Of Deathless Shadows (Alkrose Academy, #1)

by K.M. Moronova

I laugh wickedly and squeeze my hands tighter around the bastard's neck. Why am I killing him? After a few moments, the terrorized man’s head comes off. Pop.

What’s going on? My friends are staring with horrified eyes as a few Fernestians approach me, Kallos among them. I look down at my hands. They’re covered in blood, still gripping the neck of a headless body. “Oh,” I whisper to myself. A wicked smile crawls along my blood-stained face. I killed someone. Murdered him like it was nothing. It was so easy.

I let go of the part of myself that holds onto my past. I have to—there’s no going back. My mother is dead. Everyone from home is dead. They’re not healing somewhere. I’m never going to see them again. They’re all dead.

“I will rip apart every last one of you like I did that man,” I growl. I won’t let anything harm my friends. I’d take a bullet for any of them. I don’t understand the power beneath my flesh yet, but once I harness it, I’ll save everyone. Kallos considers me for a long moment. “Pity, I thought you could be helped.”

“I’m sorry.” “No, you’re not.” “I just wanted to hurt someone… something.” I clench my teeth and my jaw stings. I’m assuming I smashed my teeth during my murderous rage earlier. “I just... I wanted them to hurt as much as I did. For what they did to us. For what you did.”

My mother is turning in her grave right at the daughter I’ve become, but I’m okay with it. We can’t fight what we are—what we become when left in the dark.

My Shadow does not like what it sees. Its mate is shredded before us and hardly holding on. Why hasn’t he healed? My heart sinks and guilt floods through me.

“Elias…” I whisper into the horrible space. His name snakes around my throat and sinks deep into my soul. How could I have left him like this? I’m a fucking monster.

I’m absolutely horrified at what my beautiful, ruined Raine has done. “What did you do to him… W-Why hasn’t he healed?”

“Wanna know something handy we figured out through trial and error? See that pile over there?”

It’s a pile of skin. A PILE of fucking skin. It’s grayed on the surface, much like how a rotten corpse looks, and the red fleshy insides look hardened and scabbed. They’ve been fucking skinning him down here. I kneel over and release my lunch. Over and over, they’ve been skinning him. My beautiful Elias, how… how could anyone be so demented?

Can pain change you? I hear my brother’s innocent words in my head. The one he used to constantly ask me when we were still just kids.

Yes, Edgar… my sweet brother. Yes—pain changes you. It twists you. Corrupts you. Breaks you.

“We just had to tell him to stop healing and apparently his Shadow can stop. Just. Like. That. We only needed to threaten him with the one thing he cares about. Which happens to be you.” They’re all the same. Every man in my life is an asshole.

He endured all of this for me. We call to one another. The wicked and twisted creatures of the world that we’ve become—we dance in the night and blend our twilight sins. I see it now.

“Turn it off, Terra.” Elias gives me a soul-crushing frown. His brows knit together and he grits his teeth. “You don’t need to keep the bad things, remember?”

“Turn. It. Off,” he says slowly, each word hitting deeper than the last. Turn it off… He said I could before. The bad things don’t have to stay. I see it now—it’s okay to let go. Necessary, even.

I turn it off. It’s as easy as handing that part of me to my Shadow. My feelings, the emotions warring inside me. The guilt and the pain. The part of me left that made me… me. I turn it all off. I let it fucking go.

Yes—pain changes you, my sweet brother. I just hope you’ll remember me as we were, smiling once upon a time before the world changed me. I’m sorry—I won’t be finding you. Th...

She tolerates him. She wants me. Velis feels the same way. He coils in my chest and yearns for her much the way I do. I just want to fuck this girl raw and steal away everything she’s ever wanted. She only needs me. She’s mine. She can play her stupid games with the douchebag, but she will only bend to me.

I’ll let her play these games because I like to watch. Because I’m sick like that. Broken people gravitate toward one another.

It’s why we’re mates, why our Shadows will dance for eternity around one another. We were torn from ribbons of the same universe. O...

This prick thinks he can break me? This is nothing. I was raised by wolves. Nothing can shatter you after Alkrose.

“He said he would drop you from a building if I didn’t.” Her eyes widen with a flicker of anger. “That asshole—he almost did throw me off a building.” I knew Raine was a snake. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

“What is this place?” Kallos trudges alongside me through the deep snow, our boots sinking with each step. “This is Forbid—” “I know, Forbidding Ridge, but what is this place, Kallos,” I snap, keeping my eyes ahead. Kallos gives me a blank expression. “This is Alkrose. Alkrose Academy.” His golden hair feathers in the wind. “Alkrose,”

“My, my. Kallos didn’t tell me you were a Solas,” Emerai whispers cryptically. His words paralyze me with a bone-chilling numbness. I can’t break the headmaster’s powerful gaze. I can feel his magic or aura or whatever the fuck is inside us.

