Bluestone Elites (A Paranormal Bully Academy Romance) Read online

  BLUESTONE ELITES

  BOOK 2

  BLUESTONE SERIES

  Bluestone Elites

  Book 2 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 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 1

  Detention should be called slave labour or at least abuse. On my knees, I scrub at the bathroom tiles. This old bristle brush is definitely meant to give me calluses.

  My face is twisted into a grimace as I scrub away, my knees starting to ache after the first hour—and plenty more hours to go. Bloody Dray used his makut to clean the toilet cubicles, and now I’m left with the floors. I have no magic to clean them, so I’m forced to do it the old-fashioned way—on my hands and knees, brewing up a sweat.

  Dray has taken to the heated seat in the corner, draped over the it as he watches me. He can leave, he just stays there to torture me more. The thick silence is deafening, as it has been for the past hour or so—the longest hour of my life, maybe.

  I’m waiting. Waiting for his attack, for his revenge. But with every minute that ticks on by, my nerves just keep on rising, and I’m forced to suffer more in silence. The nerves are making my insides twist with anxiety. But until I’m finished, I’m stuck. Can’t just drop the brush and run for my life. Which I want to.

  “You missed a spot,” he says, eyeing me coolly.

  I hate that he gets to cheat his way through detention, then relax on a couch as if he owns it. I hate him, his face, the memories he carries within me—I hate him so much I want him to drop dead.

  With the back of my hand, I wipe away a mist of sweat from my brow, then scrub the grout harder. Hair clings to my temples, stuck there by sweat, and my hands have started to prune.

  “Right there,” he goads, his eyes on me.

  I give in and look up at him with a huff. “I didn’t miss anything.”

  “That bit of dirt, right there.” He inclines his head, but I still don’t see anything.

  “There’s nothing.”

  I go back to scrubbing, but give pause as he slips off the seat and strolls towards me. I look up at him as he advances on me, then crouches down to my eye-level.

  He flicks me on the forehead. “Right there.”

  I can only manage a short cry as he grabs me by the neck and hauls me up from the floor. I’m slammed against the wall, an ache erupting all over my back, and I choke on a strangled cry that turns into a grunt.

  I blink at him, stunned.

  Rulebooks be damned, I started this and he’s sure as hell going to finish it.

  Still, that doesn’t mean I won’t go down without a fight. I punch at his arm that pins me by the neck. “Let go of me you piece of sh—”

  A shout of pain cuts me off. His nails dig into my skin and I wince. He brings his face close to mine, so close that I can taste the strawberry flavour of his tongue and our noses touch. All that restrained anger built up throughout the day now oozes from him, turning his eyes to cutting blades.

  “Do you even know how little you mean to the world?” he hisses the words over my lips. “Even if you were magic, had power, you would be what you are now. A glorified possession. A trained-up trophy wife.”

  My face twists as his grip tightens a little, and I’m starting to feel the pressure on my windpipe. I tug against his grip, but it pins me against the wall, my toes supporting me.

  “I could buy you,” he whispers, inching closer to my face. I feel his words on my mouth. “Just another purchase. With the right words, I could own you, Olivia.”

  I hate it—I hate him. But he’s not wrong. It’s our world, it’s why I yearn for freedom. Nothing in my life will ever be truly free.

  My eyes are starting to wet from the aches twisting my insides. My heart cracks within my chest. I fight back the tears as best as I can.

  He doesn’t get to see me cry. He doesn’t get to win like that—

  Dray moves in for me and catches my cry with his mouth. His lips crash against mine and he kisses me.

  I tear at him. My nails rake down his arms like knives, and I hit and punch and smack, but he doesn’t stop until he wants to. I can taste my tears on his mouth.

  His hard body presses against mine, holding me against the wall, and he deepens the kiss the way he never did when we were young, the way children don’t kiss. Then, he lets it slow and pulls back just enough to meet my teary gaze.

  He brushes his soft, damp lips over my mouth before he travels to my cheek. “What are you?” he whispers, then presses a mocking kiss on my cheek.

  I say nothing. He squeezes my neck tighter. Blood pulses in my head, and my toes skid across the floor, trying to keep me upright.

  “What are you?” he hisses again, the words brushing cold over my damp lips.

  A gasp escapes me as he yanks me from the wall and drags me over to the bath. It’s full, its bubbles rising up above my ankles. He holds me on the edge, the soles of my feet slipping on the bath’s tiles. If he lets me go, I’ll fall right in…

  The steam seems to snare my ankles as if hungry for me. I clasp my hands onto his arm, holding on tight.

  “What are you?” he shouts this time, loud and angry enough to jolt fear through me.

  “A waif!” I shout back. I’ll say anything to get out of this, to escape him. “A possession!” I’m just guessing now, feeding him what he wants to hear, all so he’ll leave me alone.

  He pulls me to him, our bodies pressing tightly together. He brings his mouth to mine and I feel the smile twist his lips against my own trembling ones.

