Ignite (Solar Academy Book 1)

by Raven Steele

  Hudson studied them. “They’re ancient magical symbols. I don’t recognize all of them, but this one,” he tapped on the black image of a circle with a dot at its center, “means power.” His fingers moved higher. “And this one is the symbol of the Red Tree Witches.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know much about them, but they were a group of powerful witches centuries ago. I don’t think there are any more of their kind left.”

  I reached up to touch an image of what looked like a small sword. As soon as I made contact, a jolt of electricity shocked though my body. My hand was ripped from Hudson’s as I flew backward, plunging us into darkness. My back slammed into the sharp cave wall. I cried out and slumped to the rock floor, gasping in pain. It felt similar to what I’d felt when the vampire had thrown me into the tree, but the pain was so much more intense.

  “Rose!” Hudson’s voice called.

  I attempted to answer him but electricity—no, magic of some kind, coursed through my veins, burning them as it went. My teeth ground together until I thought my jaw would snap. My back arched upward, and my toes curled inside my shoes painfully. Why wasn’t I healing?

  “Make a sound so I can find you!” Hudson said again. The panic in his voice was unmistakable.

  Because I couldn’t speak through the pain wracking my body, I used all my strength to scrape my feet across the floor.

  “I hear you. I’m coming. Just hold on.”

  I forced my mouth open and sucked in a full breath. Every muscle in my body was contracting, responding to the magic that had escaped the tree the moment I’d touched it. I scraped my shoes again. My back still arched upward, my stomach facing the ceiling, like I was being possessed by something. Something dark and evil.

  “Almost to you.”

  He found my leg first. At the contact, some of the pain lifted, but my spine remained tight and unnaturally contorted. He hand slid upward, past my pelvis and then my stomach. He stopped at my face and cupped it gently with both of his hands. “Tell me how to help you?”

  Keep touching me, I wanted to say, but I still couldn’t talk.

  “I can go get help,” he said, but at this I really began to panic. The thought of being in this position in the dark and near that evil tree alone for even a second terrified me. That’s what the tree was. Evil. And what I’d felt had been its poisonous kiss.

  I forced a grunt past my lips, a pathetic, desperate sound.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to help you.” He touched me gently, his fingers sliding over me as if searching for a wound he could fix. The more he touched, the more my muscles began to relax, and my body slowly eased back to the floor. He seemed to realize how the contact was forcing the magic from my body. Taking hold of my hand, he began to rub up and down my arm until I could suck in a full breath. Pain ebbed and flowed throughout my body, but it slowly faded. In its absence came an uncontrollable shivering.

  “Am I making you cold now?” He lifted his hands from me, his voice alarmed.

  “No,” I said through chattering teeth. The first word I’d spoken since getting shocked with magic. I reached out my shaking hand and found his in the darkness. I clung to it tightly. I wasn’t cold. The sensation was something else far more powerful. It felt like something had doused my inner flames with acid, and my body didn’t know how to respond without them, almost as if I was in shock.

  Hudson pulled me onto his lap and held me tightly. His body radiated what I could only describe as cold heat, the exact kind my body craved. Ever so slowly, it brought my fire back to life, his touch like a cool breath of oxygen reviving my dying embers. Within a few minutes, my body was once again pain free and air flowed freely in and out of my lungs.

  Even though I felt better, I didn’t move off Hudson’s lap. He continued to stroke my back with one hand and hold me firmly in the other.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked in the complete darkness. His breath feathered against my cheek.

  I nodded.

  “You scared me.”

  “I scared myself,” I whispered. “What was I hit with?”

  “Some kind of powerful rune.” He shifted me on his lap so he could retrieve his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ve never seen it before.”

  He turned on the light and set the phone on the cave floor. A steady stream broke through the darkness. He stared down at me and lightly touched my cheek. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I am now, thanks to you.” I wanted to add, there’s something about your touch. It does things to me … but I kept my mouth shut. The timing didn’t seem right for that conversation.

  “Can you stand?” he asked.

  “I think so.” I shimmied off his lap, and with his help, came to my feet. I swayed slightly, but managed to keep my legs beneath me.

  After picking up his cell phone and shining it back towards the tree, he pressed his hand to the small of my back and guided me towards it.

  My stomach began to ache again. “There’s something about this tree I don’t like.”

  “Maybe because it tried to kill you?”

  I chuckled uncomfortably. It had felt like the tree’s magic wanted me dead, but why? “Even before I touched it, I felt sick. I feel that same thing again. Do you?”

  He hesitated and averted his gaze. “Not really.” He shined his light on the rune I touched. “This was the one, right? The one that hurt you?”

  I nodded and stopped moving forward. I didn’t want to get any closer. “Do you know what it means?”

  “No, but it looks familiar.” He stopped touching me long enough to snap a picture of it. He took a few more pictures of the other runes, then said, “You ready to go back?”

  I glanced around the darkened room, afraid we might be missing something. “I guess so.”

  On our way back through the cave, we used the lights from our cell phones, despite both our phones having low batteries. I felt too exhausted to create more fire.

