The Scary Godmother: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 2 Read online

  The Scary Godmother

  The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 2

  Vivienne Savage

  Writing as

  Dominique Kristine

  Illustrated by

  Merely Art

  Edited by

  Hot Tree Editing

  By Vivienne Savage writing as

  Dominique Kristine

  All material contained herein is Copyrighted © Payne & Taylor Publishing 2018. All rights reserved.

  * * *

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your preferred e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Contents

  1. No Surrender

  2. My Personal Coach Beast

  3. The Black Effigy

  4. Sleep is For the Weak

  5. Shifters Gone Wild

  6. I am a Magnet for Cute Guys

  7. Manufactured Happiness

  8. My Unhappy Dream Box

  9. That Stuff Only Happens in the Movies

  10. The Power of Sweets Compels Me

  11. A True Monster

  12. Holy Hotness

  13. Compassion Personified

  14. I Date Him for the Abs

  15. The More the Merrier

  16. Flight School

  17. Midterms are Murder

  18. Becoming a Guardian Angel

  19. The Endless Walk

  20. Holidays are Magical (So are Mom’s Pies)

  21. Some Bonds Trump Rules

  22. A for Effort

  23. The Spirit of Christmas

  24. The Hardest Lesson

  25. A Million Dreams

  26. Déjà Vu

  27. Creepster

  28. Special Circumstances

  29. And Life Goes On

  30. Music on the Wind

  31. Summer is the Next Great Adventure

  Other Books by Vivienne

  About the Author

  1

  No Surrender

  I celebrated the start of my sophomore year at college by flying on my own from Virginia to Chicago without worried parents lurking over my shoulder. In one short year, Padraig N. Riordan University, or PNRU as we liked to call it, had become my second home.

  Pilar reprised her role as the unofficial decorator for the second year in a row, transforming our four-bedroom townhouse into a sophisticated masterpiece with faerie magic. It was her idea, after all, to approach us in a group Facebook message over the summer about splitting the rent for a place on campus.

  So, upon my arrival yesterday, I signed my name across the bottom of the lease and presented Pilar a check with my share of the deposit. Now we were waiting for Liadan, the third fae in our group, to make it in from Ireland, and for Holly to check into the university. As a Chicago native, our sorceress buddy didn’t have to travel far.

  Just as I was drowsing on the sofa, the bell buzzed. Pilar and I raced to answer it, but she beat me to the doorknob and tugged it open.

  “Buenas tardes, Holly.”

  “Hey.” Holly lingered on the stoop, gripping the rail in a white-knuckled grip. Her luggage was piled behind her. Although it was still summer and the scorching heat lingered in the late afternoon air, she wore her full-length mage robe with the hood up over her blonde hair. The sun was a tiny gold sliver on the horizon behind her.

  “Hey, girl.” I stepped down onto our tiny porch and pulled her into a hug. Tension tightened her body into a steel rod, but then she relaxed into my embrace and squeezed me back. Gently.

  We hadn’t known it at the end of last year, but maybe I should have guessed after everything that happened. Carmilla had done more than kidnap Holly and try to replace her soul with a dead lover—she’d made her a vampire.

  “I’m so glad you agreed to room with us, Holly.”

  “Me too. Now I won’t be the only night student here.”

  “Ugh. Don’t remind me.”

  Laughter dissolved the awkward tension. Pilar hugged Holly next and tugged her inside to check out our sweet new digs.

  I dragged my wand out of Neverspace, where fae stored things we didn’t want to hold in the physical realm, and then used a short-range Translocation glamour Dad taught me over the summer. All three of her bags reappeared in the living room behind the couch.

  “Lia flies in tomorrow,” I said. “You have two rooms to pick from, but the room without eastward facing windows is free for you.”

  Our townhome had special UV protected windows for vampire students who still enjoyed natural light and secure shutters to make it pitch-black at any time. PNRU took the safety of its students seriously.

  Sometimes.

  “Thanks. I’m not picky, so that’ll be fine.” Holly smiled. “What about Gabriel? Have you seen him yet?”

  “He and Rodrigo should be driving in sometime soon. He texted about an hour ago.” And I couldn’t wait. We’d been in constant contact over the summer months, whether via text or video calls—so much that my mother walked up behind me during a FaceTime chat and asked if Gabriel wanted to stay with our family over the summer too. Ugh.

  “Soooo? What’s happening there? Come on, give me the dirt while I pick a room.”

  “Not much, really. I mean, I haven’t seen him except over chat.”

  “Don’t let her fool you,” Pilar said. “She’s changed three times in the past hour just in case he arrives early enough for company.”

  “Well, take my advice and stick with this outfit. Guys love yoga pants, and your ass looks hot in them.”

  “Er, thanks.”

  It took a few minutes to unpack Holly into her new space once she settled on the bedroom facing away from the sunrise. We ordered in and invited another mutual mage friend over to join us for pizza and movies. Ben never turned down free food.

