Blooded

By Nat Kennedy

A broken mage. A penitent vampire. Can they put aside the horrors of the past to save each other?

Plagued with erratic. volatile magic, Nicodemus Green focuses his entire life to stop an evil sorcerer who brainwashes or kills anyone in his path to domination. Ten years into this crusade, Nick stumbles upon his former Academy instructor in the Austrian Alps. The strict and pious Byron Domitius has cloistered himself in an isolated manor. Alone and starving, he hates the twisted, damned creature he has become.

A prophecy calls for Nick and Byron to bond by blood to finally bring an end to the sorcerer's hidden agenda. The two are forced to see beyond their shared past, and Nick finds himself desiring more from his old instructor than just his magic. But are these emotions real, or do they come from the heat of their bond?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nat Kennedy
• Release date: Sep 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201071172

Nat Kennedy

Nat Kennedy writes fantasy fiction of all kinds, often including gay romance. She strives to create engaging, plotty romantic stories. In her worlds, Heroes abound. She lives in the Pacific Northwest where the rain keeps the world green. Find her online at natkennedy.com or on IG @natkennedybooks.

Book preview

Blooded

Nat Kennedy

Copyright © 2021 by Nat Kennedy

Cover design by Silvana G. Sánchez, CEO Selfpub Designs

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner

whatsoever without the express written

permission of the publisher except for the use

of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters,

places and incidents are fiction and any

resemblance to actual events, locals or persons

is entirely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2021

www.natkennedy.com

Though my soul may set in darkness,

it will rise in perfect light;

I have loved the stars too truly

to be fearful of the night.

The Old Astronomer to His Pupil

Sarah Williams

Dedication

To Ghola

and

The Young Immortals

Chapter One

Nick Green was reading through his senior presentation for the hundredth time and found no flaws, at least not on paper. It was a re-creation of the finest work of magic to have ever been evoked in known history: the Banishment Spell. Cast by the ancients over seven hundred years ago to banish the Pure from this plane, the true spell had been lost in the muddle of time. But the primary sources all agreed, casting the spell had saved the blooded and basic humans from complete subjugation.

His phone alarm chimed, signaling that his magical education was nearing its illustrious end. Piles of old books, many dating back hundreds of years, were stacked around him on the library table like a fortified wall. Each text was practically photocopied to his brain, he’d read and reviewed them so many times. This had been his camp for the entire last term, a solid enough fixture that everyone called the table Green’s Bulwark.

His best friend, Brett Sanhedrin, ducked into the library, eyes wide like some feral sugar addict.

Nick, what are you doing? One hour! Only one more hour!

Students within the library scowled.

Nick tried to keep his voice low. Going over it one more time.

Kicked back in one of the reading section’s cushioned chairs, Molly Tulie was flipping through a magazine. She muttered loud enough for everyone to hear but quiet enough for everyone to ignore, The last moments of the Fabulous Four. Nick chose to ignore it.

Brett’s laptop bag hung over one shoulder, his face flush with excitement. He blew Molly a kiss, then flashed Nick a grin, teasing, What? Again? Come on, it’s perfect.

I want to review the weave and my list of resources, Nick said, getting into it and abandoning any semblance of quiet. "I’ve got twenty-three resources. Bickery’s Compendium of Spells of the 1200s. Michael Richard’s—"

No. Brett held out his palm as Wesley Turner pulled a cushy chair over to Green’s Bulwark. Just no. You picked the driest topic ever, and who has twenty-three sources? Brett rolled his eyes theatrically and fled the library, a flash of chaotic power, there and gone.

I’ve only got seven, Wesley said, eyeballing the stack of books. I don’t think there’s a prize for most sources. Nick scowled as Wesley picked up a book, flipped through it, and plopped it back on its pile. I agree with Brett. Dry. Unlike my topic. He popped the ‘p’ and waited, as if expecting Nick to ask.

Wesley was a cryptozoology fanatic. Everyone knew of his unholy fascination with werewolves, vampires, and ghosts. He was as hairy as a sasquatch, so perhaps it was part of his lineage.

