Academy of Beasts V

  Academy Of Beasts V

  Becca Fanning

  Copyright © 2020 by Becca Fanning

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Also by Becca Fanning

  Untitled

  Last Time at Beast Academy

  “Little fool, you are drunk.”

  I didn’t remember if I said anything. Maybe another curse word and his name and a bastard tacked onto all of that. The chuckles rumbled through his chest as he carried me away. I fell asleep as his hand wandered across my back.

  There was only one thing in my mind when I woke up safely in my bed on Saturday morning with a raging headache and a dry mouth:

  Fiona, I want to eat you alive.

  Chapter 1

  When I was a senior in high school, debating on signing up for community college, I imagined that it would be nice to be working towards a brighter future. If you asked me what college was going to be like back then, I would’ve probably told you that I assumed it would involve homework and plenty of friends.

  Turns out that college did involve homework. Stacks of it, as I discovered at Beast Academy. There were interesting subjects. From the complicated relationships between shifters and humans to the actual understanding of how shifter magic worked. It was fascinating but a lot of work. Homework was standard fare for everybody in college, I suppose.

  The friends? Eh. That was debatable, given my complicated relationships with the Council boys. Priscilla was an authentic friend. So…I had one!

  What I hadn’t anticipated was the number of kissing opportunities I would have with charming supernatural guys.

  “Your face always seems pink lately,” Theo said as he poked my arm at breakfast. “You’re zoning out on your cinnamon rolls, dude. Are you going to barf on your breakfast?”

  Sometimes, frustrating charming supernatural guys.

  I stared at the handsome bear-shifter and briefly marveled at how I had gotten into this position.

  A human girl with murdered parents who may not have been my real parents. Some lurking group of old shifters making the decisions for the elite group known as the Core Council. A mysterious sexy guy running around in a mask with too much confidence for his own good.

  “I’m tired,” I told Theo weakly. We were the only ones at breakfast this Monday morning, an odd turn of events. I assumed that Enrique was still recovering from his party this weekend, which I’d gone to and danced my ass off at. He had probably collapsed in the collected arms of his three current girlfriends.

  Theo grinned. “Can I finish your cinnamon roll then?”

  “Have at it,” I told him and shoved the plate towards him. He was by far the largest shifter in the Council. Bear-shifters tended to run broad and tall. Theo was that and more. I watched his strong arms flex as he ate my leftovers happily. He was still dressed in our workout clothes from morning training. I stared at his black tank top.

  “Why aren’t you dressed for school?” I asked. He rolled his head towards me and stuck his finger up to his lips. Ah.

  “It’s a mission?”

  He nodded and swallowed. “Don’t tell Dracus that you know what they’re called, though. He’ll have my head for it.”

  That, I believed. Our resident dragon-shifter, and the head of the Core Council, was as strict as they came. He was one of the handsome mugs missing from the table. Theo had let it slip that missions were what they called the jobs assigned to the Council. The boys had recently revealed that the Council received orders on what to do from a powerful group that worked to protect the Academy.

  They were a group of mysterious people that I now knew were called The Officials. Mr. X had told me that. A shiver ran through me. I chugged my orange juice. He had told me that after almost kissing me again. I’d been too drunk for us to continue anything…

  On Monday morning, I had a new weapon in my arsenal. I had a name.

  The Officials.

  “Will you be in class today at all? I asked before leaving.

  “Doubt it.” I left him to devour the rest of his breakfast. Moony was already gone from the kitchen when I walked through. I grabbed my protein shake from the fridge. My life was certainly different here. It was nothing like the college I imagined as a kid.

  The Officials.

  I mulled the name over on my walk to school. It seemed to haunt my brain, unwilling to leave. Yesterday, I’d made the decision to tell Priscilla almost everything. My brush with Mr. X had sent a new wave of determination through me. I would discover the secrets hiding at Beast Academy, whether the Council boys liked it or not. They could try to stop me.

  Priscilla was by far one of the smartest shifters at the school. A top student. That’s why I was surprised to find her missing from the usual seat she took beside me. From class entirely!

  In her place, I recognized a familiar face.

  “Lucius?” I asked as I sat down. The gorgeous dragon-shifter smiled up at me from his notebook. He brushed his wavy dark hair from his face. “I didn’t realize you were in this class.” Priscilla had introduced him to me at Enrique’s party. He hadn’t stuck around to visit for very long. I had no idea we had classes together.

  “Hi, Fiona,” he said. His voice was low and pleasant. I wondered if it was a requirement to have a deep, sexy voice as a male shifter. Human women were truly missing out.

  “Where’s Priscilla?”

  “She’s come down with a bad cold,” he explained. The corner of his lips quirked upward. I raised an eyebrow. Priscilla had hit it off with the bartender at Enrique’s party. Maybe a make-out session got her sick. I wondered if Lucius was wondering the same thing.

