Charm School Outcasts Read online

  Charm School Outcasts

  Jamie Hawke

  Editors

  Diane Newton

  Tracey Byrnes

  CHARM SCHOOL OUTCASTS (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Complete Book is Copyright (c) 2018 by Jamie Hawke (of Double Down Press).

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Jamie Hawke.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Welcome

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  About the Author

  Author Ramblings

  Read Next

  Foreword

  This book fits into the Supers Universe, along with the Ex Heroes and Ex Gods series. If you haven’t read those yet, I hope you’ll give them a try!

  Find them on my Amazon page, and click follow below my avatar to ensure you never miss one!

  Welcome

  Want to never miss one of my releases? Join my newsletter:

  SIGN UP HERE

  And our FB group: Harem Gamelit

  WARNING: This book contains gratuitous violence and sex.

  Thank you for taking a chance on my books. I hope you love reading them as much as I loved writing them!

  Jamie Hawke

  https://www.facebook.com/JamieHawkeAuthor

  1

  “For the last time, Charm, the answer is no,” Council Amand said, glaring up at me from his desk. His beady, black eyes looked like they belonged on an insect, not the head of one of the most feared rogue guilds this side of planet Horang.

  I sighed, considering the words I knew were about to come bubbling up, the words that would change my life forever. I’d thought hard and long on them, debating where to put the proper inflection and how to ensure they had their intended consequence.

  This was, after all, the most influential man on Station Eshu, one of several mobile stations at the edge of the Oram star system, and host to three guilds. Since my sister and I had served under him, there was no other way.

  He stared up at me with those beady eyes, eyes that roamed over my chest—cleavage pushed up in my space-rogue suit of green to match my eyes. I’d purposely even worn a wide-brimmed hat that evening, the type that hid my fox ears, along with a heavy overcoat to conceal my bushy tail. This was the type of man who looked down on my type, as many did.

  But cleavage was his language, so I flaunted it.

  He’d said ‘no,’ however, so the temptation of sexual acts wasn’t in the cards. Instead, I took my hat off, placed it on his desk, and breathed heavily as I prepared myself to say the words.

  “Go fuck yourself, you one-balled, erogial-brained, shit-eating piece of maggot-farts.” I tossed the coat into the corner and spun so that my tail nearly brushed against his nose, which I knew he’d be disgusted by—the prick—and made my way for the door. “I’ll find my sister, and there isn’t shit you can do to stop me.

  His reaction was delayed. More subdued than I’d expected, too.

  I caught a slight movement from the corner of my eye, then two hulking men stepped out of the shadows. Their hands grabbed me with the strength of erogials—large creatures that roamed our planet, similar to a cross between the elephants and gorillas that are said to have once roamed Earth. They flung me back, then were on me in a second with a good shot to the gut that left me motionless and wheezing. Then I was in the air, waiting for Amand’s judgment.

  My tail wrapped around one of their throats and I turned to the other, mouth opening, but caught another shot in the face that left me completely limp. The pain was dull but starting to build up, coursing through my body and reminding me that the recovery would be a bitch. But I would recover from it, and this son of a bitch knew better than to kill me. We had our guild laws and a code on top of that. I’d insulted him, hurt his honor, but it wasn’t enough to merit death.

  And no matter the level of pain he brought upon me, it couldn’t be stronger than the pain of losing my sister, of not knowing where she was and of this fucker telling me I had no right to go after her.

  “You’re valuable,” Amand said, steepling his three fingers, placing the first on each side under his chin as he assessed me. “But you’re also a stupid bitch in need of an attitude adjustment. Throw her in the cells,” he said to his goons. “Let the scum of this station’s underbelly remind her how lucky she is to be topside.”

  “Fuck… you…” I managed between the shooting pain in my side that was now starting to take over.

  He shook his head, disappointed. “Your sister had her mission, and she failed. She’s gone. Leave it alone.”

  I’d heard those words enough times in the months since she’d failed to return, and had no new response to them. The goons dragged me off. I was in too much pain to kick or scream. The room was spinning, and the taste of blood was in my mouth.

  “Wait,” Amand said, and my heart filled with dread at the sound of his chair screeching across the metal floor. He rose and came to me, eyes narrowing even more than before, if that was possible. He cocked his head. “You’re not the type to lose your cool.”

  I grinned, letting my ears twitch in the way I knew didn’t sit right with him, antagonizing him even more. He gave me one last calculating look, then waved us off.

  Every step sent shudders of pain through me, but worse than that they seemed to present another opportunity for him to speak up, to change his mind. But he didn’t, and soon I was out in the hall, other rogues looking at me with curiosity and judgment.

