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

by Elena Lawson

  Hell, of course, I can feel it, I wanted to tell him, but when Cal joined his brother, brushing a knuckle around my jaw and down my throat—and lower, between where my breasts were hardening from all the sensations coursing through me.

  A low growl sounded from Cal’s throat, and when I opened my eyes again, I saw his were glowing. The beautiful green lighter than usual. The color like that of a newly budded leaf in springtime.

  Adrian pulled my back against him, and his heat bled into me, eliciting another moan from my lips. “Do you want us to stop?” he asked, his voice a breathy whisper against my ear that only intensified the desire and rush of magic trying to batter its way through the dam I had cranked all the way up.

  There was a split second where I wondered what the hell I was doing—I swear there was. A split second where I was on the outside looking in and seeing a girl who was sandwiched between two insanely gorgeous wolf shifters. Who also maybe had a little thing for a vampire and was romantically involved with her Arcane History professor? I almost didn’t recognize her. But in that second, I saw absolutely nothing wrong with her choices. She cared for them all. And they cared for her. There was a connection there, and if they were also physically attracted to each other, then wasn’t that just a bonus? Couldn’t she have them all?

  Cal and Adrian knew, even though I hadn’t outright told them about Elias, and yet they still wanted me. Wanted this. My stomach fluttered as Cal’s hands tugged the headband from my hair, setting the wild mane of red locks free.

  Adrian’s strong hands squeezed my arms, reminding me he’d asked me a question that I’d yet to answer. Both he and Cal were waiting for permission before they allowed their animal urges to be satisfied.

  My lips parted, the breaths coming from them heavy and hitched. “No,” I managed, and Cal’s gaze burned into me at the word. “I don’t ever want you to stop.”

  It was the truth, unfiltered. I hadn’t allowed myself to feel the full force of what was truly between the three of us—too afraid that they would reject it, or that they simply didn’t feel the same way.

  To hear them say it now—that they wanted me in the same way I wanted them—it was like someone had just handed me the keys to open up a passageway I thought would be forever locked.

  Cal’s hand, gentle only a second before, grasped the back of my neck with a fevered passion. A muted snarl left his throat before he tipped my face up to his, stealing a kiss unlike any I’d ever had before. It was raw—animal, and I could tell he was working hard to subdue it, but the same feelings overwhelming me from head to toe were washing over him, too. And his inner wolf wanted to come out.

  He slipped his tongue between my lips and a high-pitched moan tripped up my body and slipped from my mouth into his.

  Adrian’s hand took hold of my hips, pressing my back more firmly into him as he moved his hands over the smooth skin of my lower back, making my entire body convulse at the wild sensation. My skin prickled as though there was electricity running just over the surface, sending little shock waves out to my hungry fingers clutching at Cal’s t-shirt, and my toes as they curled into the plush carpet.

  The muscles beneath my fingers tensed as Cal pulled back—only a little—to kiss me again, but softer, his lips pillow-soft.

  In a flash of movement, Adrian had me torn from Cal, and spun around. Where my back was pressed against him a second before, now was my front. My breasts ached as they pressed into his chest, and the hardness of him rested firmly against my waist, making me want to cry out at the riotous sensations all but taking me over.

  I was hungry for them. Ravenous. My fingernails dug into Adrian’s back, and his eyes lit brighter than before. His wolf surfacing for an instant before he shoved the beast back down.

  He tried to pull away, maybe worried that he couldn’t keep control—but I wasn’t worried. I tugged him closer, my grip on him not lessening, but hardening, as I gazed up at him, begging him to give me what I wanted. Please, I spoke the word through the connection, finding it as easy to latch onto as a rope in this moment. His eyes widened at the intrusion into his thoughts, and his expression became guarded.

  No. Please. I clutched at him. I knew he would fight it—that they both would. But this was right. I knew it in my bones. This was meant to be.

  And I wanted to taste him as I’d tasted Cal. To feel the irrevocable connection that awakened in me the strongest of power, and the strongest of control. A tempered storm.

