Mastery: Olde Earth Academy: Year Three Read online

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Amabel Daniels

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions

  Dedication

  For Ms. Dahlin

  Chapter One

  Pressure wrapped around my forearm and I gasped at the fierce hold. Fingers? A steel cuff?

  Something caught me and prevented me from plummeting to the bottom of the mountainside. It wasn’t the sensation of the thin threads of iciness that had been flickering away. This was warm. Hot, even.

  Fighting the pull to sleep, I squinted and looked up. Even though the sky was overcast, the sunshine was too harsh for me to focus.

  “I’ve got her.”

  Flynn. He’d grabbed me. I was trapped in his grip, dangling over the ledge.

  I barely registered the scrape of stone against my chest and stomach as I was slowly but surely tugged up. Up, and up, and up.

  He dragged me to a level surface and I gasped for air as my body slumped to the ground. Dizziness spun me so wickedly I wanted to vomit. Fatigue wrestled with my need to stay awake.

  “Damn,” someone muttered at my side.

  Marcy? I tried to twist my body to see what was going on as I welcomed the surety of being on solid ground again.

  “Can you help her?” Flynn scooted on his hands and knees closer to me. I vaguely felt his hand still holding me, rubbing up my arm. Like he was afraid to let me go.

  “Only if you help me,” the petite blonde snapped.

  A ferocious growl ripped close to my head. The saber-tooth tiger clapped its teeth shut and spittle flung to the ground. All I could focus on was the hazy blur of the ground I laid my head on.

  So…tired. I just can’t stay—

  “Keep them back!” Marcy ordered Flynn.

  Oh, yeah. That was odd. Flynn could connect with ancient species like these monster-size freakishly colored tigers. Maybe I was hallucinating. As I sank deeper into oblivion, not even feeling my limbs, I couldn’t grasp what was happening around me anymore.

  Stu fought with Lorcan on the ground. Sabine was scrambling to stand. Bateson… What’s that circle on the ground for? Oh…yeah. Forcefield. To trap the longma. I tried to shake my head to clear the fog.

  Roars and growls cut through the air and as soon as I saw the longmas snapping back at the tigers, I wanted to rouse myself to join the fight.

  “I gotta, Layla.”

  She has to what? Marcy’s tone stole my attention and I attempted again to at least lie on my back. To see what she planned to do. To understand why she sounded so apologetic.

  A sharp point pierced my leg and I sucked in a hard breath. Swallowed a few bits of dirt too, smashed to the ground as I was.

  “Ow!” Okay, I felt that.

  I really was pushed down. By her hand. Marcy held me to the ground and then—

  Another poke. Needle?

  “I said ow!” Crap! Is she giving me those elven meds?

  “Trust me, girlie.”

  I did. But I didn’t want to be unconscious and drugged up. I hated that loss of control.

  “You need it. You’ve lost too much blood.”

  I nodded, my senses sharpening at warp speed. Blood and fire seemed to zoom faster through my veins, tunneling strength and energy to my every digit. Numbness increased in my arm, reminding me I’d been hanging for so long. Yet, I didn’t feel the burn in my shoulder for more than a second. Only superhuman heat. I was buzzing.

  “I’ve just numbed it.”

  Numbed? Try knocked-on-my-butt-doped-up.

  “Before the other medicine can heal you”—she grunted and I felt my leg being shoved at—“I need to get this metal out of your leg. Unless you want to keep it as a souvenir.”

  I blinked, struggling with the rush of adrenaline and invincibility. Holy moly. What a high. I’d never done drugs or even drank alcohol. But whatever she’d shot me up with…whew. Like the laughing gas the dentist gave me a couple of years ago for my wisdom tooth. Times ten. I fought a stupid grin, disliking this ropey-limbed looseness that claimed me.

  The overwhelming need to sleep faded, though. Unlike when I’d been medicated after the sea monster incident, I was alert. Awake and primed to do something. Anything. With so much chaos around us on this mountainside, I couldn’t just lie here.