"The banishment of the Pure is not dry; it’s history," Nick muttered as he returned to his diagram of the lengthy hand weave, trying to ignore Wesley. Nick had re-created the weave from the few primary sources available that recounted the fateful battle between the Pure and their blooded children.

Nick and Brett had the same presentation slots for their final projects at Charing Academy, the United States’ east coast magic school. It was the last week of their fifth and senior year at the academy. After this, he and his friends would be fully trained sorcerers, blooded members of the Slayers of the Watch.

Every blooded person who trained through an academy had the option to join the Slayers. After five years of training, Nick couldn’t imagine why anyone would opt out of that illustrious membership. Five years of constant hand cramps from holding casting positions, sore muscles from weapons training, and mind-draining study, and now Nick would be allowed to join, graduating from Charing with his specialty in magical history and the re-creation of lost spells. Soon, he and his new skills would be out in the world. Doors to new informational sources would open to him, digital catalogs and ancient scrolls, allowing exclusive research on old spells to be made anew. He would discover how the first celestial put the stars’ power into a stone. Dig up the truth behind the mass compulsion that ended the war of 1610 and temporarily ceded eastern Europe into the hands of Rudolpho Tyronplex. Or any number of mysteries yet unexplained.

And though Helion had been captured years ago and things had been quiet since, if he was tasked to capture criminal sorcerers, destroy renegade monsters, or save the helpless and weak, well, that was all good. That was duty.

I could tell you about Vlad, but everyone knows about Vlad, Wesley said, disrupting Nick’s thoughts. There’s also Lamia, of Greece. But the real prize of my research is what I dug up on Yoseph the Dead and Blalock of Rufus.

Sounds interesting, Wesley. And it did, a little. Nick wasn’t a huge fan of vampires, but they lurked out there, terrorizing the basics. "Let’s talk later, after my presentation."

No way could I get any more resources, Wesley continued, ignoring Nick’s shooing motions. There’s a lack of info about vampires. Secretive bunch.

A group of his fellow students led by Sinia, a complete brown-noser a grade below Nick, passed by, heading for a private study room at the back of the library.

Nick couldn't help but catch Sinia boasting. And Instructor Domitius told me I’d done well on my extra detailed star maps. He told me he’d set them up in the classroom so the other students could learn from them.

Zenita lowered her voice and said, "Do you think he’ll give you some extra time, some special attention at night as you study the celestial bodies?"

Sinia denied such special lessons with breathless gasps while the other girls giggled.

Many of the female students thought Instructor Byron Domitius to be a challenge; he was the instructor they wanted to impress. Beatrice Carmine, one of his fellow Fabulous Four and Brett’s girlfriend, told Nick that for many of the girls, Domitius was a bath time daydream. Though Instructor Domitius was a good-looking man—who put far too much effort into his appearance for someone in his early thirties—it wasn’t only that the girls were attracted to him, but they wanted his respect. Nick agreed he was a top-notch sorcerer, and something was alluring about him, but he had a stick up his ass the size of General Sherman

Oh, there he is. Zenita pointed back to the entrance of the library. Nick jerked his head to look, but the entrance was empty. Zenita giggled and teased Sinia—Made you look—as the girls passed beyond hearing. Nick dropped his attention to the papers on his desk, heart beating heavily in his chest.

Wesley snorted. Nick startled and gave his classmate a frown; he’d forgotten Wesley was sitting there.

As if Instructor Domitius would be at all interested in those kids.

Nick couldn’t stop his questioning, Huh?

"He’s totally got a paramour. Wesley said the word with such lasciviousness that Nick felt a flush of embarrassment. A Pure, or so the rumor goes."

Wait, what? Domitius is actually flesh and bone?

Wesley snorted again. Nick wished he’d go away, but he also wanted to hear more. Would you rather waste time on those girls or a Pure? Wesley stared out into the hallway. I wish Domitius would waste time on me.

At that proclamation, Wesley popped to his feet and wandered off, leaving Nick to blink at that revelation. How did that grouchy man have so much power over women and men, plus a Pure at that?

