by Jayme Morse
Copyright © 2017 by Jayme Morse and Jody Morse
All rights reserved.
Demon Blood Academy: Term One is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are products of the authors’ imaginations or have been used fictitiously.
Any similarity to real persons or locations is coincidental and not intended by the authors. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Jody Morse and Jayme Morse.
Contents
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Books In This Series
Books By This Author
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Prologue
Lux
My biggest mistake was falling for the enemy.
I knew that now, but it was already too late. Because once you had fallen as hard as I had, there was no going back. My feelings were completely out of my control. Unstoppable.
The thing was, it wasn’t even my fault. I hadn’t known he was the enemy. It still didn’t even make sense that he was. Never in a million years would I have imagined that the two of us could be on opposite sides in all of this. How could two people be so different, yet so much alike?
We were proof that opposites really do attract.
I wanted to believe that he had manipulated me, that his intentions had never been good and pure from the get-go.
Except I didn’t believe any of that. Not for a second.
That would have meant that what we had was fake all along. That it had all just been an illusion. If none of this had been real to begin with, it would have been undeniably heartbreaking, but it would have made life easier.
If it had all been fake, then I would have been able to move on. Well… sort of. I would have never been able to move on from all of this, but I would have at least been able to move on from him—the guy who made my heart beat faster, the guy who made the butterflies swarm around inside my stomach like no other.
But I knew that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t move on from an illusion when it wasn’t an illusion at all. We were the realest thing I had ever known, and I knew he felt it, too.
So, if he wasn’t a fraud, then what was his excuse?
I believed that he had been a victim in all of this, too—a pawn in a sick, twisted game, just like I was.
As much as I wanted to be angry with him, as much as I wanted to hate him… I didn’t. I couldn’t.
The one thing I had learned since I’d come to Demon Blood Academy was that nothing about this situation was black and white. There were shades of gray. My very existence was a shade of gray. And the love we had for each other? Well, that fell into one of the shades of gray, too.
I wasn’t sure where to go from here. Right now, all I had were questions.
What happened when you had fallen for the right guy, but he was playing for the wrong team?
What if it was written in your blood that you couldn’t be together, even though you believed in your heart that it was meant to be?
What happened when you were willing to put it all on the line for the chance to be together, even if that may have meant starting a war?
Did you follow your heart and risk it all… or did you live a life of eternal misery?
Chapter 1
Lux
I stood on the beach, watching the fireworks exploding above me. I listened to them as they shot up like rockets, some crackling before they soared across the sky. They fizzled away into nothing, leaving only a cloud of smoke to mark their tracks.
Fireworks were the one thing I looked forward to every Fourth of July. I knew that most people probably felt the same way, but fireworks had a different meaning for me. They were the one constant in my life, the one thing that had never changed even when everything else had.
No matter what foster family I had lived with, there had always been fireworks in one form or another.
When I lived with the Marshalls, I had watched the fireworks from their backyard while I sipped on virgin martinis at their summer home in the Hamptons. When I lived with the Johnsons, the fireworks had been shot off illegally on Second Street, with the sounds of dogs barking and car alarms going off in the surrounding neighborhood.
But no matter what my life had been like with any foster family, there had always been fireworks.
This year was different, though.
This year, I wasn’t spending the holiday with my foster mom, Cara. She had agreed to let me spend the week at my best friend Nick’s family’s beach house. It had been a win-win situation for everyone. I got to spend the week with Nick, and Cara got the house to herself for the week, which meant she wouldn’t have to sneak her Man Candy of the week over when she thought I was sleeping. And I wouldn’t have to put a pillow over my head to block out the sounds of them banging in her bedroom.
And so far, the entire week had gone great—incredible, even—until tonight.
I had screwed up big time, and I was pretty sure that there was no recovering after a screw-up as big as this one.
I wasn’t sure if it had been the fireworks or the ocean breeze playing tricks on me, but I had allowed myself to get caught up in the moment.
I had known for a while that I felt something for Nick—something that a girl wasn’t supposed to feel for her best friend. The type of feelings that could complicate things and turn our whole friendship upside down.
Feeling something for him had been my first screw-up.
My second screw-up was that I had actually acted on those feelings.
Nick’s parents were hosting their annual Fourth of July party. Their friends, neighbors, family, and tons of other acquaintances were there. His family knew a lot of people and the beach was crowded with them all.
I had managed to get Nick to sneak off with me to the kitchen and that’s when I did what I had been wanting to do for months.
