One Kind of Wicked: A Reverse Harem Academy Series (The True and the Crown Book 1)

by May Dawson

  I still hate standing on train platforms. I was always afraid, in the Metro Earthside, that someone would shove me off. It just took one or two little attempts on my life, and I turned a bit suspicious.

  “You’ll have a short trip. Just two stops to Corum,” he says. “I guess they don’t have a good rip of their own to put in a portal. Too bad.”

  A good rip in the thin fabric that separates one dimension from another? I’m not sure there’s any such thing as a good rip. My father’s attempted reign began with a simple mission. Seal the rips. Save Avalon.

  But things went sideways from there.

  “Goodbye,” I tell him.

  He hesitates as if he feels he should see me onto the train. Maybe they’re afraid I’ll run, whoever they are.

  I’m about to ask him. What do I have to lose by asking? But the train chugs into the station. When the driver slams on the brakes, a piercing screech fills the air. I breathe in hot metal against metal. That scent carries ghosts with it: little girls’ greetings and hugs as we get off the train at boarding school, a few rare, precious hours of independence between parents and dorm moms.

  The train comes to a stop. I get on without a backward glance.

  I’ve gotten what I want. A second chance in Avalon.

  There’s no point in looking behind me now, and there’s nothing that I want to remember.

  I don’t want to make myself out to be special or anything. Everyone’s probably nervous on their first day of college. But I have to wonder if anyone else is as nervous as a vanquished Dark Lord’s daughter walking onto a campus full of professors who once faced down her father.

  When I get off the train at Corum Park, I feel anonymous.

  The station is filled with milling students. But I must be the only freshman, or maybe I’m some special kind of outcast. All around me, people call out greetings and hug hello. An angry-looking girl with bright pink hair brushes past me, and I take a quick step back. She throws herself into the arms of a girl wearing a significant amount of leather. The two of them grin as they hug, chattering about the year ahead.

  The crowd streams through the dark brick terminal, so I fall in with them, carrying all my worldly goods in a backpack, a shoulder bag bumping my legs, and a rolling suitcase with one completely unruly wheel.

  You’d think a fucking future wizard could at least make her suitcase roll smoothly.

  But at least for now, even though my face is flushed from trying to move this damn luggage and my shoulders ache, I blend in with the crowd. Just another eighteen-year-old with a dream of becoming the person I was always meant to be at university. Someone a little cooler, smarter, sharper, than I’ve ever been before. Just like everyone else.

  But I bet they don’t need to reinvent themselves quite like I do.

  Outside the terminal, some of the students form a tidy queue, stretching single-file in front of the shops that line the street to either side of the train station. Cabs roll along intermittently, picking up their luggage, and the students follow on foot up the hill. The town is nestled below a long, sloping hill, and along the hillside, white buildings rise like castles among the trees. I can’t be the only newly-minted freshman, but as I watch students streaming toward the campus, it seems like everyone else knows where they’re headed.

  I stare around at the shops; we’re surrounded by three- or four-story stone buildings with colorful awnings flapping in the fall breeze. Across from me, a store advertises kebabs & vegan specialties. Maybe I’d feel more magical right now if I were a vegan. But good Lord, do I love a cheeseburger. Across from me is an enormous bookstore with shelves of discounted books out on the sidewalk. A faint, warm breeze stirs the air. I wish I belonged here.

  “You look lost.”

  It’s a boyish voice, warm and kind of grumbly at the same time, and I clutch my bag tighter as I turn. The voice does indeed belong to a boy, who is tall and broad-shouldered and taking off a pair of silver-rimmed aviator sunglasses so I can see his deep blue eyes.

  “Hi,” I say.

  He is not a boy. There are faint smile lines at the corners of those gorgeous eyes, which sparkle in the afternoon sun, and his forearms are corded with muscle below powerful biceps. He is definitely a grown man.

  “Oh, hi. I probably should’ve led with that, huh?” A lazy smile lifts one corner of his lips. “But I’m not wrong. You are lost.”

