Basic Witch: A Reverse Harem Academy Romance (Academy of the Dark Arts Book 1) Read online

  Basic Witch

  Academy of the Dark Arts Book 1 - A Reverse Harem Academy Romance

  Nikki Dean

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Tricky Witch

  Photo Inspirations for The Guys

  Saving Their Trainer Excerpt

  Also by Nikki Dean

  Basic Witch

  Nikki Dean

  Copyright 2019, all rights reserved.

  No part of this document can be duplicated, shared or referenced in any way except directly to the author, Nikki Dean. It is not for resale or distribution, and is for the sole purpose of gathering feedback before publication. This work is entirely fictional, and does not represent actual people. Any similarities are purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  "Mal, you have to promise. You have to promise me that you won't do anything stupid, Mal."

  Mallory Serra gave her older brother, her best friend in the entire shitty world, what she hoped was a convincing smile. "I don't know what you're talking about, but don’t worry, okay? Just be still." She scooted closer, the blood seeping through her jeans as she cradled his head in her lap. A rat squeaked from the corner.

  Where is everyone?! I told them to call the paramedics, they should be here by now, shouldn’t they?! Please be all right, Paul, please be all right.

  Paul groaned. She couldn't tell if it was from pain, or his obvious annoyance with her glib remark, but she was hoping it was at least a little of both. The blood steadily pumping out of him made her think maybe it was the former, no matter how much she tried to distract him. She pressed her hand harder against the wound, trying to make it stop.

  "I'm serious. This wasn't an accident, Mal, or some random attack and I have to know that you're safe. Can you do that for me? Stay safe for once in your life, and don't do anything dumb?"

  "Hey, I’m offended by that.” She glared at him, annoyed that he was still pushing her buttons even in this dire of a situation. It was dark enough that she couldn’t see much of the grisly scene around them, but she could feel it. The dingy walls lined with stinking trash, and who-knows-what liquids were soaking her clothes. A pair of raccoons looked over the edge of the dumpster, intrigued by the goings-on, and completely unintimidated by the skinny alley cat that sat nearby.

  She knew what at least some of it was, though. The growing puddle of red reaching farther and farther out from beneath her big brother had hit her jean-clad knees, the warmth making her shiver as she had realized he was bleeding so much. I just need to keep him talking. Talking means he’s awake, and awake means alive. Stay with me, Paul. “Of course I will. I was just kidding, I know what you mean. I'll stay home with Mom and keep working at the diner, like we always planned. You’ll be out of the hospital in no time, I’m sure. But, Paul, what do you mean it wasn’t random? Do you know who did this to you? And why?” she asked, stroking his light blond hair, the same color as hers, from his face. Sirens blared behind her, the red and blue lights flickering across the alley walls before the cars even got to their street. They didn't have long now. Thank god.

  "I don't want you involved. Don’t want you to get hurt. Just promise me that you'll stay at the diner, and take care of Mom when Dad's not around. I don't know if I'll be able to make it back." His last words ended on a wheeze and she had to blink back tears, telling herself not to let them fall. There would be time for that later.

  "You'll be fine, you big baby. The paramedics are on their way now, and you'll be fine. Try to tell the police who did this, if you can, and they’ll catch him. But until then, you should rest, okay? Rest so you can come home faster."

  He shook his head, unable to talk any more. Desperate, he tugged on her long hair, pulling her ear down to his lips. "Love you, Mal, tell Mom and Dad... tell them..."

  "I'll tell them that you love them, and you'll be home in time to help Mom with the next shipment." The rat squeaked again, venturing out into the light. It was accompanied by two more. Go away! She didn’t say it aloud, but they went anyway.

  He grimaced as he nodded, letting go of her. His hand fell limply to the pavement with a soft smacking sound and she couldn’t prevent the sob that choked her, or the tears that fell from her eyes. “Please be okay, Paul. You have to be okay. I need you.”

  "Get away from him, miss, give us some room!" a paramedic ordered as he fell to his knees beside Paul, rushing to unpack his first aid kit. “You need to move so his head is flat on the ground!”

  She did, laying him down as gently as possible. Another paramedic showed up, shouldering her out of the way to grab a packet of gauze, pressing the clean, white cotton to Paul’s chest. "Do you know what happened to him?"

  Mallory shook her head, finally silent.

  "Who are you? What's his name and position?" the second paramedic barked more questions as he ripped Paul's shirt open and immediately began mopping up blood with a sterile towel, trying to assess the extent of his injuries. The movement jostled the knife sticking out of Paul's chest, causing more blood to stream down his side, and the medic grabbed a fresh square to wrap around it, trying to keep it from inflicting more damage.

  How much blood can one person possibly have inside him? she wondered, numb as she watched it soak through the gauze he had shoved inside Paul’s flesh, right beside the blade.

