Elemental Fae Academy: Book Three: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance

by Lexi C. Foss

  Sprinkle and grow, I whispered to the intoxicating mess of magic. Breathe new vitality into the sky. And shade our land in hues of blue.

  I released it on a breath, smiling as the sensation grew into a spark of watery light above our heads.

  The display of a royal.

  The power of a king.

  “Vox,” I said, opening my eyes and glancing at him. “Wanna dance?”

  His lips curled from across the field. “Hell yeah.”

  Air tangled with my elements, stirring a vortex into the night sky that absorbed the darkness threatening our lands while leaving my energy to shine.

  That was the sign.

  “Let’s begin,” I said, raising my hand and showering my fae with gifts from the source itself. “Go!”

  Claire

  Droplets kissed my skin, Cyrus’s power infusing my own and eliciting a smile from me despite the dire circumstances. I love you, I whispered to him.

  I love you, too, little queen. Now focus on protecting my brother.

  My smile grew. Already am.

  I had my palm pressed to Exos’s lower back, our spirit energy growing mutually between us and cascading over the lands in search of the villain we sought. We had one goal: to dismantle her soul.

  But she remained elusive, hiding behind her ebony ocean of death. It clouded our affinity for life while seducing our darker side, causing us to fight an upward battle as we strove to hold on to the vitality that grounded us.

  Exos had chosen this position for visibility, not just for us but for Elana, too.

  “She’ll scatter her minions across the grounds and come for us alone,” he’d said as we climbed the tower. “Which is exactly what we want. Kill the source, everything else dies with it.”

  His plan hinged on our ability to take out Elana alone.

  And if that failed, we would move on to another plan involving all my mates.

  I brushed my damp palms against my cotton pants. Titus had given them to me, claiming they were light and fit for a fight, while also fireproof thanks to a magical surface treatment. Same with my long-sleeved shirt. Both were meant to protect me.

  As was the staff in my hand and the blades strapped to my hips.

  They didn’t bring me nearly as much comfort as my elements did. Especially as the first sounds of attack drifted upward into the air.

  I swallowed, the acrid air unsettling my insides. My soul instinctively reached out to check on my mates, worried for them as they battled below.

  But I found only excitement lacing our bonds.

  Pride from Cyrus.

  Fierceness from Sol.

  Determination from Vox.

  And a sense of happy resolve from Titus as he chanted threats in his mind at the deathly creatures crawling overhead. His power ignited, warming my skin, as Sol collapsed the earth on a horde of incoming skeletal beings. Fire poured over them all, melding the land around them to form an ensnaring rock.

  “Brilliant,” Exos praised, his amusement palpable. “I knew those two would come to terms and work well together. Now let’s see about getting them some help, shall we?”

  I nodded, refocusing on the task at hand. Find Elana.

  But her presence was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, her soul withering just out of reach. I frowned at it. “How does she keep doing that?”

  “She’s old,” Exos said, his presence closest to the source. “And she’s developed some cunning tricks over the centuries.”

  I growled, frustrated, and dove back into my spirit.

  So much darkness.

  Not at all like the last time I ventured into this plane.

  Shadows lurked in corners, taunting my presence and providing false leads. Hmm, but that one in the distance keeps fading and appearing as if striving to hide but failing. I trailed after it, determined to identify the master of the creation.

  Or maybe mistress.

  Where are you, Elana? I wondered. Come out, come out, wherever you are.

  The ground shifted, rocking our tower. I clung to Exos and a nearby pole, my focus still on the spirit realm and that fleeing form. You can’t escape me, I thought at it, pursuing it faster. I’m going—

  A piercing scream yanked me back into reality, my eyes flying wide. “Mom!” I shouted, recognizing that yell from the last few days of overhearing her night terrors.

  Exos caught me around the waist before I could begin the descent. “It’s a trap,” he said, his mouth against my ear.

  “How do you know?” I demanded, my mother’s agonized shouts slicing my heart. “They’re hurting her, Exos! We have to do something!”

  Exos’s arms tightened around me. “Think, Claire! We have a plan. We can’t deviate.”

  “But they’re killing her!” I could see it in the way her aura flickered in the spirit realm, a sense of her demise looming over my very soul. I had to go to her, to help her, to free her. I’d only just gotten her back, and for her to die now wouldn’t be right.

  She deserved a second chance.

  She needed to clear her name.

  Everyone hated her, accused her of a sin that she never committed.

  If she died, she’d leave us with the knowledge of her failure.

  Another shriek fractured my heart, her light blinking in and out in the soul plane, begging me for help. I couldn’t ignore her. I had to go to her, to help her, after all the years of leaving her to suffer. Never again. Not now that I had the power and knowledge to do something.

  Exos’s words were drowned out by the escalated beating of my heart, the sound whooshing in my ears as if I were underwater. His arms fell away. His touch seeming to go right through me as the world dissolved into a shield of clarity and peace.

  Only to be wiped away by the sight appearing before me.

  My mother on her knees.

  Elana’s hand wrapped around her throat.

  A yawning vortex of energy swirling around them both as Elana literally absorbed my mother’s soul right before my eyes.

