Spearwood Academy Volume Eight (The Spearwood Academy Series Book 8)
Rook Hilt Publishing L.L.C
Copyright © A.S. Oren 2015
Rook Hilt Publishing
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locals are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, real locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental or used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 A.S. Oren
Cover copyright © 2014 A.S. Oren
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Book design A.S. Oren
Soundtrack:
https://open.spotify.com/user/12149862702/playlist/2pBZsdVONDdlPgxyRtbGtV
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Happy Birthday, Lusk! June 5
th
.
Realistic anime version of Lusk Mirren. By Rosita
http://rosita.deviantart.com/gallery/
(I added the scars, forgot to have her do it--I picture the future him in my head a lot-- so don’t base them off her wonderful work)
The cool air rushes over my skin as I stumble outside. I lean against the wall by the door and take in a deep breath. I close my eyes and turn my head to the side so I don’t have to see the spot where Maverick died. I open my eyes only to look at the windows. I gasp. Maverick’s mug still sits on the windowsill where he placed it just before his death.
My knees buckle and I fall to the ground and a sob erupts from me. Arms go around my shoulders and pull me against their chest. Dante, his scent fills my nose. I grasp at his shirt.
“Shh…I know this is hard. Just breath, you will get this. I’m here.”
“I miss him so much. You have no idea.” I press my cheek against his chest.
A whistle sounds off in the distance and I lift my head. “What’s that sound?”
“What sound, Fire?”
I stand. The pitch grows louder. “You can’t hear that?”
“No.”
An orange ball of fire blasts up from the distance. Dante moves to cover me as the ground shakes and a wash of hot air moves over us.
“What was that?” I move out of Dante’s arms and shift my wings. I fly to the top of the tree. Spearwood crumbles in flames.
“Amr!” I scream.
The Slayers made the first move.
The acrid scent of the school crumbling to the ground in a haze of black smoke floods my nose and burns my nostrils. My heart races to the point I think I might break a rib from the inside. What just happened? I don't even think before I sprint toward the flames and rubble. I need to find him. I need to find Amr, now. Tears streak my cheeks. I can't lose someone else. Not now, not ever. An arm goes around my waist and pulls me back down to the clearing. I kick and try to free my arms, but their bind overwhelms me. "Calm down, Princess. You can't go out there right now. It's too dangerous," Lusk whispers into my ear.
"I don't give a shit!" I scream. I kick him in the leg and stomp on his foot, but his hold never lessens.
"Fire. You have to calm down. Think rationally about this."
I try to twist my body, but I can’t even get a millimeter on him. "I have to find Amr!"
Tears blur my vision as Bullock comes to stand in front of me. He places a hand on my shoulder and a wash of calm moves through my body. I stop thrashing. "Avalon, if Amr was hurt or dead you would be the first to know. Whatever happens to him you feel. If he were dead . . ." He pauses. "You would be dead soon too. You know that. "
I swallow hard, searching myself for answers on Amr's wellbeing. How can I even tell if the twin thing is working? He doesn't know he's a twin right now. "I don't know. I don't know! I can't feel him. Let me go, Lusk!" I start to struggle against his arms again.
His arm never budges. "Not until I know you won't dart off and do something foolish."
"Concentrate. Focus on only him. Don't let the worry flooding your mind cloud the feelings coming from him," Dante says as he comes to stand next to Bullock.
I close my eyes, shutting out the chaos of the school falling and the horrible smells rushing at us. Amr, I focus on him only. The way he looks with his short golden hair and hazel eyes. How he always seems to have some kind of happiness showing behind them. My brother, my twin.
A pull on my navel takes my spirit away from my body and to Spearwood. I float above it all. Just near the forest line lie Horace and Amr. Their eyes closed. Triton crouches overs them. Amr’s chest rises and falls, but he appears okay. No blood trickles from open wounds and I don’t have any pain. Maybe he is fine. Before I can investigate more on the entire situation at the fallen Spearwood, my body pulls me back.
I’m lying on the ground when my eyes flutter open. Lusk, Dante, and Bullock lean over me; if Lusk gets any closer, I could kiss him. Wait, why are my lips wet? My chest throbs. “I’m okay,” I say, as I sit up, I grip at my chest. My wings have gone back into my body. “Just feel like I’ve gotten punched in the chest by a boulder.”
Lusk clears his throat. “I performed CPR on you; you stopped breathing for a second.”
