Academy of Sorcery: Term 2: Fallen Master

by Alexa B. James

  In truth, I’m more familiar with her work as a high-end fashion designer than as the equivalent to the First Lady of the supernatural world. I mean, I grew up as the daughter of a shunned, barely magical woman and a human man. Most of what I knew about this world was gleaned from reality shows. Considering how many times Silas threw Lady Claudia’s name around when talking to influential people, I figured out that she was pretty important in her own rite, so I looked her up and discovered that she was married to Master Hardin, the head of the Society of Supernaturals. I still have no idea why they’re all staring at me, though.

  “She’s the matriarch of one of the most influential magical families in the world,” Asher says, watching me like he’s waiting for something to click.

  Bella sighs. “The Cristofaros.”

  I shake my head. “But she’s a Hardin. Lady Claudia Hardin.”

  “By marriage,” Bella says. “God, how do you not know this? I thought you and Thorn were close, but you must not even know him at all if you don’t know who his family is.”

  I suddenly feel like I might faint. “Master Hardin, the head of the Society of Supernaturals, is Thorn’s father?”

  “Grandfather,” Rocco volunteers with a grin. “Their son is Thorn’s dad.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, smacking his arm.

  He shoots me a lazy grin. “Never came up.”

  “Holy shit,” I say, sitting back in my seat. “Thorn’s basically royalty.”

  “Duh,” Bella says. “Why do you think I’m going to marry him?”

  Like hell.

  I start to protest, but Elowen interrupts. “We shouldn’t be gone any longer than we have to,” she says. “I don’t want to get kicked out, either. Me and Bella are both on our last strike.”

  “Okay,” I say, trying to focus on what’s important right now. “I’m going in.”

  “I’ll wait here,” Bella says with a nervous titter. “In case you need a getaway driver.”

  “I’m not doing anything illegal,” I say, mostly to reassure myself. Without waiting for an answer, I step out of the car onto the too-familiar parking lot behind Silas’s.

  “The rest of you stay here,” Rocco orders, climbing out and slamming the door behind him. He joins me and looks up at the big, ostentatious mansion. “Lead the way, Cinderella.”

  Before I lose my nerve, I stride across the lot and up the steps to the back door. I enter without knocking, since this is the servants’ entrance. By habit, I wipe my feet before stepping into the kitchen.

  “Jade, how lovely to see you,” Robert says without turning from the stove, where he’s whisking some kind of sauce while slowly pouring a stream of cream into it. I always thought Silas put a vampire in the kitchen because he’s such a tightwad he’s worried someone else might steal a bite of food.

  “Hey, Robert,” I say. “I’m here to see my dad. Know where I might find him?”

  “I think he’s cleaning the second floor right now,” Robert says, sparing me a smile. I wave and head for the stairs, feeling strangely foreign here, as if I’m trespassing. I suppose I am.

  Rocco stays close behind me, on alert like a bodyguard. When I arrive at the top of the stairs, I hear the vacuum cleaner and start that way. Suddenly, tears press behind my eyes, and I’m almost running by the time I reach the bedroom and see my dad’s thin, stooped figure holding the handle of the machine as he tackles the floor in one of the guest rooms.

  “Dad,” I cry, throwing my arms around him.

  “Jade,” he says, choking on a laugh of surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  The vacuum quiets with an echo that seems to amplify his words. They hang in the air as we stand facing each other.

  “Hey, Mr. Silva,” Rocco says, reaching past me to give my father’s hand a pump. “Nice to see you again.” He grins as if this is great fun, reminding me of the totally awkward way he accepted the invitation to come in over Christmas and have dinner with us. Much to my irritation, the bastard made fast friends with my dad by sucking up with no shame.

  “I flew the coop,” I say to Dad. “I came to talk to you about Silas.”

  “Right now?” Dad’s eyes fly around as if Silas might be lurking nearby. I wouldn’t put it past the creep.

