Rebel Academy: Curse

Chapter Twenty-Four MAGENTA

When my three wickedly delicious Immortals freed me from Hecate's Tree, resurrecting me, I'd been granted a second chance at life.

I hadn’t guessed that Robin had already been blessed with his or that I’d be lucky enough to also have a shot at my second chance at love.

But even second chances required sacrifice.

Willoughby knelt before the head table this night of the Enchanted Ball, as his younger brother towered over him, strangling him with the cursed silk. Darby had bound Willoughby in the uniform to control his body, mind, and magic. But he hadn't been able to break his brother: the prince who should be king.

My magic billowed out of me in furious waves, rattling the windows. The Rebels, both Princes and Immortals, were only held back from throwing themselves forward to protect their lover by Lysander's restraining hand. Sleipnir broke off his song, looking ready to chuck his guitar at Darby's head, despite treating it almost as a lover only a moment before.

I couldn't help the shiver at the thought of his hot fingers playing down me with the same talent that he'd stroked sounds from that instrument.

I'd never seen such an enraged scarecrow as Fox made.

Lysander's gaze met mine, and he nodded at Titus, whose gaze hungrily devoured the scene in front of him.

Lysander knew Titus better than anyone. I had to trust my fae lover. He'd protected Willoughby for years. If he believed that Willoughby needed to face his own haunted past, then I had to let him.

After all, I'd faced mine.

Titus lazily tipped his goblet at Damelza. "Is an eleven execution the traditional start to a Rebel Academy ball? It makes an improvement on that atrocious so-called music."

"Hey," Sleipnir protested.

"Last time, I only had to endure being stood up at the altar and my total humiliation in front of my Fae Court and witch society alike, destroying all my dreams. I'd hoped this time would be an improvement.” Titus eyed Darby. “Sit down, would you, boy?"

Darby stared at him in shock. "I'm a king."

"You're a petty sadist who breaks his toys." Titus' lips pinched.

Willoughby gasped desperately for breath, clutching his neck.

"You're spoiling our enjoyment of the wine." Bacchus' eyes swirled amber, as she slammed down her goblet. Her wine spilled. I scrunched up my nose at the intoxicating spicy scent. Juni slipped her hand over Snow's, edging him further down the table away from Darby. "There's chaos and darkness, and then there's being a brat, darling. Guess which you're being?"

Bask whispered proudly, "She calls me a wild panther."

Darby opened and shut his mouth, all of a sudden looking stripped back to the teenager that he truly was, despite the sting of his powerful magic and the trappings of kinghood.

Damelza slipped out of her seat and stalked to him, closing her fist around his hand. "One of my favorite mottoes is: It never kills to be polite. But your rudeness is killing one of my students, and you've no idea the paperwork that an execution at a public event entails."

Sweet Hecate, was that the first time that I'd been pleased to hear one of the academy’s mottoes?

With a frustrated sneer, Darby let the silk drop away from Willoughby's neck, and Willoughby fell forward.

"Who sent the assassins, brother?" Willoughby demanded with a voice as rough as sandpaper.

Darby raised his chin. "Dark Elves...like you."

Willoughby's eyes were slits of ice through the frozen waterfall of his hair. "You're lying."

"How dare a monster speak to me like that."

The tips of Willoughby's hair tinged to ice, as he straightened his shoulders and raised his head; my heart sped up because I'd never seen anyone so regal on their knees before. "I wish that I'd realized I wasn't the only monster in our family. But I was too destroyed by grief and guilt. Now I can see clearly, however, and I know that I'm a killer. I shall always repent that. But you're a traitor—"

"Silence!" Darby reddened, leaping towards Willoughby.

To my shock, however, Damelza's eyes glittered pink, and she froze Darby with her magic. When he struggled against the paralysis (his eyes wide with alarm), she only patted his arm in the parody of reassurance.

Was paralyzing your guests a type of ball etiquette that I hadn't learned?

Willoughby pushed himself to his feet. In a sudden rush, us Rebels dove to his side, clasping him in a cuddle of lion ears, feathers, and ruby slippers.

