Immortal Academy- The Complete Series

by S. L. Morgan

  “I can’t wait for the day when this is all behind us, and we can satisfy what fate has always intended.” I reached for his hand, knowing he had to leave and forgetting we needed to shut up about this in the hallway. “I hope we’re both right in suggesting we shouldn’t have gone through with it.”

  He pinched his lips together, almost looking like he’d thought of that himself. “We made the right choice.” He stepped closer, swallowing up the distance between us, and he kissed the inside of my hand that he held. I watched him inhale and close his eyes for a brief second before his stunning brown eyes met mine. “I love you, Jen Silvers. Sleep well.”

  Dom turned and strode quickly down the hall. I could tell he was massively struggling, and I worried if I didn’t get this cloaking thing down quick, it would only get worse. Dom needed to be sharp and his judgment unclouded by a leprechaun who’d made it her mission to haunt him.

  Dom was putting on a good front, but I could sense the man slowly breaking apart. He needed his mate. He needed the wolves to be as one again and to not feel whatever pain he was dealing with, trying to fight it off.

  This whole situation sucked.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “It’s been an entire damn month, Vannah!” I argued, completely frustrated.

  “You need to calm down.” She narrowed her eyes at me, “I’d haul Ethan down here if I could, but he’s already reaching his limit, watching you and Dom deal with that obnoxious, clingy leprechaun.”

  “I know, I get it. It’s just…” I let out a calming breath, trying to revert back to the mental state I’d meditated to get into before we started our magic training under the rainbow trees tonight. “I have got to figure this out. Dom’s getting distant and more detached from everyone by the minute.”

  “That’s why Lusa stepped in and is trying to run interference with that girl. We all see her having an effect on him.”

  “Well, thank God everyone thinks the only thing bothering him is psycho-fairy, but eventually, they’re all going to catch onto the fact that Dom, of all people, wouldn’t mentally collapse this easily over a clingy girl.”

  “Not everyone can tell,” Vannah reassured me. “The masters might catch onto that, but they’re busy trying to wrap up the end of the school year too. You’re right, though. We need to get this cloaking thing stretched beyond just you and me, and that requires you to be positive. You have to stop thinking about anything and everything else. It’s not helping you. It’s distracting you.”

  “Well, if I’m starting to feel a void, and I’m only longing to have an ounce of privacy with Dominic,” I glanced up to the trees, then back to Vannah, “then I can’t even fathom what he’s dealing with.”

  “Like I said, we’re all working together. Now, focus!”

  I focused and did everything I could to beg and plead with my powers to form a cloak, not for me, but for Dom and the wolves. My wolf seemed like she was stepping out of the game now too. Longing to be with Dom’s wolf was wearing her down.

  “I need my wolf to help me. She’s acting like she’s spaced out.”

  “Then we’re going to go deeper than the wolf,” Vannah said. “Get into your mind. You don’t need your wolf’s help with this. These are your fairy genetics, and you will start learning how the witch and fairy in you can work together.”

  “Time for the spell chants?”

  “The school will pick up on the spell chants if you learn to use your magic with them, even if you mentally use them. Now, I want you to imagine…” she said the last word slowly. “Imagine, Jenna,” she repeated, “that you’re calling on your magic with a chant. Your fairy genetics will pick up on that, and the witch genetics in you will complement it all. Now, go!”

  It was the final week of school. A successful quest for our finals was behind us, and still, I barely had a handle on this cloaking crap. Dom was putting up an impressive front, but I sensed he was losing his intense battle against his need to be with his mate. It was a matter of time before he snapped.

  I was so caught up with Dom that I hardly recalled how Bradley and I wound up friends again. It was either from me ignoring his advances or him feeling sorry for me, having to deal with a psycho leprechaun who rattled off all damn day like anyone enjoyed her company. Either way, the bear shifter and I were back on decent terms, and thank God, not in Dom and Melanie’s situation.