  “Enough!” I shouted, blasting her with every bit of power I could muster and sending Elana across the Spirit Dorm into a nearby wall.

  I misted, part of me realized.

  But I had more important problems to worry about.

  Slithering skeletal minions turned on me, furious that I’d dared to touch their mistress. With a wave of water, I sent their remains scattering. Then created a fiery shell around my mother, protecting her unconscious form on the floor from future harm. Earth would have been better, but I didn’t trust that element yet. Not with my mating bond still outstanding.

  Air, water, spirit, and fire would have to do.

  I used the first to create a tornado, sucking up all the pieces of Elana’s minions and blowing them out into the Spirit Quad. Then I focused on the bitch herself.

  Except she was nowhere to be found.

  I frowned, whirling around, searching for Elana.

  She’d been there just a second ago.

  Realization dawned as the scene rippled before my eyes, disclosing the truth for the split second I needed to discover what was happening.

  It’s all a mirage…

  With that thought, the world calmed and revealed the real Spirit Dorm. The flames died around my mother. She still lay unconscious with sleep—a sleep Cyrus and Exos had subjected her to only hours before.

  And the only destruction around us was the one I’d caused.

  None of it was real.

  But where were the Fire Fae set to guard my mother?

  With a sickening feeling, I wandered outside, hoping against hope that it hadn’t been them I destroyed.

  And I found them all lying on the lawn.

  “Oh God…” I pressed my hand to my mouth, falling to my knees.

  Those skeletal things were fae…

  And I killed them.

  My heart hammered in my chest.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I punched the earth, furious at myself for allowing my emotions to take me
under. The ground rumbled beneath my strike, cracking. Stand up, I told myself. Stand up and find that bitch. Finish it.

  My legs wobbled with the effort.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, a tear tracking down my cheek as I breathed the word to the five fae on the field. “I’m so—”

  Claire! Exos’s scream ripped through my being, his agony a slap to my senses.

  I looked for his tower and found it wavering in the night, electricity flickering all around him.

  Exos! I took off at a run, leaving my mother behind. It physically hurt, but my soul drove my actions, forcing me to make the impossible choice. I’m coming!

  But he didn’t respond, his spirit lost in a duel I should have been engaged in with him, at his side.

  How could I be so stupid?

  Elana played the one card she knew I wouldn’t ignore.

  Using my mother against me yet again.

  Hatred fueled my steps. Vengeance darkened my heart.

  A watery haze overcame me once more, power erupting through my veins. And I arrived on an explosion of elements to find Exos unconscious at Elana’s feet.

  Unconscious but alive.

  Because I felt his life thriving around me.

  He’d taken Elana to battle in the spirit plane.

  Only, she seemed to be in both places at once. Her arms seemed to lower in slow motion, the blade in her hand on a perfect trajectory to hit Exos’s chest.

  “No!” I sent a fistful of water into her face while grabbing hold of the metal with my fire and melting it right from her hand. A drop of it sizzled against Exos while the rest scattered on a breeze I shot sideways.

  Elana roared, coming for me in a split second of speed I hadn’t seen coming, sending us both over the side of the tower.

  Vox’s scream assaulted my ears, his howl seeming to circle around me to soften my descent, just as the earth cushioned my fall.

  A fall that should have killed me and Elana both.

  Only, she was again nowhere to be seen.

  Another mirage!

  I rolled to my side and up to my feet, furious, and spun around. “Where are you?” I demanded. “Where the fuck are you?”

  “Where’s Exos?” Cyrus breathed, having misted to my side.

  I pointed upward.

  And Cyrus disappeared, only to reappear with my unconscious spirit mate in his arms.

  “What happened?” he demanded.

  I shook my head. “She’s creating fucking visions.”

  Hell, for all I knew, Cyrus could be one. Except I felt in my soul that he wasn’t, our bond thriving from our nearness.

  Speaking of… I pressed my palm to Exos’s chest, focusing on our connection to find him in the spirit realm. There.

  He stood before the source, encased in power as Elana blasted him with magic that didn’t belong here. It shook the core, disturbing the balance and causing Exos to fight for his footing.

  I pulled away slowly, considering our options.

  “We need to find Elana’s body,” I told Cyrus. “She’s here somewhere. But we need to find her fast.” Because from what I could see, Exos didn’t have long until one of her foreign balls of energy pierced his armor.

  And I didn’t want to know what would happen then.

  “I might be able to help with that,” a soft voice said.

  Mortus.

  He held up his hands. “I promise she’s not in my head. But I have certain memories of the last two decades. Or I think that’s what they are. Honestly, they feel like dreams.”

  “Your point?” Cyrus demanded.

  Mortus cleared his throat. “I, uh, I think I know where she is.”

  Cyrus

  I don’t trust him, Claire whispered into my thoughts.

  Neither do I, I admitted. But I don’t sense any compulsion of his spirit.

  It could still be a mirage. She folded her arms, her eyes narrowing at Mortus. “Where do you think she is?” The skepticism in her tone wasn’t lost on me or Mortus.

  He flinched before replying, “There’s a place in the forest, just beyond campus, that leads to an array of hidden tunnels.”

