Grimmstead Academy: A Villainous Introduction

by Candace Wondrak

  Chapter Ten – Felice

  Since I couldn’t go pout in my room and watch TV, I went to the library. Yes, Grimmstead had its own library, chock full of books you’d never knew existed unless you were searching for them. It wasn’t a fun library, no fiction books, and definitely no romances. There was literally nothing to do; I would’ve taken any smutty book greedily at this point.

  I didn’t head to the tall shelves. Instead, I went towards the windows in the back. They overlooked the expansive backyard, and the forest that held Payne’s little cemetery. I crossed my arms as I leaned on the glass, not knowing why Lucien wouldn’t do something. Killing animals and bottling up their blood was not something a sane person did, and to excuse his behavior was wrong.

  If Lucien excused his behavior, then he was just as insane as Payne.

  My eyes closed, and I leaned my forehead on the glass, soaking in the sun’s rays. If I could just pretend everything else didn’t exist, like everything was normal, that would be great.

  The heat soaked through the windowpane, touching my skin and warming me up. Hotter and hotter my skin became until I started to sweat. That…that wasn’t right. The window was warm, but not that warm. Why was I…

  All thoughts vanished the moment I opened my eyes.

  No longer did I stand, leaning on the tall window in the library of Grimmstead. I now stood in a familiar office, a place I’d been to so many times before. Lucien’s office, only one thing was different, and that was the growing fire ebbing from his desk, the flames growing so tall and wide the bookcases on both walls caught fire, too.

  What? But how? I didn’t…

  Everything around me burned, the smell of ashes and cinders rank in my nose. What was worse? It wasn’t a bad smell. Something about its thick taste was addicting, and I breathed in deeply in spite of myself, despite the fact that I shouldn’t be here.

  I’d just been in the library moments ago, and now this? I was…confused.

  When the smell of burning paper filled my lungs, I gazed at the desk, at its charred wood and the smoldering fire atop. I wanted to touch it, to feel its heated flames lick the skin off my bones. There truly was nothing more beautiful, more destructive, than fire.

  But then I blinked, and suddenly I was back in the library, leaning against the window. My heart beat a mile a minute, my flesh spiked in heat that…had come from my own mind? If I was confused before, I was ten times more so now.

  It had felt so real, almost like a memory even though that had never happened. I’d never set fire to Lucien’s office.

  A throbbing ache began to pound in my head, and the world swayed around me. I pushed off from the window, practically tripping myself on my own feet as I tried to walk out of the library. It hurt to keep my eyes open, hurt to close them. No matter what I did, my head pounded like my brain wanted to explode right out of my skull.

  Bang, bang.

  I made it to the hallway, having to stop for a moment and hug myself on the door frame. The hall’s dim lighting helped my strained eyes a bit, but the world still swayed around me, and the moment I released my hold on the wooden door frame, I could not keep my balance. I tumbled to the floor, landing hard on my hands and knees.

  My hair fell into my face, and I struggled to get myself up, still feeling off-balance, but burnt shoes stopped me.

  Yes.

  Shoes.

  Shoes less than a foot in front of me. The sneakers were black and charred, their laces still burning with dim orange flames as if still on fire. Thank God, the shoes weren’t attached to anybody. If someone had been wearing them, I would’ve thrown a fit. A huge fit. A breakdown fit. A fit worthy of the dark, gloomy halls in this place.

  My breath caught in my throat as I stared at the shoes, still on my hands and knees on the ground. The more I looked at them, the more I thought I recognized them. I’d seen those shoes before…on so many occasions. I knew those shoes, because I knew the person who usually wore them.

  But, no. No, I hadn’t seen these shoes in so long, I almost forgot what they looked like.

  I moved a trembling hand to the left sneaker, wondering if I was going crazy here. If this place was rubbing off on me or something. To my sheer horror, my fingers touched the tip of the shoe, feeling it, soaking in its heat. It really was here.

  How?

  “Felice?” A worried voice broke into my thoughts, snapping me back to reality. I couldn’t tell whose voice it was, but I could imagine how I looked: hunched over, alone, touching shoes that shouldn’t even be here.