  “Good girl,” he breathes, then he throws me away from him—right into the bath.

  I land with a huge splash that ruins all the cleaning and mopping I’ve done. Dray lingers long enough to see me rise to the bubbles, splashing to stay afloat in this deep bath, before he looks me up and down like I’m dirt on his shoes and turns his back on me.

  He leaves, and with him, he takes a choppy breath of relief from me. I scramble to the edge of the bath and hold on tight. I let my breath even out before I get out of the water. Sopping wet, I have no chance of finishing up my detention tonight.

  Best just hope Master Welham doesn’t notice, or thinks some other student has made a watery mess of the bathroom.

  I give Dray a good head-start to the boy’s dorms before I finally leave the bathroom and go there after him. Only, I’m not after his dorm room, no. My squelching shoes take me to the end of the corridor, where my brother shares a room with Landon.

  I knock, and knock, and knock until Brad answers, shirtless and his tie still looped around his neck. Looks like he’s been out all night and, as he squints at my wet clothes and soa
ked hair, he sighs.

  “Come on,” he says gently, and pushes back from the door. I totter inside, tracking water all through his room.

  Landon isn’t here and I can’t be more grateful for that. He’s probably off somewhere with a girl, sleeping around. Most elites do, before the arranged marriages take place.

  Brad riffles through his drawers for a moment before he passes me a pair of shorts and a thick sweater. “Get changed,” he tells me. “You can stay here.”

  I do.

  Tonight, there’s no rulebook, no broken alliances, or elite snakes vs the deadblood. Tonight, I’m a sister in need, and my favourite side of my brother reveals itself. Tonight, he looks after me by giving me his clothes, his bed, and he sleeps on Landon’s bed.

  But before we go to sleep, I hear him shift around the other bed to face me. In the dark, I hear him as clearly as I can imagine him. “You need to stay away from him.”

  His words strike me into a silence. After a pause, I sigh, “It doesn’t make a difference. He comes to me. He’s always the one to start it.”

  I’m right. Brad even admits it, “I know.”

  With that, we fall into silence, the kind of warm silences we used to have when we were children and actually played with each other, and built tents out in the back gardens, and had sleepovers.

  Tonight, he feels like my brother, not my enemy.

  It never lasts.

  Chapter 2

  Gingerly, I touch my fingertips to the faint bruises scattered along my neck. The mirror’s reflection and the bathroom light turn the bruises a ghastly shade of purple—not a favourite shade of mine. My lips are swollen and slightly bruised, but worst of it all is my mind.

  Everything Dray said in detention was true. I’m a trained-up wife, a polished socialite and without a marriage to a family like my own, I’m worth little if anything at all. Children of the wealthy are meant to bring empires together, create unions, not to be their own persons.

  I could say the same about him—he’s a possession, a pawn used in the elite society’s game. Well, he’s more of a rook or something, and I’m a pawn, but still. Neither of us are free.

  I throw the hard truth out of mind and climb into my school uniform. As I loop the tie around my collar, the door swings open and Serena walks in. We both still, looking at each other in the mirror. After a beat, she tries a smile. I snub it, finish dressing in a hurry, then head to the mess hall.

  I find Courtney at our usual table. James is with her, and I hike an eyebrow as I drop into the chair beside him.

  “Morning,” I say carefully and scrutinise him. They mutter the word back to me. “How are you feeling?”

  James shrugs lazily. “Same. The medics booted me out of the infirmary.”

  Don’t blame them. He takes this homesick spell way too far and for too long. “Huh,” I manage. “Well, you look better.”

  Lies taste sweeter than the bitter truth that he looks like he’s been run over by a horse-drawn carriage in the witch-hunt days.

  Courtney looks at me around James’ back as he slouches over his tray. “What happened in detention?”

  Oh, so she’s spotted the bruises littering my neck. I touch them on instinct, then abandon them for an apple from James’ tray. “The usual.”

  Her look hardens. “What did he do, O?”

  I shrug and clean the apple’s skin on my cardigan. “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me, O.” Her whisper is wrought with sorrow. She leans closer, practically pushing James into his sloppy porridge. “I can see the bruises. Why can’t you just tell your father?”

  I huff and let the apple fall to the table with a thud. I’m so tired of explaining it to her. She just doesn’t get it, because her world is nothing like mine. Maybe, if she came from older times, hundreds of years ago, she wouldn’t badger me with the same question all the time. She would just know.

  “If you won’t go to your father, at least tell a Master. Surely someone will do something.”

  “Notice how all the Masters are ancient bloods?” I arch my eyebrow at her. “Besides, it’s nothing I can’t handle on my own.”

  “Clearly.” Her voice drips with sarcasm.

  But she knows little.

  If I keep a low profile, focus on my work and Eric, I can make a real chance of getting out of this life. The last thing I need is any sort of scandal distracting my father from my future.

  My only escape is the right marriage.

