by Logan Jacobs
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Chapter 1
The sharp scent of pinewood drifted through the icy air as I made my way toward the dark forest. The steel gray sky that loomed high above me promised cold, afternoon rain, and the drifting, thick charcoal clouds suggested a violent storm was on the horizon, but that didn’t matter. Not to me, at least. In fact, this was the ideal weather for a nice, long walk around the school grounds, and since our next level classes didn’t start for another day, I thought I’d take advantage of this intoxicating, melancholy weather.
I walked briskly, and my coven wasn’t too far behind me. I could hear them whispering feverishly to one another, and occasionally, I heard them giggle and shush each other. I caught a couple of words that suggested they were reminiscing about our time in my bedroom last night after the banquet, and I couldn’t help but smile because they were chattering on like a group of horny schoolgirls. It didn’t take advanced premonition skills to know my coven had the time of their fucking lives last night in my bed. Their cries, pleas, and echoing moans had told me everything I needed to know. They fucking wanted me, no matter how many times they tried to deny it, and I could have them whenever I damn well pleased.
They were my possessions. My slaves. My women. And they loved being mine.
I kept my distance, remained silent, and let them have their girl-time. We walked across the hills and into the depths of the forest, and that’s when they finally changed the subject and caught up with me.
“And how far do you plan on venturing forward, Cole?” Akira snapped before she tripped on a jagged stone. “Ouch! Motherfucker!”
“Be more careful, Akira,” I snickered. “And I already told you, I just wanted to go for a walk… you were the ones who insisted on following me.”
“Oh, come on, Cole,” Vesta whined. “Our mortality is connected to you. It’s not like we can let you go outside without us escorting you. I thought we were just going for a light stroll, but we’ve been wandering around the grounds for at least an hour, and you haven’t said one word. What are you planning to do? Hunt for a new blood-herb in the woods and name it after yourself?”
“No,” I chuckled. “I’m not Morgana.”
“Well, is it some kind of brooding man-thing?” Morgana quipped in defense. “You need to walk out your frustrations? I would have thought you had worked those out last night when—”
“I’m just trying to take advantage of our last free day before we begin classes again tomorrow,” I snickered. “Is that a crime?”
“Last free day?” Morgana gasped. “What do you mean by that? Why would you take… advantage of it? I’m confused, and that doesn’t happen very often.”
“He means the rest of us normal witches would actually like to take a break from studying every now and then.” Akira grinned. “Maybe one day you’ll understand that concept, but I highly doubt it.”
“No way, not me.” Morgana smiled. “Come on, guys, aren’t you excited to begin the next semester? Can you imagine all the new spells, hexes, brews, potions, and curses we’ll learn? I have been carrying at least four different books everywhere I go, just to be prepared for--”
“We get it, nerd,” Akira scoffed. “You’re excited about class… what else is new?”
“I bet you are, too,” the curly brunette replied. “You’re just trying to pretend like you’re not, but I can see right through the rebellious facade of yours.”
“Whatever,” Akira laughed bitterly under her breath as we pushed forward.
We walked in comfortable silence for a few minutes before I stopped to gather my bearings. I didn’t want to venture too deeply into these woods for several reasons. Even if they technically belonged to Scholomance, it didn’t mean it was a safe place to aimlessly wander around in. Demons, monsters, and beasts lurked within these woods and beneath the soil, but I knew exactly where we were, so we weren’t in any serious danger.
At least not here.
“Do you think we’ll be working with more animals this semester?” Faye asked in a faint voice when we ventured onward.
“Who knows,” I replied with a shrug. “Honestly, with the way things work around here, nothing would surprise me… in fact, if a faun started to teach one of our classes, that wouldn’t even shock me, not in the slightest.”
“Fauns are filthy feral pests,” Akira said with her small nose upturned in disgust. “Don’t even joke about things like that, Cole.”
“Okay,” I laughed with my hands raised in defense. “Noted.”
“Maybe this semester, we’ll learn how to shapeshift,” Faye sighed in a dream-like voice. “I’d love to be able to transform into any kind of creature.”
“Me, too,” Akira added. “That sounds badass.”
“Hey, Faye,” Vesta muttered, “didn’t you mention your mother was a shapeshifter?”
“She was.” Faye smiled proudly. “She was one of the most successful shapeshifters of her soul class.”
“Wicked cool.” Akira grinned.
The rest of the women muttered their agreements, and we continued to march ahead until a sudden shuffle behind some trees made us stop dead in our tracks. At that moment, I sensed something with power lurking ahead of us in the thorny thicket.
“Stop,” I ordered.
“What is it?” Vesta asked as she walked up beside me.
“I’m not sure… ” I said slowly.
What happened next occurred in the blink of an eye.
Before I could react or pull out my wand, a bright green blast of light appeared out of nowhere and hit Vesta square in the chest. It sent her flying back, and she slammed right into a thick tree trunk and hit her head with a painful thud. She slumped down to the ground with her head positioned in a bizarre angle, and there was dark blood trailing down the bark of the tree.
