Shadowblade Academy 1: Darkness Calls

by KC Kingmaker

  The heavy textbook thudded on the desk next to me. He folded his corded arms over his chest. “That’s your defense, Cor? We’ve been doing it for three weeks.”

  I was backpedaling and had nowhere left to run. I hated being caught. Honestly, I felt bad for missing my meeting with Venn, especially since he was one of the only Phantoms I could actually stand.

  “Rain check?” I asked sheepishly.

  He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Nope. You have to remember, the midterm isn’t only about shadowcasting. You need to show aptitude in all your courses.”

  “But Venn, you don’t understand!” I exclaimed, earning me a harsh “shhh!” from the librarian across the way. I leaned forward and repeated myself in a whisper: “Venn, you don’t understand. I just found out I can do magic. I’m a spellweaver. I need to—”

  “Look, I know alchemy isn’t as explosive or sexy as the other stuff around here, but it’s still essential to becoming a shadowblade.”

  Seeing him use the word “sexy” cut me short. I found myself zeroing in on his full lips, studying the way they moved when he spoke. He was a beautiful man, and that light lavender hue of his skin tone was so unique and alluring.

  I snapped myself out of it when he realized I was eagerly watching him, no doubt looking like a perv. I found myself squeezing my thighs together beneath the table, alarmed at my sudden horniness. Shit, I need to get out of here.

  “Okay,” I blurted. “When do you want to do it?”

  “No time like the present,” he said, flashing another charming smile. He picked up the heavy textbook and wagged it in my face. “Come on, we’ll get dinner first.”

  AN HOUR LATER, WE HAD eaten and I was starting to see straight again. I didn’t feel so cross or loopy, and was actually looking forward to working with Venn.

  We had done a few tutoring sessions together, but they’d been pretty harmless so far. Nothing of note passed between us other than me staring at him like a hungry wolf every so often. I wanted to run my hands through his silvery hair and, on some occasions, I wouldn’t have minded finding out if the carpets matched the drapes.

  From the mess hall, Venn walked me to the Gable Training Facility. Once we got to the dome, he bobbed his eyebrows. “Care for a little B&E?”

  “Uh, what?”

  Seconds later, he opened the locked front door. My heart started pounding in my chest, thinking we were doing something wrong, until I saw him sneakily try to pocket a key without me noticing.

  I gave him a flat look. “It’s not exactly breaking and entering when you have a key, Venn.”

  He smiled and walked inside. Once he turned the lights on, I was shocked at how vast the place really was. Of course, I’d been in the dojo plenty of times, but when it was vacant it looked like an indoor soccer stadium.

  “So your family built this place, eh?” I asked as I followed him to a small table on the other side of the room. A whiteboard stood next to it, with some names scrawled on it in dry-erase marker.

  “That’s what they say,” Venn said cryptically. He reached into a backpack lying against the board and started pulling out empty test tubes, beakers, and liquids.

  I raised my eyebrows. He had a backpack stashed here? So, he was planning on taking me here. Is he trying to impress me or something? And how the hell did he get his hands on all that stuff from the alchemy class? I assumed getting us into the dojo wasn’t his first “B&E” of the night.

  Though I tried not to show it, he was doing a pretty good job of impressing me. I wanted to ask why he’d waited to take me here, but something he’d said caught my attention. “‘That’s what they say,’ Venn? I mean . . . did your family build it or not?”

  He gave me a lopsided grin while continuing to set up the tubes on the table. “My family is a big Academy donor, Cor. I have nothing to do with it.”

  I crossed my arms. “So the Academy does business with the Unseelie fae?”

  His brow quirked, annoyance chasing across his fine features. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I let my hands fall, again trying to backpedal. “Oh, nothing. Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.” I cursed myself for sounding so snooty. “I just thought the Unseelie fae were—”

  “Evil? Universally hated?”

  I gulped and gave him a tiny, embarrassed nod.

  To my surprise, he didn’t get angry. After a beat, his furrowed brow leveled out and he broke into another customary grin. “Then I guess I should be happy Alaric Cane and the Academy saw past the prejudices, huh?” He waved a hand at me like it was nothing. “Besides, it’s not like I get any perks with my name slapped on the gable.”