"Don't scare me like that again," Bask commanded. "Pet me."

Willoughby tenderly stroked Bask's hair.

Damelza tapped her teeth, looking Darby up and down appraisingly, before glancing at Juni. "It appears that we will have a late night of paperwork, after all. Now there'll be two eleven princes in my academy."

Willoughby stiffened, before meeting his brother's gaze. Despite everything, Willoughby's expression was flooded with compassion.

I rather thought that mine expressed my thought of ha! Irony!

"Let me go." Darby's eyes were wide with fear; he'd have been struggling if he could. Instead, he'd been transformed into just another ice sculpture. His magic lashed around the room. At once, he looked achingly young and like he'd finally understood that he'd waded out of his depth. "I'm not one of your Rebels to be held against my will. Nothing has been proved. You can't do this without a contract..."

Parchment materialized out of the air, and Damelza caught it with a sharp smile. "A contract like this…? All I need is someone to sign it with Blood Magic, and then you're all mine. For something as serious as treason, attempted regicide and patricide, you'll be with me a long, long time."

Titus straightened a crease out on his trousers with supreme casualness and not in the least as if a fellow guest was about to be sentenced to the academy.

"It's only his word," Darby hissed. Then he turned a plaintive look on Willoughby. "Please...brother...tell them that you're making it up. I'll let you home. I see now that this place isn’t fit to reform you."

For a moment, Willoughby's expression softened, and Darby's look became more hopeful. "Am I now your brother?" Then his gaze became icy. "Your guilt doesn't absolve mine. Both are real."

Darby roared in fury.

Damelza turned to Fox. "It's charmingly simple to settle this. Confess, use your power. Is the elven king...I apologize for the slip...soon to be ex-king...guilty of sending the assassins?"

Fox cracked his knuckles with a satisfied smile. "It makes me all tingly when you ask me to use my powers. Yeah, it's the truth, traitorous little dick."

Damelza's smile was wickedly gleefully, as she placed the contract in front of Titus. "As you're our patron, could you be kind enough to sign for him?"

Titus’ smile was predatory, as he sliced his own nail across his palm and blotted the blood across the bottom of the parchment. Then he flapped his wings and swooped in front of Darby. He landed with an intimidating thump.

He grasped Darby by his hair. "You're one of my Princes now."

Lysander gripped Willoughby by the arm, and Midnight by the other, before dragging them both towards Titus.

I stiffened. What in the witching heavens was Lysander doing? Had this fae ball and his own uncle's dominance seeped back into him, so that he'd forgotten that he didn't hurt any of my Rebels?

Yet Lysander had been right about Willoughby. I had to trust him now.

"My noble self has failed you, bringing shame on my kingdom. One is worthless," Lysander said. "Yet as Prefect, I guarded this elf effectively, as well as my whipping boy." His gaze darted to Juni. "If you ask my Tutor, she'll give good report in that at least."

Titus arched his brow at Juni.

"The witch distracted Crown." Juni glared at me, careful not to meet Lysander's gaze. How hard was it love him and know that she'd never have him? "The Princes lost the trials and tournaments, but Lysander's a good Prefect when it comes to guiding his team. Who'll replace him now that he's been reduced to Dunce? It was useful in class to have a whipping boy too."

Damelza shot her daughter an outraged glare. "Let's not discuss all our private academy business..."

"As patron, I say let's." Titus' gaze darkened. "Reinstate Lysander as Prefect and remove the Sleep Deprivation Hex. I rather hate wasted resources."

Damelza gaped at him. "But those are punishments..."

Titus' sharp teeth glinted in the light. "Are you deliberately attempting to shame my kingdom?"

"Why, how absurd," Damelza muttered.

When Damelza lifted her hand, Lysander and Midnight slumped at the same time as both punishments were lifted.

Bask whooped, and Mist danced in a circle. My mouth ached with smiling.

Lysander shot me a cocky smile over his shoulder that flushed warmth through me.

Did it also break ball etiquette to suck your clever lover's feathers…or dick?

I sauntered to stand next to Lysander, sneaking in a lick to his wing that made him shiver.