  A crazy person. I looked like a crazy person.

  I was a crazy person.

  When firm, warm hands grabbed me, I blinked, no longer seeing the burning shoes in front of me. I managed to glance up, down the long, winding hall, not seeing a single thing. Did I make it all up? Was it in my head?

  The warm hands helped me to stand, and I was guided back into the library, into one of the round, cushioned seats that sat in the center of the room. The world no longer spun around me, my dizziness gone, and I finally focused on the eyes of the one who’d found me.

  Koda.

  He knelt before me, his hands resting on the chair’s arms beside me. The closest one to my age, he also looked the kindest. The one, out of this whole crowd, who seemed the most normal. Normalcy was something I wanted to cling to right now. His green eyes were a shade lighter than jade, as clear as emeralds and just as beautiful. The longer black hair on the top of his head was style in a fauxhawk, and it took everything in me to remain in my seat and not lean forward and run my fingers through it.

  I bet that hair was soft.

  His handsome features were caught in a slight frown as he gazed up at me, and I was momentarily reminded of that day in Lucien’s office, when I’d nearly passed out in front of him. The look Koda wore right now was the same look Lucien had worn, only younger, but it was just as intense, just as worried.

  Some of these guys looked at me like I was their whole world.

  “Are you okay?” Koda whispered, his gentle voice soft, falling onto my ears like velvet. “What happened?”

  Oh, a lot had happened so far today, and apparently the day wasn’t over yet. I blinked, running a hand through my hair as I tried to think of how to respond to that. What could I say that wouldn’t make him think I was losing my marbles?

  I settled for saying, “I don’t know. I just…” I bit my bottom lip, not knowing what to say. It wasn’t like I could unload all of my thoughts onto Koda. He was the best of the bunch, but that didn’t mean I could use him as my therapist.

  Not that I had a need for a therapist, but…

  “I think this place is making me see things,” I whispered, meeting his bright green eyes. He knelt in front of me, his face two feet from mine, intent on every word I said.

  Koda said nothing for a while, but his eyes did fall to my chin. Or…was he staring at my mouth? I couldn’t be sure. This place not only made me see things, but it made my inhibitions feel…well, less inhibited. Less bashful and coy.

  He was a slim one, under his clothes, but I bet he had a bit of muscle on him…

  “This place makes everyone see things,” Koda finally answered, bringing me out of my train of inappropriate thoughts. “As long as you don’t give into what you see, you’ll be okay.” He sounded confident, the very opposite of how I felt.

  Still, he said that, and yet I was curious, so I leaned forward, closer to him. So close I could feel his warm breath blooming across my face with each exhale. “What does it make you see?” A whispered question, a question whose answer would not be so simple, I somehow knew.

  Koda gave me a smile, but the smile faded within moments. “That’s a complicated question.”

  “Tell me.” I’d beg him if I had to.

  A minute passed between us, the silence almost overbearing, but Koda soon said, “I see everything I could do.”

  I had no idea what he meant, but I wanted to. I needed to understand what he was tal
king about, what this place was. If I was going mad here, I couldn’t be the only one falling down the rabbit hole.

  “Lately all I’ve been seeing is you,” Koda whispered, shocking me with his truth, how unapologetically he’d said it.

  My heart thudded loudly in my chest. “Me?”

  Koda turned his head to the side, slowly pushing himself to his feet, straightening out his spine as he gave me his back, as if he couldn’t look at me right now. Strange, considering what he’d said. “You don’t want to know the things I’ve seen, Felice.”

  From my position in the chair, I watched his shoulders rise and fall evenly. His white shirt was tucked into his pants, but as I sat there, I could’ve sworn I watched that fabric grow tauter than it was mere moments ago, as if he was growing muscles.

  It had to be his posture. A man couldn’t grow muscles like that.

  That was just ridiculous.

