Grimmstead Academy: Submission

by Candace Wondrak

  “He would’ve come back,” Payne said with certainty. “I just wanted his blood.”

  I shook my head. “You would’ve killed him, just like you killed those other animals.”

  “No,” he said, petulant. “Midnight would’ve come back.”

  I had no idea why Payne was so vehement that Midnight would come back. Come back as in come back to life? I was…so very confused. “Once something dies,” I said, telling him something he should already know, “it stays dead. It doesn’t come back to life.”

  Payne’s grey eyes held mine, and for some reason, I had flashbacks to a cold, dark place—a cellar? A basement? “Not here. Things don’t work like that around here.” He took a step towards me, cocking his head as he glanced to my arms. “Could I have some of yours?”

  “Some of my what?” Didn’t know why I bothered to ask; I already knew what this boy wanted.

  “Your blood.”

  “Absolutely not,” I told him. “Now, Payne, you’re going to come with me. Victor needs to know about this.”

  Payne let out a sigh, though he didn’t fight me about it, and together we returned to the building. The burning shoe was nowhere to be found, thankfully. Maybe a prerequisite of living at Grimmstead was you had to be a little off your rocker. Apparently, I was.

  Victor was in his office—thank God I didn’t have to search far and wide for him, too—jotting something down in what looked like a leather-bound book. He stopped the moment Payne and I entered, and I lightly set a hand on Payne’s back, pushing him closer to Victor, to the two vacant chairs facing his desk.

  “What is this?” Victor spoke, cocking a single eyebrow as he studied Payne and then me. I had to fight the heat growing in my cheeks when I thought of that long, hungry kiss we’d shared not too long ago.

  God, I could really use another one right about now.

  “I found Payne in the woods,” I told him, standing straight. I would not let this man’s handsome, intense stare intimidate me in any way, previous kiss or not. “He didn’t show up to his session with me.” My eyes dropped to Payne. “And what were you doing in the woods, Payne?” I would get the boy to admit his wrongdoings himself.

  Of course, I had no idea if Victor knew what Payne did. whether or not Victor knew what any of these boys did was up to anyone’s guess.

  “I was going to hang Midnight, and then drain him for his blood,” Payne spoke unabashedly, talking as if he didn’t see anything wrong with it. Detached, as if he didn’t care if it was wrong. This child knew no morals, it seemed.

  Victor’s lips thinned into a line. “I told you to leave Midnight alone.”

  This…wasn’t the first time they talked about this, I assumed. Victor didn’t seem too worried, or shocked, or even appalled at what Payne had almost done. Was I surrounded by madmen? Boys and men alike, both insane?

  Payne’s head turned downward. “I know.”

  “Go to your room. I’ll deal with you later. Right now, I need to have a chat with Ms. Fairday.”

  The boy said nothing as he left the room, leaving me alone with Victor. It was the first time we’d been alone since that kiss, and even though my mind was frazzled at what just happened, I’d be lying if I said the kiss wasn’t on my mind.

  Victor didn’t get up. He made no moves to do anything but stare at me, his jaw clenched. Today the suit he wore was a dark brown, matching his hair.

  “You knew about what Payne likes to do,” I said, refusing to sit in either one of the chairs facing him. I held my hands before my stomach, folding them over each other as I returned his intense stare. I would not back down. He might intimidate me to my very core, but I would not let him strongarm me into swallowing my pride and backing down.

  “I know what each of them like to do,” he said. “Nothing happens on Grimmstead grounds without me knowing. I have eyes everywhere, Felice. Even when you’re alone, you’re not truly.” Victor’s lips tugged into a smile, and my mind immediately raced.

  There was no way he could be everywhere at once. No way he knew everything that went on.

  The look on my face must’ve egged him on, for he added, “I know what happened with Bram the other day, and I also know what you get up to when you’re alone in that tub.”

  Oh, my God. I wanted to shrivel up and die. That was…that was not something I ever wanted anyone else to know. I mean, it was kind of embarrassing, me touching myself to the thought of my boss, wasn’t it? In fact, the absolute last person who should know was Victor himself. I just…ugh.

