Academy of Thaumaturgy Book One: Verboten Love http://www.wattpad.

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Available for purchase at www.danaeayusso.com you can also peek the cover at the website and the sequel, Academy of Thaumaturgy: Veils of Deception, is posted in the story group above. Currently I am working on the third installment: Lies of the Unified House. The Chapter markers disappeared, sorry. Academy of Thaumaturgy: Verboten Love The morning air was exceptionally cold for the time of the year. Lucky for me, the sweat covering nearly every inch of my body was only adding to the frigid temperature-that's sarcasm in case you missed it. I've never been a fan of the weather in British Columbia. I really miss Northern California-the sun, sand and sandals-sadly I am stuck here. The last signs of fall were crunching under my feet as I ran for my life through the ancient maples, occasionally sliding on the frost covered leaves. Between the lack of visibility thanks to the dense fog hanging at tree level, the frost covering everything the eye can see-which wasn't much-and the songs of the birds still in the area; it was a beautiful morning. It was if you overlook the two hundred and twenty-five pound vyras quickly gaining on me, his snarling teeth glistening with salvia, breath coming out in hard frozen puffs. Welcome to my life. Each stride I made covered more than a yard, but he was gaining on me, and fast. I splashed through a freezing creek. "Damn it," I complained under my breath. The vyras growled. They don't particularly like water, so he jumped it in a single bound. I could have as well if I would have been paying attention. This sucks. Once I broke through the trees, I ran across the lacrosse fields in a sprint; heart racing, ears filled with the deafening pounding of my adrenaline

charged blood. The rain that had assaulted the region earlier in the week caused the drainage fields to flood so I veered towards them, and started trudging my way through the freezing knee-deep water. The vyras growled loudly in protest, the water wasn't deep, but it wasn't something he wanted to wade through. I looked over my shoulder at the snarling beast and smiled, flipping him off. That set him off and he started after me. Damn it! Why do I have to antagonize them? Them? Vyras, werewolves, lycans, verr, fear, vir, wulf, weir, warg, garoul, take your pick it all translates to the same thing-pissed off wolf man. At the end of the drainage field was a ditch, five feet deep ten feet wide. Few know about it but last year I had to help the groundskeeper for two hundred hours worth of community service after I put the headmaster's car in the aquatics center. Okay, that's a stretch, put is a little too vague, so let me rephrase that. After I placed the former headmaster's new Mercedes in the bottom of the lap pool before a swim meet. Some would say that I have problems with authority, and for once, I am in complete agreement. The vyras was closing in on me, but wouldn't be for much longer. Either this plan was brilliant or was going to get me horribly wet with a damn vyras on top of me. The russet colored beast snapped at my heels so I mustered up my last reserve of energy to put more distance between us. Teeth in the back of the ankle hurt. The ditch was covered in fog. I knew exactly where it was, I used to hide there and drink beers with Slevin while he animated the push-mower, another strange and unusual punishment from the former headmaster. Drinking cold beers was the perfect way to combat the summer heat-okay, Slevin drank the beers while I drank Coca-Cola, I'm not much of a drinker. When I was two strides from the edge of the ditch, I stuck my foot down and pushed off sending my body flying over the fog covered moat. I kicked through the air, please let me make it to the other side dry. Just as my feet touched down the other side, I heard a loud splash behind me. "Looks like you're all wet," I laughed over my shoulder slipping across the grass pivoting towards the school. Loud growls flowed from behind me, unfortunately he was quickly closing the distance, and I was running out of energy. The last of my strength was starting to falter as I ran into the main courtyard of the school. A group of students was lingering, looking bored and cold. "Coming through!" I called out dancing around them as the vyras slid into the courtyard behind me. I jumped over a grouping of benches getting a

couple of laughs from some of the students. I couldn't run anymore, this was just crap and totally unfair, so I beeline towards a circular bench that wrapped around a tall maple tree. I stepped up on it and scrambled up the tree, high into its upper branches where he couldn't reach me. The vyras climbed up on the bench and growled at me. "I told you that you wouldn't beat me," I taunted gasping for air. Another loud growled rolled from his chest before his body started to elongate as he erected himself standing on his hind legs. The russet colored fur blended away into a delicious caramel colored flesh covering his perfect muscular body; tall and lean with abs I could wash clothes on, shoulder length light brown hair with golden highlights and large black eyes. Magical shorts act as a second skin, otherwise he'd be standing there completely naked-you've got to love our schools fashion department. "You so cheated!" Harper complained; his British accent makes everything he says sound intelligent and sexy. "Oh come on," I teased flipping around so I was hanging upside down on one of the branches, my hair within his reach. "I only cheated a little," I smiled innocently at him. "A little my ass, I really didn't feel like going for a swim this morning." He hollowly complained wrapping a lock of my hair around his fingers. "What is that now, seven to twelve?" "Six to thirteen, my friend," I corrected flipping off of the branch landing in front of him. "Rematch tomorrow?" I smirked. Before he could tell me no, he always tells me no, Master Dade appeared in front of us. "What the hell, Ari? Can't you follow directions at all?" he threw his clipboard on the ground and ran his slender hands through his graying hair. "I'm sorry, did you just meet me?" I raised an eyebrow. "Honestly Master Dade, how are we supposed to get real world training when you give us boundaries?" I put on my best valley-girl accent, "Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Big-BadTerrible-Soulless-and-Terrifying upir, you stepped out of bounds so will you please throw yourself on this stake?" I broke a small branch off of the tree and held it up. "Pretty please," I batted my lashes at him. Harper jabbed me in the side with his elbow silently warning me to stop pushing my luck. "Chill out Buffy the Vampire Slayer," he whispered. Master Dade rolled his eyes and picked up his clipboard calling over the

other students. "Ari and Harper, twenty-nine minutes and seventeen seconds," he eventually said. "Is that a new record?" I smiled like a cheesy game show host causing him to laugh, but it was forced. "No." "What?" I demanded. "That can't be right! That is nearly a half hour of active evasion." I really need to work on my hyper competitive nature. Master Dade smiled smugly at me, "First of all, of all you were treed-" "By choice," I corrected. He ignored me, "And the record was set earlier today at thirty minutes and twenty-eight seconds." "Son of a bitch," I growled, I hate losing. "Who holds it?" "I do," a smug voice said from the other side of the tree. I hadn't noticed that anyone was even over there. A tall boy, correction, man, walked from behind the tree and smirked at me. He was tall, six-four give or take, long but not lean, he was built with wide shoulders and broad chest, his sweat drenched shirt pulled tight across his chest emphasizing his defined body. All of that was nice but his face held my attention the longest; pale skin, rugged manly features, wide jaw, wide full lips, the top one was slightly larger than the bottom, but it worked, large bright multi-layered green eyes that were surrounded in impossibly thick black lashes, and obsidian colored hair cut in a modern European style with long bangs nearly hanging in his eyes. He looked strangely familiar to me, but I couldn't place from where. His eyes were so beautiful that I almost started drooling. He smiled wide at me, condescendingly of course, his perfect white smile was dazzling, including a set of fangs-I hate vampires, they are all selfrighteous, pompous assholes. "Viggo de Babineaux at your service," he bowed, his French accent was sexy to say the least. My typical response to an asshole, I flipped him off and headed towards the gym. "Ari, go to the headmaster," Master Dade called out. http://www.wattpad.com/223950-academy-of-thaumaturgy?p=2