  He took a step away from me, moving towards the windows. I noticed his fists were clenched at his sides, and his neck was bent a bit, as if he was listening to someone talk. I was slow to get to my feet, starting to follow him, to ask if he was okay—my world had returned to normal, but now he seemed to be having trouble.

  Me. He’d been seeing me. I still didn’t know how that made me feel. Conflicted? Excited? Terrified? Toss all three into a blender and the result would be me.

  “Koda,” I whispered his name, a strange, fluttery feeling in my gut.

  His back tensed visibly, and the fists clenched at his sides began to tremble. His neck was so bent, his chin probably touched his chest, though I couldn’t see it, because I stood ten feet back. Something about the way he stood made me hesitate. Something gave me pause.

  Something wasn’t right here.

  Koda then whispered a warning I should’ve heeded, “You should go.” But hindsight was twenty-twenty, and if there was one thing I wasn’t good at, it was running when I should’ve. Now being one of those moments.

  I kept stepping closer to him like some idiot who couldn’t see the train coming at them full-speed down the tracks, oblivious to the danger I was in in that very moment. “Koda—” No sooner did the word leave my mouth when he whirled around, grabbed me by the neck, and had me pinned against the glass, squished between the warm glass and his body like the meat in a sandwich.

  A very tight, very uncomfortable sandwich that made my heart skip a beat.

  The hand curling around my neck held on tight, but not too tight. Tight enough to hurt, to bruise, but not to choke. Koda breathed in loud, ragged breaths, his chest rumbling against mine. I went to grip the wrist of the hand on my throat, tried to pry him off, but I couldn’t. The way those green eyes looked at me…it was a far cry from the way they looked at me moments ago. Almost like, well, almost as if I stared into the eyes of another person entirely.

  “Koda,” I managed to say his name again, but the look he gave me stopped me from saying anything else. Plus, the hand around my throat tightened just a bit.

  A slow, wickedly sinful smile grew on his face, and he leaned in, his nose brushing against mine as he whispered, venom laced within the word, “Wrong.”

  Wrong? How the heck could I be wrong? I didn’t—

  The hand on my neck forced me to turn my head, allowing him to lean to my ear, breathing me in as his hips increased their pressure on mine. If he kept it up, the glass might just shatter behind me.

  “I warned him,” he murmured, his other hand flat on the glass beside me. Even if I could escape the hand on my throat, he had me pinned good. Every ounce of lean muscle on his frame I could feel through his clothes. “I told him to tell you, but he didn’t want to.” His cheek brushed against mine, the warmth of his skin making my eyelids flutter.

  I should’ve fought harder, should’ve tried more to push him and get him off me, but I couldn’t. I felt oddly weak in his grasp, and feeling his body against mine gave me all sorts of ideas, none of which I should have.

  Koda wasn’t the sanest one around either, as it turned out.

  Swallowing, which was almost impossible to do with the hand holding onto my neck, I managed to croak out, “What…what are you talking about?”

  “He thought he was strong enough to keep holding me back,” he whispered, smirking against my cheek, the hand on the glass slowly moving to touch my hip, fingers digging into my flesh as they curled around the fabric of the dress. “He was wrong. I only let him think he was, let us go on for so long. Being good is such a bore, don’t you think, Felice?”

  The way he was talking…how he referenced him as in Koda, it was like this man was someone else. Someone who wasn’t Koda. Was I dealing with someone who had multiple personalities? I never knew something like that was real—I thought most cases were eventually found out to be fabricated.

  This? This was almost enough to make me believe. The switch between how warm and caring he’d been minutes ago to now was indescribable. The way he stood, how his voice sounded, it was all different.

  “Being bad is so much more fun,” he murmured, brushing his lips against my cheekbone. He dug his hips into mine, practically dry humping me against the glass. Even with the hand around my neck, I started to feel a blossoming warmth between my thighs.

  I should be frightened by this display of aggression, not turned on. My body needed to jump off the crazy train and get back on the one labeled reality and logic.

  The hand on my neck forced me to turn my head back to his, our noses grazing as he moved his forehead against mine. He was too close to me; all I could focus on was his eyes. Their green hue seemed darker, blacker, no longer the lively and bright color they were before. They were the eyes of a monster, and I stood in his grasp, practically ready to whip my legs open for him.

