Last Chance Reform

by Alex Lidell

  “Fuck it, Christian. Don’t send that shit here,” a rough voice says. Hands on hips, a pack of four demifae cadets block the path I was going to take around Christian and his crowd. Snarling at me, the demifae pack leader, an older cadet with dark sideburns and hair as messy as Wolverine’s, bares elongated canines. He has pale yellow eyes like Ellis, but his have a greenish glint, like stomach bile. Glaring at the splashes of mud my sidestep left on his boot, Wolverine shoves me back toward Christian.

  “Butcher bitch is a warmblood,” Leanne protests. “If you can’t keep track of your trash, Wayne—”

  Right.

  “You know what? Fuck you both,” I tell the two mini-gang leaders, Christian and Wayne the Wolverine, my voice the epitome of politeness. “I’m going to go eat. But please, don’t stop your pissing war on my account.”

  Setting my sights on the dining hall door, I take a determined step forward.

  Wayne’s hairy arm wraps around my waist, yanking me off my feet and shoving me right into the vamps.

  Fuck.

  I land against Christian’s chest, forcing him to take a step for balance. He nearly slips in the muddy grass and curses, shoving me back toward the demifae. I trip and land hard, hitting my head on the ground. The world shifts for a moment, a warm trickle of blood running down my temple. I quickly push up to my knees, wiping away the blood that has the demivamps smacking their lips. One thing working at Dusk has taught me is that free-flowing blood will always get attention. My heart pounds, my breath picking up speed as the demifae and demivamps square off against each other—with me in the middle. Trapped. Between two walls of testosterone and animal instinct.

  “You dead-fuckers are the next extinct race,” Wayne snarls, his skin rippling as if his muscles can’t decide whether they’re supposed to shift or not. Some demifae can, though most can’t. I hope he’s among the latter. Though, based on his raw-meat scent, I don’t think I’ll get that lucky. “Maybe you should take—fuck!” He cuts off as someone’s fist cracks his nose, blood spraying onto his white uniform shirt.

  The demivamps growl, probably salivating at the smell.

  Taking advantage of the commotion, I shove my way backward toward elusive safety, never taking my eyes off the brawl. The demis hit hard and heal fast. I don’t.

  Wayne swipes his forearm across his face, his yellow eyes flashing at Christian. The demifae pulls back one massive hairy-knuckled fist, readying for a blow.

  I inch myself farther from the middle, catching a shove from someone—Leanne, I think—to help me on my way. My foot slips. Wheeling backward through the mud, I brace myself for a cold, wet landing—and hit a hard wall of muscle instead.

  “Enough,” snaps a cold sophisticated voice, a strong hand gripping my elbow to keep me upright.

  Everyone stops moving. Stops breathing.

  Trailing my eyes up the long, manicured fingers at my elbow, I find Count Victor’s cool dark eyes and swallow a curse. A step behind the new dean, Reese stands with his arms over his chest, his pale, beautiful face hard. Unreadable. He wears his usual black fatigues and T-shirt, his dark messy hair the only thing on him that defies the perfect military order.

  Victor lets go of my elbow and steps away to regard us all. Christian and the other demivamps drop to their knees before the count, the cold mud seeping through their uniforms. The demifae and I stand at attention. The air around us vibrates with tension, the attention of everyone on the green boring into our backs.

  A bird sings from its hideout in a nearby maple, the only sound breaking the silence.

  With long, deliberate strides, Victor walks along our line, his crisp black suit cutting an intimidating shape against the gray sky. Tall, dark-haired, and leanly muscled, he might be handsome if it weren’t for the dead-fish pallor of his skin, the chilling ice in his gaze.

  When he steps into a puddle that sends mud splashing all over Christian’s face, the demi holds still, not flinching. Not daring to wipe his face. Hell, he probably considers Victor’s boot mud sacred. As if cued by my thought, Leanna, who is the closest to where Victor has just stopped, leans down to kiss his boot, her thick black hair brushing the ground.