I kissed him.
I had been envisioning the perfect kiss, the type of kiss you saw in movies like The Kissing Booth. A kiss that had so much built-up tension and passion behind it.
But it hadn’t gone anything like that.
No, the kiss had been… confusing, to say the least.
Nick had been so shocked that I had actually kissed him that he just stood there for a moment. And just when he started to give in to the kiss, his dad called out his name.
Nick had gone out to the backyard to help him with the grill while I completely fled from the scene.
It was what I was best at when things got rough or too confusing for me to handle.
I ran.
That was what had led me to the beach, where I had been standing for the past fifteen minutes watching those fireworks go
off.
It was kind of bugging me that Nick hadn’t even bothered to follow me.
Had I really been that bad of a kisser?
Or was it just that the feelings I had for him weren't mutual?
That wouldn’t have surprised me. Nick was sort of popular. He wasn’t the most popular guy in school, by any means, but a lot of girls wanted to be his girlfriend.
And me? Well, with my plain Jane brown hair and dark blue eyes, I was nothing special. I was his best friend, sure, but at the end of the day, I was just the foster kid. I didn’t have designer clothes, a car, or any of the other luxuries that a junior girl in high school may have had. Even worse, I didn’t have many friends.
Friends were difficult to come by when you were constantly bouncing around from school to school.
No boy had ever liked me before.
That kiss inside Nick’s family kitchen? Yeah, it would have made sense that I was a bad kisser, considering it had been my first kiss ever—an embarrassing fact about me that I wouldn’t have admitted to even Nick himself.
So, yeah, it wouldn’t have been even the least bit surprising if Nick Covington didn’t feel a thing for me.
As the fireworks came to an end, I sighed. This vacation had been a giant mistake. If I had just stayed home, I never would have gotten myself into this mess.
Unfortunately, it was time to face the consequences of that stupid kiss. If I didn’t head back to the house soon, Nick’s mom was going to worry about me.
Katherine Covington was one of those cute moms who baked cookies as an afterschool snack, asked her kids about their day over dinner, and wanted to know when they were coming and going.
Ever since I had entered the picture, Katherine had treated me as one of her own. I wasn’t really used to someone worrying about me, since none of my foster parents ever had.
As I turned around to head in the direction of the house, I gasped.
A guy, who appeared to be about my age, was standing just inches away from me.
He was wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head and dark jeans. His eyes locked on mine. I had never seen anything like them before. They were a striking shade of amber. The color just seemed otherworldly—inhuman, even.
As hard as I tried to look away from them, I just couldn’t.
It was almost as though his eyes had a magnetic hold on mine…. on all of me.
“Well, hello,” he said in a deep voice. I couldn’t help but think that there was a hint of amusement behind his tone.
A bunch of worst-case scenarios bounced around through my mind.
At first, I was worried he was going to rob me. But then I remembered that I didn’t have anything worth stealing.
Then my mind flew to the next option: he wanted to kidnap me.
The worst part about it all was that we were the only ones on the beach. Everyone was watching the fireworks from their beach houses, which were quite a walk from the ocean.
That meant that I was all alone out here, so I doubted that anyone would even hear my screams.
If I could scream.
As of right now, it didn’t look like screaming was an option. My fear had me in an almost trance-like state where all I could do was stare at him.
I tried to muster up the courage to respond to him, but not one word seemed to come out. It was almost like my vocal chords were frozen.
For the first time in my life, I was completely speechless.
“Cat caught your tongue?” he asked with a smirk as he moved in closer to me.
I found it then. “Get out of my way,” I demanded, narrowing my eyes at him.
The guy took a step back and gestured past him with his arm. “Hey, don’t let me stop you. You’re free to go, but I wouldn’t do that if I was you… Lux.”
My eyes widened. He had said my name so quietly that I wasn’t even sure that I had actually heard him say it at all, but I was fairly certain that I had.
“Excuse me?”
When the guy didn’t respond right away, I pressed, “What did you just say?”
“I said I wouldn’t do that if I was you. It’s not safe for you here, Lux.”
“H-how do you even know my name?” My voice wavered, and I felt a shiver creep its way down my spine.
Something about this felt even worse than the scary scenarios I had imagined. I had never seen this guy before in my life. How could he have possibly known who I was?
“It’s a long story… one that I would be glad to tell you about, but not right here and not right now.” The guy shoved his hands in his pockets.