  Okay, that was an exaggeration.

  Probably.

  “Do you want to be bad with me?” he asked, his lips so close to mine, his breath igniting a fire in my belly. The hand I’d held onto his wrist with had long since fallen, and I now stood helpless in his grasp.

  Helpless and oh so needy. Hungry for whatever he would give me.

  I shouldn’t answer. I shouldn’t give into whatever game he was playing, but I couldn’t deny how my body ached for something more, something that’d been sorely lacking since coming here. Being surrounded by all of these good-looking men, dangerous or not as they were, had only led me to think a sea of inappropriate things.

  But I never thought I was a good girl. Really, when it all came down to it, I was just a bad girl masquerading as an innocent one. If these guys knew what I did, I was certain I’d fit right in, and there was no way Lucien would ever want me in an authority position with these guys.

  Although, right now, my authority was being totally ignored.

  Did I want to be bad with him? The answer should’ve been a quick, immediate no. Simple in its denial, and yet…yet that was not the case. Yet my body arched against his, rubbing against the growing erection I felt between his legs. I egged on the beast.

  “Yes,” I breathed out my answer, feeling the hand on my throat tighten just a bit more. I was not the one in control here; he was, and he wanted to make sure I knew it. Oh, I did. I knew it and, what’s worse, I liked it.

  “Koda’s telling me to stop, trying to take back control,” he murmured, lips teasing mine with each word. “But I don’t think I want to go back just yet. I want to get to know you better, Felice, and tasting you is the best way, don’t you think?”

  Tasting me. The words were anything but innocent, and I shivered against him, unable to stop myself.

  There was no way I’d be able to say another word without sounding like a whiny ho that just wanted the D, so I merely nodded, my lips parting in anticipation.

  The smirk that was on his face did not vanish the moment he finally crashed those lips to mine; I could feel the smirk as he kissed me, as his mouth melded to mine and made me forget everything outside of this room, anything other than us in this moment.

  This
was wrong. I shouldn’t be kissing him, shouldn’t let him have a hand around my neck and pin me to the window. I was supposed to be an authority figure, and I knew things after this would never be the same. But did that stop me? Did I break off the kiss because of that reason? No. I didn’t. I couldn’t, because I wanted more. I wanted so much more.

  The hand around my throat loosened enough for me to breathe better, although it didn’t leave entirely. My hands found some spare fabric in his shirt, curling in it, holding him to me, as if he was about to push off. He wasn’t. I was still just as pinned to the window as I was before, only now I was drowning myself in him.

  Stupid. This was stupid. This was completely asinine, totally illogical, and not to mention improper. I should…

  He tore himself off me, stumbling back. My neck felt the loss of his heat, of his rough hand, and my whole body ached for him to come back. Koda grabbed the sides of his head, shaking it once, twice, his frame trembling as he wrestled with himself.

  I stood against the window, my lips parted, my lungs struggling to catch a full breath as I watched him. Stepping into the one-man fray and helping him was probably what I should do, but I was too shocked at what I was witnessing to do much of anything but stare.

  His shoulders tensed, the veins in his neck bulging. I was sure beneath that white button-up shirt, I’d see every muscle in his lean body doing the same. A minute passed, a crazy, hectic, anxiety-ridden minute, but soon after Koda stopped shaking and dropped his hands from his head. His back straightened, and he looked at me, blinking slowly as he took in my position against the glass, how my lips were still parted and a bit sore from the rough kiss.

  “I’m sorry,” Koda said, taking a step away from me, nearly tripping himself on the leg of the chair behind him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

  I didn’t even get a chance to tell him it was fine—in hindsight, it wasn’t fine, but the expression of absolute worry on his face when he looked at me made my heart hurt for him. This wasn’t the Koda he’d been moments ago. This was the regular Koda. The kind and gentle Koda. The Koda who wouldn’t hesitate to give you the shirt on his back if you needed it; you didn’t even have to ask.