Fortune Academy: Year Three - J.R. Thorn Page 0,63

door.

Oh right… locked door.

Cursing, I pulled the key from my skirt. “Leave the Academy? Not really,” I said, blathering on with enough truths to make my statement believable. “Only for missions or assignment and stuff like that.” I glanced at Dante, thinking of how many times he’d left me for pursuit of so-called missions for my sake.

Young Evie gave me a raised brow. “Like hunting monsters?”

I offered her a grin as I attempted to hide the unbidden sting that gave me. Dante had hunted me once… too. “Yes, like hunting. That’s my favorite,” I confirmed and glanced at Dante again. This time, I would be the one doing the hunting.

Trying the lock again, I managed to get the door open only to reveal a gaping void of nothing.

Damn. I didn’t envy anyone who had to travel through that.

“Okay! In you go!” I said cheerfully as I shoved Evelyn on through.

Marcus bared his teeth at me and threatened my life before jumping in after her. A black cat materialized, having been nothing but a shadow all this time and followed the pair into the void.

I shut the door behind them and grinned.

“What you smiling about?” Dante asked.

I held up my black claws that had nicked the young Queen on her way out. “Founder’s blood, anyone?”

Chapter 19

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Dante roared as I sped-walked down the sparse streets straight for the Monster Arena.

Cole’s influenced seemed to have spread across the campus, evidence of that by the dark fog that curled around my ankles.

I decided that was a good sign. It meant that he was strong, and I needed him strong—and angry—when I freed him because he was the key to taking the Dean down.

All I had to do was convince him that the Dean was a bigger threat than me. Given that she wanted to mess with Hell and she was the reason he was locked up in the first place, I figured that wouldn’t be too hard to do.

I clutched the handkerchief to my chest that I’d used to soak up the few droplets of blood from the young Queen. It was my lifeline. The proof of that came as it hummed with innate power that would give me access to any locked door in the Academy.

Finally, I could see Kaito again.

And I could face Cole.

Dante gripped me by the shoulder—hard—and spun me around so fast that I almost toppled over. “Do not walk away from me,” he growled as the black mist moved through the air, dancing upward over our chests.

I really didn’t have time for this shit.

“Look, Dante. I get that you’re pissed off and Cole is getting under your skin.” I wasn’t feeling any of Olivia’s feel-good spell anymore, so the sooner I got to Cole, the better. “Don’t you get it?” I asked as I held up the handkerchief. “This is the key to my true Awakening. I’ve always been incomplete and broken.” I shoved the precious cloth into my pocket before he could rip it away from me. “You wouldn’t understand what that’s like.”

“I wouldn’t understand?” he roared, grabbing for me again but I moved too fast for him to get ahold of my skirt. He presented the long scar across his wrist as the dark fog glided over it, seeming to be interested in Dante’s past pain. “I lived without a hand for a year for you, or have you forgotten that little detail? You know what makes a man feel incomplete and broken? Missing a fucking appendage!”

Tears threatened to stream down my face, even if I knew it was the effects of the rage demon making Dante act like a complete asshole. “I never asked you to do that for me,” I snapped before turning and breaking into a run.

Maybe I wasn’t as fast as the Hunter, but I wasn’t going to make this easy on him.

I pushed all of my supernatural strength into my legs as I fled down the streets. I missed Logan and knew he’d enjoy this. He’d run alongside me and play rather than chase me down like a Hunter homing in on his victim.

Dante kept up pace as he caught up with me faster than I had anticipated. He’d grown stronger after becoming my Virtue, just as all my guys had blossomed into their powers. Except right now he used the gifts I had awakened in him against me and it pissed me off.

Just as his fingers clawed into my hip, I spun, using