by Everly Frost
Assassin’s Academy: Book One: Rebels
Everly Frost
Contents
Foreword
1. Peyton Price
2. Striker Draven
3. Peyton Price
4. Striker Draven
5. Peyton Price
6. Peyton Price
7. Peyton Price
8. Striker Draven
9. Peyton Price
10. Striker Draven
11. Peyton Price
12. Peyton Price
13. Striker Draven
14. Peyton Price
15. Peyton Price
16. Striker Draven
17. Peyton Price
18. Peyton Price
19. Peyton Price
20. Striker Draven
21. Peyton Price
22. Peyton Price
23. Striker Draven
24. Peyton Price
25. Striker Draven
26. Peyton Price
27. Striker Draven
28. Peyton Price
29. Striker Draven
30. Peyton Price
31. Striker Draven
32. Striker Draven
33. Peyton Price
34. Striker Draven
35. Peyton Price
36. Striker Draven
37. Peyton Price
38. Peyton Price
39. Peyton Price
40. Striker Draven
41. Peyton Price
42. Peyton Price
Assassin’s Academy: Book Two: Revenge
Assassin’s Magic Series
The Monster Ball Year 2
Also by Everly Frost
About the Author
Copyright © 2019 by Everly Frost
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
Frost, Everly
Assassin’s Academy: Book One: Rebels
Cover design by fantasybookdesign.com
For information on reproducing sections of this book or sales of this book, go to
www.EverlyFrost.com
[email protected]
For the rebel in all of us.
Foreword
Thank you for the love you’ve shown the Assassin’s Magic series, which has allowed me to write another story in this world.
You don’t have to read the Assassin’s Magic series to follow this one.
However, if you are reading that series, you’ll need to know that the events in this book begin before the events at the end of Assassin’s Maze (Assassin’s Magic, Book 4).
That means… you may see some characters you don’t expect to see.
Everly.
1. Peyton Price
My family escorts me like a small child through the wide wooden entrance to Bloodwing Academy. My father grips my upper arm, ready to drag me if he has to. On my other side, my mother holds my hand like she can’t bear to let me go, but her fingernails sink into my palm, prepared to draw blood if I try to pull away again.
I fought them the entire car trip here, my efforts earning me a cut above my left eye when my brother thumped me across the face. I guess he thought it would be like the movies where he’d knock me out and I’d stay unconscious for the rest of the trip—not the thirty seconds I was actually out.
His dark stare burns my back. Literally. A glance to the side tells me his eyes are glowing, the heat from his fire mage power causing sweat to pool uncomfortably between my shoulder blades.
It’s a family affair today. They’ve brought me to Bloodwing to say goodbye and leave cold kisses on my cheek because this is the last time they’ll see me alive.
People leave Bloodwing in body bags. My parents may as well put a bullet in my head and throw me in a ditch. At least it would be quick.
The woman behind the mahogany front counter is dressed in a bright yellow suit that clashes with her lacquered black-and-orange striped fingernails. Her graying hair is short and permed and her eyes are washed out like they used to be brown but don’t know what color to be anymore.
“Peyton Price?” she asks, directing her question to my father instead of me. Her disinterested gaze passes over the blood smearing my forehead.
“That’s us,” he says, drawing me to the counter, taking my right hand and pressing it, palm down, onto the countertop while his other arm encircles my back. Mom does the same with my left. It’s so I don’t try to escape.
The woman’s name badge is bright yellow with black lettering: Headmistress Osprey. She picks up a pen before she pulls a file across the countertop, opening it. Running the pen down the page, she says, “Well, everything looks in order except…”
Here it comes. The question that will make my parents want to sink into the polished wooden floor.
Headmistress Osprey leans across the counter, ballpoint pen poised above the form. Behind her on the wall, a large wooden plaque embossed with gold lettering reads: Bloodwing Academy for the Magically Repressed.
She peers at us expectantly. “What is your daughter’s magical repression?”
Mom shimmers at the edges as she tries to disappear, her power of invisibility momentarily out of her control. Dad lets go of me to place a firm hand on her arm, reaching around behind my back, anchoring her but shoving me forward at the same time so my stomach presses into the ledge. Flames lick off his bare palm, his fire mage power jolting her back to herself. The heat scorches my shoulder and makes me sweat even more.
To Headmistress Osprey, he says firmly, “We don’t know.”
She studies me for the first time, her lips pinched, her washed-out eyes narrowed into unwelcoming slits.
Hello. Hi there. I actually exist. I’m an actual person.
The expression on her face says otherwise.
