by Laney Powell
I looked away; my fists clenched in anger. I couldn’t look at him. If I had to go with him, I would. But they weren’t going to die.
The chanting from the other side of the hellway intensified. I listened to it, not understanding the language. And then, like someone turned on a light in a dark room, I heard it.
They were strengthening the hellway. I’d seen the spell we created—this wasn’t it. I nearly rounded on Marbys, who was still casually observing this like it was nothing out of the ordinary. But I kept my head down.
He was stronger, huh? What had he said? I was his blood; I would always hear his call.
I was his blood. Which meant that I could be a part of this. Not that I wanted to, but I wasn’t letting those four amazing men die.
Not ever.
I glanced up from under my eyelashes. I’d never been fast, but if I closed some of the distance before I made my move.
“You’re such a jerk,” I ground out, walking toward Marbys. I walked past him and then turned and walked in front of him again. “Why can’t you leave me alone?” I put a whine in my voice. I kept up my pacing, trying to look jittery and unfocused.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Marbys said, but he wasn’t watching me. He was watching the guys.
I stopped to the left of him, putting my face in my hands. I’d pulled the paper with the spell on it out of my pocket as I paced, and I turned away from him so I could read it.
“Vade ad infernum. Interdictum es,” I whispered. “Vade ad infernum. Interdictum es.” Over and over I repeated it, committing it to memory. I didn’t know if this would work, but it was my best shot.
“All right, Washington,” I said. “One, two, three!” I sprinted around the edges of the hellway, heading for my guys. They didn’t move, didn’t change position, kept chanting.
I heard Marbys shout behind me but I didn’t stop. I made it to Caspian, and I grabbed his hand. “Vade ad infernum. Interdictum es! Vade ad infernum. Interdictum es!” I shouted as loudly as I could. I gripped Caspian’s hand like my life depended on it, which I was pretty sure it did.
The thin red line around them began to fade, and waver. I felt a surge of power from where I knew Marbys stood, but I shoved it behind a door. It was still there, although diminished. When I looked over at him, his face showed shock.
Only briefly. It changed to anger quickly, and his eyes glowed red.
I kept shouting, and then I heard Caspian shout with me. Then Jake, and Matty, and finally Silas. I shouted over and over, feeling my throat ache as though I was tearing it out.
I could feel something growing in me, something that I’d never felt before, a strength, a focus—I wasn’t sure what it was. But when I took Caspian’s hand, it had opened up for me.
The red line that had surrounded my guys was gone. They were with me, freed from whatever trance they’d been in. They shouted with me, and I closed my eyes, visualizing the hellway disappearing.
The library shook as though an earthquake shook it, and all of us stumbled.
“Don’t let go!” I shouted. “Keep going.”
Marbys screamed.
The hellway winked out. With it went Marbys. The library went dark, and we all stopped shouting.
The silence nearly deafened me.
“Is it gone?” Silas asked.
I closed my eyes. “It’s gone,” I said.
“What happened?” I heard Matty ask. “I don’t remember it exactly.”
“We need to get out of here,” I said. “Right now.”
“But—” Caspian began.
“Now. We can talk later.”
Still holding hands, we left. The librarian was beginning to move, but not at normal speed, when we ran out the door. Hopefully, people would wake up slowly, and give us enough time to get to my room.
“Mine’s closer,” Silas said. He pulled all of us toward his dorm. We didn’t stop until we got to his room. He fumbled with the key, and when he got it unlocked, we all practically fell into the room.
Caspian shut the door behind us.
Every single one of us dropped to the floor.
“What the hell happened?” I asked. “What were you saying? That spell wasn’t the one we wrote.”
“What are you talking about?” Matty asked. “We said it exactly as we wrote it.”
I shook my head. “I was there. Whatever you guys were chanting, you were helping it grow.”
“No,” Caspian said.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Silas asked.
“Marbys. He was there.”
“He was there?” Jake was on her feet. “I didn’t see him.”
“You couldn’t. He told me that he came when you opened it, and he used your magic. He used it against you, and he changed the spell so it did what he wanted.”
“That son of a bitch,” Jake said.
“Yeah, pretty much,” I said.
“What happened? How did we get rid of it?” Caspian asked.