“Vesta!” Faye cried out.
The lavender-skinned witch was utterly unresponsive, though. Whatever spell was cast upon her, it had definitely knocked her out cold, and maybe even killed her.
At least she was immortal, since her soul belonged to me.
As I stared at my obviously unconscious purple-skinned lover, a feral rage coursed through my body, and a raw hunger to get revenge on the person who had attacked her made me snarl.
“Take cover!” I shouted.
Without another word, we dove behind a grove of trees and pressed our backs against the bark, and then my coven turned to look at me for further instruction.
“Now, what?” Akira shouted.
Her black eyes were filled with bloodlust and revenge, and I shared her determination to kill the fucker who had attacked one of our own for no reason.
“Pull out your wands and be prepared to fire at my command,” I ordered, and my women did as I ordered.
I waited a moment, and even though the air was abnormally quiet, I knew our attackers were just waiting for us to emerge.
It was now or never.
“Now!” I shouted.
My coven bared their teeth in determination, and then we began to shoot spell after spell in our mysterious attackers’ direction. Someone or something was watching us closely, and I sensed their bloodlust from here, even if I couldn’t physically see the attacker.
“Who in the unholy fuck did that?” Akira demanded as she hurtled another hex into the underbrush.
“I have a feeling they won�
��t have the balls to show themselves,” I barked, loud enough for our opponents to hear.
I thought I heard a deep chuckle, and all I could see was red. I was beyond infuriated at this point.
I was ready to kill.
“Volant!” I cried out.
My spell shot through the trees, and when I heard a deep scream, I realized it sounded like another man.
“Did you hear that?” Faye asked me with wide green-gold eyes.
“I did,” I growled. “Doesn’t mean we should stop firing.”
My coven did as they were told, and after we fired a few more spells, we stopped to listen.
“Do you think we got them?” Akira asked.
“Who knows?” I growled, so I stepped away from behind the tree and cupped my hands around my mouth. “They’re probably scared shitless since it’s us against them. Why don’t you show yourself? Fucking coward!”
“Now, that’s just a low blow,” a deep voice said from afar.
We all swirled our wands in the same direction and waited for whoever, or whatever, to appear. Whoever it was, he sounded young, cocky, and arrogant.
I didn’t like it one fucking bit.
“Just show yourself for fuck’s sake,” I growled. “No more dicking around. I’ve hit you once, and I’ll do worse, whether you’re hiding or not. So, you might as well be a man and come out to face us.”
The deep emerald thicket began to rustle, and then a pair of pale hands pushed the brush apart. I kept my wand aimed high, and not a second later, a young man emerged from the wilderness with a wicked grin on his unusually white face.
As soon as our eyes met, I knew I hated this guy, and I studied him for a moment to try and determine how much of a threat he really was. He had the fairest skin I’d ever seen, and it was a sharp contrast against the black bark of the forest and the deep dark green of the leaves.
Something that also stuck out to me was the texture of his skin. The man was completely translucent all over, and I could see his blue, red, and purple veins right through his skin from at least seven feet away. It was as if I was looking at a man who had the texture of a translucent underwater creature. I remembered reading something in the Book of Deadly Beasts that referred to a creature called a jolt fish. They were transparent, jelly-like animals, and their texture reminded me of this man and his unusual skin. His hair was also white as milk, and his eyes were the darkest shade of gray I’d ever seen, just like one of the storm clouds above us. A massive scar ran from the corner of his right temple, all the way down across his sharply pointed nose and past his thin, parchment-white colored lips. He was wearing an all-black suit and tie with a pair of sleek, leather boots, and instead of a cloak, he wore an ebony blazer with a red and gold crest sewn into the breast pocket.
As soon as the man saw us, his grin widened, and he whistled, low and sharp.
“Actually, you did hit someone.” He smirked. “It just wasn’t me.”
“Not yet,” I snarled before I fired off another spell at his smug, smirking face, but to my surprise, he waved off the hex with a flourish of his wand.
“Come, now,” the man sighed. “If you kill me, I’m sure your headmistress won’t be very happy.”
The mention of Theodora gave me pause, and the red tinge of bloodlust faded from my vision a little bit. Why would Theodora care if I killed this piece of shit? Was I missing something?
“Satan, you’re pale as death,” Akira blurted out before I could say another word, or fire off another spell. “And I don’t mean that as a compliment, you underhanded asshole. What the hell did you do to our friend?”
“Chill, Akira,” Faye warned under her breath.
“Um, are you fucking kidding me, freckles?” Akira retorted. “He just blasted poor Vesta into a motherfucking tree, and you want me to chill?”
“Yeah, fuck that,” Morgana added, and her blue eyes blazed with fury as she pointed her wand at the newcomer. “You’ve crossed a line… you… you son of a bastard fucker!”
“Nice try, Morgana,” Akira snickered. “But I think we still need to work on your insults.”
“The point is,” I said with my voice and wand raised, “you’ve attacked a Scholomance student on our grounds. I don’t think my headmistress will give a fuck if I turn you to ice and let you slowly melt to death out here.”