  “Is it bad? The cold?” I had never seen a shifter sick before. Our extensive medical ward with Nurse Greta seemed exclusively used for healing wounds after friendly or not-so-friendly battles between the students.

  “Shifter colds are nasty. Our immune systems are very strong, but if something gets us, it really gets us,” he said. “How are you, though?”

  I unpacked my notebook and pencil case. “Fine. Tired from the weekend. Did you enjoy Enrique’s party?”

  “You missed the best part,” he said with a snort. His eyes drifted to the front of the class as if he was replaying the events in his brain. “Two wolf-shifters got into a fistfight over a lion-shifter. Enrique had to break it up.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he loved that. Leaving his precious girlfriends?”

  I didn’t mention to Lucius that I had overheard his girlfriends complaining that he was dropping more of them from his usual roster.

  “He was pissed,” Lucius explained and shook his head. “His eyes were wild. Almost a shade of gold.” Gold eyes were dangerous to shifters. It meant that they might be turning. If a shifter was in a life or death situation, it wasn’t unheard of for them to shift. Or if they experienced extreme emotion. Most shifters seemed fairly stoic due to this primitive instinct.

  “It was his party. I could understand being mad. He probably doesn’t want a peaceful party to be turned into a brawl,” I said. Imagining Enrique’s enraged eyes sent a shiver through me. Although he was charming, he had a shadowy side to him when thi
ngs weren’t going his way. At that moment, the professor for Shifter Mechanics came in, which officially signaled the start of another lecture. The soft conversation between the students hushed. Class began. Another day at Beast Academy was in session.

  School was lonely without Priscilla. Normally, we chatted about the latest gossip I had picked up on about the Council boys or news from her family. It was lonely. I had gotten used to her company. She was my first real friend at school.

  I headed back to the manor for lunch, but my mind wasn’t focused on food. Nobody was in the dining room. I checked the hallway. Nothing.

  “Moony?” I called out as I came into the kitchen. I found the chef bent over a chopping board with a binder open. He was writing something down on the page.

  “Hey, Fiona. If you’re looking for lunch, I’ve got a sandwich platter today out there,” he said with a smile. I had seen it on the table. His eyes seemed tired. The other day, he explained that his wife was pregnant with their second child.

  “I saw. It looks great. I’m definitely going to grab one,” I said. “I wanted to ask you a question, though…if you don’t mind.”

  “Shoot.”

  Moony was one of the sole staff members that I felt comfortable talking to. He never tried to hide things. There was a certain rough kindness to our expert chef with his arms covered in tattoos.

  “Have you ever heard of The Officials?” I asked slowly.

  “Officials,” he repeated quizzically. He tapped the end of his pen to his chin and looked up in thought. “Never heard of it. Is it a club?”

  “No, I just heard a student talking about it in the hall,” I lied. “It sounded interesting.”

  “You’re right.” He scratched the side of his head. “You know, I do feel like I once heard Dracus mention that before. It was two years ago. He was handing somebody their ass, the council member that Theo replaced. I couldn’t hear what he was saying though. The kitchen is pretty insulated.”

  Damn.

  “Thanks! Just curious. I hope the nursery construction is going well.” He brought out his phone and scrolled to a photo of his daughter on a ladder, painting with the help of his wife.

  I left him to finish his work and grabbed a sandwich in the dining room. Since nobody was there, I headed up to my room and ate at my desk. A stack of trashy romance novels, borrowed from an ancient ex-Council member’s forgotten bookshelf, sat on my desk. I could read or do homework. Exciting options.

  My gaze wandered past the desk to look outside. I had the best view of the largest tree in the manor gardens. It was the tree that I’d first seen Ren sleeping in on my first day with the Council boys. I scowled. Not even the delicious taste of my sandwich could make me forget Ren’s behavior towards me in the beginning. Borderline hostile. He’d warmed up about two degrees towards me since then.

  Although…sometimes, Ren could be kind. When he really wanted to, he had shown a certain level of loyalty to me and protection. I’m sure that he wouldn’t consider us friends, but we weren’t nothing.

  I took another bite of my lunch and stared out the window. A bird landed on one of the branches. I watched it preen and clean itself. Another one joined it. There were zero TV and film options here at the Academy, so I’d have to settle for live-action nature. This was my new National Geographic on this magical campus.

  One of the birds gently pecked the other cutely and then hopped over to the strong trunk of the tree. With a sudden movement, it disappeared in a flurry of light blue feathers. I craned my neck to see where it had disappeared. There was a small hole hidden in the tree that I’d never noticed before. Interesting.

  There were lots of hiding places on campus; it seemed.

  I swallowed a bite as a chill ran through me. The gears of my mind started to turn.

  Every Council boy had an incredible knowledge of secret doors and hidden tunnels. When Enrique had led me away to his private lounge for some tantalizing conversation, he had brought me down through the tunnels that ran beneath the campus grounds. I remember noticing that there were more tunnels than the ones he showed me.

