Rebel Academy: Crave: A Paranormal Academy Romance Series (Wickedly Charmed Book 1)

by Rosemary A Johns

  His pleasure was his sacrifice.

  In an academy where the delinquents never knew whether it’d be their last day alive, it transformed the Rebels into reckless, passionate thrill seekers.

  Could I harness the energy of all that high emotion and sexual need and desire?

  I watched with darkening gaze, as Bask’s breathing deepened.

  He threw back his head, revealing the snow-white line of his throat. “Pet me,” he pleaded.

  My magic exploded around my hands that flamed like they were being burned once again. I burst from the portrait, hovering over Bask: his spirit lover. Then I pressed my fizzing lips to his. I couldn’t touch him, yet my magic still sparked into him. He groaned, jolting like I was magnifying his pleasure and forcing it back into him, until he was sweating and panting.

  His eyes flew wide open. His hands grasped the sheets, and his knuckles whitened. Then a pearly stream erupted from his prick, marking his stomach, as he shuddered.

  “Voyeur Ghost,” he screamed in equal submission and ownership.

  Excuse me…what? I blinked.

  I’d just given him the best orgasm of his incubus life and he didn’t even know my name…? I had to admit that Voyeur Ghost had a brutal truth to it.

  Cherished Ghost? Desired Ghost? Bouncy Bosoms Ghost (that was one of Flair’s favorites)? Any of those would’ve been preferable.

  Bask grinned sleepily, stretching. Then he glanced at me almost like he could see me. He pushed himself to his knees, before starting to pull off one of his gloves.

  I paled. He intended to touch my portrait…? Would he be able to read my desires?

  Then Bask howled, falling backwards, as freezing water dowsed him in a waterfall stream. He curled into himself, shivering.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped.

  I shot back into the portrait. What in the witching heavens was going on?

  At last, the icy water magically shut off, leaving Bask in a puddle on the soaked bed. His skin was blue, and his breathing too rapid.

  I’d heard Henrietta talk of Ice Water Punishments, but I hadn’t realized how cruel they were until now. What would they feel like to an incubus whose sense of touch was so many times more intense than a humans’, especially after the throes of pleasure?

  “I take it that would be sorry for your attempt to go skin to skin without permission?” The educated American voice wound from the shadows of the archway; it was sultry and promised chaos and darkness.

  I pouted. Why couldn’t I sound like that? Believe you and me, I’d attempted to sound more wicked witch and less like the sugar force-feeding nanny who couldn’t even afford a broomstick and instead, had to fly by umbrella. Echo was always singing about her: oh yes, Mary bloody Poppins.

  “A-as you w-wish, Professor B-bacchus,” Bask chattered, forcing his shaking hand back into his glove.

  “Oh, you didn’t try anything so dumb, darling, or I’d have to report you, and that would entail far too many dull consequences. Let’s say your punishment was for making predictably wasteful use of your free time.” The professor stepped further into the room and waved her hand.

  Instantly, Bask and the bed was dry again as if they’d never been dowsed in water. Bask scrambled to cover himself with the sheet, and I’d have shielded him apart from the awfully frustrating fact that I was invisible.

  List of Reasons that I Hated Being a Ghost: 92

  Bacchus arched her brow with a smirk. “Why, so modest.”

  When Bask flushed, I wished that I could touch but this time so I could slap the smirk off the witch’s face. All right, her beautiful face. Disgruntled, I couldn’t help staring at her.

  Flair had told me that Professor Bacchus, the Immortal’s Tutor in the West Wing, was the most daring and brilliant witch currently in America, who’d been persuaded to travel to Oxford to teach, but that she was more than a witch: she was an immortal.

  Bacchus glowed with a fervor that sang wild dances even to me but with such a predatory danger in her purple floor length toga, which was pinned at the shoulder with a moth brooch, that my skin prickled. Her amber necklace glinted in the light from the fire, which flared in warning and her midnight black hair tumbled to her waist. Her eyes were large, hazel, and cat-like. In fact, they matched those of the actual black cat who she hugged to her chest.

