Strange Academy (Hot Paranormal Romance) (3 page)

A twelve-year-old girl blushed between freckles and hugged her clarinet case to her flat chest.
Crush on the principal
? Sadie knew why. He was gorgeous, a demi-god in dress slacks, and he walked around making people feel comfortable in their own skin with his warm voice. She followed his butt up the stairs, feeling the smooth ridges of the ornate wooden balustrade under her hand. For a guy with a desk job, he kept fit.

Christian was perfect and nice and right here, so why the hell did she keep wishing it was Gray’s ass at eye level? She closed her eyes and inhaled. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she be attracted to nice men? Why date the
evil
?

From her vantage point on the stairs, she looked down at the odd pattern set in black tiles in the otherwise white marble foyer floor. A circle surrounding a complicated pattern of straight lines that formed an eight-pointed star.

She tried but couldn’t picture eccentric Aunt Pippa—wise, weird, and warm—in this staid old mausoleum of a building. She would always remember her reading tea leaves from fresh mint tea in Mom’s kitchen, silver bangles chiming on her wrists. But who was she at Strange Academy? Just another teacher. Had she whipped out her tarot deck to read her students’ futures? Or had she suppressed it, brewing up so-called spells on a hotplate in her school apartment?

A gaggle of little girls came out of nowhere, streaming down the stairs, showing her to the side. Sadie nearly went tumbling over the railing. It was a long way down. The girls were followed by a voluminous ice-white coat with a head sticking out of the high collar. The woman’s face was camouflaged by long straight hair the same white as the coat.

“Oh, Dr. Cross.” The soprano voice made the words into music. “We’re off to observe the stars. Girls, this is your last chance. Do any of you have to go?”

“No, Ms. Jones,” the bundled-up girls chimed in unison.

Sadie stiffened. Even the idea of having the responsibility for all those kids almost overwhelmed her. And classes started tomorrow. What had she gotten herself into?

Ms. Jones shook a velvet bag at Christian. Even though her hair was ice white, her face was wrinkle free. She couldn’t be much older than Sadie. “Tonight we perform the frost moon ritual.”

“Yes, have a good time on your
field trip to the observatory
.” Christian emphasized the final words. Her B.S. detector was getting a workout.

Ms. Jones blinked at him, and then blinked at Sadie. The white-haired teacher opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by one of the girls tugging at her coat, looking up at her with wide eyes and crossed legs. “Ms. Jones. I have to go.”

“Jewel Jones,” Christian said, after the girls and Ms. Jones left and the two of them had continued walking toward her rooms. Christian moved in front, as if to shield her from further danger, and insisted on carrying her baby blue, hard-sided, retro suitcase. “She’s another residence advisor here. We’re looking for a new senior R.A. to take your aunt’s place. No luck yet.”

“Strange Hall. Strange Academy. Is everything around here
strange
? Maybe you hired me just for my last name.”

He compressed his lips. “Candidly, Sadie, it didn’t hurt.”

“Pippa said she was related to the founder.” She tried to keep the misery out of her voice. “Guess I am, too.”

“Like I said, it didn’t hurt, but you wouldn’t be here without your master’s degree in literature. And your aunt’s recommendation.”

The corridor seemed to darken around her. “Pippa recommended me. As her replacement.” She kept her tone flat, though the hair on her arms rose in anticipation of his answer.

“Exactly,” he confirmed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

This was beyond B.S. It was impossible. Sadie was grateful Christian’s keen eyes couldn’t see through the back of his head. You don’t recommend a replacement if you aren’t sick or retiring. Unless you think someone is going to kill you.

“So that’s why you hired someone who ‘isn’t one of us,’” she said.

Christian’s back stiffened and he whirled on her. He seemed much larger and very close.

“Where did you hear that?” His voice had turned to a malicious growl.

“G—Gray said it when he was in your office.” She stepped back. Christian loomed.

Blue eyes that had seemed so warm and friendly now pierced her. She swallowed, unable to break from his gaze, unable to even blink. Pressure filled her ears and she had a dizzying feeling Christian could look into her mind.

“Can you hear through walls, Sadie Strange? I’ll have to remember to watch out for you.”