  Heat flared in my cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Playing dumb was apparently the wrong thing to do, for at my denial, Victor stood and moved around his desk, every movement he made calculated and slow. “Felice,” he purred out my name, “you don’t have to lie to me. You don’t have to be afraid of the truth.”

  Holy heck. He really did know. Was I that loud? Did someone overhear me? I wasn’t a quiet girl when I orgasmed, but I thought no one else lived in the rooms near mine. I thought I was alone. I thought…

  Wrong, apparently, I thought wrong.

  “How did you…” I couldn’t even get the question out. Plus, Victor stood way too close for me to concentrate on anything other than how fixedly he looked at me. How smooth his jaw was, how gaunt and elegant his cheeks were.

  “I told you, I see everything,” he whispered. His eyes dropped, and I felt his hand find mine, fingers curling around it. “Come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”

  This man was hot and cold, and even though I was super embarrassed, I kind of loved it.

  Victor pulled me from his office, and we turned right, heading further down the hall. I knew there were many rooms that I wasn’t allowed in, and what would you know, he stopped us in front of one of them.

  A big wooden door that was always closed—and locked. No one was allowed in there, and oftentimes I wondered why.

  “This room,” Victor spoke, reaching into his pocket with his free hand and pulling out an old-fashioned metal key, “is the heart of this place. In this room, you’ll see many things, but most of which is what you desire most.” He put the key into the lock and turned it, the lock loudly clicking open. Once the iron key was back in his pocket, his hand fell away from mine. “Do you want to know what I see when I go in?”

  My breath caught in the back of my throat. For the longest while I couldn’t breathe, could hardly think. I had no idea what Victor was going on and on about, but I had to know what he desired most. “What?”

  “You,” he told me, and the lone word caused my entire body to heat up, my panties to wet and my thighs to clench. I mean, what straight woman wouldn’t swoon when told something like that? So seriously, too.

  Oh, boy. I was in a lot of trouble when it came to Victor. He was my kryptonite.

  “I want you to go in, and I want to see what you desire most.” Victor pushed open the door, allowing me to peer inside.

  It was…just a room. A mostly empty room whose light was already on, a room with no windows. A room whose only furniture was a red velvet chair, its legs gilded in gold. An utterly gaudy chair that almost hurt to look at, but a chair nonetheless.

  I glanced at Victor, who’d stepped aside to let me enter.

  This was weird. This was insane. This was…pretty akin to how everything else in Grimmstead was, so I really shouldn’t be surprised.

  Figuring there was no point in holding off, I forced myself to walk into the room, holding my head high as I glanced around. I wasn’t sure what he meant when he’d said see what you desire most, but I just assumed there would be something.

  I was not a believer in magic, but I did support facts and evidence. That shoe…had been one real hallucination. What was even weirder: I’d felt the shoe. I’d tripped on it. You didn’t actually feel hallucinations, because they weren’t real. That shoe…it sure felt real to me.

  But this room was just a room. Nothing at all changed as I neared the
red chair.

  “Sit,” Victor instructed, only stepping into the room and closing the door once I’d done so. “Close your eyes. Breathe. Let it come to you.”

  I tried to listen to him. The velvet beneath me was a soft cushion, though I didn’t feel it much because of my dress. I ran my hands along its armrests, breathing in and out, trying to forget my worries and let whatever it was come to me.

  I did that for a minute, but I didn’t feel anything change. “I don’t think—” The last part, it’s working, died on my tongue when I opened my eyes and saw someone standing between Victor and me.

  A cute face I recognized, though it was a cute face I hadn’t seen in years. Three years, to be exact. Three years since I went to his house in the middle of the night and set the fire.

  It wasn’t my first fire. I’d made smaller ones, less destructive ones, but it was the first fire that consumed an entire house and everything inside it…including the boy standing across from me and his parents. It was the first fire I’d created in a fit of…annoyance. Annoyance with him.

