Ocean of Sapphires (Jewel Academy Book 4) Read online

  Ocean of Sapphires

  By

  Jami Klein

  Book Four of the Jewel Academy Series

  Other Books by Jami Klein

  Jewel Academy Book One: Diamond in the Rough

  Jewel Academy Book Two: Pearl of Wisdom

  Jewel Academy Book Four: Ocean of Sapphires

  Jewel Academy Book Five: Blood of the Ruby

  Jewel Academy Book One: Diamond in the Rough

  You got sent to the Jewel Academy when you were too magically dangerous to go to reform school and too young to go to prison.

  Lola Bragg didn’t belong there. She belonged at the Coven School for Girls. Except that she was born with a Tootsie roll pop in her mouth, instead of a silver spoon. Lola blew any chance of a scholarship when she convinced her mom’s pervy boss to keep his hands to himself—and while he was at it, buy them a new car and give her mom a raise.

  Stefan Harte belonged in prison. Rumor had it, he killed a boy for making fun of him. And the grapevine said he had terrorized his family so badly, they made the Jewel Academy board him year-round. Stefan isn’t confirming or denying. He doesn’t speak. He communicates through his artwork or his fists. He would have been a talented painter, if he wasn’t a werelion that everyone expected to go crazy before his next birthday.

  If Lola is going to survive the cliques, the course work, and the dangers of Jewel Academy with the mind magic blocker the court put on her wrist, she’s going to need a bodyguard. If you’re going to rent a thug, you rent the biggest one you can find. Only Stefan doesn’t want money, doesn’t want anything except to be left alone. But when outside forces come to the Jewel Academy, there’s safety in numbers—even if you’re a half-grey witch and a half feral lion shifter.

  Jewel Academy Book Two: Pearl of Wisdom

  Weak equals Prey at the Jewel Academy.

  Mindbender Lola Bragg found that out the hard way. A teenage witch this side of juvenile detention, Lola has a vital secret to keep. She must keep up the illusion that she is still magically shackled and weakened by anti-magic bracelets otherwise she’ll become the prey everyone thinks she is.

  Still in a blood contract with Andrei, an aristocratic vampire, Lola’s is concerned that her were-lion bodyguard Stefan is growing more distant each passing day. She’s afraid she’ll lose him to his darkness, but he doesn’t want her help with his personal demons. Lola needs the security of a coven, but no coven wants a weakened mage.

  If she ever wants to drop the illusion and have the powers-that-be trust that she can use her mind magic responsibly, Lola needs to find a way to fit into the Jewel Academy’s cliques instead of forging her own alliances with the lunatic fringe of the school’s society.

  When Andrei find an artifact that could give Lola the answers she needs about her father’s murder, she skirts the Academy’s rules against using black magic. With the ever-imposing threat of the FBMI over her head, and of being magically neutered, Lola is determined to find out why her family and her life has been torn apart.

  Jewel Academy Book Three: City of Emeralds

  No One Escapes the Jewel Academy

  On lockdown by the Federal Bureau of Magical Investigation, Jewel Academy is going to have to forfeit the annual Sigil Games.

  Not if Lola can help it.

  With the vampire delegation led by her “friend with blood benefits” Andrei and the shifter contingent represented by her brooding bodyguard Stefan, all Lola needs is for the witch covens to vote her in as their candidate.

  Except, they hate her.

  Of course, then the team must figure out a way to sneak past armed guards and magical traps to get to Ireland’s Emerald City where the games are being held.

  Easier said than done. But if it was easy, Lola wouldn't be interested.

  Waiting for Lola at the Sigil games is more than a healthy competition between magic schools. The man who killed her father is rumored to be there, along with the artifact her dad had risked his life to retrieve. Lola wants revenge more than she wants the three wishes the number one team gets, even if forfeiting the competition could put her life and her teammates’ lives at risk.

