Ill Will Read online

  Ill Will

  Cate Corvin

  Copyright Notice

  ILL WILL

  All Rights Reserved © 2019 Cate Corvin. First Printing: 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover Design by Melody Simmons

  Author’s Note

  All characters in this story are 18 years of age and older, and all sexual acts are consensual. This book is a work of fiction and liberties may be taken with people, places, and historical events.

  Dedication

  To all the friends who tell me to keep on keepin’ on.

  Dear Readers

  Dear readers, this book is a bully romance. It is dark and very cruel in places, and not an easy path to a happily ever after. There will be triggers such as violent death, drug use, and some sexual situations, while consensual, might not be suitable for all readers. If reading these topics is disturbing to you, please take of yourself first.

  Contents

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  20. Chapter Twenty

  21. Chapter Twenty-One

  Keep in touch

  Also by Cate Corvin

  CHAPTER ONE

  ________

  TORI

  “It’s not too late to turn back. Nobody has to know you were supposed to be here.”

  My stepbrother lounged on the other half of the taxi’s backseat like he owned it. For all I knew, he did.

  Will Godalming, son of war hero Lord Percival Godalming and all-star pain-in-my-ass, had tiny lines of strain at the corners of his eyes. The prick was actually worried about what my presence in Libra Academy would do to his reputation.

  Unbelievable.

  “My registration’s already been paid for.” I returned his glare. “My mom asked me to go, so I’m going.”

  There was no way in hell I was going to let Will ruin this for me. Mom had spent her whole life pushing James and I to get into Libra Academy.

  Now her only remaining child had been granted a full scholarship for a year of formal education, thanks to my new stepfather, and Will wanted me to back out.

  Will’s seafoam-green eyes ran over me from head to toe, attempting to look neutral, but he could never quite hide the omnipresent glint of malice. “I wasn’t under the impression you wanted to matriculate at all, much less from such a prestigious institution. Why put yourself through this?”

  He sounded almost reasonable, but he never pushed for anything without an ulterior motive.

  “Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you want,” I mumbled, glancing out the window. “You’ll survive. It’s only a year, and then you never have to see me again.”

  “The year is the problem. You don’t belong here.” Will ran a hand through thick chestnut hair, all six-foot-three of him taking up most of the taxi’s backseat. His eyes were hooded and sharp under thick brows, the bridge of his nose slightly crooked from at least one break. His upper lip was a touch fuller than the lower, lending the faintest cherubic cast to his features.

  I knew by now that Will Godalming was anything but cherubic. A pair of horns would’ve been more appropriate.

  “You’ll barely see me.” It took every last drop of willpower to keep myself from snapping at him. “Won’t we be divided into teams? I don’t get why this such an issue for you. It’s one year of study to make my mom happy, okay?”

  Will ticked his answers off on his fingers. “Yes. Because it is. And not okay. If my father had any sense, he never would’ve tarnished our reputation in the first place by marrying a Holmwood.” He couldn’t keep the sneer out of his voice when he said my family name. I wasn’t sure he even tried.

  My throat tightened. After a long summer of wandering the Godalming mansion alone while my mom emerged from her shell long enough to enjoy her honeymoon, feeling distinctly unwanted by everyone and everything I came across, here was the crux.

  I touched the tattooed rope of black dots at the base of my throat, the dots ranging from minuscule pinpricks to the size of a dime. It was the mark of my birth-clan, Holmwood, emblazoned around my neck for any slayer to read. The dots seemed to pulse under my fingertips.

  Will had a tattoo much like mine, but the pattern clearly delineated that he was a Godalming, with the full honors and prestige accorded to that name.

  Mom had gotten the Godalming pattern added to her own Holmwood necklace after the wedding, but I’d refused on principle. Once a Holmwood, always a Holmwood.

  “Well, they did marry,” I said, taking a deep, steadying breath. “And it wasn’t your choice to make for either of them. Or mine.”

  Both of us lapsed into a tense silence. The glass-and-cement skyscrapers of New York rose around us, piercing a dense fog that seemed to hang over the city like a cloud. Regret had already settled in my bones; I didn’t belong here.

  But Mom had actually smiled, a real smile, when I’d told her I’d go to Libra and bond with my new stepbrother, and come back with the honors my brother James had wanted to win so badly. With the exception of her marriage to Percival, who’d come riding into our lives on a white horse only six months ago, it was the first time I’d seen genuine happiness on her face in the last three years.

  Neither Will nor I approved of their whirlwind romance and subsequent marriage, but I wasn’t going to piss on my mother’s parade. She’d been through too much already, and despite his son, Percival did seem to genuinely care for her. He’d been like the proud father I’d never had when I told him I wanted to go to Libra alongside my new stepbrother.

  Will’s thin tolerance of me had become a pure, crystal hatred from that day on.

