Order of the Akasha: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Complete Series)

by E. M. Moore

  I sighed in relief. At least he felt it and wasn’t the cause of it. That was all I could ask for now.

  8

  I turned toward the door only to hear the thump, thump, thump of someone running up the steps. I met Travis at the top of the stairs. His eyes were wide. “I feel something.

  “Me too,” I told him. “Bad.”

  Liam came around behind me and I moved so my back was to the wall. He was giving me off a creepy vibe all of a sudden. I hated to admit it, but it was true. Liam wasn’t being the Liam I knew. Not at all. “Well, are we going or what?” he asked, his tone clipped, almost exasperated.

  Travis peeked at me and then back to Liam. “Let’s go.”

  Liam pushed past us, and Travis and I gave one another conspiratorial looks. The sooner we could get that fucking serpent familiar off him, the better. He was taking a nose-dive into moodyville. He wasn’t my shy, safe, Liam anymore. “We should probably call Randy or Gabe.”

  “They’re on the bike,” Liam called out over his shoulder. “They won’t be able to answer. They’ll probably get there before us.”

  I glared at the back of his head. I expected attitude like that from Travis, maybe even Randy if he was in a mood, but the fact that Liam was pulling that shit pissed me off even more. I clenched my mouth shut and followed them both to the Jeep. Instead of letting Liam get the front seat, I took it myself, closing the door in his face. It was petty, and I knew I was being irrational because Liam’s mood was darkening only due to the demonic familiar attached to his body and not anything to do with me or our relationship, but I couldn’t help myself.

  This time, Travis didn’t need me to give him directions to where we were headed. He navigated us smoothly toward our destination. With the ferocity of this pull, I was glad Travis and I had taken the time to practice some defensive blocks today. Who knew what we were heading into?

  When we were close, my phone rang. Randy’s name popped up on my screen, so I swiped at it to answer his call. “Hey, we’re here. How far out are you guys?”

  “A few minutes,” I told him, hoping I wasn’t wrong. I was new to this pull business, but I just went with my gut feeling.

  “We’ll wait outside.”

  “O—” The phone clicked in my ear and I pulled it away and frowned at it. He’d hung up on me. I slipped the phone back in my pocket and turned toward Travis. “They’re there. They’re waiting on us, then we can all go in together.”

  “Good,” Travis said, turning back to the road and taking the next left up ahead. It took us down a mostly deserted road with a few houses dotting the countryside. They were modest homes, older without being the historical type from right in downtown Salem. “The good thing to come from this is that our pull does seem to be returning. I can tell Walter now without feeling like I’m lying to him. This time, I really did get the pull.”

  “Has he asked you about the fifth in a while?” I hedged, sliding a glance his way.

  “No, but I imagine he won’t let that sit for much longer. Orders are always made up of a group of five. Not four or three. It has to be five. We need to think about telling them the truth about you soon before they figure it out on their own.”

  I didn’t say much to that. Mostly because I didn’t know what to say. There was so much going on at the moment that the fifth and the Order not knowing about me seemed to be put on hold, but it certainly wasn’t for their superiors. They would want answers soon.

  Up ahead, the Jeep headlights splashed against a motorcycle. The cramp in my stomach intensified, and Travis was already pulling over to the side of the road right behind Randy’s bike. Two figures walked toward us, and we got out. Randy came forward, cupping my head in his hand. “You okay?”

  I nodded, and we walked forward, meeting the rest of them in between the bike and the Jeep. Liam stepped forward and stared intently at the house. The exterior flickered and kept on flickering. Liam’s gaze intensified as he worked his magic, trying to power it up. I looked at him and then back at the house. The scene before us looked like a staticky TV station when the weather was bad outside. Brief glimpses of the interior of the house showed up, but immediately faded back to siding and shutters.

  “The fuck?” Liam said, stepping back when he just couldn’t do it. I tried to reach out to him, but he pulled his hand away. “Someone else is going to have to do it.”