Nick and his crew had a grudge match against Domitius. A grudge match. When Beatrice perfected the fire-dancing spell at only fifteen, she’d done so in the outdoor amphitheater during one of Domitius’ night lectures on drawing down star power that only the rare celestial blooded could do. Since none of the students were celestial blooded—descended from the bloodline of a celestial Pure—how was it useful to the rest of the student body?

Everyone in the academy, student or instructor, descended from Pure magical beings, including Nick. Every sorcerer was blooded. There were muse blooded, like Nick, Brett, and Brett’s twin sister, Jenny, and elemental blooded, like Beatrice. Some descended from angels, demons, fae, immortals, titans, or something totally different. Others had no idea of their ancestry, but the majority of families kept strict genealogical records.

But the celestials were unique in their singular attachment to the stars.

So Beatrice had completely upended his night-time tutorial.

Jenny had accidentally fouled all the charcoal spell components. It was due to her abundant altruism. She’d decided to decorate the auditorium for Christmas with a spell she’d devised to paint the walls in festive motifs of Christmases from around the world. The fumes from the spell had ruined the charcoal in the nearby components storage room, and Instructors Domitius and Jenson had to spend two days creating an entirely new batch for the school’s use.

Brett was a bit of a jock, smart, attractive, and popular, who played on the soccer team and was loved by most of the instructors and staff. He was always out after curfew, always slipping booze into the parties, always pushing boundaries. Some of the staff thought him charming, but not Domitius. He expected the students to abide by the rules, no slip-ups, no strays.

Instructor Domitius generally ignored Nick, unless one of his friends had dragged him into an ill-thought prank. Though it punched something deep in his gut to consider, Nick had a niggling feeling that Domitius didn’t like him because he had too much power for one not thick blooded. Even as a muse blooded generations apart from his Pure ancestor, Nick harbored a well of power that fueled his spells to impressive heights, even if he didn’t excel at hand signs and botched some spells because he couldn’t bend his fingers back that far. Once, Nick had almost destroyed a classroom trying to construct a tiny wind funnel. The cleanup had taken him hours. Domitius oversaw the repair of the classroom, forcing him to do it without magic. Nick had to nail all the chairs and tables back together with a hammer. All of them. He’d smashed his fingers and left a lasting bloodstain on the furniture.

The thing was, it hadn’t been malicious. It hadn’t been his fault.

Though Nick was almost eighteen, Domitius still made him feel like a misbehaving twelve-year-old, no matter if he was blowing up toilets—which he’d only done when the older boys had dared him during his first year at Charing—or studying in the library until the next morning. He had never earned any approval from the man.

Not that he wanted that approval.

The alarm on his phone chimed again.

Only forty minutes.

All that remained was his final presentation—a complete walk-through of the Banishment Spell, including spoken phrases, the hand weave, the components involved without imbuing it with magic—and he had to meet the proctors in forty minutes.

The piles of texts, his bulwark, were somewhat orderly. He’d put them away later. Right now, he had to convince professionals that he knew what he was talking about. With a deep breath, he smiled at the desk and the books and the four walls that surrounded him.

Soon he’d be out there. In the world. He picked up his unbonded student’s focus stone and peered through the glittering crystal at the overhead lamp. At graduation, he’d go through the ritual to get his own stone, bonded to him personally, and his magic would be boosted in power by a half.

He stuffed his laptop away, slung his bag over his shoulder, and strolled through the library double doors.

Graduation was in two days.

* * *

Above him, the sparkling arm of the Milky Way lit up the night sky. Byron Domitius stood in the center of a stone henge, the pillars of basalt reaching high over his head. His family had owned these hundreds of acres in Iowa for generations. The Domitius legacy. Constructed in open country, the henge offered an expansive night view. No hills. No trees. Nothing but the standing stones. Generations before had performed their rituals and rites within this powerful circle until his familial line dwindled to just him. The last Domitius of Iowa.

His parents' death had drawn him back to the farmstead and the henge. As all youths must do, he’d left to forge his own way during his late teens. As a child, his parents had been more hands-off than helicopter obsessive, and perhaps for some children that would have been satisfactory, but Byron had been a ruffian. Blessed Mary, he’d doubtless been the reason his mother had had a stroke.

