Rosemary Johns - Rebel Academy - Crush

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Read the standalone complete REBEL and learn the secrets of Prince Lysander’s fae Court and Quinn (from Rebel Angel’s) fae tribe!

Wicked Reform School, Trial Area

Monday 26 thApril

This morning, I either reformed and graduated or remained wicked and died.

At the Wicked Reform School, once you’d reached the end of your sentence, it was the only choice.

Yet I was Lord Quincey Spring, the leader of the despised Rebel Dark Fae tribe from the English forests, who’d walked in the shadow of death my entire life. After a decade exiled and locked up in this American prison of a reform school because my tribe had been sentenced for rebelling against the Unseelie Queen, I wasn’t a model student.

This term alone, I’d had to sit a special lesson invented just for me: The Problem Prankster. How to think beyond What Would Loki Do?

Let’s just say that I hadn’t planned a graduation party.

My golden wings fluttered, and I wrinkled my nose at the scent of tangy blood that stained the wooden floor. I edged my foot away from the patch of scarlet (I’d spent ages polishing my boots), and glanced out over the Trial Area that’d been adapted into a stage for the graduation ceremony.

The fae were ranked like an army on parade, if that army were dressed in steam punk military uniforms with slashes in the sweeping coats for their burnished wings. Their emerald eyes were fixed forward, and their pale faces were as emotionless as we’d been taught to be.

Almost like they weren’t here to be executed.

My heart clenched at the thought of what was about happen to my people.

Why hadn’t I been able to save them?

If my older brothers had been here…if they hadn’t been killed or exiled…maybe together we’d have led them to freedom. But what did I know about being a leader?

Please, even though I’d die today, let the rest of the fae survive.

When my wings drooped and my shoulders slumped, Radley (or Lord Brooke as I never bothered to call him…okay, as I sometimes mockingly called him…more like Rads for short), grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me straighter again.

Radley had a thing for manhandling me but then he had the muscles for it.

I peeked at Radley, as he adjusted my golden scimitar that was slung at my waist and then the swan clips in my hair, which had been digging into my scalp.

Somehow, he always knew what was hurting me.

Radley was my best mate. In fact, since I was a kid, he’d been like family. The type who were overprotective with a hint of psychopath mixed in. Like me, Radley wore our uniform, which was a long coat with glowing runes on the lapel that stopped us from flying without permission and the swan crest of the House of Fae. The same crest was emblazoned on the belt of our khaki pants, and could be spelled with either restrictions or rewards.

You knew that you were screwed when even your pants could punish you.

Radley was taller than me, and his gleaming emerald eyes were bright against the dark of his ebony skin. His sweeping wings arced over me like he could protect me, despite everything. I’d braided his hair this morning into a warrior style because this was a battle, even if it ended in our deaths.

The other paranormals in the reform school called this day the culling , but we fae knew it as the Day of the Wicked .

When you reached twenty-five in the reform school, there were only two options: reform or die.

The spring sun shone hot across my translucent skin; my eyelashes fluttered against the light. Clouds flew across the cornflower sky like swans. My heart ached at the phoenixes calling to each other, as the bird-like creatures swooped overhead, in haunting melodies.

I wondered if the phoenixes had ever tried to escape through the high invisible barrier, which trapped us in the school. There were rumors that a dragon once had, only to crash. There were always whispers in a prison like this. It was judging between the truth and lies that was hard.

“Brothers in wings,” a soft voice said from my other side, as a wing brushed against mine.

I shivered.

Oh yeah, wicked.

“Brothers in wings,” Radley and I muttered in response like answering a prayer.

I turned to Felix (or Lord River as I sometime called him… Lix for short), and cold gripped me at the way that he forced himself to smile, pushing his tumble of hair out of his light green eyes. His caramel skin glowed in the heat. He was gorgeous but he was always too buried in books and intent on proving that a Forest Fae could be as bright as a Court Fae to realize it.

There were many tribes of fae, but only one Court ruled by a Queen, and she was a despot. The Court Fae were tyrannical and cruel, believing that you mated for life. If tribes rebelled against Court rules, then they were punished.

Like my Forest Fae.

Felix was as close a friend to me as Radley because the three of us had been sacrificed to the Court Fae as kids. At least we’d always had each other to love.

I scanned the Trial Area. The main campus with its modern buildings was behind, and the school’s vast gates in front. Yet the gates were warded and guarded.

There was no escape from this.

“You know,” I glanced at Felix, “I’m starting to seriously doubt the claim that you’re as magically lucky as your name.”

Felix grinned. “Hey, Felix does mean fortunate , and Fortune Magic is powerful.”

Radley grunted. “It also means fertile . Is there anything that you want to tell us?”

Felix blushed, and I loved the way that it spread down his chest. He circled around us. “Let’s stick with lucky…”

When Felix stumbled, Radley caught his arm and pulled him to his chest.

The other Houses were right to fear the Fae Lords: we were fierce .

Felix gave a quiet laugh, scratching the back of his head, which was his tell for when he was nervous. He’d been trying to hide it for my sake like he always did, but I knew him like a brother. We’d spent our childhoods sharing a tiny room that hadn’t been much more than a cell.

The Queen had made a mistake when she’d sentenced us to this reform school, which was meant to be for the wickedest paranormals of the supernatural world. How had she thought that it could break us, when we’d already suffered in a prison for most of our lives? Just because that prison had been called the Dark Fae Court, rather than a reform school didn’t change the truth.

They’d made us too strong to be reformed .

Really, well done on the irony.

I swallowed, steeling myself to look out at the crowds. Staff and students had gathered to watch the ceremony. I avoided looking at the staff members, especially the stern-faced demon, the Dean of Discipline. Vampires, wolf shifters, and witches crowded the stage. I winced at the excited betting on who’d survive and how the execution would take place, which was led by huge shaggy-haired beserkers, (my odds to survive were currently 66:1 against , and the most hoped-for execution appeared to be flaying… bastards ).

Well, this was what we got for making ourselves feared by the other Houses in order to survive. As the only all-male and English House, we’d always been the outsiders.