  The taxi pulled to the side and slowed to a halt in front of a breathtaking building. “The Caitland-Moore Museum,” the driver said in a thick Brooklyn accent.

  Like a beacon of vibrance in the endlessly dreary city, the Caitland-Moore was a confection of pink marble shot through with glittering silver veins, colonnades topped with trumpeting angels. The hopeful little girl in me wanted to gasp at the sight, but the older, more jaded part just scoffed, gripping my messenger back with white-knuckled fingers.

  There were no more angels.

  Warm fingers wrapped around my fist and my heart shot into my throat. Will leaned towards me, taking up all the air in the cab, those green eyes boring into mine. He smelled expensive, like mint and cedar, a scent so heady I tried not to breathe in.

  God must’ve hated me on the day he gave me such an angry, alluring stepbrother.

  “Last chance, Victoria.” His voice was cultured and smooth, dark and rich as chocolate. “Just leave. Go back to where you came from, become yet another podunk moonspawn slayer, and stay out of my life.”

  I didn’t need the prestige or any fancy degrees. I already knew how to be a slayer; I’d been working as one since I’d become a legal adult three years ago. I was here for one reason, and one reason only: because James’ dream had been to be accepted into Libra Academy, and then he’d died in
a terrible, shitty way, and now I was going to do what he’d been unable to.

  I’d spend a year of my life here in his memory. I would see to it that the Holmwood family name was engraved on these walls with pride, or die trying.

  The taxi idled. The rain fell. Will’s full lips pressed into a thin line as he read the resolve on my face.

  “Have you ever killed a moonspawn, Will?”

  He cocked an eyebrow, but gave his reluctant answer. “No.”

  I held my hand out, showing him the underside of my left wrist.

  Five tiny crescent moons, no wider than a baby’s fingernail, were inked in vivid scarlet on my skin. “For someone so willing to talk trash about us ‘podunk’ slayers, you seem a little behind the power curve.”

  His lip curled and I practically flung myself out of the taxi, taking a deep breath of grimy, sour city air before I ducked my head back into the open cab, one hand braced on the door.

  He wanted podunk? He’d get some fucking podunk.

  “So, you can piss off with all this talk of ‘tarnishing reputations’. It’s not like you’re doing your own family much credit. I’m already here, and I’m doing this, and you’ll have to get over your precious feelings.” I slammed the door and popped the trunk to grab my suitcase. Will was at my side a moment later, raising his chin to look down his nose at me with venomous eyes.

  “Then everything that happens from here on out is on your own head, stepsister dear.”

  The taxi pulled away and I followed Will as he strode confidently into the gleaming Caitland-Moore.

  It was dry but freezing cold inside, and I immediately started shivering in my rain-flecked hoodie and jeans. Will stripped off his leather jacket and slung it over his shoulder, revealing a brawny physique in a white tee shirt, and goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold rose all over my skin.

  Nope. I was not going there.

  The Caitland-Moore was nearly empty at this late hour. Our footsteps echoed, bouncing off the high ceilings festooned with a fresco of angels. To our left, a massive archway looked in on the Hall of Geology, a thousand rainbow pinpricks of light glittering off the gems in their glass cases, and to the left, Will was striding into the Hall of Dinosaurs.

  I hurried after him, jogging under the wired-open skull of a roaring Tyrannosaurus Rex, passing exhibits of posed ankylosauruses and stegosaurus eggs.

  A steel door labeled STAFF ONLY was nestled between pterodactyls and a stuffed reinterpretation of a saber-toothed tiger. Its yellow glass eyes gleamed forebodingly as Will yanked the door open and disappeared into the concrete stairwell. Behind us, a human woman eyed us suspiciously, but she didn’t follow.

  We went down several flights, carrying our suitcases. I was starting to think Will was playing another one of his stupid pranks on me after we’d descended six flights of stairs. But hiding my panties in Percival’s dresser was way more humiliating than stupid, wasn’t it?

  My growing unease lessened when we reached a door at the bottom of the concrete spiral.

  Unlike the staff door, this one was made of carved ebony. Dull, iron-plated runes encircled the edges, and the wood itself looked like a scene out of a fairytale: angels and demons battled in the sky above a field of slayers warring against moonspawn, while vampires waited below for their blood with open mouths.

  Will pressed his hand to the door, said his name, and winced.

  A bead of blood rolled over the wood and the door opened.

  “Welcome to the real Caitland-Moore Museum,” Will said. “Libra Academy is below.” His smile was thin and dangerous.

  I stepped in after him and the ebony door boomed as it shut behind us.

  The walls and floor were pure white granite, glittering like snow, and the floodlights were trained on the plinth in the main hall. An eight-foot-tall articulated skeleton glared down at us with eyeless sockets, the thick, silvery bones denoting a male specimen.

  A pair of preserved, pearly wings spread behind the skeleton, casting a massive shadow over the hall.

  “My god. They have a fucking angel.”

