by JJ King
Summer Semester
Omega Wolf Academy Book 1
JJ King
Contents
Acknowledgments
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
ALSO WRITTEN BY JJ KING
About the Author
Copyright
The characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are completely fiction and are in no way meant to represent real people or places.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this eBook with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright © 2020 JJ King
All rights reserved.
Kindle Edition
ISBN - 978-1-989794-02-9
For my rabid readers. May the sexy men bring you joy.
Acknowledgments
Omega Wolf Academy is my first foray into the world of reverse harem, a world I never thought I’d venture into at all.
It was the amazing work of some of my favorite authors that convinced me to give it a try, namely the unstoppable Eva Chase, the fantastic Elena Lawson, and the prolific Steffanie Holmes. If you haven’t read their work yet, go… now! It’s worth it. Believe me.
Chapter 1
Bright prismatic colors danced over my face, snatching me from a nightmare that covered my skin with slick sweat, and left my entire body trembling.
I ripped the sheets from my body, tucked back into the corner of my bed, into the shadows, and wrapped my arms around my knees, whispering the words that chased away my demons, if only for a short while.
“It’s not real. It’s just a nightmare. He’s dead.”
My racing pulse slowed, one agonizing beat at a time, as the mantra sunk into my sleep addled brain.
It wasn’t real. I wasn’t in the mountain anymore. Raphael was dead.
I blew out a deep breath and climbed to my feet, already feeling the dregs of my nightmare slip away like fog on a hot morning. I was in the mood for a shower, bacon, and waffles, in that order.
Sugar would chase the rest of the darkness away, I thought, tossing my damp pajamas into the hamper, and stepping into the shower.
This week would be better, I promised myself. This week I’d talk to people and engage. This week I’d let the past go and embrace my new adventure as a freshman at Omega Wolf Academy.
♀♀♀
I slipped into one of the only available seats left around the conference table that comprised my Philosophy 1000 class and pulled a notebook from my backpack, like a normal student.
I’d made it through the first week of classes at Omega Wolf Academy without being expelled or outed as a freak, which should have been comforting, but it just made my deep-seeded anxiety about this entire experiment ratchet up a notch. It was just a matter of time before I messed up and someone found out that I didn’t belong here.
“Did you do the reading for today?” the girl, whose name I thought might be Emily, whispered with a friendly smile.
I looked at her in surprise. We didn’t have assigned seating in any of my classes, and I hadn’t sat next to her during the first week of classes, so the easy tone she used caught me off guard. “Um… yeah. It was pretty good. Not as dry as the Immanuel Kant essay, thank the Old Ones.” I offered her a smile then ducked my head to open my book and retrieve a pen. To the class, I’m sure it looked as if I were just preparing for the professor’s arrival but in reality, I was close to hyperventilating as I replayed each word of my response over and over in my mind, looking for a misstep.
“Yeah,” she continued, apparently not noticing my mortification. “Kant almost made my eyes bleed. I mean, it was pretty interesting once you grasped what he was saying, but it was like he was writing it in a different language.” She lifted her hands, as if in defeat, and shook her head. “It was English, and I recognized the individual words, but it was like they made no sense in the order he put them in. Don’t you think?”
A laugh bubbled out of me, completely shocking my system. I’d had those exact same thoughts about the reading and no one to share them with. “That’s exactly what I thought,” I said, forcing myself to look her in the eye and smile, because that was the normal thing to do, or so I’d been told.
The professor entered the room just then, putting an end to our conversation, and sat at the head of the table, welcoming everyone with a wide grin. He was an older man, distinguished looking with salt-and-pepper hair and wire-rimmed glasses that did nothing to hide the keenly intelligent hazel eyes behind them. He embraced the whole professorial look, right down to the tweed jacket with elbow patches, but managed to make it look good. Of all my professors, he was my favorite. The fact that I might have a tiny crush on him, probably had nothing to do with that.
Today’s class discussion was based on Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, Beyond Good and Evil. The reading had been a small portion of it and had left me with only a glimpse into the man’s philosophy, but it had piqued my interest.
“Can anyone tell me what Nietzsche thought of the concept of evil?” Dr. Daniels asked, interlocking his fingers together and tapping them on his mouth. His gaze skimmed over most of my classmates and settled, disturbingly, on me. “Alexis,” he said with an encouraging wave of his hand. “What do you think?”
My mouth went dry and my body seemed to gain instant mass, as if I’d just swallowed a lead block. It sat in my stomach, accompanied only by the churning acid that rose into my throat, making it even harder to reply. I reached for my bottle of water, hands shaking while everyone watched me with expectant gazes, and took a long sip.
I knew too much time was passing, I could feel it thickening the air with tension, pushing me to the edge of my comfort zone, which wasn’t big to begin with. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. I could do this.
