Last Chance Academy

by Alex Lidell

  “Save me from Victor. Keep me company the whole night. Get me a dress.”

  A small confused frown flickers over his beautiful face, as if I’ve asked something universally obvious. “Because pissing off Victor is enjoyable. Because I enjoy your company. What was the third question—oh, the dress. Because going to a ball naked is frowned upon.”

  “I wasn’t going to go naked.”

  “Going in a little plaid skirt and white shirt is even worse,” Cassis informs me. “Your lack of appreciation for clothing is actually offensive.” Stopping by the first-year barracks—of course he knows where that is—Cassis opens the door for me. Another strange novelty. But I have a feeling that asking him to stop doing that is akin to asking him to stop breathing.

  I mean, if breathing is a regular thing for him. I’m still not clear on just how much air vampires need.

  Climbing the steps up to the second floor, I feel my heart speed up, the possibilities for the rest of the night unfolding deliciously inside me. We’ll come up to my room, stopping just outside my door. There, Cassis will pause in that infuriatingly lazy manner and smile down at me with that heartbreaking, mischievous grin. Then the vampire will run his long fingers along the side of my face, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. It will be impertinent. Irresistible. My heart will stop, my stomach clenching as he leans down, his powerful lips pressing over mine. And then he’ll step into me, just like he did in the dance, except this time instead of propelling us across the dance floor, he’ll push me backward into my room. Not stopping until the backs of my thighs hit the bed…

  I swallow at the thought. Damn it, but I don’t remember ever wanting a man this much before. The newness of the sensation tingles over my skin.

  “This is you,” Cassis says, and I realize we’re already outside my door, just as the movie inside my mind choreographed. A jolt of need makes my breasts feel heavy, my peaked nipples pressing against my gown. My sex tightens as I tip my face up to the male’s. Dark hair, a strong jawline, eyes a mixture of mischief and understanding that pierces deep into me without trying. Making me feel like there’s no other place in the world Cassis would rather be right now.

  Hell, we aren’t even touching, and I already feel his energy shooting straight into my core.

  “This is me.” I smile up at him.

  Cassis braces his hand on the door frame, the hard biceps beneath his jacket flexing in a sharp reminder of just how powerful he really is. That beneath all the designer suits and reckless mischief is a history as dark as mine. Darker perhaps. And yet, here he is, standing tall and playing music and giving a grand fuck-you to the world that tried so hard to break him.

  When the male lowers his mouth toward me, it’s all I can do to keep from moaning as I breath in his cologne. As his lips…

  As his lips touch my cheek with butterfly softness and pull away. “Stay safe, Samantha.”

  Wait. What?

  “You don’t have to go.” My heart stutters at my own words. Never, ever, have I voluntarily invited a man into my room before. Never longed for the pain that comes with fucking. I hadn’t realized how vulnerable the invitation would leave me, my palms tingling, my breath held.

  Cassis cocks his head, his gaze brushing me with unbridled sensuality. His hand comes up, the soft brush of his fingertips along my cheek nearly bringing me onto my toes. Then, finally, wrapping his fingers around a lock of my hair, Cassis…tugs it like a bloody fourth grader and pulls away.

  “Yes, I do,” he says, straightening his cuff links. “Thank you for a lovely evening, Samantha.”

  The words hit me like freezing rain, washing the stupid fairy tale I’d spun in my mind right back into the dirt where it belongs. An idiot. I am an utter, gullible, stupid idiot who deserves everything coming to her. Cassis is a playboy. Charming and wealthy and so attention basking, it would put any cat to shame.

  I swallow as the evening repeats itself back to me in refreshing clarity. Cassis dressed me like a toy, playing Victor and me and everybody else in a perfect marionette theater. Entertaining himself. I’d wager my leather jacket that he picks out the outfits of the dancing girls at Dusk just as he picked out my clothing for tonight. I stopped wondering too early why Cassis came to the ball. Had I been smarter, I’d have figured it out.

  He came for the show. His own show.

  I’m a fucking idiot.

