by LJ Swallow
NIGHTWORLD ACADEMY: TERM FOUR
L J Swallow
Copyright © 2020 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.2
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Contents
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
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Other Books By LJ Swallow
Books by Lisa Swallow
About the Author
Chapter One
ASH
FRIDAY NIGHT
If a pack of shifters looked for somewhere private to shift and enjoy the freedom, a small farmhouse on the isolated Yorkshire moors is the perfect answer.
Such as the one I'm looking at through the gloomy night, right now.
Our family aren't the only shifters in the north of England, and I've heard rumours of places like this. The house has always been a suspected safe haven for those who don't like to suppress the animal side of themselves. Nowadays, most shifters work on keeping their non-human side hidden and under control, and pass that view on to their children. The Confederacy prefer shifters to behave that way—there's less chance we'll be discovered. Captured. Experimented on.
One night, a few months before Vince disappeared, I overheard him arguing with my parents about his reluctance to stay hidden. Although Dad's secretly proud he produced a dragon, my parents are amongst those who prefer to keep themselves safe by integrating with the human world.
I remember the swearing, Mum crying, and Vince disappearing for days at a time with his friends—the ones who he reconnected with when they attended his party at the academy. He'd spend "boys' nights" away, but never told us where, sometimes for days at a time. Because he disappeared a lot, it was over a week before my parents alerted the authorities when he was taken.
I would hear his frustration over how difficult his life is as a dragon shifter—Vince couldn't transform and take a run across the moors the way his animal shifter mates could. The day he returned from a longer trip to Eastern Europe he was brighter, and I presumed this was because he'd had his chance to become the hidden dragon. Now, I wonder if the hidden community over there is where his strong opinions stem from.
Now I'm about to discover what happens on his nights away.
"Did Vince mention anything to you?" I ask Clive.
"Extra training for the brightest and best," he says with a grin. "He selected us because we have the most potential."
"Right." I move uncomfortably between him and Remi. Potential for what?
Squashing five students our size, plus Vince, into a Land Rover isn't comfortable, but Clive and Remi's excitement keeps them happy. Seamus never speaks much to kids in our house and rarely to the other houses—a perfect target for Vince. The last guy, Damian, spent most of his time hunched over his phone, earbuds in. We saw Professor O'Reilly as we were leaving, and my worry dropped. If a professor knows we're headed out, then the excursion must be legit.
I climb from the vehicle and rest on the door as I study my surroundings. The farmhouse is a single-storey brick building with untended gardens out the front, weeds growing through the slate paving stones leading to the door. Curtains are drawn across the windows with lights shining from the rooms behind. Barns once used by the farmers lurk behind in the shadows, where an old tractor with no wheels stands as a sentry.
The wind blows my hood upwards and rushes through my clothes. No wonder people don't want to live in bleak places like this; at least I don't feel the cold.
Vincent opens the heavy wooden door to the house, and we file in behind him. The exposed brick walls and uneven slate floors are original features, along with the fireplace where flames crackle and warm the room, the smell of smoke mixing with that from the pizza boxes on the floor. Stained rugs and tatty sofas take away from the rustic atmosphere, and the three guys already in here sprawl across them with beers in hand.
I remember Des from the party as the one who deliberately embarrassed Maeve, and he stands to greet Vince with a slap on the back. Others offer gruff hellos, one guy handing Vince a beer from the cluttered table beside him.
"We all set?" asks Vince.
Des grins. "Yup."
"Awesome." He takes the offered bottle, swigs, then wipes his mouth with the back of a hand. "A few drinks first—we have to stick to the traditions."
Vince's mates chuckle and the word ‘tradition' sticks in my mind.
I hang at the edge of everything as Vince introduces the Gilgamesh kids to his mates, until Vince pulls me aside. "Why do you look worried?"
"I'm not," I retort.
He wrinkles his nose. "I can smell you are."
Swearing under my breath, I grab a beer from the table and drop onto one of the dilapidated cloth chairs.
A TV plays in a corner and I'm unsurprised to see Vince's mates are watching rugby. Maybe this is a boys' get-together after all and I'm reading too much into the situation.
My instincts tell me otherwise.
"Cool place." Clive slurs from his bottle, cheeks pink. "Do you catch up here much?"
"Once every couple of months," says Des. "We kept the tradition up while Vince was away."
I frown. Des makes it sound like Vince went on sabbatical, not missing and presumed dead.