She turns back to my parents, her gaze passing over my brother. It’s impossible to miss the flicker of appreciation in her eyes. I picture his smug smile. Younger women, older women—it doesn’t matter as long as they wear a skirt and aren’t afraid to lift it.
Her brow arches. “You don’t know? You mean to tell me that Peyton has never exhibited any magical manifestations in her entire life?”
Not once in all my twenty years. It would be better if I’d been born non-magical, but my heart skips every sixth beat like other supernaturals. Yet in all my time on this Earth, I’ve never revealed my magical ability. I don’t know what it is. Nobody does.
Mom pulls herself together. “None.”
“At all? Not even a flicker?”
Mom loses her cool, her power of invisibility out of control and her entire torso disappearing as she snaps, “That’s what we said! Peyton is unknown.”
Unknown.
When I was a baby it was okay. When I was a kid it was tolerable. When I was a teen, it was unbearable. And now…
Now my choices have been taken away from me.
Now I am a walking corpse.
Headmistress Osprey sucks in a sharp, unhappy breath. “We’ll have to house her in the attic. An Unknown is too dangerous to allow her to sleep with the others.”
“Alone?” Mom asks, her body fully reappearing. “Is that safe?”
I don’t kid myself that Mom means safe for me. She means safe for everyone else.
&
nbsp; “Oh, don’t worry. She’ll be constantly monitored by her own personal guards. We assign two compliance officers to every student. Our staff is trained in all forms of magical restraint. Believe me, they will be able to handle her.”
She bops the silver bell on the counter and on cue, two giant men appear at the entrance to the hall on the right. The entrance room is mostly empty—wooden floor, wood walls, and the counter—with a walkway on either side. It feels almost like a crossroads.
Both newcomers are dressed in navy blue uniforms that remind me of the human police force: button-down pockets on each side of a collared shirt, crisp navy trousers, and a wide ammunitions belt, except that they carry wands instead of guns.
Headmistress Osprey points them out in turn. “These are the compliance officers who will take care of Peyton: Collin and Colby. They will ensure she doesn’t give us any trouble.”
Most schools would be concerned about ensuring my safety. Definitely not this one.
“What about when she leaves?” Mom asks.
Headmistress Osprey looks surprised. “She won’t leave. Not unless she is fully cured—no matter how long that takes. Don’t worry, dear. By handing her over to us, you are no longer legally responsible for her actions.”
“Good.” Dad takes that as permission to let me go. His responsibility for me and my dangerously unknown supernatural powers is at an end. “You’ll receive payment for her tuition every month for as long as she remains here.” He adds, “With our gratitude.”
Mom also relaxes, letting me go, as if she can’t stand to touch me anymore. She exhales, sheer relief showing in her bright smile. “We’ll leave you to it then.”
They both spin on their heels, gathering my brother up with them as they pass by. He dumps my single duffel bag of belongings onto the floor and turns away with a final wicked smile cast in my direction.
No cold kisses after all.
Would it matter if I screamed at them? I’m still a person. I have a heart and a mind. I’m not a monster!
I still… feel.
Once my family disappears through the front door, Headmistress Osprey steps back from the counter, revealing her own weapons belt. She detaches her wand, a thick, curved one with thorns jutting from its surface all the way to the tip. She taps it in the air and the far doors seal behind my departing family with a bang that echoes through the silent halls.
“There,” she says. “All done.”
I take another quick look around. Where are the other students? So far, I haven’t seen anyone other than Headmistress Osprey and the two guards. It’s so quiet, I can hear my heartbeat rapidly increasing.
The older lady smiles at me for so long that it makes me uncomfortable. It’s her mouth that’s smiling, not her eyes.
“You’re wondering where everyone is?” she asks, reading my mind so accurately that I wonder whether she’s telepathic. I deliberately test that theory by thinking loud, unflattering thoughts about her yellow suit.
Her expression doesn’t change, so either she has a poker face, or my telepathy theory is bogus.
“The entire school is on lockdown for your arrival,” she says. “We don’t expose our current students to a newcomer until we’ve verified the true nature of their condition. It’s time to find out if your parents were telling the truth.”
She puts her wand down on the counter and props her elbows on the tabletop, casually resting her head in her hands as if she’s about to watch a show. “Over to you, gentlemen. Let’s see if Peyton really is Unknown.”
The two men separate, one remaining on my right while the other walks to my left, locating themselves between me and each hallway. Both are giving me a once over, head to toes. I fold my arms across my chest, wishing I were wearing more than a thin sweater and skinny jeans. Maybe a puffer jacket. Or a suit of armor.