  Jewel Academy Book Four: Ocean of Sapphires

  Ghouls. Why did it have to be ghouls?

  Mindbender Lola Bragg and her two friends, were-lion Stefan and vampire Andrei, are given the gross job of cleaning the bottom floors of the Jewel Academy’s library from packs of rampaging ghouls. Meanwhile they’re missing out on their class’s field trip to Faulkner’s Island.

  Lola hates being stuck in the Jewel Academy. It’s a cross between a special magical school and juvie. She’d do anything to sneak out and join her class, but before she could launch a plan, the entire Junior class of the Jewel Academy has been kidnapped by merfolk. Divided into two categories, slaves or food, the students are forced by the mermen to loot the hoard of a blue dragon and keep it contained behind a magical barrier so it doesn’t extract revenge on them for stealing his sapphires.

  It’s up to Lola, Stefan, and Andrei to save the day.

  But deep in the ocean, who’s going to save them when things go horribly wrong?

  Chapter One

  When we landed back from Ireland with a triumphant third-place win, Andrei, Stefan and I thought we would have a target or two on our backs. After denying the blood mage who killed my father his most prized and most desired object, the Blood of the Ruby, we expected to be in danger until we reached the Jewel Academy.

  The good news was, we were never a moment in danger. The bad news was waiting in the airport for us was Andrei's scary librarian mom, Headmistress “I’m a vampire” Magee, a pissed of FBMI agent, and my mother. Well my not-mother.

  The drive home from the airport was an exercise in walking on eggshells. Me and my two friends had just survived a harrowing week competing in the Sigil games. Stefan, Andrei and I were in about as much deep trouble as we could be in, even though a wish had protected us from the stricter punishments.

  I could have been labeled a black witch. Stefan could have been classified as feral and shot on sight. And Andrei could have been staked. As it was, Andrei was at the tender mercies of his mother, who was none too pleased that her son broke a federal blockade and travelled to another country without her permission.

  Stefan didn't get off any easier, although he was with Headmistress Magee crammed into her little red smart car. I'm sure he was getting an earful to about how dangerous it had been to escape from the Jewel Academy. And how she didn't care for the fact that we pretty much escaped from her establishment. Vampires hated being outsmarted.

  Me? I was in the car with my estranged mother and Federal Bureau of Magical Investigation mindbender, Agent Fines. Agent Fines and I have a history together. She was the agent who put me in magical shackles that suppressed my ability to use my magic and sent me off the Jewel Academy, which was part reform school, part high school for dangerous and gifted witches, supernaturals, and vampires. Being without powers had made me a target, and I had to find alliances wherever I could.

  Stefan was a damaged were-lion. He had been my first connection, even though I thought he might rip me apart and eat me, because that's what everyone at the school said he did to my cousin Delia. It turned out to be a lie or at least a misconception. Although Stefan was known to rip people's limbs off when they annoyed him.

  Andrei, on the other hand, was my partner in crime—as long as I gave him my blood. We managed to keep condition hidden from my mother, his mother, and the Headmistress. Hopefully it will remain a secret, since I only had one more month to be a blood donor, and then our contract was ended.

  Agent Fines and my mother drove me ba
ck to the Jewel Academy. Her car fit nicely between Andrei's mother's Humvee and Headmistress Magee's cute little red Smart car.

  I had been hoping my mother would continue to give me the silent treatment that she had been keeping up since she had originally kicked me out of the house and into the Jewel Academy. But that was too much to hope for.

  “Lola,” she said, starting off in full lecture rant mode once we hit the highway. “Are you out of your mind putting yourself in danger like that?”

  I didn't know what to say or how to approach my mother. Had I not been sentenced to the Jewel Academy and she laid into me like that, I would've hung my head, apologized, and accepted whatever punishment she decided to give me. Usually that would be a grounding or something along those lines.

