Bloodwood Academy Shifter: Semester Four (Bloodwood Year One Book 4) Read online

  This was some medieval buried alive torture shit.

  'Buried alive?' Oh, good, at least he heard that.

  'Yes, because I am under rock down here!' I grunted, more blood pouring over my cheeks as I tried to speak, tried to wiggle out from under the boulder. I was pinned by a giant rock and still trying to wiggle my way out.

  Yep, I was that cool.

  "Where is she?" Tommy asked, out of breath as more screams, gasps and what I could have sworn was the sound of a fight, echoed through my stone tomb.

  The cave had come down, and those fuckers were still fighting. Pointless. If we got lucky that sky avalanche would have taken down my zombie daddy along with Nicky... and me.

  If I was in this bad shape, chances were low they had made it. Chances were low I was going to make it.

  Well, I always wanted to go out buried alive while four hot guys stood on top of me. I was sure there was a kink for that.

  "I heard her in my mind, I still can... but I don't know where she is..." Rock shifted as they searched, weight compacting against my chest as I exhaled and blood sputtered over my chin, dripping down my cheeks as I coughed and screamed as best I could. With the pain in my head, I was sure I screamed like a banshee down here, although it was just a gasp.

  "Down here, you fuckers!" I spat through the blood, more rock shifting as I wheezed and tried to shove against the stone. Oh my god, I changed my mind. This was not the way to go. It felt like I was being crushed in a trash compactor made of knives.

  "Stop moving!" I yelled again. I hoped that one would have gone into Howl's mind, and he would stop dancing the tango on my chest. I liked my chest. I liked my boobs too, and they were squishing them like cherry tomatoes.

  Nope. Done.

  Forcing another scream to rip from my chest, I wiggled beneath the stone. My bones bitched me out while razor-sharp edges tried to cut me from the inside out as I shoved every last bit of energy out of me.

  If I could bring a cave down, I could sure as hell get the remains of said cave off my chest. One pitiful ribbon of light shot from me. While not enough to knock them on their asses, it was enough to get their attention and get off my chest.

  "Oh my god! Ivy!" Howl screamed. Both his and the demon's weight vanished as they stepped back. More fighting grunts and shouts along with a few profanities rippled through the stone down to me.

  "I found her!"

  "Get over here!"

  "Oberion is there!" What? No! What the fuck was he talking about? Certainly I’d killed the bad guy with my light. I mean, that was some Care Bear-stare-level magic shit.

  "Don't let them get away!"

  "Scarlet! Boys! Stop!"

  "Don't do it! You won't make it!"

  “Alias get them out of here!”

  “You’ve got to catch them!”

  “Stop, it’s coming down!”

  Everything mutated together as the rock groaned and screamed in my ears, the stone around me shifted as though we were stuck in some gravel-- gravel being kicked around by a giant’s shoe. More screams, and the rocks I was trapped in rumbled, pinning me between two sharp-edged slabs of granite that were compressing against my chest, pressing what remained of my air away.

  For a split second, the only sound I heard was the roar of the mountain as it tried to take me down to oblivion and my own heartbeat thrumming between my temples. My pulse was static against the slow, steady, beat...

  "Howl..." I gasped. Even with my C+ average in biology, I knew that I should be in some heart thundering panic mode about now. But my heart was barely fluttering. It felt more like when I would trip over broken concrete along the sidewalk by the trailer park. Startled, processing, shifting into oblivion.

  "We've got to get her out of there!" Finn yelled as the cave continued to groan. Pieces of stone shifted as everyone screamed. No one was fighting now.

  "On it!" More rock shifted as Tommy did, and the dark stone around me grew even darker. Dark as the black smoke that was wrapping around me, cradling me, sweeping me up and taking the breath from my lungs.

  The weight of the stone left, giving me room to breathe. My lungs and spine screamed with the simple action. Shit. I’d never felt pain like this.

  Screw being crushed by a mountain. I had clearly been thrown off of one and landed in a pile of knife-wielding clowns with murderous vendettas. Everything ached. One breath made it feel like my spine was falling apart like those cheap building blocks we got at the dollar store.