I nod; I might’ve actually left my body then. I can’t believe he was the one to preform CPR on me. That’s the second time he has saved me in a week. “Thank you.” I touch my lips for a second, they tingle, like they did with Maverick and Dante, what could that mean? “I left my body. I saw Amr and Horace. Triton saved them; I think he was there with them. We should go get them and bring them to where they will be safe from the battle. They’re not too far away from the forest. I need to find Paden too. It won’t be long before an all-out battle happens.”
“You need to stay here. We can’t let anything happen to you, Fire,” Dante says.
I stand. “Like hell I’m staying here, you’ll need to kill me if you want me staying put. I’m not going to twiddle my thumbs like some housewife waiting for you three to come back home with a deer for dinner. I’m going with you, end of discussion.”
Dante grinds his jaw and folds his arms. “Avalon.”
“No, Dante.” I fold my arms over my chest also. “You should know by now I’m not going to sit around.”
“This is war, you could die!” My heart flutters at the concern in his voice.
“That’s a fact of life. We’re all going to die. The war could kill you too. If I die, I die,”
He steps forward and takes my hand. “You shouldn’t be so content with the idea of dying.”
I look over my shoulder at the spot Maverick took his last breath. It’s easy when I feel like a part of myself has already died. I rub his hand with my thumb for a second before dropping it and moving around him to the forest. “With or without you, I’m leaving. Bullock should stay here and find out what’s on the chip.”
“I already found a lot of information; I think you should see it.”
“After I save my brother, Paden, and Horace. They come first.” I take a step into the forest.
Dante grabs onto my wrist. “I can’t let you do that, Avalon. You’re staying here,” his voice, echoes in my mind. For a moment, my world spins and it takes me a second to regain myself. He just tried to use the Voice on me and if I was still warped, it would have worked.
I pull my wrist out of his grasp and face him. “If I was still warped, that would have worked, but I have my training back now. I don’t know if Edgar taught you or not, but he taught me. He trained me how to overcome it. A few weeks ago, I discovered I could use it as well. Even though I’m a fire user, isn’t that right, Lusk?”
His broad arms fold over his chest. “Don’t bring me into your lover’s quarrel.”
Dante throws up his arms. “You think she should go out there then, in the line of fire? That goes against the very thing we were born for.”
Lusk lifts a pointed eyebrow. “I didn’t say what she’s doing is smart, and I’ll help to try and stop her, but I’m not going to get between you two and whatever twisted relationship you’ve created for yourselves.”
I stare and each of them as I say, “None of you are going to stop me. The only family I might possibly have left is lying on the ground in a soon to be battle zone and I’m going to save him and the others trapped there.” could my parents or Edgar be in the rubble too? I don’t even know where they were taken.
A fire ignites from behind me, burning at the trees. I lift an eyebrow, that’s all Lusk’s going to try? I pull the fire into my hand, stopping it from burning this all down. Dante comes at me with his hands and arms shifted into his dragon form. He tries to overpower me using only defensive moves. I care for him, but I’m not going to let him stop me. I grab one of his arms with both my hands and bring my leg up to kick him in the side that doesn’t have one of my golden scales infused with it.
As the muscles in his back seize, I use the advantage I have on his arm to spin him around and pull his arm behind his back. I kick at the back of his knees, forcing him to the ground. He tries to pull at me with his other arm, but I dig my heels into the ground and place my hand in the center of his shoulder blades. I wrestled with Maverick and Paden nearly all of my life. If he wants to stop me, he can’t be afraid of hurting me. I force him lower to the ground. “Sleep,” I command with the Voice, remembering how it felt to use it weeks ago, my head pounds with rushing blood, but I ignore it. Heat burns at my hand, but he falls forward into the dirt. I hope that he stays out long enough for me to get out of here.
I right myself just as a flaming whip comes at me. I shift my arm and hand and let it wrap around my forearm. I grab it with my hand and pull, but he pulls back. Lusk drags me across the ground and up to him. He wraps and arm around me, trying the same trick he used earlier. This time I’m more aware of myself.
My hand rests against his chest. I press my talons into his skin. He hardly flinches, and presses own into the flesh of my arm. He’s not afraid to fight dirty. This will be more of a challenge. Nevertheless, I can fight dirty too.
