Dragon Fire Academy 1: First Term: an RH academy romance Page 7

  Energy flowed through me, transferring to Kai through his flesh. Lowering my hands to the sides of his neck, I felt the pain lifting away from him. There were no words to describe it, only that his soul felt lighter, less troubled. Once I was fully engrossed in the spell, it was okay to reopen my eyes. When I did, the glow of a blindingly bright light had engulfed us both—the healing light. Once it began to fade, I was confident it had done its job.

  I pulled away, rearing back on my shins as I watched him, surprised by how much more handsome he was when he wasn’t glaring at me like he wished I’d burst into flames.

  “Better?” I asked.

  Speechless, he only nodded, still leaning with his face a mere six inches away. There was a brief moment where I felt something. It was similar to the tug inside my chest when we all met for the first time, but it was rooted deeper than that. Uncomfortable with the sensation, I cleared my throat and got to my feet.

  “Well … good. Glad it worked.” I turned, already taking a step away from them, but I didn’t get very far.

  “Wait.” Ori had stepped forward when I turned.

  “Yeah?” I sighed, glancing up into the silhouetted palm leaves as the sun dipped lower.

  “What’d you do to him?” The question left Ori’s mouth gruffly, bordering on accusatory. Apparently, helping his friend hadn’t softened him any.

  Realizing he was a lost cause, I laughed a bit and turned to continue my walk toward the academy.

  “You’re welcome,” was the only answer I had for him. It didn’t seem to matter what I did, I was on this guy’s crap-list indefinitely.

  Chapter Seven

  Ori

  “She helped me,” was Kai’s feeble attempt at reasoning.

  “Doesn’t change the facts.”

  “Exactly.” I pointed at Paulo when he took the words right out of my mouth.

  Most of us didn’t bother following mainlander history all that closely, but I knew of their queen, how she’d been reborn after centuries. She was said to be the hybrid offspring of the original wolf of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, and original dragon of Ars-en-Ré, France. Her king, Noelle’s father I presumed, was said to be a bloodthirsty dragon warrior who hailed from Cairo, Egypt.

  So how the heck was Noelle part witch, too? That factor didn’t quite fit into the equation. When it came to witches, there were three rules I knew to be fact.

  One: they stunk to high-heaven when they dabbled in the dark arts.

  Two: they could only survive past the age of one hundred by regularly ingesting the blood of lycans.

  Three: a witch could only be a witch. Not a witch/dragon/lycan mashup. That simply didn’t happen.

  “She hasn’t even shifted yet. You can tell by her scent,” Rayen interjected.

  “That doesn’t mean she’s harmless! It only means she’s a wildcard!” I snapped. “The Advisors must have made an exception because she’s on the verge of her twentieth birthday. Give or take a few months. She wouldn’t have been granted admittance otherwise. So basically, she’s a ticking timebomb,” I explained. “There’s a reason a shifter mating with a witch always produces a shifter with no magic. Because the outcome would be catastrophic. A combination of witch DNA manifesting with even one shifter breed would be bad news. But both?”

  I couldn’t stop pacing. It felt like we were harboring an unstable nuclear warhead on our island. And when she detonated, there was no way to know how devastating the fallout would be.

  Would she be able to harness her magic? The rage we dragons are born with and must be taught to control? The ferocity of her wolf? There wasn’t anything about this situation that I liked.

  “Well, at least it makes sense now,” Rayen sighed. “For a second, I wondered if Chief thought less of us, demoting us to security detail. Turns out, he put us on the most dangerous mission any of the Firekeepers have ever been assigned.”

  The floorboards of our bungalow creaked as I walked them, trying to come up with a plan. It wasn’t easy to do under so much pressure.

  “Think we should alert the other hives?” Paulo chimed in. “Maybe they should be on standby in case things go bad.”

  Before he even finished speaking, I was already shaking my head. “The last thing we need is to distract them from patrolling the border. It’s bad enough our own duties have been split between two assignments. Let’s not break their focus, too.”