“Nietzsche believed that the concept of evil is a dangerous one,” I said slowly, measuring each word. “He saw the potential of evil as a scapegoat to those with weak wills.” I chewed on my lip for a moment, thinking it over, then leaned forward and continued, too caught up in my interest in the topic to focus on the butterflies trying to destroy me from the inside out. “If evil is real, then it can infect people, like a disease, so that their responses are out of their control. It removes responsibility from the evildoer.”
Dr. Daniels nodded emphatically. “Yes! That’s it. And what do you think of his philosophy?”
“I think,” I said, pressing a hand against my stomach to ground myself in the moment, “that evil does exist in this world but not in the way some people think. True evil is the choice we make to ignore the worth of life in exchange for our own greed or obsession.” What I wanted to say, but didn’t, was that I’d known true evil my entire life, looked into its eyes and seen the depths of darkness there. I sat back with a jerk and lowered my gaze, remembering the lessons I’d received at the end of a fist or belt from early on.
Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.
You’re nothing, don’t forget it.
Eyes do
wn, little girl, or you’ll go back in the dark.
Dr. Daniels moved onto the next person, asking questions, playing devil’s advocate at times just to rev up the conversation. I appreciated the reprieve and kept silent while I regrouped and shoved those dark whisperings that I was nothing, deep down in my gut where they belonged.
My psychiatrist, Dr. Bennett, said my coping mechanism of pushing the darkness down wouldn’t work forever. It was a stopgap, at best, and one day the memories would become too strong and push to the surface, demanding to be acknowledged. I understood what he meant and knew he was right, but I was doing my best. I’d been seeing him once a week since my sisters and I had been freed from the mountain. Most of us saw a psychiatrist. Rose and Liam insisted on it. As one of us, Rose understood the darkness all too well, and Liam, her mate, understood through the bond they shared.
I wondered about that bond sometimes. Out of all of us, Rose seemed to be moving forward the fastest. She was strong, of body, mind, and soul. She’d been the only one of us to ever escape and go for help, but it was more than that. She was stronger, with him, because of him, because of the bond.
She and I didn’t have a close relationship; not like I did with the girls who’d been in the mountain with me. Rose had been born and raised in the castle, kept apart from us. We hadn’t even known any other girls existed until Katherine had freed us. Some of those other girls didn’t exist anymore, not outside Rose’s memory, anyway. They’d been slaughtered to teach her a lesson or to send her a warning, both things Raphael had liked to do.
My limbs began to grow heavy, bogged down by the darkness that kept trying to spill out. I pushed harder, fighting back with every ounce of my strength, to deny Raphael even one more moment of my existence. I deserved to live, so I’d fight for that and me.
The hour passed by quickly and I was a little shocked when Dr. Daniels began gathering up his things.
“The next reading is already up on the class website if you didn’t get the chance to write that down.” His gaze travelled the room and stopped on me, their keen intelligence showing a flicker of worry.
I forced myself to smile and hoped it looked natural. I practiced every morning in the mirror, so I was fairly confident it did. He moved on, so it must’ve worked.
“I’m Emily, by the way. Love your hair,” my neighbor said with a cheery grin. She offered her hand and pumped enthusiastically when I hesitantly met her palm with mine.
“Thanks. I’m Alexis, but everyone calls me Lexi.” My stomach clenched. If I wanted to be called Lexi, why did I tell her my name is Alexis? I could have just said Lexi. Be normal, I demanded of myself.
Emily didn’t seem to notice, which settled the nerves in my stomach. “Cool,” she said, slinging her backpack over one shoulder. “See you next class.”
“Later,” I said quietly, not sure what to feel.
She’d been so friendly, part of me had thought that maybe she’d want to keep chatting or go for coffee. I liked coffee, especially with a lot of cream. I’d been afraid she’d ask but, now that she was walking away, I was disappointed that she hadn’t. She’d probably sensed my awkwardness during class and didn’t want to spend her time with a weirdo. I resisted the urge to touch my newly pink hair and wondered how I’d thought dying my hair pink of all colors had been a good way to fit in and feel normal.
I focused on my breathing and slipped my notebook into my backpack. My next class wasn’t for a few hours, so I had time to do one of the things Dr. Bennett encouraged when I was feeling this way. I wasn’t in the mood for yoga or meditation right now, so I’d go for a run, on two legs or four, and chase my demons away.
The hallway was filled with students and faculty, bustling along from one class to another. I got caught up in the stampede of them and wondered where the hell they’d come from. It was summer semester, the campus was supposed to be calmer, less populated than normal. The press of bodies around me felt like a vise, squeezing my chest, and the pressure reached into me, and ripped the darkness from their depths. But before I could do anything about it, I was being jostled and pushed into an open elevator.