  Melanie had gotten worse around Dom because her fight to get through to him was returning nothing. He did what we all did—ignored her. Unfortunately, that was risky in its own way. That is precisely how a leprechaun could get the jump on you, and you never would’ve seen it coming. We were in the middle of our morning drills when that thought hit me, and it was almost like I’d manifested this girl to show up and approach Dom as he instructed us in advanced fighting skill. I was in the middle of a sparring routine when Dom called out to us.

  “Everyone, in formation,” he said, arms crossed, as he turned to face Melanie’s bright, glittery smile when we filed into rows, facing our master.

  She glared at me where I stood, front and center, since that’s where my last drill had me lining up at the command. Her eyes drifted back to where Dominic stood, silently and intimidatingly, facing her.

  “You didn’t have to stop their class for me,” she said in the most mature tone I’d heard her use since dealing with this nightmare.

  “You out here to join my unit?”

  She braced her heart, cheeks flushing under Dom’s stance. “Heavens, no. I’m a fairy, not a shifter.”

  “Then, please tell me why I’m talking to a fairy when I should be working with my group of shifters.”

  “I…I…” she stammered. “Listen, Dom, I—”

  “I’m known as Master Dominic in front of my unit. I assume that even a fairy could respect that,” he cut her off, and I could tell Dom was more pissed than I’d seen him since realizing he wasn’t shaking this leprechaun off so easily.

  “Master Dominic, then. Sorry about that.” She laughed nervously out toward the silent rows of shifters who studied her with annoyance for interrupting.

  “Why are you here?” he asked tersely. “You’ve successfully interrupted my training, and I think you owe all of us an explanation for it.”

  I saw her eyes spark with a flame of anger before she answered him.

  “My dad said that you are no longer allowed to let these shifters shift outside their one hour a day,” she said sternly.

  “Is that so? Last I recall, I determine when my shifters shift and when they don’t. The president of the school might need to check the rules of his own academy again.”

  “If my dad says it needs to stop, then it needs to stop. Besides,” she looked at me as if she knew I was the reason Dom was allowing us to shift in our morning classes, “I don’t see any of the other masters allowing it.”

  Dom’s lips were pressed in a fine line as I watched the veins in his stiff, biceps pop. I could tell he was doing everything in his power not to knock the sparkles out of this fairy’s brains.

  “Scott, Fin, Ian!” Dom called out to the masters who were working with the other units in our area, never once taking his eyes off the leprechaun in front of him.

  “Master Dominic?” Ian was the closest and first to approach. “Is there a problem?”

  “It would appear so. It seems like the school president doesn’t want me allowing my unit to shift in our morning drills.” He glanced over at Finley and Scott, jogging over with confused looks on their faces.

  “Why are you down here with the shifters?” Finley asked Melanie with a look of irritation on her face. Finley was as ballsy as I was with this chick and held nothing back when the girl did something entirely out of line to disturb Dominic.

  “She’s down here to let us know that the masters no longer have authority over their units.”

  “Give me a break,” Scott sighed as he rolled his eyes at the leprechaun. “Of course, we have control over our units. This is how we ma
ster them,” he said, glancing over to me and giving me a look of what the hell is this chick up to now?

  “Nah,” Dominic said, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes, but we could all tell he was effing pissed beyond belief. “Apparently, I’m not allowed—by order of the school’s president—to let my unit shift as I have been doing the past few months.”

  “Really?” Finley glared at Melanie. “Did the school board and Elite Council change the rules, and we weren’t made aware?”

  “I’m pretty sure Samson would have informed us before a random fairy got the chance,” Ian added.

  “Yeah, me too,” Dom answered. “Tell your dad I appreciate his suggestion, but I think I’ll keep my routine as is.”

  “My dad makes the final call on this and everything else,” she literally stomped in protest.

  Oh, damn, this shit is going down! No way in hell Dom is backing down from a fight in this mood.

  “Your dad can take it up with the masters. He can also go through the proper chain of command…the one put in place by Immortal Academy decades before he came around. If he has a problem with the way I train my unit, then he should have brought that to Professor Samson’s attention and not sent his fairy daughter down to inform me in the middle of class,” Dom said in a low voice, and I could sense his wolf was present in his tone alone.