  Agreeing, Paulo nodded and went back into deep thought.

  “Again,” Kai spoke up, “she saved my life. I think that counts for something.”

  Three dirty looks shot his way for being naïve, mine included.

  “Which she wouldn’t have had to do if you’d listen for once,” Paulo sneered. Kai’s actions weren’t the ones on trial here, but it didn’t surprise me that things circled right back to him.

  “Here we go again,” Kai grumbled.

  “And we’ll keep going there until you listen. You can’t … fix … everyone,” I asserted, feeling like those words always fell on deaf ears.

  Tonight, it had been a child, a ten-year-old girl claiming to have followed a disembodied voice that lured her across the border. This was the first we heard of anyone claiming to have heard the Darkness speak, but the ordeal ended with her returning home contaminated, attacking her mother before her father could restrain her. When we arrived, she was chained in the cellar, eyes black as night, just like when we found Isaac. While I understood Kai wanting to save such a young life, the rest of us were more concerned with saving his. After what we’d seen today, there was no denying that taking on the Darkness was starting to wear on him.

  “Noelle isn’t your typical girl, I’ll give you that,” Kai declared,

  “But you can’t tell me it’s okay to write someone off based on a hunch. It’s entirely possible she’ll age up and nothing will happen.”

  The room was quiet, but far from calm. There was an energy building in the space, and there was a chance someone could explode if we weren’t careful.

  “You’re right,” Paulo replied with sarcasm heavy in his tone. “She could blow out the candles and we’ll all go to bed that night happy we didn’t ship her home for her own people to deal with. Or,” he countered, “she could hulk out on us first, then make it into the village where kids are playing, where the elderly are resting beside the water, and feast on our people like she’s at some kind of buffet. Now, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s probably a good idea to over-prepare.”

  Kai’s shoulders tensed when he stood from his seat beside the window. Paulo pushed off from the wall he stood against, and you could feel the air thicken as they stared one another down. The flame within a flame—the mark of the Firekeepers—glowed brighter at the nape of Paulo’s neck. The intensity was an indicator of extreme emotional output, such as anger.

  “That’s enough,” Rayen stepped in, literally acting as a wall between the two. “Agree to disagree, cry and hug it out, something,” he reasoned. “Because we don’t have time to be at each other’s throats.”

  A stifling silence filled the common quarters of the bungalow. Rayen’s gaze volleyed back and forth between our brothers, and it was Kai who finally backed down, clearly pissed it came to that. Using his foot, he shoved the chair he’d been seated in against the wall, splintering its back with the force. Before disappearing inside his room, he passed a dark gaze over his shoulder, aimed straight for Paulo.

  The door slammed with enough force to make the walls shudder.

  It made our job ten times harder when there was a disconnect between us, which seemed to be happening more often lately.

  Paulo let out a breath while stretching his neck, dispelling some of his frustration. “Guy’s wound tighter than a spool of thread.”

  “Needs to get laid,” Rayen grumbled as he dropped down onto the couch.

  “Don’t we all.” When Paulo laughed, it lightened the mood a bit. “Not gonna lie. Trailing the resident princess in that uniform from sunup to sundown probably ain’t helping.”

  The comment made me envision Noelle, how her already short skirt rose just slightly higher in the back, leaving the backs of her thighs visible. So much of my brothers’ conversation had become about her looks lately, seemed I found myself losing focus on occasion too. It wasn’t like we hadn’t seen pretty faces before, but it’d be a lie if I didn’t admit hers was exceptional.

  Actually, her everything was exceptional.

  When I first spotted her in the atrium over a month ago, I mistook her for an islander, one of our own. That is, until I realized she was the mainlander’s princess. Her tan skin was only a shade or two lighter than my own, and her dark, wavy hair had thrown me off as well. However, considering her background—namely, the diversity of her family—the ambiguity made sense. Still, by any nation’s standards, she was beautiful.

