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“We’re here, miss.”
My hired car pulled to a stop on the wide gravel drive. I stared out the window at the mansion before me, running my fingers along the cool gold of the cuff at my left wrist. Slaymore Academy of the Supernatural—my home for the next four years.
The driver who’d brought me from port to academy opened the door and helped me out with a gloved hand. He’d barely said two words to me on the drive, but that was more than okay with me.
Small talk was nonsense, and I didn’t do nonsense. But judging by the over-the-top appearance of Slaymore, the headmasters must be fine with nonsense.
The Slaymore mansion looked like a giant layer cake made of pale stone. The house was square, more or less, but towers and stories had been added to it in a hodgepodge fashion.
These additions stuck out at crazy angles from the outer walls. There were also smaller towers sprouting from larger towers in a way that made me suspect magic had been involved in the construction.
Each sprawling floor had a balcony running around it, which was supported at odd intervals by intricately carved stone pillars. Ivy crawled up a few walls and curled around the pillars on the ground floor of the house. I had to admire its tenacity. It knew where it wanted to be, just like I did.
The lawn in front of the mansion burst with springy grass, and several students lounged on it, with books and guitars scattered around them.
A mermaid sat with her fluke dangling in a marble fountain that featured a concrete dragon with wings out and neck extended to attack. Instead of fire, water sprayed from her jaws.
The sight of the clear, sparkling water tugged at my heart and stirred the magic in my center. I touched my cuff again, reassuring myself of its presence. As long as I wore the cuff, I would only reveal myself if I wanted to.
Still, it was best that I stayed away from water for now.
The driver set my suitcase down, and I thanked him with a few folded twenties. He tipped his hat, and his shoes crunched on the white gravel drive as he went back to the driver’s seat. A moment later, he pulled away.
And with that, reality set in.
This was happening.
I was landlocked at Slaymore.
Tendrils of panic tried to curl around my stomach, but I clamped down on them. I wasn’t the type to get anxious. Panic was definitely nonsense, and I didn’t have time for that.
Taking a breath, I ran through the plan in my head again:Go to Slaymore, get my degree in Marine Mythology, go back to the Deep where I belong. Be studious, polite, and upstanding.
Those were my orders. Well, andfind a mate,but I had every intention of ignoring that last marching order from my mother. At twenty, I was too young to bind my life to someone else, no matter how dire she claimed the situation was at home.
I checked the pocket of my jacket. Yep, it was still there—the official letter accepting my attendance at Slaymore and documents that declared my status as an ambassador for the Bering Kraken clan.
Now that I’d checked off point one—Go to Slaymore—I had to present these papers to the headmistress. I was guessing she must have been in her office somewhere in the enormous funhouse in front of me.
“Hey!” Feet sounded on the drive behind me.
I flinched. It was hard getting used to the way things sounded above water. Turning, I came face-to-face with the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
His burnished skin seemed to radiate light. It was as though he’d captured the sun and refracted it, just like the warm afternoon light that shimmered across the surface of the ocean.
Golden hair curled in a gentle halo around his head, and his face was a study in strong lines. He had a sturdy, clean-shaven jaw, a proud nose, and eyes as blue as the Aegean Sea.
I stepped back to let him run past, assuming he’d seen a friend behind me, but the guy stopped…right in front of me.
“Hey,” he said again. He wore a blue T-shirt withSLAYMOREwritten across the front, and his mouth parted with a flash of white teeth that nearly had me reaching for my sunglasses. “New here? Looking for Headmistress Losia?”
“Uh…” My thoughts felt like they were trapped in honey.
Was my sudden flush of warmth because ofhimor the heat of the sunny day? His voice was so gentle, a rumbling presence that reminded me of the gentle giants of the sea.
“Who are you?” I quickly covered my mouth. This time, my flush was from pure mortification.
The guy just laughed and stuck out his hand. “Amadeus. My friends call me Deus.”