  We all stared at him. Nerves rattled around in my stomach. Liam was the best at visibility spells and now suddenly he couldn’t do it? Something was wrong.

  “Can I try?” Liam had been helping me with a few of the Order spells and now seemed like the perfect time to try one since Liam wasn’t able to.

  “Sure,” Randy said, pushing me forward.

  I closed my eyes and let my magic encompass me like I’d felt Liam do with his when he showed me how to do the visibility spell before. My fingertips tingled as I thought about the siding, the shutters, the wood, everything, disappearing and revealing to us what was inside. To me, this was one of the best spells we could have. We never wanted to just run into a situation where we felt negative magic without knowing what we were running into first. That would be a nightmare.

  I didn’t open my eyes until Gabe said, “Good job, Love.”

  Slowly, I blinked, and the interior of the house appeared in front of me. We couldn’t see much. The house was dark as if everyone in there had gone off to bed already. No one in rooms like the living room or kitchen, which left the bedrooms. Bedrooms were always difficult to see into though, especially if people were lying in beds. They were usually hidden by mountains of sheets and pillows.

  “All seems clear,” Travis said. “Let’s head in.”

  We strode forward through the dewy grass until we hit the sidewalk that led to a few short steps. Randy unlocked the door with his magic and then twisted the doorknob to let us in in front of him. We squeezed past, separating as we’d done now on numerous occasions. It wasn’t hard to figure out where to go to in this house. The rotten meat smell was a dead giveaway and eventually, those that went to check on the downstairs gravitated toward the upstairs where it wafted from. I stuck close to Randy and Gabe as we ascended the steps.

  Travis was the first to call out. “Found…something.”

  We turned the corner and found a body lying on the floor. Half of the torso laying in the hallway, and the other half lying just inside what looked to be a bathroom by the presence of the ceramic tile at the feet. “Are they—?” Randy started.

  Travis knelt and touched the shoulder of the person. “Alive,” he said, relief flooding his voice.

  Thank God for that. I couldn’t have Randy going off the deep end again. Not when Travis and Liam seemed to have switched personalities.

  Travis turned the body and moved hair away from the face. As soon as he did so, rotten garbage funk spewed into the air. I almost took a step back. The woman’s mouth was agape, and her eyes were wide and stricken. Her skin was an ashen color. Not even pale, but almost gray as if it were decaying right out from under her. Pronounced shadows dominated under her eyes and she was rail thin.

  “I know this person,” Travis said. He held his hands up to her neck as if he were checking for a pulse. Satisfied that he felt it there, he sat back, staring at the body with a perplexed look.

  “Not to be crude,” I said, “But she stinks. Awful.” I pulled my shirt up over my nose to try to filter out some of the scent. “What the hell did she do?”

  Liam leaned down over her and felt her forehead. “She’s burning hot. Did she just pass out?”

  Passed out from trying to murder someone was what it smelled like. None of us had explanations though. Randy left my side and started another search through the house to see what he could find. Maybe he could find evidence of the type of evil magic she did and what its purpose was.

  He came back empty-handed. “Nothing. It all seems to be centered around her.”

  “We really have no choice then,” Travis said, his lips
thinning. “We have to mark her.”

  He lowered his hand to her forehead, and I panicked. “Stop.” They all stared up at me, varying degrees of surprise. “I don’t want to seem like the newbie here in all this, but it just doesn’t seem right. Doesn’t this girl look like she has the same symptoms as Anna?”

  “Except Anna didn’t have the putrid smell.” Travis offered me a small smile. “It’s what we do, Norah. We’re not saying she’s guilty. It’s not really for us to decide. This is just going on the facts we have and the natural abilities we were given. The Akasha takes care of the truth, and that’s never wrong.”

  My stomach tightened, and I looked up to Randy for help. He only shrugged. “Maybe nerves over your first marking?”

  I guessed that could be it. I just didn’t want to be judge, jury, and executioner. Travis stared at me, his green eyes intense. “Close your eyes and feel my magic when I do this.” I did as he asked, and then his clear, concise words came up and over all of us. “By the power of the Order of the Akasha, a trial has been set to prove your worthiness. If you be true, let light live within you. If you be false, may the light flush out any darkness. To thine own self be true.”

