancy hotels and livery. These outfits and rotten tiling jobs and vomit-based colors are enough to drive me insane.”

  It makes me smile, even if we’re in a tiny shower. I turn to face him, letting my forehead rest against his chest. He wraps around me, kissing the top of my head as I mutter into him, “I miss cell phones and TV and books. Books from the sixties are lame. I miss how everyone talks instantly and how life is so efficient. And I hate that we have to live through the sixties, seventies, and eighties again. Lord have mercy, if I have to watch the whole Reagan scandal on TV again I’ll skin someone.”

  “Thank you.” He pulls me back. “You are the only person who gets this. Everyone else thinks I’m insane, but I try explaining that I lived in a time when everything was perfect for being a vampire. They all think it was the Renaissance. I say to hell with all that clothing. It was pomp then and it’s even worse now. And Reagan, Jesus save us all. I might just kill him and be done with it. The whole thing won’t even happen.” We both laugh and then he stops himself. He pulls back. “Did you do something to me? I feel strange, chipper.”

  I cock an eyebrow. “Like what?”

  “Cast something on me to make me sprightly?”

  I shake my head, noticing suddenly he is awfully good-humored. “You feeling okay?”

  He nods slowly, very slowly. “I feel amazing. I’m happy—gleeful is the word I would probably use.” He looks to the right quickly. “Son of a bitch.” He pauses. “Dorian.”

  “What?”

  “NO!” He leaps from the shower, wrapping in a towel and running from the room.

  I realize the one time I really wanted someone, it wasn't in the cards. I wash up slowly, enjoying the hot water. When I get out he’s back but he’s sitting on the bed with the covers pulled up. I pause in the doorway. “You all right?”

  “He’s taken all my nature from me. Twenty-four-hour tincture.” He sighs. “Henry gave it to him. I made the damned thing and now they’re using it against me. Said it was a joke but I’m not laughing.”

  I climb into the bed, realizing something. “I have the cure.”

  “I know you do. But this tincture is top-notch. I might as well be a eunuch.”

  “You might as well be a daytime drama star you mean. Stop being such a baby and let me fix this. Unless—you want to sit around and braid each other’s hair?”

  His eyes narrow. “You wish to use magic on me?”

  I drop my fangs. “It’s a combination cure.”

  He tilts his head to the side. “I’m getting excited now.” I lower my face to his neck, sinking my teeth in and drawing his hot blood into my mouth. The taste is unlike any I have ever had. It’s potent and something stirs inside me as I take it in. I chant the spells to remove the tincture from the blood and draw him into my mouth. “You are a miracle worker.”

  I pull back, licking his blood from my lips.

  He lifts my chin. “It’s not all gone but I think we can manage from here.”

  “I’d hate to waste the night.” He rolls me over onto my back. “When this drug wears off, you’re in for it.”

  “Looking forward to it.” I nod.

  He pulls me into him and takes in deep inhales of my hair.

  And that's how the night starts.

  Chapter 12

  I wake as I feel the sunset. His arm is draped across me and he’s heavy breathing in my hair. It’s the least and most attractive thing I have ever seen. If I close my eyes I can imagine him as my husband and me as his wife. I can imagine being in a house together and waking up, knowing the list of things we have to do in a day. I can imagine them as simple and plain and boring. Making lemonade and drinking it on the porch, or me baking a cake and icing it, just the way he likes, after he mows the lawn. I can imagine all the things I ain’t never gonna have.

  Each one is a small, dull ache in my chest.

  I don't know where that world went, but it left me behind in a shadow filled with things I neither like nor understand.

  But I know there is a place where people sit and do mindless things, I was trained for it. A life of garden parties, bridge, and planned dinners. Those people have the life I wanted to avoid because I was too young and naive to understand how exciting simple could be. Those people—they laugh and make love and sip sweet tea, gossiping from a porch swing. That world exists somewhere else and it’s locked behind a gate that I can’t get past.

