Bluestone Academy (A Bully Paranormal Academy Romance) Read online

  BLUESTONE ACADEMY

  BOOK 1

  BLUESTONE SERIES

  Bluestone Academy

  Book 1 of Bluestone.

  Copyright © 2020 by Klarissa King

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission—this includes scanning and/or unauthorised distribution—except in case of brief quotations used in reviews and/or academic articles, in which case quotations are permitted.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, whether alive or dead, is purely coincidental. Names, characters, incidents, and places are all products of the author’s imagination.

  Imprint: Independently published.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 1

  I’m a witch. A broken one without magic.

  Handicapped witches like me aren’t common, especially not in the ancient bloodlines I hail from, but we happen enough that there are hatreds and names for us. ‘Handicap Witch’ is the technical term. The others aren’t so nice. I hear them every day. Deadblood. Derelict. And the worst of the worst, waif.

  No matter what they call me—the ancient bloods—there’s a constant truth: I am a leper. A broken witch without power, born from ancient bloodlines into an elite family of powerful witches, but I’m just like those my kind despises; the humans, the krums.

  For most of my life, I waited for my powers to come. It can show from between birth until puberty strikes. I’m eighteen years old, in my final year at Bluestone Academy, and still, I have no power. I’d be shunned if it wasn’t for my family, who still love me despite my … issue.

  In this elite society, I used to be liked. At least accepted. And, as a young girl, I fancied myself in love. That broke down the moment I wasn’t considered a late bloomer anymore and everyone knew what I was. A deadblood. A witch without magic. When I reached the age of no return, it was confirmed, and they all started to despise me.

  The one I thought I loved, my best friend back then, Dray, turned on me like all the others. I’ll always remember that day like a black stain separating two parts of my life, dividing my acceptance and my shunning.

  We’d been queuing in the snow—snow that reached up to my knees—for the gondola cars to come down the wires from the peak of the mountain. I’d stood with my brother, Bradford, and other elite snakes: Dray, Serena Valez and Landon. We were starting Bluestone Academy that year, and though we were all nervous, it wasn’t just the weather that had been frosty that morning. My friends had barely looked at me, and even my brother snubbed me every time I’d spoken or tried to join a conversation.

  It wasn’t until the car had reached us at the bottom of the mountain where all the students were lumped together that I had realised why they had all turned their backs on me—literally. Lugging my heavy suitcase behind me in the snow, I’d made to join them in the same gondola car that’d stopped and whose doors slid open for us. Of course, we’d all share a car, since we’d all grown up together and were all starting our year together at the Academy. But before I could have moved to follow the others into the car, Dray had blocked my way. His once soft blue eyes had taken a sharp glint as he’d looked down his fine nose at me.

  “What are you doing?” he’d asked, his tone frostier than the alps.

  “I’m going in the car,” I’d said, and made a curious face at him.

  “That car is for magical people only.” His cold eyes had stabbed through me like icicles. Even his pale hair seemed to shine like frost. “You’re not welcome, not in this car, not at the Academy, not in our world.” He’d taken a determined step towards me. “You,” he’d hissed, “shouldn’t be here. You belong with the krums.”

  The first time Dray had ever hurt me was that day and not just with his words. As I’d made to shove by him into the cosy car, Dray had pushed me. I’d been shoved back, legs caught on my suitcase, and I’d fallen flat on my backside in the snow.

  The car door slammed shut in front of me, and they were off. That was the day I was first shunned by the elite snakes (that’s just what I call them). My brother did nothing to stop it, and that hasn’t changed.

  Only my parents still loved me, so they kept me. I’m grateful they did. Most witch families who have a deadblood send them out to the krum world to live as an ordinary human. My parents kept me around.

  So, I live in the witch world. I even go to the school, perched on the peak of a Swiss mountain in the alps. Bluestone Academy.

  I live as a witch with the power of a krum.

  To understand my life, I have to bring you up to speed.

  A day at Bluestone Academy was filled by many things, and not much changed over the eight years I’d been attending.

  I went to class—those of the lessons I could take without magic to back me up, like The Theory of Brews, Herbalism, Astrology, and Human History—and between lessons, someone would corner me, push me over, put newts in my blonde curls, tie my shoelaces, dunk green-staining brews over me. None of those petty attacks bothered me much, not when they paled in comparison to what Dray would do.

  In Theory of Brews, he ‘accidentally’ knocked over a phial of warts that clung to my leg. It took three days for the warts to fall off, and they left tiny nick scars in their wake. In the corridor, between P.E. and Astrology, he called me a ‘wretched waif’ and shoved me into the wall. Mostly, he just snarled barbed insults my way, sometimes poured honey in my bag or hair, and generally mocked me.

  After all those years, I should have gotten used it. Still, every time I saw that gleam of hatred and disgust in his eyes, my heart ached because we were once best friends. He was my first kiss, in the gardens of my manor house in the English countryside. We were meant to be married. It was arranged from when we were babies, but arranged marriages fast dissolve when it turns out one of them is a deadblood. That, I learned the hard way—and with a lot of pain, too.