  Magic pricked my fingertips and goosebumps coursed all over my skin. The wind whipped up around us and I caught my hair and held it down before it tangled. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough that a power surge lifted me. It felt as if I was glowing.

  I opened my eyes to see Travis’s red magic pulsing out around us along with the smell of cinnamon thinning the nasty aroma this area carried. The magic had burned a symbol into the woman’s forehead. An O with an A inside of it etched into her skin there as if Travis had written it with dark ash. I frowned down at it. “It’ll disappear if she’s found innocent,” Travis said.

  “And if not?”

  “Then, it’ll be visible to anyone magical as a symbol of their disgrace.”

  I glanced at Liam without even thinking. My eyes going straight to his forehead. Of course, he was clear, but he did stare back at me, his lips a straight line and with dark, dark eyes that sent a shiver up my spine.

  Randy threw an arm around me. “You’ll get used to it.”

  Gabe needled me in the side. “You’re going to have to. You’re stuck with us now.”

  It was most definitely the other way around. “So, what do we do now?” I asked, staring down again at the barely moving body. Her chest rose and fell, but beyond that, she looked—and smelled—like death.

  “Now we take her to headquarters and wait for her to wake up, so we can perform the trial.”

  “Should we take her to a hospital?” I asked. It was what we’d wanted Murphy to do with Anna. Maybe an IV to get fluid pumping through her would do her good.

  “A hospital isn’t going to make a difference in the magical world, Norah,” Gabe said. “This has evil magic written all over it. We just have to see if it was her doing, or someone else’s.”

  I didn’t like the idea of just leaving her like this. It seemed cruel, especially when we weren’t sure if she was the one who’d used the bad magic. “Can we stop by the shop? I’d like to pick up some healing herbs to see what I can do for her.”

  Travis and Gabe grabbed the body, both putting an arm around the shoulders. “Yeah. Randy, you take Norah to the shop and meet us back at headquarters. I’d like to get this done as soon as possible.”

  He didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows were drawn in. He’d said he’d known the girl. Did he think she was innocent? Or was it just that marking someone had made him think about his friend and his sister? It was hard to tell with him because Travis wasn’t one to share what he was thinking. At least not with me. Yet, anyway. Maybe all that was changing now.

  Randy, Liam, and I followed them down the stairs and Randy and I sat back and watched as they all loaded into the Jeep. Gabe waved as they pulled away, but Liam had just gotten in the Jeep with his head down, and if I wasn’t mistaken, with the tail of the snake peeking out from the back of his collar.

  “Was that—?” Randy started to say.

  “Yeah,” I answered, knowing he’d just seen the same thing. “New update to the Liam-familiar saga. It moves on him. Oh, and he can’t stand to be around me now.”

  Randy pulled me to him, his large arms enveloping me in the most enormous hug. “You know that’s not really him. I’ve been doing some thinking, and even if the familiar isn’t doing anything to Liam or wanting Liam to do anything to other people, it can’t feel good to have that thing on your skin. Think of all the hate and the evil it encompasses, and it’s on you all the time and there’s nothing you can do about it. He’s probably battling it as best he can right now.”

  I nodded into his expansive chest and hugged him tighter. Liam was fighting it. So long as he had some control, he’d fight it.

  9

  Randy and I stopped briefly at the shop. I grabbed what herbs I could think of that Granny used and threw them all in “A Touch of Magic” bag from behind the counter. I tried to tell myself to remember to take these vials off the inventory list, but I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew I’d forget.

  We walked out the store and stopped short when a couple of policemen were just coming out of Madame Serena’s place. They tipped their hats to us, and I immediately turned around to lock up the store. Guilt washed over me like it did every time I thought about what she’d done for us. She was just a victim, the same as us. She didn’t realize that Dupre was a monster and twisted magic to his own ugly devices instead of using it like it should be used.

