by Emma Dean
Something Wicked
University of Morgana: Academy of Enchantments and Witchcraft
Emma Dean
SOMETHING WICKED
UNIVERSITY OF MORGANA
ACADEMY OF WITCHCRAFT
AND ENCHANTMENTS
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Copyright © 2019, 2020, 2021 by Emma Dean
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, locations, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Author’s Note
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
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Want Free Stories?
Other Books
About the Author
Author’s Note
All of my paranormal books exist in the same universe. The more you read the more you see familiar faces. You don’t need to read them in any particular order, or to know any others before starting any of my series or standalones.
This series heavily features Kenzie and her foxes from the Chaos of Foxes series, but there is nothing from that series that is absolutely essential to read this one. The world-building has all been explained, but if you want insight into the relationships I’d advise reading it.
This is a slow burn reverse harem series. Yes, there will be sexy sex in this series (starting with book 2). Join my group for the spoiler thread for each release in the series!
Emma’s Enclave
Don’t forget to share and review and recommend your favorite books.
<3 Emma
It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood.
- Edgar Allan Poe
Something Wicked
1
Mika shut her last suitcase and set it on top of her trunk. She surveyed her room one last time and sighed. She wasn’t going to miss this place. Not after everything that had happened last fall.
The Marshall Clan was one of the oldest witch clans in San Francisco and now all that was left of it was her grandmother, her sister, and Mika. They’d been a well-respected clan until Mackenzie Kavanagh uncovered Bradley Davis’s plot to overthrow female witches in the Bay Coven and revealed her brother and father were involved.
She would never forget the feeling she’d had watching that insanity unfold.
When Bradley had called out both her father and her brother as co-conspirators to his plot…Mika had never felt so betrayed. All the air in the room had disappeared. The oxygen in her lungs had been sucked out like some kind of creature feeding off her very air. Mika had only ever experienced that level of panic—fear, once.
The heat had come first when the men in her family had been hauled to their feet. Her entire body was flooded with it and then everything went ice cold.
That was when the ringing in her ears had started.
It hadn’t really stopped since.
Mika couldn’t remember much after that. Vaguely she recalled her mother screaming as they’d dragged her brother away. Her father though – he’d somehow walked to that line of perpetrators with grace.
There was no doubt in her mind that her father had dragged her brother Jacob down that road with him.
But they had both made their choices.
It was still hard to comprehend exactly how they could have gotten in league with that piece of trash, Bradley. It made her physically ill every time she thought about it. Most days she was okay if she was very careful not to think – not to do much more than breathe.
Then suddenly she’d remember a time Jacob had been kind to her, or her father had told her he was proud of her – then it hit her like a ton of bricks and she relived that moment in the coven building all over again.
And that always triggered the memory of what Bradley had done to her all those years ago.
Mika checked her watch to make sure she wasn’t going to be late. Then she sat down on top of her trunk and looked around one last time. This would always be her room – she would come back here after she graduated and live here for the rest of her life. That was the witch way.
But that would be five years from now.
It was weird to think about.
And it didn’t help that she was starting a semester late thanks to everything.
The betrayal by her father and brother hadn’t been the worst of it either. The heartbreak had devastated her mother. She’d never recovered. The next heir to the Marshall Clan had wasted away until she just…no longer existed anymore.
It wasn’t like her mother had simply gone to sleep and never woken up. She didn’t just die one day. No, Mika had watched her break—shatter that day in the coven building, and she’d disappeared a little at a time like a leak in a dam until suddenly there was nothing left of her.
All the doctors said there was nothing that could have been done. Even the High Priestess Takahashi had come to try to talk to her mother. But nothing could shake her; nothing could heal her mother’s broken heart.
Mika smoothed her hand over her skirt, eyeing the gloves she always wore out. She was almost positive her brother’s betrayal had been the real cause – not her father. He had always been their mother’s favorite.
Now her older sister was slated to be the new heir to the Marshall clan. She would become matriarch when their grandmother passed.
Claire was almost as powerful as Selene Kavanagh, the youngest Kavanagh matriarch in generations.
Mika remembered what it was like to go to school with Selene. The other witch had been a prodigy, and had graduated early so they’d drifted apart. But Selene had always been kind.
