Power of Fire: An Academy Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Broken Academy) Read online

  Power of Fire

  The Broken Academy

  Jade Alters

  Contents

  1. Blowing off Steam

  2. Flashing Lights and Shadows

  3. Illness and Medicine

  4. A Lone Flame

  5. Tethered

  6. Council of Six

  7. Roomies

  8. Second Day Blues

  9. From Ashes

  10. Mystical History

  11. Something Else

  12. Supervisor Perks

  13. The Basics

  14. Fire and Tricks

  15. Painful Truth

  16. Academy Life

  17. A Call from The Council

  18. Transformations

  19. Splinters

  20. Choices

  21. Power of Magic (Broken Academy Book II)

  22. Power of Blood (Broken Academy III)

  Also by Jade Alters

  © Copyright 2019 – Starchild Universal Publishers All rights reserved.

  It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Blowing off Steam

  Cecilia Ford Alamo Square, San Francisco

  Everyone thinks I’m such an athlete because I go for a daily morning run - I fucking hate running. Everyone excludes, of course, Mom, Dad and Jason. They’re the only three who really get it. A few friends, even a few boyfriends got close, right before I had a bad day. A day where I skipped my run. That was all they needed to see.

  I get up at about seven o’clock. It’s not because I’m a particularly early bird, more because the way the sun hits the Golden Gate from our Alamo Square neighborhood just then makes it almost worth it. That, and the fact that nothing around me combusts.

  I bend over to point my fingers to my distant toes down my long, trunk-like legs. I’m in pretty good shape, in no small part thanks to my daily routine, but you wouldn’t know it from my love life. Most guys stick around just long enough to stick it in, once, if they even get that far. That’s when things tend to get too hot for them to handle. Come on guys, I’m in my prime - but I try not to venture too far down that spiraling road. No, today I’ll try to keep it light. I force my lips to peel away from my teeth at the jogger coming down the sidewalk opposite me. He lives a few doors away and he’s friends with Dad, but I’ve got no clue what his name is. That doesn’t stop him from forcing me to smile back and wave five days a damn week.

  “Happy birthday, Cece,” the man smiles as he bounces on past. My jaw drops at his apparent thoughtfulness, but he keeps right on running. He doesn’t even pop out an earbud to hear me over his death-metal jam session when I sputter:

  “Tha-tha-thanks!” back after him. He’s already halfway down the next block. “Happy birthday, Cece,” I mutter to myself. I hop up on my toes to pump some blood to my legs, then explode up the hillside that marks the edge of our neighborhood.

  My sprint doesn’t stop for a solid two minutes. In that time, I’ve spanned more blocks than I care to admit. I need to go fast, I need to push myself. That’s the only way I can really blow off steam. Another reason it has to be early is that there is actual steam involved. Even in the early summer months, a mist starts to rise around me with every stomp forward. The rapid thump of my heart breaks it into machine-gun smoke. The only people around to see it are the old Asian ladies doing tai chi in Alamo Square Park. I’ve long since given up on smiling or waving at them; they’re too focused to notice me. That’s part of what makes this my running route of choice. There’s hardly anyone around to notice as I turn into a human smokestack.

  Then I see the car. It’s a hideous yellow Ford Focus. It’s always an ugly car to me, though, that chases me off the main drag. As soon as I see that bright San Fran morning sun glare off its windshield, I know I have to cut away. I can’t let anyone see me like this. I dig my heels in and make a hard right onto one of a hundred sidestreet alleys I know all too well. It’s dark. It’s dripping with dew - the worst kind too, calcified condensation from the saltwater winds. It sucks, but at least I can let it all out here.

  I trot halfway down the alley and drop to its nasty cobblestone floor. I flatten my palms on it just outside the curve of my breasts. They’re more muscle than lady lumps, an unfortunate side-effect of my complicated relationship with fitness as a necessity. I let myself down flat on the wet, smelly cobblestones, push back up to plank, and jump to my feet. I repeat it over and again, when all I want to do is rinse and be done. At the bottom of every burpee, I get a stabbing whiff of something fermenting in the dumpster two backdoors down. I wince while I work it.

  It takes about thirty burpees before the smoke finally clears from around me. It’s replaced immediately by waves of tangible heat. A thin shell of distorted light turns me into the San Francisco equivalent of a desert mirage. Any onlooker might dismiss it as a trick of the eye. Smoke in an alley? Nothing weird about that. But there might be someone staring out a window above me, and what’s about to happen is the really important part. The part that confirmed for my parents what all parents think, adoptive or otherwise - your child is special. This kind of special got me thrown out of college.

  I break into another sprint down the street. I feel it coming on faster than ever. Maybe it’s because it’s my birthday. Maybe it’s because I’m still waiting to hear back from the City College of San Francisco. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been touched by a man in eight months. Whatever the reason, I’m going to blow - soon. I take a right, hard enough to crack my ankles. I take three leaps down the dank, stone hallway and cut left. I stumble into one of countless dead ends in my early-morning network. Like a mausoleum, it’s three faded stone walls high of a climb, without a single window to peer through. It’s here I finally plant my feet.