  The training gym. The secret shortcuts. The tunnels beneath the ground.

  How many more hidden things did I not know about?

  I finished off my sandwich and opened up my diary. Moony had gifted it to me in my first week. Protected by magic, I was the only person who could open the diary.

  I turned to a fresh page and made a list.

  * * *

  Hidden Places in the Manor:

  Tunnel system beneath the house connects to castle. Where else does it go?

  Secret gym beneath the manor. Accessible on Dracus’ hall of the house.

  ????

  * * *

  Well. That was already two places too many. I frowned and tapped the tip of my pen onto the page, willing the empty space to offer up answers. If there were hidden tunnels and a gym, it stood to reason that there were plenty of other places hidden in the house. I tried to remember how Enrique brought us to the tunnel. It was in Theo’s hallway. There had been a portrait of that old man on the wall. Enrique’s hand had pressed onto the frame of it.

  Excitement rolled through me. I shot straight up from the desk. I would bring the plate back to the kitchen later. Sorry, Moony. I packed my secret diary and my class things into my backpack for my afternoon classes.

  Since Theo was gone on a mission, his hallway was empty. Still, I tiptoed quickly down the corridor. You could never be too safe around here. How many times had I thought I was alone in my digging and then been surprised by a Council boy popping up from behind?

  There was a massive window at the end of the hall. The bright daylight provided plenty of illumination to examine the walls.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  The painting was gone.

  I flew towards the wall. There was a tiny ghost of a rectangle, darker than the other part of the wall, in its place. My mouth dropped. I pawed at the polished wooden paneling. No secret areas to be pushed or hidden notches to grab. I knocked against the wall. It rang through with a solid sound.

  Nothing.

  The bastards had taken it away!

  Chapter 2

  With a good hour before my next class, I stalked down to the first floor in a sour mood. I made a mental list of the crimes done against me by every single Council boy. Some boys were ranking much higher than others. Ren and Enrique were by far the highest on my list.

  Those absolute jerks! Enrique showed me the hidden passage and then yanked the secret route away from me before I could investigate it on my own. He must’ve thought to do it as soon as we returned.

  “What a prick,” I muttered hotly with a groan. Whisk me away to take advantage of my hopped-up hormones and disappear the secret entrance to the tunnels, would he? I vowed revenge. Maybe I’d torture him again on my next cycle. Let’s see how well he did on the second time around.

  A dangerous chill ran up my spine.

  I had enjoyed that moment with Enrique, though…

  Research. Focus, Fiona.

  There was another place I wanted to investigate. The room where I had last seen Mr. X. It was on the Creepy Hallway, as I called it. This section of the house was a stretch of old, unused sitting rooms and studies. It seemed to exist currently for the sole purpose of providing convenient rooms to sneak through or have strange meetings in. I assume the past Council members had been more formally studious. There was nobody like that except Dracus in the twenty-first century. When you glanced inside most rooms, it looked like a scene fit for a Victorian businessman. It made me oddly miss Dracus’ presence today.

  The last room down the hall was where I’d had my last interaction with Mr. X. I bit my lip, remembering my drink-fueled escape with him. Enrique had a real rival with the mysterious masked man in terms of laying the flirting down thick. My suspects for his identity, if he wasn’t a new guy entirely, were either Enrique, Jasper, or Ren.

  Enrique was likely at his party, thoug
h…If he’d broken up a fight, he wouldn’t have had time to whisk himself back to the manor with a mask on his face. I frowned. The existence of the tunnels complicated things, though. If the boys knew about shortcuts that I didn’t, they likely knew how to get here much faster than me. In fact, Ren had complained when he had to walk with me on the regular path from the manor to the castle when he’d been my bodyguard after the Sam incident.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” I whispered. My hand found the door to the room and pushed. It hadn’t been completely shut. In the daylight, the room looked much less intimidating and a lot less sexy.

  The couches that Mr. X and I had been sitting on were obviously empty. I walked over to the one that we had ended up on together. Nothing. My fingers spread across the thick fabric of the couch, a gauche Baroque imitation. Or real, who knows. My dearly departed mother was the one with the home improvement reality TV obsession.

  A stray black string caught my eye. It was wedged in a cushion seam. I yanked it up and examined the thread in the light. Plain string? This wasn’t going to help. Mr. X was always dressed in dark clothes, but so was virtually every Council boy.

  But it was proof that it wasn’t a dream. I pocketed it.

  I turned and walked to the door, thinking about the significance of clothing fibers. Someone stepped into the doorway with a sudden movement.

  “JEEZ!” I cried out, nearly reeling backwards to fall on my butt. “Can you wear a bell?”

  Ren smirked as he leaned against the doorframe, effectively blocking my exit. “Looking for something?” His cold amusement made me uneasy.

  “None of your business,” I told him and threw my nose into the air.