“Mika!” her sister called up. Claire’s voice echoed in the empty mansion. “Are you ready to go? We’ve got to get you settled today!”
There was so much to take care of…it felt like they’d just barely gotten everything turned in after winter solstice and yule.
Starting in the spring semester…Mika wasn’t looking forward to it.
Instead of responding she grabbed her things and dragged them down the stairs.
Claire grabbed the trunk from her when Mika hit the main floor. Her sister tried to smile. “Don’t worry. You’re going to love the university. It’s like high school, but a thousand times better.”
Mika gritted her teeth together and still didn’t say anything.
She’d hated high school and everything about it. If Selene was a prodigy, then Mika was the most mediocre, average witch to ever attend their high school. She was the same age as Selene and lightyears behind her in magical skill.
It didn’t really matter though in the long run. She’d just barely passed the entrance exams to the University of Morgana. At least she hadn’t complete
ly tarnished her family’s name.
Mika had gotten a perfect score on the theory of magic. It was so unprecedented they’d tested her again with a proctor watching every move she made.
The test had been completely different, and she’d still aced it.
But the practical? Ugh, she didn’t want to think about that. Actual magic had always been meh for her. Lighting a candle took concentration on her part. A three-year-old could do it with barely a thought.
“The door to the university is in the coven building,” Claire explained as they made their way through the foyer. “I’ll go with you, but you’ll have to cross on your own. Someone needs to look after Grandma until she decides to rejoin the land of the living.”
“She’s still alive,” Mika murmured. “That’s more than we can say for our parents and brother.”
“That’s not fair,” Claire snapped, letting the driver open the front door for them. “Dad and Jacob are still alive. They’re just stripped of their powers and shunned.”
Mika popped open her umbrella and glared up at the never-ending rain. Where she was going would be colder, but at least it wouldn’t be raining. “Dad and Jacob are dead to me after what they did to us and Mom. Let’s not pretend we’d ever have them over for dinner.”
Her sister didn’t say anything to that, and Mika didn’t expect her to.
It wasn’t fair on Claire, but she was still so angry. Mika lived that moment over and over and had been all fall and winter. Then sitting at her mother’s side for months and simply watching her waste away…
No matter how much she loved her mother, Mom hadn’t loved them enough to fight and live and…just be around. She’d given up on everything even though Mika had been right there every, single, day.
Claire followed after her to the fancy black car without an umbrella, letting the rain mess with her perfect hair. She let the driver take Mika’s trunk from her and stood there in the rain. Mika knew in that moment she should say sorry, but she was just so angry and bitter and devastated. It would only rip her apart even more to apologize for saying what she felt.
Once everything was loaded up, Claire kissed Mika on the cheek gently and stepped back. “On second thought I should stay with Grandma. Who knows what an empty mansion will do to her. I wish you the best of luck, baby sis. Write home and all that.”
Mika held her sister’s gaze and it was like looking in a broken mirror. They both had the same nearly white-blonde hair that was their family signature, ice blue eyes, and skin so smooth and creamy people often stopped them and asked them what their secret was. Their next question was if they were twins.
Claire was only an inch taller than her, but she had the better tits.
“If you need anything or…” Mika trailed off. She almost couldn’t say it out loud. “If anything else happens, call me. My phone is always on.”
Her sister nodded and Mika got in the car. Claire didn’t slam her door closed, but it was forceful just the same. Mika flinched and regretted those words she couldn’t take back, even if she wanted to.
The last six months had exacerbated everything she’d been hiding for the last three years and now…
It felt like everything she’d shoved down and ignored was all frothing to the surface, ready to boil over and she couldn’t pretend anymore.
Mika didn’t know how to pretend to be happy, or how to be…normal.
What was normal in the witch world anyway?
Kenzie was a void witch after spending most of her life a pariah – an abomination.
And up until she’d announced it to the coven no one had even known void witches existed or what a void was exactly – a witch who didn’t have powers, but could take them. Something the universe had created for balance no doubt. Mika didn’t know the details of a void’s skills, but knowing someone could take her magic…
Things were changing. She just had to get through this and onto the other side.
It would get better. It had to.
“Take me to the coven building, please,” she asked the driver, words barely above a whisper. Speaking out loud always seemed so harsh in the sudden quiet that had befallen her family the moment her mother had fainted in that fateful meeting.
