Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
And that’s it. That’s the nicest thing I can say about my hometown.
God, sometimes I wanted to get out of here so badly I could taste it.
We finished taking each other’s pulses, making small talk as we did, and I was surprised to find that Bran had a quick, witty sense of humor. Several times he made me laugh and I found myself really enjoying his company. There was just something about him…I didn’t know what it was but it was definitely there, like a gem buried just under a thin layer of dirt.
Which may not seem like a very nice description of a person, but it was the best I could think up.
As class was about to end, Bran reminded me that I’d better take his cell phone on the way out the door and he would take mine.
“I’ll walk with you to your next class and we can switch there,” I told him.
“Works for me,” he said, giving me that smile that had no business being so attractive again.
I was a little dazed about the fact that I’d just offered to walk with him even knowing that Morganna Starchild was going to make jokes about us. But suddenly I didn’t care so much what she said.
Yes, she might make my life here at Nocturne Academy hell, but I wouldn’t be here forever. Someday soon I was going to get far away from this crappy little town and never look back.
Of course, at that moment I had no idea how soon my exit from Frostproof was going to be or how far I would go.
But I was about to find out.
2
“Hey, have you guys noticed anything…different about Bran O’Connor?” I asked, as I got in line with the rest of my Coven to get supper in the vast stone Dining Hall with its four long tables. A banner hung over each table—one for each supernatural group who came here to Nocturne Academy. Royal purple for the Faes, green and gold for the Drakes, red and black for the Nocturnes, and blue and silver for the Sisters.
This segregation used to be necessary, since the Edict kept different species of Others from mixing. But now that it had been gone for a couple of months, you could see some inter-species flirting was definitely going on—especially between the Drake and Nocturne boys and the perfect, blonde Fae girls.
Of course, when I say “Coven” your mind probably jumps to witches. And actually, two of our Coven-members were witches—really strong ones, too. Megan, who has long auburn hair and smoky green eyes, turned out to be an incarnation of the Witch Queen, in fact, which is a pretty big deal. She, in turn, brought Griffin into our Coven—he’s a Nocturne, not a witch, but he’s really nice once you get past his scary reputation. His dark good-looks don’t hurt either.
Avery, our other witch, is a guy and would be normally classed as a warlock. But he takes the title of witch because he’s not interested in any of the traditional male magic done by warlocks. He’s got blue eyes, dark blonde hair and he’s out and proud and has been pretty much all of his life, despite the friction it causes in his family. His dad is a big-shot warlock working on reversing Climate Change—and not having much success, according to Avery—and his mom is a Null—a person from a magical family with no magical powers of their own. His mom accepts him and his dad tries to stay away from home whenever Avery is there.
I feel bad for Avery because I can tell how much his dad’s avoidance hurts him, but he’s way too fiercely independent to let it make him pretend to be something he’s not.
Kaitlyn, the fourth original member of our Coven, used to be human like me. But she just recently got back from the Sky Lands—the Drake world—where she underwent an amazing magical transformation. First she went from human to a Made-Vampire and then from that to the only female Drake who can actually turn into a dragon, which all the Drake males can do but none of the females.
She was standing in line beside me, her long, black hair pulled back to show the gorgeous bronze scales where her scars had been before her transformation. I remembered when, not that long ago, Kaitlyn hid behind her hair and tried to make herself small and unobtrusive. Now she stood straight with her chin up and her mismatched eyes—gold and turquoise—looked you full in the face when she spoke to you. I was so happy for her—her transformation and the love of her fated mate had brought her a joy and peace of mind she hadn’t had since a house fire had killed her parents years before.
Mr. Seahorse—the little pet chimeling Kaitlyn had brought with her from the Sky Lands—was perched on her shoulder making soft sounds like someone ringing a doorbell. He looked a little like a seahorse—hence the name—with an S shaped body and a rounded little belly. But he also had big, golden wings, tiny bird-like legs and teeny little arms which he always kept curled into his body. Kaitlyn claimed he didn’t even use them when he was hunting, so I wasn’t sure what they were for, but they looked cute.