Page 8 of Escaping Hallow Hill Academy
It’s eerie and slimy to roll across my tongue. The mechanical way her porcelain flesh moves is something I couldn’t look away from if I wanted to.
She’s a walking dead. A corpse strung up and brought to life with more science holding her together than blood. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before and gives me a wary feeling throughout my body.
When her piercing blue eyes settle on me, my heart nearly dies in my chest. My shoulders stiffen hard, and I tilt my jaw up to her as she stands regally and glides toward me on flawless steps that don’t at all scream monster but high lady.
“It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen a powerful Sekar.” Her sharp features cut apart my appearance as her attention sweeps over the glowing tattoos along my arms. She ignores Sialen entirely. “How many near-death experiences have hunters brought you?”
I have to bite back the laughter bubbling at the back of my throat. How many people have tried to kill me in my twenty-four years?
She thinks I know that number off the top of my head? Supernaturals are always hunting other supernaturals. The black market is full of all the various body parts of the rarest creatures: mummified hands, preserved eyeballs in jars, locks of hair perfect for spells . . .You name it, and it’s all there. Someone as rare as me has never been safe.
“Probably around fifty,” I say, and she nods. Until I add more, “this year.”
Delicate blonde eyebrows lift high on her smooth features. A cold gaze from the man at my side is frosty against my face, but I don’t look at him.
I can’t. Because the curiosity in the headmistress’s face is too demanding.
“Do you know how many attacks occur within the walls of my Academy, Miss Lucero?”
Why’s this a game for her?
“Uh, by your confidence, I’d saylessthan fifty.” I tilt my head and force myself not to sigh dramatically in her face. This is the weirdest encounter I’ve ever had. As far as greetings go, though, I’m grateful she hasn’t shot at me or tried to cut the runes out of my flesh.
Yet.
I can’t let my guard down.
“Less than one, Miss Lucero.” Her slender arms fold over her sleek black blazer, and the clattering tail swooping around her legs continues its little taunting shifting like it has a life of its own. It’s a cocky little fucker, I’ll give it that.
“Those are good numbers,” I finally say, just to appease her tail’s ego.
Her eyes narrow on me the way a disappointed parent would look at their favorite child.
Not that I would have a single clue what that feels like.
“The students of Hallow Hill Academy are safe. Safer here than anywhere in the entire world. And their power, it’s intensified year by year. We accept only the best. And you, Miss Emmera Lucero, you are indeed the rarest and the best.”
Damios at my side pulses bright white before calming into a dimmer shade of gold.
Seems he, too, likes a little ego-stroking now and then. I have to shift my hip to get it to calm down before it goes full-blown erection on us and starts throbbing in golden colors.
There’re several long, drawn-out seconds where I’m staring at the walking dead, and she’s staring back at me with so much excited life in her eyes, it’s damn near enthralling.
This place made her, didn’t it? I’ve never seen any monster like her in my entire life, and here she stands running an academic institution with more gears in her head than brains.
“Would you like a tour of our fine Academy, Miss Lucero?”
“No,” I say, containing my interest in her. In the rare Sekar at my side and every other wonder this building seems to be housing in plain sight, right smack in the middle of the state of Maine.
More staring and more containing my interest slip by as I debate walking out and forgetting this mysterious place entirely. I can take them down if they try to stop me and hop out the window or take one of the many exits I discovered when I scoped out the place earlier.
I could forget this place entirely.
Which my mind would never,everlet me do.
If I have a reason to walk away right now, it’s those clanking metal gears of her body, clicking and clattering like a rusted machine. And if I have a reason to stay, it’s the Sekar at my side. The bastard has said all of two words to me, but I feel his presence keenly. How can I not? However broken he may be, he’s still one of my own, and something whispers in my mind telling me I need to save him. From what? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s my Holy Lady of Death tempting me with that. I can’t be sure. All I know is that now that I have another dark witch at my side, I’ll be damned if I let him go.
Even if he is the biggest asscock I’ve ever laid eyes on.