  I half-expect him to say, because you don’t belong here, Donovan’s daughter. I don’t want to act friendly, then spit in my face. That happens sometimes. So I just stare at him.

  “Okay,” he says when I’ve stared long enough to make it awkward for all involved. “Well, we’re walking up to campus.”

  He jerks a thumb behind him at two other guys, also tall-and-handsome. One of them stands head-and-shoulders above his friends, his perfect skin burnished, a warrior in a sea of peasants. The other guy is talking to him a mile-a-minute, gesturing wildly in his enthusiasm for whatever the topic is. Blond hair flops into his eyes. The warrior listens to him with a look of patient bemusement.

  “So, if you want help dragging that thing”—My new friend points at my dilapidated suitcase—“Or just generally finding your way, we’re happy to help. If not, that’s fine too.”

  “I’m kind of an independent type.” I crinkle my nose at him so my rejection of his offer won’t sound quite so serious. I would like to make some new friends, but I have a funny feeling this is all a prank. If I go with them, I’ll end up humiliated. Tera Donovan thought we wanted to be her friends!

  “Okay.” He slips his sunglasses back on, and those beautiful eyes vanish behind silver mirrored lenses, but the sunglasses are a good look too. His short black hair is slightly mussed, in the best way, and he has a big-jawed, craggily handsome face. “If you decide to follow us, I won’t call you a stalker. Your call.”

  He turns and heads back to his friends. He walks with a bit of a swagger, leaning to his right as if he’s used to carrying a weapon.

  He acts like a nice guy, but everything about him tells me he’s dangerous.

  “Hey, what’s your name?” I call out. And I don’t even know why. I should let him walk away, yet I want him to stay.

  He turns, taking another step backward toward his friends as he answers me. “Airren. Who are you, independent girl?”

  I shrug with one shoulder, the one that isn’t dying from the strain of my bag.

  “Okay,” he says, as if it’s totally normal I don’t want anyone to know my name.

  “Go you.” The blond friend claps his shoulder as they walk away. “Picking the girl who doesn’t even know her name.”

  “Leave her alone.” Airren’s husky voice is so low I barely hear him. “I wouldn’t hang out with us, either. You two are hooligans.”

  “You’re the king of hooligans,” Blondie says.

  “Thanks.” Airren shrugs as if he doesn’t mind his promotion to royalty. The warrior shakes his head, but whatever banter they exchange next is lost as they fade into the crowd.

  Too late, I stare at the people melding together in front of me and wish I’d followed them.

  Maybe I should take a chance on someone, sometime.

  Otherwise, I’m going to be stuck being the same Tera Donovan for the rest of my life.

  Chapter 4

  On campus, sprawling stone buildings are shaded by full, rich trees. Though it’s early fall, many of the trees’ limbs are still heavy with white and pink and lilac blossoms. As the sun sinks behind the mountain, the last rays of golden light halo the enormous white stone library, the highest building on this campus-on-a-hill. I breathe in the scent of flowers and the softest trace of rain in the air, clean and bright, and my heart lifts.

  Before they vanquished my father, he tried to style me into a princess. I’ve spent the last five years as no one’s kid, no one special. I didn’t have a way back into the magical universe that shimmers a heartbeat away from the reality of the first Earth. The few people I met who
knew this world wanted nothing to do with me. At best. At worst…I don’t want to think about the ways that people my father once devastated found to hurt me.

  I never thought I’d come back here. And if I fuck up, this could be the only bit of Avalon I ever get. I don’t know that I can ever find one of those portals on my own.

  I roll my rickety suitcase down the cobblestone path that leads toward Rawl House. The college is divided into six houses, my new home for four years. So, no pressure. Not a big deal to make a good first impression or anything.

  I square my shoulders, no matter how much they burn, as I turn the corner of the path, and Rawl House stands before me. It rises between the trees, a gray stone castle with green moss clinging to the sides. Dozens of windows face me like blank eyes. Outside the house doors, a raucous group of students roast pigs over dug-out fire pits. Picnic tables are set with white tablecloths and flickering lanterns that hold back the rapidly falling night. However old-school the scene may be, the latest pop music blares from speakers set up right by the doors, playing from some forbidden device. Technology poisons magic. Just how much technology Avalon should have… well, a lot of people have died in that debate.

