I push both hands into my hair and look on in horror as Jamie hits the wall and slides to the floor. Oliver screams out, then wails in pain and collapses. I twist my head to look at him as he lies on his back, screaming obscenities.
Head spinning, I look to Jamie ready to charge over and intervene.
He stands. Unscathed. Steady—as if he merely sat down for a second. Jamie's locked in his own world as he storms back over to Oliver and looks down at him, eyes flashing with the aggression also held in his clenched fists.
The Blackwood spell. What else could inflict pain like that on a vamp?
"Jamie. Stop!"
He bends down and pulls Oliver to his feet. The vamp stands, unsteadily, then snarls at Jamie.
Jamie smirks then shoves him in the chest. "Come on. Try me again."
The vamp looks confused for a moment before he charges at Jamie, knocking him backwards. He seizes a fist of Jamie's hair and pulls, before smacking his head against the wall behind.
There's no sound, and Oliver drops the grip on his hair, screeching and holding the back of his head. He stumbles from side to side like a toddler learning to walk as Jamie looks on with smug satisfaction.
The vamp moves his hand to look at his palm.
Blood.
As Oliver crumples to the floor in shock, Jamie strides over and leans over him. His tie is torn away and shirt buttons ripped, and the material gapes open as he leans over the vamp.
The Blackwood pendant falls forward.
“What the fuck, Jamie? Back down,” I yell.
Before I can reach them, Tobias charges down the corridor and seizes Jamie by the arm. He yanks at the cord around Jamie's neck.
"What the hell is this?"
Chapter Forty-Seven
MAEVE
The noise from the hall grows louder, and I break from my shock to follow Tobias from the room and investigate. I'm pushed back again as Tobias drags Jamie inside, followed by a pale-faced Ash.
The door slams.
Jamie lashes out at Tobias who ducks and waves something at him.
The Blackwood pendant.
"How the fuck did you get that?" The fury on Tobias's face pushes Jamie backwards and into a seat. "Did I see you using Blackwood magic?"
Jamie holds both hands on his head. "Only a protection spell."
"You fucking moron!"
I back away, unsure which way Tobias's anger will fly next.
"Who knew? All of you?" He pauses. "Is this how the Blackwood book ended up in Theodora's office?"
"Yes," Ash says quietly. "But we didn't tell anybody because we saw what happened to Matt."
"I only had the book a day and for one spell." Jamie looks up, repeating the words he's told us over and over. The fight ruffled his hair, but he's unharmed.
Andrei slides into the room and quietly closes the door. "Did you wipe his mind?" asks Tobias.
Andrei nods.
"Did you know about Jamie's spell?"
The appalled look on Andrei's face answers the question. No.
I shake as the events of the last half hour shudder through me and I gulp in air. Ash takes my hand, and I shift closer to him, pushing my head against his chest until he wraps an arm around and kisses my head.
Tobias watches with a small tug to his brow then returns to his furious lecture. "How could Amelia allow this?"
"She took the book before Jamie could do more," I say. "Jamie would've cast this spell whatever we did."
"I had the incantation memorised," he mumbles.
Tobias swears repeatedly and paces from side to side in the room. "Why attack Oliver?"
"He upset Amelia."
Tobias lifts his eyes skyward. "It's always about a girl."
"She's one of my best friends. He disrespected her, and she's in tears. Have you seen the chaos in the hall? Your Petrescu students are practically tearing the place apart."
"And I was prepared to tear them apart," mutters Ash.
"At least one of you saw sense and kept your hands to yourselves. Where's Amelia now?"
"Still in the hall. Sofia is dealing with the situation and I bet security will be here soon." Ash pauses. "Why are you all in here? What's happening? I thought you were supervising the dance, Tobias."
"That's a bloody long story," mutters Andrei.
Tobias looks from one to the other, then at the door. "I need to deal with this. Someone will look for me and ask questions. One of you find Amelia."
"And are we banned from telling her?" I ask.
"As if you could hide secrets from each other." The words come as he walks through the door and I tense at the slam.
What happens now?
Chapter Forty-Eight
ASH
I'm stunned by everything Maeve tells me, and Andrei confirms her story is true, but she never explained why Tobias decided to tell them. Even though she's explained the truth about Tobias, I'm positive they left gaps in their story.
We agree to speak to Theodora tomorrow for confirmation or expose Tobias's lies.
Man, there are so many secrets in this world.
I'm all for heading back into the dance chaos and lending a hand, but Maeve refuses to let me back into the brawl. Instead, Jamie heads back inside with Andrei to find Amelia.
"Let's walk. You need to cool down," Maeve says. "The shifter anger is running hot through you."
"Are you reading my mind?"
"No, silly. Your face is red." She links her arm through mine. "Come on."
I don't protest when she guides me from the scene and leads me outside. There's a light dusting of snow on the path, and we wander along with no plans where to go.
The cold cools my face and my temper as I hug Maeve close. I came close to kissing her when we danced earlier, until she saw Andrei and walked away. Are my near misses the universe telling me to stop? Maybe, but my heart tells me otherwise.
Maeve shivers and her arms are covered with goose bumps. Where's that weird furry jacket she had before?
