As the god spoke, I felt the black web of his power sliding over my skin. Wherever it touched, heat scalded me, turning my guilt into rage, tugging out all the memories of my torture at the hands of these students. I swam in the evil of their legacy, and in that dark place, I grasped for the light - the light of my own power. My vengeance.
Why was I trying to save them? They didn’t deserve to be saved.
Trey shook my wrist, yanking me one way as Ms. West tugged me another. “Hazel, you fucking listen to me. None of that matters now. It’s in the past. No one cares what you’ve done. We’ve all done horrible things. All I care about is what you do right now.”
“It matters,” I whispered.
My words stoked the monster inside me. I’d tried so hard to hide it, to control it, but by exposing my secret, Ms. West had set it free. It whispered rage along my veins until the whispers became a roar – until my whole body swelled with a desperate, insatiable desire for release.
I was a caged bird, trapped by the guilt that held me down, by the wrath of the students I’d tried to help, by the elite who hated me because I represented their greatest fears. Most of all – I was trapped by my feelings for the Kings.
I may be trapped, but a song of freedom sings in my blood.
Ms. West whipped out a vial filled with amber-colored liquid. She slotted it between her teeth to pull the cap off the syringe. I didn’t know what it was but knew it was going in my fucking veins.
Something inside me ruptured, and everything dark and hate-filled rose up through the fire.
My skin shattered as my rage broke through my palms, hitting the curtain behind Ms. West’s head. She bellowed in surprise and leaped away, but not before the fire licked the sleeve of her dress, shooting along her arm. She dropped the syringe and beat at the flames.
“Fire!” Someone yelled as the flames consumed the curtain, turning into a column of orange light. Students screamed and scattered, scrambling for exits, for hiding places. This was their worst fear come to life once more.
Their fear only drove the flames higher as I shoved their fucking death in their faces.
From his cavern below the school, the god screamed in my head. It sensed the murderer in me rising to the surface, and it stoked that flame with its own desires. The stage buckled beneath my feet, trembling with an unbridled lust for destruction.
“Hazel.” Trey shook my arm. His own fear had melted the ice in his eyes. “We have to get out of here.”
“Go,” I whispered through gritted teeth. “You can’t be around me right now.”
I was gone to him. I belonged to the god now, to the fire. The deity dug through my mind with threads of oily darkness, dragging up every loathsome memory, indignity, and torment done to me and others by this school. It sang a war tune made of broken dreams as it gathered all that power and all that hatred and poured it into my flame.
I am the conduit.
I am the righteous fire. I will sacrifice my soul to make sure you pay for what you’ve done.
Fire spewed from my palms, uncontrolled and unleashed. Students screamed and jumped away as I spun in circles, immolating everything I touched. Flames leaped across the sets and turned the orchestra pit into an inferno. In the audience, parents fell over themselves as I sent a ball of fire straight into their midst. Screams landed on my ears, dull and uninteresting, nothing compared to the screams that came from inside my head.
Betrayed.
Abandoned.
Possessed.
I’ll show you fucking possessed.
Trey slammed into me. “Run!” I yelled, pushing him back toward the wings. “You can’t be here for this.”
You can’t see what I’m about to do. Because there’s one thing we never spoke out loud, one plan for tonight you never considered because you are many fucking things, you Kings of Miskatonic Prep, but you are not murderers. But if the Eldritch Club dies tonight, the magic binding the sigils will be broken. And if I burn every torturer and bully to ash along with them, so much the better.
A fresh flame danced in my hand. I stared into the orange flicker, and I thought I caught an image of my mother inside it, screaming through a wall of orange light, leaning out the window as the fire caught her hair. She looked like an angel in my visions, but she was just a seducer and a betrayer burning up in an inferno of her own sin.
Hazel Waite no longer existed.
I am the flame.
I am the monster.
“What are you doing?” Ayaz stepped toward me, his dark eyes wide with fear. He grabbed the strap of my dress and shook. “Please, stop!”
But I couldn’t stop. I aimed one palm at Vincent Bloomberg’s chest as he lurched toward me, one at Ms. West as she crawled across the stage. The god licked his lips.
Let them burn. Let them all burn.
TO BE CONTINUED
Secrets. Lies. Sacrifice. Find out what happens next in the chilling final book in the Kings of Miskatonic Prep, Ignited.
Need more reverse harem in your life? Join a brooding antihero, a master criminal, a cheeky raven, and a heroine with a big heart (and an even bigger book collection) in a new steamy reverse harem paranormal mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Steffanie Holmes. Read book 1, A Dead and Stormy Night, in KU now.
From the Author
She is nine years old. Two girls at her school pretend to be her friends, but mock her and humiliate her behind her back. She confronts them one day, tells them she’s sorry if she’d done something to upset them.
“I just want us all to be friends,” she says.
Their faces break into smiles. “That’s what we want, too!”
One of them says she has something awesome to show the others. “We just found it!” She drags the girl behind the school hall. “You’ll love it.” She tells the girl to bend down and look under the hall.