  They all thought I was weak. That I was merely the younger sister, the one who was bubbly and ditzy, the one who danced and used my powers like drugs.

  Well fuck them, too. It had been fun, that lifestyle—stealing from the rich, giving to the poor (which really meant ourselves), and having fun along the way.

  Only, now everything had changed. They’d refused to listen to me, refused to send search parties, or let me go on my own, to find my sister.

  And because of that, they were about to finally get a view of the real me.

  “Acting like a damned fool,” the jailer said when he saw me, his comms button flashing as he moved his finger from it at the side of his helmet. Apparently, he’d just heard about the situation. “Maybe I throw you into the lower level, the swamps, and give you a real taste of—”

  I didn’t let him finish, instead kicking out and catching him with a kick to the jaw that sent him stumbling back so that his head slammed into the metal wall.

  He’d been bluffing, but I couldn’t have that. No way was I going to sit in a cushioned cell on the top level. I needed to be in the swamps, because that’s where Silencer was waiting for me. The love of my sister’s life, the man who’d been sent to the swamps after betraying the g
uild’s code and slaughtering an allied guild.

  According to the stories, all for a bracelet they’d stolen from him.

  Little did anyone know, I’d managed to get my hands on said bracelet, and had it on me at that very moment.

  “One night in the swamps, then,” the jailer said, rubbing his jaw. He stood tall, smoothing out his silver robes and then his slick, black hair. There was no doubt he wanted to pummel me, too, but he’d wait until the goons were gone. Amand wouldn’t give a shit, as long as he could claim ignorance of what happened down here.

  So it was that I was on my way to the station’s dungeon we’d all come to fear and know as “the swamps” and from there, I hoped, to making my way off of this space station to find my sister.

  2

  The lower levels of the station smelled like rotten eggs and ass, the heat of the inner core making it worse. Blue-tinted flickering lights showed men and women in cells, looking starved, beaten, and at the verge of death. Regulars were simply chained or locked up, but the supers—men and women with powers of varying tiers of badassery—were held in special cages of glass with gasses pumped in to keep them too weak to use their powers. In some cases their mouths were covered to stop them from being able to speak. In others, their hands were either held in metal casings or chopped off.

  All of it was much more barbaric than many who lived above ever thought possible. Not all were rogues like me. Some were prisoners of war, if you could ever call what we did “war.” Mostly we stayed out of the way of superheroes or villains, not wanting anything to do with either side. We steered clear, taking easy targets and surviving by stealing small shipments or making runs on fringe planets, but never enough to earn the attention of the Citadel.

  Most of our prisoners were from enemy guilds, those who got in our way. Occasionally we’d make a move against space pirates, which were groups much like our own but had sided with the villains and refused to follow guild rules. We weren’t evil, just survivors. Those sons of bitches were straight up vile, with their songs about raping and pillaging.

  So anytime we saw them as easy targets, you can bet your ass we took them out, killing many, taking others prisoner to use as future bargaining chips or to gather whatever intel we could on their operations.

  And now I was no better off than many of them, it seemed.

  Two of the jailer’s servants had taken me from the goons at the entrance, since they were too important to deal with this hellhole. The servants were like rats: lanky with long noses and beady eyes like Amand, but they were here for a very important purpose, so were specially chosen. From what I heard, the jailers had a special ability to walk through walls, to be able to let attacks go right through them, and to even be able to reach into someone’s mind and cause unspeakable pain, but the type that was all mental. You’d feel like you just died, but your body would be unaffected, ready for more of the same pain whenever they deemed it necessary.

  We referred to their type as wraiths.

  The wraiths seemed unsure what to think about me. I wasn’t fighting, or even pissed to be down here. My guess was that they usually had to apply the pain, force their new arrivals on, but I was eager. The sooner I was thrown into the shit, the sooner I’d find my way off this station.

  “A secretive one, we have here,” one of the wraiths said to the other, guiding me onto a descending ramp that opened up to an area below that stunk even worse. “One to keep our eyes on.”

  “Ah, but she won’t be here long,” the other replied.

  I grinned and nodded, knowing how right they were—but not for the reasons they thought.

  The smile didn’t last long though, as the pain was still racking my body. I had to hold my hand up to my nose to breathe into it and try to mask the smell. I’d only once smelled a rotting corpse before, but the memory of that odor came back strong at that moment.

  “Enjoy your time in the swamp,” the first said, eyeing me with skepticism. “Your new friends will likely hurt you in ways you’ve never experienced and will never understand. We will not come to your aid, so… it’s really up to you if you want to waste time calling for help.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and seeing that he was gesturing for me to go down the ramp, proceeded.

