Strange Academy (Hot Paranormal Romance) Page 13

  She looked at the pyramid of unpacked boxes in the corner of the room. Leaving would betray Pippa’s faith. Never again.

  Besides, how could she resist the chance to observe superheroes in their natural habitat?

  For a second, she let her doubts play out. She would never be a part of this world. What would happen if she left? They’d find a witch and she’d be the one to put her books on Pippa’s empty shelves. And she’d go back to her ordinary life. It just seemed so unimportant, compared with these people’s mission to protect the world.

  Gray opened the door. Thalia the Muse seemed to glow in the darkness, a white marble shadow behind the dark man. “Sadie?”

  She tried not to stare at his lips. It didn’t work. They were inches away. His warm cinnamon scent reached out to her. Breathing sounds filled the room. His head was tilted a little to her left. For some reason, she tilted hers to the right.

  “Yes?” she said, realizing their mouths were aligned. All he had to do was lean down...

  He leaned down.

  Her stomach tightened. She tilted her face closer...

  His lips moved. His voice was a whisper. “Don’t slap any more students or I’ll report you to Cross.”

  She watched him stride away. Any faster, she thought, and he’d be running.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gray stared down the demon, listening to the low growl in its armored belly. A steady challenge glowed in its red eye. The other blinked a sickening green. Silently, the hideous beast waited for his next move.

  He’d thrown all he had at the demon. Nothing had worked. Soon, he’d be out of options. He stepped back and searched the pale monstrosity for a sign of weakness. Even his trained eye found no chink in its defense.

  He placed his hands on it, cringing at the unnatural pebbled texture beneath his palms, as he braced himself and aimed a kick at what he thought might be a vulnerable spot between its legs.

  “What the crap do you think you’re doing?”

  The surprise of seeing Sadie, framed in the doorway of the teachers’ lounge, a stack of books in her arms, stalled his kick. A little tendril of coffee-colored hair had escaped her hairclip and was sticking to her cheek.

  “I’m giving this demon what it deserves.”

  Her eyes went wide in horror. The books crashed out of her arms onto the teachers’ lounge floor. She shoved—shoved!—him out of the way and plastered herself across the demon. Dark eyes flashed fire at him. “Don’t talk to Mr. Copier that way!”

  “Mr. Copier can go to—”

  “Shut up!” She turned to the machine. “The mean man didn’t mean it, Mr. Copier.” She ran her fingers over its sickly white surface. Lucky damn copier.

  Something on the back of her legs caught his eye, and his mouth went dry. She wore those pantyhose with the seam up the back, like a movie star from a black-and-white film. His eyes followed the twin black lines from her brown high heels up the back of her curvy calves to where they disappeared under the her tight tweed skirt. Did they go all the way up?

  She twisted back to face him, then looked down. So did Gray. An inch of her skirt was pinched between his fingers. How had that happened? he wondered.

  He dropped it. She cleared her throat.

  “Gray, this takes a gentle hand. You have to respect your copier. You have to love your copier.”

  “I’m not going to love the photocopier.” He needed thirteen copies of the eleventh grade alchemy test. Twelve stapled quizzes sat on the wooden table behind him. He’d been here thirty-seven minutes. His hatred burned like an acid fire in his belly.

  “Tell me what the problem is, Mr. Copier.” She ran a short fingernail over the black buttons on the panel. “A-1. Do you know what A-1 means, Gray?” She spoke to him like he was a child. A dumb one.

  His teeth ground. “I don’t speak Photocopier.”

  She rolled her chocolate-brown eyes as she walked past the chairs sitting empty at the meeting table to a stack of blue bricks under the window. He got another view of her heart-shaped rear as she bent over to pick one up. She sauntered back, carrying one. With a little smirk, she opened a metal drawer in the machine, ripped the packaging off the blue brick and dumped the new stack of paper into the empty space.

  The foul beast’s eyes turned green. It spit out his last copy. He clenched his teeth to keep from grinding the enamel.

  “Maybe I’m a superhero after all.” Sadie flexed a little bicep. “Paper-Toner Woman, helping the helpless in offices around the world. No, I’d look terrible in spandex. You shouldn’t take out your stress on poor Mr. Copier, Gray.” She patted his shoulder. “You really need to get laid.”