"What do you do when you get together here?" Remi's cautious, almost shy, barely speaking since we arrived. He isn't the only one awed—Seamus and Damian sit outside the circle, watching warily.
"Some months, we shift," says a second shifter. Marcus, maybe? He was definitely at Vince's party too.
"Since we're banned doing it elsewhere," adds Des with a grin.
Banned everywhere.
"I guess coming here is safer," says Clive as he reaches for another beer. His eyes light up when a new gang member walks through the door and dumps a fresh stack of pizza boxes on the table. A small bowl contains a pile of bank notes and I look around for playing cards. Is this a poker night?
"And you always come here to shift?" I ask. "How far do you go from the farmhouse? Don't
people see you?"
Des chuckles and elbows the guy beside him. "Marcus disappeared once. Reported sightings of a large black cat in a village about twenty miles away."
He whacks Des in the chest. "Not my fault the guy I was chasing managed to run that far."
"Yeah, your fault you're a shit hunter."
Chasing. I straighten. "Do you hurt anybody?"
The room drops into silence and they look to Vince as if he's the only one with answers.
Vince places his booted feet on the table. "Not usually. But mistakes happen, y'know?"
"What does that mean?" I ask sharply.
Vince grabs a slice of pizza and tips his head back to lower the end of the meat-loaded slice into his mouth.
I watch, heart pounding as he devours it. "Who gets hurt?"
He licks his greasy lips and ignores my question. "The guys dropped the ball while I was away. A few of them left the group—they backed away because they aren't strong enough to believe in the next phase. I'm hoping you can join us."
If tonight isn't an initiation ceremony, this sounds like a recruitment drive.
He gestures around him and looks at the other kids. "I explained to Ash how the witch and vampire societies treat us like shit. They look down on us for what they call our useless powers. Not to our faces, but we all know, don't we?"
Clive and Remi mutter in agreement and the other kids nod.
"At the academy, how many times have the witches and vamps sneered at you and made comments about dogs and animals, as if we belong under their boots?"
"Vince. That's not fair. The witches and vamps taunt each other too," I protest.
Vince gives a harsh laugh. "We're held back. Every step of the way. Mental Magic classes? Oh no, too complicated for the shifters, don't let them attend." His eyes narrow. "We're excluded. Put at a disadvantage."
"And the meditation bullshit," puts in Remi. "Trying to wipe away our natural instincts."
What the hell is this? Around me, the guys casually share pizza as if we've caught up for a night watching rugby and drinking beers, not whatever the fuck Vince is talking about. Don't they see how dangerous his attitude is?
"The meditation is to help, Remi. To stop us losing control and shifting too young," I say.
Remi laughs. "Yeah? You refused to go to the class until a few weeks ago. What changed?"
"I don't want to lose control and spend my life stuck as a Mid."
"Ah yes, Mids." Vince leans forward and his tone grows harsher. "Witches could help Mids. Hell, they can help vamps have babies and even create hybrids, but you're telling me they couldn't help a shifter return to normal?"
I swallow, mouth drying. He's right.
"Another example of the Confederacy treating us like second-class citizens. They control us. They tell us what we can and can't do. And when we need help? They turn their back." Vince's eyes glitter with a hatred that turns my blood cold. "We're not taking this bullshit anymore."
"Who's told you this is okay, Vince?"
He jerks his chin up. "I'm protecting my mates. We have instincts that are denied. Skills that need honing. Fuck the vampires and witches. We live by our own rules."
He lifts his bottle in a toast to the gathered shifters and my stomach leadens as they match him, adding jeering agreement. What sickens me further is the agreement in my classmates' shining eyes. Vince looks to me and I lift my bottle but keep my eyes fixed on his. He smirks at my displeasure.
"So, you wanna know how to train the skills they deny us?" Vince speaks the words directly at me.
"Fuck, yeah!" calls out Damian.
"This had better not involve shifting, Vince," I protest. "Don't risk the guys becoming Mids."
"That's their choice."
I stand. "Shit, Vince. This is insane. Take us back to the academy."
He chuckles and stands too, heading over to wrap an arm around my shoulders. The grip is firmer than affectionate, crushing my bones until I wince.
"Don't get so excited, little bro. I told you, this is training for the games. Honing our physical might for the final challenge."
"Which is?"
He smirks again and taps his nose. "I'm not allowed to say. But it will be one hell of an end to the games."
