Rosemary Johns - Rebel Academy - Curse

“I’m a wicked witch,” I gritted out. “I’m quite certain that what you crave isn’t more skeletons in your wall but my behind cast out .”

“I’m listening.”

“If the Immortals win, then you free both Ezekiel and Fox, and if we lose then…” My knuckles whitened, as I clawed the desk. “They don’t escape the walls, and I quietly return to Hecate’s Tree.”

I fought to hide the tremors. If I’d been turned a little crazy by over a hundred years trapped in the woods, returning there would break me.

But my lover would be alive.

Damelza’s grin was slow and predatory. “I do adore a compromise. Yet what’s to stop the Princes throwing the tournament?”

She eyed the Princes.

Lysander sniffed. “One would never lower oneself to—"

“If I wanted to listen to lies, I wouldn’t have executed the mage.” When I bristled, Damelza waved her hand in the air. “ Possibly executed him. I put too much effort into the tournament for it to fail to be a thrilling event for our patron. So, here’s the stakes. If the Princes lose, then Crown will be marked as Dunce for the rest of the year.”

“How’s that a punishment?” I asked.

“ Dunce is lower than a whipping boy.” Lysander’s gaze was studiedly blank, but his cheeks were burning. “It’s a mark of shame that I’d never be able to remove from my record.” He winced. “My guardian would be deeply disappointed in me.”

Damelza snorted. “We haven’t had a public flogging here in a couple of years. It’d liven up the end of the event if Titus disciplined you for our entertainment.”

Lysander turned away his head.

What had I done? To save my Immortals, I had to destroy the Princes.

Yet I loved them too.

“Didn’t you receive the ability to heal through your mother?” Damelza looked at Willoughby with pretend innocence.

Willougby’s despairing gaze met mine, before becoming steely. “In this prison, it’s all I have of her.”

“Then it’s what I’ll take if you don’t try to win. I had considered allowing you to heal Curse’s wings tonight, what a shame if you lose that opportunity.” When Damelza stalked closer to the Princes, I had to force myself not to shoot my magic at her. Only the memory of her threat to kill all the Rebels through the brands kept me back. She was stealing everything from them. “For our vampire…” Damelza tilted her head. “I’ve been longing to try out a Sleep Deprivation Hex.”

Midnight gasped, squeezing shut his eyes and curling his arms around himself.

“No,” Lysander snarled, ducking to cover Midnight with his wings. “Punish me as you will, but to cast such a hex is to condemn my whipping boy to a slow and painful death. No one can survive without sleep.”

“Thank you for permission to punish my own students,” Damelza replied, drily. “It rather sounds to me like you’d better ride your dragons hard then. After all, your families shall be watching.”

I studied the Princes’ pale faces and the way that Willoughby’s eyes became dazed, as if the silk that constricted his body was also now constricting his mind and dragging him deep within himself. I’d witnessed the death of his father in the Memory Theater, and I prayed with everything in me that he wasn’t lost inside that memory.

Were the Princes’ families as dangerous as the academy itself? Had that always been the hidden truth of Rebel Academy?

After all, it was the parents and guardians who signed the Blood Contracts that sentenced the students to their education in this coven-run prison for the bad boys of the supernatural world.

The Princes were as at risk as the Immortals. I had to save and free them. Just as soon as I could persuade them to rebel with us.

Damelza sauntered to the door, swinging it open. The music switched on again, and she hummed to herself with an air of satisfaction.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, go and rest. You need to be sharp for tonight; it’s a deadly game if you don’t concentrate. Remember, you’re representing this academy; I expect your best.” I launched from my chair, but Damelza held up her finger. I stopped, mid-flounce. That ruined my perfectly good dramatic exit. “There’s no backing out of the stakes even if we reverse the spell and… whoops …my muscle-bound Addict Angel and your dishonest mage aren’t alive by the end of tonight. No one’s ever tried to save a mage from inside the walls before. Even I don’t know how long they can survive.”

In the name of the Valkyries, I couldn't survive another minute...moment... single breath ...without Fox.

How had I ever doubted that a monster could love? Yet why had I craved to feel this agony , which was like my heart was being crushed in my chest?

I hunched on the bed in our room in the West Wing with my knees tucked close beneath me. Feverish, I shivered with chills, despite the pink fires that blazed in the braziers. An aroma like bonfires sparking with rich magic wrapped around me.

I'd stripped down to my pants, and my chest was slicked with sweat. My hair hung into my face; it transformed in a rainbow display from aquamarine, to pink, and then red, as my brothers fought to the surface, and I wasn't able to balance the cycle of my emotions. Shimmering sea serpent tattoos coiled around the werewolf tattoos on my arms in a desperate embrace.

It was only in times of extreme distress that my brothers could see and hug each other, which was seriously messed up.

I wouldn't lose control of my monster.

I bit my lip, until I tasted copper blood. Then I bit harder again.

Fox had chosen this.

Hey look, every time I thought that, it didn't become easier.

He'd known what returning without Marcus would mean, and I couldn't help respecting every furry inch of him for it. I'd made an oath to Loki that I'd never cage another shifter, and because of Fox, I hadn't broken it.

I owed Fox both my honor and my word to Loki. And that was everything .

Next to me, Bask shifted in his nest of blankets and satin pillows. Only the top of his silky head poked out, as well as his crocodile plushie, Nile's, snout. Bask had built a wall of pillows around his cocoon of blankets. I'd seen this behavior before, which kind of made me twitch with how wrong it was for an incubus who needed touch to feed (and since we'd all missed breakfast and lunch, we must be hungry), to avoid it.

Bask had done the same thing for weeks after Hector's death. At least, he'd tried too, but I'd had ways to show him that he didn't need to punish himself by denying himself comfort.

Bask had felt even guiltier for Hector's death than I had because he'd loved Hector in that dangerous way of his, which was both innocent and vulnerable.

I didn't care how the Duchess had trained Bask. She could never touch the blinding purity of his Soul. Magenta sensed it, as much as she'd been called by his pleasure.

Where was Magenta?

By the Norns, she'd been gone too long. What if she'd been stolen away as well?

Magenta, hear the son of Loki, I trust you. The veils parted and Fate joined us. I know you'll save my foxy pain in the ass.

I'd always wished for a friend who’d believe in me.

Couldn’t I be that friend for Magenta?

I reached for my guitar, which rested next to the bed, hugging its body like I could clasp Magenta. I ran my thumb down its neck, before strumming across the strings, breathing out. My heartbeat slowed. My music had soothed me for centuries.