The Lost Queen Book 1 - Alden

18. Midterms

"Man, I can't believe the year is almost half over." Liam checks his phone.

"I know right... this is our last study group before the midterms. At least we get a couple of weeks off. What's everyone doing for break?"

"I'm meeting my parents in Puerto Rico. It'll be such a nice break from snow. I plan on getting the best tan ever, with no tan lines." Sara smirks. "I need a manicure before I go, my nails are totally disgusting."

"I'm going home and hanging with my family." Jenny smiles. "I miss them."

"We're going home too. But I think my mother would kick me and his ass," Victor gestures at me, "if we didn't come home for the holidays."

"Either of you doing anything fun?"

"I'll visit family and then be with you 2 the rest of the time." Clark laughs.

"I'm planning a 10-day trip to Egypt. I've always wanted to see the pyramids. It seems like a good time." Liam sits up, "But what do you want to study?"

"Forget that, I want to go to Egypt." Clark pouts.

"You're welcome to join me. My family is gone. I am traveling on my own."

"For real? Email me the details please. I'll try to work it out, but I do have to go home and at least see my parents."

"Guys, that sounds fun, but I need help with biology, that class is seriously hard." Jenny flips through her notes. "There are so many different types of blood and ... and the different things they can do for us are impossible to remember. I'm never going to pass this."

"You'll do fine."

"Raccoon blood, we become insanely good at solving puzzles. Dog blood, we can tell when people are lying. I think we need some flash cards again." Clark rubs his eyes.

"I saw somewhere a certain animal can change our hair color, but I forgot which one it was. They weren't very cool colors anyway." Sara picks up some of her hair and looks at it.

"I'll run down to the book store, maybe we'll get lucky, and they have flashcards." Jenny runs out quickly.

Victor glances out the door window, "Hey, isn't that Matt? The one who got hit by the guard last quarter?"

"Yea it is. I'll text Aver. I haven't seen Matt since that day, that's kind of weird." I send a quick text.

Aver shows up about 1 second later with 3 other professors. They walk right up to him. We can't tell what's being said, but it doesn't appear friendly, they look like they're yelling.

"Someone, prop open the door." Liam opens it slowly and props a book in it.

But it was too late to hear anything. Matt pushes one of the professors into another one and speeds into the elevator. Mr. Aver right behind him, 2 of the professors still in the room are hitting the elevator button trying to get the other elevator to show up. The last one jumps out of a window.

"That was weird." Victor stares out the conference room door.

"Yea and a fascinating way to get to the ground floor." Liam motions to the broken window.

"Yea, I wonder what's going on."

Jenny runs in a few minutes later. "OMG what is going on? The entire school is on lock down, and I could hear yelling, and it sounded like a wizard was doing curses!"

"That Matt showed back up, there were 3 professors and Mr. Aver in here arguing."

I send Mr. Aver another text asking if everything is ok.

"Mr. Aver texted me back: everything is fine, continue studying for midterms."

Then a big boom shakes the building. We look at each other.

"Maybe we should go check out what's going on." I motion for Clark.

He stands up as someone starts an announcement.

-Chimes- "Please note: Everything is fine, continue studying for midterms"... Clark sits back down. "Also note, the exit door on the first floor near the East Tower has been blown apart. It will be closed off until the start of next quarter. Please plan accordingly. Have a wonderful evening."

"That is weird, let's study though." Sara gets her book out.

"I got flash cards for us."

"Cool, I'll be the ref this time." Liam holds out his hand.

A couple of days later, the last midterm is almost done.

"Thank you everyone. Pass your tests to the center row." Emberlynna collects the papers, "Thank you for another wonderful quarter. Grades will be posted for all classes within 4 days. So for now, go and enjoy your break!"

Sara stretches. "These tests weren't as hard as I thought they would be. I think I may have actually passed most of them."