  We walked past, and I gave the two policemen a half smile as Randy kept a hand on the small of my back. He leaned down and whispered, “Breathe, Norah.”

  I took a breath and tried to relax. I looked over my shoulder and watched as someone else locked up the shop’s door for the police. “I just feel bad,” I said. “No one will know what really happened to her. She did sacrifice herself in the end.”

  “She wasn’t a bad person,” Randy agreed. “Just in a bad situation.”

  I stuck the vials in my pocket as we approached the bike. Before we got on it, Randy pulled me close. He tipped my chin up to look him in the face. Slowly, his mouth lowered over mine. I pushed up to my tiptoes to pass the distance quicker. With so much going on around us, it was easy to get lost in the stresses, but I had this, too. This beautiful connection with four guys. Randy’s hand worked up into my hair and angled my head to deepen the kiss. I followed his lead, the world falling away around us as I lived in this moment with him.

  Sadly, he pulled away, his breath caressing my lips. “I’m right here, Norah.”

  I nodded, needing to hear that. Then, we hopped on the bike and started toward headquarters. Driving down the back road in the bike was a lot different from the comfort of the Jeep. The ruts that were just little nuisances in the Jeep were like giant craters to the bike. Randy had to slow down at an almost unbearably slow speed as he maneuvered around and straight over the ones he couldn’t avoid. When he finally pulled to a stop right behind the Jeep, he helped me off and then rubbed my butt after he got off himself. “Little sore?”

  I smacked him in the hand. “I think I’d prefer to ride in the Jeep next time. My God. You ever thought about getting another vehicle?”

  “I thought you liked the bike?”

  “I do,” I said. Maybe just not when we had to go to headquarters.

  “I could probably sell it back to Travis if—”

  I turned. “What? This was Travis’s bike?” I stared at the black bike as if there was some marking on it that would tell me it used to be Travis’s. It didn’t. I never would’ve guessed it belonged to him.

  Randy nodded. “Yeah. I bought it off him when I started my own jobs.”

  That was interesting. I hadn’t pegged Travis as the type of guy who rode a bike. “I don’t want you to get rid of it,” I told Randy. “I love the bike. I just maybe don’t want to ride on it when we come down that road again. That was
n’t fun.”

  Randy smiled and reached down to give my ass another pat. “Maybe I can make it up to you later.”

  “Maybe there’s no maybe about it,” I said, raising my eyebrows and walking past him toward the tree I remembered the entrance was close to. Just before I got to the right place, the air started to shimmer and transform. The shape of a door formed, and Randy opened it for me and I took the steps down to the cavernous area. The torches on the wall flickered. I hadn’t even taken two steps when a shrill scream rose up.

  “Oh, shit.” I ran forward, my feet slapping against the rock at our feet until I got to them. The witch was sitting up now, her legs crossed in front of her. She stared up at Travis with a murderous glare. “I told you I didn’t do anything! How many times do you need me to say it, Travis? You know me. You know I shouldn’t even be here.”

  Travis paced in front of her. “We have to go with what we see.”

  “And tell me what exactly you saw again. Me passed out? Me looking like this? Yeah, I look like a threat, don’t I?” she asked, rolling her eyes. I hid a smile. I loved it when Travis got shit.

  “Just shut up,” Liam said, coming forward suddenly. The girl flinched away from him. I stopped, surprised at Liam’s words and Randy ran right into my back. “You’re here. Get over it,” he snarled.

  The woman’s eyes widened, and she stared at Liam’s back when he finally turned from her and went back to sitting on his stone bench.

  “A little more tact, Mate,” Gabe said, throwing an accusatory glance his way. “Just maybe? She is one of us, you know.”

  “Then she knows what we need to do. It shouldn’t be such a shock to her,” Liam fumed.

  I walked forward. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  Travis ran a hand through his hair. “Jules woke up. She has no memory whatsoever of what happened, and she can’t believe we’ve even brought her here. That about sums it up, right?” Travis asked, looking right at her.