  I throw my head back, arms out at my sides. I hold my breath while a surge of heat infects every one of my pores. I feel like I am fire itself, though it manifests only as very small flames on the fringe of my mirage-shell. I thank God or whoever’s listening to a miscreant like me that there was no trash in the dead end this time; I didn’t even have a second to check. I clench my teeth while the heat climbs out of me, from my gut up to my chest, to my shoulders and face. It blurs every shape on the walls over me. I half expect my eyes to be burned out of my head when next I catch my reflection. There’s only been one time before this that was so bad, and I’m still suffering the backlash from that. I turn over most of my shelf-stocking paycheck to the University of California in a settlement for damages I’ll never pay off.

  The thought of it only enrages me more. It only fans the heat. I watch the clouds ripple in the sky through a heat screen above me. It’s all I can do not to scream while little whips of fire slice across the brick and concrete walls around me. I etch little black scars all the way up the dead end without ever touching them. At the very top of the alley, a single plume of flame flicks up above the buildings. It’s so brief, like a propane burner failing to light. Then it’s gone.

  The heat leaves me. The fire in my chest goes out and takes all my strength with it. My knees hit the wet ground. Before I know what I’m doing, my head hangs
down below my knees. I open my mouth to drink in the disgusting, humid alleyway air only to realize I’ve been holding my breath for well over a minute. It takes double that time for the stars to retreat from the edges of my vision. I force myself to crawl to the wall. I force my hands to grasp the slimy bricks. I heave myself up on my feet with a smile that defies how defeated I feel. I drift back the way I came on instinct alone. I know in my soul that I can’t stay there, with the evidence of my outburst, whether or not my mind is still with me. I walk, cleansed, with one arm on an ever-scrolling wall, so I don’t get lost in the maze of San Francisco’s back streets.

  “Happy birthday…to me,” I sing.

  I may not have gotten to finish out my program at the University of California. I may have been so close to graduating with my dream degree in athletic training. I might be stuck living with my Mom and Dad for the foreseeable rest of my life while I piss away every dollar I make to pay for a replacement gymnasium. I might never get a chance, because of restraining orders, to exact vengeance on that whore Diandre for kissing my boyfriend at a mixer, or Miles for then having sex with her. But at least I have my family. I try to tell myself that as I drag my feet all the way back to our little house on Scott Street.

  It’s a little easier when I see the extra car in the steep driveway. I’d recognize that scrappy Volvo anywhere. Even so tired, even with so much half-settled dirt mixed around in my guts, it puts a little smirk on my face. Jason’s here. I take a few deep breaths at the foot of the driveway to at least resemble my composed self. I give up after about three minutes. He’s seen me at my worst anyway. I stroll up the walkway of concrete blocks through the rich dark soil of Mom’s garden. I throw open the door.

  “Haaaaaappy birthday-”

  “Shut your damn mouth,” I cut into the off-key serenade of Mom, Dad and Jason. They continue right over me as I open my arms to him with a huge smile. “Come here and hug me.” Jason comes over, unfolding his own arms, while Mom and Dad go right on singing.

  “Happy birthday to you!” they chant, horribly shrill, for the second verse.

  “You didn’t have to drive all the way back here,” I whisper to Jason while I give him a squeeze for all the times I missed. All the times I couldn’t reach him, because he went away to the University of Southern California. Because he refused to attend the school that threw me out.

  “Are you kidding me?’ Jason murmurs back beneath the song of our parents, “we can finally drink together without breaking any laws. Of course I had to come back.” I snort into his shoulder until our parents slam dunk us with the final, operatic:

  “Happy birthday to you!”

  “Thanks,” I smile as I let Jason go. He steps back to stand between Mom and Dad. At a two-second glance, anyone could tell which of their kids was adopted. All together like this, we look like someone tried to jam a piece from a different puzzle into one that was already done. But Mom’s labor with Jason almost took her life, so when they decided they wanted another… There I was.

  Jason has Mom’s long, curly blonde locks. He’s got Dad’s light brown eyes. He’s got a nose from some laboratory experiment gone wrong, probably involving a falcon, but he’s an all-round friendly kind of attractive. I’ve got none of that. My skin is two shades tanner than everyone singing me “Happy Birthday”. My hair is blacker than black. Light seems to want nothing to do with it, the way it jumps right off. My eyes are a deep, crystalline blue, not the kind that reminds you of the beach. More the kind that makes one wonder if the abyss really is endless inside them. My own reflection in the mirror at night used to give me nightmares.

  And yet, for all our differences, here they were with their terrible song. Here they were, parting from one another to reveal the cake on the table. Happy 21st, Cece! My lips curl up against my own will as I read it. It’s rare that anyone calls me by my full name. Not while I’m keeping my cool. True to form for every year, the candles are unlit.

  “Are you three ever going to get tired of that joke?” I smirk at them. I lean over the cake and blow out the imaginary flames anyway, like I have since I can remember. “Why waste more time putting fires out? Ha-ha-ha,” I mock them.

  “Are you ever going to stop burning everything we love?” Jason jabs. Dad just shakes his mustached head.