I don't know what the hell is happening here, and I'm not sure I want to.
"Aww, don't keep us in suspense, Vince," calls out Clive. "What's this special training you have planned for us?"
"Yeah, I can't see how effective we'll be if we're full of beer and pizza," I add pointedly.
Vince crushes me closer. "You know that's never a handicap to us. Come on."
The not-so-friendly arm remains around my shoulders as he leads me to the front door again.
The wind blasts my face as I step outside—the kind of weather normal people would dress warm for. If Maeve were here, I'd wrap her in my jacket, or she'd freeze.
Maeve. I'm not frightened that Vince will do something to me; I don't get the vibe from him. But I'm terrified what this means for me and the others—especially Clive, Seamus, Damien, and Remi, totally sucked in by his fanaticism.
Who's driving this? Because Vince isn't a thinker or a planner.
I expect him to guide us to the vehicle, but he leads us behind the farmhouse along a pebbled track. An old tractor rusts at the edge of an unused field and there aren't any animals behind the low stone walls.
"Whose place is this?" I ask him.
"Marcus's grandparents. They passed away a few years back and he inherited the place. Perfect retreat, huh?"
I finally manage to wriggle from his grasp. "Yeah, sure is."
"Marcus. You got the keys?"
Marcus tosses a jingling bunch to Vince and we approach a small barn towards the end of a track. A wide metal gate on the left side opens onto a field that leads into the distance. On the other side, trees grow.
I sense something. Not only the adrenaline pumping through the other guys' blood, along with the excitement and alcohol, but a faint scent of fear.
I glance around and focus my shifter senses. Where? Vince pushes the key into a padlock and the chain rattles as he yanks it from around the handles.
I adjust my eyes to the light as he opens the door. Des shines a torch inside and the hairs lifting on my neck aren't due to the wind. I imagined many scenarios tonight, but never the scene in front of me.
Chapter Two
ASH
The barn once held the tractor outside, perhaps hay bales for cows. Now, the building holds a few boxes piled up between the door and the wall, and a motorcycle on the right, half-hidden by tarpaulin. Two figures huddle in the corner of the barn, just visible behind the boxes, and their fear rolls across the space between us.
Two guys who look around my age, although one's face is bashed around too much to be sure. I stare in horror at their torn shirts and filthy arms, and although I'm relieved they're not chained or tied up, what chance of escape would they have from a locked barn? Or against a pack of shifters?
"What the fuck, Vince?" I rasp out. "What the hell is this?"
Beside me, Clive scratches his cheek and his wide eyes show he shares my shock. My instinct is to grab the academy guys and run, but we're hemmed in by Vincent's shifter friends in the doorway behind.
"Hunters," he snarls. "I told you—today, the hunted become the hunters."
"You have them locked in a barn?" This can't be happening. This is fucking insane. "Humans."
"Hunters," he spits.
"They're not much of a challenge if they're cornered," I say and eye the closest guy.
I've never seen fear on somebody's face as intense as this. Yeah, the guy I threatened outside the pub was scared, but this guy reeks of terror. That night, I was furious the same hunters who killed my brother were hunting me—and could be a threat to Maeve. He stalked me.
This guy is prey trapped in a corner, unsure if he'll live or die.
"Vince, no. You can't kill them. That's against the accords."
"They killed shifters," he says flatly.
"No." The guy's voice is croaky and distant, and he holds the side of his head. "I haven't killed anybody."
"You were following us the night we went to Vince's party at the academy," spits Marcus. "We tracked you."
The guy shakes his head and looks to me. "Let us go," he pleads. "Make them listen to you."
"That's not possible now," says Vince, lip curling. "You know about our base and who we are."
"You can't kill them," I urge. "Vince. See sense."
He shoves me in the chest. "These hunters took me and held me."
"How do you know? You can't remember."
"I remember hunters poisoning me —just enough to send me into a coma and not kill me."
"And then?" I ask.
"I don't fucking know, but it was them."
"No," protests the second guy in a weak voice. "Hunters didn't take you."
I attempt to grab Vince's arm as he strides over to the guy and tears him from the floor. "Someone you know did," he snarls into his face.
The guy's hair is caked in mud and he can barely stand. "No. Hunters didn't take you. Witches did."
I swallow hard. This is worse than I first imagined.
"No," Vince repeats. "Hunters."
