by Everly Frost
The compliance officers tense and Ms. Sparrow whirls.
“Peyton Price,” she hisses. “How did you get past your compliance officers…?”
Her voice trails off as her focus shifts to Striker walking behind me. Every student’s head shoots up as far as they can. Lucinda’s face is blotchy, but I don’t misinterpret her tears as weakness. She’s angry.
The blood drains from Ms. Sparrow’s face, her red hair suddenly a garish contrast to her sickly pale skin. She backs up, gripping her wand so hard, her knuckles turn white. “Striker… you’re supposed to be dead. I saw you die…”
We stop several paces away from her and I don’t waste any time getting to the point.
“Ms. Sparrow, you have a choice,” I say. “You can let us all go. Or you can die. Which do you choose?”
She scoffs, some of the color returning to her cheeks, an angry flush. “What are you going to kill me with, Peyton? You have no weapons. No wands. No powers. Nothing but a wishy-washy sometimes-useful clairvoyance—”
A shriek emits from her mouth when I hold up my hand and extend my claws in a rush. The blood-red tips gleam under the lights.
“I’ll rip your heart out with these,” I say, waiting a beat before I continue. “Now, which is it? Let us go or die?”
She screams at the compliance officers, her own wand outstretched. “Kill them!” The air sizzles and hellish magic flies my way from every point around the room, every single compliance officer unleashing on me at once.
Power thuds through me, faster than I’ve ever harnessed it before. I jolt upright, shooting into the air mere milliseconds before the spells hit me.
Light bursts around me. Coiling magical ropes spear around my torso. Torture curses flicker up and down my body and it’s all so bright that colors pop and flash in my vision.
My power isn’t like having a shield; the spells don’t rebound off me. Rather they sink in, all the hatred that comes with them feeding my fury. I tip my head back and soak it up, absorbing all the power they throw at me.
When I open my eyes again, a crimson haze has descended over my vision. Every person in the room has a glow. The students burn brightly, their forms flickering as they tug and struggle against their restraints. They look like angels without wings fluttering to be free.
In contrast, the compliance officers are dark shadows, silhouettes that suck the light from the room, and Ms. Sparrow is an inky dark figure like the deepest pit.
At the corner of my vision, the brightest flame is Striker.
He’s morphed into his beast shape, his incisors gleaming white, flames burning across his skin, his true form dangerously predatorial.
I call out, “Lucinda! You know what to do.”
The tears streaking down her cheeks run like liquid diamonds in my amplified vision. She raises her voice with a scream. “Disarm!”
Every wand is ripped from the hand of its owner, the compliance officers shouting as their weapons fly straight to the ceiling and stick there. The moment the connection is lost, the shackles around the students disappear.
Striker growls and I answer him with a smile.
I catch the way the corner of his mouth rises as he lunges forward, ripping into the nearest compliance officer. A thud tells me the man didn’t have a chance. At the back of the room, another roar meets my ears, similar to Striker’s, but more guttural.
My eyes widen with surprise when Joseph rises up from the table he was chained to. The brightness around him changes to a dark blue, blending with my crimson haze to a bloody purple. His shoulders and fists expand like Striker’s, his height increasing and his facial features becoming more chiseled, but less human. My jaw drops. The only humanoid monster I’ve read about with blue skin and a larger-than-human physique is the undead warrior—the draugr. He’ll be able to change his height at will and being undead, well, no ordinary combat can kill him. The only way to kill a draugr is to chop off its head.
He doesn’t waste a moment, plowing into the compliance officers behind him, ripping into them with his bare hands as they try to fight back. They don’t have wands anymore, but they’re well-trained in combat. It doesn’t make a difference. There’s nothing they can do to harm him.
The other students launch themselves to attack. I don’t identify any other monsters among them and Bree is limited without water, but they’ve been training in hand-to-hand combat for months. More than one compliance officer drops to the floor, either unconscious or dead.
