Assassin's Academy: Book One: Rebels: (A Dark Academy Romance) Read online

  Holding my breath, I take a reckless step forward and place my hand in his, ready to escape if I need to. He closes my fingers over my palm, tucking my thumb at the side, enclosing my fist in his big hand. I don’t like the way my entire hand disappears inside his palm. I feel too small. Too weak.

  At his touch, I nearly expected to feel the energy that shot through me when we fought, but I don’t. Instead, his hand is warm, strong.

  “Like that,” he says. “Now your feet.”

  He taps my feet with his own until I shift them into the position he wants. “Balance your weight. Harness your core. Now relax into it.”

  He pulls my fist toward his chest, where it connects gently with his upper ribs. “Hit me here and it will hurt most. Go on.”

  I hesitate. He’s lying. It won’t hurt most to hit him there. It will hurt most if I hit him on his back where his burns are still healing.

  My fist slowly unfurls, my fingers escaping his as I flatten my palm against his ribs, sensing his quick inhale. I tell myself that I’m preparing to shove him aside, but I linger just a moment too long.

  His arm slips around my waist, drawing me closer. His free hand rises to the back of my neck, gently cradling my head. A shiver runs down my spine, confusing me because I’m not afraid.

  His lips hover above mine.

  He whispers, “Now I’m going to hurt you.”

  “What—?”

  My reflexes aren’t quick enough.

  His thumb runs down the side of my neck, a raking burn. The air stops in my lungs. A scream forms in my windpipe and then it stops.

  My body ceases to respond to my internal commands. My arms and legs go limp.

  I slump in his arms, sense myself slipping to the ground as he lays me down. His figure blurs as consciousness fades.

  His lips press to my ear as he whispers, “Goodnight, Peyton.”

  Everything goes dark.

  8. Striker Draven

  Water and electricity are a bad mix, but I deserve every agonizing shot of pain I’m experiencing. I press back against the fence, rain pouring down my back, the excruciating burn ripping through my chest. I grip the bars harder, my fingers curled tightly, refusing to let go even when my head spins and my stomach turns. It’s been hours since I ate, but my body doesn’t care, trying to make me hurl up my long-ago lunch.

  When afternoon classes finished, I ran for two hours around the perimeter, circling the fighting ring again and again, watching and waiting for Peyton to wake up, but she’s still out cold. Every time I circle the ring, I peer at her to see if her chest still rises and falls—that she’s still breathing.

  The nerve-pinch I delivered was supposed to knock her out for an hour—just long enough for Ms. Hawk to lose interest and leave her alone. I tried to knock her unconscious the moment she stepped into the ring so she wouldn’t have to face the remainder of the class, but she surprised me with her determination to fight back.

  She shouldn’t have remained unconscious this long.

  The afternoon has stretched into the evening and now it’s dark, well past dinner time. Worse, storm clouds have gathered and the sky opened up.

  Now the rain beats at her unconscious body and the combat mat runs red with her blood.

  She’s still bleeding out.

  Her wounds are real. They’re actually real.

  I didn’t believe that the blood all over her this morning meant she was hurt. Even the scratches across her face looked like they could have been deliberately made—an elaborate hoax, but it wouldn’t be the first. I tried to discover if her shoulder wound was genuine when I grabbed her outside my room, but it was impossible to tell. Especially when she got up in my face with her throaty threats and get-the-hell-away-from-me eyes and her body pressed against mine in a way that nearly drove me insane.

  I didn’t believe she killed the harpy. I didn’t believe she was wounded. I didn’t believe how pale she was. I didn’t even believe the way she gave up fighting me in the hallway when I stomped on her food.

  I didn’t believe anything about her… until she took off her shirt.

  The foundations shifted beneath me when I saw the deep claw marks across her shoulder, the thin trickles of blood running down her back and chest.

  Now I shout into the wind and rain, cursing every step I’ve taken since she arrived. Her screams, her flickering silhouette when she stepped toward Joseph, the way she took the fall for him…

  She’s an Unknown, brought here to die, and I’ve treated her like trash.