  "I've got a white male, several lacerations to his torso, three stab wounds, one still has the weapon inside it," the first paramedic called over his shoulder. "I've stabilized it for transport, but he's lost a lot of blood and needs a transfusion. Cops on their way?"

  Someone said something in the affirmative, but Mallory wasn't sure what it was. The blue and red lights kept flashing, giving the whole alley a surreal glow, making her brother's pale face look more otherworldly than human.

  “Is he going to be okay?” she asked. No one answered. “Hey. Is he going to…” she couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Not if we can get him to the hospital in time, miss. Do you know him?”

  She nodded. “He’s my brother, Paul. Please help him.”

  Another gauze was soaked through. The paramedic replaced it without hesitation, dropping the used one to the ground beside Paul's body.

  “We’re doing the best we can. Now back up a little and give us some room.”

  She backed up and held her phone high, trying to give them some light. Neither paramedic acknowledged her actions, but she could see for herself that it was helping. That was, until a bird swooped down and landed on her arm, weighing it down. She shook her hand to get it off, earning a look of annoyance from one of the medics. An owl hooted from a nearby rooftop, its eerie call echoing in the alley, even if Mal was the only one that heard it beneath the sirens screaming in the street.

  “Sorry, I just… sorry.” She wiped tears from her face with her other hand and he looked back down to Paul.

&nbs
p; Just then, more people streamed into the tight space, two carrying a board between them. Mallory could only watch as they laid it out beside her brother, then picked him up and set him heavily upon it. The tomcat hissed in disdain.

  Weren't you supposed to roll him on, instead of picking him up like that? She had no idea where the thought came from, only that it did. Too many late-night medical shows, maybe, but his low groan of agony told her she was right. Why don’t they treat him more gently?

  They took off with him, carrying him between them as they ran for a stretcher. She followed behind and watched as they worked on him in the street, strapping him down and covering his legs with an emergency blanket. More flashing lights accompanied emergency vehicles arriving on the scene, this time the police instead of medical staff.

  This is bad, this is really, really bad. I hope he’s going to be okay. Why haven’t they told me where they’re taking him? What do I do? Completely overwhelmed, she started to feel nauseous and wrapped her arms around her belly to try to steady herself. One of the raccoons chittered softly from the alley behind her.

  "Hey, girl! What’s your name? What happened to him, and how do you know him?" The questions were fired at her as though from a gun, each denting the wall of numbness that separated her from the scene before her. Her heart clenched and panic welled in her chest as she lost the ability to speak for a moment.

  The tomcat wrapped around her ankles with a rumbling purr, bringing her back to herself.

  She watched as they loaded Paul into the back of the white ambulance, paramedics clambering in to fill the spaces around him, and realized too late that she needed to get in if she was going to go with them.

  “Wait!” she yelled with a step in their direction. Something stopped her in her tracks. “Wait!”

  Their voices blended as they worked on him, stripping open sterile bags of syringes and stabbing Paul to inject medicines and IVs before the doors slammed shut. No one heard her.

  "Hey, that's my brother! Where are you taking him?!" she yelled again, jerking her arm free and running after the ambulance. It was too late. They took off, sirens screaming a desperate plea for more time, time to get to the hospital, time that Paul might have left in this world.

  "I'll take you to him after you've answered some questions," a uniformed officer answered her. "Your name and registration card, please. You said that was your brother?"

  “Why did you stop me?” she asked. “I should have gone with him.”

  He didn’t answer, but his lips thinned as he pressed them together in irritation.

  "It’s in my purse," she replied dully, looking away to watch the ambulance careen around a corner. Its lights kept flashing, illuminating the freeway supports a few seconds after the white vehicle itself was gone. “Can’t we do this at the hospital? Where are they taking him? Is he going to be okay?”

  "I’m sure he will be. Right now you need to worry about giving me your registration papers so we can get finished here, and you can go meet up with him. Where’s your purse?" the officer asked.

  Mal touched her hip, where her sequined crossbody bag had been hanging all night. It wasn't there. She looked around in confusion until she remembered. "I took it off in the alley, when I found Paul. I had to get my phone out to see, so it must be back there. Can you just take me to the hospital?”

  The officer sighed in obvious annoyance, then grasped her elbow. He put his notepad away on his belt and took out a small, high-powered flashlight instead. "I need to ask you a few questions before I can let you go, and you need to show me some identification so I know you’re telling the truth. Let's go find your purse."

  “But Paul…” She kept looking back at the street as though she could still see him there, only vaguely aware that the officer was tugging her along, pulling her back into the alleyway. “I need to stay with him.”

  “Well, he’s already gone, so let’s get this taken care of. I don’t see your purse back here.”