Then he laughed, the corners of his mouth quirking up. The odd look was gone. With it, the tension disappeared, like text deleted from a computer file. She felt more off balance than ever. It was all she could do to follow numbly.

He stopped at the last door at the end of the corridor. “Are you sure about taking your aunt’s apartment?”

“I’m sure.” She was suddenly eager to get rid of him. “I’ll just go in alone.”

After Christian left, she stared at the round golden key in her hand for a long time. Maybe this was stupid, thinking she could live in her aunt’s old place. But how else could she have made sure no one else would go into the apartment? Hidden among Pippa’s things might be the clue she needed to figure it all out. She would search everything until she found evidence of the truth about her aunt’s death.

She turned the key in the lock. The door opened a couple of inches and then became so heavy she had to shove with all her strength to squeeze through sideways.

Aunt Pippa’s apartment was a tidy little hobbit-hole. Her stamp was all over it, from the literary prints on the walls to the chocolate-colored comfy chair and the couch patterned with whimsical swirls.

The main room was larger than all her student apartments combined. On one side, the dining area had a round table actually made of wood, not laminate from Ikea. A warm amber glow came from the pendant lamp above it. On closer inspection, she saw that the amber teardrops making up the lamp were actual pieces of amber.
Wow
.

Wow again: On the other side of the room, a curved window seat begged you to curl up with a favorite novel and a mug of thick hot chocolate and read the winter away. There were a dozen red cushions to sit on and a creamy throw blanket to ward off the chill. She intended to spend a lot of time there. But then she frowned. You don’t have a lot of time, remember? You’re just here long enough to answer a few questions.

She passed a narrow kitchen lined with cupboards on both sides and walked down a short hallway to enter the master bedroom.

The circular window allowed a round patch of white light to fall across Aunt Pippa’s yellow-flowered quilt on the canopy bed. Sadie’s steady, dull grief flared from the background, making her chest ache. She folded up the bedding, glad to have some fidgety thing to do. She could sleep in Pippa’s bed, but not under her sheets. She’d mail the quilt to her mother.

So far, so good. No one would walk up to her and say
Oh, by the way, Insert-Name-Here killed your aunt
, but today had confirmed her suspicions.

As she walked back into the main room, she felt completely justified in her behavior at the funeral. Her sister, the so-called psychic, was a faker who even had the police fooled into thinking she could help them with their investigation. Ha! Chloë wouldn’t know a crime if it came up and snatched her purse.

Sadie froze in mid-step. Holy shit, the wall. Aunt Pippa’s wall was covered in bookshelves. Empty bookshelves.

Her heart pole-vaulted into her throat as she looked closer. The pattern of dust silhouetted the missing books on every shelf, from floor to ceiling.

Her hands tightened to angry fists as burning anger ripped her open. Someone had stolen all Pippa’s books. It would have taken hours to do it.

Pure adrenaline poured through her veins as she spied what was in the door’s path, what had made it so hard to open earlier. Her brain struggled to put meaning to what she saw.

The brown paper-wrapped box jamming the door had a single word written on it, screaming out in Aunt Pippa’s distinctive calligraphy.
Sadie
.

*

***

******

****

*

Gray toyed with the love potion in his pocket as he took the Strange Hall stairs two at a time. All he had to do was get her to drink it and then tell her to quit the job.

Easy. The only hard part would be ignoring the chemistry between them and not seducing her out of her stuffy suit. That would solve his little
getting laid
problem. If he could just forget about the fact she was a Non. Maybe it would be all right, just this once, to break the rules.

Shit. He couldn’t do it. She might be an enemy, but she was still a defenseless Non. So much for the easy way. And now he was walking down Sadie Strange’s hallway without a good plan.

The problem was that his entire experience with Non-Meta females consisted of saving their lives and convincing them the big scary thing with the leathery wings in the alley wasn’t a demon, but an asylum escapee dressed like Batman. And turning down their drink invitations after seeing them home safely. They probably didn’t even feel things the same way Metas did.

Same as demon hunting, he told himself. Get close. Find the weak point. Deliver the killing blow. Easy.