  Cal had his hands up the back of my shirt, exploring the tightened muscles of my back, moving around my sides, and brushing against the swell of my breasts. Allowing his brother his turn but unwilling to fully let me go.

  I gasped, but the sound was swallowed up by Adrian. His kiss stole the breath from my lungs, making my head spin. His kiss was a surrender. A promise. A plea. Hard and soft at the same time, it made my body weaker and stronger. The warring emotions and feelings within me surged, and I knew that if either of them let me go that I would fall.

  “Harper,” my name was a caress on Adrian’s lips between kisses.

  “Our little witch,” Cal whispered, and his hands eclipsed my breasts, holding them with exquisite tenderness. My hips bucked, and my back arched as I almost screamed at my body’s intense need for release, my teeth clenched to bite back the sound.

  “Yours,” I agreed. “Always yours.”

  12

  The next morning when I awoke, I was more energized than I’d ever been in my whole life. Cal and Adrian had lain me down to sleep and took a space on either side of me.

  The three of us fell asleep in a tangle of arms and legs under the covers. Them bare-chested and I, in only my panties and the undershirt I’d had on under one of Bianca’s many black sweaters. We hadn’t gone far. But it certainly wasn’t because I wasn’t ready. I wanted them, and if it were only up to me, I’d have lost my virginity to two shifters last night. But they were more patient than I was.

  Or, at least, they were able to keep themselves in check better. There was no rush, they’d said, and pulled the blankets up over my heaving chest, snuggling in next to me to share their warmth. And even though I was all riled up, sleep claimed me swiftly, their even breathing and their heat making it impossible to stay awake.

  Now, in the light of day, I smiled at what’d happened between us. Touching two fingers to my lips, I found I could still feel the ghosts of their kisses.

  I snuck out into the hallway and down the stairs, unsurprised to hear Martin already awake and puttering about in the kitchen. Making coffee if my nose didn’t fool me.

  I’d be all over that in a second. I wanted to call Leo and Lara before Cal and Adrian woke up, and I’d prefer to do it privately. I hadn’t spoken to them in far too long, and I wanted to introduce them to my familiars in person, not through a magical looking glass.

  It wasn’t the same thing.

  So, I crept from the Abbey, making my way into the sparse trees to the left of the house. Though it was nearly summer, it seemed Ireland wanted desperately to cling to spring. The chill that’d only just began to fade from where the academy was in West Virginia still held fast to the land here. The shorn grass was damp and icy against my bare feet, and if it were a mere few degrees cooler, I was sure I’d be able to see my breath in the air.

  I’d need to remember that when I went shopping for clothes to wear at home.

  The thought came to me so easily, and it struck me how casually I’d just thought of this foreign place as my home.

  The house belonged to me, but was it truly a place I could ever call home?

  Shivering and shaking to stave off the moist cold, I stepped under the canopy of leaves cascading down to kiss the earth from an old willow tree.

  Shrouded in its thin, earthen curtain, I began to draw the sigil, a thick trail of blue-hued magic leaving my body in a tantalizing rush. I drew the circle around it like Granger had taught me all those months ago and spoke the incantation to open the mirror. “Ostium revelare.”
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  The space within the circle of blue light pulses once before it fell away to reveal the inside of the caravan, the same as it did the last time. But they weren’t there. The interior was tidier than I’d ever seen it, though, and they’d changed the back end, where my bunk used to be, into a boxy shelving unit stacked to the brim with potions and powders. All labels neatly in Leo’s fine script.

  “Leo?” I called into the caravan, and thought I heard movement outside, but no one came in. The view from the small window over the little silver sink caught my attention and I noticed the tip of a large neon sign, not currently turned on, but I recognized it right away. They were at the campground just outside of Portland that we went to the year before.

  Maybe I could…

  Picturing the tent we always used when we went there, I closed my eyes, and pressed my palm to the mirror again, letting my magic pulse into it, trying to change where it was projecting me.

