Royals of Villain Academy 2: Vile Sorcery Read online

  Vile Sorcery

  Book 2 in the Royals of Villain Academy series

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  First Digital Edition, 2019

  Copyright © 2019 Eva Chase

  Cover design: Christian Bentulan, Covers by Christian

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-989096-42-0

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-989096-43-7

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Free Story!

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Next in the Royals of Villain Academy series

  Claimed by Gods excerpt

  About the Author

  Free Story!

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  Chapter One

  Rory

  The morning after I was declared the most powerful mage to attend Villain Academy in decades, I dreamed about my parents’ murders again.

  The moment didn’t play out exactly as it had in real life. This time, my legs refused to move as one of the blacksuits slashed his hand through the air with a snapped spell. Mom’s throat tore open with a gush of blood, and I stayed locked in place, straining to run to her.

  A scream ripped up through my chest but caught in the back of my mouth. I couldn’t even force out that sound. Couldn’t throw any spell of my own at the attackers. Couldn’t take a single step to defend Dad when the man spun on him and gouged an X in his chest.

  The smell of blood, thick and metallic, flooded my nose and washed over my tongue. My stomach lurched.

  I woke up shaking and watery-eyed with the wrenching sense that I had no power at all—none that mattered, anyway.

  Early morning sunlight streamed through my dorm bedroom window, thinner here in upstate New York’s early May than it’d be back in California, where I should have been. Where I would have been if I could have saved my parents.

  I pulled the duvet up over my head to hide from the day. No part of me felt ready to face it. I’d just spent the last month fighting to make sure I could stay here at the school more properly known as Bloodstone University. The school named after a birth family I’d never known and didn’t particularly want a part in. The school that was full of the cruelest people I’d ever met.

  I’d won. I’d proven myself more capable than I could have hoped. After yesterday’s assessment, I should have been full of confidence. But the truth was, I was exhausted.

  The fight was far from over. I’d worked my ass off to stay here so that I could figure out a way to take down the university and the vicious mages who’d destroyed my real family, the parents who’d raised me. No one here was going to make that easy for me, least of all my four fellow scions, the sons of the other ruling families. Malcolm, Jude, Connar, and Declan—all of them as brutal as they were gorgeous.

  Maybe Headmistress Grimsworth wouldn’t mind if I took a whole week off to recover instead of just one day? Ha.

  The sheet twitched, and a small furry body nestled against my arm. How are you doing, sweetheart?

  The voice of a sixty-something woman that traveled into my head came from the pet mouse tucked in the crook of my elbow. Before I’d even known I was a mage myself, my parents’ people had arranged for Deborah’s soul to be relocated into the animal, and for the mouse to be bound to me as my familiar so that she could protect me… and keep an eye on me. Just in case some of the magic my parents were suppressing in me leaked out.

  They and the mages they worked with were joymancers, getting the energy for their spells from the happiness they stirred in others. Like everyone else here at Villain Academy, I was a fearmancer, with powers that came from provoking terror. Having now met a whole bunch of fearmancers, I couldn’t exactly blame Mom and Dad for worrying about how I might turn out.

  “I’d like to go back to sleep for about a year,” I murmured to Deborah. The walls in the dorm room weren’t super thick, and while the secret that I had a familiar was out now, no one except me knew my mouse had a joymancer’s soul along for the ride. Deborah’s life depended on my keeping that secret.

  “Are you okay?” I added. Yesterday she’d been kidnapped by the other scions in an attempt to force me into bowing down to them. I’d managed to outsmart them and get her back, but being in their hands even for a little while couldn’t have been fun.

  Don’t you worry about me, Lorelei, Deborah said with a tickle of her whiskers against my skin. I’m already on my second life—I’m grateful to have it at all. What matters to me is making sure you make it through these trials all right.

  My chest tightened up. I ran my thumb over the soft fur on her back. At least one person here had my best interests at heart… even if she wasn’t exactly a person anymore.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed. No one knew what to expect from me before. After that assessment, they’re going to be watching for incredible things. I still can’t cast much if I’m not stirring up fear in people, and I still don’t like doing that.” I let out a little groan. “And now I’m going to have a full schedule. Even more classes with these assholes.”

  Don’t you think the other scions will back off now that they know how strong you are? Your classmates seemed to respond quite positively to the news yesterday.

  “Those ones were just hedging their bets, I guess. Figuring they should fawn over me a bit while I’m in the spotlight. If I can’t keep up, they’ll go right back to taking jabs at me. And the scions… I don’t think I can count on any mercy or respect from them. Malcolm Nightwood made it very clear that he’s not finished with his campaign against me.”

