School of Broken Souls: Academy of Souls Book 1

by C. R. Jane

  I have so many questions, but I can already feel myself being dragged further and further into dreamland as I snuggle further into Finn’s body. Hopefully he doesn’t feel the need to put me down anytime soon.

  I feel a brush of lips across my forehead that succeeds in blasting warmth throughout my whole body.

  “Forget,” a voice whispers.

  And just like that, I’m in dreamland.

  Chapter 11

  A loud knock on my dorm door wakes me up the next morning. Sitting up in my bed with bleary eyes I look around, struggling to remember how I got there.

  I was at the party. Mercy had left me. There was a guy named Ryan. Clarissa. Images melt together in my mind. At some point I remembered Alexander, Finn, Nix, and Dante being there...

  I remembered being held in Finn’s arms... But how did I get in my bed?

  I look down at my clothes and see that I’m still wearing the dress that I'd worn to the party. I hadn’t remembered drinking that much. But maybe I had drunk more than I thought. I feel exhausted, like I’ve just finished running a marathon. I’m never drinking again.

  Getting up I drag myself to the door when whoever it is knocks again. I throw the door open, thinking that it has to be Mercy. I jump a little when I see Dante leaning against the threshold of the door, a smirk on his face as he looks me up and down.

  "Had a rough night?" he asks. His eyes hold a secret, like he knows something that I don’t. I really hope that I haven’t embarrassed myself in front of him and the others. What happens when you black out?

  "What are you doing here?" I ask with a groan as I drag myself back to my bed, too tired to care about appearances at the moment. I'm sure I look just lovely, but he will just have to deal with it.

  "I came to take you to breakfast," he says.

  I look at him. "Why?" I ask suspiciously.

  "So distrustful even this early in the morning. I’m offended. I thought we were friends. At least that's what you told us last night," he says with a naughty grin.

  I groan again, wanting to pull the covers up over my head and hide. I obviously was in interesting form last night. "Ugh, I don't remember anything from last night. What did I do?"

  He laughs. It’s a throaty, stubborn laugh. Like I had surprised the laugh right out of him. The sound gives me butterflies, and I instantly want to make him laugh more.

  Too bad I wasn't a particularly funny person.

  I hold the sheets close to my chest as he starts to speak. “I think you told me that you wanted my body desperately,” he says, wagging his eyebrows like a comic book villain.

  I pull the covers down and roll my eyes because I know I would never say something like that.

  "It’s too early for this," I say, flopping back down on my pillow.

  Dante strolls through my room, examining my meager decorations. He does it casually, as if invading a girl’s personal space is something he does every day.

  Which it probably is.

  At that thought, a swell of jealousy passes over me. It makes me sick to think about Dante being in another girl’s room. Which is ridiculous...since he isn’t mine.

  I shake my head, trying to clear it. All of a sudden Dante throws the covers off of me and picks me up.

  "Time for breakfast," he says as he begins to walk me out the door.

  “Let me go,” I tell him in what I hope sounds like an annoyed tone of voice. We both know I don’t mean it though. He stops in the doorway and sets me down with a satisfied look on his face.

  He really seems to want to go to breakfast with me.

  We must've made strides last night because there’s no way he would have paid me this much attention before the party.

  His gaze goes slowly down my body. I blush red, realizing how little my dress covers. I hastily pull it down, making his smirk grow even wider.

  "As delectable as I think you look in that scrap they call a dress, you’ll probably feel more comfortable changing."

  I roll my eyes again and out comes another laugh. This time even he looks shocked at the fact that a laugh came out of his mouth. Mr. Cool and Collected evidently isn’t used to laughter.

  “All right, all right. I'll go to breakfast with you. But you’re waiting outside while I change." I order, closing the door in front of his pouty face.

  "Now what will be the fun in that?" he says through the door. I lean against the door and sigh. His proximity makes me feel things all the way to my girly bits.

  It’s not something I’m proud of. The fact that these boys can literally do anything and make me get butterflies.

  I resolve halfheartedly to be stronger around them.

  Looking out the window at the fact that it’s just now starting to get light out, I’m tempted to go back to bed. After all, I’m still suspicious of Dante’s motives. He was acting like we were friends this morning, and hopefully Mercy could confirm at least some of what happened last night. But I've been burned too many times by people to blindly trust them.

  I will just need to be careful at breakfast and try not to offer any information or worse...begin to offer pieces of my heart. It was very easy to envision something like that happening.

  I pull off my dress and sniff it. It doesn’t smell like alcohol, which surprises me. Instead, it smells like a men’s cologne. The same cologne that I know that I’ve smelled on Finn before. Was I really not imagining it? Had he been holding me in his arms?

  “I’m waiting,” says Dante through the door. “Do I need to come in there? I’m not hearing very much action.”

  “I’m hurrying,” I say with a curse as I pick out a pair of leggings and a hoodie. The mornings have started to get cooler and although it’s not my cutest outfit, I need to take advantage of the fact that it’s Saturday morning and I don’t have to wear my uniform.