  Too much. A sleepless night filled with chocolate-brown eyes and his body’s treacherous needs wiped away his resolve. The last restraint snapped.

  He caught her between his arm and his chest and easily lifted her onto the glass of the photocopier. Taking advantage of her surprise, he stepped between her knees. Wide-eyed, her lips in a shocked pink oh, she gripped the shoulders of his sports jacket for support.

  “Volunteering?” He leaned in. Her eyes got wider, her lips rounder, and her fingers dug into his shoulders. Her dark gaze scanned his face, then stopped on his mouth.

  “Gray.” Her breathy plea sucked the air out of the room. Her hands moved up his collar. Insistent fingers in his hair tugged him down to her.

  Her pink tongue moistened, then hid behind, beckoning lips. Their mouths met with a soft wet heat.

  He gently bit her full lower lip, and she opened to him. Her whole body responded, quivering madly against his chest. She tasted like sweet mint, as if she’d been chewing gum.

  “Your body remembers me,” he said, nibbling her lips.

  He felt her lips turn down, telling him she didn’t understand. He willed her to remember their forgotten kiss. “Remember.”

  There was a flash of warm light as he slid one hand up the seam on the back of her pantyhose. Sadie moaned into his mouth. He slipped his hand between her thigh and her skirt, caressing firm flesh.

  Click. What? The door. The knob was twisting. Panicked, he broke the kiss. Damn, what had he been thinking? Sadie. A Non. In public. Damn. If he didn’t think fast, his family was about to be humiliated.

  The door inched open.

  Time. No time. He grabbed a vial from his inside coat pocket and sprinkled the contents on himself.

  “Gray? You just disappeared.” Her eyes went wide.

  The door opened and a light-haired man backed in, his arms full of papers and books.

  Gray tugged his now-invisible jacket out of Sadie’s fingers. She inhaled sharply, nodding as if she understood.

  He tried to make no noise as he stepped toward the door. Some of his fellow Metas had enhanced senses and the slightest slip could cost him. I’ll never be this stupid again, he vowed.

  “Uh, Sadie?” The man at the door turned. Gray’s gut dropped like it had gone bungee jumping without him. Damn. Cross.

  His thoughts churned. How had Cross known he was there the day Sadie had found out? Had Cross seen his footprints? Had snow on his lapel betrayed him? Or could Cross see him? What was the principal’s Talent?

  Cross looked straight at him. Gray held his breath.

  “Dr. Cross,” Sadie said.

  Cross dumped his stack of papers and leaned casually on the meeting table. “It’s Christian, remember?”

  “Right. Christian.” Sadie smoothed her skirt.

  “Is everything all right, Sadie? I’m asking this because you’re sitting on the photocopier.”

  Gray relaxed. Cross hadn’t seen him.

  Sadie slipped off Mr. Copier. “Everything’s not okay.”

  Cross pulled out one of the old wooden chairs for her, like a real gentleman. Sadie took the seat and Cross sat opposite, watching her, giving Gray a perfect opportunity to slip out.

  He stayed put.

  “Well, what’s the disaster today? Poison?” Cross asked casually. “No, wait, this is T
hursday. Thursday is arson, isn’t it? Need me to order you another desk? Such interesting things have happened since you came.”

  “It’s time for me to leave.”

  His throat went dry. Leave? She couldn’t leave.

  “It’s what Gr—“ She hesitated. “It’s what everyone wants. Everyone has been right all along. I don’t belong here.”

  Gray swallowed. Right, he remembered. He wanted her to go.

  “Your speech isn’t very convincing, Sadie.”

  Her gaze darted, just for an instant, to the copier, and he felt like punching something. Trying to intimidate her hadn’t convinced her to go. But being attracted to him made her run the other way. Not great for a guy’s ego.

  “I can’t teach. I don’t fit in. It’s not fair to the kids. I’m sorry.” She stood. “I have to break my contract.”

  “Well, enjoy your vacation.” The odd tone of Cross’s voice made Gray’s stress knot flare.

