Page 12 of Fortune Academy: Year One
I was so glad that this wasn’t a public ceremony. Anyone with eyes would be able to see that something was clearly wrong with me.
You’re a monster.
I bit my lower lip until tears formed in my eyes. This sucked so much. I wanted to be a cool supernatural, not something that was evil or deserved to be locked up in a place called Monster Academy. I didn’t know what I was and now I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know.
Yet, as Dante worked, I knew that uncovering who and what I was would be inevitable and it’d be a hard pill to swallow. Sweat formed at his brow and his fingers turned red with the heat of the magic coursing through the blade. It was taking a lot of power to keep the registry from picking up my monster blood.
“Is this going to work?” I asked, my voice more of a pathetic whisper than the measured tone I wanted it to be. “You can’t rewrite my entry. If I’m a monster...”
“You’re not a monster,” Dante snapped, surprising me to meet the glow of his metallic orange eyes. They glowed brighter than I’d ever seen them as he worked with the dark mage’s magic. “There’s a part of you that’s a rare supernatural, although even Kaito won’t tell me what it is. I just know that there’s a part of you that needs to be here and...” He trailed off and relaxed as the glow ebbed from the pool. “Doesn’t matter. I was right. The spell worked, look.” He indicated the building behind me with a jerk of his chin.
I whirled to find the doors wide open and a glowing scroll of letters above it.
Welcome, Lily Fallen, Freshman of Fortune Academy.
My emotions were sofrazzled that I didn’t even ask, I just walked into the dorms and paused in the hallway. A few students glanced down at me, having gathered at the top of the stairs to loiter and talk.
“Who’s the new girl?”
“They wander in sometimes. Slacker stragglers.”
The rumors quieted when Dante followed me in and gave everyone a measured glare. Apparently having glowing eyes came in handy.
Dante brushed my arm with his fingers. The motion was natural as if we were already well-acquainted and strangely I found myself leaning into the touch. It told myself it was just because I was traumatized. I’d been betrayed by people I thought I could trust, discovered I bled black, but the reassuring news was that I wasn’t completely a monster… just two-thirds of life-sucking evil. Based on the unforgiving glares of the students around me, that was a secret I’d better find out a way to keep.
I didn’t feel very evil, but guilt nagged at my chest anyway, as if I could control a heritage I couldn’t even remember. I raised my chin high and tilted my head to Dante. “Well, you said I had a room? A girl gets tired, you know.” And damn, was I tired.
He chuckled and rewarded me by slipping his arm around my waist. His fingers ghosted me, didn’t quite touch me, but gave me a sensation of intimacy I didn’t expect. He leaned in closer to my ear and his breath sent goosebumps down my neck. “They need to think I’m here to hit on you, so play along.”
I fought the urge to frown. Right, there would be only two reasons why a bounty hunter would be with a blonde bimbo like me in the Freshman dorms. Either I was his bounty... or I was his booty-call.
Great.
I couldn’t help but grate my teeth together every step we took as Dante guided me past curious stares. The students tried to pretend they weren’t watching us with complete fascination. If they’d all just been recruited today, then this might be their first encounter with a hunter. Some of the more experienced students didn’t seem fazed and whispered impolitely, no doubt informing the others what they thought was going on.
What Dante wanted them to see.
Even though this was a sham that would protect me, I didn’t fucking like it one bit. My first day on campus and I was already going to get a reputation as the local whore? Not exactly the first impression I wanted to make.
My chest was getting tighter every step we took farther away from the entrance. “How far away is my room?” I complained. We’d already gone up three flights of stairs, past two corridors, and now I was in serious danger of being hopelessly lost in the maze of doors. I already had a terrible sense of direction and I wanted to be able to find my way out if I needed to.
“Here we are,” Dante said and indicated the final door on the last row. “Trust me. You’ll thank me for the placement.”
I gave him a raised brow, then looked back at the door. The same kind of touchpad I’d seen at the mage dorms rested against the wall and I leaned down to look at it.
“No iris scanners here,” Dante informed me. “Just put your hand up to it. It’ll read your signature.”
I glowered at him, then did as he said. The pad glowed purple and then a click sounded in the door. I opened the latch and a gust of cool air hit me followed by the stale scent of a room that hadn’t been aired out in quite a while.
“Why do I get the feeling that this isn’t a penthouse suite,” I grumbled, then made my way inside.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness before Dante flipped a switch, revealinga room that clearly hadn’t been used in quite a long time. Dusty drapes covered lumpy forms of furniture and a single window blocked any moonlight from coming in by an array of nailed up wooden boards. I lifted a lip at the drab scene.
“You really got me the best of the best,” I drawled, “you shouldn’t have.”
Dante chuckled and ripped one of the sheets from a sofa. In spite of the plume of particles that launched into the air, the sofa itself looked quite comfortable. “No one will bother you here.” He cocked his head to the side as if that was the lie. “Well, no one should bother you other than the other students. In any case, this is the safest place for you to be right now, I promise.”
I scoffed and peeled away one of the sheets that covered a table which would take days to get clean enough to be fit for eating on. I sneezed at the new plume of dust kicked up by the disturbance. “Safe,” I repeated the word, testing it for its validity. I wasn’t sure if I would ever feel safe, at least not until I had all the answers I was looking for and control over... whatever magic that ran through my veins.