  I stretched my arms out wide. “I mean, we’re here, in the dead of night when no one else is around, aren’t we? That seems pretty, um, perky.”

  “I don’t have that key because I’m a Gable, hun. I have a key because I’m in Hudson’s Glove.” He gave me a wink that set my insides on fire.

  I looked away and shrank within myself. I barely heard anything he said after calling me “hun.” The embarrassment must have showed on my face, or he must have caught himself too late, because when I glanced over at him, his light purple skin had darkened.

  “Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. He turned his attention to the table, peering at it like the vials and liquids were the most interesting things on the planet. “Should we get started?”

  I inched in to crowd around the table. I had to move the whiteboard a little bit to make room, awkwardly grabbing it with both hands to lift. His voice trailed off behind me: “Now then, where did we leave off . . .”

  I stifled a gasp as I backed away from the whiteboard. My name was written on it in orange, alongside some other names. Most had been crossed out in red, except for my name, Genevieve’s, and a couple others. I scanned the board quickly. To the right of the names, a rectangle had been drawn. Arrows pointed at different spots on the rectangle. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking at—there was no headline saying “Secret Plans” or anything—but I knew a sports field when I saw one.

  It looked like schematics and positions.

  “Um, Venn, what is this?” When I turned to him, he looked alarmed.

  “Oh, about that. It’s nothing,” he said, entirely unconvincingly. “It’s, uhh—”

  “What the fuck are you two doing here?” an angry voice boomed from the entrance of the dojo.

  The voice was so loud and abrupt my whole body jerked. I gasped, stumbling as I turned, falling back into Venn. His strong arms wrapped around me instinctively. Protectively. His smooth face came dangerously close to my neck and heavy breathing caressed my nape. Even fully flexed, inside I felt warm. His crisp, rainy scent invaded my senses and I couldn’t help but take a big whiff of his essence. Venn’s wiry biceps fit perfectly around me, pushing in my sides, though he didn’t cop a feel or anything untoward. Venn seemed too respectful for that, even in a state of distress.

  Sunny Conway stormed in our direction, fury on his pale face. The man towered over me and Venn. He wore a dramatic red cloak that swished behind him with each angry step, in rhythm with his long blond hair. It made him look like he’d just stepped out of the Victorian era.

  Venn let go of me and a sense of longing swept through my body at the loss of his touch. I couldn’t explain it.

  He pushed himself in front of me in a valiant stance of protection. “We’re studying alchemy, Sunny.”

  “Here?” Sunny growled, stopping when he was ten feet from us. He was imposing in his cloak—even more so because of his ripped muscles. He might have been a pasty vampire, but he wasn’t a skinny fucker by any means. In my opinion, his porcelain sheen only made him more devilishly handsome.

  It was too bad he was such an incorrigible asshole.

  “Yes, here, Sunny,” Venn answered. I’d never seen his voice so strained and angry. I could tell it was all he could do to match energy with Sunder. “My name’s on the goddamn building.”
>
  I hid my smirk, noticing he’d contradicted himself about having “perks,” once it suited him.

  Sunny thrust a finger toward Venn. “This isn’t a motel where you just bring around any floozy you want. You don’t see me gallivanting—”

  “Hey, who the hell you calling a floozy?!” I blurted.

  He ignored me, and Venn kept his body shielding mine. It pissed me off that I was being ignored, but I understood these two needed to hash it out.

  “This is supposed to be the command post for our brotherhood, Venn, of which she is not a part of,” Sunny spat through clenched teeth.

  Oh, excuse me. Not his bestie—his “brother.”

  I could tell it was taking everything within Sunny to keep his temper from exploding. I knew it because I often had the same problem.

  I didn’t know why Sunny was taking it so badly. And, if Venn had known our discovery would elicit such an angry response, why had he even brought me here? And what the fuck are they scheming with my name on that board?

  “I’m disappointed in you, brother,” Sunny finished, exhaling. His stiff body drooped, shoulders falling. He no longer looked angry, but rather dispirited.