  Instead, I’m having casual relations in a hotel with a vampire I suspect is more. Then again, aren’t we all more? We are all more and then we are also less. I will never play in the sun, letting it warm my face and fill my heart. I will never have babies and love someone with all my heart.

  I will always be this. This cold existence with guys like Marcus as company and killing things like Whit.

  He and I are gonna spend the day pretending this is just random, and then we’re gonna kill the first boy that ever pretended to love me. Then I’m going to Romania to kill that boy’s father, with his sister, no less. And then the night I spent with Marcus will be a notch on a belt I wear around my wrist, made of the innocence I once had.

  I remember being back in Ms. Mitchell’s class, making fun of the life I would do anything to now have.

  God must really hate me.

  I lift his thick arm from my chest. He lowers it again and pulls me into him. “Buyer’s remorse already?” He mutters and kisses my cheek.

  It makes me smile but it can’t chase away the feelings I’m suffering through. I lean into the kiss and embrace and pretend for a little longer, before I turn and give him a narrow gaze. “What are you? I know you’re not a regular vampire.”

  “What do I get in return for my answer?”

  “The knowledge that you have satisfied a very big curiosity for me.” I grin but his stoic face doesn't change.

  “I’m a cursed man. I’m not like regular vampires. A curse made me this way. Now maybe you owe me something more than simple gratification. I want a striptease. Not a ridiculous one from this decade. If I see one more go-go dancer-looking beach bunny, I will actually just start killing random people. I want a bad one like in 2012. I want huge heels, a pole, tear-away clothing, and maybe if you could figure out how that one gal in Vegas was able to—” I slap a hand over his lips, muffling the sounds and shaking my head.

  “No. Don't finish that sentence. I want to live in a world where that level of debauchery hasn't happened yet.”

  He laughs. “Love, it’s happened. She just hasn't been exploited and put on a stage.”

  “Shhhhh.” I roll away from him but he pulls me back.

  “We aren’t done discussing your striptease. To be honest I’ve always enjoyed the girls who pretended to be something sweet. Little Red Riding Hood is a favorite.”

  “Oh my God, you are so disgusting.”

  He chuckles and kisses my neck before scooping me up in his arms. He carries me to the shower. I catch a glimpse of our reflection as we walk past the mirror
in the bathroom. He’s so handsome it’s ridiculous. His dark hair and olive skin make his dark-blue eyes pop, but the long inky lashes that frame his azure eyes are too much.

  He narrows his stare. “What are you thinking about? I see the wheels turning.”

  “You’re very handsome for something so evil and rotten.”

  His jaw drops as if he’s affronted. “Rotten? I can see evil, but rotten? When have I ever behaved rottenly?”

  “The first time I met you.”

  He turns the shower on and puts me down. “Which time?”

  “The first time, in Baton Rouge.”

  He scowls, still wounded by my comment. “I don't recall being rotten.”

  “I could tell, just a feeling I had about you.”

  “Well, God forbid a bloke finds you attractive and gives you a bit of a flirt.”

  I step in with him, sliding up against his warmth. He wraps his arms around me, rubbing my back. “Do you want to fill me in on the great dilemma you were having with your noisy mind while I was trying to get my beauty rest?”

  “What?” I pause. Then it hits me. My cheeks redden. “You could hear my thoughts?”

  He shrugs. “Sometimes when I have witch for dinner, I find I get a bit of a food hangover for a couple of days.” He leans back to look down at me. “You, however, drank my blood too, didn't you? You naughty thing. Blood swapping with me is a strict no-no. Now your thoughts come flittering about in my head. Not clearly, just mumbled and heady with that accent of yours.”

  “You have an accent, not me.”

  “Fine. What were you all worked up about?”

  How do you explain the desire to be normal to a man loving his existence as an abnormality? I don't know how but I try. “I was thinking what if we were a regular couple, all in love and happy. What if we were normal and there weren’t no blood or magic between us, just love? Imagine how amazing it must be to be in love and to be appreciated for the small things like making a delicious dinner or bringing home flowers, or asking that person you love to slow dance on the porch.”