  It was dark, so I let out a small breath of my charm. It’s where I got my name, or at least, my recent name. Charm, they called me, because my breaths worked like a drug when I focused. The breath came out white like warm air on a cool day, filling me with a sense of calm euphoria.

  My sister, Malina, had always tried to get me to make the breaths do more than this, but so far I’d only managed two types of breath, or charm—white and black. White breaths did the euphoric thing. Black was great for right before a good fight, robbery, or party, as they caused anyone who breathed them, and me when I made it happen, to be super-energetic and hyper. Not good for a place like this, because it would result in insane amounts of paranoia. I’d learned that during one less-than-enjoyable experience while trying to break free from a space pirate ship.

  Malina thought I should be able to change them up, get breaths to make people straight-up die and whatnot, but no luck so far.

  Walking down the ramp, the calming effect of my breath was exactly what I needed. It even caused the smell to go away, or maybe it just caused me to be able to ignore the stench. Even the darkness didn’t bother me much. My eyes soon adjusted to it, so I could see the areas of uneven floor covered in liquid, some raised platforms and half-floors where other prisoners lurked, waiting to see the new arrival.

  One of them was waiting at the base of the ramp, squatting, almost curled up in a little ball. She looked up at me, or at least I assumed it was a she with the long hair and skinny frame. Hard to tell, really. Either way, her hand reached out to touch me, then froze as my tail swooshed back and forth.

  “It’s her,” the figure said, taking a slithering step away.

  “The fuck do we care?” a man said, stepping out from my right and walking right through the liquid. “We own this place.”

  “Own it?” I asked, glancing around to see other figures emerging, or maybe it was my eyes better adjusting to see that they’d been there the whole time. “What a sad, pitiful existence.”

  “Looks like we have a shit-eater for a new arrival,” a woman on the left said, sloshing forward. She was larger than the man. “Let’s see how much of it she can stomach before puking her guts out, shall we?”

  “Fucking try it,” I replied, at least mentally ready for this. I was calm, but the moment the first one started to come at me—the big lady—I puffed out a hint of black charm, felt the hyperness take over, and ran to meet her.

  I leaped through the air, slamming into her with both feet so that she fell backwards into the muck. My momentum took me on to the next one, already coming at me, so I rolled into him in a tackle that left him face down in the nastiness. Not only was I strong, but faster than most supers and pretty much all normies. Since the other supers here were villains or members of the guild who’d betrayed us, they were likely to be subdued elsewhere, or their powers blocked in other ways, a fact that gave me confidence. Whatever these bullies tried to throw at me, it was likely something I could handle. Unless Tarantula was down here, and wanted in on the action—then I’d probably be in trouble. He was one of the few who truly worried me.

  Three more came at me. I grinned and waited, hoping to avoid getting any of the stench on me, if possible.

  The first swung a fist. I dodged but hit the backside of his forearm to send the fist into his buddy, as I laughed helplessly. The charm made me a bit over the top sometimes, so I was having a blast. A good kick in the next one’s midsection doubled him over, then a knee left his nose flattened with blood spilling forth.

  “Fucking fox bitch,” the first man said, recovering for another punch.

  Well, fuck that. Sure, I had some resemblance to a fox, but I was a super with mutations, just like many other supers. Mine just happened to mak
e me resemble a fox. Sure, it was damn rare, and the closest I had met were wolf shifters and a few others with horns, like deer or demons, but calling me a fox was about the most stupid move anyone could make.

  In this man’s case, with my black charm already in effect and the overwhelming odor and everything else getting to me, I wasn’t in the mood for being nice or turning the other cheek. Well, thinking about cheeks, I let my fox-like claws extend to show him exactly how foxy I could be. I clawed at the left side of his face, then the other, leaving parallel lines of blood on both cheeks. Next I dodged as he charged, catching him with a knee in his abdomen and then dropping him to the ground where I caught him with a good kick in the ribs that sent him rolling a few feet over, just in time to trip a woman who was charging into the fight.

  The man groaned in pain as I turned to his other buddy and said, “Call me a fox. I fucking dare you.”

  He glanced over at his fallen friend, the other who was staggering back with his busted nose, and took off running.

  “Cowardly piece of shit,” the woman behind me called after him, recovering and sizing me up. “And who the hell are you?”

  “My friend,” a raspy, barely-audible voice said from off to my left, or what would’ve been the opposite side of the area I’d entered from. Judging by the way he spoke, it was Silencer.