Supernatural Academy Map
1
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The heavy knocking at the door didn’t surprise me. Ilia had already knocked twice, and Larissa once. My friends were more impatient than me, and that was saying something.
“Give me two more minutes!” I shouted over the sound of the hair dryer.
Changing my hair color was a ritual … a process that I went through once a year. And whether I was in a dirty truck stop bathroom, a cheap apartment, or one of the multiple bathrooms on my floor of the magic users’ wing in the Academy, it was still something I did alone.
“I want to see it!” Ilia shouted back. “You’re killing me out here.”
I missed whatever she said next, but it sounded like she was arguing with someone. It had to be Larissa or Asher, who were also waiting for me on the other side. All of them wanted to be here with me at the stroke of midnight, when I started the next chapter of my new life. The Atlanteans had been here as well, but then they’d had to get the party ready.
Leaving them in charge was no doubt not our brightest moment, but Axl would hopefully keep them in line. And I’d really wanted to focus on my hair.
This year I’d gone purple: a light jewel tone, with hints of violet and lilac. My hair had been a variety of colors over the years, most of them bright: bright orange and green and even a startling magenta. Last year, though, I’d gone for a light, pastel pink. That was the year I also went from a poor, displaced human, to a slightly less poor supernatural with a home and family.
Pastel worked, and I was sticking with it.
Pink had brought me some of the best friends I could imagine … and Asher. Sure, I’d stumbled into more drama than I thought one person could in a twelve-month period, but I had survived, and now I was ready to take on year two at the Academy.
When my hair was dry, I shut off the dryer. The resulting silence in the bathroom was almost deafening. I admired the new color, excited by the changes I was already noticing. The purple made my eyes bluer, my skin more bronze, and my eyebrows very golden.
“I like it,” I said softly, turning to see the full effect. My hair, usually in messy curls, was dead straight tonight, falling almost to my waist.
Opening the door in one quick movement, I already had my arms out to catch my best friend. I knew Ilia would have been pressed right to the door. She let out a low shriek as she tumbled in, and I stopped her from hitting the floor.
As she bounced back, she gripped my shoulders while she looked me over. “Gorgeous!” she finally exclaimed. “I have no idea how you get the color so perfect, and I have to say I’m a little jealous. I love my red, but it’s the color I was born with … could be nice to try something new.”
My lips twitched at her wistful tone. This was not a normal Ilia thing; she was one of those all-or-nothing, foot-flat-to-the-floor, devil-may-care magic users. She was badass, and she suited the natural red in her hair, but the last year had left its mark on her. On all of us.
“Stick with red,” I told her. “It’s your color.”
She poked her tongue out at me. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She eyed my hair again. “I really love the purple. Here’s hoping it’s kinder to you than pink was.”
It still astonished me that we had such differing opinions of last year. I thought of it as one of the best years of my life, despite everything that happened—good, bad, and other. Ilia didn’t feel the same way. She hated everything I’d been through. She’d recently thrown all her pink clothing to the back of her wardrobe.
Larissa, my other best friend, pushed her petite body past Ilia and ran her gaze over me. “Perfect,” she declared, a hint of fang flashing. She’d been feeding more frequently lately and it had brought a healthy glow to her skin. It also meant her fangs were out more.
When she stepped aside, I let my gaze rest on the supernatural propped casually against the frame of the door. Like every time I’d stared at him, my stomach twirled and my heart clenched. Asher took my breath away, in the most clichéd love-at-first-sight kind of way.
“Hey,” he said softly, straightening and ducking his head to step into the bathroom. He was so tall that even the doorways at the Supernatural Academy did not accommodate him.
“Hey,” I replied, stepping toward him. I could feel the smirks that were no doubt on my friends’ faces—always teasing me about how “dick-whipped” I was—but I ignored them. Asher had all of my focus.
His hand came up and cupped my cheek, thumb rubbing across my skin as his eyes devoured me intently. The other hand tangled in my smooth hair, and he leaned in to breathe me in. “You still smell like my Maddison,” he said softly.
And he still smelled like ocean and fresh air and home.
“Yep,” I replied a little breathless. “The dye smell never seems to linger in my hair.” When our bodies were close like this, I could think of nothing except touching him.
He pulled back so our eyes could meet. “I love the purple,” he said roughly just before his lips pressed into mine. It was a searing, branding sort of kiss that he took his time with, and I lost all concept of anything except Asher.
It wasn’t until a throat cleared behind us that I even remembered we weren’t alone. “I need to get laid,” Ilia said, and I peeked around Asher to see her fanning her face.
Asher flashed that dimpled grin. “You know Calen is the supe for that job,” he said.