As the girl bends over, a hand grabs the back of her neck, forcing her head down. She twists away, but not before her face is pushed into a pile of dog shit.
She stands up and watches her friends double over with laughter, cackling like the witches of Macbeth. She floats outside her body, looking down on herself – this pathetic girl with dog shit all over her face. She runs. She runs from the school, their laughter following her down the road, around the corner, somewhere, anywhere away from them. She doesn’t remember how far she runs or how her mum finds her. She just remembers running.
This is a true story. It happened to me.
I have a rare genetic condition called achromatopsia. It renders me completely colour-blind and legally blind. I was also a generally imaginative, weird, and introverted child. I was good at art and making up stories and terrible at sports. I wasn’t like the other kids, so they ostracized me, called me names, deliberately invented games to humiliate me, locked me in cupboards, told me that I was stupid, useless, pointless, that I should just go away, that I should never have been born.
It took me years to learn to trust people, to let them see the real me. Social situations still make me anxious, and I’ve struggled with low self-esteem and internalising anger.
In part, this is why I put myself inside Hazel’s head to write this book. But it’s not the main reason.
I want to tell you a different story.
During my first year at university, I met this girl in my dorm. We bonded over a mutual love of Stargate SG1 and Terry Pratchett and became fast friends. We moved in together and were flatmates for two years. We had many of the same classes together, we participated in the same clubs and societies, and she inserted herself into my growing circle of friends. She even started dating my BFF.
In my fourth year, the friendship started to unravel. I was doing postgraduate studies in a different subject to her. I’d moved out of our flat. I was making new friends and developing new interests. I started dating a guy she didn’t like. She felt like she was losing me – this person who was so important to her life and her sense of self.
She was fri
ghtened, I think. And her fear pushed her behaviour to greater extremes. She became obsessive, demanding to know where I was every moment, controlling my life, forbidding me to go out without her. She accused me of lying, of stealing from her. She created elaborate scenarios in her head where I had wronged her and had to make amends. I moved her into my new flat, hoping that some proximity would help her to calm down. Instead, she grew more erratic and obsessive.
My boyfriend at the time saw all this happening. He watched me become fearful of this person who was supposed to be my friend. He noted me trying to appease her, cancelling plans because they’d upset her, choosing her over my schoolwork, retreating into my shell.
He knew I was giving into her because of my past, because I was so grateful to have a friend that I didn’t want to lose her. He could see she was taking advantage of my nature to control me.
One day, my friend and I had a particular horrible fight about something. I was staying at his house, and I was terrified to go back to my flat because she was there.
My boyfriend couldn’t watch me hurt anymore. He drove me to the flat. He insisted on coming inside with me. Just having him by my side made me feel stronger.
He marched up to her and he told her that she was going to lose me as a friend if she continued what she was doing. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t call her names. He calmly laid out how she was acting and what it was doing to me. He reiterated how much he cared about me and he wouldn’t stand by and watch me hurt.
It was the first time in my life I remember someone standing up for me. Listening to him speak to her that day was like hearing him speak to every one of my old bullies.
Reader, I married him.
Time and again in my life my husband has stood up for me, stepping in where I wasn’t strong enough. And I’ve done the same for him – I’ve been the lighthouse to his ocean when he needed me most. Now, I don’t need him to fight for me, because he helped me uncover the strength to fight for myself.
I’m not Hazel, and she isn’t me. She’s way more badass. She says the things that I think of an hour after a confrontation and wished I’d said.
Hazel doesn’t need no man to help her find her strength. But I hope as the series progresses, you’ll see how Trey, Ayaz, and Quinn can become her lighthouses when she needs them most.
I know this note is insanely long. Bear with me – I just have a few peeps to thank!
To the cantankerous drummer husband, for reading this manuscript in record time and giving me so many ideas to make it better. And for being my lighthouse.
To Kit, Bri, Elaina, Katya, Emma, and Jamie, for all the writerly encouragement and advice. To Meg, for the epically helpful editing job, and to Amanda for the stunning cover. To Sam and Iris, for the daily Facebook shenanigans that help keep me sane while I spend my days stuck at home covered in cats.
To you, the reader, for going on this journey with me, even though it’s led to some dark places. Warning: if this book had you on the edge of your seat, then the fourth and final book is probably going to give you nightmares. Grab Ignited now.
If you’re enjoying Kings of Miskatonic Prep, and want to read more from me, check out my two other reverse harem series. The Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries is what you’d get if you crossed Agatha Christie with Black Books and added a harem of famous literary men. It’s my most popular series to date, and it’s a lot more light-hearted and fun (despite all the murder). Start book 1, A Dead and Stormy Night. If you turn the page, there’s a short excerpt from book 1.
The Briarwood Witches series is about a science nerd heroine who inherits an honest-to-goodness English castle, complete with five hot British/Irish tenants, a fas problem, and some magic she can’t control. It’s a little bit dark and angsty and sexy, and complete at 5 books. You can grab the box set here.
If you want to hang out and talk about all things Shunned, my readers are sharing their theories and discussing the book over in my Facebook group, Books That Bite. Come join the fun.
