Of Beasts and Blood: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Arcane Arts Academy Book 3)

by Elena Lawson

  Draven’s lips tightened into a firm line and I thought maybe he was trying to conceal a smirk. “And do you have any evidence that would support that theory?”

  My heart fell. “Well, no. Just a feeling.”

  He held out his hand for the journal, asking this time instead of taking. “Don’t doubt your witch’s intuition, Harper. In my experience, it can be quite accurate. I’ll see what I can find out—if you want me to.”

  No, wait. I didn’t think this was a good idea anymore. Looking at his pale outstretched hand, and well, at him, I thought this might be crazy.

  I should just ask Elias to help me.

  “We want the same thing,” Draven prodded gently. “You can trust me. I promise you that.” He laid his hand over top of mine on the journal. “And I don’t break promises. Not ever.”

  The feel of his smooth skin brushing over my knuckles made me shiver and something in the pit of my stomach tighten.

  I wanted so badly to believe him. Lara’s voice came into my mind. If you can’t trust, then you’ll never live, my girl. You might get hurt, but if you don’t carry scars, how will you learn?

  She was always full of so much wisdom. Like my own personal Confucius. Annoying, but most of what she said made sense.

  I handed over the journal, prefacing its contents by saying. “My father was trying to find a way to break the curse.”

  “Curse?”

  “The curse Cyprian laid on your kind and the Endurans in Emeris.”

  “That’s impossible,” he scoffed, flipping through the pages.

  It’s what everyone thought. Why would he be any different? But I started to believe my father was onto something. That maybe he had found a way after all.

  I watched Draven as he fingered through page after page, skimming lines of text, his expression unreadable.

  “He was a smart man, your father.”

  “Hmm? How so?” I asked, drinking down a bit more of my midnight oil.

  He maneuvered himself so he sat next to me, the side of his body pressed up against mine in a way that almost made me choke on the slimy tea.

  “This here, this is written in Melîn—the language of the fae,” he said, pointing to a strange looking language that had a series of accents over letter-like shapes and dots over others.

  “And this,” he continued, flipping to the page behind it, “This is the ancient language of Emeris. Emelîn. I know it, though not very well. And this,” he turned to the following page. “Is only one of seven different forms of code I’ve identified in as many pages.”

  It seemed a lot of trouble to go to.

  “Whatever is contained in these pages must be very important. Very valuable. At least, to the man who wrote it. Your father attempted to make it so that if this was ever found—it couldn’t be deciphered.”

  “But you can decipher it, can’t you?”

  Draven closed the leather-bound journal and set it down in his lap as though it were a bomb instead of a stack of old paper. “Some of it. Maybe enough to help.”

  “Then you can take it, but I’ll need one more promise from you first.”

  “Name it.”

  “You can show no one else this journal. And you can discuss it only with me.”

  I gulped, afraid he’d say no and steal the journal anyway. Taking away the only thing I had that might lead to some answers.

  “I swear,” he said, and I placed a hand on his arm. He bristled at the tender touch, and I saw something in his eyes deepen. He looked at me with something like wonder. It made a hot blush creep up my neck.

  His lips parted as though to say something, but then he closed them, thinking better of it, perhaps, and stood. “This is a good start,” he told me, tucking the journal into his breast pocket. “I’ll bring it back as soon as I can.”

  I offered him a smile and rose to see him out the window, suddenly remembering the officers still outside, and why they were there.

  She was bitten.

  But looking at Draven—his cool demeanor, and impressive self-control, I couldn’t bring myself to believe he’d have done it anymore. He was a total prick. But he was an honest prick.

  “Be careful,” I told him.

  He winked as he swung open the window. “Always am.”

  And then he vanished into the night. Gone within seconds.

  No trace of him left behind except the weakness in my knees and the gripping worry that I might have just made the most terrible of mistakes.

  7

  I must’ve fallen asleep at some point in the night because when I woke up it was long past dawn and Bianca was gone. Her bed was pristinely made, and all the little pots and brushes on her vanity were arranged in that painstakingly precise way she had when something was bothering her.

  I hoped she was alright and wished I’d woken up earlier to say goodbye. Give her a hug—or whatever it was you did for people who were grieving. Now I’d have to wait until she got back, but hopefully, by then she would be feeling a bit better.

  The academy was eerily quiet when I got up to change and attempt to tame my hair. It was almost uncomfortable—the silence. And as I pulled my headband into place and stepped out into the hallway, I found it also totally devoid of the noises that usually accompanied a chunk of building filled with over one-hundred girls.

  Everyone had gone.

  I couldn’t wait to turn eighteen so I could go, too. Being in the academy alone gave me the creeps. A chill slunk up my arms and I ducked back into my room for a sweater before rushing down the stairs—eager to get out to see my familiars.

  The feeling of the bond was strong this morning, which meant they hadn’t left the grounds yet.

  “Where are you off to in such a rush?” Mr. Donovan asked, coming out of his classroom, startling me since I hadn’t noticed he was there.

  I slowed in my near-skipping pace to a slower walk, conscious of how it must’ve looked to see me smiling ear to ear when a girl died just yesterday. But the prospect of seeing Cal and Adrian always brought a smile to my face—no matter the circumstances.