  “I’m not going on vacation,” she said cautiously.

  “Do you know what you did this fall, Sadie?” Cross’s chair squeaked as he leaned back in it.

  “I came here. I found out Aunt Pippa wasn’t murdered.”

  Cross cocked his head at her. “Murdered?”

  “But she wasn’t. Now I know.” She gave him the Reader’s Digest version of her recent thought processes.

  “Murdered. No.” Cross made a little scoffing sound. “Grief-stricken from your aunt’s death, you ran off to Cancun. You took a lover. After a month, you came to your senses and returned to your life.”

  Sadie blinked at Cross, who continued, “They were going to make him dump you, but I insisted it be the other way around.”

  “No, I didn’t, Christian.” As she sank down into the chair, Sadie’s eyelid trembled. So did her voice.

  “But it’s what you’ll remember. It’s the memory our team of psychics created for you in case you decided to leave the school. Very pleasant. I mean, if you like the dark-haired type.” Cross sounded slightly miffed. “And look at all the money you’ll save on airfare.”

  Sadie’s fingernails dug into the wooden armrests. “I won’t remember anything? Anyone? Carmina?”

  “Just cross the magic circle protecting Strange Academy, and it’ll all go away. But wait a few days so I can have the psychics add that you don’t believe Pippa was murdered. So you won’t end up back here investigating your aunt’s death again.”

  “This is...Why? Tell me why.” Her halting speech was out of character. This conversation was painful to watch, giving Gray a bitter taste in his mouth. She was seeing the truth here, the reality of the new world she was in. It wasn’t all primary-colored battles of good versus evil, where evil always ended up sprawled on the ground and good’s cape flew dramatically in the wind.

  “You weren’t the only one to get a letter from Pippa,” Cross told her. “Mine contained the suggestion that we bring you here. I took it to the board of directors. There was some concern.”

  “Because I’m a Non.” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “But my family—”

  Cross shrugged, and somehow the gesture interrupted her. “The board took all the information at its disposal into account, weighing the need for security against our desire to honor Pippa.” He looked her square in the eye. “The vote was against you. You would never have been invited. This precaution that your memories be erased when you left was the deciding factor. Without this condition, you wouldn’t be here at all.”

  The look of pure misery on her face made Gray wonder whether she was thinking not being invited wouldn’t have been a great crime. She slid one hand over her other arm like she was suddenly uncomfortable in her skin. “And now I’m in jail, essentially.”

  “I very much disagree with that,” Cross said. “You’re free to leave at any time.”

  He said it with such conviction that suspicion rose, prickly and hot, in Gray’s chest. The “stipulation,” as Cross had called it—had Cross been the one to suggest it in the first place?

  “This is cruel.” Her voice was small.

  “I’m sure it seems that way to you. And perhaps you’re right,” Cross admitted. “But in the end, keeping the secret—keeping these kids safe from forces that would harm them—is more important. It’s more important than your memories. More important than your life. Or mine. Or Gray’s. No one at Strange Academy thinks any differently.”

  “Forces that would harm them?”

  “Can you imagine what certain governments would do with these powers? Or corporations, for that matter?” While watching her from the corner of his eye, Cross drummed his fingers on the wooden table, clearly considering how much to tell her. “And there are Metas who aren’t part of Temple.”

  “Temple?” She snapped to attention at the name, revealing that she remembered it from the night she let Burana into Strange Hall. “I thought Temple was a person.”

  “No, not a person,” he said.

  She opened her mouth, ready to fire questions. Cross raised a hand for silence. “It’s enough for you to know that Temple is an organization. It’s where the kids go if their senior independent study project goes well. If you respect us at all, you won’t ask to know more.”

  Respect? He saw wide-eyed disbelief flash across her face for an instant. Clearly, she wasn’t sure she did respect them. Part of him could understand. How could she respect Metas after this? But for now, he watched her dig her fingernails into her palms as if to keep herself quiet on the subject.

  Her face went slack, her voice low. “I don’t understand why it’s okay to do this to me.”

  Cross nodded, as if playing around with her head was totally reasonable. “I know it’s difficult for you to grasp, but this is for your protection as much as ours. There are many people who would like to know the location of Strange Academy.”

