Rogue Academy: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Academy Romance (Rogue Vampire Academy Book 1)

by Savannah Rose

  “Hey.” I raise my voice loud enough to be heard over the music, waving a hand as I call out to him.

  It only takes a few seconds before he glances up at me, then back to his phone.

  “Hey,” I call again.

  “Just…finishing…up…this… text.” He says, tapping away at the screen of his phone as he counts his words. Tucking the phone into his back pocket, he plasters a rehearsed smile across his lips and steps forward. “What can I get you?”

  “Blond haired girl, looks a little tipsy.”

  “That’s new,” he smiles, looking over his shoulder. “Unfortunately, we’ve only got brunettes on tap.”

  I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Have you seen her around?”

  “Look around you,” the bartender continues. “There’s like a hundred of them in this place.”

  “She was with another girl. Brown hair. Really pale.”

  The bartender’s look goes from cheeky to incredulous in a split second. He knows something’s up, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. It’s tough for humans to step outside their own worlds and imagine that something bigger and badder could be at play, so I’m not surprised with the next question he asks. “She’s not underage, is she?” I’m almost inclined to say yes, do just about anything to have him spitting out whatever information he might have – not that it would be to my benefit. The minute they get a whiff that a fake ID slipped through, this place will be swarming with people looking for Sarah and Jessica. If they’ve already gotten themselves in a mess, only heavens knows how deep the hole is I’d have dug for all of us. Come to think of it, I’m surprised security isn’t already inside trying to toss us out.

  Before I can answer the bartender’s question, my attention switches to someone else. “I think I know who you’re talking about.” The voice comes from my left. Both the bartender and I turn to see a tall, meaty version of a man standing by us, barely masking his disgust. He flicks his eyes at the bartender once, nearly sneering at him, before he returns them to me.

  “You do?” I ask, surprised that someone managed to sneak up on me the way he did and feeling a lot more uncomfortably in his presence than I can comprehend.

  “Yeah, I saw them come in. Had my eye on the brown haired one,” he says. Despite the heebie-jeebies that he gives me, I don’t turn away. Information is information and if he has it, then I’m certainly not going to shy away from it.

  I raise an eyebrow at him. Whether or not he’s fucking with me is still up for debate. This could all be some lame excuse for a pickup line. “I’m sure you’ve had your eyes on lots of girls in here,” I reply.

  The guy roves his eyes over me, stopping at my chest. Tight as my outfit is, it isn’t the least bit revealing, when his eyes meet mine again, I feel the urge to jab them out with my nails. But again, information is information.

  “Dude, fuck off,” the bartender hisses, clearly taking notice of the way the guy looks at me.

  The guy holds his hands up. The look on his face makes me think he’s not bullshitting me.

  “What makes you think you’re talking about the same girls I’m talking about?”

  “You said pale. Pale enough to stand out. Pale enough that it was hard to miss them. The abnormal kind of pale. Glowing in the night like some kind of…” He doesn’t say the word vampire, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s thinking it. “They left with a group of guys.” He raises his hand and points his finger to the back exit. “Went ‘round that way.”

  Courtesy forgets its place on my tongue and without thanking the guy, I rush through the crowd, lucky to find Reece on my way.

  “Guy at the bar said he saw them leave with a group of guys. If he’s correct, they went through the back exit.”

  “Well, then, let’s hope our little vamps are sitting ducks out there.”

  We navigate our way through the thick crowd easily and in no time, we make it to the back exit. The door is heavy, not something that can easily be pushed aside with the metal bar holding it in place. It’ll have to be released first, so it probably only serves as an emergency exit. But one look at the dent in the metal screams rookie vamps who haven’t learned how to cover their tracks. Fucking annoying.

  The scent hits me first. I stagger for a moment at the smell of it, the sheer force of it threatening to bring me to my knees. I take a step back and my back presses against Reece’s chest. His hand comes up to steady me, but I jerk away before it can linger.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” I hiss.

  Sarah’s head shoots up at the sound of my voice. Her red eyes go wide as saucers, her bloody lips falling into an ‘O’. Her fangs shoot back in and she drops the body she’s holding, a young guy tinted in the hue of his own blood.

  “M-Mariella –”

  I’m before her in an instant, hand around her throat. Her back slams right into the opposing wall, breaking apart under the force of my rage. My claws are out, sinking into her flesh. “Are you out of your fucking mind? Feeding? In public?”

  She opens her mouth to speak but realizes there’s nothing she can say to make me any less pissed off. “How many?” I growl.

  “T-three.”

  “Fuck!” I act without thinking and before I know it, my fist has collided into her cheek and she’s on the ground. Vaguely, I notice that Reece is trying to take care of the guy, but I know it’s too late. I can hear his heartbeat growing more distant by the second. “Do you know what you just risked? You’re a fledging, Sarah!” She flinches at the call of her name. “Too much blood and there’s no stopping you. There’s no distinguishing you from any other rabid creature out there. Not to mention the fact that you could have exposed us! Is that what you want? To have the Academy turned on its head? To have everyone back out in the world with no chance of becoming more than they were before? To be back in your stepfather’s house? Is that what you want, Sarah?”