  If she dies tonight, I’ll be lucky to salvage what’s left of my charred conscience.

  Finally letting go of the fence, I drop to my hands and knees in the mud, gripping the sodden mounds of grass, my fingers pressing into it.

  I want to scoop her up in my arms and take her inside, but the outcome will be much worse for her if I do. The Headmistress made it very clear that anyone who tries to help Peyton right now will be punished. I don’t care about myself, but I do care that they’ll throw her in the pit overnight if she doesn’t wake up on her own.

  Even without the harpy, she won’t survive if she spends the night down there. She needs fluids and blood, neither of which she’ll get if she’s locked up.

  I try to shake off the memory of the way her palm flattened against my stomach when she was supposed to hit me, the smallest flicker of trust in her eyes when her head fit perfectly into my hand, her messy hair tangling between my fingers. The way she let me hold her when she shouldn’t have.

  The way my senses filled with her nearness in a way I’ve never experienced before. I tell myself my reaction in that moment was purely physical. I’ve been in this place too long. Been without sex for too long.

  Lights flicker high up in the attic and the silhouettes of two men become apparent, backlit as they stand surveying the yard and everything in it through the wide windows. They don’t care that I throw myself against the fence each day. The voltage is set to stun, not kill. They think I’m trying to prove my strength. But they will care if they see me worry about Peyton.

  If I stay here, hovering over her, I’ll make things worse.

  I pull to my feet, forcing myself to move, pretending I don’t care that she’s dying twenty feet from me as I jog away from her.

  I don’t look back, but my chest hurts with every jarring step I take.

  9. Peyton Price

  It’s raining.

  A shudder racks my body as I force my eyes open, blinking through the downpour. I’m alone on the platform, lying here in my underwear, my head resting on my arm. The sunlight’s long gone. My saturated uniform lies in a pile beside me. Storm clouds obscure the sky and lightning streaks above me, short, sharp bursts that remind me of Joseph’s flicker fit.

  They left me here. The teachers, the students, Striker.

  I don’t know how long.

  I try to push up with my arms, easing out my stiff neck, but my muscles wobble. My shoulder aches so bad, but I’m beyond screaming. The rain is like icicles and I’m numb inside and out.

  They left me here to bleed out, but they’ll be watching me. I cast my gaze around the deserted grounds and then higher. Way up on the fifth floor, two figures stand at the floor-to-ceiling windows along the corridor outside my bedroom, their silhouettes illuminated by the dim light: my compliance officers.

  The fact that they don’t bother to stand closer guard tells me they don’t believe I’ll make a run for it. In my weakened state, taking on the electrified fence would be suicide. I have nowhere to go. I’ll be lucky to make it back inside the building.

  I check my fingers in case being near death has caused my power to surface. I could fantasize for a moment that the storm raging above me is my own creation, but my fingers are pale, numb—no manifestation, no power, not even the faintest flicker.

  Another shudder shakes me so hard that I struggle to close my fist around my uniform, dragging it beside me as I crawl to the edge of the platform. I manage to get my feet
under myself before I roll off the raised surface. Trying to find my balance, I stumble to the back door, gratefully leaning against it when I finally reach it.

  I’m freezing. My only hope is to curl up under a warm shower, try to beat the threatening hypothermia and figure out a way to…

  What, Peyton? Die peacefully?

  I breathe out. Shaky breaths. Pressing against the door, I feel the rain beating at my back. I don’t know how much blood I’ve lost now. I’d planned to find a way to dress my wounds, but instead I lay on a hard surface with my wounds exposed for hours.

  Standing under a shower probably isn’t the smartest thing I could do, but I have no other way to get warm and right now, that’s all I can think about.

  I push open the door and stumble to the steps, pressing against the walls at intervals. The hallway is silent. So is the second floor. It must be way past dinnertime. Way past bedtime.