"I agree for the most part, but that biology test was horrible... I'm only hoping for a passing grade." Victor puts his stuff back in his bag.

"When is everyone leaving for break? You want to grab dinner in the dining room tonight? It's ribeye." I stand up and stretch. Glad that's over.

"I can't, I'm leaving in an hour and I need to fix my nails. I chipped one of them. Hopefully, the spa can get me in fast."

Liam rolls his eyes. "I'm leaving now too. Gotta get this vaca started."

"I can... I'm not leaving till tomorrow." Jenny smiles.

"OK guys, get out. Seriously, you can't stay here. Go start your breaks." Emberlynna laughs.

"Lets meet outside the dining room door at 6:30 sound good?"

We agree and go our separate ways.

I'm in the apartment a couple of hours later making sure I have enough stuff packed.

Victor walks in. "Hey man, you packed?"

"Yea, for the next break, I think I'm going to go somewhere on vacation. Maybe an island."

"We should get our group and go somewhere together. An island does sound cool."

"What time is it, I'm getting hungry?"

"6"

"I'll head down and grab a table. I want to make sure we get in early... We have to get up at 3am to catch the plane."

"I'll be down in a few, gonna change my shirt."

The 3 of them join me at 6:30.

Jenny plops down. "My roommate is so annoying."

"What she do now?"

"She wears all black, dyed her hair black. Refuses to do anything outside the room, and now she is demanding everyone call her Quadira. Get this... she says it's her self-given vampire name. I am so done with her bs. And all she does is talk about how vampires should rule the world and other species should be slaves." Jenny shakes her head, "She would flip if she found out I am a hybrid."

"A hybrid?" Victor scratches his head.

"Half witch, half vampire, it's rare, but it does happen if your mate ends up being a different species."

"You know a lot of spells?"

"I know some. I've only been studying it about 25 years. I know some defensive magic and healing. My mother is the one teaching me. It's hard to control. But we agreed I should come here and get this training done. I'll go back after I'm done here."

"25 years?"

"Yea, vampires have a lot of skills that can be learned and practiced. But magic is never ending. It could be studied for eternity."

"I'm glad you decided to join us. it wouldn't be the same here without you, and we won't tell your roommate." Victor smiles.

"Thanks guys."

Liam's phone dings. "The grades for Vampire 102 are already posted. But I'm pretty sure everyone got an A in that class."

"Why do they have us study the things we can do, but they don't show us how to do any of them?"

"We learn later. Right now it's mostly class work and no labs, but in a few years, it'll be all labs and barely any classwork.... but yea, I agree, learning that we have to drink blood was a waste of a week. I mean we already know. Not sure what that accomplished." Jenny rolls her eyes.

"And how are we all this evening? I brought you some water and blood. Does everyone know what kind of salad they want this evening?"

Everyone orders.

"What all kinds of labs are there?" Victor looks at Jenny.

"I don't remember them all, but I do know that the hypnosis classes and labs take over a year and a half. They start next year."

"Yea, I can see how that one would be a hard skill to master."

"For the final, I heard we have to go somewhere, as a class, and actually hypnotize people to do things."

"Hopefully it's somewhere warm. I am tired of the cold."

"The survival and defense labs run together in the last year. For the finals, they dump us out somewhere for a week or 2 in the 3rd quarter. Apparently, the more comfortable you can make your area and the better you eat, the higher your grade is."

Victor raises his eyebrows.

"Oh it's easy, you can use your powers, so the option is up to you on what you want to do. You can set up a camp site, make your own shelter, and forage food. Or you can find a house, hypnotize the owner and stay there and eat their food. You'll get an A either way. They want you to show that you can live comfortably enough for yourself, without raising suspicion or causing trouble."

"I have everyone's steaks and wine. I can take your salad plates if you're done with them."

"Thank you, it looks delicious."

"Well, I'm going to find someone who owns a private island and taking it over for a couple of weeks." Victor raises his wine glass.