  After my father died, I lost my way and had tried to manipulate her mind to not punish me when I had played hooky from school. That was part of the reason why I was in the Jewel Academy was for bad use of my magical talents. But now that I had been in the Jewel Academy for a couple of months and my mother hadn’t bothered to return my phone calls or even touch base with me, I decided that she no longer had the right to act like she cared.

  Agent Fines had seemed content enough to just listen in. She was the one I was worried about because I had been sort of dating her son.

  My mother had glared at me in the rear-view mirror, waiting for an answer, so I said to her, “I had reasons for going to the Sigil games and breaking the FBMI blockade. It wasn’t a joyride or a thrill. I was on a mission.”

  “A mission?” And of course, now I had Agent Fines full attention.

  “Who sent you on this mission?” my mother asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Nobody sent me on this mission… Melinda.”

  She flinched and snarled back at me, “You will call me Mom or Mother, not by my first name.”

  I snapped, totally lost my temper. I got sick of all the lies and the half-truths that led me to being put in the Jewel Academy, where I found out I had a dead cousin and a whole side of the family I had never heard of. Not to mention that my birth mother had been a raven shifter, and no one ever told me that I might be a shape shifter too. But the icing on the lie cake was that my father hadn’t been an insurance agent, but a secret agent who had been murdered instead of dying in a plane crash. All of which, I had realized my not-mother still thought I was in the dark about. So the gloves came off and I let her have it.

  “Why? You're not my mother.”

  She blanched, and her fingers went white knuckled on the steering wheel.

  “And if I had any doubt of that, my mother would have called me at least once during the past three months that I've been at the Jewel Academy. You didn't call me. You didn't return my phone calls.”

  “Headmistress Magee thought that was for the best.”

  “Stop lying to me,” I said.

  She shrieked as my magic slammed into the shields that Agent Fines had set up.

  “Watch it,” Agent Fines warned, and I felt a tongue of fire as her magic flared up.

  “I wasn’t trying to compel her,” I said. “But she’s a liar.”

  “It was for the best,” Melinda said, her voice cracking.

  “You've also kept my aunt and my uncle from coming to visit me. Was that for the best as well?”

  “Absolutely,” she had said, thumping her fist on the steering wheel. “That was for your safety. I don't know what the two of them told you, but I can guarantee that they’re the liars.”

  “Yeah,” I had said, leaning back in the seat. “I'm really familiar with lies. You want to hear some more lies. I've been told that my father died in a plane crash. Guess what? He didn't. I was told that my father was an insurance salesman. Guess what? He wasn't. I was told that you were my mother. Guess what? You're not. I was told that I was a witch. Guess what? I'm a witch and a raven shifter. Did you even know that I shifted for the first time, Mom?” I had put the emphasis on the last word.

  “I have been aware of your progress,” she said quietly. “Headmistress Magee sends me weekly reports. Imagine how concerned I was when the most recent report was that you escaped, got on a plane to Ireland, and then I had to watch my daughter be challenged in ways that she never has been trained for.”

  “And whose fault was that?” I had interrupted, but she kept on speaking over me.

  “Because your father and I have strove to keep those abilities hidden, so people like your aunt and your uncle didn't exploit you.”

  “So you homeschooled me and hid me away from everybody who might have trained me into becoming a better witch?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Until you were prepared to protect yourself, as well as see the motivations of the people who would use you. Mark was doing a good job preparing you.”

  “And then he died. Sacrificed by Balakoi Zadachin, a Russian blood mage.”

  “What?”

  “Lola,” Agent Fines said sadly, and then shook her head.

  “You believed the plane crash story?” I had slumped back in my seat. “There wasn’t a plane that crashed that day. I told you that.”

  “Blood mage?” she said. “Agent Fines, what’s she talking about?”

  “Forget,” Agents Fines said, and then hexed my mother.

  “I got sent to the Jewel Academy for doing that,” I cried. “Did you hurt her?”