  Victor ignores her, studying first the kneeling vamps, then the rest of us. The demifae stare straight ahead, military style, their faces blank. No respect for the count there, but plenty of fear. If Asher were here, we’d all be bear-crawling around the green for the next hour. But now, with Victor… There isn’t a pattern to what he might do, with everything from light reprimand to an Ellis-style flogging on the table. Fear swirls sourly in my gut.

  “Samantha.” The vampire comes to a stop in front of me, his courteous voice holding an air of expectation. When I look up to meet his dark eyes, he raises a brow.

  Clearing my throat, I offer the new dean a half bow. “Thank you for helping me keep my balance, sir,” I say.

  Behind him, Reese shifts his feet.

  Victor smiles coolly, a hint of sharpened canines flashing behind his lips. “I am always glad to be of service, Samantha. However, the current situation seems slightly more complex, does it not?”

  Apparently.

  “You pushed me,” Victor prompts.

  The air on the green grows heavy, the kneeling demivamps somehow shrinking into themselves without moving a muscle. My heart starts to pound, my body seeming to know something before I do.

  “I was pushed into you, sir,” I answer, despite my churning stomach. There’s not getting between two angry dogs, and then there’s lying down in dog shit. I’ve never been good at the latter. “And I do thank you for preventing my fall. I’m certain I’d be in the mud otherwise right now.”

  Someone gasps to my left—it sounds like Christian, a fact I’d enjoy if the circumstances were any less…murdery feeling. Behind Victor, Reese wearily rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. The count merely studies me with the curiosity of a child examining a bug beneath a magnifying glass. A heartbeat passes. “Are you expecting me to say you are welcome, perhaps?” A corner of Victor’s mouth twitches up. “Or maybe it was my pleasure?”

  I know the question is a trap, but apparently, I’m suicidal. And I’m out of better ideas. “Both good options, sir.”

  A muscle ticks in Victor’s jaw, and for just a moment, I see the coldhearted thousand-year-old royal behind the dean’s composed appearance. Like a glamour being lifted, Victor’s dark eyes flash with cruel, powerful, Machiavellian truth. But just as quickly, it’s gone, and his face is bland and only mildly interested once more. He turns to Reese. “Is this what Asher has been teaching cadets these past years?”

  “The Academy has been following military protocol, not vampiric, Your Excellence,” Reese replies evenly, his low, controlled voice holding all the lethal power of his body. When he turns his attention on me, my stomach tightens, his silent disapproval somehow more potent than a hundred of Victor’s games. “That said, Devinee should have known better regardless.”

  “I see.” Shifting his attention back to us, Victor turns toward Christian, speaking over his bent, trembling head. “The fae cannot control their base instincts, but I expected better of you. Have you anything to say?”

  Christian touches his already mud-splattered forehead to the soggy ground. “Yes, Your Excellence. I beg your forgiveness for my inattention. There should never have been a moment when I was unaware of your presence. I should have done everything in my power to ensure you could walk as you wish unharassed. Instead, I indulged in a scuffle with my fellow cadets. I am a disgrace to myself. To the Academy. And most of all to you. I beg for forgiveness I do not deserve and surrender myself fully to your judgment.”

  You have got to be fucking kidding me.

  Fortunately, I keep that thought to myself—just barely—as the other kneeling vamps all take turns repeating some variation of that bullshit, each fawning apology ending with a declaration of undeserved forgiveness and unreserved submission.

  The demifae, at least, just stand at at
tention without moving.

  Waiting a moment until after the last of the demivamps grovels, Victor ensures that no one has anything more to add before washing us all with the same angry glare. “You’ve all disgraced yourselves today,” he says, walking to loom over the fae. “You four. Find Commander Asher and inform him of what happened. Two lashes apiece, plus whatever else he believes appropriate.”

  Wayne the Wolverine’s face blanches, the memory of Ellis’s whipping still fresh in all our minds, and the demifae suddenly trip over themselves with “yes, sirs” before scurrying off with proverbial tails tucked between their legs.