  I snickered. The most daring American witch was also into witchy role play it appeared, complete with black cat familiar. The cat’s fur was so sleek that it gleamed. A pentacle collar clinked around the cat’s neck, as it turned its head to study me with narrowed eyes. Sometimes, life called for the unladylike. I gave a shrill whistle, and the cat leaped back, puffing up its fur and sinking its claws into the professor’s chest.

  I grinned, as Bacchus winced.

  Familiars could sometimes sense ghosts, as if the trauma of their death and resurrection from Fallen angel into familiar had granted them the skill. I didn’t imagine that it was much compensation for becoming a witch’s slave.

  With remarkable restraint, Bacchus stroked her familiar, until he retracted his claws. “Calm your furry ass, Pet 9, and stop acting like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I paled. Perhaps, this witch was called brilliant with good reason. Yet I hated the way that she only called her familiar by a number. It was witch tradition to remove a Fallen’s name once they were caught and transformed into a familiar, but I shuddered at the thought of stealing Echo or Flair’s name.

  “Why’d you force Pocus into cat form again?” Bask asked with far more steel than I’d been expecting. He knelt up on the bed, clutching the sheet to him like it was a shield. So, her familiar could be transformed back into a Fallen? Had that change occurred for all familiars in the time that I’d been trapped in my tree? “He hates it.”

  Bacchus’ eyes sparked. “It wouldn’t be much of a punishment if he loved it.” Yet I didn’t miss the way that she slid her hand in comfort down her familiar’s back, or how he pressed into her touch. “With my power, Crave, I can transform him…or you…into anything I want.” She cocked her head. “You’d be a true cutie pie as a Pomeranian. The new student could carry you around in his satchel.”

  Bask leaped off the bed like he’d forgotten that he was naked. He wasn’t trembling now. He stalked to the professor with such danger in each step that I was amazed she didn’t back up. Instead, she smiled almost like she was proud of him.

  “What new student?” He demanded.

  “You pretend to be a tame cub when honestly you’re all wild panther.” She grinned, stroking Pocus. “I’m the kind of witch who only plays with wild panthers. Well, I’ll make an exception for your new whipping boy. I imagine that he’ll be an entertaining addition to the fun and games.”

  Bask’s ruby eyes blazed. “Play me with me as you wish, but I won’t hurt a whipping boy.”

  Bacchus paused in her stroking of Pocus, instead leaning to cup Bask’s cheek as if she meant to pet him.

  Hexes and curses, why did that make me want to transform her into something slimy? Possibly a slug with a terrible cold and an existential crisis.

  Bask flinched, but held himself stiff, as his professor rubbed her thumb along his sharp cheekbone.

  “Don’t displease me.” At Bacchus’ softly worded order, Bask grimaced as if even the suggestion of her displeasure had punched him in the gut. To an incubus, giving pleasure fed them but it also hurt them physically and emotionally to displease. The succubi had established as clever a mechanism to control the men within their harems as us witches ever had with our husbands. “I mean, you were sent here because you couldn’t satisfy your bonded Duchess. Do you think she abandoned you without reason?” When Bask whimpered, my magic burned, matching his distress. Just for a moment, Bacchus lifted her head like she could sense it, but then she fixed her gaze once again on Bask. She studied him like she hungered to tear him apart and see how he worked. “You’re a rare find: an incubus who’s so flawed that they demand pleasure, as well as giving it. Do you
believe that you deserve love?”

  Bask bit his lip, refusing to answer.

  But he was loved. I shook, yearning with the desperation to show him. Did he think that he was alone? Unloved and abandoned?

  My magic built, swirling around me. I could sense Bask’s need, driving me higher, until I swooped out of the portrait, howling in my joy.

  I was free…

  At least, I’d escaped into the Rebel Academy, and I celebrated like any lady would. I did a rude gesture at Bacchus, which Flair had taught me. He was right: flicking someone off was satisfying.

  I circled Bask, wrapping my arms around him. His eyes widened, and he melted into my touch. He wouldn’t ever need to be alone again. He wasn’t unloved.