  His exact words had been, We’re just getting started. Definitely not extending a hand in friendship. Not that I’d have accepted his hand any more than I had the first time he’d come sauntering in here, figuring he could simply introduce himself and I’d be honored to enjoy his company.

  I couldn’t let him or the others get to me. I’d focus on learning everything I could until I was ready to destroy this school and the cold-blooded psychopaths it taught all its students to be, and then I could prove to the joymancers back home that I wasn’t like the other fearmancers. That they didn’t need to be afraid of my powers. I’d go back to them and back into the life I really wanted.

  If it took me a while to get there, so be it.

  I pushed back the covers and sat up, careful of Deborah. “We’d better find you a new hiding spot in case they decide to use you to mess with me again,” I said under my breath. The sock draw
er wasn’t going to cut it anymore. “Any ideas?”

  I’ve found some comfortable nooks right in the walls. It’d be difficult for them to catch me in there. And I can keep more of an ear out for anyone coming into your room who doesn’t belong.

  “Okay, that sounds good.”

  I should have been able to keep intruders out with all the magical strengths I supposedly had. Unfortunately practice counted for a lot too, and my most enthusiastic enemies had plenty of talent of their own along with their years of experience.

  A couple of my dormmates were sitting on the sofas in the common room when I walked through, but not any of the girls I’d really interacted with. They watched me pass by with a curious if wary look and went back to their conversation. When I’d finished my shower and headed into the kitchen to grab breakfast for me and my mouse, those two had disappeared, and Shelby was pouring herself a bowl of cereal.

  A smile leapt to my face at the sight of the dorm’s one Nary student. Bloodstone University brought in a limited number of Naries—short for ordinary, or Nary a bit of magic, as Mom used to say—on scholarships more for our benefit than theirs. As mages living in secret among human society, we needed to learn how to act and cast around them without raising suspicions. That was all they were supposed to be: a tool. Fearmancers didn’t make friends with Naries.

  But I wasn’t your typical fearmancer, and I’d rather have Shelby’s company over that of the mages here any day, even if there were a whole lot of things I could never talk to her about.

  “Hey,” I said as I opened the fridge to retrieve my eggs and Deborah’s cheese. “You’re looking better. Totally recovered?”

  Shelby glanced over at me with a swish of her mousy brown ponytail and smiled back. A faint but healthy-looking flush colored her cheeks. She’d been suffering from a flu for most of the last week, pushing on with her schoolwork despite a serious fever, because she was scared the teachers would send her home if she didn’t seem committed enough to her classes. Despite the chilly treatment she got from most of the student body, the music program here apparently offered her opportunities she’d endure just about anything to hold onto.

  “Back in ship-shop shape,” she said, and paused. “Other than hearing that stupid tree. The maintenance staff obviously didn’t listen to me about it.”

  “Tree?” I repeated as I cracked my eggs over a frying pan, and then remembered. “The one you think might be rotten?”

  “Yeah. It’s still making that weird sound when the breeze is moving in the right direction. It’s pretty faint—maybe they think I’m making it up. But I swear it sounds just like the one that collapsed on my street way back when, and I’m not feverish anymore, so…” She grimaced.

  The fearmancer staff just assumed they knew better than any Nary. I doubted they’d even checked it out. When I’d told my assigned mentor, Professor Banefield, about Shelby’s complaint, he’d brushed the sound off as a prank one of the magical students must have been playing on her.

  I’d just have to raise the issue again. I couldn’t imagine anyone getting enough fear out of some faint weird tree sound for it to be worth keeping up the illusion for days on end.

  “I have to talk to the staff about something today anyway,” I said, which was only sort of a lie. Banefield was staff, if not maintenance staff. “Maybe if they hear about it from more than one person, they’ll take the problem more seriously.”

  “Thanks. I’d really just like them to take a look. People could get hurt. Anyway… I was wondering… Do you want to go grab drinks in town again sometime? I’m busy with rehearsals for the end-of-year concert the next couple evenings, but maybe after that?”

  She eyed me hesitantly. I was the first dormmate she’d had who’d been anything close to friendly. I gave her my warmest smile in reassurance. “That’d be great. I’m still getting to know what the best places are.”

  We chatted about the town’s somewhat meager offerings for food and entertainment as I finished frying my eggs. Just as my toast popped up, a door at the far end of the room opened, and Victory Blighthaven stepped out.

  Victory’s auburn hair curved in perfect waves around her angelic face, and her blouse and skirt clung to her hourglass figure so smoothly it was obvious they’d been tailored for her. She’d have been lovely to look at if it hadn’t been for the pointed glower she aimed my way.

