Supernatural Academy Map
Chapter 1
For the first time in many years, I contemplated allowing another person to join me in the bathroom while I changed my hair color. The yearly ritual was usually an act I committed alone, my time to erase the past and push for a new future. A new year to get it right.
Lately I’d been feeling a little off about the whole thing.
If the last two years at the Academy had taught me anything, it was that a new hair color didn’t change my fate. I couldn’t circumvent the truth of who I was, couldn’t change my role in this world.
No matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t seem to change a damn thing.
Still, the entire point of the different hair color—outside of the clean slate thing—was that it was the one thing I could control, the one part of my life that no one could take from me.
So the ritual continued.
This year I had chosen a color that meant a great deal to me, the color of the ocean when the sun’s rays hit it just right, turning translucent water into a hue of greens and blues—when it was so clear that one could see down for miles. The color of Atlantis, its jeweled tones casting calm across the city. The color of my third year at the Supernatural Academy.
Aquamarine.
I once again had the fleeting hope that this color would be kinder to me than pink and purple … wishful thinking at its finest. There was no way I’d ever say it out loud though, tempting the Fates when those bitches hated me.
Swirling the mixture one last time, I was impressed with the perfect shade of aqua staring up at me from the dish. I’d already done the base prep-work to strip the purple away. If only I could strip away the scars from the year of purple as easily.
“You okay in there, Mads?”
“Yep, I’m all good,” I called back to Ilia, not sure if that was the truth or not. Maybe if the nightmares would just leave me alone … if I got a decent night’s sleep … if there wasn’t a fucking god popping up whenever he felt like it to torture me. At least I’d ditched my phone so no more random texts, but he was still out there.
Biding his time.
Ugh. I needed to stop being such a maudlin bitch and accept that there was bad in every life, and I had a shit-ton of good as well. I needed to be happy about that. If I had one resolution this year, it was to find the happiness in whatever moment I could, because last year had been dark. Really fucking dark. I wouldn’t go there again. I could never go back to that place.
Determination filling me, I lifted the bowl of color and got to work. I had this down to a fine art, and due to whatever special nature in my hair, new color took hold and stayed with bright perfect pigments for as long as I wanted it.
An hour later, I shut off the hairdryer and went back to my room to find Ilia and Larissa both fast asleep on my bed. A chuckle burst from me, before I managed to choke it down. Ilia looked uncomfortable, her long body scrunched up against the headboard, red hair smushed on one side and springy curls on the other. Larissa’s head was in her lap, the new shorter blond strands tangled everywhere. Both of their mouths were open as they breathed deeply.
Guess I’d taken too long on my hair.
I ruffled the light aqua strands again, loving the feel of the silky lengths falling across my face. This new tone shifted the color of my irises from a deep blue to something closer to green. It was almost magical the way my skin and eyes adapted to the new hair, shading themselves to suit it. Some Atlantean/god power probably … one of the more awesome ones.
Stepping silently, I gently rearranged my friends so they were more comfortable, draping a blanket over them. Neither of them stirred at all, beyond exhausted, and I was glad we’d decided to forgo attending any of the New Year’s Eve parties tonight.
That didn’t mean the Academy wasn’t filled with celebrating students. Many had returned to kick off the New Year’s festivities before we started our new school year on the second of January. How the hell I’d been here for two years already… There was no denying my life had changed in almost every way from the first moment I was kidnapped by Ilia.
For the better. So much better. I’d take the pain just to feel all of the love.
With my bed fully occupied, I left the room, wandering pretty aimlessly through the halls of the magic users’ tower. It was quiet, none of the usual witches and wizards dashing about. Even the common area only had three people in it, all of them watching a Christmas movie. It was still the season apparently.
Eventually I found myself heading to my favorite place here. The one building that drew me more than anywhere else. Or at least the people inside of it did.
The Atlantean mansion.
The Atlantean-five wanted to be with me tonight, not just because they got a kick out of my hair transformation, but also because it was my birthday. I’d told them I’d be by later after I hung out with my girls and drank some fey wine. The birthday thing really wasn’t a big deal. I was pretty much the only one in my group of friends who even bothered to acknowledge the day of birth. Atlanteans were just not into it, and since we were almost certain most of us would live for hundreds if not thousands of years, it felt silly to keep caring about a number.
Some habits … rituals … they were hard to break though. Like my hair. Even if I was having the strangest feeling that maybe this would be the last year I changed the color.
Why it would be the last was still to be determined.
Taking the final set of stairs down to the common area of the dorm, I felt my spirit pick up at the thought of settling in for an all-nighter watching movies with my boys. I loved when we hung out together, family style. I couldn’t wait to see Asher, my love, the sexy fucking god of an Atlantean, who did things to my body that were probably illegal. Not to mention the things he did to my heart.