  “I’m sorry.” She’s so close to tears that I can practically see the moisture pooling in her eyes. She gets on her knees, head down. “It was a stupid mistake. It won’t ever happen again. I wasn’t thinking. We just wanted to…we just… I’m sorry, Mariella.”

  “You’re fucking right it won’t. I have half a mind to leave you here to fend for yourself.” And half a mind to kick her out of the Academy.

  Sarah’s head shoots up at that. I get the feeling she’s going beg; to plead with me not to kick her out, but she doesn’t get the chance to say anything before Reece breaks in. “Sarah. Where’s Jessica?”

  Sarah blinks rapidly, shaking now. “She was … she was right here a moment ago. She took one while I took the other.”

  As if on cue, we hear a hiss. Our heads shoot up. I stare into the darkness beyond the door, where neither Reece nor I thought to look after seeing Sarah. Like something out of a nightmare, Sarah’s friend staggers toward us. Blood drips from her mouth, her fangs brushing her bottom lip, swollen from ecstatic feeding.

  Realization dawns on me a little too late. The smell of blood is a little too raw, a little too strong to all be coming from the dying man in Reece’s arms. And the moment I see the bits of muscle around Jessica’s mouth, wedged underneath her nails, I realize that she didn’t just feed. She devoured.

  “Jessica.” Sarah’s trembling now, getting to her feet. The horror in her eyes shows clear as day that she didn’t expect to see her friend like this, that she hadn’t even considered the dire consequences of their little stunt.

  Reece slowly rises, his hand moving to his side where his gun rests. I take a step forward, trying to put myself before Sarah. “That isn’t your friend anymore, Sarah,” I whisper to her. “Take a good look at what would have happened if you fed too much.”

  “I don’t … I don’t understand.”

  “There’s no coming back from this.” The gun is visible now, gleaming silver in Reece’s hand. Jessica’s red eyes latches onto the metal, and she cocks her head to the side. “It’s what happens when you give into y
our animalistic side. You aren’t yourself anymore, ravenous and homicidal.”

  Sarah sobs into her hand. And I can feel my heart breaking into fragments. Over the years, we’ve lost a student or two to their change, but never like this. Never like this!

  I keep one eye on Jessica, watching the way she twitches before us. My other eye is on Sarah’s shivering form. “A little more blood in your system and this would have been you. Staring down the barrel of a gun because you thought it would be a good idea to sneak out when you haven’t trained your cravings yet.” I’m angry, yes. But I’m even more hurt. Even though they didn’t come here with hurting me as an intention, it somehow feels like a direct attack.

  “I’m sorry.” She’s hysterical now. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

  Jessica hisses, muscle stuck between her teeth, saliva and blood dripping onto her once white dress. I close my eyes, struggling to suck air into my lungs.

  Jessica staggers forward, snarling at Reece who remains still before her savagery. One wrong move from the rabid vamp before us and he won’t have a choice but to pull the trigger. All it will take is one silver bullet to the head. And as much as I know that it needs to happen, I can barely stomach the idea of it.

  Jessica lurches forward, snapping at the air. Her eyes jerk from the gun to Reece, to me, to Sarah. Sarah takes a step closer, as if hoping she’ll recognize her, but Jessica is bored with her in a moment, hungry eyes latching onto the still form of Sarah’s dying meal.

  And then, chaos.

  So many things happen at once, so quickly a human eye wouldn’t have been able to discern anything from it. Jessica lets out a rabid hiss and lunges for the human, knocking Reece out of the way before he has the chance to shoot. He goes flying, colliding into the opposite wall. Sarah shrieks, backing up. And I get into action.

  Jessica almost has the man in her grasp, but then I’m upon her. There aren’t many ways to kill a vampire. A silver bullet to the head works – but ripping off the head also does the trick. When Jessica’s eyes fix themselves on Reece, I know that I’m not left with much of a choice. There’s no coming back from where she is and I’m not sure there’ll be much coming back from where I’m about to go. She doesn’t even see it coming. With one hard tug, her head comes off clean.

  Sarah isn’t shrieking anymore. She’s on the ground, sobbing. Something sinks inside of me. I’ve killed before, sure. But never like this. And never one of the people I’d sworn I would protect.

  “Tell me I didn’t have a choice,” I say, looking at Reece who’s finally managing to come to his feet.

  “You didn’t have a choice,” Reece whispers, hands firm on my shoulder.

  “Mariella…” Sarah weeps and I shake my head at her.

  “We’re all responsible for our own actions,” I say. “This isn’t your fault either.” I’m not sure how much I believe that. Sarah is the queen bee. She’s the one who convinces whoever she sets her sights on to do whatever she pleases. Even then, she’s already burdened as things are and there’s no point in tossing salt on her wound. I reach a hand out and help her up, encasing her in my arms as she sobs.

  Chapter Five

  Two hours later, I’m sitting with the teachers in the conference room. The looks on their faces reflect the look on mine making it easy to discern that this hit them just as hard as it hit me.

  “What’s left of her is in the infirmary,” I say, my voice weak.

