Surviving Year One (Grim Reaper Academy 1)

“Depends on what side you’re on. The holy or the unholy. I bet Lorna still carries the original sin.” We both laughed. Yeah, she was carrying many sins alright.

Now, the only problem was that it had no sleeves at all. I tried to find a similar model with long sleeves, but there was no use. If I wanted long sleeves, then I’d have to give up on the corset. And I really, really liked the corset. Klaus was confused.

“Wait. I thought you liked this dress.” He held it up. I’d asked him to hold onto it, so no one else would snatch it.

“I do. But I want to have my arms covered, too.”

“Why? It’s a ball! I know it’s at the end of December, but believe me, they will have the heaters in the whole building running on full blast.”

I bit my lower lip. I didn’t like lying to Klaus but telling him the truth was out of the question. I touched my old wristbands. God, I really needed to buy myself some new ones!

“It doesn’t matter why. I just want to have my arms covered.”

After another minute, he shrugged and gave up. “Okay, whatever. What about a pair of long gloves, then? The kind that reach up over your elbow?”

“Oh my God, you’re a genius!”

It took us another half hour to find a pair of light pink, velvet gloves that worked just perfect with my dress.

I hid the dress from GC, and he saw it only the night of the ball, when he came to my room to pick me up. His jaw dropped, and I couldn’t lie. That made me feel even better in my own skin. I’d dyed my hair blue again and straightened it, put on a pair of black high heels, which I still had from my first high school prom and weren’t too beaten up, and sprayed just a bit of rose water all around me. Not too sexy, but not plain, either. The long, velvet gloves complimented my outfit just right, giving my dress an air of elegance it couldn’t have achieved on its own. I couldn’t have made a better

choice. Chic, but practical, too.

GC bit down hard on his lower lip, and I could tell he was doing his best to act normal, and not throw me on the bed, lock the door, and fuck me right then and there. Huh. Maybe he does care about me. Well, if he proves to be a gentleman tonight, maybe we can sneak back to the tower and have him make me a woman before he leaves with his parents in the morning. Yep. I was a virgin. And that had only added to my paranoia. I didn’t want my first time to be something I’d regret all my life. I wanted it to be with someone I trusted, not someone who’d betray me right after he got what he’d wanted all along. And GC Apis, the false god, might just have proven himself worthy.

“You look like a goddess.”

“Not a normie goddess?”

He shook his head. He couldn’t take his blue eyes off of me, and I didn’t mind it at all.

“There’s nothing normal about you. In a good way. In the best way possible!”

“Aww… look who’s turned into a sappy sap sap puppy.”

He growled low in his chest. “Do you want me to shift and show you I’m anything but what you’ve just said?”

I kissed his nose. “Only if you let me ride you to the ball.”

“Don’t challenge me. I’ll do it.”

I laughed out loud. “Oh my God, we’d both roll down the stairs and break our necks.”

“I can shift at the ball, if you want,” he grinned, and for a second, I thought he really was being serious.

“What? And go naked in front of everyone? In front of your mother?”

He pouted. “Not in front of my mother.”

“Good. You’d better behave. I don’t want people to think my boyfriend is a savage.”

“So, now you care about what people think?”

I laughed. “You know I don’t.” He offered me his arm, and we went down to the dining room, which had been reorganized and redecorated for the Yule Ball. I couldn’t help wondering, though… Had I changed? Maybe I did care what people thought about me. I was GC’s girlfriend, and he was everything that I was not. He came from a good family, he came from wealth. Suddenly, as we walked through the doors of the ball room, I wasn’t feeling very well. If it hadn’t been for what Klaus and I had planned for later, I would have bolted right back up the stairs and locked myself up in my room. GC had promised me his parents were okay with me, but the moment to meet them had come, and I wasn’t ready.

The long, wide tables and wooden benches had been replaced by a bunch of round tables and upholstered chairs, which to me looked a lot more comfortable. Four families could sit around a table, and each guest’s place had been decided beforehand by Headmaster Colin and a couple of professors who’d helped him make the right decisions. Apparently, having all the parents sit together the day of the test hadn’t been the greatest idea. So, the Headmaster had decided to separate them. For instance, GC’s parents sat at the same table with Klaus’s parents, which worked for me. Francis’s father was sitting with them, too, and since his mother hadn’t come, there was a free spot for me. The fourth family at our table was with a girl from the Righteous Death Cabal with whom I hadn’t interacted at all.

With a warm hand on the small of my back, GC guided me toward his parents, who were chatting with Francis and his father. Klaus hadn’t come down yet, and I was sure he was still stuck in front of the mirror, wondering if he looked manly enough in his tuxedo. I threw a glance at his parents, and I understood right away why he was so scared of them. They both looked like they had two sticks up their asses.