Chapter 5
SADIE
“Huh,” I said, when Laura Mortem led us in a winding route through grey stone corridors made warm by golden light, past more arched doorways into darkened rooms, alcoves housing stone benches, stone staircases, and a statue of a huge stone bat I was immediately suspicious of.
I kept my eye on it until we passed, convinced it was going to come to life and transform into a vampire.
The academy had an atmosphere to it, a gravitas and weight like old churches, and the same old, dusty scent.
No coppery tang of blood. It didn’t exactly set my mind at ease; just because there were no obvious pools of blood didn’t mean they weren’t hidden away behind closed doors.
The whole building was deadly quiet, though.
There was no way to judge how many other students—slayers, Mortem called them—were here, or guess the number of faculty that would oversee our training.
I wasn’t looking forward to the training part of Lunova Academy—or Lunatic Academy as the brunette, Fioranna, had called it—or really any part of the academy shit, but I’d been working in retail for four years. I could handle anything.
The chamber we were led into was big enough that our murmurs echoed off the vaulted ceilings. Banners hung from the wainscoting, cherry wood walls between windows that let in silver moonlight to mix with the amber glow from chandeliers above.
“Fancy,” I said under my breath. Not the armoury I’d been braced for, or maybe a room full of past slayers who’d been strung up for disobedience, their decaying corpses a warning for us to not step out of line.
Instead, this was a dining room, with rows of tables covered in differing coloured tablecloths—each matching a banner, I couldn’t help but notice.
I stopped where Mortem indicated, the others fanned around me before a long, cherry-wood table set with five bowls of something that looked a lot like rice pudding and smelled like warm vanilla and cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven.
How nice of our kidnappers to feed us before they forced us to enrol at their murder school.
Just think of the money, I told myself. One year, and you’ll have enough to start over anywhere.
I could move to Paris, become a sophisticated woman who visited galleries and libraries on the weekend.
Or rent a cottage deep in the Pennines, where no one would ever bother me again.
One year, and I could live happily ever after.
I’d done all this before—the school, the studies, the classmates.
Even the banners and the different colour decor, which pointed to getting sorted into a house.
I was in Fox House back in primary school, and had all the badges, iron-on patches, and matching school bags that came with it.
And we never once won a school trip at the end of the year.
Hedgehog House won that every year, the dicks.
There were no hedgehogs on the banners hung around the dining hall, though. I caught sight of a knife dripping blood on one of them, and decided I wouldn’t look too closely at the rest. Knowing my luck, I’d be sorted into Dismembered Head House.
“Lunova is an ancient world,” Mortem said with an air of importance she clearly expected us to be wowed by,1 “and it abides by ancient rules. All you must do to join our ranks of slayers is pick up a bowl of spice pudding and eat from it, before taking a drink of wine.”
“What a lovely way to be poisoned,” I remarked.
“If you eat and drink of this world, you’ll be bound to its edges,” Fioranna said in a quiet voice, throwing me a wide-eyed stare. She was a head taller than me, but her fear made her seem much smaller, and roused my protectiveness again.
“Meaning… we’ll be trapped here?”
She nodded.
“Fuck this,” spat the male kidnappee—he hadn’t offered his name to anyone, and I hadn’t bothered to ask. His upper lip curled in a sneer. “I’m not staying in this fucked up world forever. I’m going home.”
He turned, and Ezren stepped up to his side, still hooded, still looming. “I’ll escort you to the boundary,” he offered, though it was far from an act of kindness. “The wolves will meet you on the other side.”
“Total fucking bullshit,” the nameless prick snapped.2
He stomped over to the cherry-wood table, grabbed a spoonful of creamy pudding and swallowed it, guzzling the entire glass of wine. “Happy? Now you’ve threatened and blackmailed me into joining your sick little school?”
“Ecstatic,” Morven said flatly, sweeping her arm at the rest of us.
Think of the money, think of the cottage in the middle of nowhere.
I downed the wine first—I needed the liquid courage—and wasn’t entirely prepared for the instant buzz. “Holy shit,” I said with a laugh. “This shit’s rocket fuel.”
I received blank looks from my blonde almost-friend, Fioranna, and Mortem. Nose Ring Girl understood me, though, and reached for a glass of deep red wine, chugging it like I had. We reached for bowls of pudding at the same time, and shared a universal look of not bad.
No one else followed us, and Mortem didn’t push the issue.
“We’re the humans,” I whispered to Nose Ring Girl. “Us and the prick.”
She nodded, glancing at the blonde and Fioranna. If my kinda-friend was a twin, what did that make the brunette woman? I was about to ask if Nose Ring Girl thought they were vampires when heat spread out from my stomach up my chest and I flung a hand against my heart in panic as it quickened.
Nose Ring Girl stumbled against the table, gasping.
The kidnapped prick made a throaty sound. “You’re overreacting. It’s not that bad.”
I glared from him to Mortem. “Can I kill him?”
“Unfortunately not,” she replied.
“If I work my ass off and become the best wolf killer you’ve ever known in this school,” I countered, “could I kill him then?”
“As a boon?” A calculating look crossed her stark face. “I suppose that could be arranged.”
I gave the prick my slimiest smile. “Better be nice to me, then.”
“Bitch,” he spat, his nose turned up. I rolled my eyes at his super imaginative name calling. I knew I was right about what kind of person he was. And honestly, if I was his family, I’d have gotten rid of him, too.
But all that thought did was remind me that Gran, the only person I had left in the world—in any world—had abandoned me. Sold me. Wanted nothing to do with me.
And thanks to the stunning lack of options in this place, I was now trapped in a realm of vampires, wolves, and fuck knows what else. The weight of it crouched on my shoulders, threatening to crush me.
“Ladies, follow me,” Mortem said, interrupting my spiral. “I’ll deliver you to your rooms. Evren, show Mr…”
“Lawrence Montgomery-Sutherland,” he supplied, and seemed to pause for a moment, as if waiting for recognition. “As in the Montgomery-Sutherlands. My father is Giles Montgomery-Sutherland, the Speaker of the House…”
I gave him a double thumbs up.
“Good for you, buddy,” Nose Ring Girl said, turning away from him to follow Mortem.
With a glance at the blonde and Fioranna, my allies in this deadly world, I followed.