  Now, Bask’s smile at Bacchus was sly and knowing. He knew that I was there. He shivered, teasing his fingers down his sides.

  Bacchus dropped her hand away from his cheek, unsettled. When she stumbled into the archway, Pocus hissed. “Just go to the courtyard bailey to meet the new arrival. Wait in the shadows and watch, until the principal needs you. Don’t screw it up. Our Principal, darling Damelza, has been in a darker mood than the darkness within the Dead Wood, ever since the decision was made about the latest admission.” I was darkness…? Now that was impolite. “We don’t need the pressure this term, when we already have the Rebel Cup. The Princes and their tutor are dangerously competitive over it, especially since the prize this year is freedom for one student.”

  Bask’s breath hitched. “Freedom? I don’t believe you. It’s a trick.”

  Bacchus arched her brow. “I adore tricks. But I promise you, Crave, this isn’t one of mine.” Then she tossed her hair. In the instant, she became the ancient immortal that she truly was. “Here in the West Wing, you’re mine. I’ll help your asses survive, but you have as much chance of dying as being freed. Now collect this whipping boy, even though I kind of don’t think he’ll be with us long. After all, he’s a mage, and they’re hated, feared, and die young.”

  At Bask’s shocked gasp, I tightened my hold around his waist. I’d follow him into the bailey to welcome the mage and protect him. His arrival was my worst nightmare because it felt like Robin’s death repeating itself.

  Yet was it truly selfish of me that I tingled with joy and pleasure to be free in the academy at last, adored and strengthened by a lover, and seeing a mage once more?

  My magic had cursed the academy. There must be a way for me to use it to bless it.

  I felt the desperation (rooted all the way through the warded grounds and into Hecate’s Tree), not to allow another mage to suffer. But I was only a ghost. How could I save Fox or was Fate already woven that he’d die?

  Chapter Four

  Rebel Academy, Saturday August 31st

  Fox

  I shivered, stumbling through the castle’s gateway into its moon shrouded courtyard bailey. My new academy looked more like a shrine to Hecate, the witches’ goddess, than a college. I huffed out a breath, and my guts churned.

  For a mage, attending Rebel Academy and discovering a shrine was as bad as striding into your enemy’s camp and discovering that they were using models of your dick as target practice.

  I cringed. Wait, what if the witch professors were doing that as well…?

  I swung in a circle, staring up at the pink-and-black striped towers at each corner of the courtyard, until I was dizzy. At least there were no huge striped dicks (yeah, I went there…huge) with flaming arrows through them.

  But Pan’s blue balls, this academy was vast.

  I’d forgotten how it felt to be surrounded by so much space, since I’d been locked up for over a decade. It was overwhelming, and I was caught between the twin sensations of hurling and huddling beneath the altar beside the gatehouse.

  Yeah, Fox, that’d give an outstanding first impression.

  Why did the witches of the House of Crows need a castle that could withstand siege warfare? Did they expect a horde of orcs to sweep out of the frozen woods? A flock of enraged harpies? The Incredible Hulk? Or was it more about who they were imprisoning inside their walls…? This was the Rebel Academy, after all, where professors from across the magical arts reformed the most dangerous supernaturals. It was Oxford University’s secret college, founded by witches and hidden from the non-magicals’ sight on the bank of the river Thames.

  Why did it feel like a prison?

  I should’ve been honored that I’d been granted a place as a Rebel student… Wait, did I mean honored or terrified…?

  I hunched my shoulders, clutching my suitcase closer to my chest, and that didn’t make me feel at all like I was hiding from…whoever…was watching me from the shadows.

  I’d known that it’d be hard to attend the academy as a mage, even though this was the one place where wars were put aside, but I hadn’t thought that I’d be in danger on my first night. Although technically, I hadn’t been supposed to arrive until tomorrow morning.

  Did that count as being uninvited and a hexable offense…?

  “How original to hold Hell Week before term even starts.” I bit my lip to hide its trembling. I’d expected bullying, but it was still disappointing...okay, devastating. “You can just skip the hazing because I’m already known as Lucifer in witches’ circles: hot, rebellious, and a devil at chess.” So, I admit it, I have a habit of lying. “You caught me out. I’m actually a devil at Monopoly: The Covens Edition.”

