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

by E. M. Moore

  Several times during writing and editing ENRAGED BY MAGIC, I got choked up. Specifically during the Granny scenes. Sure, she’s always there for a good laugh, but I love how she’s still trying to instill wisdom in Norah from the otherside. She’s still teaching her, molding her.

  Warning: I’m about to get sappy for a second. I miss my Grandma. I’d like to think if I had magic like Norah, I could still talk to her. And that she’d be doing the same thing to me that Granny is doing to Norah. Wisdom. Joke. Wisdom. Joke. I guess that’s why I like writing about the paranormal. Because maybe, just maybe, something extraordinary can happen, even in reality.

  As always, thank you for reading this book, which is just a little piece of me come to life.

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  About the Author

  USA Today Bestselling Author E. M. Moore loves everything paranormal--especially witches. She's visited Salem more than a few times and can't get enough of their ghost tours and witch museums. She's written in every major genre, but fantasy is her first love. She currently has books out in Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy and Witch Cozy Mysteries.

  www.emmoorewrites.webs.com

  Her Alien Scouts series Preview

  Kain Encounters

  Chapter One

  The fake smile I planted on my face felt like it would permanently attach there. What a fucking creep.

  Ford Johnson turned away from me. He was tailored in a nice suit, swinging the motel keyring around his finger, probably thinking about the next hour or so he’d be spending with whomever he got to come here. Jackass.

  All I knew was, he certainly wasn’t spending the next hour in my family’s motel with his wife. Yep. Ford Johnson, though extremely good looking in every other way, was a dog. His heart was black, just like the color of his Mercedes.

  I watched him walk out the door of the lobby. He immediately held his arm out and a dark-haired twenty-something dressed in a parka squeezed under it to plaster herself to his side. Did she know he was married? Did that make it fun somehow as if they were getting away with something?

  I scowled as I watched them walk through the tumbling white flakes toward the far end of the building where they just disappeared in the snowstorm. If I didn’t need the money he’d just paid for his overnight visit that usually only lasted an hour, I’d run out there and make sure she knew there was a Mrs. Johnson at home. Oh, and that they had an infant. Little Ford Junior who was too busy doing all his baby stuff to know that his father was a pig.

  Relaxing my fingers, I placed them palm down at the counter in front of me. My mom always said when you ran a motel, no matter how far out of town it was, you knew more than the average person. Sure, we mostly got out-of-towners who came up here during fishing season. Since it was currently not fishing season, I was playing host to loners, the passerby-ers, and of course, the cheaters.

  One would think he’d have some sort of guilt about me knowing his personal business. As far as I could tell, he didn’t. He flirted with me every time he came in as if the prospect of him hooking up with another twenty-something year old was supposed to turn me on. I didn’t care what other women my age decided to do, but that didn’t mean I had to follow in their footsteps. Ford Johnson was never getting any of this, no matter how long I’d gone without sex.

  Something he reminded me of just as he slid the fifty-dollar bill toward me. “How long’s it been, Lia? Hmm.”

  I could throw myself a pity party, but I wouldn’t. Sure, my parents were dead. I hadn’t gotten laid since I was in the backseat of a car when I was a senior, but I had more important things to figure out now. The most important being how I was going to keep my family’s motel. This place had thrived when my parents owned it, but ever since they passed away and I’d taken over, I couldn’t seem to quite figure it out. There were always more repairs than money coming in. Lately, it was looking more shabby than quaint, which I think put-off new people to the area.

  The truth was, I should’ve paid more attention when my parents were alive. But I was supposed to go to college and get a degree in anything that wasn’t hospitality, even if it was fucking philosophy where it would be impossible to get a job when I graduated. The last thing I thought I’d be doing was manning the hotel front desk, watching creeps like Ford Johnson coming in and out with his multiple conquests, and having to deal with his sleazy leers when he did so too. Oh, did I mention I had to let the housekeeper go? So, yep, I was also on toilet cleaning duty. Cleaning up after a guy like Ford Johnson made me want to puke.

  I peeked out over the desk. I couldn’t see them through the blanket of white, but I pictured them just now pulling open the door to the furthest room from the office. I smiled to myself. There’d been a musty odor coming from that room for months that I couldn’t quite get out. If Ford Johnson was going to use this place as his personal fucking grounds, I was going to get back at him any way I could. Maybe the girl would wise up that the guy she was hanging from was bringing her to a shitty motel to get laid. She at least deserved a Red Roof for crying out loud.

  I frowned knowing I wouldn’t get to see their reaction. Then again, two people who were out here for one thing probably didn’t notice things like the damp air and the dank aroma. Honestly, I’d been surprised to see anyone stop by the motel tonight. We were supposed to get a foot and a half of snow. A foot and a half of snow in Central New York was usually nothing, but it was the rate at which the snow was forecasted to fall that was the problem. I guessed Ford didn’t care if he was snowed in here with his skank instead of being home with his wife and infant.