  Robert Smalls. With short brown hair and warm amber eyes. With the lopsided smile and the dimples, even when he wasn’t grinning. He wore the same tennis shoes I’d tripped over earlier, just a t-shirt and some jeans. He looked so out of place here, mostly because I knew he was dead.

  “What do you see?” Victor asked from behind Robert.

  “I see…” I spoke, pausing because this couldn’t be real. I couldn’t be seeing this. I hadn’t even dreamt of him since the incident, since the first day my father realized just how dangerous my obsession with fire was. “I see my ex-boyfriend.” No point in lying. Victor seemed to know everything anyway.

  Victor then questioned, “And why is he here?”

  I blinked, and then Robert’s form caught fire. The entire room caught fire, actually. The only place that didn’t house flames was the chair I sat on. His clothes burned up, his shoes full of cinders and sparks. His hair sizzled off his head, his flesh grew saggy and his eyes popped. It was the most disgusting sight I’d ever seen, and yet I couldn’t look away, because it was also the most beautiful.

  “Because I killed him,” I said, wondering why I was here in Grimmstead when I had such a dark past. Blood was on my hands. I wasn’t safe for any of these children to be around. Heck, I was just as crazy as they were.

  “No,” Victor spoke knowingly, “try again.”

  He wasn’t here because I killed him? He…I remembered what Victor had told me before allowing me into the room. This room showed you what you desired most; it wouldn’t show me Robert because I desired him most—but the things that came along with him, the flames and the way the fire lapped at his skin. That’s what I desired, not Robert himself.

  “The fire,” I answered slowly, watching as Robert’s body slowly faded away. The fire in the room remained, beautiful and entrancing in every way. A searing heat touched my hand, and I brought my eyes to my palm, noticing that I was burned a little.

  But…how? The fires weren’t near me. I didn’t touch any of the flames. I didn’t understand any of this, and yet, here I was, looking at something that should’ve been impossible.

  Victor stepped through the flames, untouched by them, and I watched with a gaping mouth as he neared me. He held his hands behind his back, ignoring the flames around him. Or maybe he didn’t even see them, and it was all in my head.

  Maybe I was going crazy here.

  “What is it about fire that you crave so much?” he asked, studying me as if I was a school project, something he could work on, experiment on. Did I mean anything to him, or was this some intricate game?

  “The beauty,” I whispered, my ears hearing nothing but the sounds of the crackling fire. It didn’t occur to me that this place could burn down; most of it was stone, not wood. And yet, why worry about that when these fires were probably all in my head, a design of my imagination? “The power. The destruction. There’s nothing else like it.”

  Victor lowered to his knees before me, setting his hands on my legs. “You crave the fire because the fire is you.” His hands started to travel up from my knees, bunching up the fabric of my dress. “You are beautiful. You are destructive. You hold the power here.” Inch by inch until my boots were exposed, and then my knees, and once those were visible, he moved his hands there, starting to creep up my legs again, this time skin on skin.

  And, by all that was unholy, it felt ridiculously good.

  My skin tingled everywhere he touched, and the pain in my hand faded as I focused on the pleasant, erotic sensation. Plus, Victor on his knees before me was so frigging hot. “I don’t…”

  “Oh, but you do,” Victor insisted, his hands drawing beneath my dress, dangerously close to my panties, which were certainly soaked by now. “I’ve been waiting so long for you.”

  “Why?” The word came out in a pant.

  “It’s all in the blood,” he murmured, his fingers finding the sides of my panties and toying with them.

  Blood? I had no idea what the heck he was talking about, and yet I found I couldn’t speak, mostly because Victor’s hands moved to my boots, which he carefully began to unzip. One by one, he took them off, tossing them aside. I was so caught up in him I neglected to see that the fires had died down around us. My socks were next, and once they were off, he ran his palms along the underside of my feet.

  “You are the key to this place,” he went on, his hands curving along the backside of my calves. “Your blood, your sweat, your soul…your heart. Everything in you was always meant for this place, for me.”