  “Hold still.” She moved at my leg again and I pivoted to see her.

  In her hand, she held a bloody knife, prodding at my thigh where the arrow had struck. Seeing my flesh cut wide open didn’t faze me. Not when a tiger bore down on us from behind her, his wide maw open and aimed for Marcy’s shoulder.

  “Stop,” I said firmly.

  “I can’t.” Marcy frowned. Stuck between her lips was an empty syringe cap. She spat it out.

  I tried to sit up more and look the tiger in its eye. “Stop. Now.”

  Stop charging and calm down. Leave us alone.

  The beast slowed from its run and shook his head. He slumped his butt to sit on the ground and clawed at the transmitter collar on its neck. At least he stayed there.

  “Oh.” Marcy glanced back at the creature. Nodded once. “Yeah, that will help. Keep them back—if you can.”

  Since it seemed to obey me, maybe the transmitters the tigers wore were deactivated. Perhaps Stu wasn’t able to tap in to the collars Bateson and Griswold had created—devices to manipulate the tigers to be resilient to Pure energy. I whipped my head around, trusting Marcy to tend to my wounds, and sought out the tablet that had been controlling the animals.

  Wolf stood with Merlin at his side, hands splayed out to gesture at the tigers. “Stu, shut those transmitters off now!”

  “No can do, Wolfman.” Stu grinned as he delivered a final kick to Lorcan. My friend rolled on the ground, clutching his stomach.

  Damn. Sabine and I fought. All the time. Yet, we’d never actually come to blows like those brothers were. I winced as the Aussie groaned on the ground. I hoped Marcy had some normal painkillers in her backpack for him too.

  “Stu!” Bateson hollered for him again from the shut-off forcefield space. “She’s going to get away!”

  And sure enough, just as the Zoology professor screeched the words, the female longma dove forward, snapping at the saber-tooth tiger closest to her, and then soared up. In a furious magnificence of huge wings beating the air, she shot up to the sky.

  My longma cried out a cawing roar and she answered him. Together, they rose into the clouds and left us.

  Go far. Stay safe.

  “Dammit!” Bateson threw the branch she’d been using to get the log off the forcefield sensors. “Dammit!”

  “Hey, we’ll find her again,” Stu said.

  Not if I have anything to do about it. I must have shifted because Marcy pushed down on my hip. “Hold still.”

  I grunted and then turned my focus to the tigers prowling around us.

  “Why the hell are you even here?” Wolf demanded. “They kicked you out.” Beasts still circled him and Flynn. Lorcan huffed his breaths as he tried to stand, glaring at his older brother. Stu retrieved the tablet from the ground. Sabine got to her feet near him.

  “And Glorian was a fool to toss aside his skills. I hired him.” Bateson approached Stu, eyeing the tigers near her like she wanted to hide.

  She’s not a Pure. She can’t connect with these ancient species, so she hired Stu to do her dirty work for her.

  “
You’re not the only one wanted at the Academy.” Stu’s taunt spoke of jealousy, maybe.

  “You were expelled!” Flynn shouted it as Stu tapped at the screen.

  No. If he controlled the tigers’ collars again… I swallowed hard. He wouldn’t kill us. Right? I glanced at Marcy again and found her staring at Stu with such intense hatred in her narrowed eyes.

  Well…Stu had been involved with another death…

  I turned toward him. “Why?”

  He raised one brow and peered at me for a moment. “Why what?”

  “Why come back? Why manipulate the tigers? Why do you want the longmas?”

  “We’ll chat about that later,” Bateson answered for him. “Uh, can you hurry?” She gestured at the tiger blocking her from getting to Stu.

  He nodded at his boss. To me, he said, “Why?” In an air of indifference, he tossed his red hair back from his forehead. “Because we can. Because those things are the closest to dragons we have left. Dragons, Layla.”

  He knows my name?

  He scoffed. “Why wouldn’t we want to have them under our control, have them at our disposal?”