  For a split second, I actually felt bad for the guy. Yes, he was a raging butthead. But maybe he thinks of the dojo as his own personal man cave—something more important than it actually is. Maybe he feels ownership over it with his friends.

  Sunny marched away the way he’d come in. He left us both dumbstruck.

  “Shit, I should go,” I said. I started toward the door. “I don’t want to get in the middle of—”

  “Wait” Venn gasped, and I couldn’t stop myself from turning around. He was reaching out to me, a look of frustration or anxiety on his face. “It’s not—it’s. Gah. Sunny, he just . . . he’s taken the breakup badly. That’s all.”

  “The breakup?”

  “Of Hudson’s Glove. Not the breakup, but the, you know, severing. When we lost your sister and Quentin, we . . . well, we haven’t been the same since.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Just give him a chance. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Please.”

  Although he was scattered and floundering, I understood. Venn, Sunny, and Dax were all trying their best to keep their friendship together after losing two of their own. I empathized with poor Venn. Clearly he and Sunny didn’t see eye-to-eye on everything. Namely, me.

  After his brief mention of my sister, I wanted to circle back to her—to probe for info about Myria. But I didn’t think it was the place or time.

  Instead, I gave Venn my softest nod, knowing he was in pain. “I understand, Venn. I’ll try. But why do I have a feeling this little debacle is going to bite me in the ass down the road?”

  Chapter 20

  Sunny

  GENEVIEVE WAS ON HER knees between my legs, palms flat on my thighs as her head bobbed on my cock. She made obscene slurping sounds as she throated as much of my dick as she could manage, gagging and choking herself on my length.

  I could tell by the way her fingers flexed, gripping at my flesh, that she was struggling to pleasure me. If there was one thing I knew about Vivi Jade though, it was that she never wanted to disappoint her daddy.

  It was too bad for her I didn’t reciprocate her feelings.

  The girl globbed onto me whenever she had the chance. She hung off my arm and batted her fake eyelashes at me like she thought the world of our relationship. In public, we looked like a perfect couple—two beauties with insatiable libidos killing it at the shadowcasting game every day before fucking like jackrabbits every night. In other people’s eyes, it was a forgone conclusion our babies would be gods.

  The truth was more nuanced. For one, I was pretty sure she was fucking half the school. I couldn’t prove my suspicions, but that was only because I honestly didn’t care enough about us to try.

  For me, our “relationship” had been formed on false pretenses from the beginning. Just like Vivi, I was a conniving son of a bitch—perhaps that’s why we seemed so perfect for each other—and I had an ulterior motive.

  Namely, Genevieve had always hated Myria Hargave. Myria had been like a sister to me before her disappearance. She’d been the little sister to all of us in Hudson’s Glove, which was partly why I was so pissed Dax and Venn didn’t seem to give a shit about what happened to her.

  By contrast, Genevieve was a jealous creature. I was sure she thought me and Myria had been an item. My mind had never skated in that direction because, in my opinion, you didn’t fuck up the family dynamic by involving sex. Nothing good could come of it.

  Now that Myria had vanished, Vivi had me all to herself . . .

  I flared my nostrils as one of Genevieve’s hands moved from my thigh to cup my heavy balls. She curled her fingers around gently, lightly squeezing and forcing a grunt from my lips.

  I had to admit, despite whatever other reasons I had, Vivi was a good body to fill when I needed release, such as I did this evening after stumbling upon Venn and Coralia in the dojo.

  Her lids opened, dark eyes flashing as they stared up at me, as if telling me to control her. That I owned her. Her lips stayed suctioned to my veiny shaft like a vacuum as her head rose and fell.

  Finally, she sat back and my cock left her mouth with a pop. She panted, tongue out. “Your cock is so big, daddy.”

  “So you’ve told me,” I muttered.

  She said nothing and went back to work, parting her full lips to take my cockhead in her warm mouth.

  My dispassion was unavoidable, even though I was receiving an energetic blowjob from one of the prettiest girls at the Academy. If, by chance, she wasn’t fucking half the school, I knew most of those guys would have killed to be in my position.