  “Samantha.” Cassis drops to that low seductive timbre that I know better than to fall for now. “For what it’s worth, I am as surprised as you are not to be sliding between your sheets already.”

  “That makes three of us.” Ellis’s cold words sound from somewhere to my right.

  I step away from Cassis as the storm that is Ellis strides down the long hallway, his blond hair mussed, bow tie undone and hanging in a ribbon of black silk around his neck. The top of his white shirt is open, showing the flare of his chest muscles, like a wild animal who’s torn off a collar it never should have been forced to wear.

  “Ellis.” Cassis grins from his perch against the wall, which makes the darkness in Ellis’s eyes flash with yellow lightning. “I was wondering if you were actually bedding down in the first-years’ dorm or just curling up on a mat outside the back door. From a hygiene perspective, I’d personally worry about any fleas you might carry. The little buggers do spread quickly in an enclosed space.”

  “Is there a reason you’re still here, Cassis? Last I checked, there is no Victor here for you to provoke further.”

  My body tightens. I’d have thought hearing Ellis confirm my suspicions would hardly matter at this point, but it’s like pouring salt on a wound. Shaking my head, I pin Cassis with a hard gaze. Call me a masochist, but as far as this has gone, I want to know for sure. “Tell me the truth, Cassis. Were you using me tonight to piss Victor off?”

  “Yes, of course I was,” Cassis says easily. “I just told you as much earlier. I don’t lie—it’s one of my faults.”

  “Right.” I swallow the pain gripping my throat and give both the males a conjured smile. My own damn fault. My aching, tearing heart is my own stupid fault. And I’ll never let it happen again. “You’re right, Cassis, you did.” I mean to add a good night to that sentence, but my eyes start to sting, so I disappear into my room instead.

  22

  Sam

  “Get up.”

  I groan and ignore the noise. I’m exhausted. The very effort of not crying in the dark like some stupid little girl stole whatever strength I had left after the Cassis disaster. The feat of falling asleep was a distant second, and I’d be surprised if I’ve gotten more than three hours thus far. My calves hurt after wearing heels last night, and my entire body feels thick and heavy.

  “Get. Up.”

  Sitting up, I take a swing at whatever is talking.

  An iron-hard grip captures my wrist midmotion, jerking me to the floor hard enough that my shoulder screams in protest.

  “What the fucking hell?” I yell, my eyes finally focusing on Ellis, who’s looming over me, black joggers and tight sleeveless shirt showing off a full range of corded muscles. His white hair is pulled back tightly, the lines of his beautiful face sculpted with anger. “Go disappear into whatever bloody hole you’re crawled out of, Ellis. It’s liberty today.”

  “Not for you.” The male’s golden eyes flash, as if it’s me hazing him, not the other way around. “Training time, witch.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.” Ellis turns toward the door. “Be on the pitch in five minutes.”

  “Or else what, you’ll be really, really grumpy?”

  “Make me wait and find out,” Ellis barks over his shoulder, the door slamming in his wake.

  “Trouble with your boyfriend?” Bernadette asks, a small smile on her full lips. She looks as fresh and stunning as always, her red hair braided down her back, green eyes set off by long, mascaraed lashes—though I’m certain she stayed at the ball until it closed in the wee hours of the morning. The vampires rar
ely sleep at all, and the vamp demis need no more than a couple of hours to feel refreshed.

  Which reinforces my suspicions that the Academy made us room together just to make each other’s lives miserable.

  I give her a sugar-sweet smile that I know she hates. “That’s how he expresses his love.”

  Yes, I know I’m purposely irritating Bernadette. Which may be stupid and childish, but I won’t be knocking Ellis on his ass any time soon, and I want to take a swing at someone. Even a verbal one. Fair? No. Do I care after last night? Fuck no.