"How about I take control of Willoughby's cursed uniform?" I suggested, innocently. "After all, it's a useful leash to be used throughout the day, but you can't leave it in the hands of that little ears."

Darby blushed, and Titus lifted his eyebrow at me.

Damelza huffed. "Clearly, you believe me as crazy as you, if you think that I'd place a Prince in the care of an Immortal. Crown will of course take the control."

I mock gasped. The horror. Lysander fought to suppress his smile.

"I shall never hand over the magic to a fae," Darby snarled.

Ah, so naive.

Damelza ripped the crystals out of Darby's hair.

The crystals rolled along the icy dance floor like frozen teardrops. I'd expected Willoughby to stoop to pick them up, but he ignored them. Perhaps, they were in his past now like his brother.

"That's not the academy spirit,” Damelza chided. “Cooperate or earn ten punishment points in front of everyone."

Darby's eyes gleamed with humiliation. "I'm the king," he pleaded, but this time it sounded more like a question.

Titus kicked one of the crystals. "It doesn't look that way to me, little boy."

Defeated, Darby closed his eyes.

I shuddered, as dark magic snaked out of him and wound around Lysander. Midnight caught Lysander in his arms, as Lysander and Willoughby were bound and yet freed at the same time.

Flair and Echo cawed raucously, flapping around the hall.

I wrapped my arms around myself to contain the joy because all my Princes were now able to escape. There'd be no more sacrifices and nobody would be left behind.

Then Titus' hard gaze settled on me, and my guts churned. Titus wasn't here for his ward or as patron of the academy.

He was here for me.

Just like Robin, he'd waited over a hundred years for his second chance, but his wasn't love...it was hate.

Titus swept across the hall towards me: a dark Prince Charming. His golden wings rose behind him like raised scimitars.

Why did he have to be so achingly handsome? If Byron hadn’t allowed me to become friends with Robin as a child, and Titus had courted me before our wedding day, would I’ve fallen in love with his charm?

I shuddered. Was there a hex to scour out your brain…and other parts?

Yet I had a feeling that Henrietta had been tricking Titus as much as me. After all, her Husband Management included whipping and spelling a man’s lips silent.

Titus looked the type to be holding the whip, and he loved the sound of his voice far too much to be silenced.

Titus held out his hand. When he bared his teeth at me, I realized with a jolt that it was meant to be a smile.

“Would you do me the honor of the first dance?” His hand shook.

I took a step back. “My apologies, but I have a strict policy against dancing with bastard fae princes.”

Titus’ smile dropped from his face like it’d never been there. “There’s the witch who wrecked me.” What did he mean? “Don’t you owe even this bastard fae prince a single dance, since I missed out last time? Where’s the harm? After all, you were brave enough to stand me up at our wedding, don’t you have the courage for a single dance?”

I narrowed my eyes. Nobody dared this witch.

Lysander flapped his wings. “Don’t…”

I snatched Titus’ hand, dragging him closer with my mists; he let out a startled oomph.

“If you wished to become more intimate,” Titus said, drily, “you only needed to ask.”

I clenched my jaw. “Shall we?”

“Play something romantic,” Titus called imperiously to Sleipnir. “But without the caterwauling.”

Mist sat on his rump and gestured with his hooves in a manner that looked decidedly like the one Flair had taught me for wanker.

Sleipnir smirked at me, before strumming the sweet melody for the song all about fucking that he’d serenaded me with in the Rebel Café.

I bit my lip to keep in the laughter. The private joke hidden within the music wound around me, even as Titus swept me out onto the ice dance floor. I slipped, but he kept his arm around my waist. He certainly was an excellent dancer. But then, he was a prince at a Fae Court.

I glanced at Fox, who stood in the forest of ice trees with Bask’s hand curled protectively around his neck. Fox watched me with a concerned gaze.

I’d take Fox, who’d never attended a ball before just like Robin, over the suave fae. Of course, Fox was himself a wonderful dancer, although I’d never seen moves like his before.

Didn’t he call it Fox Funk?