I smile up at him. "At least you're not afraid to hurt me, but I can fight dirty too, Lusk. Remember that for the next time." I unhook my talons from his skin and let my hand travel down over his shirt to the top of his pants. If I weren’t doing this to get out of this situation, I would be furiously blushing right now. He arches a pointed eyebrow at me and his Adam's apple bobs in his throat. My hand ghosts over the crotch of his pants. Dear Sun god, I hope this works. His grip on my arm lessens ever so slightly, but it's just enough for me unlatch his claws from my arm and twist myself in his arms. I use his own weight to propel him over my back and toss him to the ground a few feet in front of me
He gets to his feet in a second and rushes me. I dodge him and throw a fire tornado at his back. He spins just in time to catch it with his hand and take the fire into his body. He places his hands on the ground, it rumbles as the ground cracks and magma bubbles the surface, filling the air with the acrid scent of sulfur and catches the ground on fire. I transform my wings and fly into air, just as lava spurts out where I stood. He's more advanced than I thought he was with fire magic.
I'm going to have to fight him with something else. Fire against fire isn't going to work, and I only have a tiny bit of training in air magic. I glance at Bullock, he stands off to the side, leaning against the Cabin. He isn't going to attack me too? This would be the perfect time to do it.
'Use air magic against him,
' he says in my mind.
'You don't want to fight me too?'
'One of us needs to go with you there. They're being morons, as usual.'
I dodge another lava geyser and pull the flames from the ground into me. We don't need the forest engulfed in flames.
'I don't know enough.'
'You don't need to know, use your instinct; you're more powerful than you give yourself credit for, Avalon. You just used metal magic on Mathis. Focus and the air will do your bidding.'
I look to Lusk. He's shifted his wings now too and forms a fireball in his hands. If he hits me with that, it will knock me out. I need to think. I mimic him, but instead of forming a fireball, I focus on the air forming it for me. A mass of grey starts to swirl between my hands.
'You're doing good, focus on making the air tighter, more compressed.'
I can't believe I'm doing it. Blood rushes inside my head again, making a vein in my forehead throb, but I ignore it. I release the air ball at him, just as the fireball comes at me. They collide in the air, cancelling each other out and blasting apart. My ears ring.
Lusk stares at me with wide eyes. I rush at him, hitting his chest with all the force of my weight. We fall out of the air. This is reminiscent of my first day at Spearwood. I straddle his hips as we hit the ground. He groans as all the air leaves him. I wouldn't doubt he just broken a rib or two. "I'm sorry; I'll be back for you two after I get my brother." I place my hand on his forehead. "Sleep."
He tries to fight it, his eyes roll in his head, and he flops his arms around. My hand moves to his cheek, resting against the partial scars that still mar the lower half of his face. "I said sleep, Lusk." His body stills, as his eyes close. I let out a sigh of relief. I don't think I would have been able to do that a third time. My own head spins, my hearing drowned out by the rushing blood. Why does using different magic wipe me out so bad?
I crawl off his body and struggle to get to my feet.
Two strong arms pull me up and I brace myself against Bullock. "You did well," he says.
"Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without your help." I ready myself. He said he would go with me, but how do I know he wasn't bluffing?
He turns to me and places a hand on my shoulder; I grab his arm, ready to throw him if he tries anything. My vision goes white as my skin meets his.
I stand in the dark tunnels of the Outcasts. The only source of light comes from oil lanterns. Two small boys sit across from each other, both with their legs crossed. They hold tattered animal figurines in their hands.
"We need to save the female shifter, Derren Loin," says the younger one, with the curly brown hair. He holds a bear in his hands.
"But you're not part of the Vox," the older one says.
Is that Bullock? Am I seeing one of his memories?
He holds a lion in his hand.
"I don't care; we'll always be together, brother. I’ll save the female shifter with you and then she can marry me.”
He gives a toothy grin. As he makes his bear climb an invisible mountain.
I lift an eyebrow. Is this another brother I have to worry about?
“Only the Unmarked Royal can marry her, Z. Neither of us will ever be Royals.”
The younger boy gives a shrug of his shoulders. “I’ll be her second husband then.”
Bullock cocks his head to the side. “What happened to the first one?”
“I killed him.”
Bullock frowns. “You scare me sometimes, Z.”
“Derren! You need to be training!” A younger version of his father storms up to them and grabs the lion from his hand while pulling him to his feet. The lion slams against the wall and breaks to pieces. The little boy crawls over to pick them up.
“You broke my favorite toy!” he screams. The tunnel shakes as his fists go against the ground.
I’m pulled back to the present. Both of us fall to our knees. What was that?
