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

by Lexi C. Foss

  I knew, because I’d do the same.

  We all sacrificed sanity for love.

  Hence my presence in this ghastly tunnel.

  Fortunately, it’d opened up after the entrance, allowing me to walk along the rocks rather than crawl. But I had no idea where this led, and the light down here was nonexistent.

  A very small flame flickered over my fingertips, the passage not entirely underground. Or maybe that was wishful thinking, because I felt my elements draining with each step.

  I paused, frowning. Cyrus? I asked, realizing he hadn’t replied to my question about how to kill Elana.

  Static flowed back at me.

  Not good.

  Either I was wrong about the depth of this maze or something had happened.

  What if Mortus turned on him? I wondered, glancing backward, my feet caught between moving toward Elana to save Exos and retreating to check on Cyrus. She’s the source, I thought, taking a breath. If Mortus is under mind control again, it’s because of Elana. The best way to save them both is to proceed.

  Killing her would protect them all.

  I just hoped I wasn’t too late.

  Picking up my pace, I continued onward, searching with the flickers of my spirit energy for Elana’s signature.

  Nothing.

  As if she were dead and buried. Because she couldn’t access her elements down here?

  My lips curled downward. Hmm, that wasn’t right. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be engaged in a battle with Exos right now.

  Which meant that not only was she using her natural gifts but they were also strong.

  I hastened my stride into a jog, determined. This had to lead to somewhere, a meadow or a field. An outside source that granted her access to the elements.

  Unless we were completely wrong about this being her hiding place, in which case we were all royally fucked.

  No.

  I refused to think like that.

  My heart warmed as I pushed on, my instincts taking over as I allowed the elements to guide me. A twinge of life here. A taste of earth there. And a fire that burned brighter with each step.

  Yes.

  This is the right way.

  Somehow, I just knew. As if it were my fate leading me to the ultimate duel.

  All my mates had gone quiet.

  But I wasn’t listening for them now.

  Elana was who I sought, her black heart twisted with foul energy that didn’t belong. Brushing my fingertips against the dirt-laden wall, I sensed it. A wrongness blossoming in the earth. Death lingering in her wake.

  Closing my eyes, I began to walk again, tracing the tendrils of magic that soured my elements.

  Until I entered an underground clearing filled with plants and flowers and a slotted roof with access to the air above.

  I smiled, breathing in the core of my strength, my mates immediately rioting in my mind—their joint concern one I soothed with a thought to each of them. I’m fine. And what was more… I found her.

  Lying on a stone.

  Surrounded by snarling minions.

  If this is another mirage, I’m going to lose my ever-loving mind, I thought, using my air magic to scatter the minions into pieces. Then engaged my earth to tie them to the ground, forbidding them from piecing themselves back together.

  Elana came alive on a gasp, the threat of my presence yanking her out of the spirit plane. Something Exos and Cyrus both confirmed in my head, so I knew this was real.

  Third time’s the charm, I thought, smiling. “Hello, Elana.”

  Where are you? Cyrus demanded.

  I stirred a geyser above us, shooting it high up into the sky as a signal of my location. Here. And the demon is awake, I added as Elana leapt to her feet.

  “Mortus,” she spat, clearly irritated.

  I knew better than to let her talk or to gain the advantage.

  So rather than listen to the words spewing from her lips, I created an ice pick and aimed it at her heart.

  She diminished it with a wave of her hand, her control of water surprisingly strong. A similar weapon came back at me, one I barely blocked as I called on my fire for a shield.

  Liquid rained from above, dousing my flames in an instant, and Elana sighed. “Harming children has never been an enjoyable activity, but it is an easy one.”

  My chest ached as she hit me with an invisible wave of power, knocking me backward and almost out of the small clearing. I called a gust of air to force me back into the center, requiring my elements, but Elana tripped me with a black tendril of thick smoke.

  Shit! My ass hit the rocks, shooting pain up my spine.