  “Fine!” She lifted her chin. “You won’t be running your unit much longer anyway.”

  “I know that. We cut out on our vacation in a week,” Dom answered, all masters flanking his sides.

  “No, you won’t be going on vacation. We’re both instructed to work on all of the material for my project and introduce it to the Elite Council this summer.”

  I watched Dom’s fingers as they dug into where he had his arms folded. It was easy to see he was fighting everything not to come undone in front of everyone. I would have punched her out by now, but he was in supreme, livid-pissed control.

  “Did you hear me?” she insisted.

  “He’s a shifter. He could hear you from across the school if he wanted,” Finley snapped. “Get out of here. We’ll request a meeting with Samson and your daddy once we’re done drilling our units.”

  “In fact,” Scott clapped Dom on his rigid shoulder, “we’re all going to let our units shift with yours, Master Dominic. Let’s let them challenge each other their last week of school, eh?”

  Dom nodded, and I could tell while Finley was rising to fight the leprechaun’s idiocy, Scott was working to keep Dom chill.

  “Then, that’s that,” Dom said.

  “And about this summer? You and I—”

  “You…” Dom interrupted with a growl. His arms dropped to his side, and it was a split-second move when I saw him nearly reach out to the chick before stopping himself. “You and I will be very, very far from each other this summer. Is that clear?”

  “I’m not one of your students. I don’t appreciate you—”

  “No, you’re not,” Dom said. “My students aren’t rude. They have respect for their peers, and they don’t interrupt others’ learning time. You’ve crossed way too many lines just by coming down here and interrupting my class, not to mention all of the other lines you crossed once you started talking. All this coming from a freshman who shouldn’t be at IA in the first place? I don’t think so. Why don’t you and I go and take this issue to the school president ourselves, along with my professor, and we can work out all the details of the offenses you have perpetrated against my students and me?”

  “It doesn’t have to come down to this, Dom.”

  “Like I said, I’m Master Dominic to you from here on out, is that clear, fairy?” Dom said, his tone so dangerous it sent a chill up my spine. “Let’s go,” he held an arm out. “I’m sure Samson and the president will love us rudely interrupting their staff meeting this morning because a freshman can’t follow a simple rule at this school.” He looked back at us, “You’re free to shift and follow Master Scott’s unit.”

  I hoped to God that doing this would let her dad see that while she might’ve been smart, she was too immature to be around college students, and then maybe he would kick her back to the school she came from. Perhaps he’d already seen her obsessive crush on Dominic and would get Dom’s back on the whole thing.

  That night, I sat with Vannah under the rainbow trees, not having seen Dom for the rest of the day.

  “Do it again,” Vannah said with a smile. “Ethan, watch. She’s got this.”

  I smiled at the comfort of having Ethan with us, and I was more determined to get this done because E said Dominic had been studying in his room all day and wanted to be left alone. Up until Ethan joined us, I had assumed the worse had happened in Dom’s impromptu meeting with the president, but now I knew that even if it may have gone badly, at least Dom was still here and Ethan was chill.

  “Jenna?” Ethan cut through my thoughts. “Do it again, but don’t let it glow. Think about Dominic needing you to make this work.”

  “Got it,” I answered.

  I closed my eyes and imagined myself in Dominic’s room, showing him the progress I’d made by creating this cloaking bubble and watching me disappear when I walked into his room to where he slept across from Ethan’s area of their shared dorm.

  “She did it. I can’t see you here or even the bushes all around you!” Ethan said, then he started laughing, “but I still see the bubble.”

  I reopened my eyes. “Agh, dammit!” I said, my bubble popping, literally. “Well, it works, and by the end of this stupid last week of school, I’ll have it down for good.”

  “Yes.” Ethan nodded. “Dominic needs you with him.”

  “So, you’ll be cool with a new roommate?”