  My stomach tight and pulse pounding, I wait for what Victor has in store for the rest of us.

  The count’s attention focuses on me, though he speaks to the group. “All apologies have been accepted, and forgiveness is granted,” he says, a cold smile touching his face once more. “Samantha. It was…a pleasure to make your acquaintance again. I look forward to seeing you blossom as your education continues.” He waves a perfectly manicured hand, the long nails making my skin crawl. “Now, I suggest you visit the infirmary for that nasty little cut. And change into presentable clothes, all of you. This is an academy, not a pigsty.”

  The demivamps scramble, and I’m smart enough to go right along with them—though I’m not sure whether it’s Victor’s or Reese’s hard glare that I’m truly trying to flee.

  3

  Reese

  Well, that was a bloody mess. Reese felt a muscle tic on the side of his jaw as he followed Victor back across the green, but he quickly tamped it down. After a thousand years on Earth, Victor saw all too much—if you let him.

  The beautiful little witch had a mouth on her, but a great deal of that impertinence was based in mere ignorance. She had blanched at the demifae cadets’ sentence—and had no idea that she’d been risking far worse when she looked Victor in the eye. When she spoke back to him so boldly. Would she have held her tongue if she had? Reese bloody well hoped so, though something inside him whispered that he knew better.

  And he hated how much that bothered him.

  His hands tightened behind his back, though his face remained even. On the surface, Victor had handled the problem with respect to vampiric protocol—taking formal apologies into account before doling out sentences—but the nuances would be lost on the cadets. The demifae were punished, and the demivamps were not.

  Never mind that after one week with Victor in charge, the demifae and demivampires were already scuffling on the damn green. Asher’s approach of keeping everyone too busy to brawl came from his navy days, and there was no better proof of concept than seeing what happened when the reins were eased.

  Except Victor wasn’t just easing the reins, he was giving the demis just enough leather to hang themselves with. It was calculated. Everything the count did was.

  “Reesand.” Victor turned toward him, and Reese dropped his gaze politely to the ground. The vampiric equivalent of offering a salute to a superior officer.

  “Yes, Your Excellence?” Whatever had compelled Victor to insist that Reese accompany him on this stroll, Reese hoped the count would get on with it.

  “Ah, so you do remember our manners.” Victor flicked his fingers, giving Reese permission to look up. “Tell me, does vampire tradition bother you, Reesand?”

  “No.” Reese shrugged one shoulder. It really didn’t.

  “Many powerful families would be glad to welcome you into their folds, yet you appear more comfortable with the mortal species,” Victor said smoothly, his sharp features arranged into fatherly concern—some new act the count was apparently trying on for size. “I thought you might have rejected our traditions. It does happen.”

  “I have no feelings about tradition one way or the other, Your Excellence.” Reese had no feelings on most things nowadays. And he liked it that way. “My family was killed during the fae-vampire wars. I am simply not ready to join—or start—another family. Shedding a mortal persona every few years suits my needs.”

  “No roots. No responsibilities. No place to call home.” Victor glanced at him with a small tsk sound. “Most would call that unhealthy.”

  Reese stayed silent. There was nothing to gain by challenging the count. Sometimes victory was best achieved by not getting into the wrong fight at the wrong time.

  “Is Cassis not your family, though?” Victor said lightly, straightening a perfectly straight jacket cuff. “I was under the impression your sires were related.”

  “They were brother and sister. Humans would call us cousins of a sort.”

  “I would call you brothers.” Victor’s voice hardened. “Brothers or nothing at all. Those are our ways.”

  Again, Reese held his tongue. Several oceans could fit between Victor’s and his notions of ways.

  The light drizzle was turning into a steady rain again, though Victor seemed perfectly at ease. The moisture slicked his dark hair into lustrous strands, making his bottomless black eyes shine brighter. The green had finally emptied around them, all the students closed up in the dining hall for lunch.

