Grimmstead Academy: Defiant Rebellion Read online

  Grimmstead Academy

  Defiant Rebellion

  Candace Wondrak

  © 2020 Candace Wondrak

  All Rights Reserved.

  Book cover by Melony Paradise at Paradise Cover Design – Premade Book Covers Group

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  Chapter One – Felice

  Chapter Two – Felice

  Chapter Three – Dagen

  Chapter Four – Lucien

  Chapter Five – Felice

  Chapter Six – Victor

  Chapter Seven – Felice

  Chapter Eight – Felice

  Chapter Nine – Lucien

  Chapter Ten – Koda

  Chapter Eleven – Ian

  Chapter Twelve – Felice

  Chapter Thirteen – Felice

  Chapter Fourteen – Dagen

  Chapter Fifteen – Felice

  Chapter Sixteen – Felice

  Chapter Seventeen – Lucien

  Chapter Eighteen - Epilogue - Hannah Beck

  Chapter One – Felice

  Blackness. Everything was black for so long, it felt like an eternity. A vacant, hollow void inside myself that I couldn’t place, couldn’t explain. I did not feel quite like myself. Small sensations crawled along my hand, tickling as they went, tiny, almost intangible flutterings of something insignificant. A feather? A fingertip? I couldn’t say.

  An internal struggle warred within me as I fought to rise out of the blackness, as I tried to open my eyes and come back into my own body. It was the strangest thing: I felt so far removed from my body, even with consideration to whatever touched my hand.

  I tried to remember how I got here, what led me to this point, and I couldn’t. Grimmstead and its handsome, haunted inhabitants—of course, I remembered them. But as to how I got here, why everything in my mind was a sheet of blackness, I could not say.

  Had this place finally gotten to me when I wasn’t looking? I’d known for a little while now I was a prisoner here just like the guys, a soul trapped in an academy that was not quite an academy. A building that was more like a haunted house than anything. I’d known it was only a matter of time until Grimmstead’s dark, pointed claws sunk into my flesh and tore me apart.

  I was no angel, after all. I had sinned just like the others here. I had my own vices, my own desires and weaknesses. No part of me could claim to be better than them, even if they were murderous or had a penchant for blood and draining animals of it.

  Blood dripped from my hands, too. Not now, but in the past. Robert Smalls, my ex, and his family.

  My father had given me a look after the news broke about what happened to the Smalls, as if he’d known. He never asked, but he did watch me with eagle eyes after that. Me going away to college, I’d thought at the time, was necessary.

  But then I lost it and set fire to my dean’s office.

  It was silly, what could set me off. The tiniest of things, the most miniscule of details. Robert, canceling our date. The dean, putting politics and money above the campus’s students. Mom, ignoring me as she cooked over the stove.

  Yeah, let’s just say I’d been starting fires for a long time. My father hadn’t caught on right away. If he knew the entire truth, I bet he’d have me locked up. The worst thing about it all was I didn’t feel bad about it. Regret wasn’t something that dwelled within me, even though I knew what I’d done was wrong. Fire was too perfect.

  As I drifted deeper into the blackness, feeling that bizarre, tickling sensation on my hand—at least, I thought it was my hand—I knew I could never fault Payne for his fascination with blood. Some things simply called out to you, drew you in, and you were helpless to its call. It was like that with me and fire. Its beauty, its power; I couldn’t get over it. I was a slave to it. If I ever had a master, fire was it.

  The guys.

  I had a vague recollection of Koda finally coming back, taking control of the body he shared with Bram, and I wondered if that indeed happened, or if it was a memory that was not quite a memory. Something that I wanted to happen but didn’t. It was so difficult to tell, in this pitch-black void, what was real and what wasn’t.

  Was I real? Was any of this real? Was this what death was like?

  I didn’t want to die. Not many people did. Death was not something a normal person looked forward to with a smile on their face. I had so much life left, so many years still left in this body. I hadn’t done anything with myself, being as young as I was.