  “Yeah, Dad,” I say. “You can’t just take over my contract. I know you think you’re protecting me, but I don’t want you to do this. It’s not protecting me. I’ll just worry twice as much as I did before. I’m going to owe Silas thirty-plus years of my life, anyway. A few extra years won’t make a difference, and it’ll be worth working those if it means you’ll be safe at home.”

  “I’m safe,” Dad says, his eyes roving nervously. It nearly breaks my heart. He obviously is not safe, and he knows it.

  “Just let me see your contract,” I say. “I’m sure there’s a way out of it.”

  “Silas has it.”

  “Silas has your copy of the contract you signed?”

  Dad wrings his hands. “He said he’d keep it safe for me. You know how absentminded I can be.”

  My heartbreak quickly turns to anger, and I push past Rocco and march out of the room and down the hall, bellowing for my boss. He tried to pull shit like this with me all the time, but I wasn’t having it. I’m sure as shit not having it now, either—not when he’s taking advantage of a delicate man.

  Silas steps out of an office, a twitchy little smile on his lips. “Yes, Jade?” he asks, the smile growing as he leers at my body like I’m the lone piece of bacon on his breakfast tray.

  “Where’s my dad’s contract?” I ask, glaring at Silas.

  “I suggest you find it quickly,” Rocco rumbles, crossing his arms to show his impressive muscle-man build while staring down the little weasel I owe my life to.

  “It’s alright, Jade,” Dad insists behind us. “I know what it says. I knew what I was doing when I signed it.”

  “I know, Dad,” I say, turning to him and taking his hands. “I know you were trying to help. But I don’t want you to do this for me.”

  Especially when I can see that he’s literally trembling in Silas’s presence. I knew it was a bad idea for him to work for the wizard, but I hadn’t realized how bad it was. He’s positively terrified, and I seethe at the thought of Silas terrorizing him to scare him this much.

  “Maybe he wants to do it,” Silas says in his hissing, slimy voice. “Don’t you, Don?”

  “Y-yes,” Dad says. “Yes, I do.”

  “See?” Silas says with a toothy grin. “Such enthusiasm. It’s no wonder, too. My accommodations may be humble, but they’re still better than what he’s used to.”

  “What?” I ask, turning to Dad with wide eyes. “You live here?”

  “It was part of the agreement,” he says, wringing his hands and giving me a pleading look. A look that makes me hold back my protests, the ones that remind him how many times Silas tried to get me to live here, and I said no. My contract said I didn’t have to, and even though Silas offered me one of his fancy guest rooms, there was no way I was leaving my dad. And when he offered to let Dad move here with me, I still refused. It was better to be poor and free than to live in some rich man’s house, where he’d own my life even more fully than he already did.

  “No,” I whisper. “Dad, you didn’t.”

  “Oh, but he did,” Silas says with a chuckle.

  I whirl on him, narrowing my eyes at the bastard. “What are you getting out of this? You love torturing me, and you know what magic I have now. You realize you’ll be cutting short your access to that by having him work for you.”

  “But I have an insurance policy, don’t I?” Silas asks. “You’d never try to skip town on me, use your magic to disappear now, would you? Not when your father’s in my custody.”

  “So that’s what this is all about? You think I’m going to break my contract?”

  “No,” Silas croons. “I know you’re not going to. Before, you might have tried. You might have gotten your father out
and escaped with him. But now, you’ll have to come here to get him. And we know what will happen when you do.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that he’s a hostage.”

  “Oh, no,” Silas says with a smile of pure triumph. “I’m not saying that at all, Jade.”

  I’ve never hated someone so much in my entire life. It’s all I can do not to punch his lights out right here and now. Cleo buzzes in my pocket, urging me to use her, but I know I can’t. Not if I want to live to see another day.

  “I’m not going to escape,” I grind out through clenched teeth. “I’m bound to that contract every bit as much as my mother was.”

  “And you won’t try to get out of it now,” Silas says, glancing up at Rocco with a nervous yet gleeful twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Your little boyfriends won’t come around bullying me anymore, either. Now will they, Jade?”