  Once we reached the outside ledge high above the canopy of trees, we followed the narrow path leading away from the cave. It was much easier to navigate than the ladder. I couldn’t help but wonder who had been on the same trail only hours earlier. Was it other students? Teachers? Someone from the Foundation? So many questions suffocating my brain. By the time we reached the school, I had a splitting headache, one my fire felt inclined to let me have. Maybe it was weak, too.

  The movie had ended and students and teachers had long since gone inside the school. Even the lawn had already been cleared of all trash. It’s like the night hadn’t even happened. I might’ve convinced myself it had all been a bad dream, except for the fact that Hudson was still gripping my hand tightly as if I might slip away.

  He stopped at a side entrance into the school and furrowed his brow. “How did you find the cave so easily?”

  “I felt drawn to it somehow. That probably sounds stupid, but it’s like I knew exactly where it was.”

  “Like someone was calling you to it?”

  I nodded. “What do you think that means?”

  “It sounds like magic. Someone wanted you to see that place, and I bet they also wanted you to touch that rune.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  A shadow darkened his face, and his jaw muscle bulged. “I’ll do some research on those runes. In the meantime, be on guard.”

  I noticed he didn’t answer my question. “I’ll be careful, but Hudson?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You shouldn’t get caught up in this, especially with who your father is. I know this thing with my mother is a long shot. Let me worry about it.”

  His shoulders dropped, and he stepped in front of me. The inch of air between us crackled with energy, like an approaching storm that made my heart thunder in my chest.

  Hudson’s eyes darted to my lips, and he licked his own. “Since meeting you, for the first time in my life, I’ve felt alive.”

  “I don’t understand.” The wings o
f dormant butterflies gave flight in my lower abdomen. I could barely stand the intensity of his cool, blue gaze penetrating mine.

  He pressed my hand to his chest. “This is what death feels like. Cold. Unforgiving. Bitter. This has been my existence since the day I was born. No one wanted to touch me or even be near me.” The knot in his throat bobbed up and down. “I am the walking dead, a person to be avoided, to be feared. And then I saw you, lighting up the room with your fire. I think it was the first time my heart warmed enough to truly beat. And it’s been beating ever since as loud as a drum.”

  He lowered his forehead to mine; we shared the same air. “It’s a song I don’t ever want to end, so if that means I have to make sure you stay safe, I’m going to do it at all costs.”

  I inhaled a hitched breath. It was the nicest thing I’d ever heard, but at the same time, the words felt wrong. I opened my mouth to say as much, but he stopped me.

  “I know that’s not fair to you, and you probably think I’m using you for everything I just said, but you can’t tell me that the ice running through my veins isn’t the best thing you’ve ever felt, too.”

  To prove his point, he traced his thumb across my lips, painting a brush of frosty coolness across the sensitive flesh. My tongue snaked out to catch more of his polar touch into my mouth, but he lowered his hand and smiled at me knowingly.

  “See?” His expression turned sad. “How do I know you’re not using me to cool off?” He didn’t wait for me to answer, which was just as well because I didn’t have one. “We’re in the same boat, both not knowing if whatever this is between us is real.”

  An ache grew in my chest at his words, and I lowered my head.

  He took hold of my chin and lifted it back to him. “But I want it to be real, desperately.”

  “Me too,” I whispered.

  “Then we’ll take it slow. And I’m going to continue to help you, despite the risks, starting with figuring out why that rune hurt you.”

  I wanted to say something brilliant and really sexy. Then the door flew open, startling us both.

  A very angry Ms. Swanson stared down at us.

  Chapter 20

  Ms. Swanson, Linda, folded her arms, her mouth twisting into a scowl. “Would one of you like to explain to me what you’re doing out past curfew?”

  “It’s my fault,” I blurted.

  “No, it was —” Hudson began but I elbowed him sharply. If he was going to protect me, then I was going to do the same for him, starting with making sure he didn’t get into trouble because of something I did.

  “I got lost after the movie.”

  She lifted a single eyebrow at me. I internally did the same to myself. I had no idea where I was going with this.

  “You see,” I began, “I got in a fight with Ireland. As you know, she can be very argumentative. Anyway, I stormed off into the forest and got lost, seeing how I’m new to the area.”

  I flashed my eyes to Hudson who was watching me with great earnest. I swore his lips were quivering, like he was trying not to laugh.

  I swallowed to buy me time while I thought about what I was going to say next. “I kept walking until I came across this old well. There were a bunch of signatures on it. I figured something like that was probably well known so I texted Hudson—he had given me his number earlier in case I needed help studying—and asked if he would come to the well with the names on it and guide me back to the school.”

  I looked up at Ms. Swanson with innocent eyes. “I’m so glad he came because I was really scared and cold too.”

  She blinked slowly. “You were cold.”

  “Very.”

  She leaned towards me and narrowed her eyes. “You forget I was your mother’s best friend. She was never cold, and I’m fairly certain you aren’t either.”

  My lips parted. Crap. “I didn’t mean physically cold, I meant mentally cold. You know, from being lost and alone.”

  Hudson cleared his throat and looked away.