  I hung my head down. It was wrong. He was wrong. At their disposal? The longmas had rights to live a life outside of cages. No creature deserved to be locked up, collared with a device to re-hardwire their brains—

  “You know, that’s a good point.”

  I jerked my face up at my sister’s words.

  Sabine brushed dirt off her shoulders and curved her lips in a contemplative smile.

  “It is,” Stu continued, just now looking up at her a couple of feet away.

  Are you kidding me? She’s hitting on him?

  “Can I see that?” She gestured for the tablet. “Please?” she cooed.

  “No!” Bateson yelled. “Stu, what’s taking so long?”

  “I’m working on it!” he retorted.

  Sabine ducked her head, like she was feinting some shy spell. “You’re a smart man, Stu. I mean, no one else in the world could have freaking longmas at their beck and call.”

  They’re not toys! They’re not tools! I squinted at her, fury spiking through my blood. She’d never been an animal lover, but… Come on! Not now! My irritation with her coupled with the medicine Marcy had given me and I felt extra pressure from the woman holding my leg down. I wasn’t sure I could hold still anymore in this standoff of elves and my human sister versus ancient tigers.

  “Exactly.” Bateson was still separated from Stu and Sabine standing together. “It’s an opportunity to claim power. A unique chance and we’d be fools not to act. There are only so many of them left.”

  “How altruistic,” Wolf drawled.

  “God. You’re such a puppet.” Bateson scowled at him. “Gerry’s given you too much free rein in the Menag—”

  Wolf growled. “At least I’m not going off remote-controlling wild animals!”

  “It’s admirable,” Sabine said then, stepping closer to Stu.

  I sucked in a gasp at her tone.

  Oh, my God.

  Stu still held the tablet, but his fingers ceased moving. His attention was riveted on my sister as she walked next to him. One hand stayed on her shoulder, like she’d been fluffing off more dirt. Her finger—highlighted with bright blood-red nail polish—traced along the hem of her collar.

  Is she…

  She smiled. Not too much but not too lightly. A perfect balance I’d never pull off if I ever wanted to audition for sultriness. Next would be her—yep. She cocked her hip to the side, like jutting her waist toward him would be some kind of a magnet.

  I’d witnessed this ploy too many times to count.

  I’d heard that saucily sweet tone so often I was used to it. I knew what she was up to and I fought a laugh bubbling in my throat.

  Unbelievable.

  Sabine was wrong. She wasn’t lacking powers.

  “It is admirable,” Stu agreed, his throat moving in a swallow. He dragged his attention from her chest to her face. His smile widened.

  Oh. My. God.

  Sabine wanted to whine about being powerless? She was a fool. No one could be as sneaky and cunning as her. Even as a mere human, she wielded so much power—as a manipulative female hell-bent on getting her way.

  “It’s…” She leaned toward him, also bending forward somehow to bring his stare right back to her chest. “It’s ingenious.” Tapping a finger to her lips, she flared up the wattage of her smile. Sweeter. Falser. She was conning him to focus on her, on her praise.

  “Stu…” Bateson called for him.

  “Huh?” He jerked his head up, blinking as he sought out Bateson and it was all the opening Sabine needed.

  She lunged forward and snatched the tablet from his hands. Before he could grab it back, Sabine had launched it into the air.

  Toward me?

  “Marcy!” she yelled as the device flew through the air.

  It landed on the ground near me, the shatter-proof case holding up to its purpose.

  “Get it!” Sabine yelled.

  Well, duh…

  In the flurry of action, the tigers must have sensed too many emotions gearing high. They growled and snapped at us. Bateson cried out an angry litany of what sounded like Irish curse words.

  “Get it to me,” Marcy said as I was already reaching for it.

  My fingers gripped the case and I pulled it to me just before a tiger paw crushed it.

  Stay back!

  The beast whined and paced near me instead. I thrust the device to Marcy, and after a couple of moments, she heaved out a huge sigh.