  Stanley, the Chemistry teacher nods and shifts his head from person to person before addressing the group. “Do you think preparations for a morgue should be discussed.”

  “No one else is dying on my watch,” I say. “This is an academy not a funeral home.” My voice comes off harsher than I want it to, but I can see in his eyes that he takes no offense. I do get where he’s coming from though. Keeping her in the infirmary isn’t an ideal solution, but it’s the best I could do. A conversation will need to be had with the students, letting them know that we’ve lost one of our own. How I go about telling them that I was the one to remove her from existence, I haven’t got a clue. But I’m also not sure it’s best to keep it a secret. I did what had to be done, I know that. There’s no point in allowing the guilt to eat away at me.

  The meeting comes to a close and everyone goes their separate ways.

  Everything on the campus seemed to have quieted down. Classes were dismissed and all the students, including Sarah, turned into their rooms. I haven’t decided on a punishment for Sarah or whether or not it’s best to let this slide. It’s not as though she hasn’t suffered enough.

  Reece trails behind, only approaching me when none of the other teachers are in sight.

  “It’s gonna eat away at you for a while,” he says.

  I nod, not denying it. “I just…This whole no killing thing, I was doing pretty damn good, you know.”

  “You did what had to be done,” he says. “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “Better measures could have been put in place to prevent this from happening in the third place.” My voice is low as I speak, almost a whisper.

  Reece pushes through the door connecting this building to the quarters where the teachers and higher ups are housed. I step through before him. “This is the first time this has happened in years. We’re not a prison, Mariella. We can’t lock them in and throw away the keys.”

  Someone comes into view and we halt our conversation until we’re locked behind my bedroom door. I flop down on the bed, feeling more drained than I have in a really long time. “We were responsible for her change. We know what happens when a fledgling gets to enamored with a human’s neck. We know the consequences and even though it’s never happened before, it happened now.”

  “We’ll put something in place,” he promises. “But I think everyone will learn from this.” They shouldn’t have to learn from this. I close my hands over my face and just breathe for a few moments.

  After a short moment of silence, I stand and make my way to the bathroom. Dawn is just a few hours away and I stand in my shower, letting the water cascade over my hair and back. The water is scalding hot, but I hardly feel it, the night playing over and over in my head.

  The meeting, the new Grand Master, the fact that there was word about them considering joining forces with us instead of stomping us to the ground like they were in the beginning. And now this.

  Suddenly, I’m torn between wanting to laugh and punch a wall. There’s no way I can forget it … the homes, fending for myself, having to break into blood banks just to survive on my own. No matter how hard I try not to, I can’t help but remember the face of my foster mother, a wicked woman who, to this day, doesn’t know I was born a vampire. The back of her hand, the crunch of her fist – despite how little I felt the impact despite the amount of force she put behind disciplining me, I will never forget what she did. The men she brought into the house. The kids, my age and younger, who I’ve had to save from torments that someone my age should know nothing about. And all because the Council couldn’t spare a blink in our direction. Their high society and their perfect little vampires versus us, the rejects. Not good enough, not strong enough, not rich enough.

  It was hard. I was on my own, even though I was never alone.

  I had to learn how to control my urges all on my own, something that would have been much harder to do had I been a turned vampire. I had to hide my tracks, sneak in and out of the house and pretend everything was fine, when really, I was starving and seconds away from tearing into someone’s throat.

  And it’s not just the Council. I wasn’t turned into a foster home because my parents went up in flames. I was there because the people who created me didn’t think I was good enough to keep. That’s not to say they were out there living a better life. They were stupid enough to get themselves banned from the city as traitors to the State. They were so popular that even some humans had heard them, though none were the wiser that they were both vampires. My foster mother never
failed to remind me of my unwantedness. If my own parents didn’t want me, then who would? I had to fend for myself. How else was I supposed to survive in this world if not by my own strength?

  Suddenly, the door opens. I go still, smelling him before I see him. Reece is naked, his tense muscles glistening in the light. He makes his way over to the shower and slowly pulls the curtain aside.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  I don’t respond with words. Instead, I step back, allowing him to invade what little space there is left. He winces when the water hits his back. “Fuck, I forgot this is why I never shower with you.”

  “My shower, no complaining.” Still, I lean over and turn the water down. “You should be sleeping.”

  “Forgive me if I wanted to wash off all the blood on me before I get into bed.” His tone is flat when he says this and I know he regrets the reminder the moment it falls from his lips.

  Huffing, I take the washcloth from the rack and begin soaping it up. Reece is still, watching my every move. I meet his eyes. “Say it.”

  “You’re beating yourself up about having killed again.”

  “Just a little.”

  His silence says he isn’t convinced. For a moment, I nearly push on, to lessen his worry but then I stop myself. If I said I’m good then he should just take me by my word. I don’t care if he thinks it’s true or not.

  Reece’s worry about me isn’t what I need right now. What I need is for him to help me to forget the world the way only he knows how. I need him to take me, to feed my body with the kind of ecstasy that erases each and every thought running rampant through my brain.

  Slowly, I run the soapy washcloth over his shoulders. “Our Academy means something to this city.”

  “So I’ve heard.”