  My head lolled back around a quarter after midnight, and an hour later, when my phone’s notification chirp dragged me awake, Ben was knocked out beside me and Pilar lay sprawled across the other end of the sectional. Holly remained awake, staring at the television. She’d put on a subtitled French romance we liked.

  “Gabriel and his cousin made it in,” I said after reading the text.

  “You gonna go over?”

  “Nah. They got stuck a few hours behind a traffic accident and they’re beat. He said he’d see me tomorrow.” I stretched my arms over my head and rose. “I’m gonna make some coffee. Want some?”

  “Sure.”

  To avoid disturbing our friends, we both retreated to the kitchen. I fiddled with the fancy Keurig Pilar brought with her and made some foamy and oversweet coffee with the flavored syrup. We settled on the barstools in the nook.

  After a while of sipping in silence, I spoke up first. “I know we talked over the summer, but uh, how are you adjusting?”

  “It’s been hard. Mom was… well, she was Mom. Lots of crying. Dad took it in stride. He said it’s cool because I get to turn into a cloud of bats now, and it’s more than he can do.”

  Memories of my first encounter with vampire bats dragged an i
nvoluntary shudder from me. “Cool and scary.”

  “Yeah, agreed.” She grabbed a cold slice of pepperoni and bit into it. “The Sanguine Court paid to have all our windows replaced in the house.” Pureblood vampires were born with resistance to the sun, but the same wasn’t true of the ones like Holly who were infected. She’d burn faster than an Irish redhead vacationing in the tropics, but she still wouldn’t go up in a dramatic blaze of ashes like a nosferatu at least.

  “It’s the least they could do after what was forced on you.”

  “Yeah…” Holly’s expression fell, and in a quieter voice, she murmured, “They staked Denise Buckland. Had you heard?”

  My stomach dropped and left me feeling queasy. Last year, Denise had been at the Hidden Court meeting on campus. Gabriel had given the names of everyone there to Sebastian and Simon.

  “I didn’t know,” I whispered.

  “Apparently, she was a part of the attack in Chicago. The sentinels handed her over for judgement.”

  “The queen told you that?”

  “Actually, the Sanguine Court is pretty tech savvy. They send out a weekly newsletter to keep us up to date on all happenings.” Holly bit her lip and looked down. “I’m probably not supposed to tell you that, so don’t say anything, okay?”

  “I won’t. So, um… what are they saying about the Hidden Court?”

  “Not much except for the obvious. Report any suspicious vampiric activities to the court and stay clean. There won’t be any leniency. Just stakings and sunlight for us, burnings for the purebloods.”

  I shuddered.

  “I wish I’d told you guys about Matt. Said who he was.”

  A year ago on Halloween night, Holly had met a hot vampire senior who swept her off her feet. It turned out he had ulterior motives and had seduced her at the behest of his mistress, Countess Carmilla. If not for me, Holly’s soul would have been sacrificed by the ancient vampiress, her body used as a new sleeve for Carmilla’s long-dead lover.

  “Why did you keep it a secret? You know we wouldn’t have judged. Was that his idea?”

  “No, it was mine. I didn’t want to jinx it, you know? I thought Matt was a good guy. He came from a good family.”

  “I wish I had told you all about the Hidden Court meeting I stumbled across.”

  “Considering how great it seemed at first, I probably would have dated him anyway. I can’t resist a bad boy.” She sighed. “The bites were nice. Like really nice. Better than those two-hundred-dollar vibes we checked out online.”

  “Hey, you’ve totally opened yourself up to a whole realm of hot bad boys now. You’re not just any vampire, you’re a vampire mage. That’s totally the prime rib of vampires. All the best dudes will be fighting over you.”

  A wry grin spread over her mouth. “Gee, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Vampire or not, Holly was still Holly. It didn’t matter that she’d been turned—only that she had accepted her new life and was smiling again.

  * * *

  Gabriel invited me away from campus the next afternoon for a hike in Tir na Nog. I hadn’t noticed it before on Halloween night, but he cast a bird’s shadow after we crossed the barrier dividing the school grounds from the faerie realm.

  And now that I’d Ascended, I looked different too—so different I caught Gabriel stealing peeks at me out the corner of his eye.

  “What?” I finally asked.

  He shook his head, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Nothing.”

  “It’s something. You keep staring at me.”

  “I like looking at your wings.”

  I glanced over one shoulder at the spectral butterfly wings. They’d emerged the moment we crossed the divide, glowing orange and pink with strands of blue filament and glittering rainbow shimmers.

  A gentle breeze rustled through the gold and scarlet leaves above us. The eternal autumn provided the perfect weather for our walk, and I’d always favored the warm colors over the brightness of the Summer Glade.

  “I can’t believe y’all rented a place in the Phoenix Townhomes. It’s more expensive than where I live with Rodrigo.”