  “And that should be your first clue that there is no God, genius.”

  I shouldered past my stepbrother, nerves zipping to life in my stomach. This wasn’t just fun and games anymore. I was standing in the foyer of an ancient institution that had a motherfucking real-life dead angel waiting to greet people.

  “Don’t be a dick, Will. Besides, nobody’s ever proven he’s dead.”

  “If this is your idea of impressive, you’ve going to sink here faster than I thought. Christ.”

  He could threaten me all he liked, but those threats were empty. His idea of raining hell down on someone’s head was to sneak their panties into his Father’s chest of drawers.

  I could handle that.

  Part of me hoped that I’d be assigned to the opposite team so I’d get to prove my mettle against him. He may have had three years of education at an elite slayer academy… but I had four years of hands-on, balls-to-the-wall life experience in a town with a massive moonspawn population.

  No contest, if you ask me.

  “And just how much proof do you need?”

  A new voice rang through the hall, dark, smoky, pure sex.

  Will rolled his eyes and I spun around, taking in the new arrival.

  When I’d first laid eyes on Will Godalming, I hadn’t thought it was possible for someone to be so gorgeous in real life.

  This guy was his darker, more sinister counterpart. He was tall and burly, his muscled chest and arms clearly limned under his dark shirt. Inky hair was cropped close to his scalp, showing off chiseled bone structure under bronze skin.

  His eyes were black as onyx, cold and deep, framed with thick lashes.

  God might be dead, but he seemed to be raining blessings on my head today.

  My eyes automatically dropped to his neck, looking for his clan necklace, but his collar hid it.

  “About time you got here, Godalming.” I could listen to that voice all day. He slowly looked me up and down, but there was none of Will’s malice in it, just an approving heat. “And who is this?”

  “This is my new stepsister, Victoria Holmwood.” Will would’ve sounded more excited about a funeral. “Tori, Sergio Enver. Goes by Sura.”

  Sura’s dark eyes ran over me from head to toe, and his lip curled in a seductive smile when he took my hand. “He said you were a pain in the ass, but he didn’t tell me you were beautiful, too.”

  He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it, sending sparks of desire through my veins.

  Where had this hunky delight of a beefcake been all my life?

  “I... uh...” For once in my life, words threatened to fail me. “Takes a pain in the ass to know one.” I cast a smirk at my stepbrother.

  One way or another, we were going to bond like siblings, and he was going to like it.

  Will just met my gaze steadily, his eyes lightening to a pale jade. “We’re going to be late for team assignments. Let’s go.”

  Sura looped my arm through his as we walked. My heart jumped into my throat, trying its hardest to hammer right through my ribcage.

  This close, he smelled like oudh and pepper, with a faint hint of vanilla.

  As delicious as he looked. Just breathing him in was filling my head with ideas of what he looked like under that shirt, but… he was Will’s best friend. Lusting after your dickish stepbrother’s bestie was never a recipe for success.

  We stopped in front of an enormous circular aquarium in the center of a broad rotunda. I slowed to a halt when I realized it didn’t contain a drop of water.

  It was filled with air that shimmered like veils, a spindly, scrawny figure twisting in the middle of it. It looked like an emaciated, pale human…

  “Fae,” Sura said, barely giving the aquarium a second glance. “Sylph, I think. Fries all electronics. Hope you didn’t bring your phone.”

  I had brought my phone, which was probably a useless brick in my sui
tcase now.

  “Thanks for warning me, Will,” I muttered.

  My asshole stepbrother just raised a hand ahead of us. I kept my eyes firmly focused above his sculpted ass.

  Well, maybe I peeked once. But it was less than a second.

  “It’s a prank they play on all the new students.” Sura’s grin was crooked, showing white teeth. “Will’s always had a juvenile sense of humor. Lux or Tenebris?”

  The sudden question caught me off-guard. “What?”

  I probably seemed like a brainless moron. Maybe he had this effect on all women.

  “Senior year is divided into two teams: Lux, to stand for light, and Tenebris, to stand for darkness.”

  “Why would anyone want to stand for darkness?” I muttered. Vampires, demons, moonspawn… they were creatures of darkness. Not us.

  Sura’s smile faded a little, and I wondered if I’d said something wrong. “Because without their duality, we would stand for nothing. Keep that in mind, Victoria the Beautiful. They spent freshman year hammering the elemental equation into our heads, and sophomore year was spent on sacred geometry.”

  “Junior year was shades of morality,” Will said over his shoulder. “Two per team, twenty teams.”

  “And now we’ve moved to the final year, the greatest dichotomy of them all.” Sura’s arm flexed a little, just enough for me to feel the steel of dense muscle under my fingertips. Was that intentional? It had to be. “So, which one, beautiful?”

  “Lux, of course.” I still remembered the sting of the needle when I got my first sickle tattoo, celebrating my first moonspawn kill. Light would always drive out darkness.