  “Marcy?” Wolf called out.

  “They’re off,” she announced.

  “You have no right,” Bateson called out from her spot beyond the tigers. “You have no right to interfere…”

  Her words faded into a drone of complaints in the background. I couldn’t concentrate on her or her demands. I needed all my focus to funnel my thoughts and emotions into my energy, to get those tigers retreating. Wolf, Flynn, and I calmed down the tigers and ordered them to stay back. Marcy still tended to my leg, and once it seemed we were free of danger from an attack, I strained to see Sabine. She stood alone, looking away, likely in the direction Stu had fled.

  He was gone.

  Lorcan rushed up to her and she pulled him back from running after his brother.

  “All right, girlie.”

  I twisted to see Marcy as she spoke in a weird mumble. A syringe hung from between her lips. Another needle? Exactly how much did she cram into her first aid pack in her backpack?

  “I cleaned out the wound. So now it’s time to really heal up.”

  “But—”

  I didn’t want to be knocked out again. Not like before.

  A sharp point jabbed me and I slumped to the darkness.

  Chapter Two

  The fresh sharpness of clean linen was the first thing I sensed when I woke up. Then the beeps of distant machines. Followed by the softness of the blanket covering me.

  I could feel again, but my body revved in a steady strum of painlessness.

  What the heck is in that medicine? Again, as I knew I would likely be free of scars from the arrow Stu had shot at me—well, he probably had been aiming for my longma—I marveled at the superpower-strength of Olde Earth medicine.

  “You can’t go alone.”

  I kept my eyes closed and my breathing steady as I lay there. I had to be in the clinic. Wolf was with me somewhere in the room. But who was he speaking to?

  “I have to,” Marcy answered, her tone firm but soft.

  “You can’t.”

  She huffed. “Are you ever going to stop thinking you can tell me what to do?”

  “This isn’t us bickering, dammit. This is me telling you how stupid it is to even think about chasing after Stu on your own.”

  I resisted the instinct to frown. As much as I was a fan of independence and not being pushed over and around by men, I had to agree with him. Marcy running after Stu? It
sounded like nothing but trouble.

  She sighed and I felt the mattress sink near my knees. Maybe she was sitting down? “And it’d be so much better if you were with me?”

  He grunted. “Well, yeah.”

  “I don’t need your protection, Wolf.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Then what’s with your macho act, huh?”

  Silence spanned for a couple of seconds and I could easily imagine them glaring at each other. It was a combative exchange I’d seen several times over the last school year.

  It was a new school year, right? It had to be. There was no telling how long I’d been out, but we’d been so close to the end of sophomore year that I assumed it was over.

  “I think Suthering would prefer if we both went after him. But you have to go. He needs your help. So that leaves me to go find that punk.”

  “No.”

  “It’s not your call, Wolf!” The mattress lifted as she must have stood. Light footfalls sounded on the floor and I guessed she was pacing.

  “Then I’ll refuse to go with him. Brazil can wait.”

  Brazil? Why does Suthering need Wolf to accompany him to Brazil? I itched to sit up and butt in.

  “You can’t do that,” she argued.

  “I can’t let you go after Stu on your own either.”

  A foot stomped. “It’s not your decision. I don’t need your permission!”

  “He’s dangerous, Marcy.”

  Her laugh mirrored the one I bottled in. Like he needed to tell us that? “Not as much as the council is.”

  The council. All of them? Well, besides Suthering…

  “I…” Wolf growled and now his feet seemed to be pacing on the other side of the bed. “I hate this.”

  “Me too.” Again, her voice lacked the firm sass she had tucked in her. “The last thing I want to do is even be near Stu.”

  “Then don’t be.”

  Silence again. I ran my tongue along the back of my teeth, fighting to stay quiet and still in this room with suffocating tension.

  “I have to. He needs to be caught. Or if he can’t be stopped, then we need to at least be able to watch him. Know what he’s up to.”