“Those who kill will receive their titles ahead of all the rest,” Emerai shouts.

“Fernestia will reign over Heirah. Let your sorrows go and enjoy this new adventure. Alkrose Academy is your new home.”

“Um... where should I go? I have… six bars,” I mumble to Nekane, trying to avoid any more attention than I’ve already had. Nekane smiles a crooked grin and shrugs. “I guess nowhere.”

My blood thickens in my veins, my lips itch, and breathing feels impossible. Everyone has a place. Everyone belongs somewhere with others like them. Everyone except me.

“He is one,” she says, sounding pleased. Arthur’s face animates, his skin not so pale anymore. Raven sets her hand on his shoulder. “Notify Alkrose immediately. Emerai will be pleased to know that the second Nova has been created.”

“Darkfly, take Edgar back to the dormitories. Fetch the maid and ready the rest of his regiment. We’ll be leaving tonight.”

“He didn’t… hurt you, did he?” “Do you actually care? Or are you worried about the Shadow?” I actually manage to keep the sarcasm out of my tone.

“He cut my hand, but he knew about my healing so it wasn’t like he was actually trying to hurt me.” A low growl vibrates in Elias’s chest but he keeps his voice even. “I let him fuck you because I liked watching. But if he hurts you again, I’ll turn that motherfucker inside out.”

Let’s join them. “Holy shit—it just spoke to me.” I clench my shirt over my heart, pounding with adrenaline. Elias smiles darkly. “Ask it for its name—take its hand and join me.” He opens his hand for mine, his dried blood still coating his hair, and I take it. “Join me in the dark, sweetheart.” I nod. What’s your name, Shadow? Amser.

“Amser,” I say its name and Elias’s eyes glow. A crescent moon shines in his gray eyes, fractured like broken glass, but a beautiful, enchanting light that calls to me. My skin tingles with the name of my Shadow dancing on my lips.

A dark, shadowy cat gazes up at me, smoke wisping around its ebony fur. Eyes as green and alluring as my own stare back at me and I know this is Amser. It’s small, but the power I feel in the space between us sends chills up my neck. Elias bends down and lets Velis wisp from his fingers. It walks out as a black cat as well. I’ve never seen his Shadow in such a small form.

They’re identical in every way, except Velis has eyes as gray as ash.

“See, I told you we were Shadow mates. The Crescent Novas.” He looks up at me from where he kneels by the Shadows. I cup his cheek with my hand and he leans into it,...

“Crescents?” He narrows his eyes with curiosity. “You have the same moons in your eyes as I do. The ot...

“What do you mean by the new deployment method?” I have to know what’s happening because those two guards were no older than me. What happened in Navasik only killed the mature souls, according to Elias.

“This method weeds out the weak… disposes of anything less than a Polaris. It saves time on the Fernestian recovery unit end of things.”

“We need to leave unless you want the Fernestians to take us to Alkrose…” I narrow my eyes on him. “Isn’t that where you’ve been saying you’re taking me anyway?”

“Do you think Finn and Edgar are actually alive out there?” “Edgar, yes. Novas are rare and powerful. I don’t know about your friend.” I nod. “Do you think they’d recognize me now?” He watches me like a fox in the moonlight. “No. You’re different from the girl I found in the forest that day.”

“It’s not a bad thing, you know,” Elias says softly. He brushes my dark hair behind my ear and runs his thumb across my lower lip. “You’re as powerful as they come. We’ll take over the world together, you and me. The girl you were before was nothing compared to who you are now.”

Now I understand. Yes. Pain can twist you. But it also can open your eyes to the world you’ve been born into. Show you what little good there is.

Let me fix it—I’ll fix all of this. Amser calls from my subconscious and I instantly give in to its pull. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe to fall asleep or watch like a passenger, but it’s nothing like that. Instead my bones feel charged, and instincts that are not my own pulse through my veins.

I press my hand over Elias’s forehead and hold out my index and middle fingers. Twelve blue ticks of light surround my hand and my brain instantly registers that it’s a clock. Time. I have the power of time? Tick. Tick. Tick.

The clock turns back by a few marks and Elias’s blood returns through his nose. His eyes fly open, landing on me with shock and awe. Raine staggers to his feet behind me, laughing and wiping off his bloody lip. Bennie’s body lies at his feet.

“Terra.” Raine pulls me in tightly, his hands shaking. The weight in my chest is growing. “Fernestia has ruined everything, taken my family from me." I look at Bennie, tears threatening to break free. Raine’s breath is hot behind my ear, sending chills up my spine. “You’re all I have left. My lovely Terra. We’re mates too, aren’t we?”