  “What?” she turned, stumbling in the gloom as she looked around for her bag. She saw the gauze the paramedic had dropped, and the blood. There’s so much blood.

  But no purse. None of them would have taken it, I’m sure. Well, maybe one of the little trash bandit raccoons. They’ve never done it before though.

  The cop looked at her impatiently, then widened the scope of his flashlight so it illuminated more of the alley. No one else was there, and neither was her stuff.

  “Maybe you forgot where you put it. Why don’t you start by telling me what happened?”

  “I had just come out of the door and everything was okay at first, then people started screaming and running. Paul tried to hit some guy in a hoodie, then fell onto the ground. I ran to him and saw the blood. It was everywhere.” She paused to take a shaky breath, looking down at her bloody hands. Streaks of it covered her arms and shirt, and her jeans were red from the knees down. “I couldn’t see much, just that he was really hurt. I took off my purse to get my phone out because the light above the door is broken, so I needed my flashlight, and then…”

  She stopped talking, unable to continue for a second. “I don’t know who did it, or why. Paul said he didn’t know either.”

  “Right. The victims never know.” The sarcasm was heavy in his voice and she looked up at him quickly, her eyes narrowing at his tone.

  “So where’s the purse, if you left it right here?”

  It was gone, but it had clearly been open when it was snatched, leaving a trail of her things strewn across the nasty concrete. Fucking raccoons.

  She glared at the pair that still lingered in the dumpster and they shrank back, afraid of her flash of annoyance with them. She reached out along the magical web that seemed to branch out in her mind, questioning the pair with a mental image of the purse and a sense of need. Neither of them seemed familiar with it.

  She turned back and followed the trail of junk that she knew had been in her bag. Her registration card lay halfway in a puddle, the cheap laminating giving way to whatever sludge that was soaking into it. She picked it up and shook it off, then handed it to the officer.

  “Do you have another flashlight? My phone is almost dead,” she asked, looking around for the rest of her stuff. Doing something, anything, was better than just standing there staring at that spot where she had found her brother.

  The metal lid of her lipstick tube cast a meager reflection, and she went to pick it up when the officer didn’t answer, choosing instead to read her registration in silence. One of the raccoons skittered out of a corner, holding an object. She knelt and it thrust the hard object into her palm before running away. Mallory sent a flash of gratitude to it as she turned it over in her hand, trying to figure out what it was.

  It was small and round, but with hard, flat sides. About two inches across and heavier than she would have thought it would be, she squinted at it in confusion.

  It’s a sigil, she realized in stunned disbelief. From one of the academies, but it looks really old. Could a student have been who attacked Paul, or someone else from his school, the Academy of Science? But why? That doesn’t make any sense… He said he was doing well.

  She stared at it, trying to make out the shapes carved into its front. It looks like some kind of animal. I doubt whoever had it was the attacker, more likely that it came from the dumpster, and the raccoon was only trying to help. Someone will be looking for it, at any rate, and definitely wouldn’t want it found by the cops.

  “This says you’re a food service worker?” he finally asked, shining his light in her direction. Mal turned away from him and shoved the sigil into her bra. She didn’t know why, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

  She saw her bus pass a few steps away and picked it up, then her mascara a few steps from that. Now in the corner, she looked around to see if she could find anything else. Her wallet was still missing, and her purse itself.

  “You’re a waitress?” The cop asked again, coming closer. “In Winn, out on th
e outskirts?”

  “Yeah, at my parent’s diner. Lancatelli’s, you heard of it? It’s about an hour from here. My brother, Paul, and I took the bus into the city for the night. We were celebrating his first semester at the Academy of Science being over.” Picturing his happy face smiling down at her as he declared that he had survived the first four-month semester made her smile a little before the tears began to fall. I hope he’s okay. You have to be okay, Paul.

  “Good for him. I haven’t heard of it, it’s an Italian joint?”

  She nodded. “I help out on the evenings and weekends. I’m about to graduate from high school.”

  He gave a low whistle. “Already got your working permit and still in high school, huh? That’s a little odd.”

  A tinkling noise sounded above them, and Mal looked up as she answered. “Not really. My parents needed help, and it’s a family business. They put in for my papers early since we all know where I’ll end up eventually. What’s the point of going to one of the academies when they need me now?”

  “Your brother do the same thing?” he asked, gesturing vaguely. Still, she knew what he meant.

  “Nah. They pushed him toward school, even though he didn’t want to go either. He,” she paused, trying to think of how to word it as she wiped her nose, “had a rough time. So they aren’t forcing me to do the same thing.”

  “Oh, yeah? Something wrong with you and your brother? Aside from his obvious leaking, that is?” He chuckled at his own joke.

  Mal glared at him, then looked away, not wanting to antagonize him. Instead she allowed her gaze to drift up the wall beside her, then grabbed the cop’s wrist.