  “Ah, Claire,” Elana murmured. “How young you truly are.”

  Ice pelted me from all sides, slicing through my clothes without preamble and digging into my skin.

  I shrieked, spinning away from the foreign sensation that wasn’t water yet resembled it.

  But it didn’t heed my call.

  My fire tried to burn it away, creating an acid-like liquid that scalded my skin and elicited a scream from my throat.

  Claire!

  I couldn’t tell which of my mates was shouting. Cyrus? Vox? Titus? A mixture of them all?

  I curled onto my side, fighting the pain and relinquishing my hold on the elements just for a chance to breathe. Somehow Elana was using them against me. Turning my powers into harmful substances that hurt me rather than offering me protection.

  “We could have been so good together, you and I,” Elana continued, her icy power swathing me in a blanket of foreign energy. “But it’s too late for that now. I see that the way to breaking Exos’s hold is through your heart. Without you, he’ll crumble. And I can take what is mine to take.”

  Exos, I breathed, sensing his pain through the bond.

  Elana had come close to destroying him.

  With my demise, she would complete the job. I felt it to the very core of my being. Because breaking our bond would distract him long enough for her to finish the job. And then she’d go after Cyrus. My other mates. The entire Academy. Everyone in the Elemental Fae Realm.

  I sensed her plans in the dark power wrapping around me.

  Her malevolent intentions to take everyone down who might stand in her way.

  She’d gone mad with her vengeance. What had begun as a simple desire to protect herself—to not allow others to find out about her Midnight Fae half—had blossomed into this need for destruction.

  With every soul she absorbed, she’d eaten at her own spirit. Diminishing it to dust beneath her craving for more power.

  I almost felt bad for her. This couldn’t have been her original intention, but now it consumed her.

  Hatred.

  Violence.

  A desire to kill.

  It all swam around her in inky waves, her heart no longer that of an Elemental Fae, but of a being overrun by her own dark energy.

  Whoever Elana once was, she no longer resembled that woman now. She merely wore the facade on the outside, her mind a constant game of chess as she devised her next play.

  Calculated.

  Cunning.

  Cruel.

  Not an ounce of remorse inside her, not even for the lives she would take today. For the very academy she ran for all these years. A means to an end.

  How I ever saw sympathy in her eyes was a miracle. A concept her savage spirit had crafted to lend to her plans. Which all led to the ruination of Elemental Fae kind.

  I saw it all unfolding in the blink of an eye. Her devastating schemes. The way she used the death fields as a source of unbending power. The way she fed those fields with more souls—souls she’d taken through the use of death magic.

  It sent a shiver down my spine.

  “How can you even live with yourself?” I wondered out loud, shaking my head. “All those fae… you’ve taken them all.” I saw with clarity what had happened to Ignis and her friends, how Elana had controlled them like she’d done with Mortus, forcing the girls to frame me for elemental
crimes against their will. And then their resulting screams as Elana tossed them into the Spirit Kingdom, allowing the fields to swallow them whole. All the while absorbing their magic for herself—a magic Exos had bound, and then released upon being knocked out by Mortus.

  Everything played out in full detail.

  Unraveling all the moves I hadn’t seen her make.

  Setting my mother’s decrepit soul in the mess of the others, allowing her to lie in wait, knowing full well that Cyrus would take me there. Elana’s resulting laughter as Ophelia latched onto me as a source of life, our bloodlines calling to one another by instinct. My former mentor had reveled in that moment, enjoying the way I suffered at the spirit of my own mother, the manner in which I almost died.

  However, I survived, a fact that intrigued Elana even more.

  Mated Cyrus—a move she hadn’t anticipated, but adored.

  Meanwhile, Exos provided a challenge, one she tried to break by putting Ophelia in the cell beside his. Allowing her to feed on me through my connection to Exos. Only, the stubborn male cut me off, a fact Elana had respected and hated at the same time.

