by Raven Steele
Ignite
Solar Academy Book 1
Raven Steele
It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
~ Frederick Douglass
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Newsletter sign up
Books by Raven Steele:
About the Author
Prologue
The last school bell of the day rang, jumpstarting my heart to a thousand beats per minute. Maybe if I was quick I could avoid their relentless teasing. It wasn’t the good kind either, those playful jabs friends often flipped each other: “You’re such a nerd.” “Your mom called. She wants her pants back.” I could handle that kind of teasing. Hell, I’d welcome it just to know I had friends.
My hands trembled as I gathered my books and shoved them into my backpack. Even thinking about braving that crowded hallway with its vultures and vipers made my insides burn sickly hot, an energy I’d felt growing these last several months. Just about the same time my father enrolled me in this private high school.
It wouldn’t have been that bad, except everyone here had already heard of me, something my dad insisted couldn’t be. It was too far from the city. It was like he had never heard of social media, where everyone’s lives were filleted open to the public whether they liked it or not. Guts, brains, souls. Nothing was sacred anymore. And social media didn’t live by the rules of time like the rest of us. It didn’t forget or forgive the sins of the past. It didn’t even matter that they weren’t mine. No matter what I did, I would always be connected to the past, where fifty-two people had been burned alive.
Pressing my backpack to my chest, I waited until I was the last one out of my AP math class before darting into the buzzing swarm of legs, arms, and never-ending voices. Senior hall was more crowded than usual, the result of an upcoming three-day weekend. Many were rushing to join their parents on yachts already waiting for them off the coast of Rhode Island. Others had drivers waiting to take them to the local private airport where they would fly to join their parents in the city.
I had no one waiting for me. My father, the local sheriff, wouldn’t be back until late tonight.
Someone brushed my shoulder, too hard for me to think it was an accident. I ignored the contact and continued through the beehive. I had to get outside before I got stung. Another hundred steps and I’d be safely outside.
“I want to smell your flower, Rose,” a heady voice whispered in my ear. It was all too familiar and left my ear feeling sticky with moisture. The fire inside me grew hotter.
“Leave me alone, Seth.” I didn’t glance back at him. He’d take it as encouragement.
The swarm grew more crowded as we approached the exit. He pressed up against me, his pelvis against my ass.
I held very still and inhaled slow and even breaths. Hot pressure built around me. “Get away from me.”
“Ah, come on. I’m the only one showing you any interest. Aren’t you tired of being out in the cold?” When I didn’t answer, he added, “I don’t mind me a little sociopath. It turns me on.”
To prove his point, his hand slipped around my waist, and he lowered his mouth to my neck. His tongue licked my skin up to my ear. I tried to contain my scalding power, but his touch had been the match to ignite the flames brewing inside of me. It left my body and swelled in one direction. Behind me.
Seth screamed. Flames kissed his shirt, twisting and swirling around him like an angry demon escaped from hell. My mouth fell open, and I stuttered a breath.
Cries erupted all around us and the beehive pushed outward. Everyone clawing and fighting to get away from me. Seth patted at his shirt with his hands, terror twisting and rotting his face.
A teacher appeared smothering Seth with a jacket. Smoke billowed upward. Someone pulled a fire alarm. Its cry tore through my mind, vibrating my insides.
I clutched my bag tight, staring at Seth and the blisters already forming on his face.
“What happened?” the teacher yelled.
Seth lifted an angry, sharp-edged finger in my direction. “The bitch tried to burn me alive!”
“Just like her mother,” someone whispered from the crowd.
“She’s going to kill us all.”
“Fire witch.”
“Freak.”
Their words were arrows cutting through the air, stabbing me with their truth. I couldn’t go through this again.
I turned and sprinted for the front doors. No one tried to stop me. They backed away from me as if I was an uncontrollable firestorm.
Maybe I was.
Chapter 1
Cold seeped into my bones. My teeth chattered, but still I didn’t pull my jacket around me.
“It’s freezing,” my father said. His grip tightened on the steering wheel, and he glanced sideways at me. “Do we really need the windows down?”
I closed my eyes, as if the roaring wind might block out his words.
“Are you going to keep ignoring me?”
He sighed at my lack of response. I didn’t want to ignore him, really I didn’t, but I couldn’t believe he was taking me to Solar Academy, the one place he’d cursed for as long as I could remember.
“I don’t know what else to do, Rose. I’m the sheriff. Your mother nearly destroyed my career. It’s taken me years to recover my reputation. If people think I’m protecting you after everything that’s happened, it will ruin me.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” I mumbled.
