I kiss Athalia goodbye in front of the Temple and make my way to the altar where the rest of my squad is waiting for me. For once, Kian and Lasse aren’t fighting and the tense atmosphere just emphasises how dangerous the job has become. I didn’t think demon hunting could be riskier than it already was but here we are, not even sure of what to expect from a lesser ring in hell.
I touch the handle of the sword Athalia made for me and I can feel my nerves settling. Nobody knows what the future will hold but this is what it means to be a Celestial. There were many before me and there will be more after me. I’m just a small link in a long chain of defenders, but I’m ready to do my duty.
As the altar glows golden and the trapdoor opens, I catch a last glimpse of Athalia outside the Temple and I can feel the despair retreat. Everything is going to be okay.
— The End —
Thank you for reading the First Star. I hope you enjoyed Kassandra’s story and this first glance at the Celestial Colosseum, the setting of my next series. If you liked this, check out Celestial Disgrace which is set after the First Star and will follow Tara, a new recruit in the Realm. We’ll dive deeper into the world to show you more about the Arena, the demon raids, wish parents, etc. There will be some familiar faces as well so if you’re not ready to say goodbye to these characters, you don’t have to.
* * *
Get Celestial Disgrace, the first book in the Celestial Colosseum series here: https://books2read.com/celestialdisgrace (available on most major retailers)
Also by Arizona Tape
The Constellation Hunt is prequel attached to The Celestial Colosseum. If you enjoyed the Realm and want to know more about raids, constellation hunting, the Arena, and what it takes to be a Celestial, you should pick up the first book in the series: Celestial Disgrace
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The Celestial Colosseum (fantasy academy f/f)
Other series you might enjoy
The Afterlife Academy: Valkyrie (urban fantasy academy f/f)
The Samantha Rain Mysteries (urban fantasy f/f, COMPLETE)
My Own Human Duology (paranormal dystopian f/f romance, COMPLETE)
My Winter Wolf Trilogy (paranormal fantasy f/f romance, COMPLETE)
Rainbow Central (new adult f/f romance)
Twisted Trilogy (dark contemporary f/f romance, COMPLETE)
About the Author
A creator at heart, Ari has always been in love with the idea of turning nothing into something. With her rainbow bat familiar, Sprinkles, she's ready to conquer the book world. Whether it's dragons and vampires or princesses and students, she always knows where to find the romance.
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The Hunter Path
A Rite World Story
Juliana Haygert
Blurb
Since Kayleen was born into a prestigious line of demon hunters, she’s supposed to be one of the best. She’s supposed to want to be one of the best, right?
Wrong.
* * *
With the heavy weight of her family’s name set over her shoulders, Kayleen wants everything but to become a demon hunter. And when she reluctantly joins the famous Blackthorn Hunters Academy, she does everything in her power to deviate of the path set in front of her.
* * *
Until she and her newfound friends summon a higher demon and bring chaos upon the academy.
Now she not only shamed her family’s name, she also endangered many innocent lives. Despite her reservations about the hunter life, Kayleen is determined to make things right.
* * *
Even if the punishment for breaking the rules—again—is expulsion.
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Upper Young Adult Urban Fantasy.
Chapter One
“This is my favorite class,” Lyra whispered.
I glanced at her. Why wasn’t I surprised? Like me, Lyra Walton was a first-year student, and she slept across the hallway from me in the dorms.
We had met on the first day and started talking right away. Like me, she had come from a long line of famous demon hunters. She was nice, but when I realized she was serious about being a hunter, I became less excited about being her friend.
Still, we hung out here and there, especially when coming and going from the same classes.
“Don’t say,” I teased her.
“Isn’t yours too, Kaylen?” she asked with a soft smile. I hesitated in answering and she went back to paying attention to the class.
We were seated to the side in the big auditorium classroom, looking down at the long black table at the bottom of the room, and the whiteboard taking the entire back wall.
Leaning against the table was Professor Claire.
She was telling us about one of the few supernatural wars that occurred about five centuries ago, and even though I thought it was pretty interesting, all I could think about was that not even two years ago, Professor Claire was in the middle of one of those big wars—the Underworld War.
She had been a student then, and she had done amazing things. Along with her friends, she had basically saved the world. No big deal.
Now here she was, a young and accomplished professor at the prestigious Blackthorn Hunter Academy.
In a way, she reminded me of my sister, Demon Hunter Doreen. She too had helped in the Underworld War, but she had been less involved than Professor Claire. Even Lyra’s cousin, Harvey, had participated in the last war.
Anyway, because of my sister’s golden resume, my family expected me to follow in her footsteps.
I wasn’t so sure I wanted that, though.
When class ended, I let out a relieved sigh and gathered my books. I followed Lyra down the steps lining the rows of chairs toward the door.
“Miss Byron,” Professor Claire called me.
My step faltered, but I recovered quickly, and turned to face her. “Yes, professor?”