  My head spun with the truth of it all, the explanations none of us had seen.

  I blinked up at the devil incarnate in absolute horror, words lining up on my tongue that were meant to scathe. Only, she gazed at me with blank eyes, her entire form frozen, her magic a stagnant energy in the air.

  It dissipated in a second, her rage coloring her cheeks in a putrid red shade. “You dare enter my mind?” she demanded, lashing out at me with a whip of power that scalded my insides.

  I sucked in a breath, the air icy and cold. What?

  My mouth couldn’t form the word.

  I’d entered her mind?

  Of course, I realized. That was how I’d seen all her pieces, the perpetual chessboard calculating her every move.

  Including the one I knew she’d make next.

  I engaged my fire on instinct, flaring it bright in her eyes to catch her off guard while I dove into the spirit realm and directly for the source. It was the only way to overcome her dark hold.

  I needed to fight her with light.

  Exos brushed my spirit as I raced past him and leapt for the white energy I craved. It bathed me in a heat that could melt the sun. But my access to the other elements kept me grounded.

  My fire roared to life in a protective wave.

  My air whirled me in a motion that kept me moving even while everything else threatened to stop me.

  My water soothed my aching bones, filled my soul with peace.

  And my earth rooted me to the reality I needed to fight in.

  All four combined with the most powerful of them all, bringing me to my feet on a surge of elements that sent Elana back several paces. I cocked my head, curious by her widening eyes.

  Fear, a part of me recognized, my mind oddly detached from my emotions so that it seemed like a foreign concept. Yet I knew I liked it. Craved more of it.

  I wrapped her in a rope of bronze laced with fire, not pausing even as she screamed.

  Evil existed inside her.

  Evil that needed to be eradicated.

  Spirit Fae adore life and vitality. This one craved death. And it was my duty as Spirit Queen to give her what she desired.

  The source of all the elements swarmed me, lifting me from the earth and to the field above. A field I vaguely recognized as the first place I met Titus.

  Filled with flowers.

  And happiness.

  And a blossoming sun on the horizon.

  How beautiful and perfect for the burial of this foul being.

  “Spirit is both the essence of life and death,” I said, not recognizing my voice at all, but hearing the power behind it, realizing that I myself somehow inhabited the core of the spirit.

  No, not only spirit.

  Air.

  Water.

  Fire.

  Just not earth. Although, I sensed it waiting for me, welcoming me with flowery petals of warmth and sunshine.

  How beautiful, I mused. Hmm, but not yet.

  No, I had other sources to appease first. Specifically, spirit. It raged for the life before me, craving the death of such a vile fae.

  “You abused our power,” I seethed, again not recognizing my voice. So deep. Still feminine, but echoing as if for miles. Commanding. I liked it. But I did not like the woman cowering before me, tied up by my elemental rope.

  “Claire…” The uncertainty in that familiar voice had me glancing sideways to where Cyrus stood. Exos at his side. I couldn’t say who had spoken, but thought it might have been the Water Prince.

  Mmm, my mates, I sighed, happy to see them both alive. The energy inside me rippled in its pleasure, bowing to the masters of their source, before refocusing on the task at hand.

  Because today, I was queen.

  And this poor excuse for a fae no longer deserved to live.

  “The elements have spoken,” I said, tightening the vines around her. “And you, Elana of Spirit Fae, will abuse us no longer.”

  Vitality rippled out of me, swathing her in a bright, white cloud. It absorbed her soul into its depths, taking her to a place where she would never escape or even be reborn. Her spirit too vile for any reconsideration.

  And in its wake, it left the shadow of a Midnight Fae.

  One that crumpled to the earth in a pile of black ash.

  A breeze teased the remains, whirling them into the air as flames erupted, engulfing every speck and removing the existence of her form in all ways.

  The elements taking their due.

  Destroying every last bit.

  And eliminating the death magic from the lands.