It’s difficult to find a supernatural who isn’t good-looking. Power tends to lend itself to eye colors that are brighter, deeper, lips that are perfectly shaped, and skin that is somehow lustrous. Don’t even get me started on hair. Supernatural women don’t need styling products to look amazing every day.
But these guys come close to regular scary, crack-your-skull, don’t-bump-into-them-in-dark-alleys guys. They are both broad-shouldered, tattoos peeking from under their long shirt sleeves.
One of them—Collin—has pale blue irises that make his eyes look creepily white and he’s missing a little chunk out of the top of his left ear. His gaze lingers on my breasts in a way that makes me want to gouge his face.
The other one—Colby—has tattoos peeking from beneath his cuffs and above his collar. He watches my feet, then my hands, then the press of my lips, studying me in a way that tells me he’s waiting for me to run.
Maybe a lot of newcomers do.
Colby inclines his head at the exit. “The door’s right there. You can leave if you really want to.”
Come to think of it, it’s odd that they’ve blocked off the hallways into the school but not the door to the outside. Something tells me it’s not going to be that easy. “It doesn’t look that way to me.”
He says, “Reveal your power, control it, and you can leave.”
Reveal, control, leave. Sounds stupidly easy. Also out of my reach.
Also a lie. Nobody has ever left Bloodwing.
“I can’t control something I don’t have,” I say.
His eyebrows arch. “You don’t believe you have magical powers?”
I shrug. I lost count of all the doctor’s visits. The supernatural community doesn’t use human doctors—it’s too dangerous because any medical test will reveal our magical anomalies, especially our heartbeats. Mom took me to so many different supernatural doctors that it felt like her hobby.
They’d listen to my heart and it would pound:
Ba-bam, ba-bam, ba—
Nothing. No bam.
Damn missing sixth beat.
I grit my teeth. “I guess that’s what I’ll find out.”
If I try to run right now, it will be so much worse for me. I need to accept that my life is going to be hell for a while, but I won’t accept my fate. I’m going to bide my time. Plan. Proceed carefully. I won’t die here.
Colby taps his wand against his leg, tilting his head and studying my hands again. I’ve heard that magical manifestations start with the hands, so if I’m going to reveal anything, it will begin with my fingertips.
The other guy, Collin, wears a growing smile that sets my teeth on edge. “Go hard?” he asks Colby.
Colby shrugs. “Why not?”
I press up against the counter, discovering that I’ve slowly backed into it. I unfold my arms to brace my sweaty palms against the wooden paneling. I’m not sure when I’ll next get the chance to breathe, so I take a deep one—
They flick their wands so fast that I’m still mid-breath. Pulsing blue light spears at me from each side, a wide circular wash like two sides of a sphere that rapidly elongates to my size and height and seals around me. I wobble and drop to my knees inside a large bubble, my hands tingling where I press against the force.
It’s a magical poultice. A massive one. Designed to draw out any power inside me like a splinter out of a fingertip. I’ve only had little ones applied in the past—a moist blob attached to my shoulder or my stomach. Once a doctor put one on my cheek. That hurt. This one is full body and it—
I groan, doubling over, pressing down across my knees, squeezing my eyes shut. A gnawing pain fills my stomach like a drill digging beneath the surface. A low moan thrums at the back of my throat as I try to vocalize the pain, humming it out. I grip my knees, pressing my fingernails into my jeans, the heels of my boots digging into the backs of my thighs. Uncomfortable. Uncaring.
Make it stop.
It won’t stop until they see a hint of my power. The poultice thickens around me, the air stinging as I draw it in and out of my lungs.
I force my eyes open, stretching my hands out from my knees, my torso flat over my curled
knees.
I arch my fingers back. Please manifest.
It could be a transformation of my fingertips or a tiny flame. Even a moment of invisibility, something that indicates what my power is, whether I’m a shifter, a witch, a mage, or something else. My power could be anything. We don’t follow our family’s genetics. We’re genetic throwbacks. Like strange supernatural mutants. We also don’t have magical auras like other supernaturals that indicate what sort of supernatural we are. But when our power explodes, it’s called a flicker fit. It’s a sort of aura explosion that’s too strong to distinguish our unique abilities.
That’s when we’re dangerous.
There’s not a lot of research on the magically repressed, since we’re few and far between, but what I could dig up in books indicates that we never live long before we have a flicker fit, kill everyone around us, and are put to death for it.
I won’t manifest.
I know I won’t.
The drilling sensation inside my stomach deepens, spreading up through my chest, the pain intensifying. Humming isn’t working anymore. Oh, please. I rock, dragging the heels of my palms against the inside of the poultice, its energy crackling through me. Tears stream down my cheeks, making it difficult to see.