  Fake Lego’s… Ligoos.

  My spine was made of Ligoos.

  "Ivy!" They all yelled as the last of the stone weight left and the dim light of the collapsing cave streamed through the dust in ribbons.

  They all stood around me as Tommy lifted my broken body up like I was some kind of offering to the African safari gods. The whole thing would have been funny if I wasn’t close to dying… again.

  Damn. Remind me never to fight in caves again.

  "Fuck," Mama mumbled as Tommy laid me down. Warm breath rushed over my cheek as she leaned over me, only to be replaced by four sets of worried eyes. "We can't lose this one. We need to stabilize her and get out of here."

  "I'm trying," Tommy said, the weight against my chest shifting again as he lifted me. "Hard to stabilize someone whose bones are in pieces."

  Ligoos, I corrected, not that anyone heard.

  “My rose, say something.” Saxon rushed to me, his arms wrapping around me as he tried to pull me from Tommy’s smoke. He wasn't having it.

  His smoke-arms tightened as I tried to tell him to knock it off or put his tentacles somewhere else. But there were only gurgles of blood again.

  So much for some epic last speech. I was going out like a fish out of water.

  "No," Finn moaned, standing right behind the vampire. His cool skin tickled over my cheek. He didn't feel as cold as he normally did. Even his breath against my cheek as he pleaded for me to say something was hot.

  Like temperature boiling hot.

  The whole world was hot.

  “Ivy stay with us,” Howl whispered as those black edges pulsed their way into my line of sight again. "You have to fight it. Let your shifter side heal you."

  My shifter. My wolf.

  My eyes opened wide. I couldn't feel my wolf. I couldn't feel anything. She was gone. Magic was gone. Shit. How do you call a wolf back?

  Here, girl. Here, wolfy! I winced, as though my heart knew something that the rest of me didn't.

  "If you don't move now, I'm going to take her," Mama warned as her wonky shape joined the others, the faded edges of the four boys who hovered over me fading from black to white again.

  "Where are you going to take her?" Howl asked, his hand tight around mine. "She needs to heal."

  "There is only one way that she can heal now," Mama said. My vision pulsed in as she leaned over me, her smiling face contorted into a grimace. I winced, expecting some kind of lecture. But she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at Saxon.

  "You can't be serious," the vampire snarled, his hand warm against mine now. Warm like those black ribbons.

  Fucking body. Could it stop trying to die? First, I get stabbed. Now, I get crushed. I was the daughter of two super-powered super beings. I should be able to walk out of here.

  'You still have a mortal body,' Howl answered my thoughts. 'You can still die if all those superpowers are gone.'

  "Do you know another way to save injuries this bad, Saxon?" Mama laughed. Damn, I knew she was heartless. She must be talking about throwing me to the wolves.

  Or I guess one wolf. My father or Nicky, seeing as one of them clearly survived.

  I kind of wished it was my dad over her.

  “You know the way to save her,” I thought I heard as I teetered somewhere in the land between consciousness and death. "There is no other choice. Look at your mate. Really look at her. Use your vampire senses for fuck’s sake and stop being so damn selfish."

  Tommy's smoke wrapped warmly around me, pressin
g me into him as everyone mumbled and fought. Because, you know, we weren't in a hurry or anything. I tried to talk, to yell at the bastards to knock it off and get me to whatever witch healer they were talking about. But the only thing that happened was that I coughed blood all over Finn's face. The Fae kneeled before me, pressed his hands against me, and filled me with that warm buzzing like he had a few times before.

  Blood oozed from my pores, but I didn't feel quite so much like I was dying anymore.

  "Thanks," I managed, the word sounding more like ‘skanks’. He smiled.

  "If you don't lead the way to this secret healing room soon I'm going to take her to my dad," Tommy cut in, his smoke moving me closer to Finn. The Fae held me against him even as Tommy held me together.

  "That would be worse," Saxon mumbled.

  "Oh, I agree. So, get your head out of your ass!" Tommy said, clapping his hands together, giving me one worried look before fixing those eyes on Saxon.

