Shadowborn Academy_ Year One (Dark Fae Academy #1) - G. Bailey Page 0,78

she can tell. Sometimes it’s like she sees straight through my pale blue eyes and reads my every thought.

Thankfully, she can’t do that, or she might be a tad horrified by what she finds.

“Fine, fine. Are you looking forward to seeing the new boarding school?” she inquires casually, her eyes drifting to the front of the limo just briefly enough to let me know she likes this driver. It’s always the drivers for my mother—usually the handsome young ones with dark hair. As for my father? It’s the pretty secretaries that strut around with their peroxide blonde hair and augmented breasts. My parents love their affairs and the revolving door of drivers and secretaries. They don’t love the people they fool around with, of course, just the thrill of the chase and the sex.

Love is for the lower class and the weak.

That’s what they both say if you ask them why they bother staying married. Everything is about money and appearance. It’s why my light brown hair is perfectly cut, straight and highlighted blonde. My peach dress fits my body like a glove. I have a strict diet and fitness regime to make sure I stay in control of my figure. No junk food whenever I’m with my parents. My body is just an engine to them and they want to keep it running perfectly for as long as possible. It’s been this way since before I can remember and I’ve always hated it.

Life must be more than this boring routine.

It has to be.

But not to my parents.

“What was the school called again?” I ask her, because until this point I’ve been so scared of the past and my secret that I’ve hidden away in it. The future was never really important to me. Now, things have changed, and I need to focus on the future. Every mile we get away from my old boarding school, the more I can relax and actually breathe in this tight dress.

“Holly Oak Academy,” my mother answers me, her eyes still busy checking out the driver. “It is one of the most prestigious schools in England and only the best go here. Honestly, I have no idea why we sent you to that school by London in the first place.”

“Because you work in London and it meant I could see you often?” I dryly respond. “And it meant I could carry on my other training in secret.”

Mother looks at me for a second, her gaze reminding me that I shouldn’t have brought up the training. Assassins never talk about their past, after all. Not that I’m an assassin. At least not officially. In the eyes of the Veil Council—the syndicate of lords that rule the criminal world—I’m not an assassin until my twenty-first birthday. Only after I present my sacrifice to the council during my Blood Oath am I considered anything of worth. Until then, I’ve simply been trained by my parents to be just like them: perfect on the outside, empty on the inside.

Deadly to our enemies while living a picture-perfect life.

My father wants me to take his place at the High Table. I’ll be the youngest member to ever be sworn into the Veil.

Lucky me.

“Oh, well, yes there was that. We all have busy lives,” she says, waving a hand at me, a signal to drop the subject.

I bite back my retort and look out the window at the rolling hills. They’re covered in wildflowers and towering fir trees, and the sky is streaked in dark rain clouds, ready to erupt. I hope this isn’t a bad omen of some kind. I’ve had enough misfortune this past year to last me a lifetime. I lean back in my seat and watch the landscape slide by, allowing my thoughts to drift into mindless contemplation.

“Do not slouch! We didn’t bring you up that way,” my mother snaps, nudging me in the ribs with her elbow.

I automatically straighten in my seat. Sometimes I swear my parents hold the strings to my mind and body, and there is nothing I can do but obey them. It’s like I’m just their puppet. I follow their orders to the point that I hate my life, and the one time I tried to cut my string and do something for myself… Well, that was when it all went so horribly wrong.

Now I’m lying to everyone, including myself. I can’t risk my parents, or anyone for that matter, finding out the truth. It will ruin us all.

I watch my mother from the corner of my eye, the way she holds her head high and keeps her back straight in her perfectly tailored light blue suit. Her legs are crossed, her black heels have light blue on the bottom to match her perfect image.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Fucking perfect.

I hate it all, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do to escape it now. I’m stuck in this hell, like I have been since I was born. After all the things I’ve done…the lies I’ve told…there’s no way out. Even if there was an escape, the Veil would put an end to it.

No one ever rescinds their Blood Oath and lives to tell the tale.

“Ah, we are nearly here,” my mother sighs with relief, pointing at the window on her side.

I look through the glass at the beautiful mansion on top of a hill in the distance.

Holly Oak Academy has no idea who they have just let into their halls.