  Once again his hands found my panties, and this time he tore them down, gliding them along my legs and tugging them off my feet. He tossed the panties aside, his hungry gaze on me. The heat in my body only grew when I felt his breath on my thighs, when I felt him grab my waist and pull me forward on the chair, my apex closer to his face.

  “I dreamt of you before this room existed,” he said, speaking utter nonsense, but I was so enraptured in him, I could do nothing but breathe and tremble in anticipation. “I made this room so I could see you in person. You are what Grimmstead needs. Others might see different things in here, but I, and anyone created from my blood, will always see you.”

  It was freaking hard to breathe, hard to sit back and let him talk. I wanted to grab his head and force it to my pussy, feel that tongue pleasuring me and making me even hotter than I already was. But I restrained myself, especially when I noted the dark look in his eyes.

  “I am not a man who would sink to my knees for anyone,” Victor told me, his voice husky. “Only for you, and I hope you would do the same.”

  Since speaking was definitely out of the question, I nodded. Almost a bit too eagerly. Me, agreeing to get on my knees for him. Not something I ever thought I’d agree to, especially to my boss, but honestly, there was nothing I’d like more.

  “Let me taste you, Felice.”

  My eyelids shut and I nodded yet again. And then, then my mind was blown away. Then his tongue flicked out and licked along my slit, curling upwards to my clit. The pleasure that instantly heightened every sense in my body was indescribable and undeniable. I wanted more. More, more, more. All that he would give me, and then some.

  His strong hands held onto my thighs, spreading them apart for better access to me. My fingers curled on the ends of the armrests, my whole body starting to tremble. Every logical thought vanished from my mind, and all I could think about was getting more. As if knowing, Victor’s licks became more urgent, his teeth grazing my clit before he began to suck on it, causing me to moan.

  At this point, I didn’t care if someone else heard me. I wanted to cry out, to tell the world how good it felt to have Victor between my legs, pleasing me in the best way possible.

  I was panting like a dog in heat when he pulled his mouth off me, shadows dancing across his features. “Are you close? I don’t want you to lose yourself before I do.” Knowing he’d very nearly pushed me off the precipice
of Orgasm Land, he rose, setting his hands on the armrests and blocking out everything else in sight. “I want to be inside of you, Felice. I want us to experience it together.”

  He wanted to orgasm together? That would take some good timing on both our parts, but I was game to try if he was.

  “Together, we will be stronger than ever,” Victor murmured, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet, holding me against his lean body. His erection poked at my stomach, and I felt the instant need to tear off all of his clothes and see him as naked as the day he was born.

  As naked, but much, much sexier.

  As I lost myself to the feeling of his cock pressing against me, his hands found the zipper on the back of my dress and yanked it down. Soon I wore only a bra, and within another moment, that was on the floor, too.

  Victor did not hide how intensely he checked me out, his eyes roaming across every feature on my body, his hands resting on my hips. “You are…just like fire. Beautiful and dangerous. Never doubt it.”

  I brought my hands to the buttons holding his suit jacket together, and piece by piece I helped him out of his clothes, stopping only when he was as naked as me. He wasn’t overly-muscled, but his stomach was flat, with the barest hint of abs. His arms were lean and sinewy. Since he made no qualms about checking me out, I chose to do the same, taking in every aspect of his physical appearance, including his dick.

  Especially his dick.

  After all, that dick would soon be inside me, stoking the flames within me that Victor had started with his mouth and his tongue.

  “Why do I feel so connected to you?” I whispered, turning my head up to meet his eyes. The pang of desperate lust in my body was almost too hard to fight. My question took everything in me to say without pouncing on him.

  Victor lifted both hands to my face, his fingers curling in my hair and tugging slightly. “Because, as I told you, you’re the key. Without you, I am nothing. This—” He looked around us, at the empty room. “—is only because of you. I would not be here if it weren’t for you…and when you go back, I’ll need you to do something for me.”