"Here." I slip off my suit jacket and drape the item around her shoulders. With a grateful smile, Maeve pushes her arms in the sleeves, and I laugh at how the jacket dwarfs her. Wrapped around her, the way I fantasise about wrapping myself around Maeve.
She looks up at me, the girl Amelia painted away into a strange new version earlier this evening. Her hair has loosened as if the girl beneath tries to escape, and the tiara in her hair shines beneath the moonlight.
A snowflake floats downwards and lands on her cheek.
"Poor Katherine," she says.
"Nobody touched her. They wouldn't dare."
"No, the dickheads ruined her dance. The night meant a lot to her—and Amelia."
"Feel sorry for the guys who kicked off. Katherine-style revenge isn't pleasant."
"Surely the Petrescu kids will be expelled?"
I rub my thumb and fingers together. "Money, Maeve. The school will brush this away, but their parents will deal with them."
"That's bullshit," she mutters.
Snow drifts down thicker as a storm threatens, and flakes land on Maeve's lips. She darts out her tongue to lick it away.
I look around us. We're close to the end of the tree-lined pathway, and nobody's around. I've spent the last few hours, days, weeks wanting to kiss Maeve. Does she want the same? Are we both holding back for different reasons?
"How do you feel about Jamie?" I ask her.
"I worry about him. I hope now Tobias has the pendant, he's back to normal."
I nod. "Yes. Agreed. But how do you feel about Jamie? You looked close tonight."
She strokes the front of my shirt. "Why are you asking me?"
"Because I'm confused. You send mixed signals."
"So do you," she says and pushes me in the chest. "How many times have you almost kissed me and stopped?"
"More than you realise." I sigh. "Do you think of Jamie as more than a friend?"
"Sometimes." She pauses. "But I feel the same way about you,
and I'm confused. One thing's certain: I'm not going to be that girl—the one who plays two guys. That's why I've never kissed you or him."
I take my jacket by the lapels and pull Maeve towards me. "What if I don't care?" Her hand is harder against my chest. Is she pushing me away? "What if I just want to kiss you and don't care if you kiss someone else? You're applying human norms."
Her lips part. "I'm doing that again, aren't I? You're right. I've seen guys and girls around the academy in relationships that are more than two people. Mostly vamps but not—"
"Witches and shifters?" I stroke her face and she shivers against my cold fingers. "I don't know what Jamie's opinion would be, but honestly, if you want to kiss me once or a hundred times, either is good with me."
Maeve moves her hand and presses herself closer, sliding an arm around my back. "I worry that if I kiss you, I will want to kiss you a hundred times. But the things you've said about witches worries me."
"Isn't how I feel about one witch what matters here?"
Our faces move closer, crossing that gap again, and the universe can bloody back off. This moment happens, and I don't care about the consequences.
I move my fingers into the back of Maeve’s hair. "I want to kiss you. I'm obsessing about it—seriously. You can tell me never to touch you again, Maeve, and I'll respect that."
"I thought you'd never ask," she says with a laugh and tiptoes to place her lips on mine.
The touch is brief, and I don't respond, surprised. The static charge of our mouths so close, and the snow drifting onto us, drags me into a world where who we are doesn't matter. Cupping Maeve's chin with my fingers, I tip her face and place my lips on hers. There's a hesitancy from both of us, but when Maeve presses her mouth harder, my body wins.
The jacket and the cold weather are a curse and a blessing—the held back lust I have for Maeve would send me in a direction that would overstep the mark for a first kiss. I settle with slipping my hands inside the jacket, around her small waist. Dragging her hips toward mine, I delve my tongue into her mouth, no longer aware of anything but her taste and scent, and the point our bodies connect.
Maeve makes a small noise as she welcomes my deeper kiss. I've made out with girls more times than I can count—until recently. Now, I hold back, convinced I'd want to possess Maeve like the girls before. But this kiss is different; this kiss consumes me.
The heat we create warms the falling temperature around us. If we stayed here, the world would become buried by the snow drifting around. We could escape who and what we are, the academy, and reality until the snow melts away, and life hits again.
Her soft lips and her sweetness have a power over me that I always knew she’d have.
Pulling back self-control, I tone down the kiss and wrap Maeve in my arms. I'm lost to the pull I expected, the one bonding me to a witch.
Kissing Maeve is the most natural feeling in the world and shouldn’t be. But I don’t care.
Car tyres screech and headlights shine, the beam putting us under a spotlight. I shield my eyes, and we both stare through the academy gates as a car skids in a circle. A door opens, and a large figure falls from the vehicle and lands heavily on the ground, before the tyres sound again, and the car speeds away.
I grip Maeve's hand as I scramble to take in the scene, stepping in front of her in case the figure scales the fence and attacks.
"What was that?" she asks, voice rising.
"Wait there."
Relieved the gates are locked, I walk towards them. Did whoever drove the car know the security guards would be attending to the riot inside the academy? Because there aren't any around.
A body lies on the ground, unmoving, and Maeve appears beside me, her hand over her mouth.
"Who's that?" she whispers.
I scale the gates, then jump silently to the ground a few feet away from the prone figure.