  She was one of Malcolm Nightwood’s biggest fans, which meant she wasn’t a fan of me at all. It didn’t help that I’d inadvertently stolen the best bedroom in the dorm from her when I’d arrived. Obviously the announcement about my exemplary assessment hadn’t warmed her up to me.

  I decided not to find out what Victory might contribute to the conversation and hustled my breakfast into my bedroom. Deborah gave a happy sigh when I set down her plate of cheese, crackers, and blueberries. I sat at the little desk crammed between the bed and the window and dug into my eggs and toast.

  As I gulped down the last few buttery bites, my gaze meandered over the green outside toward the domed shape of the Stormhurst Building and then on to the glittering waters of the lake. If it hadn’t been for the people, this place really would have been beautiful. I could just imagine…

  A haze crept over my mind. I couldn’t have said I was thinking about anything, really, only that all at once I blinked and the scattering of clouds had scudded farther across the sky—and my hand was jerking a pen across a paper I didn’t remember getting out.

  I yanked my arm back with a hitch of my pulse. The scrawled words stared back at me. The same sentence was dug into the paper over and over all the way down its white surface.

  I killed them. I killed them. I killed them.

  A chill shot through me from gut to throat, just about propelling my breakfast with it. The pen slipped from my fingers, and my hand came up to grip the glass dragon charm hanging from a silver chain around my neck. The last piece of my old life I’d been able to hang onto.

  How—What had even just happened there? I’d never blanked out like that before. Even when I’d acted without meaning to in the grip of one of Malcolm’s persuasion spells, I’d been conscious the whole time. And there was no one in here with me to have cast any spell on me anyway.

  Why had I written that? I’d thought it more than once remembering my parents’ deaths. The blacksuits who’d come to “rescue” me from the joymancers would never have killed them if they hadn’t taken me in and raised me in the first place. But I didn’t think I’d ever admitted that guilt to anyone. It’d been in my head during my first desensitization session, but I could have sworn I hadn’t said anything out loud. I’d been sobbing too hard to say much of anything.

  Had that daze been caused by magic or simply the emotions I’d tried to bury?

  Lorelei? Deborah’s voice reached me from a greater distance than it normally sounded. She scurried across the floor to touch my socked foot. Thank goodness! You came out of it.

  “What happened?” I whispered.

  You tensed up all of a sudden, grabbed that paper, and started writing. I tried to talk to you, but you didn’t seem to hear me. It looked like some kind of spell. I peeked out into the common room, but I couldn’t see anyone who looked as if they were casting on you. Of course, who knows what awful magic these fearmancers might be able to work?

  That wasn’t terribly reassuring. I crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it into the little garbage bin under the desk.

  What were you writing?

  “Just…” My throat constricted. “Nothing important. Just gibberish.” I glanced at my phone and winced. “I should get going. I’m supposed to meet my mentor in ten minutes.”

  The chill in my nerves lingered as I hurried out of the dorm. None of my usual tormenters were around. If I’d been in the grip of a spell, someone had to have cast it.

  I loped down the five flights of stairs to the ground floor with my thoughts in a jumble. I’d just reached the hall by the library when four striking and all-too-famili
ar figures came ambling my way.

  Malcolm Nightwood’s voice rang out with its usual smooth cockiness. “Well, if it isn’t Glinda the good witch. You look a little frazzled. Is the pressure of all that talent we’re expecting to see getting to you already?”

  I swiveled on my heel to face the four scions. They must have been coming up from the basement room where they had their private lounge area—which meant, I was pretty sure, that they’d all been much too far away to cast any targeted spell at me.

  Malcolm smiled at me with a cool glint in his dark brown eyes. The restrained hostility in his expression eliminated any heat his breathtaking looks might have sparked in me otherwise. His golden hair and his face with its perfect mix of hard and soft lines had made me think of him as a divine devil when I’d first met him. These days I had no doubt that he leaned much more toward the devil side in personality.

  At his left, Jude flicked back his floppy dark copper hair and offered me a smirk. The Killbrook scion was just as good-looking as Malcolm in his lean, angular way—and could be just as vicious when he decided to be. But it was the muscular guy at Malcolm’s other side who made my stomach clench up. Connar Stormhurst met my eyes, his chiseled face set in a stern expression that didn’t waver for a second. I couldn’t see any hint that he remembered, let alone cared, about the conversations we’d had away from the others… or the intimacy we’d shared.

  I should have known better. Just like I should have known not to have any hopes for Declan Ashgrave the second I’d found out where he and the blackshirts had brought me. The oldest scion, bringing up the rear of the bunch, had shown more than once that he’d protect me only when it didn’t interfere with his obligations to the other guys or his job as teacher’s aide. Now, he ducked his head, his black hair falling forward to shadow his bright hazel eyes.