He’d been spared the rod, if not the disappointed looks and lectures, once he’d jumped off the good and righteous path his parents had expected him to tread. He probably would have benefited from a firmer hand. His father was soft, and he had nothing but the ancestral farm to show for his lack of drive. Byron had wanted more.

But that wasn’t fair. Byron would never lay blame where it wasn’t tended. Those seeds would only choke and fester, inevitably poisoning its gardener. In truth, Byron was a pragmatist and honest with himself. He’d done some very bad things, and it had been his choice to act and do them.

Others remained of his familial bloodline, distant cousins littered about the world, spanning out from their origins in Italy. Each of their names was written out in the Grand Book, line upon line of celestial blooded, forking off like the great branches of an oak. The letters of each name inked with blood and lampblack, binding the name to the pages. The book was his true treasure, worth even more than these stones, and he’d hidden it away in a safe hold below the barn. He was a celestial, after all, and celestials themselves commanded a certain value that men of vice would take and harness.

He’d returned to Iowa for this ceremonial ritual and needed to be back at the academy the next day. Every end of school year found him in this henge. A ritual of a ritual. The farmhouse rested a mile away. No lights, distant or near, would pollute his view of the stars. They shone like beacons, like banners to the greater world beyond. Out here, in full, natural dark, he could hear them sing.

And the song must be akin to the voice of God.

Naked, except for the crucifix around his neck, the light of the heavenly bodies caressed his bare skin as tangibly as the night breeze. Their energy filtered upon him. Like an angelic blessing, they filled him with grace, power, and, most importantly, gave him a sense of placement in the cosmos.

He was never so alive as when he stood beneath a clear, dark sky. Filling his lungs, he released the breath, a smile touching his lips. This was the great glory of being a celestial.

In his not-so-distant past, the depth of the stars’ song had been lost to him. He’d focused the power in his blood toward making his life better, better than it had ever been. There was nothing wrong with that, he told himself then and still told himself that now. But selling out his skills, the prostituting of his celestial blood, was not something he was proud of. He’d sold stones because he’d been greedy. He’d sold them to very bad men. The worst. Helion himself.

And then an angel had helped him see his broken ways, pulling him from a sea of flames destined to char his soul.

Samson.

Off on a regular sojourn for three months now. Samson’s drive was to ease the hardships for others, so he would journey to where people needed him. That angel came and went with the seasons, it seemed. Byron missed him. Eventually, though, Samson always found his way back.

Though the Pure’s children were everywhere, few actual Pure remained. Most had long ago left this plane, expelled by their children. Samson’s ancestors had remained. Now he stood by Byron’s side. A Pure angel. So many people worshiped him like God. Samson scoffed at that. They both knew there was no God but God.

A breeze dusted along Byron’s arms, at the nape of his neck. He kept his hair short in back, though the sides and front were of a longer length, easy to toss back to keep out of his eyes. He admittedly liked the rugged look it gave him. Vanity, thy sin be mine, he admitted to himself. Samson had enjoyed running his fingers through his hair, petting him like he was some cherished cat. It was as physical as the angel ever got. Pettings and a few kisses and embraces that leaked love they were so full of truth.

Not that Byron minded. He’d had plenty of the physical acts during his wild youth. He now understood that love was worth far more.

An iron box sat near his bare feet. It weighed almost forty pounds itself, but the weightier items were what rested within.

Stones.

Not simple pebbles from the ground, broken pieces of rocks trod upon by shoes or the heavy weight of tires, but sought for and found stones that had the right properties to hold the power of the stars. He was always on the lookout. His celestial bloodline allowed him a special sight to find the potential of a stone, though it wasn’t actually vision, but a sensation. A knowing.

In addition to this knowing, his blood also bestowed upon him the very rare and cherished ability to fashion focus stones.

He’d used his blessed gift for money and influence. Now he made stones for recent graduates, wet behind the ears and full of prideful optimism.

The song washed over him. The stars’ sweet lullaby. His blood beat a cadence to the pulsing of the light.