“We did it together,” I said. “I got to you and took your hands. Thank goddess you were all clasping hands, because I don’t know if I could have managed it otherwise.”
“So it’s gone?” Matty asked.
I nodded. There was a lot more to discuss, to unpack, but we need to rest, and heal. It seemed like every part of me was tired. Or hurting. Or both. Which was odd, because I hadn’t been all that physical. Not that my body agreed.
But we had time. Finally, we had time.
We talked some more, but we fell asleep together, piled on the floor. There was nowhere else I would rather be.
Over the next week, all five of us spent a great deal of time together, as well with Madame Karathos. Not as much as I would have liked, because the Concilium was all over what had happened in the library. We took lots of long walks, keeping out of the way. But when we were at school, there were always at least three of us together.
Rumors flew. I listened carefully, but no one knew that a major demon had been in the school. And that was a good thing.
Finally, finally, the members of the Concilium left. A note was slipped under my door asking all five of us to join Madame Karathos after dinner.
“How much are we going to tell her?” Caspian asked.
“All of it,” I said. “Everything.”
He nodded, accepting my decision.
That night, we all went to her office together. She opened the door before anyone could even knock. “Thank you for being so prompt,” she said. “Come in.”
She led us down the hallway where I’d first met with Iliana. That seemed like ages ago. Madame Karathos pushed open a door and walked in, expecting us to follow.
The room was like a living room. Two couches, and several overstuffed chairs. Madame Karathos sat in one of those. “Now please sit,” she said.
We did.
“Tell me what happened. Don’t leave anything out,” she said.
I started with my thwarted attempt to show her the spell, and then how off and uneasy I felt the rest of the evening. How I’d fallen asleep and then woken with the knowledge that Marbys was here.
The guys told her how they’d come up with the spell. And then I shared, once again, what had happened in the library.
“How is it that the Concilium doesn’t know all of this already?” I asked.
“However, Marbys managed to stop time, they missed most of it. As did I,” Madame Karathos said. “I didn’t realize he was that strong.”
“He’s very strong,” I said. “But that strength is also his weakness.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t sure how to stop him,” I said. “He was talking, talking, talking. And he said, You’re my blood. You’ll always hear my call. That made me think. He’s always going on about how powerful he is. If I’m his blood, then I should be powerful, too, right?”
“That makes sense,” Madame Karathos said.
“But I wasn’t strong
enough on my own. I knew that. So I got to them, and we cast the spell together. We were strong enough to stop whatever spell he had on them that was using them and then kick the hellway out. The simple things,” I said smiling at Madame Karathos.
“Well done,” Silas said. “That was quick thinking.”
“You weren’t dying on my watch,” I said, glancing around at all of them.
We talked for another hour or so. Madame Karathos got up. “Thank you for sharing all of this with me. I think, in order to keep suspicion low, you should stop coming to see me, Olivia. After all, I’m very busy,” she smiled.
We were all smiling when we left her office.
The next two weeks were some of the best I’d had at school. I was spending all my time with my guys, and my friends. My magic was solidified in a way that it had never been before, not since I’d done my first spell and knew that this was the life I wanted.
With the end of the year came exams, and for the first time, I wasn’t stressed and staying up studying for too long. I knew that I could do it.
I made plans to go and visit each of the guys, and they were going to spend a week with me. It would cut down on my one-on-one personal time, but the thought of being able to be ourselves was even more exciting.
The night before the last day of school, after Matty left for his own room, there was a knock on the door.
“What did you forget?” I asked as I opened it.
Iliana stood in the doorway, wrapped in a floor-length cloak.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. She and I had talked on the phone, but we’d decided that I wouldn’t see her at school again. It was too dangerous. Just because the Concilium was gone, it didn’t mean that someone like Iliana would be welcomed here.
She stepped in, pushing back her hood as she did. “I know what we agreed, but things have changed.”
“What? What happened? Is Marbys back?” A chill gripped me.
“No,” she shook her head, her hair falling into her face. “No, this is a good thing.”
“What?”
She took my hands, and her face was shining. “Kassandra woke fully. She remembers everything. She was able to tell us what she did after her daughter, Violet, was born.”
“That’s great,” I said, not understanding.
“Now we have to go and get her,” Iliana said. “She’s out there on her own.”
“You’re sure about that? About where she is?”