My breath caught in my chest, adding to the pressure until it felt like my lungs wouldn’t fill. My heart thundered, reminding me I was still alive, even if I was in pain. I held onto that thought and the metal railing behind me and forced myself to expel the stagnant air in my lungs then inhale fresh. My mind went on lockdown, focusing on one thing only, survival.
Flashes of hands, grabbing me, throwing me into the darkness, slamming the door behind me and locking it tight so that nothing I did would budge it. My fingers curled as my mind replayed how I’d scraped my nails over the wood over and over until blood left useless trails that did nothing but mark my existence and prove that I’d been there.
The others in the elevator went on with their conversations or thoughts, never noticing me. I gripped the railing harder, wondering in a moment of stark clarity if my hands would leave indents in the metal. My awareness closed in around me like tunnel vision, until everyone in the small, cramped, metal deathtrap, faded away and it was just me. Tears stung my eyes and maybe escaped, I didn’t know, I couldn’t feel my face or legs.
The ding of the elevator stopping on the next floor broke through my invisible wall and slammed desperate hope into my chest. I raised my gaze and stared as the doors pulled apart, giving me a glimpse of freedom beyond. I wanted to go there, to push past the bodies in between, but it felt like a million miles and my hands wouldn’t let go of the railing.
I began to hyperventilate again as people swarmed off the elevator, making space I desperately wanted to move into but couldn’t. I watched as the doors began to close, trapping me inside, and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Hold the door,” a deep voice called out from beside me. Then hands, warm but firm, grasped mine and pried my fingers free of the metal. An arm moved behind my back, gently but assuredly moving me forward, towards the open space beyond.
My legs felt like water, unable to hold me up, and I stumbled as I stepped free of the elevator. That strong arm wrapped around my waist and the warm hand took my forearm, steering me away from the main hall into a small alcove decorated with pots of plants and tall trees, whose thick green leaves created a sanctuary of peace.
I sank onto a bench, grateful for its presence because I would have sunk to the floor if it hadn’t been there. The hand on my forearm disappeared and fear clutched in my stomach so strongly that my hand shot out blindly and grabbed before it could disappear.
My vision widened, taking in the space around me, and focused on my savior. He had dark eyes and rich skin and wore a look I couldn’t decipher. It loosened the tightness in my chest, though, and slowed my racing heart as I stared into those dark eyes and noticed the ring of brilliant gold that edged them.
His lips, wide and strikingly beautiful, opened as he murmured soothing words that meant nothing until I could breathe, until the darkness receded and it was just me and him and this little pocket of privacy in the midst of campus.
“Just breathe,” his deep voice rumbled from his chest. “There you go. You’re alright.” He smiled and my breath caught once more.
But this time it wasn’t from panic or fear or memories of the past that immobilized me. My skin went hot with awareness and an ache, so unfamiliar it startled me, burst to life in my core. I squeezed my thighs together, embarrassed that my sudden attraction would be evident in the shift of my scent.
I swallowed and found my voice. “Thank you,” I whispered, licking my dry lips with the tip of my tongue.
His gaze flicked to my mouth for an instant then back up and in his eyes, I saw a flash of need that stunned me.
“I’m Lexi,” I murmured, unable to think of anything else to say but desperately wanting to say something that would keep him by my side.
He smiled, soft and sweet, and slid his palm into mine. “I’m Lucian.” He started to say something else but his phone rang, pulling his attent
ion away momentarily. He glanced down at the screen and frowned. His hand pulled back, reluctantly, and felt his side leaving me feeling bereft.
“I’m sorry,” he said, meeting my gaze with an intensity that seared through me. I wanted to touch him, to soothe the lines of worry that had appeared on his forehead just like he’d chased away the darkness for me. “I have to go,” he murmured. His hand lifted as if to touch me and I leaned forward, eager for that contact. I almost cried out when he forcibly lowered it again.
“I’ll see you soon, Lexi.” He inhaled deeply. “I promise.”
And then he was gone, and the loss of him made my heart ache. I raised a hand to my forehead and touched the skin there to see if I had a fever. My skin was hot but not from illness. I stared out the window facing the courtyard below and choked back a derisive laugh.
Old Ones, I was fucking weird. Why couldn’t I just be normal?
Chapter 2
I ran because I couldn't stop. I ran because the demons chasing me were faster than my own thoughts and could only be stifled by the pounding of my feet on the earth that grounded me.
I didn’t always have the nightmares, not anymore, but tonight I’d known they’d come, and they had. In the dreams, Raphael didn’t have a face. He was just a mass of blackness, a black hole of seething rage that saw everything, knew everything, hated everything.