That was in the past. He was a changed man now. A better man.

Every blooded could work magic, but all needed to focus their will through a stone that had been imbued with the power of the stars.

Like warmth, like the purest song by the sweetest voices, like the feeling of belonging, the power of the stars shone down upon him. It boosted him in all ways. Made him feel mighty, but also made him feel worthy.

Oh, Blessed Mary, he could write for a Lifetime movie script. Samson would have loved it.

He stood over the iron box and looked upon the mishmash of items inside. Expensive gemstones and unimpressive gray rocks. Emeralds, garnets, marble, and basalt were just a few samples resting within. Each one sized to fit in a palm. Each one able to be turned into a tool for a sorcerer.

These specifically were destined for the recent graduating class of Charing Academy.

He scanned the stones, eyes flitting along the obsidian one. It was a unique stone, one he would need to put extra effort into, because the obsidian was the only stone that could hold the power of a binary star.

Unique and powerful and beautiful in its complexity.

Byron tilted his head back, his hair brushing against his ears as he looked toward the sky.

It felt like the stars spoke words to him. We see you, Byron. We shine upon you. Take in our light. You are ours. You are good.

God, how he treasured this.

He raised his arms into the sky and called upon the stars. Cold starlight slid over the bare breadth of his chest and shoulders, illuminating the definition of his muscles, the fine scars hinting at his rough past, the brush of hair upon his chest, arms, groin, and legs. The power sank into his flesh, through his skin, eyes, mouth, and ears, filled him full to the brim, feeding him, every inch of him, and with their power, Byron knew he would never feel helpless.

Next to the iron box, he dropped to his knees and plunged his hands into the mix of stones, touching them, holding each one, seeping his power into them to prime the stone to accept the star power from above.

Finally, his fingers landed on the obsidian. He held it close to his chest. The power from twin stars would fill this stone, one of chaos, but one also of connection. A stone that would never be alone. A stone that would thrive within the hands of its sorcerer.

He turned over the box, tossing the menagerie of stones upon the soil, and began the focus stone ritual.

* * *

Six figures crossed the frigid tundra, impulsive gusts of wind whipping the fur lining of their parkas around their faces. A craggy outcropping loomed up out of the gently sloping hills, the schist sparkling in the harsh sunlight with flecks of mica and quartz. Ice inhabited the deep cracks, remaining where the sun never reached.

This is where the monitor spell leads, Wormwood, Richard said, pointing towards the outcropping with his gloved hand. They’d been walking for almost an hour, having left the vehicles behind when navigable tundra met its end.

Wormwood studied the cluster of striated rocks, squinting against the harsh afternoon light. The stones reached several yards into the sky, like spades thrust from ancient tectonic action. He knew better, though. This cluster of coarse stone didn’t happen due to some natural force of geologic fury, though it did stem from something just as cataclysmic.

Go, he ordered his people, his breath clouding with each command. Find the source.

His subordinates fanned out, some crossing the sparsely vegetated landscape, rounding the cluster of rocks, while others aimed for its heart, mounting the rubble strewn around the formation’s base. He would wait.

He tugged off a thick glove, skin immediately tingling in the cold before he dug into his pocket and pulled out his focus stone. The black obsidian was rare among focus stones. The only stone powered by the light of twin stars, only those blooded descended from immortals could use obsidian. His stone warmed in his hand as he gave it his concentration, using the power captured within to seek out the rift. He looked from the stone back to the rock feature, anticipation ringing throughout his body.

The source was there. He could feel it in his gut and through his stone. The power.

Wormwood. In here! Patricia’s excited voice came from inside the rock structure.

He trudged across the tundra, crushing weak grasses and hearty mosses under his booted feet, and up and over the loose stones bordering the main outcropping. Wind gusted, pulling tears from his eyes. A small, furry animal looked at him from a crack within the rocks. Shoo. He bared his teeth, and the lemming ducked down with a squeal.

The rocks slid under his tread; their clatter almost smothered by the wind. Using his hands, he braced himself against larger, jagged boulders. The dry scent of earth coated the roof of his mouth. Where are you? he called to Patricia.

