Page 10 of Wicked Vows (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #1)

Lysithea

“ I mpressive. You just went up a notch in my estimations.”

I look back over my shoulder at Reena. She is sipping on a cup of blood, looking all innocent, even though she threatened to kill me hours earlier.

“Gee, thanks?” I mutter and return to picking out my food. I’m hungry. This day has been a bitch, and it’s only halfway. I want to sit on my own and eat my feelings until the bell rings for the next class.

Reena snorts. “Okay, I deserved that. Sit with me?”

I freeze. Turning fully towards her with a frown, I tilt my head. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me bitch, sit with me.”

“I’m fine, thanks.” I turn back and reach for the plate of fish and chips with fresh lemon and tartare sauce.

“Look. I get that you have this lone wolf act going on, and I respect that. But after that stunt, everything with a cock-like appendage, and probably some without, are going to be moving into your personal space to try their luck. Dangerous creature or not.” Her full red lips purse before she takes another delicate sip of her blood.

“I can take care of myself,” I mutter, wondering why I’m sabotaging myself. Trust issues, obviously, but more than that. I want to show those fuckers that they don’t scare me.

“Oh, I’m well aware. I’m just the back-up.”

“Back-up.” I say the word and wonder why it sounds so appealing. I’ve never had back-up. I am the back-up.

“Don’t make me ask again, or I’m going to think you’re being a needy shit, and I can’t stand those types.”

I snort. “Me either. Fine. You win.”

She grins and leads me to a table down the far side, where the vampires sit. I feel out of place and self-conscious.

Reena sits her arse down and crosses her legs. She bunches her long raven hair into an artfully messy bun, her blue eyes boring into mine while I sit.

“Can we clear something up?” I ask.

“Shoot.” She takes another sip.

“I don’t want Dathan. He’s all yours.”

She blinks and then snorts, down her straw, spraying blood up everywhere, which makes the vampires at the surrounding tables growl. “What makes you think I want Dathan?”

I chew the side of my lip, mortified. I got this wrong. “Uhm, I thought you did, you know, because of combat class…” I point awkwardly in the vague direction of the Blood Pit.

She peers at me. “Huh?”

“You called me his pet,” I stammer. “I thought it was jealousy.” The last word comes out in a whisper.

Reena stares at me for two seconds, then throws her head back and laughs. It’s not a delicate laugh; it’s a full-throated, sharp-fanged cackle that makes the other vampires glance over.

“Oh, that’s fun,” she finally says, wiping a tear of blood from the corner of her eye. “I was testing the claim, not the man. When a predator like Dathan marks territory, other predators get curious. We poke the fence to see if it’s electrified. Turns out, you’re the whole fucking power station.”

I stare down at my chips, unsure what to say to that. A power station. I feel more like a ticking bomb. “You think?”

“I know, and so do they.”

I look up and follow her gaze to where the outliers are sitting, watching me.

“Apex predators. They’ve decided you’re the most interesting prey in the academy.

They won’t stop until they’ve had a bite.

” A bite. It feels like they want to devour me whole.

And the worst part? A tiny, treacherous part of me is curious to see what happens when they do.

I pick up a chip, dip it in the tartare sauce, and meet Verik’s gaze.

I pop it in my mouth and chew slowly, deliberately.

A challenge. He smiles. He isn’t pissed like I thought he would be; he is turned on, and not just in a lustful sense. “They don’t play. They conquer.”

I finish my fish and chips, every movement a performance for my audience of three. I can feel their intent coiling around me, a three-pronged assault on my senses.

The bell shrieks, shattering the spell. Students scrape their chairs back, the noise a welcome distraction.

“Dinner later?” Reena asks, rising gracefully.

“Sure,” I murmur, because why the hell not.

She gives me a sharp, assessing nod and disappears into the throng of students. I’m alone again. But not really. I can feel their eyes on my back as I leave the hall. A promise. A threat. A prophecy.

Standing up, I gather up my plate and place it on the conveyor that takes the dirty plates back to the kitchen. Without looking back, I saunter as carelessly as I can out of the dining hall and head to my next class.

The lecture hall for Ancient Runes is cold, the symbols carved into the stone desks radiating a faint, chilling magic. I trace one with my finger, a rune for containment, and feel a jolt of static electricity. Fitting.

Professor Blackgrove takes this class himself.

A rare and usually terrifying occurrence.

Time ticks away as he stands before us, a statue carved from night and bad intentions, speaking of runes that can bind gods and unravel reality.

His eyes, so blue they are almost clear, sweep the room and land on me, lingering just a moment too long.

My skin crawls. I am a pawn in a game so large I can’t even see the edges of the board. Blackgrove, Dathan, Verik, Evren, even Reena… they’re all players, and I’m the prize. Or the sacrifice.

The thought doesn’t scare me as much as it should. It ignites a cold, hard knot of defiance in my gut. If they want to play, fine. But they should know this pawn has a voice that can shatter kings.

I stare back at Blackgrove, my expression a blank wall. His lips turn up at the corner in a sinister half smile, before his gaze wanders away. “This particular rune,” he states, drawing on the whiteboard, “is one of the most ancient for protection against black magic.”

The lecture hall gasps collectively. While dark magic is what we all have, black magic is rare, forbidden and downright dangerous to those who don’t have a clue what they’re doing. AKA: all of us in this lecture hall, save for Blackgrove, I’d imagine.

The rune he’s drawn is a complex knot of intersecting lines, a sigil of absolute negation. It’s designed to silence, to nullify. It’s a cage made of magic.