  Unfortunately for us—four guys who had yet to successfully connect with a potential queen for our hive—beauty equaled distraction. Which meant Noelle’s attractiveness was one heck of a hazard. One we couldn’t afford right now.

  “Not gonna lie,” Paulo continued, “I’m a sucker for a girl with curves in all the right places, and … hers are definitely in the right places,” he added with a distracted grin, moving his hands over an invisible hourglass-figure. “Timebomb or not … pretty sure I’d hit that if we’d met under different circumstances.”

  “Dude … without question,” Rayen agreed, barely giving Paulo a chance to finish speaking.

  This further proved my point about her being a major distraction.

  “So where are we with this?” I inquired, getting the conversation back on track. “The quicker we resolve it, the quicker we can get back to what’s important.”

  Paulo settled against the wall again.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say our mission has changed. Protecting her is no longer our concern, but rather protecting those on this island from what she could become.”

  Nodding, Rayen and I both agreed.

  “So, what do we do about that? I think we all agree that ‘taking her out’ seems a bit extreme,” Paulo spoke up, using air quotes around the phrase. “Although, if it comes down to her or the safety of the island, we’d have to choose the island.”

  Again, there was no argument against his logic.

  “Then, if not death, what?” Rayen asked.

  I peered up at my brothers with the only viable solution. “Removal.”

  Paulo’s brow quirked when he grinned. “As in, get her kicked out?”

  “As in, whatever it takes,” I clarified. “We’ll watch her, gather enough evidence against her to prove to the Advisors that she’s a threat to the island, and they’ll be forced to act. Until we have the proof we need, we keep close watch, especially since we aren’t sure when she’ll age up,” I insisted. “Chief is clearly aware of what this girl is, but he’s in denial, blinded by the benefits of having her here, versus the dangers. So, for now, we have to assume he’s not our ally in this situation. It’ll be up to us to keep tabs on her at all times, but also keep our priorities intact. It’s imperative our focus remain on the most important things—our island, our people.”

  Paulo and Rayen both nodded.

  “And I don’t think I need to stress how important it is that we resolve this before the next lottery closes in on us. There’s always a period of unrest that follows, so we must stay focused.”

  The others fell silent at mention of the lottery. It was a widely accepted practice on Sanluuk, but most had deemed it little more than a necessary evil, a means of maintaining balance.

  “Then, it’s settled,” Rayen concluded. “Operation: ‘Royal Pain’ is officially in place.”

  “While I forbid anyone to call it that … yeah,” Paulo snickered, “it’s a go.”

  So, it was decided.

  I stretched, aware of how badly I needed a shower after the ordeal in town—wrestling with a ten-year-old with the strength of a man twice my size.

  “Our mark will need eyes on her every night. Although, I think we should be discreet about it for a while. Don’t need her pitching a fit about being watched twenty-four/seven.”

  Both grumbled in frustration. Keeping tabs on Noelle around-the-clock would be an adjustment, but it had to be done.

  “So, which of you wants to take the first official night watch?”

  “One, two, three. Not it!” Paulo said quickly, smirking.

  With a heavy sigh as Rayen stood from the couch, it became clear who’d just drawn the short straw. “Guess that’s my cue,” he grumbled.

  We were all filthy and exhausted, but someone had to do the job.

  “Sweet dreams, Buttercup,” Paulo called out.

  “Blow me, dickwad,” was the only response Rayen thought necessary to give.

  The door slammed behind him, and we were down to two. However, with any luck, the latest factor that had us divided—both physically, and in mindset—would be long gone soon.

  Then, and only then, could we regain our focus, and deal with the real issues.

  The ones that threatened life on this island as we knew it.

  Chapter Eight

  Noelle

  “It’s freakin’ Saturday,” Marcela huffed. “Noelle, your mentors might be hot, but they kind of suck,” she assessed. “I mean, if they’re gonna linger, they could at least do it shirtless. Otherwise, they’re just sucking the fun out of our weekend—one of the few instances where we get to do our own thing.”

  “Agreed,” Manuel concurred. “Except for the shirtless part.”