  The sigils professor waited for a response.

  “Uh—to see my familiars, Professor Donovan. I wanted to check that they were alright.”

  He shut the door and locked it, coming into the middle of the hallway where I stood.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” he said in a chastising tone. “That a girl died the same night you brought them here. Very peculiar.”

  I stopped breathing. “I was with them when it happened,” I said, automatically going on the defensive.

  He pursed his lips. “So, it would seem. The headmistress agreed she’d seen you come in at… what time was it? Two or three?”

  Was he really trying to bait me?

  I took a step away from him, not trusting myself not to go ape-shit on his self-righteous ass. “Three,” I said curtly. “I have to go.”

  “They’re beasts, Harper,” he called after me. “Expecting them to act any differently than their nature is foolish, remember that the next time you try to cover for them.”

  I turned down the south corridor, fuming, racing the rest of the way to the exit. The magic-fortified rage building in my core fueling each step.

  What did he know? What a total douche.

  I had his number now. He was one of those holier-than-thou witches. The type who thought the only thing wrong with what Cyprian did to the Endurans and Vocari was in not completing the curse.

  If he’d been able to—they wouldn’t just be affected by the sun and the moon—his aim was much more sinister. He’d plotted to wipe out two entire races. Genocide. The curse—had he finished it—would have killed them swiftly and without prejudice or mercy.

  Not a child would have been spared. Not a single one of them. The plague he intended would have killed them all.

  I didn’t bother knocking when I got to the toolshed, still furious that Mr. Donovan thought he could tell me who I should and shouldn’t trust.

&nbs
p; “Harper?” Adrian blew out my name as he clutched a towel around his middle, hiding his nakedness from me. He was still dripping wet from the shower, and the shine on his skin only served to deepen the bronze hue of his near-flawless skin.

  Shocked I wasn’t drooling when I realized my mouth was hanging open, I quickly spun, muttering an apology. “Sorry. I should’ve knocked.”

  “Oh, turn around, it’s nothing you won’t see, eventually. Shifters aren’t really known for their modesty,” Cal said from above and I turned my face up to see him looking over the edge of his loft bed. Shirtless as usual.

  He did have a point. Being around Atlas’ pack, I’d seem more boobs and dicks than I’d ever seen in my life. They really didn’t seem to mind getting naked, no matter who was around to see.

  “We were wondering when you’d be coming,” Adrian said. “We were hoping you’d come last night.”

  I turned back around, finding him with his back turned as he pulled on a pair of shorts. The same dirty pair he’d been wearing the other night. There were still small blood droplet stains on the right side. I made a mental note to take the pair of them shopping the moment I could. Well, to take all of us shopping. I supposed I could stand to get a few new things, too. Bianca wasn’t going to let me borrow her clothes forever.

  “We tried to say as much, but the connection—er—whatever that thing was you did cut off before we could ask,” Cal added, hopping down from the bunk to land easily on the balls of his feet.

  I looked away. “I’m sorry about that—and that I didn’t tell you everything that came along with this bond between us. I should’ve figured you wouldn’t know.”

  Cal shook his head. His deep caramel hair was getting long in the front and he had to toss it back out of his face. I kind of liked it long like that. I wondered what it would feel like to run my fingers through it. It looked so thick. Silky smooth. Neat and untangled. Straight with only a slight wave.

  I’d kill for my hair to cooperate as well as his seemed to be.

  “It… it was…”

  “Violating?” I offered with a wince.

  Cal looked surprised.

  “At first,” Adrian replied honestly.

  “Yeah, at first,” Cal agreed. “But then we remembered it was just you, and it wasn’t so bad.

  I let go of the breath that’d begun to stale in my lungs. “Good.”

  Adrian poured a cup of coffee from the coffee maker on the counter and took a long swallow. “We’re used to it,” he said.

  “Pack bond,” Cal explained.

  Ah, right. I’d forgotten about that—the pack’s ability to communicate through a sort of telepathy.

  “It’s actually been crazy quiet since leaving Atlas’ pack. It was nice to hear another voice that wasn’t shouting commands through the bond,” Adrian added, and I could tell he was only trying to make me feel better.

  I smiled. We’d come a long way in melting his icy exterior since we first met. He was still a hot-head—no doubt. But not towards me anymore. Well, not as much anyway.

  We sat and shared a simple breakfast of boiled eggs, toast, and jam. And copious amounts of coffee. Watching them literally wolf down all the food on the table was a real eye-opener. If I thought the food I’d stocked the fridge and pantry with was enough to feed them for anything more than a week, I was sorely mistaken.

  I’d be needing to restock every few days if they ate as much for lunch and dinner as they did for breakfast. Where the hell did they put it all?

  There couldn’t have been more than an ounce of fat between them.

  Cal washed the dishes, and Adrian cleared away the rest of the mess. Neither would allow me to do anything at all to help. You’ve done enough for us, already, they said. But I wished I could do more. Give them more.

  I supposed now was as good a time as any to ask the question I’d been wanting to ask since I first got here. After all the talk about what happened to Lacey, and how they’d been questioned, but not accused—thanks to mine and Granger’s testimonies—there was only one thing left I needed to know.