  I was too distracted to care. As a Conway, I had been raised not to care for others’ feelings. People were a means to an end. Namely, sustenance. Wealth and power had always been near the top of the totem pole, but those things came second to survival.

  Wealth and power allowed one to live a life of luxury and ease. My family had lived like the world was their oyster. And when you lived for so damn long, it made sense to want to be carefree.

  But I wasn’t born a Conway. No one was. We were made. My memory of my past life had faded after a few decades of being a vampire, but a hint of it was always there at the back of my mind, niggling and annoying.

  I needed something more than sex and blood to fuel me.

  My background was dark. It wasn’t something I liked to talk or think about, but, in short, I had promised myself to never be at the bottom of the food chain again. Fuck the Conways and the Jades and the Academy—I needed to be true to myself for me.

  I had been trying to learn to throw aside the awful traits that had plagued me for years. Indoctrination took a toll, and it was hard to shed so much hate.

  Slowly, I’d been making progress. Venn and Dax would verify.

  Then Quentin died and Myria went missing shortly after. The brotherhood we’d built fell apart all around us. I believed we were still lost, trying to fill the void in our souls in whichever way we could.

  Maybe that’s why Venn is trying to get so close to Coralia—because she reminds him of Myria, but in a good way. Unlike me, where Coralia brings up painful thoughts, she’s nostalgic to Venn.

  Even Dax seems to want to help her. He’s emerged from his ever-present shell more in recent weeks than I’ve seen in a long time.

  So why does Coralia frustrate me so much?

  And why can’t I stop fucking thinking about her?

  “Spirits save me!” Genevieve gasped, reeling back from my dick with spittle running down her chin. My aching unit stood like a pillar, angrily throbbing as it covered her face. Her eyes widened. “You just got even harder, daddy.”

  “Did I tell you you could stop?”

  The frustration inside me was boiling. I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew what I’d been thinking about when my erection had stiffened in her mouth.

  And it wasn’t the
sloppy blowjob Vivi was giving me.

  Genevieve licked a dab of precum off my tip. Her tongue slowly trailed down the underside of my shaft, savoring my taste. She licked the crease between my balls and mouthed each one in turn, sniffing as she inhaled my musk and lost herself.

  My long cock draped over her forehead and ruffled her jet black hair. I stared down at her, unable to keep the scowl from my face. Her ministrations felt good, sure, but I had other ideas in mind.

  I couldn’t lollygag with the seductress any longer. I needed to clear my head. “Enough,” I said through gritted teeth. I fisted her hair and yanked her head back. She separated from my nuts with a gasp and a frightened look in her eyes. “Bend over the bed.”

  She nodded desperately. “Y-Yes daddy, of course.”

  Vivi stood as I released her, wobbling toward the bed like a newborn doe. She wore a hip-hugging miniskirt that went halfway down her curvy thighs, and a black halter top that showed off her flat belly and her full, bouncing tits as she stumbled along.

  When she was bent over the bed, her hands flat on the sheets, she pumped her ass out toward me and threw a timid look in my direction over her shoulder. The bottom curve of her luscious ass cheeks peeked out beneath the hem of her skirt. “Like this, daddy?”

  I stroked my cock a few times to keep myself hard, then stood from my chair with only a grunt to answer her. Her eyes sparkled, taking in my glistening erection as it bobbed to and fro while I walked to her, still wet from spit and precum. Her shimmering eyes perused my muscled physique and a smirk came to her lips.

  Her smirk vanished when I roughly pulled her miniskirt up over her ass and bunched it against her narrow waist. Her bubble butt bounced free from its confines and firmed up beneath my cock.

  I pushed my dick between her ass crack and slid my sticky length over the strip of her thong that barely covered her asshole.

  Vivi moaned, hanging her head down in front of her. In a throaty voice she begged, “Please, daddy, fuck me! Fuck your little girl good and hard.”

  I slid aside her panties and palmed her damp center, feeling how slick and wet she was for me. My fingers probed her pussy and she let out another groan.