I tried not to let his words open old wounds, ugly and swollen on my heart. My mother’s actions had nearly destroyed us. Not only had she killed people, but she’d been a leader for the Foundation, a group labeled as terrorists by governments around the world. Members of the Foundation believed people with special abilities should rule over humans by force if necessary.
This affiliation only made people hate our family more. My father had worked hard to bring some normalcy back into our life and yet, here I was, destroying it again.
“Solar Academy will be good. They promised they could help you control your … ability. It’s either this or the alternative, which I’m not prepared for. Are you?” He paused. “I already lied once to Enforcers. They won’t believe me again. You’re lucky they still think you’re only a pyromaniac.”
I smoothed my hair away from my face and held it in place at my neck. Long blond strands still found their way through my fingers and swirled in the wind. The Enforcers. I never wanted to meet them. They were agents who worked for the Institute of Supernatural Affairs. The ISA used the Enforcers to keep people like me in check. They were organized just after the solar flare over six decades ago when the strange event not only exposed older supernaturals, but also created new ones when it changed some people’s DNA, giving them ext
ra abilities. The ISA was quick to organize us and set strict rules if we chose to live in the human world. We were so few that it was easy to keep our existence secret, but if anyone broke the rules, the Enforcers used their government and media connections to quickly cover it up.
They’d done an excellent job with my mother.
I dug my nails into my palm and finally turned to him. “You’re taking me to the place that made mom what she was.”
He rubbed at tight muscles at the back of his neck, then dragged his calloused palm to his beard. “I used to think that too, but I think your mother would’ve still done what she did. She was a free spirit and had her own mind. It’s what I fell in love with, but she also believed in creating a different world. I don’t know when she started thinking supernaturals could rule over humans, but it might not have had anything to do with Solar Academy. At least they were able to help her control her abilities, and they’ll do the same for you. I think they’re the only ones who can help.”
That was the only point we agreed on. He’d taken me to special therapists across the country, the ones who knew about supernaturals. They had been hard to find, but since they were all a hundred percent human, none of them knew exactly how to help me. They could only speculate and theorize. They had never met a Fury, someone who lived with uncontrolled fire burning within them. I could always feel the heat. Burning me up. Threatening to escape. Sometimes it did.
We remained silent the rest of the way through the windy White Cloud Mountains of New Hampshire. Endless trees marched up steep mountainsides as we crossed ridge after ridge with zero cell coverage. I’d finished my book two hours ago and had nothing left to do but pick at the threads on my jeans until what had once been a small hole now revealed much of my knee.
“I’ll come visit when I can,” my father said when the trees began to thin. We were getting close.
“It’s a ten-hour drive. I doubt you’ll come often.”
“I’ll try. I promise.” He didn’t look at me.
We drove up a small rise. At the crest, the forest opened itself to us as if saying, “Welcome.” But bathed in shadows and silvery moonlight, the gesture felt more threatening, especially with the massive structure sitting at its heart.
Solar Academy looked like an ancient castle, with several towers and wall-mounted turrets projecting from its walls. It rose into the sky with sharp spikes at the very tops of the roofline as if it wanted to stab the moon and stars, plunging us into an eternal darkness.
Was I being dramatic? A little, but I didn’t care. I was pissed my dad was going to dump me here with only nine months left of my senior year.
Gateway to Hell. That’s what my dad had called it, but now he wanted me to call this place my home.
He drove down the long, tree-lined lane, the whites of his knuckles shining like arctic snow caps around the steering wheel. He didn’t want to take me here. He’d said as much over and over, but he was desperate. Desperate to cure his uncontrollable daughter.
I stared up at the mansion with its many windows and sharp architectural lines. My heart beat within my chest, an unsteady, fiery beat. I’d never fit in here. Not in the place where my mother’s name was used as a curse word. I’d automatically be an outcast, with no chance to be something else.
As if reading my mind, my father said, “The Headmistress said you would be treated with respect. They don’t tolerate anything else.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Have you met teenagers?”
He sighed and pulled into the circular driveway, stopping only when he reached a long line of stone steps leading to the entrance. He kept the car idling. “Someone will be waiting for you inside.”
“You’re not coming in with me?”
He stared beyond me, his eyes haunted. “I can’t go into that place.”
I followed his gaze to a stone bench resting on the lawn. He’d met my mother here when she was only my age. It was rare for a human to come to Solar Academy, but my father had been part of a temporary outreach program where the professors at Solar thought it would be a good idea to have humans interact with supernaturals. Local schools would come once a month for a themed dance. When he’d first laid eyes on Aurora, my mother, he’d said it was love at first sight. Her blond hair, fair skin, and ruby red lips had entranced him. His words, not mine.