  A group of students play a fiercely competitive game of soccer. A girl with a long blonde braid whipping behind her runs past me, catches the soccer ball with her foot and kicks it back without even looking. Her eyes meet mine before she turns and runs.

  Our world was always the perfect blend of the magic that Earth lost in the Divide and the things Earth eventually gained.

  I don’t know. Maybe that isn’t true. Maybe that’s what you believe when you haven’t been home in a long, long time.

  “You made it here.” Airren stops next to me, his foot on the soccer ball.

  When there’s an angry shout from the crowd behind him, he kicks the ball off.

  He gives them a lazy wave in apology. “Only took you an hour.”

  “I took a tour of the campus.” I dig my fingers between the strap and my shoulder, trying to ease the ache. His eyes are too bright and intense on mine; I’ve gotten out of the habit of making eye contact, so I look back at the soccer game while he stares at me.

  “Sure you did,” he says. “On purpose. With all your luggage.”

  “It’s not heavy.”

  He rolls his eyes, then reaches to take the bag off my shoulder. I step back, startled by his hand so near me, but he’s already grabbed the strap. He pulls it out of my hands before slinging it over his own shoulder.

  “Come on,” he says. “I’ll help you find your room, Tera.”

  Anxiety snakes through my stomach. “You know who I am?”

  “I’m your RA.” Those deep blue eyes soften as if he can read my reaction. “It’s my job to know who you are.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that down there?” I tilt my head in the general direction of the village below, unseen through the flowering trees.

  “I was curious to see what you’d do.”

  “Like some kind of a test?” I follow him as he winds through the crowd of students. “I didn’t know RA’s gave tests.” I sound angry. I take a deep breath and blow it out. First impressions.

  He’s throwing me off.

  Probably another test.

  We walk into a big, light-filled hall. Despite the archaic look of the exterior, this room is all warm wood and clean, modern lines. There are tables and chairs for studying and posters advertising various events: Activity Fair, Saturday 9-1, and Movie Night Tuesday. There are mailboxes along one wall, since we have to get old school to communicate with the outside world, and a coffee bar stands dark in one corner. To one side is the entrance to the cafeteria, and my stomach growls as I breathe in the warm, yeasty scent of baking bread. In front of us are twin broad staircases that lead up to the first floor of dorms.

  “Freshmen live on the fifth. Sorry.” He reaches back to take the handle of my suitcase.

  I let him take the cursed thing. “You’re going to regret being gallant.”

  He looks at me sharply.

  “My suitcase is broken.” God, what does he think I meant? Does he think I was threatening him? Quickly, to cover how shaken I feel, I add, “No elevator?”

  “No elevator,” he confirms.

  I follow him up the staircase, which means his perfectly shaped ass in tan trousers is right in my line of vision. I look upward, like a good girl…to the lean taper of his waist and his broad shoulders which flex under the shifting of my awkward duffel. He takes the stairs two at a time. He’s way too energetic for me right now as my legs ache from the walk up to campus after a long day spent on the train. My bags don’t seem to weigh anything to him.

  I make myself match his pace, and I’m panting when we arrive at the fifth floor. Each floor has a nook by the stairs with couches, and the halls stretch to either side. Men on one side, women on the other.

  “You’re in five-eleven.” He hands me an ornate silver key threaded on a ribbon in the Rawl House colors, blue and gold.

  “This place sure knows how to keep a theme going,” I mutter.

  “Tradition is everything here.” He touches the ribbon around his own neck, drawing my eye to his tan skin, and his Adam’s apple above the crisp white collar of his button-down.

  Well, let’s hope that’s not true. My family traditions involve henchmen and ritual murder.