  Bernadette’s manicured brow twitches, and the one damn time I need her to snarl right back at me, her large eyes soften in sympathy. “Look, none of us particularly likes you, Sam, but even we think letting Ellis have his fun with you is messed up. I mean, there is a line.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure Ellis takes no pleasure in our training,” I say, pulling on my workout gear and trying hard not to hate my roommate for cruising through all the physical training by virtue of her vamp blood while I sweat. We’re on different paths anyway. Bernadette wants to attract the attention of someone important—like Victor—who could invite her into a vampire clan, whereas I am many years past the please-your-foster-family-so-they-keep-you bullshit. I don’t need anyone. I just want to survive this purgatory so I can get back to normal human life with the one person I should be relying on—myself. “In fact, I’m fairly certain that watching me trip over my own feet is the bastard’s personal version of hell.”

  Bernadette barks a laugh, and I know we’re done with the whole empathy thing. “I can’t tell where your ignorance ends and your stupidity begins. I mean, everyone knows Ellis could kill half the Academy if he put his mind to it, and is wearing a cadet’s uniform because he pissed someone off. But that’s not even the interesting part.” She leans forward. “Word on the street is that Ellis is one of the Talon king’s bastards. The dark son the king dispatches when someone needs to be brought back in line. Or taken out permanently. If even a part of what I’ve heard about him is true, making people suffer isn’t just a by-product of Ellis’s existence, it’s his fucking job. And do you imagine for a second that a male like that doesn’t enjoy it?”

  Yeah. I’m done listening. Poisonous as Bernadette is, I wouldn’t put it past her to invent things about Ellis just to make him seem like an even bigger asshole—as if he needs any more help in that department.

  Without bothering to reply, I grab a sweatshirt and pull it over my training uniform—unlike the rest of the Academy, I feel the cold just fine, thank you very much—and get myself out to the pitch. The sun is just coming over the pines in thin morning rays, long trails of mist still shifting over the grass.

  Ellis is already going through exercises as I come up to sand-covered ground, his body moving smoothly against the background of the rising sun like some scene from a martial arts movie. Except that unlike the movies, Ellis’s forms are for real, each punch and kick and block vibrating with a constrained power that should be impossible when fighting air.

  For a moment, I just stand at the edge of the sand and watch him fight his phantoms, his low ponytail snapping in the wind with each movement. He looks almost content. And then he turns toward me, and all those glorious movements disappear right along with that content expression, as if my appearance has brought him crashing back down to an unwelcome reality.

  Picking up two glorified sticks lying on the sideline, Ellis tosses one to me hard enough that the wood raps my fingers when I catch it.

  “Are we playing at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?” Just longer than my arm, the polished wood is shaped like a dull sword but is heavier than it should be. Frowning at the handle, I discover that the toy sword’s core has been weighted with metal.

  “You are learning how to use a sword,” he says. While he’s never exactly nice, his voice is rougher than usual today, the storm in his golden eyes barely contained. Weighing me with his gaze, he shakes his head as if finding me wanting. “Copy my footwork.”

  “Seriously?” I blink at the length of wood in my hand. “Are you insane? Because no one uses swords anymore. If this is a new type of torment—” I cut off as the tip of Ellis’s practice sword suddenly presses into the fragile cartilage of my windpipe, the hard set of his jaw warning that he is one hair’s breadth away from leaning into the blade.

  Yes, apparently, seriously.

  “Vampires must lose their head or all their blood to die, but a well-placed cut will slow them down long enough for you to get away. A wooden stake is effective only if you strike the heart directly. Either way, it starts with good footwork. Is there a reason you’re looking at me like I’m speaking in another language?”

  “If this is actually about self-defense, how about a gun?”

  “Have we not had this discussion already?” Ellis snaps, his Scottish accent growing thicker. “Besides being impossible to bring into Talon or discharge safely in populated areas, guns are simply ineffective against vampires. A vampire’s heart beats once every few minutes at best, so the bit of damage from an average bullet is an annoyance more than anything. Beheadings, on the other hand, work well. Get your sword up.”

  “Is this about Cassis—” I yelp as Ellis’s blade raps my upper arm hard enough to send a zing of numbing pain down to my fingers.

  “This is about the fact that my damn punishment is to keep your arse alive, and you aren’t making that easy. So I’ve no intention of making it easy on you either.” Stepping in close, Ellis hooks my sword with his and glares down from his towering height. “Now, you are going to follow each and every one of my steps, or we are going to run for an hour and then start from the beginning. Is there any part of that you had trouble understanding?”