  “And the witch?” Victor’s casual tone sent a ping of warning down Reese’s spine. He had the unmistakable sense that they’d just come to the heart of the conversation. And there was nowhere he wanted to be less. “What do you make of Ms. Samantha Devinee?”

  “She was caught between two unfriendly forces today, Your Excellence,” said Reese.

  “True. Being caught in a crossfire between vampire and fae is no way for a young girl to grow and thrive. Yet there is the rub. All the creatures are powerful, each in their own way. And with that power comes the need for discipline. We vampires have our protocol, enforced by our clans. The fae have theirs, which pack leaders teach and enforce among their own. But there are no covens to teach Ms. Devinee her place, not anymore. Do you see where I’m heading with this, Reesand?”

  “No, sir.”

  Victor’s eyes flashed, but the show of displeasure was wasted on Reese. The count’s power meant that few things in vampire society happened without his blessing—but Reese needed nothing from that world. Victor was his current commanding officer as dean of Talonswood Reform, and it was no more than that. A fleeting arrangement in an immortal’s life span.

  “Then I shall be straightforward,” Victor said dryly. “I’ve decided that while she is under my command as dean, Samantha would do well to learn vampiric protocol. And it is my wish that you instruct her in it.”

  Reese stopped dead. “Witches have never followed our protocols, sir.”

  Unlike the vampires, who defined hierarchy through lineage, or fae, who challenged each other for alpha roles, witch covens had elected their leadership. A slow, unwieldy process involving a great deal more democracy than Reese thought practical, yet he couldn’t deny that when a coven of witches did make a decision, they were a force to be reckoned with.

  “Quite correct,” said Victor. “And it got them killed, and nearly dragged the rest of us down too. Samantha is the first witch we’ve found in a long time, and I refuse to see her follow in their footsteps. She needs a firmer hand. Her magical temper tantrum last week should never have been permitted.”

  Right. Much better to have had Quinn rape the girl. And the fact that she would one day take one of three empty witch council seats surely had nothing to do with Victor’s calculation.

  King Bryant had made his claim clear when he sent his bastard son to Talonswood to keep an eye on the witch. Count Victor was merely asserting his own claim now—and Reese couldn’t imagine Bryant would take the challenge lying down. To them, the girl was a pawn on the chessboard. A pawn they both secretly feared was actually the queen.

  Men in power were so predictable—Reese had seen it time and again over the centuries, fought for those men in war after war. It was practically boring by now.

  His voice hardened. “Let me be clear. Are you ordering me to force Samantha to obey vampiric protocols?” Because I’d love to know what the council wil
l have to say about that.

  “I’m not ordering you to do anything, Reesand.” Victor smiled, his white canines flashing in the afternoon light. “I’m merely informing you of my preferences.”

  “Yes, sir,” Reese said, bowing as Victor dismissed him with a flick of a hand. The count could have saved his breath on the whole will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest angle. Hard as it was for Victor to believe, Reese truly needed nothing from the damn count. Certainly nothing over which Reese was going to get any closer to Samantha Devinee than being on an island required. Especially after Ellis and his mating talk.

  4

  Reese

  Walking back into the infirmary a half hour later, Reese stopped short in the doorway, the rain water draining from his hair and clothes dripping a puddle on the floor.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked dumbly.

  The little witch stood up from a waiting chair and looked at him as if he were crazy. She’d changed into leggings and a tiny blue sweatshirt, her damp red hair loose around her face.

  “Well?” Reese demanded. The stroll in the rain had barely cooled his temper after observing the efficiency with which Victor was destroying all the progress Asher had spent years building, and he had absolutely zero patience left for a convoluted witch.

  Finally—speaking slowly as if English were his second language—the witch deigned to answer. “I hit my head. Count Victor ordered me to come here. If having sat in this chair satisfies the requirement, I’m more than happy to—”

  “It doesn’t.” He gripped the doorframe so hard, he heard a faint crack in the wood. Idiot Reesand. “Go on inside.”

  Opening the door, Reese tried to ignore Samantha’s tight backside as she walked past him and stopped beside the exam table as if requiring further instruction.