  “No, you were doing a fine job of that all by yourself. I took information from her that would put her in danger. Just like you are now in danger from Zadachin’s dragon cult.”

  “She deserves to know the truth. I deserved to know the truth.”

  “Why? There’s not a thing you can do about it.”

  “Andrei did something. Zadachin doesn’t have the Blood of the Ruby because of me and my friends.”

  “And you’ve earned yourself an enemy who knows the full extent of your powers because you were stupid enough to show them to a million people.” Agent Fines came very close to losing her cool.

  “Are you going to try to hex me?” I asked, sticking my chin out. I was prepared to lose. But it was going to be a be a hell of a fight. I just wished I was at full strength instead of feeling like a worn-out rubber band after the events of the past week.

  “No,” Agent Fines said, sighing. “That would be too dangerous for you. You will have to live with the fact that Zadachin is plotting against you. And if he gets the ruby, you and your friends will be his first target.”

  “You mean after he frees Obsidian, the black dragon.”

  Agent Fines had turned full around and gaped at me. For a moment, I thought it would be on right then and there. She visibly fought for control. When she had been able to speak, she said, “A lot of people have died, not just your father, trying to stop that madman from opening that portal. The less people know about how close that dragon is from being freed, the better. Never speak of Zadachin or Obsidian again. Or I will mindwipe the three of you and stick you on a farm in Minnesota where the most magical thing you’ll ever experience or remember will be the state fair. Do you understand me?”

  I understood. More than that, I believed she would do it. But I couldn’t back down. I couldn’t let her win.

  “Maybe I shouldn't have gone to the Jewel Academy, then.”

  She sighed. “Lola, the Jewel Academy was the only place we trusted to help you after your father died.”

  I had thought that we would have spent the rest of the car ride in silence, but about fifteen minutes later my mother came out of the hex that Agent Fines had put on her and continued our conversation as if she hadn’t heard anything about dragons or blood mages.

  “Did I like being separated from you? No. Did it hurt not to return your phone calls? Yes. But the time that you were at the Jewel Academy you were supposed to be shoring up your other magical skills and defenses. You needed to concentrate on finding a coven, a support group that could help you magically because I cannot protect you. That is what you were supposed to be doing, not breaking every sing
le rule and getting put on magical watchlists all over the world. Not to mention being banned from stepping foot in an entire country for the next ten years.”

  “Trust me, Mom,” I had said. “I’ve seen enough of Ireland to last me the next ten years. I wasn't planning on going back. Did you know my father was a government agent?”

  “Lola,” Agent Fines said warningly.

  “Of course, I knew,” she said.

  Finally. Finally, the first bit of truth my mother had ever spoken to me. “Why didn't you ever tell me?”

  “Because it was nothing that you needed to know. It would only have put you in danger. That was the reason why we didn't send you to any of the magical schools like the Coven School for Girls. It wasn't because we couldn't afford it. It was because we couldn't afford letting people know how powerful a mindbender you were with your father away all the time on missions, and me not having strong magic. I wouldn't have been able to stop you from being influenced by a stronger mind mage.”

  “But you acted so afraid of me and my powers.”

  “I was afraid of you. I was afraid that we had lost you. And I knew that if we were ever to get you back, you needed to find your own way, on your own, without relying on me or anything familiar.”

  “So you cut me off with nothing, and now you're upset that I fell in with the wrong crowd?”

  “No, I'm not upset that you hang out with vampires and were-lions. I'm upset that you pretty much caused anarchy among your peers.”

  “I didn't cause anarchy. Anarchy was already there. I just participated in the anarchy.” I crossed my arms in front of me defiantly.

  My mother sighed. “Lola, I do not want you to talk to your aunt and uncle ever again. Not until you're an adult.”

  “I'm almost eighteen,” I said.

  “You’re not an adult, until you're in full control of your powers.”

  “I am full control of my powers. You said you watched me at the Sigil games. I beat fully trained mindbenders.”