I’d hadn’t been the same as the other witches, who’d thrilled at the thought of the balls and the husbands who’d they’d meet. I’d wanted my own adventures.

Well, I’d certainly achieved that.

When Titus’ wings curled around me, I shuddered.

“Why do I feel like I don’t have your full attention?” Titus’ gaze was uncomfortably intense. “It’s rather rude when you cursed me as much as this academy.”

“Do you piss snow? Do you melt in the sun?” I lowered my voice, glancing significantly down at his crotch; the bulge in his trousers told me that being blessed down there truly was a fae thing. “Did I turn your prick to ice?”

When I edged my hand to check because I was awfully impressed with my magic to create ice pricks, he batted away my hand with a snarl.

“For a moment, I forgot who I was speaking to. Let me be clearer.” He gripped me tighter around the waist, spinning me. “I was the eldest son and heir who was set to inherit the Unseelie kingdom. You’d have been my queen.”

He paused as if expecting a big reaction from me.

When I simply gazed at him steadily, his shoulders slumped.

Wait, had that been the big reveal? I’d never dreamed of power. I never wished to be his queen.

I attempted to smile. “Well, lucky escape there then. Crown’s are heavy, I hear.”

Titus green eyes darkened. “Heavy but mine, until you humiliated me by standing me up at the altar. Mother couldn’t let such a public shame stand. Where were you, while I faced the scandal that followed alone?”

“Dead.”

His lips grazed across my cheek. “Excuses, excuses. But do you know how much it warmed me to know that you suffered for what you’d done to me?” My guts twisted. I tried to wrench out of his arms, but he held onto me. “I lost the throne. I was passed over for my younger sister. When she (along with her worthless husband) died, her brat became heir. There was no forgiveness because a fae who fails is never worthy again.”

“Lysander…?” I whispered.

Lysander stood frozen at the edge of the dance floor. His wings were wrapped around himself. His eyes gleamed, and his gaze was dark like he was one predatory inch from battling his own uncle over me, which was hot and dangerous.

How could I bring this dance of the enemies to an end?

It’d started with hate. What if I showed Titus who he should truly have been hating all this time?

Titus’ gaze hardened. “Instead of taking up my rightful place, I’m left as guardian of a boy who can’t even obey. I sought to train Lysander to repair my reputation. He was to rule with me at his side. But he ruined that by bringing me greater shame. You both owe me a debt.”

I snorted. “I don’t give a mage’s prick how things are done in fairy land, but a woman choosing not to marry or a ward deciding not to kill doesn’t make them indebted to you. Plus, this will come as a shock, but your mother sold you out to mine. You’d never have been king. The plan was for you to bring your magic, power, and money to the House of Crows. You’d have been ruled at the academy, living in my shadow.”

Titus staggered back from me. “You’re lying…”

“Do you imagine that my mother would’ve allowed the protected Blessedly Charmed daughter to ever leave these grounds? I am the academy. We were both set up. Just think how much more freedom you’ve enjoyed for the last hundred years, than if you’d become my controlled husband. Your mother must’ve always intended her daughter to become heir, and when the marriage with me fell through, she used your supposed shame as an excuse. How charmingly sneaky.”

“She w-wouldn’t…” Titus paced away, slipping on the ice. I raised my eyebrow. “Of course, she would. On my feathers, all these years, I thought…and I treated Lysander like…I blamed…”

Lysander prowled towards me (which was impressive in those ruby slippers), sweeping his wings around me; I nestled into their sweetness. “It would be my greatest honor to dance with you.”

I slow danced with Lysander to a song about fucking, and Titus allowed it.

As Lysander’s prick pressed against my hip, his feathers brushed against my cheeks, and his hot breath gusted over my ear, I tingled head to toe like I was making love to him right here in front of Rebels, professors, and Titus alike.

By the way that Titus reddened, perhaps it was obvious.

Excellent.

I’d been lost for over a hundred years, a lonely ghost. But now I was finally found, in the arms of my fae lover. Titus had thought that it should be him, but he’d been wrong. Sometimes love took its time to reveal itself, and sometimes, it was a hard and painful journey.