  Running a brush through my hair, I hastily pull it into a loose braid. Applying some mascara and some chapstick, I deem myself as good as I’m going to get after the rager I apparently attended last night.

  I swing the door open; Dante is leaning against the wall next to my door, fiddling with his phone. There’s a group of girls giggling madly at the end of the hallway, sending him furtive glances as they try to get his attention.

  I shake my head, but I don’t blame them. He looks like a young male model with the way the sun is streaming in from the window at the end of the hall, casting the perfect amount of light on him. He looks over at me and gives me an admiring glance.

  "Took you long enough," he says, but I know he's joking. He gestures for me to start walking and then he begins to walk by my side down the hallway. We're quiet as we stroll, both lost in our own thoughts. I'm surprised when Dante turns left at the end of the hallway, the opposite way from the cafeteria.

  “Do you know a quicker way to get there?" I ask.

  "You think I'm going to eat cafeteria food on a Saturday morning?" he asks with a laugh. "Oh Adeline, I have so much to teach you."

  I smile because the comment reminds me of something that Mercy would say, or probably something she has said to me already. "Where are we going then?" I ask. I didn't think we were allowed to leave the school grounds. Or that we would even be able to leave the school grounds without getting caught.

  "Just trust me," he says, and I want to. As we walk, his fingers brush against mine, almost as if he wants to hold my hand. Tingles float up my arm. Ugh, what is wrong with me? Getting worked up in anticipation of someone possibly wanting to hold my hand. I am so out of my league here.

  We walk until we get to the side entrance of the castle that Mercy and I had gone through last night to get to the party. "Why is there no one ever around here?" I ask. It always seems like there are teachers at all of the other entrances.

  He smirks at me again. "There's an unspoken agreement about this door. The professors know it exists, but they also pretend like it doesn't. I think cash has been involved at some point," he says, waving away my shocked face.

  We walk out and
he starts to lead me down a path that goes into the forest. It's a different direction than where the party was held last night. I stop in my tracks. "You're not taking me out to the forest to kill me, right?" I ask, nervous flutters building up in my stomach.

  He just looks at me and laughs. "There are far easier ways to get that done than this," he says. And somehow, I don't think he's joking.

  I resume walking and he gives me an approving nod. We walk for five minutes until we find ourselves in a clearing similar to the size of the one that the party was in last night. Except this clearing has an asphalt layer, like a parking lot. Rows of exotic sports cars that I've only seen in magazines are lined up in the clearing and I can see a road in the back that leads out of the clearing.

  "You can wipe off your drool, babe," Dante says. "They're just cars."

  I scoff. "Just cars?” I motion to a matte grey Audi R8. “I'm pretty sure that car cost more than the house that I grew up in."

  He shrugs his shoulders. "That’s sad," he says.

  I shake my head, not believing that this is real life. "Which one is yours?" I ask. He walks to the very last car in the lot. There sits a cherry red Dodge Viper. It's so pretty that I'm afraid to touch it. He opens the door for me, giving me that delicious smirk again.

  "Are you going to get in it, or just look at it?" he asks. I blush, embarrassed to be caught gawking so much, and I get into the car. I breathe in the smell of expensive leather. It’s a beautiful car.

  Somehow, despite the tight space he manages to maneuver us out until we’re on a small road. We drive for a while, and much to my amazement it connects with the main road that lies outside the school.

  "I was scared I'd never see this road again," I say absentmindedly, relishing my temporary freedom, and thinking of how strange my arrival was here.

  "You just have to know the right people," he says with a wink.

  We drive for an hour. And at this point I’m pretty sure he’s taking me somewhere to leave me for dead.

  Finally though, we come across a diner on the side of the road. It looks like a sort of Mecca for truck drivers to stop and eat on their long hauls.

  "This place has the best breakfast," Dante says, parking the car and getting out. He surprises me by opening my door for me and we walk to the entrance.

  I look around as we go in. The place looks exactly how you would think a diner in the middle of nowhere would look. Everything is a little greasy, a little rundown, and the clientele is more than a little questionable. But the food smells amazing.

  A round lady with faded gray hair and an apron that has seen better days comes up to us as we walk further into the diner.

  "Dante, my boy. I thought you'd forgotten about me" she says with a smile.

  "Forget about my future wife? I would never," Dante says charmingly. I can't help but look at him with affection. I've never seen him this carefree and relaxed before.

  "I've got a table for you over here,” she says gesturing for us to follow her. She gives me an interested glance before we sit down. "And who's the lucky lady?” she asks. "I've never seen you bring anyone in here before."

  Surprisingly, Dante blushes.

  I find it to be one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

  "Polly, shhhh, don't you give away my secrets. I'm trying to be cool in front of this girl."

  "Oh, to be young again. They just didn't make men when I grew up like they do now," she says with another wink. "The usual?" she asks, not bothering to give us menus.

  "Yes please, and orange juices and coffees for both of us.”

  She smiles and walks away to get our order started.

  I know I should find it a little bit annoying that he ordered for me, women’s rights and all that, but I can't help but find it a bit charming. Somehow, looking around the place, I know I'm going to like whatever I get.

  I lean forward towards where he’s sitting across the table from me.

