Page 20 of The Pretty Savage

"The Fallen?" I frowned. Honestly, with all these names I was bound to get a headache. "What the fuck is The Fallen?" More like, who the fuck was The Fallen.

"It's The Brotherhood, dummy," she laughed. "The secret society I was telling you about?"

"And they call themselves The Fallen?"

"Well," she smirked, "when you see the way they move, you will call them The Fallen as well. Come on." She took my hand and started walking toward the main building. "There are way too many things I need to teach you before we get to the party, and we don't have too much time."

The Fallen—seriously? Who was that cocky to call themselves The Fallen? Did they think that they were fallen angels or something like that? Even Heinrich, the cockiest motherfucker I knew, would never dare to call himself something like that. Hell, I was good—really good—but I would never bestow such a name to myself.

The Fallen—I chuckled as Yolanda started talking about the history of the Academy, but I already knew that part. I already knew how it came to be, who built it and why it was created. What I was interested in had nothing to do with the building construction but with these supposedly elite warriors that existed in this school.

And I would find out.

By the time we had taken a turn toward the main building, I found out that Adrian Zylla, Dante Bernardi, Jax Astoria, Ethan Rhodes, and Arseniy Morozov were legends on campus, and three of them—Adrian, Jax, and Dante—were this year's instructors as well. I already knew which families they came from, and with the exception of Adrian Zylla, the other four were well-known in our circles.

Everyone knew they would inherit the criminal empires their fathers and in Ethan's case, uncles, were leading right now, but everyone wondered why the three of them came back to the Academy and what their plan was. Truth be told, I was curious as well, but the last thing I wanted was for Yolanda to notice my curiosity. Instead of asking questions, I kept my mouth shut and walked quietly next to her as she went on and on about how perfect they were, and how her sister knew them when they went to the Academy a couple of years ago.

All of them were older than us, with Adrian being the oldest one at twenty-five, which meant they attended the Academy after Tyler ever came here. But Adrian's brother was here at the same time as Tyler, and the things Heinrich had said still rang in my head. That wasn't a coincidence, and if there was one thing I had learned over the years, it was that nothing was ever just a coincidence.

I also found out that the guys' dorm existed because it housed only those from the prominent families, while the common dorm existed for the rest of us—the peasants, as Yolanda so eloquently put it.

Adrian and his four musketeers were the ones that started calling themselves The Fallen, and I still wanted to laugh at the sheer audacity. I would need to contact Alena to see if she could dig up something about The Brotherhood, but until then I was stuck here with no information and no knowledge as to why they existed in the first place.

I wished the information Yolanda had shared with me had more meat on its bones, rather than her simply gushing about the three instructors on campus and how hot they were, but I had to be thankful even for what little information she had shared.

Yolanda was the youngest daughter of a Swedish tycoon who dealt in real estate on paper, but behind closed doors he was involved in arms deals, human trafficking, moving drugs from one city to another, and he basically held the entire country of Sweden in the palm of his hand. I didn't miss the sad look on her face when she shared that tidbit of her upbringing, and the fact that her father was planning to marry her off soon, which was why he didn't expect her to ever graduate from the Academy.

She was here to find a husband, or at least that was what her father had instructed her to do, and creating connections was bound to secure his future as the Zylla of the north. I didn't have to be a psychic to recognize that she wanted nothing to do with it, but she had no other choice.

"We're almost there," she announced just as the lights started getting more and more visible. "Are you excited?" Yolanda asked, her voice wavering as she said the words. She was obviously still pretty much terrified about tonight, but knowing what her father wanted her to do and how he saw her future made a lot more sense as to why she even wanted to attend this thing.

There was no way she would ever agree to go to something like this if it wasn't for that, which, as selfish as it sounded, worked well for me, but something in my gut pulled at me, at the heartstrings I was pretty damn sure were already dead, telling me I needed to protect her.

Yolanda wasn't raised the same way I was. Hell, she probably wasn't raised as most of the people attending this place were, which was obvious if she had to retake her exams year after year. I guess I was lucky enough to at least know how to defend myself, but if Yolanda ended up with some guy that would be capable of harming her and the kids she might have one day, then she needed to learn how to defend herself.

And I was going to teach her.

"I am excited," I answered, thankful we had started walking. The wind still slammed into us from all sides, and the trees that were surrounding the pathway we took did nothing to minimize the impact, but it was better than just standing in one spot freezing to death. I couldn't feel my toes, but at least the rest of my body did not feel like it was dying anymore. "And I'm not completely frozen anymore, so that's a plus."

"You would think that living in Russia would have prepared you for this kind of weather." If only she knew. "Isn't it cold there?"

"It is," I agreed. "But it's not like I'm living on a mountain in Russia, and this fucking place is pretty much on a mountain. I mean, we get pretty sharp winters, but nothing like this. At least it isn't this windy." I was lying out of my ass. The last time I visited Russia it was hot as hell since it was mid-August, and I never had to go there during the winter. "But I'll get used to it." Or I’d fucking die, and since I pretty much wanted to live through this ordeal, that second option wasn't really an option at all. "Holy shit," I breathed out when the main building of the Academy came into focus.

I thought the architecture of our dorm and the admin building was magnificent, but this… I had no fucking words to describe the massive structure right in front of us.

The lights on the ground were upturned, illuminating every arch, every column, window, and the massive doors at the entrance. I had no idea if they had renovated it throughout the years, but it felt as if I was transformed into a completely different year as we stood there, as I stared at it.

"It's pretty cool, isn't it?" I could only nod. Words failed me even when Yolanda kept talking, going on and on about the architectural style and the years each part of the main building, which once used to be a cathedral, was built. "They changed quite a lot of things inside to make it fit the Academy, but you'll see—it's as magnificent inside as it is outside. Apparently it took them years to build it up. It's such a shame this beauty will never be admired by millions from around the world, since most people don't even know it exists."

But, wait… "Isn't it visible down from the town?"

"A little, but not all of it. The people that created the Academy made sure to erase the existence of the rest of the buildings from the books, so no one really knows what's up here, apart from this main building that used to be a church. If you ask the people from the town, they will tell you that these grounds are haunted." And I actually couldn't agree more. "St. Vasili's Academy operates on three pillars." She swallowed thickly as she looked up at the building. "Honor, revenge, and," she looked at me, "death. That last one was a constant during those early years. Failure wasn't an option, and if someone like me had gone to this place all those years ago, I wouldn't be here telling you this story. I would be dead. Gone. Poof. You know what Spartan mothers used to tell their sons?"

"Come back with your shield—or on it," I murmured, slowly realizing what they used to do.

"Exactly. So, if you weren't good enough to graduate, you were as good as dead. That lake underneath these cliffs is a fucking graveyard, and if The Brotherhood gets their way, it will become one again."

"What do you mean?"

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