“This rune doesn’t just block,” he continues, his voice a low, chilling monotone that cuts through the whispers of the class. “It devours. It creates a vacuum where black magic simply ceases to exist. A useful tool, for those with the will to wield it.”

We are all sitting on the edge of our seats when the bell rings. The disappointment pings around the room.

“Until next time,” Blackgrove says with a sinister smile.

I pack my bag, the image of the rune burned behind my eyelids. I walk out of the lecture hall and into a carefully constructed ambush.

They’re waiting. Not together but spread out. Verik leans against the far wall, all casual arrogance and hellfire eyes. Dathan is perched on a windowsill, a predator observing his domain. And Evren… he’s just a deeper patch of shadow near the main staircase, a void in the shape of a man.

They don’t move. They don’t speak. They just watch me walk the gauntlet.

Every student in the corridor melts away, leaving me in a wide, empty channel of stone.

Lifting my chin defiantly, I stride past Verik without even a glance in his direction.

He follows me, keeping his distance as I make my way to my next class.

Luckily, it’s not too far away on the next floor up, and I duck inside without trying to show I’m anxious about being stalked.

I sink into my seat in Shadow Manipulation and busy myself pulling my textbook from my bag.

The shadows in the classroom writhe with a life of their own, drawn to me.

They pool under my desk, a comforting darkness that understands my anger.

Professor Umbra, a being woven from the night, glides to the front of the room.

His form has no distinct features, just two points of colder, deeper black where his eyes should be.

“Today,” his voice is a rustle of dry leaves, “we will practise corporeal manifestation. A simple construct. A sphere.”

He gestures, and a perfect orb of solid darkness forms in his hand. It doesn’t reflect light; it consumes it.

The other students make their attempts, frowning in concentration.

Wisps of shadow coalesce, forming lopsided, unstable shapes.

My shadows surge at my command, eager and responsive.

But my mind isn’t on a sphere. It’s on hellfire eyes and stolen knickers, on a silver-eyed claim and a dead black rose.

My anger bleeds into the magic.

The shadows don’t form a sphere. They twist and sharpen, weaving themselves into a cage. Intricate, barbed, inescapable. Inside it, three indistinct figures kneel, their heads bowed in submission.

A collective gasp goes through the classroom. My construct is flawless, solid, radiating a cold, possessive energy.

Professor Umbra glides towards my desk. The two black voids that are his eyes fix on my creation. “Not a sphere, Miss Lysithea.”

I brace myself for a reprimand.

“But a far more articulate statement.” His voice holds a note of something that sounds disturbingly like approval. “Excellent. You are being moved up to Lower Fourth for this class. Year Three is below your talents.”

“What?” I mutter. “You don’t have the authority to do that.” I don’t want any classes where I might end up sitting next to one of the outliers.

“Actually, it is at my discretion.”

“But that will clash with my other classes,” I state, desperately clutching at straws.

“Will it? How do you know?” He drifts off to another student to help them with their sphere while I sit there, dread filling my soul.

This isn’t right. Although on an intellectual level, it’s an honour and a smidgen of pride settles over me, but emotionally, I don’t need this.

One, if not all three of them, will be in that class.

I just know it. It’s simply how this year is betraying me.

“Dismissed, Miss Lysithea,” Umbra says, not looking back at me. “Pick up your new schedule at the Administration Office.”

I shove my textbook into my bag, my construct of shadows dissolving back into the ambient darkness.

It’s not an honour. It’s a calculated move.

They’re closing the net, pulling me into their year, into their circle.

The walk to the Administration Office is a long, cold journey through corridors that seem to watch me.

The gargoyles’ heads turn as I pass, their stone eyes soulless as they observe my approach.

I push open the door to the office, and a bright light hits me, burning my retinas. I hold my hand up to shield my gaze. I start to sweat. It’s like an oven in here.

“Hello?” I call out.

“Ah, dear,” a faerie appears, floating out of a back room with wings of gossamer that the lights catch in bright shades of colour. “Lysithea, yes?”

“Yes,” I mutter. “Why is it so bright in here?”

“I am a sun faerie. This realm has no sun, so I make my own.” She claps her hands, and the light dims, chilling the room to a more natural temperature.

“Sun faerie?” I ask with a frown. I’ve heard of this sun thing. A brilliant star that some realms possess that causes light hours and warmth. “What are you doing here?”

She giggles. “I would take offence, but I can see you are actually interested and not trying to be insulting.”

My cheeks flush. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

“Nonsense, dear. A little curiosity is good for the soul.” She flits over to a desk made of petrified wood and plucks a piece of parchment from a stack that seems to float in mid-air. “Here we are. Your new schedule. All approved by the headmaster himself.”

Already?

She holds it out to me. Her proximity makes my skin prickle, an alien warmth that feels like a violation. I snatch the parchment without letting our fingers touch.

My eyes scan the neat, typed-out page that has this strange-looking symbol of a multitude of colours curving across the corner. I breathe out in relief. It’s one class. Only Shadow Manipulation has been changed. The rest of my classes remain firmly entrenched in Year Three. “Thank fuck,” I mutter.

“Pardon, dear?” the faerie enquires.

“Uhm, nothing,” I stammer. “Thank you. Apologies for making you turn out your sun.”

She snorts in a very unladylike manner compared to the rest of this interaction. “No worries,” she says and claps her hands. The ‘sun’ makes its reappearance, and I dive for the door, eager to be back in the darkness where I was forged.