I raise mine as well, "I'm going to hypnotize my way into a suite on a cruise boat."

"5 star all-inclusive resort somewhere." Clark raises his.

"I want to stay in a little house on a beach somewhere, although a resort does sound nice." Jenny raises hers.

"Cheers" we all say and laugh.

Jenny looks around, "Do you all have a class you are really looking forward to taking? Mine is history and it's next year."

"I don't know them all, but I think the supernaturals class is going to be cool. I've heard more than once I will enjoy it." Victor smiles.

"I'm excited about the S's... Speed, super strength, and senses. It'll be nice to have those mastered. Speed only seems to work if I'm going for a wild animal right now."

"Animal Morphing... I mean, seriously, people, we get to turn into a bat. What could be better than that?" Clark asks.

"I've heard that people can either do that right away or they have a horrible time with it. Like over half the people can't even do it at all." Jenny drinks the last of her wine. "My older brother said one person in his class could only ever make bat wings come out of his back and another could only ever get 1 wing. I guess it's either you have it or you don't thing... but good luck to everyone here."

"I snuck this in." Victor digs a bottle of wine out of his laptop bag. "What? I hate that they only give us 1 glass. And we're on vacation now."

We laugh at Victor as he pours the wine all secretive.

"Now that we are done eating, I will tell you about the advanced biology lab. It's in the 5th year I think. We have to dissect things and the final is dissecting a human. Labeling parts and stuff."

"That sounds gross."

"Yes it does. There's also an immortality lab. Not sure what we do in that one. Apparently, we have night vision. That has a lab as well. Lots of labs. It's going to be fun learning how to use these powers we have." Jenny smiles.

"Hope everyone's meal was good. I need to scan everyone's cards. Also, the school overestimated the number of students that would be here this evening, so everyone gets dessert. I will bring the dessert cart in a few minutes."

"Awesome, I hope it has some chocolate on it." Jenny wiggles a bit.

"It has lots of chocolate! I will get rid of these plates and bring it over."

"Man, that steak was huge."

"I know right, I'm stuffed." Victor rubs his stomach as the dessert tray shows up.

"As promised, lots of chocolate. Chocolate lava cakes on top or fresh brownies with ice cream here. We also have red velvet cake. What is everyone thinking?"

We grab dessert and Victor refills our wine glasses again.

"When do we learn about mates? I mean is there a class for that?" I ask.

"Yea, I do believe it's the last quarter of biology this year. It's mainly talking about the bond and how strong it is, what it is, what happens if it breaks, stuff like that... I'm assuming it will be easy and should help boost our scores for the final" she takes a drink, "but I have been wrong about things being easy before, so who knows."

"Yes, but he is one of the most promising students we've ever had." Emberlynna is walking by.

Mr. Aver notices us, "Hello students. Is everyone ready to go on break?"

"Counting down the hours before we leave." Clark takes a drink.

"Last meal before we go." Victor smiles, "and it was great."

I sit up. "Did you ever figure out who Matt was or what he was doing here?"

"Sadly not, he was able to escape before we could figure anything out. But we do know that he was not a student here."

"Have a good break students, and you guys are not fooling anyone with the limitless wine you have going on here." Emberlynna gives us a smirk then chuckles.

We laugh and Jenny snorts.

Emberlynna shakes her head. "Yes, perhaps it is time for bed for you 4. Have a good vacation."

"You too, professors."

"Why would someone want to hang around the school, if they don't go here?"

"Honestly, it's probably one of the kings police, making sure the students are all legal." Jenny drinks the last of her wine.

"Yea, maybe making sure we're not forming an army to take out the current king."

"Or making search parties for the lost queen." Victor nods.

"Lots of reasons the current king Fane would want to know what's going on here. Have to keep our eyes open and see what happens." I stand up. "I am stuffed, slightly buzzed, and tired. I am going to bed. Everyone enjoy your vacations."

"You too Alden."