Patricia, his sword-dancer, poked her head out from a fissure, her face barely visible through her hood’s fur trim. She waved. He scrambled over the rock pile and descended into the crack piercing the earth, stones tumbling under the slide of his steps. Behind him, his Wardsmen followed.

The power billowed around him like a violent updraft from an unchecked inferno. He met Patricia’s gaze as he hurried towards her, stumbling over uneven rock, pushing past as she stepped away, making room for his passage. She held a flashlight, pointing the beam farther down the narrow tunnel, illuminating his way until he came upon the gap.

It was irregular, a giant’s claw scrape tearing through the ground. A thin, warm mist swirled out of the crevasse. Wormwood hovered his hand over the crack, his stone gripped in his palm.

His focus stone vibrated with power.

This was it. She’d found it.

He’d found it.

The source.

It was written, by scholars and mystics and the wizened blooded who passed on such stories, that ages ago the blooded rose up and banished the Pure from the world. The ancient beings were the ancestors of all who could harness the light of the stars. The Pure had subjugated mankind, the powerless basics and the blooded together, until the blooded devised a way to expel them, sending the majority far and away.

During his time under the sorcerer Helion, Wormwood had focused on two things: where the rift was—the passage the Pure had been banished through—and how to harness the energy that leaked back into this world.

Now he had found that rift, and with this power, he would perform the unimaginable. He gripped his stone and smiled.

This is it, he said. Around him, his sorcerers nodded, silent but grinning. He had a plan. We need more blooded, Wormwood said. He looked at the stone in this palm. And we need more stones.

Chapter Two

The ceremony hall at Charing Academy was decked out for the bonding ceremony with banners and streamers in a variety of colors, though crimson and gray were the major players in the color scheme. Even with the main doors opened to the outside to allow in fresh air, the streamers hung limply from the ceiling. Overly hot, Nick just wanted it all to be done. Each of the graduates wore traditional, long, crimson graduation robes that reached the ground, and around their necks hung medallions depicting a blazing star. It was the symbol of Charing Academy. The symbol of the focus stones.

With their component belts on, the graduates looked like turn-of-the-century magi. They just needed billowing hoods to nail the look.

Nick fiddled with the belt around his waist. Each component belt held many pouches containing spell components. The graduates, and in fact every sorcerer blooded, wore one. A spell was composed of a verbal phrase, a hand sign, and a physical component, and very rarely could one of these requirements be bypassed. A sorcerer was more limited by not having a belt than he was by not having a bonded stone.

Already twirling in an emotional blender, Nick Green felt his throat tightened when he saw Instructor Domitius dressed in collegiate black. He would be bonding the graduates with their new focus stones. Of course, it would be him. Instructor Domitius was the only celestial on staff.

This would probably be the last time he laid eyes on the man unless Nick came back to the academy for some reason. Research maybe. He should be glad about that; they hadn’t really gotten along.

Instructor Domitius lifted his chin and watched the graduates as they organized themselves in line. Face impassive. Nick wondered if his instructor wasn’t actually made of stone. He remembered what Wesley had gossiped about and chalked it up to complete fiction.

It was said that one out of every ten focus stones created failed. Sometimes, the stone wouldn’t take to the sorcerer during the bonding ritual. It was also said that Instructor Domitius created no duds. Nick hoped he wouldn’t get a dead stone. He longed for his own, bound to him, a companion to explore the magical frontier.

After today, he would be a fully initiated Slayer, a skilled practitioner of magic, a hunter of dark and violent sorcerers, a tracker of those things that bumped in the night the basics feared but couldn’t confront on their own. So what if he’d rather study than beat feet on the pavement hunting down criminals, he was still trained and capable. He knew no less than twenty ways to magically kill a man, a portion of those with a single word... as long as he had the components and a focus stone in hand.

And right now, Domitius had them all laid out on a tray. Not some student’s practice stone like the ones Nick had worked with at the academy, but the real deal. With a fully bonded stone, a sorcerer’s power would reach its full potential. The instructor stood inside the ritual circle in the crowded ceremony hall. A solid, smooth plinth holding the tray of stones took up the center of the circle. As each student approached, all twenty-seven of them, they chose their stone and Domitius performed the spell to connect it to the sorcerer, bonding the starlight within to that specific bearer.