  "You’ve never brought anyone here with you before?" I ask interestedly. "Not Alexander or…"

  He laughs harshly. “His Lordship? I would love to see you get Alexander in a place like this. No doubt he would drop dead at the shock of eating somewhere so normal."

  I tilt my head to the side and examine him. "What's going on between you and Alexander?" I ask. His face takes on a blank kind of look.

  "Nothing’s going on," he says dryly. "Why ever would you think that?"

  "You can talk to me you know. That's what friends do," I say.

  "And when did I say we were friends?"

  I know he's reacting this way because he's uncomfortable with my question, but his comment still hurts. I’m quiet and I begin to fiddle with my napkin, wanting to leave.

  He sighs and grabs my hand, gently pressing on it until I look up at him. "It's just difficult to talk about,” he says. "I'm sorry."

  I look at him, silently encouraging him to open up to me.

  He looks out the window before speaking in a monotone voice as if he was reciting something he had memorized. “There once was a boy who thought he lived in the happiest of families. He had an angel mother and a dad who seemed to worship both the mother and the boy. Every day was more perfect than the last. One day the son came home from school and found the beautiful mother dead on the floor. She had killed herself because she had found out that the dad was having an affair. Within a week of the mother dying, the dad moved the son into his mistress’s house where the boy found out that the dad didn’t adore the son, he had replaced him with the mistress’s asshole. And each day was more terrible than the last for the boy.”

  A tear slides down my cheek as I connect the dots that Alexander was the mistress’s son. Poor Dante, and poor Alexander for being caught in that situation as well. I would never have guessed the secrets Dante has been hiding. And I remember Mercy’s words about why she thought the two fought. This went so much deeper and probably had nothing to do with a girl.

  Dante finally turns his gaze from the window to me. He looks for the first time a little unsure of himself. “Why are you crying?” he says roughly, sounding suspiciously choked up himself. “It’s just a story.”

  I nod. “I know,” I reply. “I just feel really bad for the boy.”

  “You shouldn’t. No one else does.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” I whisper.

  He looks away from me again. He’s about to open his mouth to say something else when Polly shows back up at the table with two platters loaded down with food.

  “Two specials,” she announces happily, oblivious to the obvious tension at the table. Dante nods at her with a forced smile and she leaves.

  We eat in silence. Even with the somber mood, I can’t help but think that my pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hash browns are some of the best I have ever had. I finish my plate quickly. But when I look over, I see that Dante has barely touched his food.

  Polly comes over to refill our orange juices and frowns when she sees his still full plate. “Feeling okay, honey?” she asks.

  He forces another grin at her. “My stomach is just feeling a little out of it. Can I get a box to go?”

  She looks at him, pursing her lips as if she can see right through him. She must decide not to push him because she soon leaves, bringing back a box and a check quietly.

  Dante scoops his food into his box and throws down a few twenties that I’m sure are four times the actual cost of the breakfast. He gives a wink at Polly who is watching us worriedly, and we leave.

  “I didn’t mean to ruin breakfast,” I say quietly once we’re ensconced back in the car.

  He sighs. “I’ve never told that story to anyone,” he finally says. I look over at him shocked.

  “Why did you tell me?”

  He looks at me, searching my eyes for answers I’m not sure that I possess.

  “I’m not sure,” he finally says.

  We’re silent for the rest of the drive. Dante walks me all the way back to the door of my dorm room where we pause
.

  “Thanks for breakfast,” I say forlornly.

  He pulls my chin up so that I’m looking up at him and gently strokes my cheek.

  “Thanks for coming with me,” he says. And then he’s kissing me.

  The kiss is hot, raw, and achy as our lips meld together. The taste of coffee is strong as our tongues dance together, desperate and eager. My head becomes dizzy with the scent and feel of Dante.

  He breaks away breathing hard. Giving me one more hard kiss, he strides away, leaving me stunned.

  I’m still in lala land the next day even though I haven’t heard from Dante since the kiss. I’m so out of it that I don’t even notice the Adonis that’s lounging on my bed until I almost sit on him.

  “Ahh,” I yell out when I finally notice Alexander lounging on my bed.

  He looks up at me, amused. “What’s gotten you so distracted?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And what are you doing in my room. I’m pretty sure I locked it.”

  “Do you really think a little lock would keep me out of a girl’s room?” he asks.

  “You’re kind of creepy.”

  He laughs.

  “Come take a nap with me,” he says suddenly, patting the bed next to him.

  “Is this some kind of competition thing?” I ask, rubbing my arms nervously.

  He looks at me confused and then he seems to get it. “You’ve been hanging out with Dante,” he says unperturbed. “You shouldn’t believe everything people tell you.”

  I huff. “Why do you think he would say something about you?”

  He laughs. “Because Dante can’t get over the fact that my mother is a whore and his mother was a druggie who was very good at hiding her addiction. Somehow the idiot blames all that mess on me.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t really,” I say softly, feeling uncomfortable at the direction the conversation has taken. I felt protective of Dante. There had been so much pain in his eyes when he told me that story. It didn’t feel right to discuss it with Alexander.