by Cara Wylde
SAVING YEAR THREE
GRIM REAPER ACADEMY, BOOK THREE
- reverse harem romance -
Copyright © 2019 by Cara Wylde
Cover by Otilia Jakab
All rights are reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
The needle dug into my skin, moving up and down my shoulder blade at an agonizingly slow pace. I kept my eyes fixed on the wall, not really seeing the artwork chaotically plastered all over it, and my arms around the backrest of the chair I was straddling. The pain felt good. It felt real. The incessant buzzing of the tattoo machine disconnected me from the here and now. I’d picked a complex model, so I’d be stuck under the needle for at least three hours. Gloria, the tattoo artist, had tried to convince me that we could do it in two sessions. Two hours now for the black ink, and another two hours next week to add the color. Anyone who knew me could’ve guessed my answer. No. Four hours. Now. She could take her time, too. Make it five hours, Gloria. I have nowhere to be.
Five hours under the needle. That should have exorcised some of my demons. Except we were three hours in, and the ache in my chest refused to let go. My hands turned into fists. I pursed my lips, and it wasn’t because the needle was inching closer to my spine, where the skin was more tender. Flashes flew across my vision. I screwed my eyes shut and prayed they’d go away, otherwise my trembling fists would find their way into my mouth, and my teeth would sink into the flesh before I’d have time to control myself.
“It’s coming along well,” Corri flappity-flapped around the chair. She floated a few inches from my face, the breeze her translucent wings created wafting over my sweaty forehead. I smiled and opened my eyes. “I still can’t believe you’re doing it,” she breathed. A cute blush spread across her pale cheeks. “I thought you were joking…”
“I never joke about tattoos.” One week before, she’d done me a favor, going against Morningstar’s orders. I said I’d get a tattoo of her, so I was doing it now. Corri’s pretty pixie self on my left shoulder blade. And not just because she was my friend and a super champ when it came to going against my father’s rules, but also because the whole endeavor was sufficiently complicated to keep me under the needle for long enough to have a good shot at forgetting about the small blades in my bedroom drawer. Thin, sharp blades that would leave the most elegant red lines on my stomach, breasts, thighs… Not on my wrists, though. Too visible. They would only tell on me; tell Valentine Morningstar that his plan had worked. I was nearly broken.
After year two at Grim Reaper Academy ended, Morningstar started putting his plans into action. As the new Headmaster, he had every intention to turn the professors, the curriculum, and the Academy rules and traditions upside down, eliminate all that didn’t suit his vision, and replace it with something better. Why was it better? Because he, Valentine, the greatest Grim Reaper alive, had come up with it. Among the first and most crucial decisions he’d made was that I was going to spend the summer vacation with him. Oh, and that I was going to break up with my two boyfriends, the demon Pazuzu Eremus, and the false god GC Apis. I did spend the summer vacation at his castle in the Scottish countryside, but I didn’t break up with my guys. We had teleportation devices now. Distance wasn’t an issue.
When I disappeared for two days in Hell, my father got me an Unseelie bodyguard. A tall, bulky fay with dark eyes and long, black hair, all dressed like some elvish warrior from some ridiculous fantasy game. It was their military uniform, apparently. Whatever. Having Crassus follow me around didn’t mean a thing when I wanted to see Paz and GC. So, I disappeared for another three days. Corri helped me distract the Unseelie guard, this time. Morningstar punished her with one week in the Blank. He punished me by sending me out to reap.
“You’ll reap in my place,” he’d said. “You’re ready.” Ugh, that fake smile on his stupidly handsome face! “I’m Headmaster now, and my responsibilities lie with the Academy. I can’t do two jobs at the same time and do them well. But I’m lucky I have you, my daughter. You’re so talented, such a natural, that I know I can send you on the field and rest assured that you’ll do a great job even if you’re not officially a Grim Reaper.”
I had to admit… I did feel a bit flattered. I knew he only wanted to get rid of me, and at the same time make sure I was too damn busy to run away to see GC and Paz, but I still couldn’t help feeling proud of myself that I’d only graduated year two, with another year to go, and I was so good that Morningstar said I could go reap on my own. I could, basically, take over his job. Oh, how naïve I was...
He didn’t only send me reaping. He got in touch with his Violent Death colleagues and asked them to give me the most difficult, dangerous, and disgusting jobs. The most heinous reaping cases were passed down to me the moment the other Violent Reapers got them. I had no idea how that was possible, how they could control a system that I’d always thought was random, but they did it. So, I spent my summer amongst serial killers, rapists, mobsters, and the poor. The poor always had it the worst. Thank God the war-ridden countries kept it light, but I did get summoned in the middle of a tribal conflict in Africa at the end of July, where I couldn’t believe what humans could do to other humans. That was when I started cutting again. My thighs, at first, then above the hem of my panties, on my stomach, drawing endless lines from one cigarette burn mark to another. Soon, my stomach was a map of bright red roads and pale, long-healed dots.