  “Did you find anywhere you liked?” I asked them from where I sat at the small square table in the middle of the room. “Any new territory?”

  I felt like such a child, but I didn’t want them to go. With everything going on, I needed them. More so than just for the strength they could lend me, but also for my peace of mind.

  I knew it in my bones they’d never hurt an innocent, especially not a girl of only sixteen, but if they weren’t the hunters in this scenario, they could become the hunted. Especially with all the time they spent outside.

  Whatever it was that got Lacey could get them, too.

  Were shifters stronger than vampires? Is it even possible it was a vampire if it wasn’t Draven?

  There were so many questions that needed answering. And even more problems that needed solving, but this one weighed on me at least as much as the others. All I knew was that I wanted them close. Where I could watch over them. If the bond alerted me they were in danger, at least if they were here, I could go to them. I could help.

  Cal turned off the sink and spun to lean on the counter, crossing his densely corded arms across his chest. “No, we didn’t.”

  A tightened spool in my chest unfurled. They would stay then, at least another day. The thought brought me an immeasurable amount of peace.

  “And we aren’t leaving,” Adrian added, turning to take the same stance as his brother.

  “What?”

  Cal looked at me as though I should already understand what was going on, but I clearly didn’t. “Harper, a girl was murdered two nights ago. It happened right here at the academy, not all that far away from where you sleep.”

  “Like I said,” Adrian crooned, coming to rest a hand on my arm. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

  I shrugged. “It could’ve just been an animal,” I reasoned, more to put my own mind at ease than to convince them I wasn’t in any danger.

  Call me selfish, but if them believing I was in some sort of danger made them stay, then I’d throw myself in its path willingly—you know, so long as nobody would actually get hurt.

  Adrian shook his head, his gaze unfocused as his thoughts took over. “I don’t think so. Something about it seems off. We should have heard her, or the animal. Something.”

  “But we didn’t hear anything,” Cal interjected, and I realized they’d already given this a lot of thought. “It seems more likely her body was simply dropped there, and that she died somewhere else.”

  I hadn’t thought of that as a possibility. I’d just assumed she was attacked and died on the grounds. Shows how much I knew about this sort of thing.

  “Well, what do you think could’ve done it, then?”

  Cal shrugged. “A vampire, maybe, but I don’t know what one would be doing all the way out here.”

  “Yeah,” Adrian agreed, falling into the chair opposite me. “An animal we’d have smelled, but a vampire’s smell is fainter than that. They hardly have any smell at all, except Draven of course. That weird cologne of his, what’s it called? The Devil’s Diaper?”

  “The Devil’s Bed,” I think, Cal corrected.

  I shrank into myself. Wondering how hard that smell was to detect since it was probably all over me from falling all over him just last night.

  “Yeah, but in French so it sounds more…”

  “Expensive? Classy?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  Adrian bent forward in his seat, resting his elbows atop his knees, clasping his hands together as he regarded me with slightly glowing ochre eyes. “So, love, want to tell us why that very distinct smell is all over you this morning?”

  8

  Suffice it to say Cal and Adrian weren’t exactly thrilled I trusted Draven enough to let him help in the task of figuring out who was to blame for all those Enduran and Vocari deaths.

  Actually, they weren’t uber excited I was trying to find the person responsible at all. It
was dangerous, they said, and I shouldn’t be looking for trouble. They said to let them do the looking.

  I told them not a fucking chance.

  Once that was settled, we agreed to work as one. Me, Draven, and my familiars. I knew we could also count on Bianca and Elias if we needed them, but I made it clear I’d rather keep them out of it—especially Bianca. She had enough to deal with.

  So, in the span of two days, I told three people about my father’s journal, and about my suspicions.

  Like I expected, all three thought Alistair Hawkins was a crackpot. There is no cure. It isn’t possible, they said.

  But what if it was? So many things were once considered impossible. I bet cavemen didn’t think we’d ever fly inside of metal tubes with wings in the sky. And I bet whatshisface who invented the telephone or that other guy who invented electricity were called crackpots, too. Until they did it.

  I never knew my father. But I had to believe he wasn’t just some delusional theorist.

  “Your father was… a very passionate man,” Diana said. “He had grand aspirations and even grander ideas. But no, I wouldn’t have ever called him delusional.”

  We were sitting in her office, drinking some tea. It was Sunday and all the students would be coming back at some point today for when classes resumed tomorrow.

  After spending most of Friday and Saturday with Cal and Adrian, and the late-night hours in my room, studying more than sleeping, and avoiding Elias, there was nothing left to do but twiddle my thumbs until Draven came back.

  Thankfully, when I’d brought a tea tray up to her office, the headmistress hadn’t been too busy to sit with me a while. It’d become something of a habit on the weekends when Bianca was away. There wasn’t all that much else to do when the halls and classrooms were empty. But, like me, Diana never seemed to leave the grounds either.

  “What made you ask such a thing?” she prodded; her brown eyes bright as she took another sip of her tea.

  I pressed my lips together, shrugged. “Just curious. It was something I heard someone say about him—that’s all.”