7. Riders, Riots, & Rules
SEVEN
riders, riots, & rules
Headmaster Reign continues to wear that forced smile across his lined face as he leads me down a long corridor. I keep quiet, and the only sound for several moments is our shoes padding across the smooth brick. Then he stops. He peers through the thin glass of a door, and his attention follows something I can’t see inside.
Words are inscribed into the brick above the black door:
A History of Riders, Riots, and Rules
Something in me feels incredibly wrong reciting the words “Riots and Rules” together in one sentence, but no one asked my opinion when erecting this castle of a school either, I suppose.
“You’ve just missed the Introduction to Battle classes yesterday,” he tells me, and I can’t help but think that might have been an important class I wouldn’t want to miss when the school’s name has the word Death in it . . .
“Professor Correll gives the best seminars of our long history here at Death Rider Academy. She’s very good at introducing the basics to our mates who join us. You’ll enjoy your class today, and when she’s finished, she’ll escort you to wardrobe down on the first floor and get you everything you need for a proper uniform and gear to begin the trials next week.” He gives a pleased nod before turning away and just leaving me to either enter the classroom or run the hell out of this academy and never look back.
With a sigh, I make my choice: I turn to face my fate head on. I won’t back down from this. I’ll accept the challenge and with it, these boys are going to accept the responsibility of figuring out why I’m connected to them.
I shake my head firmly and walk through the door. Except. My forehead bangs hard into the solid wood. With flinching eyes, I slam my palm to my temple to stop the ache and embarrassment, but it’s far too late for the first as well as the latter. Pain sears through my skull at the same time as my gaze meets the headmaster’s. He’s stopped in his tracks and is looking back at me and all the stupidity I’m standing in.
Because real live people can’t walk through doors, Haunting. Get your shit together!
That taunting voice at the back of my mind is starting to sound disgustingly like Arcane, and the reminder of the two brothers has me wincing even more.
A tense smile pulls across my lips, and I give a weak half wave before flinging open the door and walking inside like a regular-ass person.
“That’s correct. The Kingdom of Minden has never had the sacred bond with dragons that we Attikan’s have. In the year 1054, a high lord of Attika named Trommin Fowlery founded the academy in an attempt to save the dwindling race of dragons from extinction.” A young woman with chestnut-brown hair tied into a messy bun atop her head stops her pacing through the large room of desks. She swings her dark gaze toward me. Her thin framed glasses slip down her petite nose, and I don’t know why I expected her to be much, much older.
“You are?” she asks, and I instantly blank on my name.
What was it?
“H—Hallie . . .” My mouth lingers there waiting for flies or single Fated thought to land, “Haunting.” I finally finish, a big smile stretching over my lips with a pleased sense of accomplishment over simply remembering my own name.
But the deep confusion that tenses the Professor’s thin brows sucks up all that feeling of success in seconds.
“Strange.” She lifts her hand, and from a black cage on the desk at the front, a strange bird flies out toward her. Its tail isn’t feathers though . . . it’s long, pale, and rat-like. Delicate white wings carry the peculiar creature right onto her index finger. The pink of its soft nose sniffs affectionately at her thumb for some sort of food. It lifts its left paw, and she unravels the note attached to its foot. She smooths the note flat before saying, “Thank you, Minni.” She whispers sweetly to the pet. “Headmaster Reign wrote your name as Hollie, not Hallie.” That calculating gaze pierces into me once more.
“Right. Hollie.” I nod and try to make light of the strange situation with a small laugh, but it comes out hysterical and awkward.
A boy sitting nearest to the door looks up at me with a stare that confirms I sounded just as crazy as I thought.
Fates, can I just die now? Again?
“Very well. And who is your confirmed mate, Miss Haunting?” She dips her quill in a little ink jar on the large desk at the front and holds it in over the slip of paper. Waiting. While I freeze in place all over again.
I should have made a run for it.
“Um . . . Mr. Deces,” I answer vaguely.
“Arcane?” she asks with rather stunned, wide eyes.
“Um . . . Aelix. I think.” My lips seal together hard, and I hope that’s all of the formal questions for the day because I don’t have the answers, folks. I’m just as ill-informed as you are, I promise.
“Aelix?” The boy closest to me sneers. His freckles brighten his pale features, and I feel every ounce of his judgment as he takes me in from head to toe. “Unable Aelix? Fates gave you the short end of the brother stick.”
Several classmates join the cruel fiery-haired boy in his obnoxious chuckling amusement. The grating sound of it makes me want to begin the rioting part of class right here and now for some reason.