Closer to the front, away from the violence around the edges of the room, Ashley carefully removes her tie and wraps it around her eyes. She steps up onto the table she was tied to, quickly surveying the room. She leaps from the table and races to the back corner where a compliance officer has grabbed Lachlan and holds him in a neck choke. Lachlan attempts to ram his elbow and feet into the man holding him, but he’s quickly losing air, his knees buckling and his arms going limp.
Ashley screams as she runs. “Lachlan! Close your eyes!”
He immediately obeys her, squeezing his eyes closed.
She leaps from the nearest chair onto the tabletop, then jumps off it, her outstretched hands closing around the compliance officer’s head. He jolts into the wall behind him as she claws his temples with her fingernails. The moment she touches him, he freezes, thudding back against the wall.
Her hair rises into swirling, hissing clumps, snakes taking shape although not fully formed. She stops clawing him only long enough to drag the tie away from her eyes, her face close to his.
I can’t see what she looks like. If the information I read is true, even a gorgon’s power will roll off me like water. But I can see the effect on the compliance officer. His mouth opens wide in a final shout, his skin turning a pallid gray before he solidifies into a statue.
Ashley hurries to replace the tie around her eyes before she takes a step back, then swings a fist at the compliance officer’s stone arm, shattering it into dust to release Lachlan from his hold.
Lachlan slides to the floor, coughing hard, his eyes still closed as Ashley reaches for him.
In front of me, Ms. Sparrow screams as she whirls back to me. Her terrified gaze flicks from Striker’s hellish appearance to mine.
I have no idea what I look like now, but Ms. Sparrow backs away from me, wobbling in her heels. “What are you?”
“I’m pain and torment.”
I reach for her, my claws extended, but a sudden whoosh makes me pause.
Ms. Sparrow gasps, freezing to the spot. Her gaze shoots to her chest, her hands fluttering over the wooden wand that protrudes right through the location of her heart.
Lucinda rises up behind her, her hands pressed forward in the air. Her teeth are gritted in barely controlled rage, tears still glistening on her cheeks. “She sent me to the pit to be mauled.”
Years of fear and oppression can’t be undone in one night, but this is a start.
Ms. Sparrow drops to the floor and I float over her, returning to the floor to pull Lucinda into a hug. It’s the first I’ve offered her—she’s always been the one offering hugs to me. She accepts it, dropping her head to my shoulder, a short moment of quiet in the chaos around us.
Within seconds, a compliance officer runs at us from the side. I release Lucinda to duck his right hook and smash a fist into his ribs, my power giving me more strength than I ever had before. With an oomph, he flies backward.
Lucinda flicks her wrist and the table behind him slides to the right just in time for him to hit his head on its edge and collapse unconscious.
Around the room, compliance officers either lie dead or unconscious. The final one falls when Striker knocks his head against a tabletop so hard it makes Lucinda wince.
A room full of students rise to their feet, but Lucinda has one more task to do.
“It hurts me to do this,” she says before she raises her hands to the wands on the ceiling, closing her eyes moments before each one snaps in half and the broken ends clatter to the fl
oor.
Joseph and Striker stride to the front of the room, both of them retaining their monstrous forms. Striker positions himself a step behind me. He doesn’t seem at all perturbed about the fact that Joseph is as scary-ass looking as he is. Ashley stays with Lachlan at the back of the room, her hair returned to normal, although she still wears the tie around her eyes. Bree joins Lucinda on my other side.
The other students are beaten up, but the fight in their eyes blazes as brightly as the flames in Striker’s. Their focus travels over his massive form to me.
It takes me a moment to realize what they want. Striker leans in to whisper to me, “They’re waiting for you.”
I swallow, fidgeting so hard, I scrape myself with my claws. I’m not good with speeches. I’m better at telling people where they can shove it than asking them to work together.
“We don’t have much time,” I say. “Osprey is on her way here right now. She intends to kill you all tonight. But I’m here to tell you that’s not going to happen.” I take a deep breath. “This is my true form. I’m a monster. So is Striker—”
“Tell us something we don’t already know,” Ryan calls from the back next to Ashley and Lachlan. He’s rubbing his jaw and it looks like a massive bruise is already growing across his face.