  “There’s no way we can get there…”

  “Oh, I can get us there,” Tommy cut Saxon off. “I can get us anywhere.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. But before I could ask, Saxon mumbled something, the world fading to black as I swore I heard Tommy grunt, "Lead the way fang-boy."

  "I need you to take me home, Tommy. Take us all to The Lowest Ground."

  The mood instantly changed. Everyone grew quiet as Finn' s magic waned and sent a sharp stabbing pain down my spine.

  Tommy huffed once and gave me a sympathetic smile as his dark smoke swallowed everyone. It swallowed the whole goddamned world. The pain I was already trapped in increased tenfold as that same death by clowns pain rippled through me again. My cheap Ligoos spine broke as I was folded in half, skin snapped as all the smoke stretched and twisted me. I didn’t know what Tommy was doing, but I wasn’t a fan. No one was. Everyone was screaming. The sound a rattling agony in my ears before the pain left. The smoke faded and everyone tumbled to the ground, yelling in agony and cursing Tommy out.

  “Demon special. Get over it,” he said, even though his hand was soft on my back as I turned and vomited. Thankfully I aimed it away from the Fae that held me, although Tommy wasn’t able to get out of the way.

  Tommy's smoke faded, or I thought it did. Dark blurriness had taken over my consciousness again. Either that or wherever he had brought us was as dark as death. Death by demon. Death that was begging for me.

  I was losing my fucking mind.

  "This is the last place I ever wanted to be," Howl moaned from somewhere near my feet. His voice echoed over what I could now make out as stone, a long, dark, never-ending tunnel of stone. I gasped and wiggled even with the pain it caused me, determined to find out where I was--where we were.

  "I think everyone but Saxon would rather be anywhere else," Finn said, his normal calm quivering.

  "Ugh. For protectors, all you lot do is whine," Ivory growled and took off down the tunnel, leading the way toward what I was becoming increasingly certain was a pit full of knife-clowns.

  “Where are we?” I managed to mumble out, but it sounded more like some kind of foreign language spoken by a chubby-bunny with cheeks full of marshmallows.

  I wasn't drooling blood anymore, but my mouth was sure coated with it. Blood. I could taste it. Smell it. Feel its stickiness on my skin.

  Hell, the smell was everywhere. All coppery and tangy and dripping from the air as if everything was coated with it.

  It was.

  All that dark stone was stone coated with cracked lines of blood. Blood that splattered over the floor. Over the ceiling.

  "Where are we?" I asked again, staring at Saxon who didn't even respond as he came to a stop. A pale-faced man stood in the middle of the tunnel, smiling.

  He was dressed in clothes the same color as the walls or covered with enough dried blood that it appeared that way. If it wasn't for the pale nothingness of his skin, I wouldn't have seen him at all. He was a shadow in this place, a shadow staring eagerly at all of us.

  "Home," Saxon finally said, and the vampire beamed, tapping those long fingers together.

  "Welcome," the other vampire said, that one word sounding like death would taste, icy and tinged with a sweetness that no one knew.

  "She is waiting for you."

  Chapter 3

  “Come on, little wolf."

  Howl had taken over ‘holding Ivy patrol’ and growled into my ear as he held me to him, practically running down the long tunnel that Saxon and the other vampire were walking down. The cylindrical tunnel that Tommy had transported us to looked like the core left behind when miners checked the soil. Everything was perfectly round, the walls like cinched paper.

  Cold, cinched paper. With how breath blossomed from us, I questioned if the walls were coated with dried blood, or frozen.

  Howl slipped on the ground as he ran after the walking vampires, or they appeared to be walking. The only other person who was able to keep up with them was Tommy, and he was mostly smoke.

  "Fight. Don’t you fucking give up yet. We are so close." Howl held me closer like he was holding me together like Tommy's smoke had. Yes, my bones felt splintered, and I was sure the majority of the blood aroma of blood was coming from me. But I wasn’t giving up.

  I had fought my deranged daddy with a hole in my guts and been crushed by a boulder. I didn't know where we were going, but I could take whatever knife-clowns lay on the other side.