My mother had been the dangerous kind of beautiful. I saw it every time I looked at a picture of her. She had this power in her eyes that swallowed you whole. Sucked you in until you couldn’t breathe. She had used that power a lot to get what she wanted. It made people both love and hate her.
Sometimes I wondered if my gaze held the same kind of strength. That’s why I always kept my eyes down. Best to go unnoticed. Maybe I was more like my father that way. It’s what made him a good detective. He had this way of blending into the shadows. It’s how he could detect people’s true motives, uncover their secrets, reveal their lies. So much could be learned by simply watching.
He rested his hand over mine, an uncharacteristic move. He avoided touching me whenever possible. Too many accidents. “Learn to control the fire inside you, Rose.”
I stared at the scar on the top of his hand. I’d given it to him when he’d startled me by waking me up when I was five years old. “I don’t know if I can.”
“You can. I know it. There have been lots of theories on how to do it, but I think it has to come from knowing who you truly are. Your mother never did, and it sewed seeds of confusion inside her mind.”
“I’m the daughter of a mass murderer.”
He squeezed my hand. “You’re so much more than that. More than your mother, more than me. You just have to figure out who you want to be and don’t waver. Just choose wisely.”
His gaze drifted back to the monstrosity of the school behind me. “I fear there may be people here who will try to mold you into what they want, but don’t listen to them. Only listen to the voice inside your mind and heart. You have great power that can either be wielded for evil or for good. I’ve taught you all that I can on how to be a good person. The rest is up to you.”
His words twisted inside my stomach, and I resisted the urge to double over in pain. Did he believe I could be evil? He must for him to say that. Maybe I could be.
“I’ll call you soon.”
I glanced over at him. He stared straight ahead, his jaw clenched. That was my cue. He wasn’t one for long goodbyes or strong emotions. That had been my mother’s role.
“Right. Got it.” I opened the door then grabbed my only suitcase from behind my seat.
Knowing he wouldn’t want me to make this harder than it was, I forced my legs up the stairs and towards inevitable torment. This school wouldn’t want me. They would make that perfectly clear. I was the daughter to one of the most powerful women to ever exist. A woman who chose to kill not only humans, but some of her own kind as well.
I reached the top of the stairs and hesitantly rested my hand on the cold steel knob. I’d been in this position before—going to a school where people would probably hate me—but this time was different. This time I was going into a place where they were just as powerful as me, but with abilities they could control.
These students wouldn’t just bully me. They’d try to kill me.
Chapter 2
I tentatively opened the heavy oak door. A wisp of warm air ruffled my hair, and I sucked in a breath. It smelled like popcorn and cotton candy, not scents I expected in this old, stuffy-looking place.
Pushing the door open wider, I stepped inside. A grand entryway spanned two floors with an incredible view of a sweeping staircase. Old paintings and gilded framed mirrors hung from the walls above antique-looking furniture pieces. My feet shuffled against dark cherry-stained floors until I nearly tripped on a long and wide Persian rug. I barely managed to catch myself before falling face first. I sighed a breath of relief and glanced up. A chandelier the size of my dad’s car hung over my head lit with a thousand candles. When I looked at them,
their flames grew bigger as if they could sense my own inner inferno. I quickly looked away, my gaze landing on a partially open doorway to my left. The word “office” was written in fancy calligraphy on a door window.
I gripped my suitcase tighter and dragged it towards the opening. A soft woman’s voice wafted outward. The gentle sound helped ease some of my worry.
I gently rapped my knuckles on the window and peered inside. “Hello?”
A woman with short blond hair framed around a petite face spoke into an old-fashioned telephone, the kind with a cord out its bottom. I hadn’t seen one of those in a long time. She looked up at me. Her eyes widened, and she nearly dropped the telephone.
Lowering her voice into the receiver, she whispered. “I have to go.”
She hung up and stood from behind the desk, straightening her short skirt as she went. She looked maybe forty years old with crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, but the clothes she wore, a tight top and even tighter skirt over ample curves, made her appear much younger.
“You must be Ro—” She coughed and spoke again, her voice returning to normal. “Rose. We were expecting you much later.”
“My dad broke the speed limit a few times.” I forced an awkward grin to try to break the tension, but she only frowned.
“Isn’t your father a sheriff?”
“Not a very good one.”
