Rosemary Johns - Rebel Academy - Curse

“Reward sounds lovely,” Magenta replied, sounding like she was dazed and still lost in a destination that I bet was named Lysander’s Lips.

Flatten my prickles and call me a hairbrush, we were screwed.

Bacchus’ grin was wicked. “Since Princes and Immortals have such closely bound fates and love , then I’ll reward you by giving you the rest of the day off and then tomorrow, you can plan the Enchanted Ball together . But you’d better not leave each other’s sides because it must be perfect. If it isn’t, you’ll all now equally be blamed. Then there’ll be no rewards and only punishment for the rest of your time in this academy.”

I froze.

I hadn’t been at a party since I was a tiny kid and I’d never been to a ball. But how could we plan the escape attempt tomorrow, if Lysander would be shadowing us?

The other Princes were Immortals now, but Lysander was still a Prince with so much to lose.

Yet perhaps, giving up control was the greatest control of all. To trust all the Princes was our only chance, even if it was a dangerous risk.

I’d never considered that the hardest test I’d face in my second chance at life after death would be loving a fae prince.

The risk of allowing Lysander into my heart in the same way as my other Immortals wasn’t only of being hurt or opening my lovers to the same hurt.

It was far more dangerous.

It was allowing myself to give up the hurt of the past.

Yet how could I?

The ghost of my death and Robin’s had haunted me throughout my long imprisonment in Hecate’s Tree but it’d also warmed me because I could admit now that it’d been all I had left of the first man who I’d loved: my best friend .

It was my truth.

What did I have if I finally let that heartache go? And how could I, now that Robin had returned to me?

I knelt before Hecate's Tree in the Dead Wood, ghosting my gloved hand across the trunk that pulsed with magic. This was back to where it had all begun. I'd once knelt in the same place and prayed to Hecate for freedom from my marriage to Titus. I'd been selfish. Perhaps, Hecate had granted me the freedom of death in order to teach me the lesson that you should never pray for yourself alone.

The only thing that’d mattered had been the freedom of all the Rebels. And that included the entire academy, down to its roots, and even Hecate herself who was trapped by my own magic, which had created the wards.

I understood that now.

Some would say that I was a rather slow learner.

The air thinned, darkening with the shadows of twilight. The sky was low and oppressive.

My hand clenched into a fist against the blackened trunk. Once, this glade had been wrapped in the intoxicating scent of lily of the valley, while butterflies had fluttered between violets. Now, the glade was transformed to bones. It was a black ring in the white of the wood. My mother had murdered it, when she'd murdered me. The only sound was the fizzing of ancient magic along the withered branches.

Yet delicate snowdrops tentatively pushed their heads up around the base of the trunk. They'd sprung to life, just as I'd been resurrected. My Immortals had brought them to life with their love. I brushed the tips of my fingers along their half-closed petals. How easy it'd be to crush them.

And how easy to tend them to life.

I glanced down at the Your Heart’s Desire Book on my lap. It'd been agonizing to leave it behind, during Bacchus' lesson. After being reunited with Paper Robin, it'd felt like abandoning him all over again. Yet I couldn't risk Bacchus sensing him. She was a bitch with an unhealthy obsession with her wand (Sleipnir had explained that she no doubt fantasized about using it as a strap-on, before he'd shuddered, but why would she want to strap something on?), but she was exceptionally powerful. I couldn't risk her sensing Paper Robin. Plus, my bosom might be large, but there wasn't enough room to hide an entire book down my cleavage, and it was a distinct flaw of my dress not to have pockets.

I traced my hand over the red feathers. When a silvery song rang out, I shivered.

I need you Robin; I've always needed you.

Flair and Echo swooped down from the branches of Hecate’s Tree, landing next to me.

" Are you OK, boss? " Flair cocked his head. Why did he sound panicked? " Why don't you just back away from the tree. Right. The. Fuck. Now. "

I blinked.

" The last time we found you like this, " Echo explained, fluffing his feathers in distress, " you ended up dead, dead, dead... "

I scooped Echo into my arms, and he wrapped his wings around my neck. "I beg your pardon. I would never pray to a goddess again. It's been tattooed on my heart. I'd never do anything to separate us."

Yet would I achieve that by breaking the wards and attempting to leave the academy? What would happen to my familiars?

I stroked over Echo's head. For over a century the twins had been all I'd had. We'd been each other's family.

Flair hopped closer. " By my fangs, stop kicking yourself up the beautiful arse. We've been...innocently...investigating every part of this academy and we know how rotten it is. You have to escape. " He exchanged a glance with his brother. " We've talked about it, and if that means that even our fuckable behinds fade, die, or whatever happens to ghost familiars when the witch they're bonded to leaves...then shit happens, right? "

My eyes smarted with tears. "Then I stay."

When Echo poked me with his sharp beak, I yelped.

" You don't trap yourself again for us, " Echo insisted with steelier resolve than I'd ever heard. " You're our kind, beautiful, witch, and we'd do anything to free you, even from us. " Then he added, more softly, " Perhaps, we’ll be able to fly away with you. I'd never free myself from you. "

"Then you'll escape by my side because a bond like that doesn't break. I shan't let you leave me. You don't have my permission to die, do you hear?"

Echo sighed happily like that was the most romantic wooing he'd heard. For freaky vampires like him and his brother, it probably was.

Sweet Hecate, let it be true that they'd be tied to me, if I escaped the academy.

" So, if you're not here to make the second biggest mistake of your witchy life by praying to Hecate, what's with the angst? " Flare demanded. " Echo could be getting in his nightly fix of elf prick in the Princes’ showers. " Surely, I couldn't be blamed for how much I wished that I could accompany him…? But I wouldn't be satisfied as a voyeur. Elf prick had many uses, I'd discovered, and many more that I was dying to try out. " And I could be getting a quick roll in the Omega's bed, you know, just to get me through the night. "

"You're still insisting that it's not stalking?" I asked.

" You call it stalking, I call it romance from a distance. " Flair sniffed. " And don't change the subject, boss ."

I played with the edges of the Your Heart’s Desire Book. Paper Robin was inside here, waiting for me, but guilt coiled inside me because I was thinking of Lysander, who was the nephew of the fae who'd kept Robin and me apart, leading to both our deaths.

In Bacchus' lesson, I'd been thrumming with desire for Lysander. My magic had vibrated with it from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair. I'd felt like I'd burst on fire, hotter than poor Fox's punishment for swearing. The way that Lysander had curled his tongue into my lover's mouth to cool it, had made me want to catch him in my arms and make certain that he understood that I saw him: the kindness and nobility, which he had to hide from Titus.