He breaks into a sudden grin. “I’ll take a monster on my side any day.”
I relax and give him a smile. “I don’t know for sure yet, but I believe that every magically repressed person has rare and deadly powers. We just need a chance to discover what we are.”
Lachlan steps forward. “I’m ready to fight. I might not know what I am yet, but I refuse to die before I find out.”
I’m gratified when all of the students nod.
“Okay, then,” I say. “Our plan is to get to the front gate. Striker can open it for us, but making it through is not going to be easy. Lucinda can disarm the witches, but we can’t underestimate their determination to stop us.”
“Why now, Peyton?” Bree asks quietly at my side. “They’ve caged us here for years. Why kill us now?”
We’re running out of time. As we talk, Osprey will be gathering the other teachers and preparing for our rebellion. I’d be a fool if I didn’t assume she heard the commotion in this room and knew something was amiss. I don’t fully understand the reasons why it’s happening now, but the other students need the meager answers that I can give them.
“The Founder of this institution—Lady Tirelli—has gone missing. Osprey believes that a powerful group of assassins is coming after everyone associated with her. We’re a liability, a drain on Osprey’s resources. She’s preparing for a war with the assassins and we… are not the soldiers she wanted us to be.”
“Let the assassins come,” Lachlan says, openly squeezing Ashley’s hand. She nods her agreement beside him.
“I agree,” I say. “But they aren’t here yet. It’s up to us. We’ve been underestimated and pushed around, and we’ve been caged long enough.” I level my gaze with theirs. “We will not die tonight.”
I turn to Striker and Joseph. “I need you both to protect the students who can’t manifest their powers yet. They’re the most vulnerable.”
“What about you, Peyton?” Joseph asks me.
I give him a deadly grin. “Apparently, when I harness my power, I can’t be killed.”
Striker suddenly grabs my hand and drags me to the side, away from the others, a demanding scowl descending over his beast face that makes him look terrifyingly ferocious. “Don’t test it, Peyton.”
I’m ready to snap back at him not to underestimate me, but then I catch the worry in the depths of his eyes, the tension around his mouth. I rein in my indignation but can’t keep the bite out of my voice. “I promise not to do anything stupid.”
He growls at me and his body heat suddenly intensifies. “I meant what I said.”
I lean in to him, not afraid to close the gap, my eyes narrowed at him. “Which part?”
“The part about a bed.”
My cheeks blaze. Dear ancients. Priorities again.
A nearby cough makes me whirl. Lucinda breezes past us with Joseph at her side. Her eyes are brighter and her skin has taken on a polished sheen, her dryad powers manifesting to a fuller extent. “If you two have finished raising the temperature in this room to sauna levels, let’s go already.”
I spin to follow her, but Striker grips my hand harder, pulling me back into his side, nuzzling my cheek for a moment. “Don’t die, my Fury.”
I brush my palm to his cheek. “I won’t. I promise.”
Satisfied with that, he lets go of my hand. I turn to the wide-eyed stares of half the students, who were evidently not anticipating any shows of affection between Striker and me. Ashley wears a smile as she passes me by—she seems to see even better with her eyes closed—and I hurry to catch up with her. I was supposed to go first and be a protective barrier for all of them.
The corridor will be a death trap.
Thankfully, they all wait for me at the door. Many of the students carry broken wands, holding them like daggers. We haven’t been trained to use weapons, but it’s better than nothing.
I try to ignore the fear creeping through me. I’ve never sustained my power this long before and I’m worried about what will happen if it wanes. It’s already been a difficult day. Osprey, Mallard, Hawk, and Raptor won’t be as easy to subdue or disarm. I’m not so worried about Ms. Vulture, but she’s an unknown element. I don’t kid myself that we’ll have the element of surprise anymore. They’ll be prepared.
