Supernatural Academy: Year One (Supernatural Academy #1)(78)

I shook my head as it went immediately cloudy.

“Cliffston,” Kate whispered.

I stumbled, shaking my head again. Did she just say cliffston? The herb that put supes to sleep?

I tried to back up from her and call for help, but nothing in my body was working. As I slumped forward, someone caught me in strong arms, and then I was lifted and we were moving quickly. I remained conscious as they ran, my nerves screaming at the way I was wrapped in my kidnappers’ arms. I was bound, unable to move, and it was triggering my old PTSD again.

I hated this out-of-control feeling; if I could have moved, my limbs would have been shaking like crazy. These bitches had better plan on killing me, because if they didn’t, and I got out of here alive, I was going to torture them. Then kill them.

With my last conscious moments, I attempted to free my power. I needed it now more than ever, but between Louis’s block and the herb, I was useless.

My kidnappers moved fast, and then I … I was in a car.

I lost time after that; everything was disjointed, even when I was lifted again and dropped onto a hard surface. How long I lay there on the stone ground, I had no idea, but eventually the cliffston wore off. Pushing myself up, I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut to relieve the tension headache. When I found the equilibrium to get to my feet, I looked around, trying to figure out where I was.

The room was small, with cobbled ground and a single bench along one wall. It looked like a courtyard that someone had decided to close in after the house was built. I kicked off my heels, wanting to be able to run with ease—if I got the chance. My beautiful dress was torn and dirty, and I could already see bruises forming across my thighs and down my shins. Considering supes didn’t bruise easily, it told me they’d been rough.

My gait was uneven, but I made it to the solid wood door. Rattling the handle—it was locked—I attempted to shoulder my way out. All that got me was additional bruises and anger issues. Turning, I slumped back against it. There was nothing else in the room that I could try and escape from. No windows. No fireplace. No air vents.

I started to shout as loud as I could, hoping it would annoy them into letting me go. “Let me out! Open the fucking door!”

Over and over, until I was hoarse and half slumped against the door. Either no one was here and I’d just wasted precious energy, or they were very good at ignoring their victims.

Sliding further down the door, I coughed a few times, my chest and throat aching. The door abruptly opened behind me and I almost tumbled out backward. Scrambling to my feet, I backed up, giving myself some distance.

A man stood in the threshold. He was taller than me by a few inches, and there was something vaguely familiar about him, even though I was almost certain I’d never seen him before.

“There you are,” he said, his lips quirking up in the corners. I stared harder at those lips, my sense of déjà vu increasing.

He stepped further into the room, closing the door behind him, and I backed up as far as I could go.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. “We gave you something to counter the cliffston’s effects, but you’ll probably still be drowsy for a few hours.”

“Who—?” My voice cracked, and I swallowed hard. “Who are you?”

His eyes were so dark that there was only a sliver of color difference between his pupil and iris. His face was angular, handsome, but in a scary way, all shadowy planes and high cheekbones. Even if he hadn’t kidnapped me, I would have been wary of him.

“My name is Connor. I’m the head of this division of the Arterians.”

Everything became frighteningly clear: this wasn’t anything to do with Kate or Chellie and their hatred for me. This was about the Arterians. I stared harder at Connor, and there was that familiarity around his mouth and white teeth.

“You’re the one who tried to take me outside the Academy?”

I was sixty percent sure.

He nodded. “Yes, I needed you to come with me. Accept who you are.”

“And who am I?” I asked, in no mood to fuck around.

He casually crossed his arms over his chest. “We believe you’re the one we need to return our world to its former glory.”

I coughed out a derisive laugh. “Seriously?”

Connor lost some of his relaxed attitude. “Why do you fight the inevitable? Your fate? You belong with us, as part of the fold.”

Ignoring the fate thing, because what the fuck? I focused on the second part of his crazy. “What fold?”

“We’re the people of Sonaris. You’re the daughter of Queen Helene, the last living ruler of Atlantis. A daughter she bore from Sonaris himself. Only our god’s blood could return our world, since god’s blood stole it away. You were saved to bring about the rise of Atlantis.”

I stared at him for many long moments, and then I laughed for so long that my sides ached and my chest hurt. Connor moved in that superspeed way that I’d seen Asher use, and then he was right before me.

“Laugh all you want, but you are the daughter of Sonaris, and you are our only hope.”

In that instance, I realized he was serious. He believed this crazy.

Holy shit.





31





He truly believed that I was somehow ten thousand years old, and the daughter of a queen and god. “How is it that I’m alive?” I said, keeping my voice even so as not to antagonize the crazy assassin. “I mean, if this Queen Helene was the last queen of Atlantis, and it sank … what, like ten thousand years ago, then … I mean, I’ve aged really well…”