Iliana nodded, her eyes bright.
“Then let’s go get her. And end this, once and for all.”
Thanks so much for reading Deadly Truth! The third and final book in the series, Chosen Hearts, is on pre-order now.
Acknowledgments
The more that I do this, the happier this makes me. The readers, my fellow authors—they all make it worthwhile. The readers were the idea for this series, asking what would happen to Olivia after reading about her in the Academy of the Underworld series. To my Dragons—you know who you are. You keep me going.
And to all of us who fell in love with the things that hang out in corners, who wondered what it would be like to hang out with them.
This is for you.
Welcome to the Underworld
The Academy of the Underworld series is now complete!
What do a sexy vampire, a broody demon, a dangerous necromancer, and a gorgeous reaper have in common? Me.
My life in the motorcycle club is pretty much what you’d expect. Raised by my single dad, I know everything there is to know about fixing bikes, and while the guys in the MC are rough around the edges, they are family in all the ways that count.
So when I grab my helmet and hit the road, what I don’t expect is the most irresistible urge to drive right off the pier—which is exactly what I do. As I sink into the depths, I see the most unexpected thing of all: my mother’s face.
Next thing I know, I’m wrapped in a glowing net and surrounded by the magical police who claim I’m an undocumented siren, and I can either go with them or be harpooned on the spot. I don’t know the first thing about magic, but with a harpoon in my face, what choice do I have? That’s how I come to be the newest student at the Academy of the Underworld.
While trying to figure out where I fit in, I meet a demon, a reaper, a necromancer and a vampire, all of whom draw me in with the same irresistible call that brought me to the water in the first place. As if that weren’t enough, I’ve arrived just in time to be terrorized—personally—by the angry supernatural being who has already killed two people on campus. He calls to me in the night and I fear if I answer him, he’ll find where I’m hiding. Yay me.
All I want to do is get out of here, but between this whole magic siren thing, my classmates that tend to be more bully than friend, the voice in the night, and the four hot guys who make my blood race, I’ll be lucky to make it to tomorrow.
Academy of the Underworld is a college-aged reverse harem paranormal fantasy series about a badass siren and the four hot men who grow to adore her. One-click the start of your adventure into the Underworld!
About the Author
I'm a Midwestern lady, living life in the Rocky Mountains. I adore strong men with hearts of gold, even if that gold is initially hidden. That's what drives me to write the stories that I write. I love not only a good cowboy romance, but a sexy demon love story, so look for both from me. Contemporary or paranormal—everyone wants love, steamy sexy times, and a happily ever after.
My Newsletter: Find Your Next Book Boyfriend
Get in touch with me at
[email protected]
My website is
thelaneypowell.com
My Facebook group: Join me!
If you read Captive Demon, the first in the Paranormal Underworld series, Get the Second Epilogue to Captive Demon as a GIFT from me!
Xoxo
Laney
Also by Laney Powell
Nobledark Academy
Secret Magic
Deadly Truth
Chosen Hearts (Aug 2020)
Academy of the Underworld
Waking Darkness
Claiming Darkness
Ruling Darkness
Paranormal Underworld
Captive Demon
Fated Demon
Broken Falls Ranch
His Heart
His Redemption
Cowboy X2 (A True Love X2 Story)
His Destiny (2020)
His Salvation (2020)
His Forever (2020)
Diablo Falls Paranormal Short Stories
First Taste
Betrayal from Hell
The Spar Island Girls
His Naughty Nurse (The Halloween Honeys)
Hot Apple Pie (Second Helpings Short Story)
Naughty or Nice (Santa’s Coming Short Story)
Snow Job (Resolution Pact Short Story)
Dear Shy Guy (The Matchmaker Series)
Forever Mine (Ireland Forever Short Story)
Mr. Black (A Mr. Billionaire Short Story)
Spring Break Delight (A Spring Break Short Story)
His Buttercup (The May Flower Series)
Three Weddings and Forever (The Wedding Season Series)
Her Firecracker (The Fireworks Series)
Cowboy’s Heart (Big Sky Short Stories)
Cowboy’s Heart is the Broken Falls Ranch series prequel
Snow Plowed (Bachelor Mountain Series)
Affair With The Billionaire
Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three
Episode Four
Episode Five
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