  “Jason!” Mom squeals, “on her birthday? Really?” I, however, am already in stitches.

  “Don’t pop a blood vessel, Ma. Let him tell his jokes. We’ll see who’s laughing when I drink him under the table.” Jason bobs his head at my challenge, though his face tells me I don’t stand a chance. I’ve already scheduled a time in my head to prove him wrong. Dad’s already broken from the group to get the plates. He starts laying them out around the table for each of us.

  “You know, I actually just came home for cake-for-breakfast,” Jason teases me again. I wave him off.

  “Have it, then. I’m going to go shower,” I announce. Dad goes on passing plates out, like he hasn’t heard a thing. Mom, however, looks like I just sucker-punched her stomach.

  “You’re not going to have cake-for-breakfast?” she frowns.

  “I will. Just after I don’t smell like a dumpster fire,” I grin, and disappear before she can scold me for my vulgar descriptions. Watching her writhe as I spit them out has always been a favorite pastime of mine, and it is my birthday.

  I’m not sure exactly how long I’m in the shower. It’s one of my favorite places. Four close walls to cage in as much heat as our outdated plumbing system can handle? Sign me up. I treasure every minute in the shower for its equilibrium. No matter how hot the fire burns inside, I can almost always match it with the temperature of the watery beads pelting my back. I can burn from the outside-in to combat the heat that goes from the inside-out. It might actually be a full hour later when I come down the stairs with my wet hair in a towel.

  “I have yet to meet a girl who takes showers as long as yours,” Jason prods me.

  “What? Neither of the two of them?” I counter with the ease of practice. I’m not sure how long it’s been now, since fights like this became a game. They used to be serious, when Jason was still jealous Mom and Dad were “buying” another kid, as best his young brain understood. Even when I burned his shoulder that once, he continued to tease me. If not for him, I might actually be too fearless for my own good.

  “Very funny,” Jason commends me. He takes a deep scoop of his ice cream cake and tosses it back. I do the same. I can’t help the long hum that climbs my throat after every swallow. It’s the perfect way to cool down after a run and a shower as hot as mine. “So, go on. Tell me. How much do you hate being a shelf-stocker?”

  “I fucking-”

  “Language!” Mom pipes up in the background. Jason and I roll our eyes at the same time, then chuckle into our cake slices. She goes back to pecking at her own cake soon enough, while Dad begins excavating those mysterious cookie crumbles from his second piece.

  “I find shelf stocking to be a dull and unrewarding experience,” I droll to Jason in a more table-appropriate tone. He gives me a single, solemn nod.

  “I see. That’s unfortunate, sister,” Jason tells me, just before a true businessman’s sip of coffee.

  “Don’t torture your mother,” Dad grumbles. It never ceases to impress me, how the man can be elbows deep in a mound of cake and yet entirely attuned to the social frequencies around him.

  “Is it really torture, if she doesn’t know it’s happening?” I prod. I wouldn’t push it if it wasn’t my special day. Or if I was even a little less uptight, waiting for that damn letter. For once, Dad’s eyes actually climb out from underneath his azalea-bush eyebrows. It’s the only way I can tell he’s serious.

  “Don’t torture me,” he asks, so politely too, that I answer:

  “Fine.” I work my way across half my piece of cake before I ask Jason, “so how much do you hate being in finance?” His immediate wince at the sound of the word finance tells me everything I need to know.

 
“I fu- erm…” Jason clears his throat when both Mom and Dad’s eyes corner him. “I haven’t been enjoying it too much. I do have this one professor though. Gordy. We call him the Goonmaster.”

  “I mean, with a name like Gordy,” I bob my head.

  “How did they turn out this way, Jonah?” Mom asks Dad in light of our commentary.

  “I’ll let you know when I read the scientific case study,” Dad says, without looking up from his cookies.

  Jason regales me with tales of Gordy the Goonmaster and his other college escapades through cake-for-breakfast, lunch and even well into the afternoon. It’s one of my brother’s many hidden talents. He’s the only person who can distract me. If it wasn’t for him, I never would have forgotten about the letter. I can’t believe I have, when I notice the mail truck pulling away from the box at the foot of the driveway.

  “Holy shi-”

  “Don’t you lift a finger, little sis’,” Jason stops me. He scoots out of his chair before I can hope to move. “I didn’t bring you a present. Let me get one for you.” He vanishes through the front door. My heart skips several beats, then resumes in double-time while he’s gone. It’s been a week since City College started sending out acceptance letters, and I haven’t seen a thing. When Jason comes back through the door, however, he holds a single envelope separate from the rest under his arm.

  “Don’t you screw with me, Jace,” I warn him. He leads with his hand out, the letter face-up in his fingers.

  “I wouldn’t. Not with this,” Jason tells me. He knows how much this means to me. What it means for my future. That envelope might mean the difference between being a slave to the UCA settlement for the rest of my life, or just half of it. I’ll make a hell of a lot more money with a college degree, even just a vague one from a community college. They just have to take me in. I just have to take the letter from Jason. I just need a chance.