  I sensed it in the frosty kiss of the air, the finality of her passing erasing any and all evidence of her previous existence.

  Including the death fields.

  Exos fell to his knees, the power lancing through his chest, but the source inside assured he would be fine.

  Cyrus, too.

  They would all survive.

  But the spirits needed to ascend, and so I closed my eyes and willed it so. Freeing thousands upon thousands of fae from Elana’s cruel captivity.

  Fly, I encouraged them. Fly and be reborn once more.

  For that was the cause of sterility among the Spirit Fae. Not a plague, but a curse maintained by Elana. Every spirit she fed to the darkness couldn’t be reborn. And she wouldn’t allow any of the others to move on, to complete the circle of life.

  A tear slid from my eye at the understanding of it all, the workings of the universe laid out inside me as if it was my destiny all this time to absorb every detail.

  Spirit.

  Life and death.

  The elemental core of our very existence.

  I bowed before it, respecting the gifts given to me, thanking it for my creation, and promising never to abuse the energy thriving inside me.

  Each element embraced my very soul, accepting the vow and returning me slowly to the new reality I’d created. The world I’d blessed. The kingdom I’d just saved.

  To my mates.

  My loves.

  My fae.

  Exos

  Cyrus caught Claire before she hit the ground, his ability to mist making me envious and grateful at the same time. Because she was out cold, her form a dainty feminine ball of power tucked against my brother’s chest.

  Icy blue eyes flashed up at me, his expression rivaling my own. “Did that just happen?” he demanded.

  I swallowed twice before I could muster up a response. And it had nothing to do with how weak I felt from dueling Elana in the spirit plane. “I, uh, yeah. Yeah, it did.”

  Our mate had absorbed four elemental sources, her body flaring with a light that would have killed an ordinary fae. Yet she’d worn it like a queen, her hair glittering a white shade of power. I stepped forward to fondle the ash-blonde strands, the only remaining hint that what we’d just witnessed had truly come to pass.

&nbs
p; Well, along with the vitality flowing all over the Academy grounds.

  “She demolished them all,” I marveled, gazing down at her beautiful face. “She did what we couldn’t.”

  Because Elana’s powers were far stronger than any of us could have anticipated. The way she used the elements against me—including my own—had weakened me beyond repair until Claire’s timely intervention.

  “I don’t know how she did it,” I continued. “But she absorbed all four cores of her bonded elements, even flirted with earth there for a moment. And then they spoke through her.”

  Cyrus brushed his lips against her forehead, smiling. “Because she’s our queen.”

  “Yes.” I combed my fingers through her hair again, preparing to say more as Mortus stumbled into the clearing, his expression one of bewilderment and confusion. It seemed to be his permanent mask these days, the poor bastard.

  “Thank you,” Cyrus said to him now, nodding his head once. “Your help today has not gone unnoticed.”

  “She’s gone,” he whispered, staring at the hole in the earth created by our Claire. “She’s truly gone.” He didn’t sound sad, exactly. More broken. As if he’d hoped that Elana’s disappearance would heal him somehow. It would take a lot more than that evil woman’s death to mend the wounds she left behind on his soul.

  Claire began to stir, her energy humming around us in a calming wave that soothed my heart.

  “At least she didn’t stop breathing this time,” Cyrus mused.

  I chuckled. “There is that.” I pressed a kiss to her cheek and released her hair. “Mist her back to the quad. The others will need to see that she’s all right.”

  Cyrus nodded his agreement, disappearing and leaving me alone with Mortus. His black gaze lifted to mine, a hint of worry fluttering in the depths as he swallowed.

  “I should punish you,” I said, walking toward him. “For everything you’ve done.”

  “I know.” He swallowed again. “I would accept it, too, my king.”

  Pausing before him, I considered my options for the thousandth time this week. He’d kidnapped me, hurt me, and committed countless sins over the years, all beneath the compulsion of Elana.

  Many would call for his castigation, regardless of his control over the acts.