Supernatural Academy: Year One (Supernatural Academy #1)(4)

Thankfully, when he slammed on the brakes, Ilia put a hand on my shoulder, stopping my face from smashing into the seat in front of me. I was then half lifted out of the car as freezing air howled around me again. I shook Ilia off, not wanting to be helped.

“Maddison, I’m not your enemy,” Ilia said as she shouldered my bag—it contained all of my worldly possessions.

“Bet you say that to all your kidnap victims,” I shot back.

Mossie jumped out of the car and joined us. I scooted around the other side of her, putting as much distance between the gremlin and me as I could.

“I’m not a gremlin,” he said in his raspy voice. “I’m a goblin. There’s a difference.”

I almost tripped over the flat ground. “You read my mind?” I whisper-yelled. “Do you know how fucking rude that is?”

Mossie grinned at Ilia, pointed teeth filling his mouth. “She seems to be adjusting to the supe world already. A human’s first question would be how did I read their mind, but not Maddison.”

“It’s Maddi,” I said stiffly. No one called me Maddison. “And I just assumed grem— goblins can read minds.”

He flashed me a look, one that I couldn’t decipher on the foreign features of his face. His skin looked leathery, tough with raised bumps across his cheeks and nose. The green was like a leaf from a rainforest tree, with lighter khakis across his ears. He was no taller than four feet, but he was nimble and looked strong.

I’d never seen anything like him outside of the movies, and staring at him was really helping to distract me from the fact that I was still bound.

“We can only read thoughts that are projected at us,” Mossie explained as we moved farther from the car. “If you’re thinking something at me, or sometimes even about me, then I might pick up on the thought.”

Good to know. “Is this something all supes”—the word felt foreign on my tongue—“can do?”

“No,” Ilia said, with a shake of her head. “Only a few of the demi-fey have that ability. And maybe some very powerful sorcerers, but you won’t have to worry about them. It’s rare.”

Right. Of course. Just demi-fey and powerful sorcerers.

What in the actual fuck of all fucks was happening to me?

“Just up ahead is the step-through sent by the Academy,” Ilia said. “Are you going to scream again?” She watched me closely.

I shrugged. “I don’t even have a clue what a step-through is, so, yeah, probably.”

Mossie grinned, and its distinct creepiness distracted me again. There was nothing calming about the goblin, that was for sure. We turned a corner and ducked under some dense bushes, and Ilia stopped before a … swirling portal. There was no other way to describe it.

“Uh, I’m not touching that,” I said, shuffling back. Which was dangerous when your hands were bound. If I tripped, I couldn’t break my fall.

Ilia followed my movements, staying close to me. “You have no choice. It would take us days to get to the Academy otherwise, and we’d have to fly on a plane with humans because I don’t have the private one here. I’m sure you don’t want your hands bound for days.”

“I hate you,” I groused at her, injecting as much anger as I could into the words.

She almost looked hurt then. “I’m just doing my job! Everyone has a part to play in this world, and for me it’s making sure supes are not stuck in the human world without training.”

I almost felt bad, but the truth was she’d still bound my hands with her hocus-pocus bullshit and was now attempting to kidnap me. So she could just suck up my anger. Resigning myself to the fact that I was still at the stage of “do anything to get these stupid things off my wrists,” I reluctantly stepped closer to the swirling step-through.

Mossie was waiting patiently. “I’ll show you,” he said, and he took two steps forward, disappearing into the swirl. I looked around the back of the bushes, but he had not walked straight through.

It had taken him somewhere.

I gasped, choking on my own panic as I tried to backpedal again.

Ilia stepped in right behind me, stopping my backward trajectory. “It doesn’t hurt,” she groaned, sounding exasperated. “You’re going to be fine.”

Easy for her to say, she was clearly used to this world. A world I wasn’t sure I actually believed could be true. If I didn’t have a tiny green goblin as evidence and bound hands I needed freed, I’d be screaming and running.

But a part of me wanted to stay.

To find out answers to the many burning questions I had.

And the deepest, darkest truth of it all was … what did I really have to lose? Another year of waitressing and hiding from the world? Fuck, maybe this was the change I’d been hoping for.

Or … maybe I was about to be murdered and used in some sort of witchy cult ritual.

Either way, my life was definitely going in a different direction.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward, closing my eyes as I crossed through the step-through.





3





I opened my eyes to find myself in a winter wonderland. It was white fields of snow, trees dusted with fresh powder, and not a sliver of civilization in sight.

“Nice school,” I said sarcastically when Ilia joined me. “Architecturally designed, I see.”