“That’s enough, Clawd. Please don’t forget you are a guest in our class today!” Professor Correll snaps, and that name she just said sits heavily in my mind.
“How very nice,” the professor says on a lighter tone. “Aelix’s sister Lila just joined us today as well. She has an open seat next to her, and I’m sure Miss Deces would be happy to share notes with her brother’s new mate.” She points to the chair only one seat away from the sneering boy, and I keep my glare locked on him as I pass.
“Hi,” I whisper when I lower into the hard wooden seat of the open desk.
The girl next to me, Lila, waves and gives the sweetest smile. Her long, silky black hair is just like her brothers’, but her features are softer. Kinder.
“Aelix hadn’t told me he’d found his mate,” she says curiously with a perfect smile that lights up her beautiful crystal-like eyes.
It seems unfair that the Fates favored this family with such immense beauty. But I immediately want to like Lila, unlike her siblings. I’m just about to tell her so when my words are cut off before they’re even spoken.
“Probably because it’s a mistake. It has to be.” The boy one seat down skims his attention across my face and down my body, lingering on my breasts for a long moment before Lila sends an elbow into his meaty shoulder.
“Fate doesn’t make mistakes! Aelix deserves happiness,” Lila practically sing-songs.
The boy next to her, Clawd, slides his big arm across the back of her chair as he whispers something deathly quiet into her ear that immediately breaks a smile across her pretty face. Her palm flattens over his button-down shirt, lingering there on his pectoral for so long that the puzzle pieces start to fit together into the most unfortunate of pictures: Lila is his mate.
My lip curls as I think about how cruel Fate truly is. Women are just awarded to these men with no say in their lives. We’re just supposed to support them without question. No matter how much of a terrible person they clearly are? No matter how much we’re dealing with ourselves?
I swallow hard at that, and slowly try to bring my attention to the blackboard at the front as swooping, white font scrawls across the long length of it. It writes in time with the words of the professor as she says them.
“Trommin had a vision that would strengthen the dying race. He envisioned an army-like academy that would defend and protect the creatures that so desperately needed him. Over the years, he used his knowledge, as well as his mage magic, to bring together the strongest men in all the seven isles. With it, the dragons began to experience the most bizarre side effects to the Lord’s dark magic: they began imprinting on his students and sending their emotions down unbreakable bonds to their riders that helped the academy better understand and better take care of the creatures. And as for his students: they began sprouting wings and horns and fiery breaths of screams.”
“Will that happen to us?” Lila askes on an unsteady tone that identically mirrors my own turning thoughts.
“No,” Professor Correll says. “The magic of Trommin Fowlery still lives in your mate’s blood even today. They contain the blood of the beast.”
Clawd growls and snaps his teeth along the girl’s neck, earning him another sharp elbow from Lila as she smiles and shoves him off of her.
“You and the others are no longer influenced by the powerful magic Fowlery subjected his students to. But the bond that exists between mates is still just as powerful. The bond you have with them strengthens their dragon as well as strengthens yourself. You’ll find once your mark takes on your side, you’ll start to heal radically fast. And your physical strength and speed will also blossom with this bond. Today, I’ll be passing out your mating journals. The mark on your side may take time and affection to seal. This journal will assist in unlocking the conscious connection that streams between one Fated mate to the other. With just a single written sentence, this journal will bring out your mark, his beast, and the bond that the two of you share.”
A leather-bound notebook is placed on my desk, and my fingers slide over the gold-etched dragon that’s nearly making a circle as the little creature appears to chase its sharply pointed tail. It’s cute but odd. Perhaps feral animals are all the same: dogs, dragons . . . men.
“How does it work?” I ask hesitantly, flipping through the thick blank pages of the journal.
Professor Correll turns toward the class with a big smile lighting up her soft features.
“Well, you write in it. Tell the journal your hopes and dreams and fears, and instantaneously, these words will reach your Fated’s subconscious as if the thoughts were his own. You’ll feel the tingling sensation of beautiful magic searing through your thoughts the moment you give it a try. And soon enough, you won’t need the journal to assist the communication between the two of you at all.”
“Mating quarters?” I ask with a tilt of my head, and the moment I ask that particular question, the excited smile on her lips slowly slips away.
“Did the headmaster not tell you where you’ll be living while at the academy? You’re a fated mate. You’ll be sharing a room with your fated.”
My tongue feels like dry and decaying rot inside my mouth as it quickly occurs to me before she even explains.
“Oh no,” I whisper.