But it was always worth it.

I’d been born, died, and resurrected for this moment.

“Marry me, prince?” I breathed.

Lysander’s breath caught; his eyes lit up. “In a heartbeat.” Then his lips feathered across mine. “Will my fiancee permit me to kiss her? I’ve been desperate to break this rule for so long…”

“Only if I break it first.”

I pressed a light kiss to his lips, and they opened on a sigh. Then I pushed in again, but this time with a savage, desperate passion that was met with his own. He owned me with his kiss, but I was already his, and he was mine. Pink sizzled on my tongue, twining with his own magic.

Don’t ever stop. More, more, more…

Lysander curled his wings more tightly around me.

This was it. What I hadn’t known that I’d been missing.

I was complete.

The windows rattled. My magic shook the hall. The stars pulsated pink.

And the Membership with its wards snapped.

I jolted like I’d been struck by electricity, breaking the kiss. My eyes rolled back, and Lysander caught me. My magic burst from the floor in roots, covering the walls of the hall, before breaking off the roof.

It was finally happening… Sweet Hecate, this was it…

I pressed my hands against the floor, sensing my Wickedly Charmed magic burrowing through the academy and breaking every ward and spell that’d been imposed on its innocence because it had been innocent when I’d created it as a baby.

Henriette and each Principal after had added wards, spells, and charms onto my magic. They’d created the monstrosity of the academy. The Curse was mine, but the academy was all the House of the Crows.

I turned my head. Panicked voices crashed over me. Damelza screeched, casting spells at the roots, along with Bacchus. I noticed that Juni met my gaze with a determined nod, before nudging Emerick and Snow towards Sleipnir, who’d scooped up Mist into his pocket and joined the ring of Rebels.

Juni knew.

Why was she helping us?

Then I also noticed the longing gaze that she cast at Lysander, and I understood.

If she couldn’t be with him, then she’d save him. Truly self-sacrificing love was the noblest kind.

I nodded back at her.

Fox grinned, leaping over the feast and sending the chocolate cake splattering across the floor. When he banged on the vast glass window, Ambrose saluted him from the other side. Fox clacked a smart salute back, before diving under the table this time on his stomach and covering his head with his hands, which was the only warning before the dragons swiped their talons through the glass.

The shatter of breaking glass rang through the hall with startling loudness, followed by the roar of outraged monkey dragons.

The freezing breeze blew through the hall from the cold night.

Lysander covered me with his wings.

Then I struggled to my feet, and Lysander helped me to stroll to Rayn, who nuzzled me.

Bask slipped his arm around the small of my back, before stroking Rayn’s head. “Petting time.”

Lysander startled when his dragon willingly ducked down for him, so that he could jump on without the need for a saddle, spurs, or riding whip. Lysander flushed, patting the dragon in apology. Then he darted a final glance at me like even parting for a moment was painful, before swinging himself on, holding his hand out to Willoughby and then Midnight. They clung around each other’s middles, and their excitement wound through my magic.

“You’ve got to be joking.” Titus stared at the dragons and then Damelza. “This is your famed taming of supernatural bad boys and professors? They’re running the academy.”

Damelza’s dress ruffled to twice its size with rage. “You’re the one who insisted on this ball and the witch being here. She creates rebellion where ever she goes.”

I smiled. “Why, thank you.”

Sleipnir jumped off the stage, before urging Emerick and Snow toward the dragons.

Emerick and Snow climbed onto one dragon, and Ambrose helped Ty and Ezekiel onto another, before mounting himself.

Flair and Echo dived off their perch, flapping through the broken windows.

“Don’t forget us, boss,” Flair called.

“She’d never forget us,” Echo said with such certainty that I glowed.

Bacchus’ hand twitched like she was holding herself back from hexing us.

“Take me with you,” Darby pleaded. “I’m a Rebel too.”

I glanced at Willoughby, but he turned away his head.

“I’ve learned that you have to earn the title of Rebel,” Willoughby replied. “You’re not ready.”

Damelza stalked forward in a flurry of crows’ feathers. “Did you forget that I can just click my fingers and kill you all?”