  He walks backward down the hallway as if he knows this place so well, he doesn’t even have to look. The floors up here are deeply burnished wood, too. The walls are painted a deep shade of Rawl blue. Between the gray doors of the rooms hang bulletin boards with information for the floor and silver-framed photos of alum and current students.

  He points over my shoulder, to the first door by the stairs on the men’s side. “That’s my room. If you need something, I’m there.”

  “Isn’t there a girl RA?” I ask.

  “There is,” he says. “She hates you. Come to my room.”

  “She hates me,” I repeat. My voice comes out matter-of-fact, and I’m proud of that.

  “Her uncle died during the Savage Night.”

  I didn’t ask what I did to her. I nod impatiently; I don’t want him to think I’m grateful for that tidbit. “They couldn’t put me somewhere else?”

  He shrugs.

  Right. There’s got to be someone in every house that my father wronged terribly.

  Most of the doors on the hall are propped open. Students are shaking out bedspreads and tacking up posters or slipping books into their shelves. The rooms are all dark wood, big windows, old-school furniture, and fireplaces. The place is a freaking dream.

  “Come to my room if you need help,” he says again.

  “You don’t hate me?” My tone is light, flirtatious. There’s no other way to ask such a serious question, even though my heart pounds in my chest. Who does he know who died in the Savage Night and the war that came after?

  “I think you’re here for a reason, Tera Donovan.”

  A girl with long red hair, who was smiling as she stepped out of her room, freezes. She stares at Airren.

  “You going down to the pig roast, Baptina?” he asks as if nothing has happened, but I have the feeling those sharp blue eyes of his don’t miss a damn thing.

  “Yeah,” she says, false-brightly. “Just about to.”

  She goes back into her room and softly closes the door between us.

  “It’s my job to know everyone’s names.” He takes another step backwards, leading me on to my room.

  “Even before they get here.” I try to say it lightly, but the thin thread of suspicion raises my voice into a question.

  “Even before they get here,” he confirms. He swivels to one side and makes a dramatic gesture into an open doorway. “Five-eleven. You’re home.”

  “Goddamn you, you are not doing this to me, Airren,” cries the girl inside.

  Chapter 5

  My new roommate is in full freak-out mode. She faces down Airren, and the t
wo of them have a hot, whispered conversation while I stand in the center of the room and ignore them both. Her side of the room is crowded with green and black trunks with brass locks. Piled on top of the desk is a precarious stack of round hat boxes in ice-cream-pastel shades. Who owns hat boxes? She hasn’t bothered to make up the fluffy white mattress yet.

  My side is empty. There’s a polished, dark wood desk with a small brass lamp in the corner and a bookcase beside it, the shelves empty. A door stands between the desk and the bed, and I push it open, curious, to find a walk-in closet with shelves and a hanging bar. I run my fingers over the dark wood, mission-style footboard of the bed and then the white mattress, which looks clean and new. The mattress in the rooming house was stained and torn on one side, and I’d never lie on it without putting a sheet down first. I want to bounce onto this mattress and see if it’s as comfortable and pillowy as it looks.

  The room has a faint scent of book pages and fresh flowers. As I cross from one side to the other I take in the windows that look up the hill toward the library with all its light ablaze. Between us and the library are the white blossoms of the blooming trees, which shake in the wind. It’s not all bad being on the fifth floor; we have a hell of a view.

  When I turn back, my eyes skip past Airren, who has taken Stelly’s arm and is whispering in her ear. There’s a fireplace with two royal blue wing chairs. Someone’s filled the fireplace with branches of white-blossomed flowers. I’d almost forgotten those flowers are the symbol of hospitality in Avalon. My mother always filled our foyer with them, standing tall from vases, even after she lost her mind.

  Airren ignores Stelly’s swollen pink nose and bloodshot eyes. I’m pretty sure if she hadn’t been crying, she’d be pretty; her yellow hair is piled on top of her head, and her tied-up polka dot top and short skirt reveal long tanned legs and a toned body. She’s probably cute. When she’s not blowing her nose.

  She crumples the tissue in her hand and faces Airren defiantly.