And getting close to a Non didn’t go against
every
rule in his family.
No, Dumbass, just the oldest, most important one.

He ignored his inner voice and tried to shrug the stress knot under his shoulder blade away.

Why did she have to take Ms. Strange—Pippa’s—apartment? Could he purposely hurt Pippa’s niece?

Pippa. The thought of her made him want to put his fist through something. Damn. Why had he been so stupid? The intensity of the guilt cloud that settled over him nearly sent him back down the hall.

Now was not the time to start thinking about what had happened. How she’d still be alive if he hadn’t...

With effort, he shoved aside his regret. This wasn’t about his failure; it was about Sterling.

Gray cricked his neck from side to side, loosening up for battle. Then he tossed his coat and his briefcase on the corridor floor, opened his collar an inch, leaned against her doorframe and knocked. At the last second, he crossed his arms so his biceps bulged.

Ha. That would get her. Hell, she’d practically melted when he’d used a spell to stroke the back of her neck.

The door opened. “Hi,” he said in a low, manly voice.

But
repressed librarian
was missing in action. She answered the door fresh from the shower, still tying the belt of a black kimono. Her dark hair dripped over her shoulders, dampening her robe almost to her breasts. Her red-painted toenails looked like cinnamon-heart candies peeping out of her open-toed slippers.

Cinnamon-heart candies? He really needed to get laid.

“Alumnus,” Sadie said. “‘Alumni’ is plural. Saying ‘I’m an alumni’ is like saying ‘I’m an
assholes
.’”

He smiled and ignored both her faux pas—no one would insult him intentionally, after all—and the pain from the stress knot in his back. “Came to give you the good news, Sadie. We’re going to be working very closely together. I was appointed senior residence advisor here this afternoon.” Hadn’t happened yet. He’d move a suitcase from his house in town tonight and tell Cross in the morning.

She raised a damp eyebrow at him as if she saw right through his lie. Impossible. She was just a Non. “Come in.”

Easy.

When the door closed behind him, she crossed her arms, making her kimono gape and squishing her breasts together.

A hard-sided suitcase Jackie O. might have carried took up one end of Pippa’s brown curlicue-patterned couch. A suit bag was draped over her tiny television.

“Can I help you unpack?” Of course, his real goal was to gather ammunition. He walked over to the pile of loosely stacked boxes. C. books, said one. G. novels, said another. The shelves lining the room held nothing but dust. At least someone had had the sense to hide them from the Non.

“Does this usually work for you?” A sneer tinged her voice, turning it caustic. When he looked up from her breasts, he saw the contempt on her pink lips.

“What?” When had Nons started speaking another language?

“Yeah. Definitely does. This—” she waved a hand at his chest “—gets you whatever you want from women. You just walk up, ring a bell and they salivate.”

And it all became clear. She actually intended to fight him. He smiled inside. There was only one thing he liked better than an easy fix.

A challenge.

“But you feel nothing,” he said.

“I feel something, Gray. Nauseated. I know everything, by the way.”

A millisecond of panic, then his hunter’s calm clicked on. He looked her in the eye while his right hand slipped inside his charcoal gray sports jacket and touched the finger-slim vial in the secret pocket above his heart. Not a love potion. Something more permanent.

“Please be a bit more specific about this ‘everything’ you know,” he said.

“I know you don’t want me here. No one’s watching, so turn off the fake charm before I lose my dinner.”

He relaxed and took his hand from his pocket. No desperate measures.
For now
. “I told Cross that stuff in confidence.”

“A secret is something you
don’t
yell at the top of your lungs. The entire academy probably heard it. Montréal probably heard it.”

He followed as she walked into Pippa’s small kitchen, though he doubted she was going to open a bottle of wine. The damp robe clung to the upside-down heart of her backside.

“I don’t yell.” When he got pissed, he spoke lower than usual. But his heart pounded in his chest, just like now. That’s how he knew he was angry at her, not turned on by the way her slim waist twisted when she put the kettle on the ancient gas stove.

“‘I don’t care if her aunt was Pippa Strange. She’s not one of us. She won’t fit into the environment.’” She mimicked his voice’s manly timbre.