I could feel the anger building up inside of me—and the fear. It scared me to know that this guy could know so much about me, while I knew so little about him.
“You can’t just say my name and then not tell me how you know it.”
“I would tell you, but it’s too dangerous here. You are in danger.” He met my gaze, his amber eyes piercing through mine. “I need you to trust me.”
“Why would I trust some random stranger who’s stalking me on the beach late at night?” I questioned.
“I’ve been stalking you much longer than that. Believe me.”
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
“I want you to come with me.”
I just glared at him. “So that you can axe murder me in your basement?”
“I’m not going to do anything to hurt you. The truth is that you’re needed, Lux. You’ll find out everything, but you must come with me first.”
At that moment, I heard my name being called.
When I turned around, I saw that Nick was headed in my direction.
“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you! What are you doing down here?”
“I just needed to get away,” I explained.
“So that you could talk to yourself?” Nick teased.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I heard you talking, but you’re all alone out here.”
“No, I’m not,” I insisted.
When I turned back around, my heart pounded hard against my chest.
The guy in the black hoodie was gone.
Chapter 2
Lux
“There was someone there,” I insisted, staring out at the beach in total disbelief. How was it possible that the guy had just disappeared into thin air? It didn’t even make sense.
“Sure there was,” Nick said with a chuckle, running a hand through his light brown hair. “Were you sneaking beer from the cooler when no one was looking? Why didn’t you sneak any for me?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m not drunk, Nick. I’m telling you, there really was someone there. I don’t understand how he could have gotten away from me so fast.”
“Who knows.” Nick shrugged. “Maybe he went into the ocean.”
Eyeing the waves suspiciously, I wondered if that was possible. It was too dark to tell if he could have been out there.
“I don’t know. The whole thing was just so weird.” I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. “He told me it wasn’t safe here for me. He wanted me to go with him.”
Nick’s forest green eyes flicked over to meet mine. “Did he say where?”
I shook my head. “No, he was really vague about everything.”
An unidentifiable look passed through Nick’s eyes. “Lux, what were you thinking? You should never talk to strangers when you’re alone on a dark beach.”
“I know, but I was afraid. He was the only one out here. I was afraid if I didn’t talk to him, he would do something to hurt me,” I explained and then paused for a moment. “And he knew my name.”
Nick’s dark eyebrows shot up. “He did?”
“Yeah. I have no idea how.”
He kicked up some sand. “He probably figured out a way to remotely access your cell phone.”
“Can people actually do that?” I asked skeptically.
Call me crazy, but that sounded like some next level type s
talking shit—something that only the most experienced hackers were capable of, and the last time I checked, we weren’t in an episode of You.
“Yeah, they can,” Nick replied with a nod.
“Great. You’re not doing a very good job at calming me down. Now I’m even more freaked out.”
“Relax. I was just jumping to conclusions. I don’t know if that’s how the guy found out your name for sure,” Nick said quietly. “Maybe it was someone who you met at the party tonight.”
“If that’s the case, then your parents have some weird ass friends.”
He laughed. “Some of them are pretty weird. Either way, just promise me that if you ever see him again, you won’t go near him. If he tries to talk to you, you let me know, okay?” Nick’s green eyes met mine.
I nodded, even though I couldn’t help but feel slightly bitter. It felt like he was scolding me. If he had just followed me out to the beach sooner, I wouldn’t have had to deal with the creepy guy alone.
“We should probably get back to the house, just in case this freak is still out here,” Nick suggested.
I nodded. Even though I was curious about how the guy knew my name, the feeling he had left me with was bothering me more. It was this feeling that made me think he had been watching me all night—and that he could have still been watching me from wherever he was hiding on the beach.
And in the back of my mind, I had just one question.
What if his warning had been real?
***
Lux
Nick never brought up the kiss, so I didn’t either. I kept waiting for him to bring it up, but he didn’t on the way back to the beach house or at the party. It didn’t get brought up that night before we went to sleep.
It felt like the elephant in the room as we ate waffles with Nick’s family the next morning and during the car ride home. At least, that’s how it felt to me. Nick seemed to be completely unfazed by it. It was almost as if it had never happened at all.
When Nick’s parents dropped me off at Cara’s house the following evening, I had begun to wonder if anything about the night before had even happened. Was it possible that the kiss and the guy in the black hoodie on the beach with his weird warning had been nothing more than a dream? Had I only imagined it?