  I wrinkled my nose against the stink of garlic that wafted from the altar. Did the House of Crows, who ran the academy, believe that it protected them against vampires? They should’ve known that the whole garlic myth was as false as a witch’s promise.

  But then, witches had more centuries-old wars and vendettas against other supernaturals (vampires, werewolves, and mages), than ancient rules and they had a cauldron full of those.

  So, it sucked to be a mage born to witches…like me.

  I grimaced, rubbing at the silver Blood Amulet that hung around my neck beneath my shirt, searing my skin. The blue diamond set in its center matched my eyes, but a guy couldn’t find the romance, when it contained his own mum’s blood and was used to bind his shifter powers. The Blood Amulet stopped me from being able to do magic. Yet it couldn’t contain my ability to read the truth, which was the magical power of Confess.

  I could always sense the truth, but telling lies myself was much more fun.

  My natural shifter powers hissed inside at the cruelty of being trapped by mum’s Blood Magic and at the prickling sensation that pressed down from the crenelated but weirdly colorful towers.

  The magic here was ancient and dark. The hairs on the back of my nape rose, as my pulse pounded.

  I would’ve guessed that mum had been lying about this castle being the infamous Rebel Academy, if not for the way that she’d stroked my hair from my forehead and then kissed my cheek, before leaving me outside the ground’s wards to make my own way through the woods to the House of Crows.

  Kisses didn’t lie…unlike me.

  Plus, I couldn’t miss the RA crest that sparkled in neon pink and was surrounded in unfurling tree branches. It sizzled in the air above a giant bronze statue of three Hecates, who were standing back-to-back: one held a torch, another a key, and a third a snake.

  Had the academy’s principal thought that one creepy goddess wasn’t enough, so she’d better clone her?

  Every few minutes, the statues startled me by slinking to life and smirking as they swung their hips. Their snake slithered between them, as if to prove that a guy’s dick would now be redundant.

  I blushed, whilst the goddesses sang the school’s motto to the tune of “I Put a Spell on You”:

  Welcome to the Rebel Academy! Live and Die as Rebels.

  I arched my brow. “Let’s focus on the living, sweet goddess. I’m rebelling against dying.”

  I blinked snowflakes off my lashes, shaking them from my wavy white blond hair; the snow melted down my cheeks like tears.

  Why did Hecate ha
ve to remind me about dying? I’d been hiding from that truth all day.

  My eyes burned, but I wouldn’t let the tears fall. Just like I wouldn’t let myself die in this academy like I was a shameful secret just the same as my dad. I’d been dropped off here straight after his funeral. I yanked at the sleeve of my suit, which was too short, gritting my teeth.

  Dad would’ve hated the sea of black at his funeral; he’d always shone like the sun. He’d lit my dark world but now he was gone, and I’d been sent to this witches’ world that was cursed to perpetual winter.

  Wasn’t the cursing a little melodramatic…?

  Plus, there was all the snow, when there’d been bright sunshine outside the academy’s grounds. I was regretting my final act of defiance in not bringing a coat.

  Maybe that was how the Rebels died…their balls froze and dropped off.

  Suddenly, a bitter wind blew away my misted breath and then puffed across my own mouth, as if a spirit was whispering words across my lips.

  I paled, and my eyes widened.

  Was there a ghost in the courtyard with me? Was that who’d been watching me from the shadows?

  I spun in a circle. “Dad…?”

  My chest ached.

  Please, please, please…

  The sudden cold nipped me again but this time it stroked down my cheek as if in comfort. A faint smell like yew trees wrapped around me. It was rich and dangerously intoxicating.

  It wasn’t dad… Not dad, not dad, not…

  Why did it feel like losing him for a second time? Yet I still relaxed into the touch, needing its tenderness and the way that it zinged through my ensnared magic like it knew what was inside me and understood. The ghost could be the Wicked Witch, but I’d still take her kindness after I’d lost my dad, family, and home.