  What the hell did Striker do to knock me out that long?

  And dear ancients, how am I going to climb another flight of stairs? My feet are heavier with every step, my knees buckling on the final three steps. I fall to my hands and knees and pull myself onto the fifth floor.

  The compliance twins step out of the shadows the moment I appear.

  “Look who finally woke up.” Collin smirks. “We got tired of standing in the rain. We watched you just fine from up here.”

  I don’t have the energy for a retort. Placing one foot in front of the other is all I can do. I make it past Striker’s open door before I veer to the wall and press my way along it. He stops mid-pushup as I pass, jumping to his feet, his chest gleaming with sweat.

  He looks warm and I need to be warm. I fight the insane urge to stumble back to his room, press against him, and steal his body heat.

  I must be delirious. In fact, I probably am. Blood loss and hyperthermia. I’m not thinking straight. Asking Striker Draven for help will earn me a punch in the face. He’s the reason I’m in trouble to begin with.

  I stumble to the bathroom door, sensing movement behind me.

  Striker’s confident statement follows me inside the room. “I can take it from here.”

  The compliance twins laugh. “She’s all yours.”

  The thud of their boots fades and then cuts off as the door closes behind me.

  I don’t care what Striker plans to do. I’m beyond fear right now. My instinct is basic: survive.

  I turn on the shower and have the presence of mind to make sure it’s not too hot before I collapse to my hands and knees and crawl inside it. The warm water eases my frozen limbs, driving warmth across my head as I curl up under the spray, my eyes closing.

  I exhale a sigh of relief. Finally, I feel warm.

  I can rest now.

  My breathing slows, calm. Quiet and soft.

  “Get up.”

  Striker’s order reaches me from far away, washing over me like a breeze before it fades into nothing, means nothing. His hand curls around my shoulder, grabbing me hard, but it doesn’t hurt. I don’t feel it at all. I probably should. Maybe I should be worried about that, but I’m beyond caring.

  “Peyton?”

  His voice sounds different, urgent, worried.

  My head tips back. He tilts me across his arm in the water, giving me a fierce frown. His face, his amber eyes, are a distant blur, becoming more distant by the second as I close my eyes again.

  “Fuck.”

  The water stops. A towel scoops around me and the room shifts. He just took away the warm water, the one thing I needed.

  Damn him. I struggle against him, wanting my cocoon of warmth again, but my efforts don’t do me any good. My arms won’t move. My legs aren’t responding.

  Let me go, damn you.

  He grips me tightly, one arm braced across my shoulders and supporting my head, the other under my knees. Within moments, we pass my room and enter his. I can’t fight him as he lays me on his bed, turning me onto my stomach, my head facing the wall, my wet hair splattering his pillow.

  I shiver when he unclasps the back of my bra and pushes my bra strap off my right shoulder, but my awareness of his actions is patchy, fading in and out. I’m confused when his footsteps hurry away from me and there’s a clunk like shifting wood cracking against itself before he returns. Within seconds, cold liquid burns across my shoulder.

  I exhale a moan at the sudden pain, wanting to sink into numbness again.

  He presses his palm against my back. “Lie still.”

  Something soft presses against my wound. A tearing sound scratches my hearing before the pressure against my shoulder increases, but it’s a soothing pressure.

  Is he… dressing my wound? He can’t be. I must be hallucinating. Why would he do that? And where did he get the supplies?

  I fight my disbelief as he takes hold of my left shoulder and hip and turns me over. My bra slips farther down my chest, barely concealing my breasts, but it’s difficult to care when I can’t even move.

  His focus doesn’t descend below my right shoulder, which is now closest to the wall, as he quickly straddles me so he can reach that side and presses a medical patch over my wounds at the front. Duct tape scrapes my hearing again as he pulls and cuts it, pressing firmly across the patch to keep it in place.

  He checks my neck, running his fingers across my skin before he slides them down my torso, across my stomach and hip, all the way to my leg, leaving a burning trail of tingles all through me. The sensation is like a last living lifeline as darkness threatens to engulf me again.

