Semester One

Copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Urban Academy Semester 1 Copyright 2023 by Mazzy J. March Digital ISBN: 978-1-68361-786-0 Print ISBN: 978-1-68361-787-7 All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. Published by Decadent Publishing LLC Table of Contents Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Next up: Urban Academy Semester 2 An excerpt from: A Conspiracy — Academy of the Ravens Book 2 About Mazzy J. March Connect with Mazzy! Everything will work out. But that’s hard to believe when I can barely afford a hot, tiny apartment that reeks of whiskey and has a floor vibrating with music from the bar downstairs most nights. Not to mention the loud laughter and occasional rattle of the walls from brawls that make me check my door lock and huddle under the quilt my late mother made for me. The pub is frequented by rough types as well as people from the local university where I work for a pittance. Joe, short for Josephine, my landlady, has offered me a job downstairs, but so far I’ve held out. Unless something else comes up, I’m going to have to accept the offer, but I’m not sure I have the fortitude to deal with what I can barely tolerate at a distance. When my folks died, my sister and brother-in-law took me in, but they had things to work out in their marriage and were offered the opportunity of a lifetime. Move to Fiji and work mostly from home while living right on the beach. Sounded like a cure for divorce to me. When my sister looked at me with hope in her eyes, I did the only thing I could. Lie. I told them I had an opportunity of my own and needed to move across the country to pursue it. Convenient. Right? One night, a growl louder than my empty tummy snaps my attention to the window outside the classroom I’m mopping. I peek through the blinds to find a massive gray wolf with the bluest eyes staring right at me. A wolf in the heart of the city? The wolf’s form shimmers, muscles and bones twisting and reshaping into a man with those same eyes, and, when I come to a while later, there’s no sign of the animal or its aftermath. Skipping dinner must have been a mistake. So much for surviving on my own. Urban Academy Semester 1 is the first story in the brand-new Urban Academy series by bestselling author Mazzy J. March. The first three books follow the story of Valentina’s new life in the city at The Academy where she learns that the world is much broader and more varied than she ever dreamed, and sometimes Urban Academy Semester 1 By Mazzy J. March Chapter One Valentina Getting off this musty bus, its suspension begging for mercy over every bump and change in speed, would be a blessing. Even if I didn’t know where in the hell I was going. The hiss and chuff of the brakes caused me to stiffen in unsurety. My hand gripped my duffle, the contents of my entire life in the generic-branded bag, as the bus came to a stop. I suspected the driver was a creeper. His gaze had dug into me repeatedly over the course of the trip from Tennessee; one of those times, he smiled. Eew. “Have a good vacation,” he murmured at a volume low enough to evade human hearing. “Yeah. You, too.” Good grief, I needed more sleep. I’d just told the bus driver to have a good vacation. A hot meal, a shower, and a place to rest would do me good. Now to find one of those places. After the bus sputtered its way to moving again, I saw a shiny, bright building. It was completely out of place in this cozy town, but I’d seen stranger things. There was something about the mirrored windows, the glitz, that called to me. Also, it looked to be a place where people with money gave people like me a job. A job was what I needed most. Bag in hand, I crossed the street, dodging a car blowing its horn. The air smelled like any small town. Cinnamon, vanilla, and roasted coffee beans made my stomach growl as the rumble of car engines and chatter of people talking on their phones tainted the peace. The handle was a cool steel and, as I opened it, a man in a suit came out, grumbling, something about his new curriculum not selling. Did people really sell door-to-door anymore? Apparently, that guy didn’t get the memo. “Good morning, dear. How can we help you?” I noticed posters above the woman’s head, signs pointing to different offices, and one girl blew by me, wearing a cute outfit and carrying a backpack. “Is this a school?” I asked, in shock and awe. Maybe it was because I came from a smaller town, but this was nothing like what my high school