Surviving Year One (Grim Reaper Academy 1)

I looked where Klaus was pointing at, and not very subtly either. The guy he was showing me was tall, well-built, with perfectly smooth olive skin, unruly black hair, and eyes so green that I could distinguish their unique, dark color from where I was standing, at the bottom of the stairs. God, he was gorgeous! And even though he was wearing the same uniform as all the other students, it fit him perfectly. It didn’t only show off his ripped abs and bulky arms, but also his strong calves and what looked like… a rather generous package between his legs. I chewed on my lower lip, which was something that I did when I was either terrified or horny. One had to know me well to be able to tell the difference. Sometimes, when I was horny, I was also terrified by my own urges. So, yeah!

“Paz. He and Pandora are betrothed. He’s a spawn of Satan, too. Their parents arranged their marriage even before they could crawl out of their crib.”

“Wait, wait.” Klaus had suddenly rushed up the stairs because the other students were gathering around the Headmaster, and he didn’t want to miss anything. “Paz and Pandora are both Satan’s children and they are to be married?! You’re saying they’re half siblings, and they bang?”

“Oh, they don’t only bang each other. But, yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Fucked up.”

Klaus shrugged. “Not in our world.”

I stuck a finger in my mouth and made gagging noises, but I stopped quickly when I saw a girl and a guy staring at me. He had his arm over her shoulders, while he held his scythe in his other hand. They were both mind-bogglingly handsome. The day wasn’t over, and I already felt like the ugly duckling. Not that I didn’t like the way I looked, but these people were a thousand times more good-looking than me! It was like the best artists in the world had banded together to paint the most gorgeous girls and boys that the human imagination could come up with. The guy’s blond hair was rich and curly, and when he moved, it caught the sun and turned just the right shade of fiery red. It was as if it was constantly changing as it responded to the type of light that bathed it. His eyes were the same. Silver, then golden, brown, dark blue. It was as if the artist who had come up with the concept of him hadn’t been able to stick to one look, so he made his colors, shades, and hues shift with his every move.

At some point, I realized I’d been staring like a stupid person. I smacked my lips to make sure I hadn’t been salivating all over the front of my uniform and made to walk past him and his girl. Too late. He’d noticed me and my brazen gawking. He pushed the girl away and pranced toward me like a big cat who’d just spotted its prey. Before I knew it, his arm was over my shoulders, pulling me in. He smelled like dried herbs that had been left too long in the sun. Elderberry and lemongrass, maybe.

“How’s it going, normie? Like what you see?”

He wiggled his brows at me, and I decided to pretend I didn’t understand what he meant.

“The Academy looks incredible.”

He laughed out loud. “Yeah, sure. Boring. I’m GC, by the way. If you want to flick the bean later in your bed, I figured you should at least know what name to scream.”

He winked, and I felt sick to my stomach. I pushed him away and placed my scythe between us.

“You’ve got a month on you,” I said.

He stuck his tongue out and made a suggestive flicking motion. “And you have no idea what it’s capable of. I’ve never fucked a human, and you’re decent looking. I’m not that picky, anyway. As long as it has a mouth and a cunt, I’m down. Make sure you stop by my room later. Help me tick the fuck-a-normie box on my bucket list.”

“You’re disgusting.” I turned my back to him and looked for Klaus. He was a few steps ahead of me, and he’d heard the whole exchange. “Hey! You left me there with that jerk.”

He gave me a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I’d rather stay out of Apis’s way.”

“Apis? He told me his name is GC. Like… what is that? What does it come from?”

“Golden Calf Apis.?

??

“Golden what?! What the fuck?” The name sounded strangely familiar, though. I was pretty sure I’d heard my dad mention it when he’d tried to make me read the Bible. The Old Testament. Oh, fuck! The Old Testament! “Mind. Blown. He can’t be… But the Golden Calf was not a person.”

“False god. He was, err… is a false god. And he is a person. And a calf, too.”

I needed more details, but Headmaster Colin opened the huge, heavy doors, and we all followed him inside. We went past rows of doors that I could guess led to offices and classrooms, then stopped in front of another large set of doors that seemed to lead outside. When I saw the inner court, my heart almost stopped. It was magnificent! A large, perfect square with a cluster of gazebos in the middle, guarded by old trees and beds of flowers and bushes on the sides, peppered with benches, swings, and even a couple of hammocks here and there. Oh my God! I want to live here forever! But I had already met Sariel and GC, and Paz, or whatever his name was, didn’t look very friendly, either. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.

“Pretty, huh?” Klaus was smiling from ear to ear. “Fuck, how much I hoped they’d send me a letter of invitation, too. It’s a privilege to be here. Only twenty-two Reaper spots in the entire world, and one hundred accepted candidates.”

“How many people applied?”

“This year? Shit, I don’t know. I’ve heard there were at least three hundred. They send a lot of letters, but they only accept one hundred students every two hundred years. They like to have a large pool they can pick from.”

“And what happened to those who weren’t accepted today?”

“Oh, they were already sent home. Don’t worry about it.” He beamed at me. “You’re here. You’ve made it. You’re gonna be a badass Reaper.”

“Yeah, right.” I huffed. “There’s still enough time for me to fuck up.”

We crossed the court and headed toward the back wing of the building. The doors were open this time, and we poured into a grand dining hall. There were four long, wooden tables lined up, with equally long wooden benches on each side. Up ahead, at front of the hall, there was another table that looked fancier, and that was currently half occupied by a few men and women. I immediately figured that must have been the professors’ table, and the people waiting were the parents who really wanted to see the sorting.