  Thankfully, this year is my last at Bluestone, and I’m just about to embark on the end of this journey.

  I can’t wait to get the hell out of this school. I pay for admission into this world every single day. And I’m only one day from returning to Bluestone Academy.

  Chapter 2

  I spend the day before I go back to the Academy like I spend most others. Shopping.

  Tucked away near the ruins of the Winchester Palace, there’s a hidden little lane that leads to the city’s veil—a glimmer of air that witches use to travel great distances. This one, if I wish it when I step through it, leads to the veil of Stonehenge, close to where I live.

  Being London, and having thousands of witching families lurking about the city, there’s a queue for the veil when I finally reach it, my arms weighed down by dozens of shopping bags, and my feet throbbing in my new, red-bottomed shoes. I’m exhausted, and the last thing I want to do is stand around while rows of half-breeds use the veil.

  I don’t mean half-breeds in a cruel way. It is just a nicer way of saying what they really are. Witches born from one witch and one human—half-breeds, or better known as shrews. That’s the kind of word you’d hear from a snobby elite, a witch hailed from ancient bloodlines. I’m an elite, but I’m also an anomaly. Besid
es, half-breeds keep up our numbers, and my best friend is one. My only friend, I should say.

  Just as I’m thinking of Courtney, my Scottish half-breed friend from Bluestone, someone comes out of the veil, and the glimmers sparkle bright for a moment, letting someone ahead of me pass through.

  I look up at the new city-goer, and instantly a fierce blush hits my cheeks. It’s Eric, a not-so-rich-but-definitely-handsome elite from Bluestone.

  “Olivia!” He shouts over the heads of the crowd tucked into the veils’ waiting points, and he waves as he approaches. He eyes my too-many boutique bags. “Getting ready for another school year?”

  I meet him halfway, trailing up the moving queue for the veil. The blush on my face only grows hotter. “Just some last-minute shopping,” I mutter, mortified. “What about yourself?”

  Oh, yeah, real victor of small talk over here.

  Bury me.

  His smile disarms me. It’s so slight, yet warm. “Same,” he confesses, and takes a step back with a sweeping look around the midday traffic. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I frown.

  Eric was a senior last school year. That was his final year of study. If he wants to pursue more study, he will be headed for a college somewhere in Europe. Not Bluestone, that’s beneath his age.

  I ask, “Tomorrow?”

  “Oh.” He falters. “Didn’t you know? I’m returning as a Master’s aide. I’ll be starting my apprenticeship.”

  “Apprenticeship?” My brows stay knitted together and my heart sinks a little. He’s not the biggest crush I’ve ever had, but his smooth, tanned skin and chocolate-brown hair are to drool over. As faculty, he’s untouchable. “For which class?”

  “Rituals and Sacrifices.”

  I arch an eyebrow, a small smile playing on my painted lips. “Is that your thing? Running around, slaughtering goats and whatnot to summon the devil?”

  He laughs, but it’s not a subject to be taken lightly. Only a very particular few witches can pull off rituals successfully. We all have our talent—mine, being shopping—and stepping out of one’s talent can be deadly, even catastrophic. There was once a spirit wreaking havoc in France after a ritual gone wrong.

  “I’m not really,” he says sheepishly, as if he let his joke go too far. “Astrology is my field of interest.”

  I smile. “I take that class.”

  He glances over my head at the city, a tinge of pink on his cheekbones. “Well, I’ll see you in class.”

  I give a lazy wave before he stalks off to be swallowed up by the sweltering city.

  The carriage-ride home is long and tedious.

  I pass the time by riffling through all my new belongings. Shiny shoes, heeled, elegant dresses for elite events, some underwear, and one book. The book is for Courtney, I do enough reading at the Academy.

  After what feels like forever, the smooth paved ground turns to a rocky gravel, and the carriage starts to rattle. I peel back the curtain and look out at the house ahead, looming up against the pink evening sky. The manor has a white face, a freshly painted-over stone façade, and windows longer than my body. Before it came into my family generations ago, it was an old abbey for the area, the size of a modest castle.

  It isn’t our only home, and it certainly isn’t our grandest, but it’s the one we live in most of the time. Dray lives a stone’s throw away in the next town over, and his manor house looms over ours in all areas—size, opulent grounds and rich gardens, and the homely touch that gives it more of a château feeling than a manor.

  Leaving the bags in the carriage, I slip out onto the gravel path that leads up to the creamy double doors. One of the doors open as I fix my silk skirt. A servant stands there, waiting for me as silent and still as a statue.

  Sweeping up the path, I skip into the foyer and—stop dead in my tracks. My face pales instantly, and I’m forced to mask my horror with a pained smile.

  The Sinclair’s are here. Looks like they’ve only just arrived, too. Dray stands with his mother and father, my family huddled around them.

  At the sight of me, mother smiles and waves me over to be proper and polite, when all I really want to do is body-tackle Dray into a cauldron of tar. Even his parents drive me up the wall.

  I scurry over like a moody mouse and curtsey for the unwanted guests. Unwanted to me at least. They’re the closest friends of our family, and since they are a powerful unit, I must play nice. Our nasty ways only pass when they are sneaky.