It was bad.
I couldn’t keep it up.
Not when I had to talk some poor soul out of doing exactly what I was doing every week or so. Of course, those cases landed in my lap, too. All because of Valentine fucking Morningstar, who wanted to punish me for disobeying him. Although, there were days when I wondered whether he was really trying to show me who was boss because I’d refused to break up with GC and Pazuzu, or there was something else there. Maybe he was punishing me because I existed. As simple as that.
Either way, I couldn’t keep cutting myself. I still needed to feel the pain, though, especially after a particularly horrible day. Tats. The idea came to me out of the blue, a
nd it stuck. The first one was under my breasts. I’d read that was one of the most painful places to get a tattoo, so I went right for it. An intricate sun and moon mandala with beads, rays, and strings coming out of it and curving up to hug the underside of my boobs. My ribs were next. Abstract geometry on the left, and a fox on the right, because I liked foxes. My stomach, my lower back, my upper back, and I was soon running out of ideas. What to get, what to get? Corri on my left shoulder blade. That should keep me satisfied for a while.
She’d risked being sent to the Blank for another week when she’d snuck Paz and GC into my room. I couldn’t get out of the house unless I went reaping, and even then, Crassus the Fay followed me, teleporting right after me wherever I went. Morningstar had given him one of those stupid teleportation pins. He was my shadow. My very tall, very big and ripped shadow. I eventually got used to him, but my guys were so close to being caught that night, that I vowed not to try again. The summer vacation was almost over, anyway. I wasn’t going to lose my mind if I didn’t fuck for three weeks.
The only good thing that came out of my involuntary volunteering to reap in my father’s place, was that Morningstar taught me how to teleport on my own. I didn’t need the tiny teleporting device attached to my cloak anymore. I was ahead of everyone at the Academy, and that could only serve as an advantage. I hated that I had to reap all summer. I hated that I had to look my poor victims in the eye and sever their string of life. And I hated that I had to turn my back to their aggressors and pretend that all was good in the world, that nature was following its course and I was just a pawn on this great chess board called life. Life and death. Life was white, death was black. White moved first, but that didn’t mean much, did it?
“Done.”
Gloria’s voice startled me. She was a beautiful false goddess with four arms and skin as blue as the sky. She was Hindu, and her name wasn’t Gloria, but that was what she liked to be called. In the supernatural world, one’s origin, name, and abilities were something to be proud of. Every time she stepped out of her tattoo shop, people insisted on calling her by her real name, which only made her become more introverted and antisocial. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have understood her. To be powerful and hide it? To have an exotic name that was barely pronounceable and change it? To be special and wish to be normal? But now I got it. Now I knew. And that was why I called Gloria by the name she’d chosen for herself.
“Thanks. Till next time.”
She smiled. “What will it be next time?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking of a scythe on my leg? That should fit.”
“Keep it up, and you won’t have a free inch of skin left.”
I nodded, ignoring her last comment. I wanted to keep my tattoos in places that were rarely exposed. My arms, neck, and chest would remain untouched, for sure. At least, that was what I kept telling myself. It might not have been true, but it was soothing to think that it could be.
I waved at Gloria and stepped out into the scorching sun. Crassus, my fay bodyguard, was waiting for me on the sidewalk. He never talked to me, never even looked directly at me, so I’d learned to ignore him a long time ago. At first, I was careful what I said and did around him, but when I realized his only job was to make sure I didn’t see GC and Paz, I started treating him like an ornament. “Fays are expensive soldiers,” Corri had told me at some point. “Not even your father can pay Crassus to do more than one or two jobs at a time. I think his task is to keep you away from your boyfriends and tell on you if you meet them. If your father wants him to do more than that, like… I don’t know, spy on you all the time and report back everything you say in his presence, he’d have to pay him more.” So, there was no point in hiding my desire to get rid of Morningstar around Crassus. He didn’t care. That certainly made my life easier, because most days, that was the only thing on my mind, and the only subject of conversation between me and my pixie.
Gloria’s tattoo shop was on a quaint street in Amsterdam, in a neighborhood where only supernaturals lived. Paz’s mom had recommended her to me. When I’d last seen her son, I only had the underboob tattoo. I wondered what my boyfriends were going to say when they realized my one tattoo had turned into at least five more. Not that I cared. My body, my rules.
“Do you think I’m turning into a bitch, Corri?”
The pixie’s brown eyes grew so wide they almost popped out of her head. She smacked her forehead with her tiny hand.
“Oh no! Why would you say that, Mistress? Never! You just got a tattoo of me on your back. And I’m just a pixie.”
