Rule 9 Academy Series Boxset: Books 3-5 Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy (Rule 9 Academy Box Sets (3 Book Series) 2)

by Elizabeth Rain

  Dael’s expression never changed. He straightened and gave her a deep bow, jumping down from their rock. He never gave me a second look as he dived into the pool and was gone.

  I desperately wanted to leave myself, but the devastated look on Mirra’s face held me fast.

  Reluctantly, I pulled myself from the water, shivering in the cool cave air, and took a seat beside her.

  “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have seen that. I shouldn’t have done it,” she whispered.

  I leaned forward on my knees, staring pensively at the fading ripples in the pool—the perfect rings. I finally turned and looked at her bent head.

  “Why are you sorry, Mirra? For what? Being…a normal Mer-woman? I don’t love Dael. And I’m definitely sure he isn’t into me. It’s you he wants. Yet here we are. How did that happen?”

  She shrugged. “It was always supposed to be this way. I’ve known since I was old enough to follow him around and get under his feet that he couldn’t be for me.”

  I growled. “Yeah, well, bully for you. I did not know, and you know what? It wouldn’t have mattered if I did. I wasn’t raised the same as you…or Dael. Unless you’re a vampire, arranged marriages aren’t a thing where I come from.”

  She peeked at me, her eyes wet and curious. “What’s a vampire?”

  I chuckled. “No one you want to meet in the dark, trust me.”

  “Sirris? I know none of this has been easy for you. But you should know, I’m really glad you’re my sister, even if you marry that idiot, Dael.”

  I giggled for no good reason at all. I reached out and snagged her in close and we clung to each other then. “I love you, Mirra, no matter what. You’re right. With all the wrong about this mess…you are my exactly right.”

  #

  I ducked in low, bending sideways at the last minute to avoid Mirra’s tail fin as it slashed past my shoulder by inches. I curled my own around, pushing Mirra into a somersault end over end backwards. She came to a bubbling halt several feet away and whirled with a grin. Long, dark hair fanned about her face in a halo. “Not bad, Onlander.”

  I shrugged, admitting, “Not all land moves are useless in the water.”

  We’d returned from the caverns of Addius earlier in the afternoon and decided we both needed the burn of screaming muscles to make us forget what we didn’t want to remember.

  So when Mirra’s face suddenly darkened and a scowl knit her forehead, I didn’t have to ask who was coming up from behind me. Dael moved into view, purposely making eye contact with me and refusing to look at Mirra. “Have either of you seen Shade?”

  I shook my head, waving a hand over the field to the far end. “No, Liia has been running things. I assumed Shade was busy and had put her in charge.”

  Dael frowned, concern marring his features. “I just came from his room. It looks like a hurricane tore through it. Someone has ransacked it. I haven’t seen Shade since yesterday. Nobody has.”

  Mirra looked his way, worry overcoming her earlier anger. “Do you think they took him? What purpose would that serve?”

  “Maybe to weaken the guard and leave them without a powerful leader?”

  “Aren’t his quarters in the castle? How on earth did they take him with no one being aware of it?” I asked.

  Dael heaved a frustrated sigh. “Exactly. That’s what I want to know.”

  “Does the Council know he’s missing?”

  Dael shook his head. “I was on my way there and thought I’d check in with you first.”

  “We’ll come with you, then,” I offered. Mirra’s lips pursed, and she shimmied her tail backwards briskly, her hands up, six fingers making shooing motions.

  “You two go on ahead. They don’t need me there.”

  A protest was already bubbling to my lips when she turned with a flick of her tail and sped off, a blur of slim grace through the water.

  Dael cut me off when I moved to follow. He looked darkly in her direction. “Don’t bother. When Mirra sets her mind to something, there is no changing it.”

  I closed my mouth as we turned towards Tarus. I figured he had more firsthand experience with that than I did.

  Tarus Council was in the middle of lunch when we knocked. Dael gave them the news, and I watched the wave of unease spread through the group of elders. His loss was a blow to the Tarian army. Without his leadership to rally them, it was one more advantage for the Rebellion.