  Frustrated, Marcela scooped a handful of water from the fountain, splashing it at her brother. He shot her a warning glare as he wiped droplets from his forehead.

  “Don’t look now, but are they actually leaving?” Toni asked.

  Her statement made me do the opposite of what she said, swiveling my head toward my stalkers, just as they began trudging toward the gate.

  “Looks like it,” I perked up, instantly feeling a sense of relief at the idea of not being shadowed for a change.

  It had been nonstop, intense work as we came into our seventh week of class. Our instructors had been deceptively easy on us in the beginning. Since then, they’d completely flipped the script. The only time I did get a break was in combat training. Because I had yet to shift, they only allowed me to work on basic defensive moves, which didn’t even involve magic. Long story short, my friends and I were all feeling a bit restless.

  We desperately needed to let loose, and with no clubs or hangouts in walking distance, we planned to create our own fun. The moment the coast was clear of all mentors, my friends and I—plus a bunch of other kids I didn’t know—were finally going to act our age. Lucky for me, the Shade Brigade appeared to finally be taking off, which meant things were starting to look up for the day.

  Of course—being the pricks they were—they had to be the last of the mentors to go.

  Ori’s lingering glare made one final pass over me as he and the others exited through the gate. I hadn’t had much to say to them since helping Kai a few weeks ago. They were already cold, but the distance between me and them only seemed to grow—bunch of ungrateful bastards. You’d think that after helping one of them, they’d at least be appreciative, but that hadn’t been the case. If anything, the suspicious glances seemed to increase, and they were even more leery of me than before. I was so sick of it that if I thought I could take them, I would’ve buried a fist in one of their faces days ago.

  But alas, I was no fool. Any one of them could have snapped me in half like a twig.

  A faint whistle from across the courtyard had Toni’s head whipping that way. Her smile grew when a tall blond guy gave a thumbs up—the signal that the last mentor had gone, and we were home free.

  Still, we needed to hurry before someone else with authority came around.

  “That’s our cue,” Tristan piped, hoisting himself off the cement bench where we all sat.

  “It’s about time,” Marcela groaned, pulling down sunglasses from on top of her head to cover her eyes.

  As I positioned myself to stand, Tristan’s hooded gaze fell on me, and then his gentle smile.

  “Come on.” His hand reached out for mine, and I wasn’t sure how to react for a moment. Of all the girls around us for him to help, he was focused on me.

  “Um … thank you.” The words left my mouth hesitantly. Mostly because I wasn’t quite sure of his motive. It seemed like a friendly enough gesture; however, coupled with a few other odd occurrences over the weeks, I wasn’t so sure.

  Once or twice, I noticed him gawking at me when he didn’t think I paid attention, and other times I caught him smiling my way as he zoned out. Since then, I’d been mindful of not leading him on, not giving him hope that I might be interested in something other than his friendship.

  Because I wasn’t.

  As soon as I could pull away without causing him offense, I did, and then shoved both hands in my pockets while we walked.

  My eyes caught Toni’s when she glanced at me, and I knew she hadn’t missed even a moment of the awkward exchange. Several nights, before dozing off, she went on and on about how she thought Tristan felt something for me. And each time, I assured her that if those feelings did exist, they were completely one-sided. Then, no sooner than I got her off my case about Tristan, she started in about my guardians. She seemed to think all the guys in our circle—apparently, even the douchey ones—wanted a piece of this.

  Sweet, delusional girl.

  Another quiet whistle lifted into the breeze, and on command, several more students fell in step with us. It became clear that word spread further than I realized, as our number easily increased to fifty or more.

  Beneath my shorts and t-shirt, I’d hidden a black bikini. Carrying a bag with me on a Saturday would’ve alerted my already suspicious guardians that we were up to something. The plan was to meet at Makoni Lagoon about a mile from the academy. It was a bit off the beaten path, but according to a group of local kids tagging along, it was the perfect spot for anyone looking to get away for a while.