I take a deep breath as Striker and Joseph take up position behind me, with Lucinda and Ashley at their backs. Striker growls at the other students to stay back until we know the coast is clear.
With my heart in my throat, I open the door.
40. Striker Draven
Light explodes right in front of Peyton’s face. In the split second before it ignites, I catch sight of a glass sphere floating in the air at head-height. It’s a motion-triggered shard bomb waiting to go off. My roar of warning is swallowed in the explosion. Hot, white light packed with shards of sharp stone cuts through Peyton’s body in a single horrifying moment.
She turns with a scream, her hair flying around her face, her shocked eyes meeting mine. Her clothing is cut through but she pats herself, holding apart the material.
She shakes her head in disbelief. She isn’t harmed. But her worried eyes travel to my chest.
A glance at my own body tells me I’ve taken the brunt of the explosion. Joseph has, too. All down his left side. We are both peppered with glittering glass shards that would cut through a human.
Peyton’s mouth drops. The shards must have shot straight through her without any damage.
“Looks like you’re not going to be a shield after all,” I say to Peyton with a grin, harnessing the boiling hellfire inside me to dissolve the tips embedded in my skin within seconds. The ends of the shards drop to the floor with a sound as pretty as the tinkling of glass.
Joseph gives me an annoyed glance, rapidly plucking shrapnel out of his chest and thighs.
“Well, this sucks,” he says, huffing at his task. Lucinda grabs his arm and takes charge, pulling out the hard-to-reach shards in his arm and side, her palm lingering over his rapidly healing skin.
He gives her a crooked smile as she lingers longer than she needs to. Hell, he should just kiss her already. He might not get another chance.
Peyton’s hand flies over her mouth. Holy hell, is she laughing right now? She is one of the most unpredictable women I’ve ever met. Mad at me when she wants to be, gentle when I don’t expect it. It’s going to take me a lifetime to get to know all her moods.
I just hope I have that long.
She gives me a sheepish smile. “Well, that was interesting,” she says. “Should I scream again to make it sound like we’re wounded?”
A glance back at the other students tells me that her humor is just what they needed. The rising tension in the
room eases. The fact that we survived without any drama will make them all feel much safer.
“Okay, Shields,” she says, addressing Joseph and me with our new function. “Stay close and let’s go.”
She rises off the ground by a foot and glides into the hallway, proceeding slowly and carefully. Joseph and I walk side by side while Ashley and Lucinda take up position behind us. I already knew about Lucinda’s power, but Ashley’s was a surprise. I’m not sure at this stage whether they have the same healing powers or ability to resist damage that Peyton and Joseph have, so I’m not going to take any chances.
Peyton pauses at the first door on the right. So far, none of the teachers has appeared. If I were them, I’d leave spells all along the corridor to be triggered by movement and wait for any survivors at both exits—the front door and the back. That means their forces will be divided. Knowing Osprey, she’ll take the front.
Peyton continues along the corridor as the students file carefully behind us.
As soon as she passes the third door, a sudden click is the only warning we get. The air shifts at eye height and my heightened senses detect the power along the wall.
“Down!” I shout.
Peyton is the only one who doesn’t obey me. Arrows appear out of nothing and shoot from wall to wall all along the length of the corridor. Joseph is so tall that one spears toward his shoulder before he can duck.
It stops midair.
Every arrow halts, many a hairsbreadth away from piercing the other students. The weapons clatter to the floor.
Lucinda turns to me with a bright smile, lowering her outstretched arms. “They’re wooden,” she explains.
I give her an acknowledging nod. “You have quick reflexes.”
Lucinda give me an unassuming shrug. “I sensed the arrows as soon as they formed. One day I’ll be strong enough to stop them from materializing, but I’m still learning.”
Peyton arches an eyebrow at me. Damn, she’s sexy when she makes that I-told-you-so face. She turns in the air, a graceful arc, her hair floating around her, her eyes filled with pure violence. That’s when I catch her scent. Wildflowers. Nothing like the sickly roses in the yard. This scent compels me to follow her, to do whatever she wishes…