I laughed. “You’re my friend.” She shook her little head, and I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I feel like I’ve changed so much this summer. Like I don’t care anymore. I don’t care what people think.”
“What do you care about, then?”
“One thing and one thing only. Retiring my father.”
She gulped. “Killing him.”
I laughed bitterly. “Yeah. Sure. That.” Except I knew I couldn’t do it. Not that I didn’t want to, but the only time he’d challenged me to a scythe fight, he’d beaten my ass. “I knew Scylla Charon isn’t teaching you squat in PE,” he’d said. “You know how to use your scythe for reaping, but you’re a terrible fighter.” And then he made a note in the notebook he’d dedicated to revolutionizing the Academy. He was probably going to make Professor Charon teach us how to fight, which sounded absolutely stupid to me. Why would a Grim Reaper need to know how to fight and kill with her scythe?! I knew why I had to, but generally speaking, it was stupid. Just to retire the old Grim Reapers? Morningstar actively working on teaching the students – on teaching me – how to kill didn’t make any sense at all. He baffled me.
Corri trembled. “I don’t like this, Mistress. Too dangerous.”
I motioned for her to come sit on my shoulder. “Someone has to do it. Not someone. Me. I’m the only one who can do it. The prophecy says so.” My scythe started throbbing in my hand, the blade glowing scarlet. I sighed. “Here we go again…” I teleported us both to where I was called to reap. Crassus was right behind me.
* * *
Year three, semester one. Grim Reaper Academy.
I materialized in a cloud of black smoke at the tall, iron wrought gates, and looked up at the gothic building. I smiled when I remembered this exact day, this exact time, one year before. GC and Paz had been waiting for me after a whole summer of texting and video chatting. They’d taken turns lifting me up, kissing me… and then they’d fought over me, like silly children. No one was waiting for me now. I hadn’t told them when I’d come because I didn’t want them to meet me. They’d only get themselves in trouble. Valentine Morningstar was already at the Academy, in his new office, playing Headmaster. I’d reaped until the very night before the first day of school. I knew that if I’d come earlier, the temptation would’ve been too strong, and I didn’t want to get my guys in trouble before the year started. Because I knew I was going to get them in trouble, eventually. I had no idea what my father had decided for the whole Academy, but I knew what he’d decided for me: that I was supposed to be single until I graduated, focus on my studies, and if I was a good, obedient daughter and became a Grim Reaper, then he’d find me a worthy match. Probably an angel, or something. Some boring seraph. What bugged him most wasn’t that I was dating, but that I was dating a demon and a false god.
“Ready?” Corri asked in an excited whisper.
“Mhm. Let’s do this.”
I stepped through the gates, walked down the corridor that led to the inner courtyard, pushed the doors open, and stepped into the warm light of the setting sun. There weren’t many students outside, but the ones who happened to lounge and catch up around the stone tables over drinks, snacks, and boardgames, looked up and went silent.
“Mila Morningstar is in the house,” I mumbled sarcastically. They were all looking at me like I was the eighth wonder of the world. Big eyes and pursed lips. They cou
ldn’t wait for me to move the fuck faster and get inside, so they could gossip behind my back.
“Mistress, they’re behaving like they know something…”
“Of course they fucking know something. Valentine probably bragged about sending me to reap all summer.”
As I crossed the courtyard, I saw Pandora, Kitty, and Sheba leaning against a wall, passing a cigarette around. Pandora waved at me. I furrowed my brows and nodded. Klaus popped out of nowhere and threw his arms around me.
“Girl, you’re finally here! What took you so long?”
I hugged him back. “I’ve been volunteering all summer, haven’t you heard?”
He held me at arm’s length and studied me closely. Once he was satisfied, he gave me the biggest grin he could muster. “There’s no volunteering when it comes to reaping. You’ll get paid, you’ll see. Of course I heard. Your dear father has made sure the whole school knows what a kickass reaper you are. If nothing else, he’s proud of you, and it shows.”
I rolled my eyes. “He still thinks he can get me in his corner.”
He thought for a second. “Err… no. I think he’s genuinely proud. You’re mortal enemies, sure, but you know how it is in movies and comic books… Mortal enemies can be civil with each other. Even friendly.” He stole a glance at Crassus. “Who’s that?”
I sighed. “My bodyguard.” I stepped aside and waved at the fay. “Crassus, this is my friend, Klaus. Klaus, Crassus, my loyal guard. His job is to make sure I don’t bone GC or slash and Paz.”
“Hi there!”
I giggled. Crassus didn’t make a move, let alone a sound. He didn’t even nod in acknowledgement.
“Is he deaf or something?” Klaus whispered.
I laughed out loud. “No. Morningstar just needs to pay him more if he wants him to talk to me. And why would he want that?” I took him by the arm. “Come on, I’m starving.”
“You missed dinner by three hours.”