Page 10 of Escaping Hallow Hill Academy
Too fucking bad I won’t be.
She isn’t the first to try and seduce me into submission with money or appeal to my softer side, and she won’t be the last. But she is the only one who has promised intrigue in the form of the Sekar watching me closely.
I grab the little quill from in front of her pile of papers. The moment my hand comes into contact with it, I feel something settle over me, and I instantly know what it is.Magic.I gasp aloud as a haze crawls over my mind, numbing my senses and making me groggy. I know spells, and I know fucking magic, but what the fuck is this shit? I try to drop the quill, but it’s embedded onto my fingers so tightly, I can’t even open my palm to let it go.
By its own volition and with a few slashes of ink, I’ve signed away my freedom on the thin line at the bottom. The letters of my name bleed into the pure white paper. It’s just my name, and yet, magic burns inside me like I’ve done something so much more. The runes along my arms flare with a heat that sears into me like knives. My eyes pinch closed at the feel of it, and I lift my head as if nothing’s wrong. I hold her gaze as tears prick behind my eyes.
Damios at my hip rattles against my thigh as if speaking in rambling thoughts that I should understand, but I don’t.
This . . . this is bad.
I’ve felt death absorb into my soul so many times. It’s always been a sweet feeling.
This feels like rot and decay.
“Thank you ever so much, Miss Lucero,” Krist says with a slicing smile that reveals sharp onyx teeth within her mouth. “Let me be the first to welcome you to Hallow Hill Academy. Your watch of death beginsnow.”
That whispered word rips through my brain like a tornado on fire. It’s all I hear, over and over and over again.
Even as my knees give out. And my head hits the desk hard enough to crack.
But not hard enough to kill.
It's a shame, really. If I knew then what I know now, maybe I would have wished for death.
Chapter Three
Sharp ties bite into my wrists. I twist this way and that, but all it does is cause an ache to strain through my arms that are bound tightly above my head. My strength and magic that are always so ripping and roaring are weak and tired now.
That bitch poisoned me with whatever vow was written on that paper. I should have fucking known better. I should have known to read the fine print or searched for binding spells, but the moment my hand touched the quill, I’d been lost. I’d been too focused on the temptation the Sekar promised and the mystery of the darkness that surrounded the headmistress.
It’s always been like that for me. If the darkness calls to me, I respond. It’s almost hypnotic, like my Holy Lady of Death lives within the shadows and beckons my kind like a siren. Whether it be to our salvation or our destruction.
I should have known better.
This isn’t an Academy. It’s a fucking prison.
My teeth grind, but what pisses me off the most is that coarse lace covers my eyes. The room I’m being kept in at thisplaceis muted and dark through the thin cloth. It’s a large space. Cold. Drafty and empty, it seems. A large object takes up the far-right wall, but I can’t tell what it is from here. My attention drifts across the enormous room, but nothing really takes shape with this fucking lace. I move my head slowly, feeling a heavy weight drift down my neck, and curse. Tiny pinpricks of a thousand needles are embedded into my skin, and I feel the liquid injections painfully easing into my bloodstream. I bite back my groan at the feel of my weakening magic.
The bitch is smart, I’ll give her that. Not many know or understand Sekar. Fuck, I don’t even understand me most days. Somehow, she knew that belladonna counteracts our magic.
The bitch has done her homework.
A frustrated breath shoves from my lungs as blood trickles down my wrists from how hard I’m pulling against my bindings.
“You look pathetic,” a voice says on a growl. His deep tone crawls across the spacious room in annoyed echoes, and I tense immediately.
I—I hadn’t realized anyone was in here.
My lashes scrape along the lace as I glare into every shadowy corner. Nothing. There’s nothing that I can see.
“Never assume you’re not being watched. And never show how fucking weak you are.Never.” His haunting voice is something that oddly sounds soothing as well as menacing. It carries a touch of warmth and strength.
And controlled hostility.
Then I feel him.
The heat of his chest sears into me, but his skin never touches mine. He just hovers. I can nearly make out his intense features from this proximity. A dark stare of pure steel with the brightest flecks of starlit silver press down on me. The man, Sialen, tilts his head slowly as he studies every inch of me.