  Leta spoke, weighing her words. “You’ve searched everywhere? Any clues as to who went through his quarters?”

  “No, none. It’s like he just vanished.”

  “We don’t have a lot of troops to spare. In the meantime, let Liia know she’s in charge. Tell her to keep his disappearance under wraps for the time being. Send out a small detail to search for him. Task them to find him and deliver a message that we need to meet. That should throw them off from sounding the alarm that he may have been taken prisoner right out from beneath the Royal noses.”

  Dael nodded and turned to leave. I hesitated, holding Leta’s eye. “I’ll be leaving for the surface first thing in the morning.”

  Her eyes grew frosty. “Are you sure that’s wise? If Shade is missing, it may not be safe and I can’t spare anyone to escort you just now. Perhaps you should wait until after the coronation and wedding.”

  I never blinked. “That would be easier for you, I’m sure, but I prefer to break their faith in me up front, instead.”

  I didn’t wait for a response, turning to catch up with Dael, whose long strides weren’t waiting for me. He had no desire to stay in their company any more than I did.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Dawn was just breaking over the horizon, fingers of pink and orange smoothing over the glass-like surface of Deep Lake. I eased my sneakers on, shivering in the chilly morning air despite the jacket I’d stored with my clothes behind some weeds on shore. It should have been a lovely view. But I found nothing beautiful about the body of water that promised to keep me prisoner to the whims of Tarus and its Council for the rest of my life. I yanked my pack up and stood. I gave the large body of water one last dark look and turned without regret to head up and through the woods and down the path that led me away from so many terrible memories, and too few good. I would have given anything if my arrival back home heralded a social call. But it did not. This was where I would leave my heart, and nothing good could come of it.

  I was faster in the water, but I’d developed worthy land muscles as well, and I covered the miles between Deep Lake and our cabin in the woods in under a couple of hours. I stood on the front porch, staring at the door, my hand raised to knock. With a sigh of disgust, I lowered my fist. What was I doing? This was still my home, and I didn’t need to announce my arrival. I stared at the heavy wooden panel and grimaced. And who had painted the thing a dark red? It was an awful choice; I needed nothing to remind me of all the blood I’d seen spilled—or helped shed.

  I entered silently, looking for signs of where my father might be. My bet was the basement lab, but one glance changed my mind. The lights were off. No thin glimmer crept from beneath the closed door. Either he was sleeping, or he was in the bathroom. I moved into the kitchen and checked the coffee maker. There was only about three cups’ worth of water. I grunted and added more, tossing in another scoop of ground coffee for good measure and hitting the button. My father was already planning my absence. I scowled as I leaned back against the counter to wait for the coffeemaker to belch its last.

  When the door to the bathroom opened and my father came out in sweats and an old college t-shirt, his hair rumpled from sleep, I couldn’t prevent a small whimper from bubbling free. “Daddy?”

  He looked up and froze, staring at me strangely for a moment, just long enough for me to wonder if he even cared that I was finally there, standing in the kitchen. But I missed him enough for both of us. I launched myself forward and into his arms.

  The strength there was reassuring as he gathered me up, mumbling words I couldn’t m
ake out into my hair. He shoved me back, gripping my shoulders. Any thoughts I had that he didn’t care fled. His eyes were wet with grief as he stared at me, clearing his throat with a loud grumble.

  “I thought I was imagining you. It’s been so long, too long. Where have you been?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him. But there was too much and the last thing I wanted to do just then was talk about my messed up life in Tarus. That could wait. “Busy,” was all I said, shrugging.

  He didn’t look near satisfied, but he let it go. Instead, we poured our coffees and, by tacit agreement, grabbed a couple of lap blankets from the back of the living room loveseat. We arranged ourselves in the rockers on the front porch with our coffees and covered our legs to mute the crisp bite in the early morning air. It was my favorite spot. Our cabin was deep in the woods, about a mile from the Tuttle residence, but Daddy had chosen the spot well for the view. It butted up to a large ridge overlooking a valley that dipped and spread out beyond the cabin for close to a mile. It allowed us to watch the morning sunrise and to follow the curve of its setting every evening when we chose. Dad and I were both big on watching nature do her thing. In that we were a lot alike.