  “You didn’t come back,” Courtney adds. “To the dorm, last night. Or you left before I woke—”

  “I stayed with Brad,” I tell her. Surprise slackens her face. “We had some things to go over, and I ended up crashing there.”

  She just nods, a dubious look on her face. “What did he have to say about his best friend?”

  I give her a withering look. “To stay away from Dray.”

  She pauses, then gives a curt hum. “Best advice he’s ever given.”

  How would you know? I want to say, but I bite it back. Courtney is getting closer to a mother than a friend and it’s starting to grate on me. I don’t want my days filled with having to explain myself, dodging Dray and dodging questions.

  I change the subject. “Are you going to the Halloween party?”

  She nods, sour-faced.

  “What’s your costume?” I ask.

  “Belle, from Beauty and the Beast. You?”

  I shrug. “I was thinking Cinderella, but I don’t know many more characters than that. I’m starting to like the wonderland story, too.”

  “Alice would be a nice costume,” she smiles.

  I shoot her an odd look. “I was thinking the rabbit, actually.”

  And James can go as the Mad Hatter, but of course I don’t say that. Besides, I’m not that far into the book anyway, but a rabbit costume will be a lot easier to make than Cinderella’s ball gown.

  Brad snaps me out of my thoughts as he comes over to our little table. He crouches at my side and mutters words that send cold spears through me.

  “Father is on the phone,” he whispers, “and he’s furious.”

  I look at him, wide-eyed. “What did you tell him?”

  His look is apologetic as he ignores my question. I watch as he mouths ‘sorry’ before he says, “Booth three,” and leaves for his own table.

  Shakily, I leave the mess hall for the second-floor foyer, where about a dozen wooden booths hide phones. The booths give the illusion of privacy, but there are no doors to seal it.

  The phone is off the hook. Waiting for me. Scaring me. I know my father and he never calls, not ever. He thinks phones are lazy inventions by the krums, and he despises the krums. So I know in my cold, writhing gut that he knows something about what’s happened between me and Dray—and that’s not good, not at all.

  I slip onto the booth seat and gingerly bring the phone to my ear. He hears my choppy breaths, I know it because, before the receiver even touches my ear, his shouts ring through me.

  “I am utterly outraged, young lady! Your behaviour is appalling! How dare you assault Dray Sinclair? To strike him in the middle of class? I have half a mind to send you to live the rest of the school year with Madame Bucher!”

  His shouts turn to ramblings, and I can’t get a word in, so I lean back on the booth and just listen. Colour drains from the rest of me and gathers in my cheeks.

  “Your mother is simply beside herself at your disgraceful actions! This will—and I promise you that—will be dealt with in the strictest manner, mark my words. And you can forget about discussions of your contracts, Olivia!” My heart plummets to my bum. “You are clearly incapable of rational decisions, therefore, your childish desires will be disregarded from now on, do you understand me?”

  He can’t see me through the phone, but still, I nod, and I think he guesses so. Just like he guesses correctly that tears run down my streaked cheeks.

  “There is no use crying over it, Olivia!” He goes on. “Your tantrums and tears wi
ll have no effect on my decision whatsoever. You have sealed your own fate!”

  My face is bright red, but the rest of me feels drained. Cheeks wet, I wipe at my face with the sleeve of my cardigan and wait for a moment to speak.

  Father doesn’t give me the chance. “Madame Bucher has been hired to teach you over the winter break. Goodbye, Olivia.”

  He hangs up.

  I’m frozen in the booth for a while. The receiver beeps at my ear on a loop. Shaking my head, I sniff back tears and hang the receiver back onto its hook.

  I look up at the stairs as footsteps clip up them. Dray comes up to the booths, his stormy-grey eyes finding me, fast. He walks past me to another booth and I hear him pick up the phone.

  I take off before the tears can really take hold.

  I find solace in the library. Skipping class—it’s only herbalism—means I get the whole place to myself really. There are only a few seniors dotted around the place, getting in some study in their free periods. I bury myself way in the back of the krum section (the ‘ghost aisles’, some call it), and pick through old magazines.

  Soon, I’m browsing the shelves for a proper book on krum fashion. I reach to pull one off the highest shelf when I feel it. A chill at my spine. Prickled goosebumps spreading all over me. My entire body freezes over.

  A pale, slender hand moves by me for the book I’m reaching for. I feel the warmth of a soft breath disturb my loose hair, tickling my ear.

  I recognise not the hand, the complexion. The smooth white, like marble. My heart starts to beat wildly in my chest, and I will him to leave me alone. Detention revenge should have been enough.

  He slides the book off the shelf and it disappears behind me. I turn to face him. Dray scrutinises me with icy eyes, then hands me the book.

  “Don’t you have Herbalism?” he says.

  I take the book from his loose grip. I scoff and push past him to the little table by the window.

  “Are you preparing yourself for a life in the krum world, a world that better suits your mundane nature?” he says and wanders over to the table.