CHAPTERONE
“Five more minutes, Ashlyn,”I said to myself.
It was a small space of time. Yet, each second seemed to crawl slower with my impatience, which pretty much summed up every morning of my life now. Me, awake far too early, and the clock grudgingly moving toward the moment I could finally escape my house.
Pausing in the hall, I gently touched the picture of my uncle. It had been almost five weeks since his death, but time had done nothing to ease the ache of losing him. Or the loneliness.
My listless gaze swept over the inside of the home I so resented. Once, it had been a refuge, a place of safety. Now, it was my prison of forced solitude.
On weekends, I only ever left for my assigned shift at the Roost, the local teen hangout, a place I equally loved and despised. Listening to the music was nice. The degrading training sessions I had to endure so the academy students could complete their assignments, though? That I could have done without. But those students were the entire reason I was here. Not only here in this house but here in this little unknown Maine town. Uttira, a place filled with mythical creatures—the children of the old gods. A place where humans like me were a rarity. Or a delicacy, depending on who a person spoke to.
I hated that the children of the gods used me to teach their young how to hunt or interact or whatever with humans. I was a tool, an inconvenience, an afterthought, nothing more. And I wanted out. Out of this house. Out of this town filled with dangerous creatures, and out of this life filled with rules and restrictions.
I wanted freedom so badly it hurt, but I could never take the way out that my uncle had or the one Adira offered me. One was death, and the other was a complete memory wipe. The thought of leaving this place, ignorant of the creatures that existed in our world to prey on unsuspecting humanity, terrified me. I wasn’t ready to die. I was still waiting to live.
So, here I was, existing alone, trapped in a warded house, and yearning for a freedom I would never have.
However, this morning’s added tension made my itch to escape even stronger than usual. I didn’t want to be late for Eliana’s meeting.
She was one of the few friends I’d managed to make in my almost eighteen years on this planet, and the thought of her meeting with three novice druids worried me. It didn’t matter that Eliana was a succubus and could handle herself around other mythical beings better than I, a lowly human, could. I didn’t want to lose her, too, through some stupid mistake. And when it came to druids, mistakes ran rampant.
I worried that meeting the druids at the academy, the only other place I was allowed to go during the week, wouldn’t be safe enough for both Eliana and me. Though the wards ensured no one would die inside, I knew better than most that there were worse things than death.
Which was why I needed to time my arrival perfectly.
The inherent safety of the building only applied if I made it inside. Arriving too early would be as risky as arriving too late. I glanced at the picture of my smiling uncle, a reminder of what would happen if I risked too much.
We all die at some time. Better to risk a little than to risk nothing and die alone in this damn house.
Shaking away the thought, I checked the time and headed to the garage. Anticipation and dread sank into my stomach. As much as I wanted freedom, I feared it. However, I didn’t let that stop me from starting my car and backing out of the garage.
A tingle danced over my skin, a sign I’d passed through the ward. My house didn’t look different from any other on my block, but I knew it was. None of the other homes had wards. Then again, none of the other houses were occupied by humans.
Forcing that bitterness aside, I grounded myself in the positive. I had a measure of freedom for the next seven hours, which was infinitely better than sitting in my living room and adding to my journals. Maybe the dwarf I’d been tutoring in math would have a new book for me. The idea of something new to read made me positively giddy. Joy was a much safer emotion than fear.
A few minutes later, Girderon Academy’s enormous gates came into view.
The grand, sprawling building rose several stories high. Easily over two hundred years old, the elite institution solely educated Uttira’s youth, and if the gate and stone exterior didn’t scream old money, the cars in the lot sure did. The few already parked gleamed in their vivid, eye-catching colors.
I knew from experience that the drivers of those pretty cars were likely as beautiful.
Beauty was one of many ways to lure in prey and the primary reason to exclude the handful of human residents from attending. But Megan, the new local fury, who was close to my age and raised in the human world, hadn’t liked the segregation. Seeing the flimsy excuse for what it was, she’d fought for my right to go to school there, something my uncle would have never allowed.
He would have said the academy was too dangerous, and he would have been right. But I was beyond caring that the majority of the student body would try to lure me to my death. I was more than willing to risk anything to get out of my isolated hell.
Parking in my reserved spot near the door, I scanned the lot.
I’d perfected the art of looking without looking years ago. The range of my peripheral vision enabled me to see the wisp of strawberry blonde hair teasing my temple, and the troll who lingered by his truck. He watched me hungrily, but he didn’t worry me. Trolls weren’t fast or smart.
Before he even realized I’d left my car, I pulled open the door to Girderon’s hallowed halls. A tingle ran through me, letting me know when I was inside the ward. I knew better than to let my guard down, though. The ward didn’t guarantee safety. The rules my uncle had drilled into me were the only way to ensure I’d still be free to return to my prison at the end of the day.
Keeping my gaze lowered, I hurried down the hall toward the pool room while popping in my earbuds. The familiar sound of my uncle’s voice filled my ears.
“Rule number one: Never make direct eye contact. That’s how half of them gain control of your will. And once they have control, they can make you do anything. Hurt the people you love. Hurt yourself. Anything. You’ll feel like you’re trapped in your own body. There is no worse hell. Always keep your gaze averted.
“Rule number two: Never let your guard down. You can’t trust any of them. They’ll do anything and everything to lure you in close enough to make the kill. Those two rules apply to every creature.
“I’ll go through additional, species-specific rules, starting with the most common creatures. Mermaids. Found on land and in water. Their claws are poisonous if they break the skin, and...”