  I bite down my first instinct, which is to tell Ellis exactly where he can shove my understanding. “No, you’re clear as glass. Crystal clear, in fact,” I say, giving the male a mock salute. If Ellis expects me to cower before his mighty anger, he has another thing coming.

  His jaw tightens, but he waits for me to take up a position beside him before starting us into motion. Into lunges, to be exact. Forward lunges. Reverse lunges. Lunges with the practice sword held high. Lunges with that bloody sword in whatever position makes my arms tremble, my thighs burning with enough hellfire to roast marshmallows.

  “High parry,” Ellis calls relentlessly, each word like an extra weight hung around my neck. Despite the cold morning, sweat drips down my scalp, snaking down the groove of my spine. My boots slip on the sand. “Low. Lunge. Up. High.”

  I do as he says. I lunge and I parry and—despite my cracks about ninja turtles—I put everything into my trembling muscles. A peace offering of sorts.

  Except Ellis is not feeling like peace, it seems, his voice as unrelenting as his cold face. As if he isn’t rooting for me to succeed but waiting for me to fail.

  Stop letting Bernadette under your skin, I remind myself as I double over for breath, my hands braced against my thighs. I hurt. Hurt so bad I would voluntarily go running now just to get a break from the blade work.

  “Reset,” Ellis orders, his demand lashing at me just as the tip of my sword touches the sand. I have to fight with all my strength not to follow the damn thing down.

  “Need. A. Break.” My words come in desperate gasps, my lungs burning as I gulp air.

  Ellis’s golden gaze captures mine, and my heart stops at the ice I see there. At the wooden blade he sends sailing at my skull with enough force to crack open the bone.

  “You think anyone cares?” His eyes flash as a rush of fear-driven adrenaline forces my arm up to parry the blow. The clack of wood on wood is so hard, I feel it echoing through my bones. “You think vampires get tired? You think they negotiate for a more convenient rendezvous? Reset.”

  Ellis doesn’t wait to see whether I’m ready—which I’m not—and when his sword raps against my ribs, a shout of pain escapes me.

  “Are you insane?” I demand.

  “No, you are,” he bar
ks. Unlike me, the male isn’t so much as breathing hard, his lithe, powerful body seeming to be everywhere without exertion. “If you can’t be bothered to curb your recklessness, tell me why the hell I should be doing it for you. Reset.”

  I’m smart enough to mind the order and block his blade before it strikes me again in the same spot. Again. And again. My heart pounds, the morning sun now shining into my eyes, my body somehow blazing hot while the fingers wrapped around my sword are numb and chilled. The walls of forest on every side of us watch in cool, impartial silence. The realization that there is—there will be—no end to Ellis’s assault spreads through my blood like acid. No end, no point, no anything but the clack clack clack of useless wooden sticks while my muscles tremble and my breaths come in knifelike puffs of cold air.

  Nothing on the streets could ever have prepared me for this—not fighting off bullies or escaping foster brothers. Not even the slaps and much worse doled out by drunk men in the name of discipline. Nothing could ever have prepared me for Ellis.

  “Reset,” he snaps after landing another blow, this one powering through my parry to slap my shoulder.

  “No!” Gripping the wooden sword in both hands, I hurl the damn toy into Ellis’s face, the male looking surprised as he catches it on instinct. I gulp a mouthful of air. “I’m done with your games,” I shout, not caring that heads are now turning toward us as others in the training yard smell the budding riffs of a juicy conflict. “You want to have a pissing match with Cassis, have at it. Leave me the fuck out of it.”

  “Cassis is irrelevant.” Ellis throws the blade at my feet, his nostrils flaring. “Pick it up.” His voice drops. “Pick it up, or I will enjoy what happens next a great deal more than you will.”

  I raise my chin, using what little strength I have to straighten my back before the storm that is Ellis, to enunciate each one of my words. “Go. To. Hell.”

  Silence settles over the training yard, as if everyone sucks in a collective breath. For a moment, Ellis just stands there, frozen. But then he moves.