  The good didn’t die young, the unfortunate did.

  But…I wasn’t dead, I realized as I felt the muscles in my arm twitch, the same arm whose hand felt those small, ticklish sensations. My fingers were slow to coil, curling into a fist, grabbing the sheets below.

  A bed. I was in a bed. My bed in Grimmstead?

  Hah. Wouldn’t that just be the kicker, huh? If I opened my eyes and saw that everything that had happened in Grimmstead was nothing but a dream.

  I’d scream, because there was no way I could ever go back to a normal life, not now. Not without those broken, lost souls at my side. I would not go so far as to say we were whole together, that we completed each other in the way lovesick partners did in the movies and in romance novels, but we certainly were better together.

  Better. That’s all you could really hope for, wasn’t it? No other person could complete you. They could simply love you, flaws and all.

  The feeling in my body was slow to return, coming at a glacial pace. I felt my eyebrows twitch on my face, my lips part. A muffled groan escaped me, though my eyelids still refused to open.

  “Felice,” a soft, masculine voice entered my ears, and I heard the sounds of someone falling to their knees. My guess was beside the bed. “You’re okay.” He sounded relieved, and through my struggle to open my eyes, I realized who he was: Dagen.

  Had something happened? Had I been knocked out again?

  I groaned once more, able to say nothing, apparently.

  “There’s…” He trailed off, and it was a long time before he said something else, “There’s a bit of a situation going on in Grimmstead.”

  A situation? That didn’t sound good. Not at all. Any situation in Grimmstead that actually troubled Dagen couldn’t possibly be good.

  Finally, after who knew how long, my eyelids cracked open. My vision was blurry for the longest while, and I fought to open them all the way, staring at the fuzzy ceiling above me. Dagen knelt beside me, watching with bated breath, as I came into myself. I laid on my bed, above the sheets, my body straight like a log.

  My wrist ached, and it was as I sat up—Dagen’s steady arms helping me—that I glanced down to my left hand. No wound, no cut. No anything. I rubbed it absentmindedly, meeting Dagen’s dark eyes behind his glasses.

  His face held stubble, bags once again under his eyes. He looked like he’d lost himself to that sound he always heard, to his anxieties and paranoia. His black hair was a bit ruffled, as if he’d forgotten to style it this morning.

  Actually, he looked as if he’d been up all night.

  I glanced over my shoulder, at the window, finding bright, harsh sunlight streaming through.

  It took me far too l
ong to find my words and ask, “Is it Bram again?” Bram’s murder spree was the last situation we’d had in Grimmstead, and I really didn’t want to repeat it.

  “No,” Dagen whispered, one of his hands lingering on my back. “It’s not Bram. Not…exactly.”

  Not exactly? Well, that didn’t sound particularly good. Not exactly meant not totally, which meant Bram sort of was at the center of whatever situation was going on out there. I had to get up. I had to shake off this strange, out of body feeling and stand on my own two feet, march downstairs, or wherever the heck everyone was, and find out just what was going on.

  I moved my legs off the side of the bed, swaying as I stood. Dagen was not much taller than me, and yet he was still a rock to my unstable form, holding onto me and making sure I was steady before releasing me. I wore that same old long, grey dress, my worn boots beneath it. My dress matched the outfits the guys wore, this place wanting nothing but gothic style, apparently.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, my head feeling dizzy for a moment. The room spun, and for a split-second, I could’ve sworn I heard a weird sound.

  Buzzing.

  But there were no flying insects near me, or near Dagen.

  Oh, God. This place was making me lose it.

  Dagen’s lips thinned into a line, and his eyes shifted to the floor. “I think it’s better if I show you. The others…”

  “Are they all right?” Pure, unadulterated alarm shot through me, waking me up out of my hazy fog. Panic. Panic for each and every one of my men—because that’s what they were. Mine. Even before I’d realized it, even before, when I’d tried to do the job I came here to do, they’d been mine.