  That was true, at least. But would Sadie get that? Would she connect it with their conversation at the megalith?

  “Super villains,” she said. “The Metas who aren’t in Temple.”

  “I suggest you stop using any noun that begins with ‘super’ around here. It will help you make friends.” Cross said it with a little smile, but as he continued, the smile melted away. “But the concept is correct. If they knew you had information, you wouldn’t be safe, Sadie.”

  “I don’t care.” Her chin jutted stubbornly. “Remove the spell that'll erase my memories.”

  Cross looked at her from under lowered eyelids. Were they lowered from contempt or compassion? It was so hard to read him.

  “There was concern you might befriend some Metas and coerce them into sympathy. Actually, the board was thinking of the Teachers’ Coven. Pippa trained most of them. They thought the world of her, and they might have been tempted to help you. To counteract this, the spell was linked to the Magic Circle that protects the school. Gray showed you, I believe?”

  Dammit, he had shown her. His stress knot turned into a solid rock under his shoulder blade. He’d been the one to tell her about the circle that trapped her here. She would assume he knew about the spell. Maybe even assume that he had lobbied for it with the board or had cast it himself. Gray didn’t want her here, but this...it just seemed so harsh. Cruel, she’d called it.

  “So you can’t break the spell.” Her flat tone made the hair on the back of his neck stand to attention.

  Cross’s wince didn’t last more than a nanosecond. Even Sadie, in the time it took her to glance at the floor, missed it. But Gray hadn’t.

  “That would be a very bad idea.” Cross’s tone was even. “For both you and Strange Academy. As I said, you’re free to go at any time. You just can’t take your memories with you.”

  Sadie’s shoulders slumped. Something in his chest started to ache. What was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she fighting back?

  Fight with what? he asked himself. She was outgunned and had no ammunition.

  “I don’t understand. Why do you people want to play with my brain?”

&
nbsp; You people. Gray’s stomach sank.

  “This school is more important than any of us, Sadie.”

  Sadie looked like a balloon someone had let the air out of.

  “I was so wrong about—” Sadie straightened her back. Her eyes looked wet. “About you, Christian. I misjudged you. I saw something in you that just wasn’t there.”

  “Pippa wanted you here, Sadie. She believed in you.”

  “She believed in me enough to trap me here. I guess I couldn’t trust her, either,” she said. “You see, I’m the worst teacher in the world. So there’s no point in any of this.”

  “The kids seem to have more respect for you since they found out you slapped Regina.”

  Shit. Cross knew about that? He seemed to take it in stride. Very strange.

  “I can’t teach,” she said.

  “Then we’ll find you another job.” Cross’s blue eyes were pure ice, though his tone of voice stayed even. “Too bad you didn’t take library science. We need a temporary replacement for Eton English. He took a leave of absence after—” Cross cut himself off sharply. “After the recent accident. Our janitor is about to retire. Give me until June to find your replacement. Then you can replace him.”

  “I didn’t struggle through six years of university to scrub toilets for the rest of my life,” she said, a little of her fighting spirit returning.

  Cross shrugged and stood.

  “I want Aunt Pippa’s books back,” she demanded. “I know you took them. Anyone else would have gotten caught.”

  “Agreed. We’ve been through them all now and taken the spells out from between the pages.”

  “Dr. Cross.” Her tone was so flat Gray barely recognized it. “What’s your Talent?”

  “Are you done with the photocopier?” Cross asked.

  *

  ***

  ******

  ****

  *

  Sadie stared down the fifth graders, ignoring the pine smell of her replacement desk as it tickled her nose. With the holidays starting tomorrow, she had planned to read A Christmas Carol with them, but after finding out about the Meta conspiracy to keep her here, she felt less than festive.

  And, of course, there was that kiss. Heat inched up her neck at the memory. The air turned dry, rasping as it went into her lungs. When Gray had tossed her up on the photocopier and planted himself between her thighs like he belonged there, she’d almost let him do what he seemed to want to. Okay, “almost let” was the wrong adverb/verb combo. “Strongly encouraged” was more like it. Very strongly.