  I gave a contented sigh. Maybe now I could relax and get back some of the identity I’d lost in Tarus.

  “So, how long this time, Sirris? I don’t delude myself that you are here to stay. You don’t have that look about you.”

  Or maybe not.

  “I…” I began, my throat closing up before I could really start. I coughed and took a big swallow of my cooling coffee.

  How was I going to tell him? It was going to break his heart. It was already destroying mine. But we’d never been good at keeping secrets even when they were the hurting kind.

  “Two days. I have to go back. I don’t have a choice.”

  His brows rose, hurt moving through his eyes. He looked away, nodding. He tried to hide it, but it wasn’t the news he wanted to hear. Did he sense it? That he was losing me? I don’t want to go, Daddy.

  “How long will you be gone?” he managed.

  When I didn’t answer, his head swiveled and his eyes were piercing as they pinned me to my seat.

  “You aren’t coming back. Why?” he finished, choking out the question.

  “They need a queen. I have to save Tarus from the Rebellion, or it’s going to fall.”

  “So stay a while. It doesn’t mean you have to be their leader. They survived for the last 20 years just fine without you or your mother,” he added bitterly, his mouth twisting.

  “They killed Pinna, my little sister. I’m afraid for Mirra and the others if the Rebellion takes over. No one will win then. They are not what they seem. The Draco Rebellion isn’t the answer. It’s just another set of problems…bigger ones.”

  “It’s not your fight, Sirris. Your place is here. They haven’t loved you your whole life.” His voice broke apart on the last, shivering into nothing.

  I struggled to breathe. “This will always be my first home, and I love you so much more than you’ll ever know. But I made a promise…”

  “What about what I need? What about Thomas? This will kill him. I don’t know what he’ll do when he finds out. He’s hanging on by a thread as it is. This change has been brutal for him.”

  I looked away, out over the valley. Pink mists were rising, swirling in a cloud of dewy fog and rolling over the rim towards our feet.

  “I have no choice,” I finished. I had run out of things to say.

  “You always have a choice, but it’s up to you to make the right one.”

  “People are dying, Daddy. Good people. People I care about. What if I don’t go back? Do you think the Rebellion will just say “good riddance” and leave it at that? They won’t. They’ll be cleaning up loose ropes, and I’ll be one of them.”

  “Threads,” he murmured absently.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. We’ve been in tough spots before, Sirris. That’s what we’re here for, to work together and keep each other safe. If they come for you, we’ll be ready for them.”

  I turned to stare at my father, tall and thin and so dear, rocking beside me. Looking closer, I realized there was more silver there than I remembered. Daddy was human, and he aged quicker than a Magical or even an Other. I couldn’t bear the thought that I would still be a young woman when he grew old and passed into the hereafter.

  “I can’t take that chance. I lost a sister. I don’t think I could live with myself if something happened to you or Thomas, or any of my friends. I have to do this, Daddy. I don’t want to, but I don’t see any other way around it.”

  “You’re letting your fear control you.”

  “I am. This time I think I’m right to be afraid.”

  “I’m scared, too, Sirris. Not of dying, we all do that. Losing you will be worse. I just wish you could see that.”

  I could think of nothing to say after that. What more was there? We lapsed into silence, finishing lukewarm coffee. The morning rolled in, and the fog burnt away and still we sat. I took no comfort from the view.

  #

  “We’re making a trip to the springs. All of us. I figure it will be a fitting last day to go where we all are most comfortable,” Daddy said later that afternoon.

  “I can’t tell Thomas there, you know. No telling what he’ll do if I just drop it on him,” I protested.

  Dad gave me a cool glance. “No, that’s right. Save that for later. Let him have his girl back for a couple of hours before you rip her away from him. Have you told him about Dael? Your betrothed?”