  Grimmstead, though, didn’t want me here to tutor or clean. It wanted me here for another reason, and I had no idea what that reason was.

  My blood?

  I blinked, and for a moment I was not in the room with Dagen. For just the quickest of moments, I was somewhere else. Someplace dark and dank, someplace where blood overflowed aplenty. But then, just as quickly as I was thrown out of my body, I was back inside it, staring at Dagen’s curious, concerned expression.

  “The others are okay,” Dagen spoke quietly. “Are you sure you’re…”

  Nodding once, I said, “I’m fine.” I didn’t remember how I got in bed, or why I felt like my body hadn’t been used in years, but maybe bringing Koda back had tuckered me out? It was as good of an explanation as any, I supposed.

  Dagen withdrew his hand from me, though I knew he did it begrudgingly. When he touched me, he didn’t hear that incessant noise. I was his relief, in more ways than one. Ian could also relieve him apparently, although that was a different type of relief—one I probably shouldn’t be thinking about right now, because it’d only lead to my lower gut to warm and my thighs to clench.

  Together we left my room, though I walked slower than normal. The very moment we turned to the grand staircase, heading down the steps, I froze when my ears heard something.

  Not the buzzing sound, and not the pounding sound that haunted Dagen. No, this was something much worse, something much more unsettling and eerie. Like nails on a chalkboard, the worst sound to cause a chill to sweep up your spine and settle in your bones.

  What sound did I hear? Sounds, more like it.

  Laughter. The pitter-patter of small feet on carpet. Voices that hadn’t yet hit puberty speaking.

  Children. I heard children.

  Dagen stood on the stair just below me, but he stopped and turned to gaze at me, silently questioning why I’d froze. Deja vu hit me like a wall of bricks the moment I spotted a thin, pale child, no more than twelve years old, march out of the dining hall. With hair so colorless it was white and eyes a shiny silver, Payne’s younger self was easily recognizable.

  Plus the boy didn’t have a big, gaping scar or stitches on his neck.

  “You,” Payne Jr. spoke, frowning at me, “you’re the one who told me I couldn’t hurt Midnight.” He rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed. “I bet you wish you would’ve, now.”

  Dagen’s dark eyes were on me, curious. “You’ve met them before?”

  Did I? I…I did, but that wasn’t real. At least, I didn’t think it was real. How could it be, when I’d met each and every one of the guys as adults? It wasn’t right. This was Grimmstead playing with our heads, with mine especially—for if the children were here, Victor had to be here, too.

  And from what I knew about Lucien and Victor, they would not be on good terms.

  “No, I…” I stopped when I saw Koda emerge from the dining hall, reaching for Payne Jr.

  Koda’s green eyes snapped to us, and he gave us an awkward smile. “Thank God. Please do something. Trying to wrangle these children is impossible—” A boy’s voice swore loudly in the dining hall, using a string of expletives that would make any sailor blush. “—especially that one.”

  That one, I chose to assume, would be Bram.

  Koda tried to drag mini-Payne back into the dining hall, but the child fought him. Payne Jr. was able to dart away from him and run outside, causing Koda to sigh explosively.

  Payne himself emerged from the dining hall, sporting that garish wound on his neck—though it was more of a scabbing scar than anything. “I’ll get him,” he said, exiting the house after tossing me a lingering stare.

  All of the children had to be there, and they remembered me from before. That didn’t seem possible, and yet it was true. This was madness. Absolute madness.

  “Where’s Lucien?” I asked, my breathing suddenly labored. My chest felt tight, constricted, a thousand pounds on it, all trying to stop my breathing. None of this made sense, and yet here I was, faced with it.

  “In his office.”

  I started down the steps once more. Koda went back to child-watching duty, while Dagen followed me. My heart was wild in my chest, and I honestly felt like throwing up. This could not be happening.