  Ethan grinned. “Yes. This is healthy for Dominic. You need to work faster.”

  “I’m working as fast as I can. Is he okay? I missed him today.”

  “He has to study, Jenna. You have to study too,” he informed me. “There are a lot of finals starting tomorrow. You need to pass them.”

  “Yes, she does,” Vannah grinned. “Alright, let’s head up. I’m sure Dom wants to see his girl before bed.”

  “Yes.” Ethan nodded, “I will tell him how well you’re doing.”

  “I need him to focus on school, E, or I’d tell him. I can’t give him false hope in letting him know what I’m trying to do until I get it down for good.”

  “Do not give him false hope. Never do that.”

  “Yes.” I linked my arm through my owl shifter’s, “Let’s go say goodnight to Dom.”

  “Then you have to study.”

  Too bad studying consumed all of us so much that I was worried about whether or not I was going to get this cloaking thing down, but as the last day of school rolled around, I knew I’d gotten it down.

  I couldn’t wait to finish my finals, and then school was going to be out of my way. We’d get to sleep in if we wanted to and do fun courses and activities until virtual summer vacation started in three days, but I’d planned to spend the next day and the entire night alone with Dominic, cloaked under my bubble. Unfortunately, the psycho fairy ended up roping Dom into writing the material for her dumbass project for the Elite Council, so we were working out the lies for the group to tell the inquiring leprechaun when she came sniffing around.

  Luckily, Vannah was already prepared to cut her off if she asked where Dom and I were, telling her we’d taken Ethan on a trial quest to see if his owl could monitor master quests like the hawks do. That would hopefully shut her up until it was vacation time.

  Now, I needed to hope that Dom had finished jamming through writing the material for her project, and his good news would be that he was finally done spending every waking moment with a deranged leprechaun for the past week.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “How do you think you did?” Bradley asked as we walked toward the exit of our final class in House Fae.

  “My mind was all over the place, but I think I nailed the essay section.”
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br />   “That was the worst part for me.” Bradley grinned, then stopped at the top of the steps of the building. “Hey, I want to say I’m sorry for giving you a hard time and not wanting to let go of us.”

  I smiled at the handsome bear shifter. “My mind has been so busy with that Melanie chick, I hardly noticed if you tried to keep it going. So, with that, I’m sorry if I seemed bitchy while we went through that breakup or whatever.” I rubbed my forehead, looking out and not seeing Dominic waiting anywhere. “God, she’s a nutcase.”

  Bradley chuckled. “She’s pretty cool, but I can see where she would bug you and especially Dominic.”

  “You think?”

  Bradley patted my shoulder. “Well, this is it, last day. My virtual vacation starts tomorrow. Have a good summer, Jenna.”

  “You too. Where are you headed?”

  “A state called Alaska.” He grinned. “A group of shifters thought it would be cool to get a cabin in the middle of nowhere and shift whenever we wanted. There’s a lot of wildlife there, so I don’t think we’ll come into human problems.”

  “That sounds awesome. Have a good one, and I’m glad that in the end, we’re sort of friends?” I questioned, not really knowing how he felt about it all.

  “Always.” He answered and then hopped down the steps to a group of shifters. He wasn’t losing much after we broke up; in my opinion, he was gaining a whole heck of a lot more.

  After dinner, there was still no Dominic in sight. Apparently, he was with Melanie, trying to cram the last of this program. If I’d seen him at all over the past week, it was for a very short goodnight or morning shift to let our wolves run together.

  Thank God Samson and the other masters had Dom’s back on his allowing us to shift during morning routines because the president tried to back his daughter on forcing Dominic to end it altogether.

  Tonight, I would see him, I just didn’t think it would take being out here in the rainbow trees at midnight to finally get me, Vannah, and all the trees in this area cloaked. I had to pull that cloak down fast because we couldn’t have the school noticing that their nature had simply vanished. After going back and forth with creating it, manipulating it, and feeling its strength, I had it, and Vannah and I were sneaking back up to our dorms.