He's stocky, taller than me, face down in the settled snow. Blood from his wounds stains the white with red in patches around him.
I cautiously approach and look down at the shaggy hair and torn clothing. What and who the hell is this?
Stretching out my leg, I poke at the body with my foot using my strength to push him over without drawing any closer.
The guy flops onto his back, eyes still closed, and the moon picks out his features.
I drop to my knees, head reeling as I place a hand on his chest. The guy is breathing. Shallow, but clinging to life.
I stare at his beaten face and my blood turns as cold as the evening around.
Vincent.
NIGHTWORLD ACADEMY: TERM THREE
Copyright © 2019 by L J Swallow
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
v.7
Created with Vellum
Chapter One
ASH
I never imagined I’d spend Christmas with my brother again.
We sit at the table on mismatched chairs in the middle of the small kitchen, beneath the tinsel strung across the ceiling, listening to Mum's favourite Christmas songs filling the room.
Snow covers the ground outside, but in here I'm cosy, thanks to the heat from the oven that fills the house with the smell of roast dinner.
The turkey on the table would feed a large family, but Mum knows mine and Vince's appetites. A decades-old tablecloth decorated with Santas and snowflakes decorates the table. The same table, in the same place I’ve spent Christmas every one of my eighteen years.
Three of those years were hollow, as the hole left by Vincent’s death swallowed up the family. Christmas without him was wrong—the day could never be complete.
Vincent sits opposite me with Mum fussing over him as she piles his plate with enough food for the Christmas dinners Vincent missed. A hearty meal to give him energy to recover from his wounds.
A shifter should be healed after two weeks' rest and intensive treatment by our best doctors. He's healed physically, but he’s not the Vince I remember. Not yet. He limps and has deep scars on his face, but that's not all. Vincent is quiet, with something distant in his eyes, as if he’s still in the place they kept him.
But who are ‘they’?
My brother’s memories are hazy, and the spirit witches who worked on his mind barely dragged anything from inside. Whispered suspicions follow Vincent around: how could he disappear for years and nobody find him?
Admittedly, I was suspicious too, but the guy dumped outside the academy gates is the brother I grew up with.
I’m positive.
Vincent remembers the little things about his life. He has memories of our time together as kids—our secrets. We built a den deep in the woods outside the town, where we hid when life in a stressful household became too much. Mum and Dad argued about money a lot, so we took our comic books to the den and lost ourselves in other worlds.
He remembers my favourites. How I preferred Batman to Superman. He never laughed when he discovered the Hulk scared me—the monstrous character felt too close to home, and I had nightmares until I was twelve. I worried how dumb this made me, and I begged Vincent not to tell people.
He never did. And he still has the memory of those times.
Vincent also remembers that I always wear the red paper Christmas hat, and he wears the blue. "Here you go, bro." He hands the hat to me, and it crinkles as I push the paper onto my head.
He pushes the blue one down over his curly brown hair. The cut at the edge of his mouth pulls as he smiles.
"Eat up!" Mum spoons another helping of roast potatoes onto his plate, then forks more turkey from the platter.
The blanketing sadness lifted from Mum as soon as she overcame the shock and disbelief at Vincent’s return. She’s over the moon to have her two sons home for Christmas once more, and for our lif
e to move on.
Dad was as curious as me, but forced away suspicion and accepted Vince’s memory blanks. Dad’s remaining doubt, which I think he doesn’t mention, is whether his son can still shift. To Dad, and many of us, this would be the ultimate proof Vincent is his son, the dragon shifter who came of age shortly before he disappeared.
Marching a traumatised shifter into a quiet forest and demanding he take on his dragon form wouldn’t be fair, but Vincent will need to transform soon in order for the shifter council to truly believe him.
How long will the council wait?
I sneakily check my phone beneath the table, waiting for a reply from Maeve. I called to wish her ‘Merry Christmas’ and to check if she received the gift I sent, but she hasn't replied yet. If her family are anything like mine, she won't have much time to herself on Christmas Day.
I spent several confused hours wandering the shops looking for a Christmas gift. I hope she likes the necklace with the gem as blue as her eyes. Okay, so I’m not imaginative, but it's the thought that counts, right?
I worry about Maeve every day we’re away from the academy, but she’s watched from a distance by Confederacy militia. Is this to protect her, or in case she chooses to disappear? She's a precious commodity to the magic world. Maeve accepted her new life recently, but will she now she’s back in the human world and reminded of normality?
I’ve not heard from Jamie—he’s away somewhere secret with his family, and we’re unable to contact him. There was an argument between Theodora and his parents over allowing him to leave the academy, which they won.
I’m still amused people believe the mild-mannered Jamie beat up the vamp. We begrudgingly thanked Andrei for his help in wiping the other vamp's mind.
Andrei. I remember him in the background shortly after I found Vincent. I freaked out and lost touch with everything happening around me, including Maeve. She ran to fetch somebody and Andrei came with the guards. He took over, comforting a distressed Maeve when I wasn’t capable. Part of me resents this, but another part is grateful. Andrei looked out for Maeve—he always does.
Nightworld Academy Box Set 1 Page 44