  “If Pilar didn’t suggest it, I probably would have stayed in our freebie dorm.”

  Gabriel raised a brow. “You gonna be able to work enough hours at the campus bookstore to afford your share of the rent? Sentinel training is demanding, and you have faerie shit on top of that.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I had to be fine, because quitting sentinel training wasn’t an option. “I already told Mr. Bennett I need to cut back on hours. Besides, Mom and Dad are going to pay my share of the rent. I did the deposit from my savings, but they’re really proud of me and wanted to help out.”

  “That’s good. Sounds like you four are all set.”

  “Hope so.” I laughed. “It’s so nice to see everyone again. When Liadan arrived this morning, even Holly woke up long enough to say hi before she crawled back into her bed.”

  “How’s she adjusting to the new nightlife?”

  “Pretty well. She’s still down about it, I guess, but she’s thankful she got to keep her powers, since most mages burn out their sorcery when they turn.”

  “Carmilla picked well. But yeah, I can imagine what a double whammy that would be.” He whistled. “I bet the Sanguine Court is bending over backward kissing her ass after what happened.”

  “Dude, yes. They bought her family all new windows and sent her a pair of ten-thousand-dollar coffins. One for here and one for home, so she won’t have to lug it around. They even explored all her new capabilities this summer, like controlled sunlight tests and stuff to see how much she can take, since she has Carmilla’s blood in her.”

  “Yeah?” Interest lit his brown eyes. “Better to know what she can and can’t do now, rather than later in an emergency situation. Y’all can pair up in boot camp and encourage each other.”

  “I don’t even wanna know what we’ll be doing in that class. Three hours of torture, I imagine.”

  Gabriel’s grin widened. “You thought I was a hardass? Wait till Coach Bregman gets a hold of you. She’s a tough wolf to please.”

  “Guess it’s a good thing you whooped my ass so much last year. I, uh, noticed they actually gave us a scheduled hour for training now.”

  “Ninety minutes,” he corrected me. “And don’t think for a second I’m going to go easy on you.”

  “Never crossed my mind. Though I thought maybe we could do some sort of reward system. Positive reinforcement is a great motivator. You know, Kit Kats. Kisses.” My heart thumped in my chest.

  “Kisses, huh?” He stopped and turned to me, one hand skirting the narrow band of skin between my shorts and tank top.

  “Just a suggestion…”

  Gabriel dipped his head and skimmed his nose across mine. The tease made my pulse race with rising anticipation.

  “Been waiting all summer for this.”

  I was barely breathing—not at all sure I was actually breathing. “For what?” escaped in a hoarse whisper.

  “This.” Gabriel turned his head and captured my mouth.

  My imagination hadn’t played up the memory of our first kiss, because the second was as good, if not better. His lips moved against mine, barely parting them, teasing and keeping me on the edge of my seat before the first fleeting slip of tongue.

  I wanted it to last forever.

  Strong arms tightened around me, his body hard and unyielding.

  I wiggled in closer and groaned in protest when he leaned back. “Totally worth the wait.”

  A sly grin curved his mouth. “Much better than that underwhelmed ‘wow’ you gave me last time.”

  I thumped my fist into his shoulder. As much as I enjoyed his laughter and our quiet moment together, ending the kiss allowed a dark cloud to resurface in my thoughts. “How is this gonna work between us?”

  “Hell if I know.” His shoulders slumped, but he squeezed my hand and didn’t let go. “Technically, there’s no ou
tright rule against interracial dating, but—”

  “But it’s discouraged. Yeah, I read into things too.” As had Liadan, because that’s the sort of friend she was. “The way I see it, we have three choices. Firstly, we say screw it and do what we want no matter what anyone thinks or says.”

  “It’s not the fact that you’re a fae and I’m a shifter that’s against rules, Sky. They could split us up as partners and make us swap to other teammates.”

  “So second option would be to just not tell anyone. Keep it between us. I don’t need public displays of affection to know you care about me.”

  Gabriel was quiet for a moment. The third option hung unspoken between us, but his thumb swept over my knuckles again. “Or we could drop it and continue as friends only. It’ll save you a lot of grief and bullshit down the line. The school admin may not be able to break us up, but your fellow fae have their own ideas about what’s acceptable.”

  While it was true that anything would be better than losing him from my life completely, I just couldn’t fathom the idea of pretending I didn’t feel anything for him.

  “I don’t want that,” I finally whispered.

  “There’s a fourth option, but I’m sure you thought about it too. If we report it ourselves and have them reassign us—”

  “No!” I took a deep breath and reined in my voice. “I don’t want another sentinel. Besides the fact that I’d never see you with my crazy schedule, I trust you. I know you have my back no matter what. We’re a team. Besides, no way am I gonna let you get stuck with another Monica-type bitch who treats you like a slave.”