  Dray bows curtly in answer, his stoic face looking like it was carved from the palest, richest marble. His stony eyes pin me in place.

  “Nice to see you, Olivia,” he says, and how he lies through his perfect white teeth. Once upon a time, he meant those words. Now, they are just niceties and properness that we throw around in company, but in the shadows of dark corridors at Bluestone Academy, he’s wretched.

  “Thank you.” I sniff and glance at Brad’s narrowed gaze.

  He runs me over with his stare. “Where have you been?”

  “Getting the last of my school supplies,” I say and, just as I say it, two carriage servants walk through the foyer carrying my dozen or so boutique bags.

  Amelia Sinclair, Dray’s mother, laughs and it sounds beautiful, like Christmas bells chiming on a snowy morning. “I see your priorities are in place,” she says lightly. No malice intended, none taken.

  “Come, dear,” mother says. “We were just about to have some tea in the drawing room.”

  My mouth puckers. So much for any hope of slipping away. I follow the river of elites through the foyer to the open doors under the grand double staircase that curves up along the wall.

  Servants are already bustling around, setting up the room for us. I find my favourite brew of tea by the window—my servants know me too well. I like to escape the company any way that I can, and the window is last best.

  Parking myself on the window-seat, I cradle a tea cup whose flavour seeps up my nose with the faint taste of black cherry. Margot, my mother, sits with Amelia close-by, intruding on my lick of privacy.

  At least the others take to the small table near the fortepiano, and instead of brewed teas, they have their crystal tumblers topped up with a smelly, amber drink.

  After an hour of ignoring everyone in the room, I’m eager to see the Sinclair’s out.

  It takes all my willpower to stop myself from bouncing on my heels. All I want is to rush upstairs and sift through my new things, finish packing for the Academy, and have a nice, long bath. I don’t want to hang around in the foyer while goodbyes take way too long.

  Isaac, Dray’s father, falls into a stiff bow reserved for all of us. “Olivia, take care.”

  Gladly, I watch them go. But as Dray passes me, he lets a hissed word slip out from his full, pink lips—lips I once used to kiss.

  “Waif.”

  It’s so quietly spoken that even I barely caught it. But I did, and so did Brad. He snickers under his breath, earning him a sharp elbow to the side courtesy of me.

  I can’t believe I’m only a year away from being free of the prison of Bluestone, and Dray’s outright attacks. Out of the Academy, he can barely squeeze in a foul word my way between the proper greetings and gentlemanly behaviour he fakes.

  Soon, I’ll live my life free of torment. I’ll have to see him forever, of course. Our families are tightly entwined, and all the elite gatherings can’t be avoided. I’ll see him often, yeah, but soon, I’ll be allowed by propriety to slip away into a flower on the wall. Unnoticeable.

  I just have to survive this one year first.

  Chapter 3

  By far my favourite part of traveling on the gondola up the mountain to Bluestone Academy is the view. You’ve never seen the Swiss Alps until you’ve seen them from the highest possible point, but can still touch them.

  I sit in the car with Courtney, my half-breed friend who pores over the new book I got her, and watch the lush green of the mountains climb higher and higher, into a dusting of perm
a-snow.

  James, Courtney’s brother, doodles on a thick white page of a sketch book, blotchy charcoal stains all over his shirt and fingertips.

  I glance between the brown-haired siblings, seeing the resemblance in their heart-shaped faces, delicate thin lips, and mahogany brown hairs. Their complexions are pasty-pale, the kind that blotchy reds show up on whenever they’re rushed or embarrassed. They look alike, more like twins than siblings a year apart.

  Brad and I are twins and we look it.

  We are a French family. The Laurents’. Our French roots are in our pale-beige hair colours, soft blue eyes, delicate jaws. Even Brad has a cutting, feminine beauty to him that drives the girls wild at Bluestone. But no one, and I mean no one, has a beauty quite like the Sinclair’s. No one can beat their marble-like complexions, their thick, bone-white heads of hair, and always-slightly-pink cheekbones. Dray’s jaw has a more masculine cut to it than Brad’s, too.

  I roll my eyes at my own thoughts and turn back to the window. It’s starting to steam from the cold outside the higher up the mountain we climb. I’ll be plagued by Dray all year, yet I spend my time in the car thinking about him, but he probably never throws a thought my way when I’m not there in his face.

  It’s hard not to think about him though, because this year is different. It’s different for the same reason a nervous ball of ribbon starts to unwind in my ice-cold belly. It’s the last year, and if all goes well and I grade better than last year, father might let me go with Courtney to travel around the world.

  It’s a long shot, but one I’ll hunt persistently. Not many elites go travelling after school. We have the wedding season right after we finish up, and all of our arranged marriages finally happen. But with me being a deadblood, not many worthy marriage proposals go through father to me—and I’m left free and single to travel the world with my best friend.

  There’s no opening ceremony to Bluestone Academy once you’re past your first year, so it’s straight to the canteen or the dorms, depending on how hungry you are.