  I want to slap his face, to bash my name off his moist lips, to claw the greedy scheming look from his eyes. I want to laugh in his face and tell him my boyfriends are three times his size and ten times the man he’ll ever be. But I hold myself back, knowing that the punishment will fall on my father’s back if I let loose my fury on him. He’s threatening me, and there’s nothing I can do but agree to it if I want my father to be safe and unharmed.

  “No one will bother you,” I mutter, hating myself as I force the words out.

  “Good,” Silas purrs. “And when your schooling is done, you’ll be strong and bursting with magic that no man can resist. For just a taste of it, everyone in the world will do your bidding, which will be my bidding, since I own you. You’ll be the greatest weapon the world has ever known, Jade. And you’ll be all mine.”

  His eyes gleam with pure greed and malice, as if he can hardly contain himself at the thought. The little man is sick with power, drunk with anticipation. He’s practically drooling at the prospect of so much power in his gropy little hands. And the worst part of it is, I’m doomed to be a tool in his corrupt quest for more. Hell, I’ll be the crown jewel in his arsenal.

  Chapter Seven

  “Jade,” Ryker barks. “Pick up the pace. You have your weapon, so quit fucking around. Either take my class seriously or leave.”

  “Fine,” I say, stuffing my spork back into my belt. “I’ll leave. I don’t need this shit. I already passed swordsmanship.”

  I turn away, and the next second, I feel a blow in the center of my back, and a foot-long sword blade protrudes from my chest. I scream and fall to my knees.

  I realize too late that there’s not enough pain. In one swift motion, I’m flipped onto my back, hitting the floor with a clatter of elbows and tailbone and the back of my skull. I stare up at Ryker in shock. He’s holding his sword, which is not dripping with my blood, and staring down at me with his lips pressed into a hard line. It takes me a full three seconds to realize I’m not in any pain. It wasn’t real. He cast an illusion spell.

  “You bastard,” I yell, jumping to my feet. “You scared the fuck out of me.”

  “Don’t turn your back on an enemy with a sword,” he says coolly.

  “You got one thing right,” I growl. “You are my enemy.”

  “Good,” he says. “Then fight like it.”

  “I passed your class,” I say. “I don’t need your sadistic teaching methods anymore.”

  “You passed Intro to Swordsmanship,” he says. “You’ll be able to take down an unarmed man, maybe a demonling, and someone with less skill than you. Is that good enough for you?”

  I shake my hair back and plant my hands on my hips. “What if it is?”

  “Well, it’s not fucking good enough for me,” Ryker says. “Now get out your weapon and fight like you’re worthy of it.”

  “I’ll never be good enough for you,” I say, my voice suddenly choked.

  “What are you going to do about that?” Ryker asks. “Crying won’t change that. Only practice will change it.”

  But I’m not sure I’m talking about swordplay anymore. I stand there breathing hard and staring at him, trying to get a hold on myself. I know there’s nothing between us, and there never was. Nothing but my magic. Still, his continuing to see Bella feels like a betrayal, and every time I have to come to this class and see her fawning over him like he’s a sultan, I want to puke, or punch him, or punch her. It hurts, even though I have no right to feel that way, no claim on him.

  I mean, yeah, he kissed me a few times, and when my magic came out, he sank his fingers into me and…

  “What are you doing?” he asks, his nostrils flaring as he stares at me suspiciously.

  Shit. Thinking about our encounter has magic radiating from me.

  “Nothing,” I say quickly. I can’t tell him what’s really going on. That I don’t want to get better at magic, that I don’t want to practice it and be good at it. Not when I know that it’s just going to be used for evil when I fall back into Silas’s hands. If I stay terrible, he won’t be able to control me because I won’t even be able to control myself—or my magic, at least. If he throws a party for the Society of Supernaturals and sets me to seduce one guy he wants something from, and instead I cause a giant orgy, he’ll be humiliated.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures.

  “In my office,” Ryker says through clenched teeth. “Now.”