  “He’s not alone,” Dagen added.

  “I figured,” I muttered, wondering if Ian was in the dining hall with the children, or if he was somewhere else, trying to hide out and wait for this mess to somehow fix itself. Stupid of him, if it was true. Messes like this didn’t fix themselves; someone else had to put in the effort to do it.

  Dagen reached for me. “Felice—”

  I stopped, turning to stare at him. I felt much more alive than I did earlier, my vision clear and my muscles finally attuned to work. I did not need him following me around, cooing over me like a mother. “I am fine, Dagen. I know who’s in there, and I can handle myself. You should watch the kids, or make sure Ian’s all right.” Faced with his mini-me, Ian might just spiral.

  He studied me for a moment, the muscles in his jaw clenching. “Okay,” he said, though after I picked up my pace once more, he remained rooted in place, watching me go.

  I adored Dagen, but I couldn’t focus on anything else right now. Not the children, not how their presence here might affect the guys. I couldn’t even think as my feet took me to Lucien’s office.

  The door hung half-closed, and I hesitated before pushing in, finding the two men I knew I would in the middle of a heated conversation. Lucien stood at the back of his desk, his tall, wide frame leaning down, his hands flat on top of the wood. His body wore a black suit, mirroring his deathly expression. His mouth frowned under his neatly-trimmed beard, every muscle in his body tense.

  The other man stood near one of the bookcases on the side of the room, his brown hair coiffed in an old-fashioned way. He was taller, slenderer, and yet his dark grey suit fit him well. Clothing out of its own time, but Victor Grimmstead was a man himself out of his own time, so it fit. His sideburns were long, but the rest of his facial hair was shaved short, his cheeks and his chin smooth. He simply looked unimpressed.

  The moment I entered, their debate stopped, both their gazes turning to me. My skin chilled under their intense stares, and for just the quickest moment, I wondered if I could slip back out and leave. Being with them both, seeing t
hem at odds…I didn’t like it.

  Lucien’s back straightened, and he leaned off his desk, running a hand over his chest, tugging at the suit jacket resting there. “Felice.” He said nothing other than my name; he didn’t need to.

  My mouth opened—my intent was to ask what was going on, but the other man in the room decided the staring contest between Lucien and I was something he had to butt into.

  Victor strode between us, giving me a small quirk of a smile as he reached for my hand, his fingers curling around it. He brought the hand to his lips, placing a kiss on my knuckles.

  “Felice,” he whispered, his lips brushing against my skin with the word, igniting a fire deep within me, an instant urge, a want I couldn’t deny. “It is lovely to finally be in your presence again.” A darkness sat in his eyes, one that drew me in. He was a dangerous man, and yet I was weak to him.

  Danger didn’t put me off, apparently. Here, it only made my hunger worse.

  Lucien did not like Victor touching me, for he barreled around his desk. Within a moment, he had Victor by the throat, tugging him off me and slamming him into the nearest bookcase. “You will not touch her,” he growled out, sounding more animal than man.

  “Ah, I do think that should be up to her, don’t you?” Victor spoke, baring his teeth.

  Lucien’s hazel eyes were slow to move to me, his hand still curled around Victor’s neck. He watched me, waiting for me to say something, for me to give him the command: carry on or stop. A warrior waiting for his second half to give the okay.

  But, alas, an okay was not what I would give.

  “Let him go,” I whispered, knowing Lucien would never agree with me there. What was the point in attacking him? Victor was obviously one with this house more than we were. He’d been haunting me since day one, waiting for my eyes to open to the true nature of this place.

  Besides, death in Grimmstead was not the end of the road. Being at each other’s necks was as pointless as anything could be.

  Lucien’s chest rumbled, and he yanked himself back, moving to stand beside me, towering over me as he glared at Victor. “You’re fortunate I’m weak to the lady,” he told Victor, still growling. Still sounding very much like an animal.