  “Mentally cold,” Ms. Swanson said. “That’s a new one.” She turned her attention to Hudson. “I expect you’ll return to the boys’ dormitory at once, Mr. Cain.”

  “Yes, Ms. Swanson.” He shot me a final look before he hurried towards the entrance to his wing of the building.

  “I’m really sorry I was out late,” I said quickly before she could lecture me. “It won’t happen again.”

  Her gaze lingered on Hudson until he was out of view before she swiveled back to me. “It better not. It’s not safe for you out here.”

  The tone of her voice held a threatening note, making pin pricks explode on my skin. “What do you mean?”

  She ushered me inside the building and continued down the hall. Several built in night lights lit up the lower part of the hallway. “Because of your mother. There are people here who would love nothing more than to hurt the daughter of the great Aurora.”

  “But what did I do?”

  She stopped walking and looked at me. “It’s not what you did, but what you can do.”

  “But I’m not like my mother. At all. I would never hurt other people.” My temperature began to rise. I hated that people kept thinking that about me.

  “No, no,” she said quickly. “That’s not why.”

  “Then what?”

  She straightened and glanced around as if someone might be listening in. The air thickened and grew hot. She returned her eyes to mine, her expression serious. “Just trust me. Don’t go anywhere alone.”

  “Can you please tell me why? I need answers.”

  “I will. Soon, I promise. Go to bed. It’s late.”

  I hated walking away from her, not when I felt answers were so close.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. My eyes remained open, staring at the wooden rafters high in my ceiling while thoughts twisted in and out of my mind. I needed to talk to my father, and I didn’t want to wait until Sunday to do it. Screw that rule. And screw the rule that prevented our cell phones from working outside of the school. Shady as hell, if you ask me.

  So when my clock flipped to four a.m., I was out of my bed and once again sneaking though the academy. I didn’t dare use the phones in the common room, where someone might hear me, but that meant I had to sneak into one of the teacher’s offices. A lock picker, I was not.

  It took me a few minutes to make my way down to the teacher’s hall, especially in the dark. It was a long, wide hallway that connected the boys’ wing to the girls’. I didn’t dare use my cell phone or turn on any lights. That left me only slivers of moonlight sneaking in through the windows to guide me. I admit I ran into a few plants and chairs on my way.

  Quietly, yet quickly, I began to check each of the doors. Of course, teachers had been thorough and locked each one. Careless teachers were a rare commodity these days.

  Settling on a room away from one of the hall windows, I knelt by the door knob and inspected it. Not like I knew what I was looking at. I was hardly a locksmith, but I did know my fire and it burned Hades hot.

  I placed my hand on the metal knob and concentrated hard. Had this been only a day ago I wouldn’t have dared try to focus my flames this way, but since the caves last night, my fire felt more accessible.

  Closing my eyes, I snatched onto a feathering flame, one hovering away from my inner inferno, and directed it into the lock. The metal grew warm, so hot, it would’ve burned anyone else’s hand as it melted the inner workings of the lock.

  I tried the knob again. This time it turned fully and opened. I slipped inside and silently closed it behind me.

  Because the office had no window, I turned the light on my cell phone. It was a small room, barely big enough to hold a desk, two chairs and a filing cabinet. A small plaque on the desk read. “Abby Skinner”. I hadn’t met her, but I believed she was an English teacher for freshmen.

  Slipping behind her desk, I picked up the phone’s receiver and stared at it. My father was in a different time zone, only an hour ahead, which meant it was nearly 5:30
in the morning for him. He’d be getting up for work. Being a cop and an avid rule follower, he’d probably be mad that I was calling on an undesignated phone day, but I decided I didn’t care. What was he going to do? Ground me?

  I dialed his number. It only rang one time before he answered, his voice scratchy with sleep.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Rose?” He paused. “Is everything okay?”

  “Sure. I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “But it’s not Sunday, and it’s way too early for you to be out of bed.”

  “I’m a rebel.”

  He sighed, a sound I’d heard many times before when he didn’t know what to do with me. “What’s going on?”

  “I had some questions.”

  “And they couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

  “Nope.”

  “Fine, but talk quick. I have to be in early to work.”

  I wanted to call bullshit, as he had claimed that same thing every morning I’d grown up with him, but it wouldn’t do any good. His photograph was in the dictionary listed under the word workaholic. “It’s about mom.”

  I could practically see him stopping from pulling on his socks. “What about her?”

  “Did you believe the charges against her?”

  “What’s this about, Rose?” His voice sharpened, no longer tired.

  “Just answer me.”

  “The evidence was overwhelming. She was guilty.”

  “But did you believe it?”

  “I know what I read and heard.”

  “Ugh. Deep down, do you believe she deliberately left us to go kill all those people? Was the woman you loved capable of such a horrific crime?”

  A long and painful pause had my pulse racing. Finally, he answered, his voice taking on a whole different tone I’d never heard before. “No. Your mother was the kindest person I’d ever met, and she loved us fiercely, you especially. Despite everything I read about the case, I could never fully believe it.”

  That was exactly what I wanted to hear, because it was how I’d always felt too, even if I had buried those instincts. It was my feelings against the world.