  When I opened my eyes, it was to the shriek of Lara as she jolted from her sleeping mat, kicking back the covers of her sleeping bag in her haste to back away from me.

  “Lara!”

  “Lara, what is it, what’s—” Leo started, startled awake by his wife’s shouts. But he was silenced when he saw me. “Harper!”

  The sight of them disheveled like they were, Lara’s hair an absolute mess, and Leo with his eyes still slanted heavily from sleep like they always were in the morning brought me an immeasurable amount of happiness.

  I couldn’t wait to see them for real.

  “I missed you guys!” I shouted through the mirror.

  “Quiet!” Lara chastised, but with a wide smile on her face as she maneuvered herself closer to the communication mirror. “How are you, my girl? We’ve heard—oh, we’ve heard such awful things.” her face fell, and Leo placed a comforting hand on her slim shoulder.

  “Are you alright? Do you want us to come? We’ve been thinking about it and—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “No, I’m perfectly alright.”

  “Is it true that a student was found dead at the academy? We’ve heard rumors…”

  I nodded, my mood dampening. I did not want to talk about that right now. “Yes, but it was only an accident,” I said, telling them what I hoped to be true. “An animal from the woods. It’s being handled,” I added waving off their worry.

  “I want to talk about something else before I have to go,” I added with a devious grin. “And then we can catch up more when you come—” I stopped myself, almost giving away the surprise.

  “Come where?” Leo asked with a confused expression, trying to see beyond me, but the branches of the willow effectively blocked the Abbey from view.

  I was practically bouncing as I explained. “Well, you know how I did the origin spell and it was proven that Alistair was my father?”

  Lara couldn’t meet my stare and I wondered if my comment hurt her. They had to know; they would always be the people who raised me. My Leo and Lara in place of Mom and Dad. “We heard that, too.”

  “Yeah, well did you know he was stinking rich?”

  Leo’s brows furrowed. “No. We’d only heard he was a recluse and that he tried to run for council once.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He was and he did, but he was also, like, mega-rich,” I told them, and pulled back the curtain of willow branches to reveal the vista that was Rosewood Abbey in the afternoon. “Have you ever been to Ireland?” I asked them with a crooked brow.

  “You’re in Ireland?” Lara screamed through the mirror, and Leo had to hush her. “What are you doing there? Are you alone?”

  “I’m not alone, don’t worry. Are you not seeing what I’m showing you?” I asked, confused and wondering if they could see the enormous castle-like mansion that I could.

  Leo cleared his throat. “It’s a lovely house—er—castle. What is it?”

  “It’s mine now.”

  Lara’s hand flew up to cover her mouth and her long, straight golden hair fell forward as she leaned in even further to see better.

  She was right there, it seemed as though all I had to do was reach out and I could hug her, but that was the lie of communication mirrors. If I reached into the mirror, it would vanish. My chest felt heavy, suddenly, and for the first time since I thought up the idea, I feared they might decline it.

  Not many people would decline an offer to live in a house like the Abbey cost-free, but Leo and Lara weren’t regular people.

  Lara was wearing the robe she’d gotten from a native woman in rural Guatemala. Bangles from all countries jangled at her wrists, and she wore enough rings on her slender, ink-stained fingers to choke a goat. They were the epitome of free spirits. And in a moment of clarity, I couldn’t think of anything worse than chaining them to a place like this.

  “What is it, my girl?” Lara asked me, likely seeing the excitement fade out of my eyes. “It’s truly a beautiful home.”

  “It’s incredible how much has changed for you since that day in the French Quarter,” Leo added, sounding so proud, his voice thick.

  Looking into the dim of the tiny tent around them, I saw a half-finished bracelet beside Leo, and that Lara was sleeping not only with her own sleeping bag, but with my tiny blanket, too. The one that my mother dumped me in.

