Screams mingled with the alarm clock as it blared. It took a moment for the haze of the nightmare to lift before Julia's arm shot out and slapped the alarm off.

Julia didn't get up; instead she lay in bed as her mind tried clawing back the details of the dream as all of its intricate facets started to fade away. Warm salty tears cascaded down her face. She scrubbed them away, cursing the fact she could never remember the details of the dreams that plagued her. Julia kicked the tangled sheets off and rolled out of bed determined not to let anything get her down. Today was the first day of her senior year; putting her one-step closer to her goal of leaving Havenswood.

Ryland Parks High school

Julia strolled down the third floor hallways of the beautiful four story modern high school building to her class. Looking around at the snotty cliques made her long to be back in Europe.

A smile ghosted her lips when she remembered how April Morgana the leader of one of the shapeshifter cliques boasting about knowing everything there was to know about European supernatural society. How over there they were the worst for segregation and formality. That if you were not of pureblood, from a noble lineage then no one would give you the time of day let alone speak to you. April used to tease Julia about the fact that in a school filled with magic she couldn't even conjure something simple. And seeing as Julia was less than useless she should just stay in Havenswood and get a job picking up trash because that was all she was good for.

However, Julia's summer in Europe had proven that April was full of it. Julia and her friends had been welcomed everywhere they went and no one even cared that Julia couldn't use her powers. In fact, the people they spent time with were more interested in helping her to harness what little powers she had.

Julia sighed longingly remembering those happy days and thought, high school is far worse, as she looked around the bleak yet brightly coloured halls.

Ryland Parks High was a school with a strict hierarchy and bullies like April were ruthless at making sure everyone knew where they stood in the pecking order. At the top were the full blood light fae. Then came the full-blooded witches and warlocks, divided by their abilities; the more elements and magic a person could use the more popular they were. After that, there were the shapeshifters, inugamis and other yokai.

Under the full bloods were all the mixed bloods: light fae and witches, light fae and yokai or witches and shifters, yokai and witches and so on. Below them were those unfortunates that were mixed with humans, and at the bottom were the ones, like Julia, that had little or no powers.

Julia knew that if it wasn't for her strong group of friends, who stuck together no matter what, she would've been a lonely outcast.

As Abby, Ella and Kuro walked off to their first period class Julia waved goodbye to three of the four that made up her group of misfits. Abby and Ella Shadowmist were twins; they were half-shifter, half-light fae. Unfortunately for them, they had no faerie magic. Their father was an elf, one of the worker races of light fae. Elves were master artisans, but they had no magic other than the ability to craft anything. Despite this, the twins were powerful shifters.

Kuro Kaminari was a pureblood inugami from Japan. He met Ella when they were fourteen. Her mom had taken the twins to Japan to learn about yokai and how to transform into them. It was love at first sight, and much to the annoyance of his clan and her parents, he followed her back to Havenswood.

Julia turned and looked out the windows at the dense woodland that bordered the school and thought, thank the gods this is my last year in this crummy town. The minute I graduate, I am out of here and I don't care where I go as long as it's far away from here.

Ren shook his head and tugged Julia down the hall. "Come on, girl, snap out of it and hurry. You don't want to be late for Supernatural History." Oren Lalibrabh was her best friend. He was also a pureblood light fae.

She rolled her eyes and whined because having to spend the next hour in absolute boredom was the icing on her crappy cake. "Why do we have to take Supernatural History, anyway? It's not like any of this will help me out in the real world."

Ren raised his perfect fire-engine-red eyebrows, which matched his wildly spiked bright red and black hair. "Oh no. Don't tell me you're still hanging onto that silly idea of you living in the leaving this town. You and I both know your mom will never allow it."

She threw her arms up in the air, exasperated by how much pleasure he was taking in crushing her little fantasy so early in the day. "Ugh. I don't understand why she has to be so overprotective. We spent the whole summer in Europe without incident. The world will not come crashing down if I go there again."

Her subconscious snorted and reminded Julia about her little encounter with the dark faeries. Julia scowled inwardly and shoved that memory aside. Her mom didn't know about that and therefore had no reason to stop Julia from leaving.

Ren laughed and patted her on the back. "You know you might as well give up on that dream. Your mother would go up against the Faerie Queen if it meant keeping you safe and sound and in this town."

They ambled into the classroom and were lucky to find two seats next to each other by the windows.

Everyone ignored Ikusaba Usui and continued to talking as he walked in and set his stack of papers on the side of his desk. He looked the exact opposite of what a teacher should look like; in his Bermuda shorts and long-sleeved Boom Boom Satellites t-shirt. His attire and laissez-faire attitude made him hard to take seriously.

"Shut up," Ikusaba shouted. "We have a lot to cover so let's get started. As it's the first day back and I know your tiny brains are full of cobwebs, we're going back to basics."

He walked around to the front of his desk and sat on it crossing his legs. His golden surfing skin and platinum hair was a stark contrast to the blackboard that sprawled out behind him. "Okay my little idiots. For the sake of this discussion, I will stick with light faeries and dark faeries. There are way too many races of our kind out there to cover in an hour.

"Before we came along," he gestured around the class with his arms, "there were the gods and demons. And they were locked in a perpetual war. Somewhere along the line, a faction of gods and demons that wanted to end the war formed. They thought the only way to do that was to create a new species; one that was half god, half demon. The thing was, instead of creating one species they created two.

"From this, light faeries and dark faeries were born. One created from the light and one created from the dark ̶ two sides of the same coin if you will. This is why the two species don't get along. The effort to end the war was an epic fail and all the members of that faction were exiled when they got found out."

Ren leaned back in his chair. "Come on, Usui, any first grader knows this stuff. What's the point in going over what we already know?"

He laughed. "It never hurts to go over the basics. Besides the alternative is a pop quiz."

A mass groan erupted from the whole class.

"Good, I'm glad we're all in agreement. Oren, since you're such a fountain of knowledge why don't you continue."

Ren stood up and took a bow, "Don't mind if I do," then sat back down. "The wonderful light fae and the useless dark-pixies didn't stop the war."

A tall drop-dead-gorgeous girl, with alabaster skin and thick long black hair that hung down to her waist, sauntered into the classroom. Her eyes narrowed into slits. "Excuse you, filthy Tink," her voice as sharp as a razor's edge and just as deadly, "but the only ones that were, are and always will be useless are the light faeries and everyone knows it."

A slow malevolent smirk started to take shape on Ren's face. "What was that, you blood sucking leech? For some reason I thought I heard you wrong, 'cause there's no way on this planet where light faeries are anything like your wretched species."

She bared her fangs at him. "I dare you to say that again, you spineless elf."

She was about to take a step forward when two boys, who were twice as stunning as the girl, walked into the classroom looking like they owned the world.

Ren's expression curdled, he rolled his eyes and spat on the floor, without actually spitting, in disgust. Julia furrowed her brow at his reaction and mouthed what the hell, Ren. He trusted his chin in the door's direction. Julia turned her attention to the door and almost fell out of her chair when she saw them.

Damien placed a hand on the girl's shoulder and held her back. He whispered something in her ear that made the girl glare at him. However, whatever he said to her marginally calmed her down. She retracted her fangs, crossed her arms and shot the entire class daggers with her eyes.

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