As soon as Mika got settled on campus she would call her sister and apologize. But right now she was still pissed and the only thing that would come of her calling her sister was an argument. Claire didn’t deserve that – not with everything she had to deal with now.
Claire was going to be the next Marshall matriarch, and thank the Fates.
Mika didn’t want it.
She didn’t deserve it.
2
The door to the University of Morgana had the school crest above it in silver. The door itself had silver engravings all over the white ash. It was gorgeous and every time Mika had been in this ancient building she’d stopped here and wondered.
Most witches went to the University of Morgana. It wasn’t required, but it was a rite of passage for most clans and high society. Mika had always known she would go one day and now here she was – finally.
A semester late.
And she wasn’t a gifted witch. She was going in undeclared.
Claire had tried to tell her it was a mistake to go in undeclared, only the weakest witches went in without a specialty.
But there was no specialty for Mika. It didn’t exist – not in the way that it did for her sister. Claire’s five years were the best in her life she liked to say. She’d studied herbology and potions. There was nothing her sister didn’t know about plants.
But Mika could never make the potions as well as Claire could. She did love the family greenhouse though – something she thought all witches could agree on.
“Mika.”
She looked up and saw the High Priestess of the Bay Coven, Takahashi, standing next to her, hands clasped behind her back.
“Yes, High Priestess?”
“I’m glad you decided to go,” Takahashi said gently. “I know things have been…difficult.”
Mika still didn’t know what she thought about the High Priestess or the promise the void witch had made to Takahashi.
Only Selene as High Priestess would get Kenzie Kavanagh to join the coven.
Personally, Mika thought it was best to have a void witch on her side, rather than not.
But Mika wasn’t a normal witch. She’d come to learn that over the years.
“I appreciate the sentiment, High Priestess,” Mika murmured, turning back to the door. “I will try to make our coven proud.”
“May the Fates bless your journey,” Takahashi said quietly. “And try to remember it’s not always like this.”
She nodded and placed her hand on the doorknob. The silver was cold – clearly enchanted. Mika twisted and pulled it open. The door was thick and heavy and instantly the freezing cold wind settled into her bones.
A male witch who looked to be in his mid to late twenties waited for her on the other side, dressed for the weather. “Welcome, Ms. Mika Marshall. Here, let me get your things.”
“It’s pronounced Mee-kah. Not Mike-ah.” She was used to correcting people by this point in her life. No doubt she’d be doing it for the next five years as well.
“Of course, I apologize.” The witch grabbed her trunk and she wondered if he always smiled so much.
Takahashi gave her one last nod and then disappeared into the depths of the coven building, snow trailing after her – so foreign in San Francisco.
Mika let the other witch take her trunk, but she held onto her suitcase, careful not to touch him. “Is the walk far?” she asked.
He shook his head and hefted the trunk onto his shoulder like it weighed nothing. Those broad shoulders of his no doubt helped some. “I’m one of the teaching assistants here. My name is Ryan.”
She smiled slightly, just enough to be polite.
Smiling was exhausting. Mika couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled without doing it on purpose. Even before w
hat happened with her father and brother…
Three years ago. That was the last time she’d smiled, before everything had changed.
“You don’t talk much do you?” Ryan asked. He smiled at her like it was the most natural thing in the world. He even laughed a little when she didn’t answer. “Well, I’ll take you to the admissions building where you can pick up your schedule and such. Classes start tomorrow. I’m surprised you didn’t come last week.”
Mika looked up at the university as it appeared through the trees. Her shoes didn’t make any noise on the stone path and she wrapped her sweater tighter around her. “My mother’s funeral was last week.”
Instantly Ryan’s smile dropped. “I’m so sorry. I heard about what had happened to the Bay Coven – hell, every witch has, but I didn’t realize anyone had died.”
“Heartbreak can do that to a person,” she murmured, looking up, and then up.
The university was sprawling and absolutely gorgeous. It wasn’t quite a castle, but close. An old luxurious estate that was just shy of a castle. It was all stone and gothic architecture and filled with presence. Mika could feel the magic that had seeped into it over the centuries.
The wrought iron gates swung open on their own as they approached and Mika wondered what it had been like last week when most had been arriving. Something else she was behind on. She would have to scramble to get ready and set up and try to find out where everything was.