She gestured for me to approach her. My cheeks warmed in embarrassment as the other students left the classroom, while I had been called by the professor. Was I in trouble? As I walked toward the center table, I racked my brain, trying to think of any stupid thing I could have done.
Classes had started only four weeks ago. There hadn’t been much time for me to mess up.
I halted a handful of feet from the professor. Her eyes followed the rest of the students out, and it was only after the last one of them was gone that she spoke again.
“Miss Byron,” she said again. She reached behind her and picked up a paper from the pile over her desk. “I’ve read your essay on the Dark Depths War. I’ve got to say, I’m impressed. You wrote with a confidence and expertise I have only seen in a third- or fourth-year student.”
I frowned. This certainly wasn’t what I had been expecting. “Hm, thanks.”
She lowered the paper and crossed her arms. Her bright green eyes shone behind her glasses. “I wonder how you can be this bright when you barely pay attention in my class? And I’ve heard the same thing from your other professors. You seem to be daydreaming while in class, but then you ace every assignment and paper.”
“I …” I shut my mouth, not knowing how to answer her. I wasn’t bright and I wasn’t trying. If I was acing my assignment, then they were mixing my papers with Lyra’s, perhaps.
A month of class wasn’t enough time to know which student was smart, and which one wasn’t, right?
Besides, what was she saying? Was she complimenting me or calling me out?
“What I mean, Miss Byron,” she continued, “is that your bloodline doesn’t disappoint. I see your potential. Please, don’t let it go to waste.”
I still didn’t have anything to say
to that. I shifted my weight and hugged my books tighter. “Am I dismissed?”
Professor Claire held my gaze for a few tense seconds, then nodded. “Yes, you are.”
I nodded once, then hurried out of the classroom.
And froze again when my eyes met with Sam’s as he exited the classroom across the hallway.
My heart skipped a beat.
I had heard of Samuel Roche on my first day here. Sam was a third-year student, and he had been top of the class so far. Besides being bright, he was handsome. He had soft blond hair cut short and blue eyes that reminded me of the deep ocean. The angles of his face were sharp and precise—like his broad shoulders and his bulky arms. The guy was a nerd in the body of an athlete.
It was almost not fair.
“Hey,” he muttered before walking toward the building’s exit.
I stayed glued to the spot for a moment, staring at his retreating back.
“Oh my gosh,” someone said with a laugh from my side. I turned and saw Meg leaning against the wall, her backpack hanging from her elbow.
Meg and I had hit it off from the first moment we saw each other. She had this I-don’t-care air and always walked with her chin up, which looked super pointed with her uneven black bob. She was so cool, she even defied the strict uniform rules of the school. She had ripped off the sleeves of her black jacket, she always wore her white shirt with at least three buttons open, and her green tie was undone. She also wore super short skirts and the black combat training class boots.
She looked badass.
“What?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“Oh, Kayleen, puh-lease.” She chewed her gum with her mouth open. “What the hell was that?”
I could pretend I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she knew me too well to deny it. I simply shrugged, hoping that was answer enough.
She let out a teasing laugh but dropped it.
Together, we walked out of the building and into the academy’s courtyard with its creepy but beautiful blackthorn tree in the center. Two years ago, everything around us had been destroyed during the war—but the magical tree.
It had taken a lot of work and magic to rebuild everything, and a lot more talk and convincing to have the academy running again. Rumor had it that because the war had happened here, the leaders of the supernatural world had considered closing it for good.
Although I wasn’t happy about being here, I didn’t like the idea of the academy not existing at all.
Outside, the sun was too damn hot for Colorado in mid-September. I raised my hand to protect my eyes, while Meg pulled her sunglasses from her backpack and put them on.
“What do you have now?” she asked.
“Weapon forging,” I told her. It was an important class at the academy, one of the most important, probably, since it was when we learned how to make our Dawnblade, the demon hunters’ special sword.
“Ugh, boring.” She showed me a toothy smile, and I already knew she was up to something. “I bought some cigarettes last weekend. Let’s go for a smoke instead.”
I frowned. Since the first day, Meg complained she missed smoking openly, but I had never seen her with a cigarette in her hand. My grandmother used to smoke when she was anxious and I remembered hating the scent.
Though … I didn’t want to say no to Meg. She was one of the cool kids in the academy. If I wanted to be her friend, I had to at least skip class with her.
“Sure,” I said.
Her smile widened, and instead of heading to the building where our next classes were, Meg pointed to the path that led to the back of the academy’s property, where the Lotus lake was located.
And I followed her.
Chapter Two
Meg had insisted I smoked with her. At first I said no, but later I simply held the cigarette for a few seconds. She was so busy talking about some of the preppy girls in her other classes, that she didn’t even notice I didn’t bring the cigarette to my mouth once.