  "I wouldn't try," Howl answered my thoughts aloud.

  "Wouldn't try what?" Finn asked, his hand on my cheek, his touch hot against the cold air of the cave.

  "She wants to fight them--"

  "I fought my father," I interrupted him in a rasp. My father… “Why are we here? We need to be fighting Oberion!”

  “You aren’t fighting anyone.” I wanted to pinch Howl in the ribs for that, but since my arms and legs weren’t currently attached to the rest of my body… I tired anyway.

  I attempted to snap and beat my fists in the air like a war pilot, but I ended up slurring and flailing. Howl staggered to keep a hold of me.

  Tommy rolled his eyes while Finn came over to rub my forehead, his touch igniting all that bubbly wonderful magic again.

  Howl sneered at the mention of our enemies and balled his fists. “There is no fighting. There is no cave. Scarlet and the twins are following her. They took Alias as well, but I have no way of knowing if they caught up to her or if they were found out.”

  I groaned. “And here I was hoping one big slab of marble sliced right through her.”

  “Yeah, well, we were a little busy trying to get your dying ass out of there to take inventory of all the dead bodies, babe. Priorities and shit.” Tommy shrugged one shoulder and I pretended not to notice that he’d overtly called me his priority. It was like a passive aggressive I love you.

  “Most of them belonged to that weird army Nicky had hiding in the shadows though, so at least you know your mates are badass.” Howl gave me a grin and held me closer, the silent promise that he was going to go all uber protector and shit on me.

  ‘I am going all uber protector and shit,’ he snarled into my head.

  “I can still fight for myself.” I half mumbled, my words slurring again.

  "You are fighting. Just not this. This isn't something to fight," Howl's jaw was tight. His focus forward as he glared at something in the cave. We must have reached the knife-clowns.

  I winced, gasped, and released a few profanities as I turned, ready to take down Bozo and his brothers, and instead faced... a door.

  The tall door was splashed with blood so thick it was red, the old slab of wood something like what you would see in a castle. A medieval castle where mortals are tortured for fun.

  Iron hinges came into focus as Howl carried me closer to the subterranean door, the winged dragons or bats that were carved there only making the blood more frightening.

  Okay, maybe the door deserved the look that Howl was giving it. The door was horrifying. It reminde
d me of the wrought iron gate in front of the Alpha's house. All twisted and frightening. They were a matching set.

  This one had more blood.

  "She will be so pleased to see you," the death-voiced vampire drawled ahead of us. His voice carried as he spoke much louder than was necessary given that vampires could practically see in the dark and hear a pin drop a mile away. "She has been waiting so long for your return."

  "Return?" I chanced a glance at Finn and Howl, but they looked as confused as I was. Even through the smoke, however, I could tell that Tommy was pissed. His jaw was set, and he had gone into some kind of protective stance, his shoulder straightening as he growled with a sound that nearly matched the grinding noise of the door as it opened. A lake of blood seeped out as though the door was a flood gate, a pool of blood flooding in a wave, splashing over the stone and coming to a stop before Howl's toes.

  Saxon turned, looking at the four of us with pinched lips and eyes redder than I had ever seen them. Red like the vampires when they drank human blood, well, if the lore from Twilight was correct. I would daresay it was.

  Saxon looked hungry. Saxon looked ready to pounce.

  Fucking hell! I did not come here to become a vampire buffet. I tried to shift away, wiggle my way out of Howl's arms, but one movement and the entire room shifted, went black, and there were suddenly six different hands on me.

  Okay, guess I had managed to roll my way out of Howl's hands anyway-- and then proceeded to fall to the ground.

  "You can't fight them, Ivy."

  "Who is them?" I asked Howl as three of my mates made sure I was secured, and Finn buzzed some more of his magic into my veins.

  "Come, friends," that strange vampire called over to us. Saxon's eyes were hooded as he glided through the door and we were left no other options.

  "Buck up, you lot," Ivory said, streaming past us and making Howl jump. Guess I wasn't the only one to forget that she was there. "You do this, or my daughter dies. My daughter dies, and Nicky wins. Then everything I have been fighting for is worth nothing."