Nick wondered if Domitius would slip an anguish effect into the ritual, just to keep them all on their toes and test their spell awareness.

The twins, Jenny and Brett Sanhedrin, stood before him in line. He winked at Jenny, who rolled her eyes and faced forward, a blush of excitement coloring her freckled, pale skin. Brett lifted an eyebrow, barely jerking his head to Domitius. Those movements could be summed up into: Look at that bastard bonding us. Nick frowned a little, slumped his shoulders, wordlessly saying, Nothing we can do about it.

When Nick had arrived at Charing five years ago, he and Brett had landed in a Quieting Cell together for two days. Nick had earned the punishment by being a typical, shy, twelve-year-old boy who’d let others trick him into being stupid. That had happened a lot that first year. Three other boys a few years older had convinced Nick that a woman was being held against her will in a cage. It was stupid, really. Why would Charing kidnap and trap a woman? Nick’s only defense was that he was young and wanted friends. He would never admit to any of those failings, but looking back, he’d been very lonely. With no plan—no brains, to be honest—he snuck into the room labeled Containment. Authorized Entry Only.

Inside, computers and laboratory equipment lined the walls, bright lights burned overhead, and stationed well away from all the equipment was a large glass cage. A beautiful woman was encased within, her black hair flowing around her shoulders almost reaching the ground, eyes a shade of blue nearly as dark as her hair.

A Pure fae. Right here in the academy.

Though most of the Pure had been banished centuries ago, a few continued to find Earth a safe harbor. He still wasn’t sure of every type of Pure who had stepped among basic humans and intermingled, giving their bloodlines the powers of magic. After he discovered his love of facts and history and truth, it was a mystery he salivated to solve. And here was one of those full-blooded magical beings. A Pure. Nick had no defenses against her.

Help me, the fae said, her words entangling his senses, pulling at his compassion. Her hair, black as shimmery coffee, shifted around her as if floating in a current, enveloping him in its spell. They will kill me.

He stepped forward, her voice swaying him completely. To this day, he still remembered his eyes watering, tears slipping down his cheeks as she called. He didn’t care about the alarm that was blaring throughout the academy. He didn’t care about the hands that grabbed him. But he did care once they tried to pull him away. He unleashed every piddly spell an untrained blooded could think of.

He didn’t hurt anyone. How could he? He was as helpless as a worm against the morning robin. However, a pain he never knew before struck him as they tore him from her sight, the separation of their brief encounter sundering his spirit. He couldn’t save her. He wasn’t good enough.

Once he was beyond her power, though, reality knocked him like a mallet, sending him stumbling into a babble of curses and apologies.

Breaking the law. Entering a containment area. Threatening to release a prisoner who was charged with multiple accounts of mind-slavery. Those were the reasons he’d landed in the Quieting Cell where he’d first met Brett, an athletic boy with sandy brown hair and a perpetual grin. Spells on the cell were refreshed daily, prohibiting any noise. They couldn’t talk, that was obvious, but even clapping, banging the beds against the cold hard floor, nothing made noise. It was more than unnerving. Two days of that. Only two. But two had been enough.

In that brief span of time, the two boys had developed a silent communication through shrugs, smiles, and head tilts to keep themselves sane, and that skill had only strengthened through the years.

Now, waiting in line for their own focus stones, Brett tilted his head and Nick shrugged. Nothing they could do. Grin and bear it, Beatrice would say. In fact, as second in class, Beatrice had already received her stone from Domitius and was standing outside of the circle, watching with the gathering of students, parents, and instructors, ready to welcome the recent graduates of Charing.

In front of Brett, Jenny stepped up to Instructor Domitius, her hands held out. The instructor took his appearance straight out of Roman history, with an aquiline nose and thick brown hair cut close up the back of his neck. He was a vain bastard and always styled the longer fringe to fall away from his face so he could oversee them all.

Nick had watched him back.

A man with many fans. Several students