As we made our way back to the courtyard, I smelled my fingers and wrinkled my nose. Ugh, I would have a hard time taking this nasty smell off me now.
Because we were in no mood to go back to classes, we took the long way, going around Dahlia Villa, where the professors’ townhouses were located, and came through the front of the academy, walking into the courtyard between the Aster and the Orchid buildings.
Right away, I realized my mistake.
Coming out of the back of the Aster building was my sister, Doreen.
She saw me and halted, her brows furrowing.
Meg glanced at me. “Uh-oh,” she muttered before taking a wide step away from me. “I’ll see you later.” She changed her direction and entered the Orchid building through one of the side entrances, leaving me alone to face my sister.
I could ignore Doreen, pretend I didn’t see her, but that would be childish. Instead, I squared my shoulders and walked to her.
My sister was a pretty woman. We shared the same freckles on our noses, the same golden hazel eyes, but she had luscious red-orange hair that shone under the sunlight, while mine was a darker and duller wild mane that I needed to brush vigorously to get under control. She was a little taller than me, and her body was slim but built like a tank with hard muscles from her training and job. She was fifteen years older than me, but she looked like she could have been my fraternal twin.
I halted before her. “What are you doing here?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “What the hell are you doing?” She looked behind me, to the path I had come from, then to Meg as she disappeared inside the building. “Shouldn’t you be in class, Kayleen?” She sniffed the air and leaned closer. “What the f—? “She pressed her lips tight. “Were you smoking?”
I opened my mouth to say no, then shut it again. She wasn’t my mother. I didn’t owe her an explanation. “It’s none of your business.”
“Of course it is.” Her brows curled down. “I know Meg’s family. They are all misfits that never made it into the academy. You shouldn’t hang out with her.”
What the … a wave of anger rolled inside me. Who was she to judge people? Meg’s family wasn’t as well connected as ours, and none of them had joined the academy and become demon hunters, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have value. They had a convenience store in Chasseur Ville, where all the retired demon hunters and the ones that didn’t make it in the academy lived, but they lived honestly.
Meg was the first of them to be accepted into the academy, which was something to be celebrated, even if she didn’t want to be here.
“You won’t choose my friends for me, Doreen.” I hugged my books tighter. “And you didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”
She was in her demon hunter’s uniform of thin black leather, but not wearing the thicker armor, which meant she wasn’t here on a mission.
She hesitated as if calculating how much she could tell me. “I delivered a report to Headmaster Rey.”
I nodded. Headmaster Rey was famous in the supernatural community, not just because he was the head of the academy, but because he and his partner, Demon Hunter Erin, had been pivotal in the Underworld War two years ago. They had been the ones who saved the entire world.
“Then you’re on your way out,” I said, taking a step to the side so she could proceed to the underground garage.
“Yes, but …” Doreen let out a long sigh. Absentminded, she reached her hand up and touched the necklace peeking out of her shirt. A similar one rested around my neck. I almost reached for it too, but stopped my hands before they moved. “Kayleen, I don’t want to sound patronizing, but please choose your friends better. Meg and her family don’t have the best reputation. It’ll taint our—“
“Family name,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ve heard that before.” Countless times.
Despite trying to resist, I ended up lifting my hand and touching my necklace. Our mother had given us the necklaces a couple of months before she died. And it hadn�
�t even been during a demon hunt. It had been from cancer. When she found out she was sick, the cancer was already in such an advanced stage, no witch could save her.
Such an undignified death for a demon hunter.
“If you know that, then why do you persist?” Doreen asked, bringing my attention back to the present.
Deep in her heart, I knew Doreen wasn’t doing this to be mean. Like me, she had been drilled with sentences like “uphold the family name” and “maintain our impeccable reputation” for much longer than I had. She had been the first one pressured to be the best, and now I was expected to do the same.
I didn’t know what to tell her, honestly. But I saw a way out of the conversation when I caught sight of Lyra coming out of the Orchid building just a few feet to my side.
“There.” I pointed to Lyra. “That girl is from the Walton family, and she’s my friend.” I didn’t wait for a reply. I simply waved my fingers at Doreen and rushed to catch up with Lyra. “Hey, you,” I called her as I approached.
Lyra’s steps faltered. “Oh, hey. I didn’t see you there.” Without stopping, I put an arm around her shoulders and pushed her to walk with me. She frowned at me. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing, just …” I let out a long sigh. “It’s nothing. Just go with it.”
“Oh-kay.” Thankfully, she didn’t protest and kept walking with me toward the Statice building across the courtyard.
I waited a full minute before looking back. When I did, I saw Doreen taking the concealed entrance to the underground garage.
Starlight & Shadows: A Limited Edition Academy Collection by Laura Greenwood, Arizona Tape, Juliana Haygert, Kat Parrish, Ashley McLeo, L.C. Mawson, Leigh Kelsey, Bre Lockhart, Zelda Knight Page 10