  I gulp and stare at him for a second before turning and stomping past the shelves where we stash our stuff while we practice and into the small office off the side of the training studio. Ryker strides in after me and pulls the door closed behind him.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he growls. “When your magic starts flowing, you’re supposed to put it in your weapon.”

  “I know,” I say. “Sorry. I was just thinking about…” I break off, my face warming. I’m not about to tell him what I was thinking about.

  I see the moment Ryker switches over, the moment my magic wins. It’s terrifying, and strangely, horribly addicting. He steps toward me as if in a trance. I remember the look on Thorn’s face when I summoned him to come and dance with me once, not realizing it was my magic affecting him. Now I know, and I know I should stop it somehow, but before I do, Ryker takes one step forward, his long legs closing the distance between us in one stride. He slides a hand behind my neck and cradles the back of my head, pulling my mouth up to meet his in one swift, sure motion.

  His mouth crashes against mine, and like every time we’ve kissed, it’s primal and passionate. I react instinctively, my hand closing around his tie and yanking him closer while the other clamps around the back of his neck. My body writhes against his like a live wire, electrified by magic. Heat and wetness bloom between my thighs, and I moan as his mouth demands my surrender, his tongue almost violent as it thrusts between my lips to claim mine.

  I give in without thought. The swell of pleasure inside me is addictive and dizzying. I arch against him, parting my knees as his body pins mine to the door, his hips rocking against mine. He’s already hard, the ridge of his erection biting into me through too many layers of clothes. I want them gone, want only him, his bare cock plunging into me the way his tongue his doing my mouth.

  I rake my nails down his back, grabbing his ass and pulling him harder against me as I spread my knees for him. He groans into my mouth, sliding his hands down my body and grabbing my hips. He lifts my feet off the floor, and I wrap my legs around him as he cups my ass, squeezing and kneading my flesh as his cock throbs against my soaked panties. He slides his hands lower, pulling aside my panties and sinking a long, strong finger deep inside me. My pussy clenches around his finger, and he moans into my mouth.

  He pumps his finger into me over and over, circling it forward against the wall of my pussy to force a second finger into the straining tightness of my virginity.

  “God, I would rip you wide open,” he growls, tearing his lips from mine.

  I can’t respond except to rock against his hand as my walls clench tighter and pleasure wracks my body, making me writhe helpl
essly in his skillful fingers. I’m breathing so hard I think I’ll faint, and when he strokes my aching clit, black spots bloom over my vision as the orgasm grips me harder and harder, going on and on. My toes curl and my muscles spasm, my head falling back against the door with a thud. I gasp out my pleasure, wordless except for his name tearing from my lips over and over.

  Only when I feel him starting to push his pants down do I come back to myself enough to push at his chest. “No,” I manage. My head is spinning, and my knees are like rubber, and Ryker’s fingers are still inside me, but I know this isn’t how I want my first time to be.

  “No,” I say again, pushing harder against his chest.

  Ryker’s eyes are glazed with lust, and he looks at me with complete bewilderment. “No?”

  “Ryker, we’re… We’re in your office. We can’t do it here. There’s a whole class of students outside this door.”

  Ryker stares at me another moment, then pushes off the door, away from me, and turns away. I straighten my skirt as he grabs a handful of tissues from a box and wipes his fingers. “Jesus Christ, Jade,” he mutters. “You’re going to get yourself into something you can’t get out of if you keep doing this.”

  “Doing what?” I ask. “It seems to me there were two of us doing it.”

  “Only one of us was stopping it,” he mutters, tossing the tissues in the trash.

  “You want to just throw me up against the door and fuck me like one of your fangirls?” I ask. “Sorry that I want my first time to be a little more special than that.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I wouldn’t fuck you anyway. I’m too big for a virgin.”

  I let out a huff and cross my arms over my chest. “Didn’t seem to bother you a minute ago.”

  “You need to get your magic under control. You have Cleo. There’s no excuse anymore.”

  My jaw drops. “You’re going to blame all this on magic? That was more than magic, and you know.”

  He glares at me. “At least Bella had the decency not to say no after enchanting me with your fucking magic.”