  My brow furrowed. “You want us to go underground? Where our elements don’t work?” I snorted. “Yeah, that’s going to happen.” Plus, I wasn’t even sure those tunnels existed. I’d never heard of such a thing, or seen them, and I knew these grounds forward and backward. When I said as much out loud, Mortus shook his head.

  “I found them last week,” he admitted, his voice low. “I kept dreaming of them and had to see if they were real. And, well, they are.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell us that?” Claire snapped, taking the words out of my mouth.

  He lifted his hands as if surrendering. “I… I didn’t know they would be important. I… You don’t know what it’s like to not know what you’ve done, or who you are, or whom to trust, or to wake up in a world that’s aged without you.” His eyes met mine. “I remember your mother like it was yesterday, Cyrus. Like we just shared a spirit course together last week. I… I don’t…” He shook his head, a deep sadness overrunning his typically stern features.

  A twinge of pity radiated from my chest, only to be squashed by the weight in my arms.

  My brother grew weaker with every passing second. I felt it as his soul fought with everything he had, against a force that was far more powerful than it should be, especially when faced with the wrath of the Spirit King. “Show us the entrance,” I said, not yet seeing an alternative. If Mortus’s words proved right, then we’d call upon Sol to unearth the entire maze.

  Assuming he could take a break from slaughtering the dead.

  Skeletal creeps had overrun the grounds, and they were fast little fuckers, too. Worse, they kept putting themselves back together. It didn’t matter how many times Vox’s team blew them apart; the damn bones seemed to just morph into new creatures that continued to cause havoc.

  Shrugging off a foreboding chill, I gestured for Mortus to get moving. We’d be taking Exos with us because I didn’t trust anyone to watch over him apart from me and Claire, and her mates were otherwise engaged. “Tell Vox and Titus where we’re going.”

  “Already done,” she replied, following Mortus. I still think this is a bad idea.

  Do you have a better one? I asked her.

  No. She cast me a look, then glanced at Exos, her shoulders falling as guilt pierced our connection. I shouldn’t have left him.

  What do you mean? I demanded. When did you leave?

  She informed me of what happened with her mother while we walked, her mental voice holding a touch of sorrow when she reached the end about the Fire Fae she’d accidentally destroyed.

  Casualties are a consequence of war, I whispered, brushing her cheek with a mist-like kiss. And fae are tougher than one might expect. They may have survived.

  You think?

  We’ll find out after we deal with Elana, I promised, my arms beginning to shake from the weight of carrying my brother.

  At least he’d chosen a tower near the edge of the campus.

  It meant we hadn’t needed to walk very far until Mortus showed us the entrance—an entrance that was mysteriously void of the death creatures haunting the Academy grounds.

  What do you think? Claire asked, eyeing the twisting trees.

  An observer would see only that—two giant trunks mating at the earth to form a beautiful V with vines dancing up and around to decorate the limbs.

  But Mortus pulled aside the shrub at its base to reveal an entrance only large enough for a person to crawl through.

  I think there’s no way in hell I’m letting you wander down there alone, I replied, frowning.

  Which left me with a significant issue resting in my arms.

  You can’t carry Exos through that, she replied, noting the problem already spinning through my thoughts.

  I know. And there was no way in hell I’d leave Exos under Mortus’s care. Can you reach out to Titus and Vox, ask one o
f them to bring Sol?

  Claire shook her head. There isn’t time, Cyrus. And I’ve already taken you away from the fray. The others need them. She took a step forward to investigate the trees and the cavern they revealed below. There’s only one choice here.

  I disagree.

  I know you do, she tossed back. But you’re also wrong.

  “Claire.” I laced her name with a warning.

  “Take care of Exos,” she said, stepping out of my reach. “I’ll be back.”

  “Claire!” I set Exos down, prepared to grab her, but the little minx had already slithered into the damn hole. “Fuck!”

  I’ll be okay.

  Not when you get back out here, you won’t, I seethed, pacing before the entrance and ignoring Mortus’s muttering. He offered to look after Exos, which was not happening. Fuck, Claire! I’m going to beat your ass raw.

  That sounds arousing, she returned. You promise?

  This isn’t funny. Get back here.

  I’m fine, she promised.

  I glanced at Exos, then at the ground, and then back at Exos. “Blast the elements!” I hated the choice she’d left me with—leave my brother and help her, or trust her and guard him.

  But she was underground.

  Where she couldn’t seek the elements.

  Going fuck knew where.

  Claire, I growled.

  Stay there, she demanded, infuriating me more. I might need your element.

  Which I couldn’t access if I followed her into the tunnels. I’m going to throttle you, woman!

  Promises, promises, she singsonged. Now stop flirting and tell me how to kill Elana when I find her.

  Claire

  Cyrus’s roar of frustration sent a chill down my spine.

  Yeah, I’d pissed him off.

  But we were out of time. One look at the spirit realm and he’d know that. Exos had put up one hell of a fight, but the darkness swarming around Elana was beginning to overpower him. I suspected it was because of me. Exos couldn’t go full Spirit King without jeopardizing my access to the source, thereby weakening me. And the stubborn male would never allow that.