I’m so happy you enjoyed this story! I’d love it if you wanted to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. It will help other readers to find their next read.
Thank you, thank you! I love you heaps! Until next time.
Steff
Agatha Christie meet Black Books
What do you get when you cross a cursed bookshop, three hot fictional men, and a punk rock heroine nursing a broken heart?
After being fired from her fashion internship in New York City, Mina Wilde decides it’s time to reevaluate her life. She returns to the quaint English village where she grew up to take a job at the local bookshop, hoping that being surrounded by great literature will help her heal from a devastating blow.
But Mina soon discovers her life is stranger than fiction – a mysterious curse on the bookshop brings fictional characters to life in lust-worthy bodies. Mina finds herself babysitting Poe’s raven, making hot dogs for Heathcliff, and getting IT help from James Moriarty, all while trying not to fall for the three broken men who should only exist within her imagination.
When Mina’s ex-best friend shows up dead with a knife in her back, she’s the chief suspect. She’ll have to solve the murder if she wants to clear her name. Will her fictional boyfriends be able to keep her out of prison?
The Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries are what you get when all your book boyfriends come to life. Join a brooding antihero, a master criminal, a cheeky raven, and a heroine with a big heart (and an even bigger book collection) in this brand new steamy reverse harem paranormal mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Steffanie Holmes.
READ NOW
Excerpt: A Dead and Stormy Night
Chapter one
Wanted: Assistant/shelf stacker/general dogsbody to work in secondhand bookshop. Must be fluent in classical literature, detest electronic books and all who indulge them, and have experience answering inane customer questions for eight hours straight. Cannot be allergic to dust or cats – if I had to choose between you and the cat, you will lose. Hard work, terrible pay. Apply within at Nevermore Bookshop.
Yikes. I closed the Argleton community app and shoved my phone into my pocket. The person who wrote that ad really doesn’t want to hire an assistant.
Unfortunately, he or she hadn’t counted on me, Wilhelmina Wilde, recently-failed fashion designer, owner of two wonky eyes, and pathetic excuse for a human. I was landing this assistant job, whether Grumpy-Cat-Obsessed-Underpaying-Ad-Writer wanted me or not.
I had no options left.
I peered up at the towering Victorian brick facade of Nevermore Bookshop – number 221 Butcher Street, Argleton, in Barsetshire – with a mixture of nostalgia and dread. I’d spent most of my childhood in a darkened corner of this shop, and now if I played my cards right I’d get to see it from the other side of the counter. It was the one shining beacon in my dark world of shite.
I don’t remember it looking so… foreboding.
Apart from the faded Nevermore Bookshop written in gothic type over the entrance, the facade bore no clue that I stood in front of one of the largest secondhand bookshops in England. A ramshackle Georgian house facade with Victorian additions rose four stories from the street, looking more like a creepy orphanage from a gothic novel than a repository of fine literature. Trees bent their bare branches across the darkened windows and wisteria crept over grimy brickwork, shrouding the building in a thick skin of foliage. Cobwebs entwined in the lattice and draped over the windowsills. There didn’t appear to be a single light on inside.
Weeds choked the two flower pots flanking the door, which had once been glazed a bright blue but were since stained in brown and white streaks from overzealous birds. A pigeon cooed ominously from the gutter above the door, threatening me with an unwelcome deposit. Twin dormer windows in the attic glared over the narrow cobbled street like evil eyes, and a narrow balcony of black wrought iron on the second story the teeth. A hexagonal turret jutted from the south-western corner, where it might once ha
ve caught sun before Butcher Street had built up around it.
When I used to hang out as a kid, the first two floors were given over to the shop – a rabbit warren of narrow corridors and pokey rooms, every wall and table covered in books. The previous owner – a kindly blind old man named Mr. Simson – lived on the remaining two floors, but for all I knew, the new owner used that space as an opium den or a meat smoker.
At least the flaccid British sun peeked through the grey clouds, which meant I could make out these finer details of the facade. The buildings on either side of it were cloaked in the creeping black shadow that now followed me everywhere. I squinted at the chalkboard sign on the street, hoping for some clue as to the new owner’s personality, but all it had on it were some wonky lines that looked like chickens’ feet.
This place is even more drab than I remember. It could use a little TLC.
That makes two of us. I squinted at my reflection in the darkened shop window, but I could barely make out the basic shape of my body. At least I knew I looked fierce when I left the house, in my Vivienne Westwood pleated skirt (scored on eBay for twenty-five quid), vintage ruffled shirt, men’s cravat from a weird goth shop at Camden market, and my old school blazer with an enamel pin on the collar that read, ‘Jane Austen is my Homegirl.’ Combined with my favorite Docs and a pair of thick-framed glasses, I’d nailed the ‘boss-bitch librarian’ look.
That is, if you ignored the fact that I pushed my nose up against the glass to see my reflection, and twisted my head in order to see all the details of my outfit because of the creeping darkness in the corners of my eyes.
Please, Isis and Astarte and any other goddess listening, let me get this job. I can’t deal with any more rejection.
Possessed: A reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 3) Page 24