  The tape screeches.

  A patch presses against my leg.

  Then his weight lifts off the bed and a blanket settles over me.

  His chair scrapes across the floor before he pulls my left arm out from beneath the blanket. “This is going to hurt.”

  There isn’t a shred of apology in his voice as a sharp object pierces my skin. Tape descends over the object he stuck into me and then there’s a moment of silence. My eyes fly open when I hear him suck in a sharp breath. It sounded like pain.

  I fight to focus on him, my vision blurred.

  He’s sitting in a chair beside me, his teeth gritted, a plastic line dangling between us, running from his arm to mine. Crimson liquid spears through it toward me.

  A breathy sound escapes my lips. “Wha—?”

  “You need blood. Mine’s your only option.”

  Humans give blood all the time, but Striker is Unknown and so am I. There are so many things that could go wrong right now. Blood of different species alone could kill me. We have no way of knowing what the outcome will be—

  His blood hits my vein.

  Oh, fiery gods of hell.

  A scream builds inside my lungs and my back arches as liquid magma surges through my arm, striking through my shoulder with every heartbeat drawing it in. I thrash, but he lurches across the space between us, spreading his free hand across my chest, pushing me back to the bed.

  I moan out the pain as scorching heat spreads through my chest. I’m barely able to distinguish between the heat from his blood and the warmth from his hand. The blanket slips with my sudden movement, the heel of his palm pressed against the top of one of my breasts, his fingers splayed against the other, tangling in my bra.

  His command breaks through the intense fire licking through my stomach, traveling down my frozen legs.

  “Be still.”

  I suck in a breath, the first coherent response I can make tearing from my lips. “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  I shake my head as heat pulses up my neck, filling my head with—

  I gasp, my chest rising again, but not with pain, not fear, not hatred, not anger.

  Pure, blissful warmth.

  It fills my mind, spreading outward, downward, finally relaxing my tense muscles, washing through my arms and torso and my legs. A deep blush spreads across my cheeks as the heat washes past the apex between my legs, triggering an intense sensation I’m not remotely familiar wit
h. Definitely not painful.

  The torturous warmth reaches my toes, making them curl as the initial burning heat fades to a soothing sensation and I settle back onto the bed.

  Touch has always been a negative experience for me. The back of a hand, a fist, always severe, never gentle, never wanted. Whatever magic courses through Striker’s blood, it’s making me wish he weren’t my enemy. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like if he stroked my hair, maybe even hugged me in a way that made me feel as comforted as I feel right now.

  His gaze meets mine, a fierce crease between his eyebrows, his eyes startlingly bright. For a second, I find myself imagining that the fire I felt in his blood is reflected in his eyes, a dark, volcanic flame, but when I blink, the reflection is gone.

  He seems to suddenly become aware of his hand still pressing across my breasts. He hurries to remove it, but his fingers are tangled in my bra. He only makes things worse when he accidentally wrenches the material with him.

  He freezes with my bra pulled partly across my chest and barely covering the important parts. Lowering his hand before he rips my bra off completely, he stops very still.

  He firmly fixes his gaze on the window at the other side of the room. “A little help?”

  The warmth filling my body is making me much less inhibited than I would normally be. If something like this had happened this morning, I’d gouge out his eyes. Instead… I almost feel sorry for him. I almost… don’t want him to move away.

  It’s that damn warm feeling muddling my emotions.

  Sliding my free arm over my chest, I trap my bra against my breasts, obscuring them, so he can untangle his fingers and carefully remove his hand.

  With an exhalation, he sits back in his chair, his focus turning to the closed door. The medical line hangs between us in the silence, his blood continuing to revive me.

  There are a thousand snide comments I could make right now about his idea of medical help. I hope the needle is clean. He’d better not give me any diseases. But all of them are born of the protective mechanisms I’ve developed over the years to put up prickly barriers between myself and others.