“Huh, why don’t you try that?” Sleipnir helped Fox onto Rayn. “You already look like an asshole, so why not add jackass as well?”

Damelza’s eyes glittered…and she clicked her fingers.

Nothing happened.

At least, until Fox bent over, grasping the brand on his hand with a grimace. “Ah, ah, ah…the agonizing pain…”

My pulse thundered in my ears.

Juni smiled, smugly.

No, no, no…

I reached up to grasp Fox, but he straightened with a wink.

The bad, soon to be spanked (the moment that we escaped), foxy.

“Pathological liar here,” Fox explained with a wave of his pain free hand.

“You, you, you…” Damelza spluttered.

“Wicked witch and her Rebels…?” I supplied, helpfully. “This is my Rebel Academy, which shall never be used to trap students again. As soon as I leave the grounds, the magic to hold other supernaturals comes with me. Blessedly Charmed witches are only born every five hundred years, aren’t they…? Don’t waste time waiting for the next one; your coven’s power is gone. The House of Crows is broken. I’m certain that by the time the next Blessedly Charmed witch comes along, all witches shall be rebels. At least, that’s the plan.”

I swung onto Rayn with Bask in front of me, while Fox held onto my waist behind.

Damelza roared, but before she could throw a hex, my roots burst from the floor in an impenetrable wall, and the dragons pulled out into the night. Behind us, the walls of Crow Hall crashed down. Dust rose into the air like hundreds of ghosts around us.

Sleipnir dashed after Rayn. “Valhalla! We’ve seized it,” he called, vibrating with delight. “The chaos moment. It’s beautiful. The world…worlds…are open to us now. All the veils, the Eternal Forest, lie before us.”

In a spray of blue glitter, Sleipnir transformed into his gorgeous giant horse form, pawing his eight hooves impatiently in the snow and swinging his aquamarine tail from side to side. His coat glittered under the moon like crushed gems.

Sleipnir raised his head and whinnied, before flapping his wings and taking off into the air. Flair and Echo rose beside him at either shoulder.

What if my familiars faded along with the curse? My heart clenched at the thought that they wouldn’t be able to leave the academy with me.

They weren’t the past; they were part of my future.

Sleipnir led the dragons towards freedom. I shivered, as the breeze cut my cheeks. I wrapped my magic more firmly around all the Rebels and professors on their dragons to make sure that they didn’t fall. Ty laughed; high and free. I clutched Bask, and he wiggled his behind against me.

Fox rested his chin on my shoulder; his curls tickled my cheek. The smell of sweet raspberries wound around me, reminding me of the taste of wild blackberries.

Rayn roared. His yellow magic fluttered out to meet his brothers’ in their joy.

They were going home, while I was leaving home for the first time.

I didn’t know what I’d find, but I’d meet it with my Immortal and Prince lovers at my side.

I left behind my ghosts and past. Yet I’d said my goodbyes.

When I glanced down at the academy beneath me, I gasped.

The snow was melting. The lake was no longer frozen. Spring had at last come to the academy.

My curse was broken. The grounds sprang to life: rich greens that’d been shrouded in white. Barn owls and bats swooped beside us in the starry skies.

My magic coiled up from the grounds in pulsing trails, winding into me. I thrilled at the new powers.

Would we truly be able to break the wards and go past the boundaries that Robin and I had walked so many times?

Just a little more…

As Sleipnir and the dragons flew past the Dead Wood towards the shadow of Oxford’s spires and then finally…finally…to the boundary of the academy, I knew that after over a hundred years, death, resurrection, and a second chance, I’d be free.

My Rebel lovers and I could explore the Eternal Forest, across the veils to the realms of gods, demons, and spirits, or the magical kingdoms. As long as we were together.

This was my adventure. Love. Life.

It was the chaos moment.

At last, Sleipnir, my crow familiars, and the dragons broke the boundary, flying into the warm night beyond the academy, and all of us were free.

Continue the adventures of Sleipnir’s dad, Loki, and Bacchus’ sister in BAD LOKI in book One of the REBEL GODS series HERE NOW.

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