  I bit back tears as I said. “I was going to ask you to come and live here,” I said, my voice quiet, almost swallowed up by the chirping of afternoon birdsong somewhere in the distance, though I couldn’t be sure if it was coming from here or there.

  Neither responded, but they shared a look that told me my suspicions were right, and that they couldn’t even so much as imagine a life in a place as quiet and remote as this. Without the bustle of busy streets, diverting conversation, the food, and the markets. This wasn’t a life for them

  I sighed. “But I just realized that it was stupid to even ask,” I said, ending in a little laugh.

  “No, hon—” Leo started.

  “No, it’s okay,” I said, cutting him off with a sad smile. The mirror had begun to waver and greedily, I fed more magic into it, forcing it to remain open just a bit longer. “Really, it’s more than okay. But,” I started, thinking there was one thing I could offer. “I hope you’ll come and see me here, and I hope that any time you’re in Ireland you’ll visit.” I said in a rush, some of the excitement coming back into my voice. “I’ll make you your own room, and you can keep some things here and you can stay as long as you want.”

  Tears sprang to Lara’s eyes. “We’d love that.”

  Leo pulled Lara into his arm, squeezing her gently. “When can we come?”

  I filled them in on the less dreary details of how things were going at the academy, careful to glaze over certain details, like Elias, and how I’d attended a severing ceremony in a forest full of shifters just last week. I stuck to the things they would want to hear, and they seemed happy to hear it. Mostly, they were dying to meet my familiars, both of them resplendent with pride as I told them all about my Cal and Adrian.

  And then they were gone again, too soon, but this time with the promise of a visit on the near horizon. They would have to store the caravan some place safe, and then they’d only every been to Galway and I honestly didn’t even know where in Ireland I was exactly. I’d have to get Martin to show me on a map so I could tell them how to get here.

  Once they’d been here just one time, they would be able to come back via portal whenever they liked.

  I lifted myself up off the ground after taking a few minutes to collect my thoughts and return to the manor. The earth beneath my bare foot groaned when I stepped on it. Strange.

  I lifted my foot up and pressed it back down, harder this time, in the same spot I’d stepped a second before. It groaned again and I jumped back, looking at the patch of earth covered in spotty grass. It’d sounded like the creaking of the old floorboards in the Abbey, but I was outside.

  I knelt back down, ignoring the fact that my knees were sinking into the wet dirt beneath the grass. I
felt around on the ground, shocked when I noticed how the earth was slightly depressed in a perfect square in front of me.

  “The hell is this?” I said aloud, peeking through the reed-like branches to make sure no one had come out to find me yet. The yard of the Abbey was still and quiet.

  I clucked my tongue, wondering how long whatever was below had remained hidden. If there was no break in the earth, and there was grass growing over it, I had to guess it’d been there for a long time—maybe since before my father died and the Abbey was left uninhabited save for Martin.

  The curiosity was too much to ignore.

  Only one way to find out.

  Pursing my lips, I dug my fingers into the earth at the edge of the square depression and lifted up a chunk of dirt and grass roughly the size of a bowling ball. And then another. Three more and I’d hit wood. Old, worn, gray wood. Hard, like it was petrified.

  “Harper,” Cal’s voice called to me on the light, briny breeze.

  Through the reeds, I saw him coming down from the steps, and even thought I was being quiet as a church mouse he must’ve heard me because his head turned in my direction, and in the slit between two reeds, our eyes met.

  Adrian came out behind him, and the two raced over to where I was knelt, covered in a thick layer of grass and muck, my nails caked with clay-like dirt.

  My hands stopped their digging, and heat rose up the back of neck. Crap.

  Should’ve just gone inside, Harper.

  Cal was the first one through the leafy curtain, closely followed by Adrian, who barreled into his brothers back, knocking him a step forward.

  “Uh… hi,” I said lamely, moving my hand to brush the hair from my face, but upon seeing how covered it was in cool mud, thought better of it.

  Cal’s chest heaved as he took in the sight of me. “What the hell are you doing? What are you covered in—in dirt?”