The white man laughed and revealed a set of small, sharp teeth that disturbingly resembled a rat.
“I guess you haven’t heard yet.” He grinned. “My name is Malcolm Black. I’m a student at the Mors Academy. And if I were you, I wouldn’t be so quick to kill me just yet.”
The academy name sounded familiar, and it took a second to remember where I’d heard it before. It was the school the stone beast Geryon mentioned when Theodora sent me into his cave to kill him.
“That still doesn’t answer my question,” I growled.
“And remind me again,” Malcom drawled as he fiddled with his nails. “What was your question?”
“Fuck it,” I snarled. “I’m done messing around.”
We all held our wands tightly and kept them aimed at the ghostly man, but he seemed utterly unbothered that it was four against one. He simply grinned, ear to ear, and shrugged as if this was some kind of game. His smug face enraged me, and I was ready to turn into this asshole into winter-fucking-land, so I raised my wand even higher.
“Glaci--” I started to say, but he just laughed, and his shrill laughter caused a murder of crows to scream up into the air.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Malcolm replied with the same shit-eating grin. “Not unless you want to piss the hell out of your Headmistress Theodora. I can tell you right now she would prefer to see me alive and well.”
My arm shook with fury, and as strange as it was that he knew the headmistress’ name, I couldn’t let him get away with this.
“Use any spell you can to distract this pasty motherfucker,” I hissed to my coven.
They obediently nodded their heads and began to shoot spells in his direction. Malcom’s eyes widened as he tried to deflect spell after spell, and I grinned before I pointed my wand at him.
“Colingo!” I shouted.
The warlock’s eyes widened in fear just before he froze in place, and then I took a step forward and prepared to do my worst.
“Cole, what are you doing?” Morgana whispered. “Maybe we should bring the headmistress here--”
I ignored her as I slowly approached the still warlock, and satisfaction spread through my body as I stared at his frozen, terrified face. I was ready to kill him right on the spot, but then his words echoed in my head. He knew about our headmistress, and it definitely struck me as odd.
Why would killing him piss off Theodora? Part of me wanted to kill him anyway, but the headmistress had answers about my past that I still needed, so I didn’t exactly want to get on her bad side.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have some fun and get some revenge at the same time.
So, instead of killing this bastard, I could beat him into a bloody pulp and get more information out of him that way. There were a dozen questions roaming through my mind. How did he get here? Why did he attack Vesta for no reason? Why did he assume Theodora would want to keep him alive after he attacked a Scholomance student?
I was going to find out.
As soon as I was in front of Malcolm, I raised my fist and punched him as hard as I could. His cheek split open under the force of my blow, and blood bathed my knuckles. So, I hit him again, harder this time, and more blood and a tooth spurted out of his parted lips as he tipped over and collapsed on to the ground. My spell kept him frozen, so I kneeled down, clenched my fist, and began to wail on his face. His pasty skin turned crimson with his blood, but even as his nose broke and his lip split open, his facial expression never changed.
“I’m going to keep beating the shit out of you for what you did to my woman,” I hissed in between punches. “As soon as the spell wears off, you’d better answer all m
y questions. Or else, this is going to start all over again. I have all fucking day.”
Before I could raise my fist to deliver another punch, though, a shuffle in the underbrush made me jump back and raise my wand. This time, a skinnier man with pitch-black hair and red lips appeared before my eyes. He was dressed exactly the same, and his dark, almond-shaped green eyes flashed around in confusion before he curled up his crimson lips in disgust. He had a deep gash in his right cheek, and a bruise was forming around his left eye.
He must have been the one who screamed out earlier when one of our spells hit him.
A small satisfied smile spread across my face, but I still kept my wand aimed at this new stranger.
“So, this is the magnificent Scholomance we’ve read about?” he snarled. “I don’t see what the big fucking deal is. Apparently, it’s just acres of dead woodland and baby-faced witches.”
“Well, apparently, you’re just as stupid as your idiot friend,” I growled before I flicked my wand. “Colingo!”
Unfortunately, the second man was more prepared than Malcom had been, because he ducked out of the way of my spell.
“Now, that’s not a very nice welcome, is it?” He grinned before his eyes flickered to Malcolm. “Looks like you’ve got something on your face there, Mal.”
The frozen man glared up at his companion as his blood continued to drip out of every orifice on his face, but he couldn’t say a word.
I wanted nothing more than to pummel this second bastard into oblivion, too, but before I could, someone grabbed my arm and jerked me back.
“What are you doing?” I snapped, but Akira ignored me as she dropped my arm.
“Okay, now who the fuck are you?” the short-haired witch demanded as she aimed her wand in the new man’s direction.
“I’m Bram,” he explained. “Another Mors student.”
“Great,” I snarled, “so fucking what?”
“Hey, how are you doing, short skirts?” Bram nodded suggestively toward the coven. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen attractive women.”
“Shut the hell up, warlock scum,” Faye shrieked. “Now, answer our damn questions… why the hell are you here, and just how many of you are there?”