  I winced. “I can’t see him that way. I remember him from when we were kids, playing together and running up the castle stairs.”

  He gave me a disgusted look, shoving snacks and water bottles in a pack. “And that’s not your first clue how messed up this crazy scheme is? You’re going to marry a boy you don’t have feelings for because the Council says you have to? Idiotic is what that is.”

  I turned away to grab my jacket and my staff, leaning up against the ladder to my bedroom loft.

  “I’m going to tell him on the way back, alone.”

  “He might hurt you…he isn’t himself when the change comes on him.”

  I laughed uncomfortably. “Thomas won’t hurt me, and besides, it will be broad daylight and the full moon is past.”

  He shot me an incredulous look, zipping the bag closed and tossing it to me. I caught it neatly and swung it onto my back in one smooth move. “All this time and you don’t know a lot about them, do you? Werewolves, once they’ve had their first cycle, can change whenever enough emotion drives them. What’s going to hit him when you rip his heart out will be more than enough to send him right over the edge.”

  I didn’t answer, opening the door and moving onto the porch. Daddy was right behind me. Without a word, we locked the door and headed out, crossing the miniscule yard and hitting the lesser path that led up the mountain towards Bear River Falls and the hot springs that lay nestled behind them.

  The knot in my stomach was nerves I knew, and I hoped I managed not to be sick before I got there. I looked forward to telling Thomas least of all. Despite my words to the contrary, my wolf was unpredictable. I knew the boy like the back of my hand, and I’d started to understand the man. The wolf was a different beast, and I didn’t know him at all.

  #

  Maybe if I’d been paying better attention, if my mind hadn’t been miles from where we were, I’d have realized we were being followed sooner. As it was, neither of us knew a thing until it was too late. We had just left the relative cover of the trees and were angling up along the upper river path, less than a half-mile from the falls, when they stepped out of the woods.

  Before I could fully grip my staff or call up any meager magic to add to its power, they were on us. There were six of them, and not all of them were Seascrill. Two of them were heavier, muscled, and broader. One had skin of deepest ebony and the other was a light brown. They were all Sylvan
and masked. They grabbed hold of my father, who screamed and struggled. He needn’t have bothered. Unlike Seascrill, who weren’t as able out of the water, Sylvans were fully functional on land, at least for a while before the need for water pulled them back. The other four surrounded me, clutching my arms to my side and wresting my staff away before I could do more than squeak my outrage. My heart thundered in my chest. They weren’t here to talk.

  “Let my father go. He has nothing to do with any of this. I’ll come with you,” I tried.

  The tallest Sylvan gave a dark chuckle. “That’s funny. Do you think we plan on bringing you back with us? Or that we’re going to let an Onlander loose to go back and inform the rest that there are Mer-men on the mountain hunting them? We have our orders.”

  He glanced over at where my father still struggled. He didn’t look afraid. He was pissed, a fist snapping free and landing a right hook to the chin of one of his captors before they contained him again.

  I wanted to be proud of his courage. Instead, I felt like crying. None of it mattered.

  I watched as they moved closer to the edge of the cliff over the river. It was a long way down for a mermaid, but for a human it was certain death. I renewed my struggles, my fingers tingling as I desperately tried to still my terror long enough to call the magic I’d been practicing with Mirra. I needed to call a cerulean orb. My staff was gone, but the orbs weren’t dependent on my staff as an extension of their magic. I was too terrified to call them. I renewed my efforts, feeling the slide of power along my arms and down my wrists. Too slow!

  “Your father fell and had an accident. You dived in after him, tried to save him, and sustained a fatal blow to the head. That’s the story that will circulate around this mountain—and in Deep Lake. The evidence will back it up,” the Sylvan Daddy had punched, a bruise rising along his jaw, informed us with relish.

  I barely registered the goon at my side as he raised a fist sized rock, while the other three held me fast. My eyes were on my father, his eyes desperate on mine as they pulled him back towards the falls. His panic was all for me, with none for himself.