  This, I said to myself as if I was my own judge and jury. This is why I don’t put myself out there anymore.

  After Mom and Dad passed, I’d tried to put myself out there. I stayed in touch with the town, dropping in at the library, going to restaurants, even going out with a few friends from high school. But the motel took over more and more of my life every single day. As money got tight, I had to let employees go, and if they weren’t running the place, I had to be.

  This shithole was now my life.

  I swallowed. It never used to be a shithole. And somehow, it was my fault that it was now.

  Leaning back in my chair, I reached for the remote and pushed the mute button again to turn the sound back on. Jace from the Shadowhunters TV show came on the screen. He roundhoused a demon and then shoved a sword into its gut. He was no Dean Winchester, but he was still mighty pretty to look at. He looked back at Clary with a smirk, and I smiled right along with him. God, I just love this stuff. They were out there living life. Yeah, it was fiction, but what the hell? A girl could dream, couldn’t she? In fact, that was all a girl like me could do, dream.

  Lines went through the image on the TV and it faded to black for a second. Panic shockwaved through me. “No!”

  Damnit! There was just some major chemistry between Jace and Clary! What is the universe doing to me?

  I grabbed the remote off the counter and turned the power off, waiting for the small red light to show up, then turned it on again. Still nothing. No picture. Definitely no feisty lip lock I’d been dying to see.

  The pen on the counter rattled. I looked down at it. A slight vibration caused everything on the desk to move. At the exact same time I noticed my chair was moving, I saw the pictures of my parents and grandparents hanging on the lobby walls shake. The window panes vibrated, rattling.

  I pushed away from my chair. The floorboards underneath me also vibrated. My first thought was an earthquake. But that was kind of ridiculous. We didn’t get earthquakes in Central New York. We got snow. Sometimes when the plow went by, it shook the motel, but this wasn’t anything like that. The plows hadn’t even been through yet, and I didn’t expect them until tomorrow, anyway.

  Suddenly, a bright light blocked out the windows, piercing my eyes. I closed them tight, my hands coming up to shield my face. What in the ever-loving hell?<
br />
  A high-pitch scream pierced the air. Not a noise from a person, but like a speeding train or tornado. Then, a jolt went through me and a loud crash ricocheted around the acres of forest surrounding my family’s motel.

  I ended up on my ass, my hands pressed against my ears and my eyes tightly closed in the middle of the lobby. After that, everything stopped. The motel went back to normal, no longer shaking on its already deteriorating foundation. The TV was still staticky, but at least it was on. Jace’s words were garbled as I pulled myself to my feet. Quickly reaching for the remote, I turned it off. I looked out the window, my hand already reaching for the phone. Whatever the hell that was, it was something big. A plane crash maybe?

  With that thought, a new fire lit under my ass. I turned quickly, catching an orange glow in the night air as if a literal fire had erupted amongst the trees. Picking up the receiver, I couldn’t get a dial tone. I dropped it, then proceeded around the desk, searching for my cell phone. I woke it up, then tried to dial out, but there was no signal. “Shit.”

  I put it in my back pocket then pulled my winter jacket on as I made my way outside. I zipped it all the way to my chin and then pulled the hood up, searching the sky for the light I’d seen, but came up empty.

  “Lia,” a hurried voice sounded.

  I turned to find Ford Johnson, the sheets from the hotel room covering his lower half walking toward me. He was bare chested. Still a Dad bod, I snickered to myself, but was immediately pulled back to the present.

  “What the fuck was that?” he yelled.

  “I’m not sure,” I called back, my eyes glancing over the boots he’d pulled on. He looked ridiculous.

  “It sounded like the place imploded.”

  I smiled. Couldn’t have been that because he was still here. “I’m sure it’s fine,” I told him, my fake smile widening to epic proportions.

  “Should we call somebody?”

  “I already did,” I told him, lying. Technically, I’d tried to call someone. The sooner I got over to what happened, I could see what went wrong and try my phone again.

  “Oh good,” he said. He looked back into the room. “Well, talk to you later.”

  Really? I wanted to yell back. Something major just happened and he was going back to fucking his one-night-stand instead of calling his family and asking if they were okay. The last thing I wanted was someone like Ford Johnson.

  I turned on my heel and headed out toward the tree line. The motel was surrounded by a pine tree forest, branches weighted down by layers of fluffy white. I used to love to go out exploring when I was a kid. I’d walk for miles and miles. When I was eight, I even got lost out there. Thankfully, my parents sent our dog out who literally found me when I was on the verge of tears. All I had to do was follow him back to the house. True story. Since then, I didn’t go out without Dalton again. He passed when I was a senior, and I still hadn’t made it back out to the woods yet. As far as I was concerned, I’d explored every inch and never came across any demon-hunting hotties or wolf shifters, or I’d even take a lumberjack at this point. As long as he knew how to treat a woman.

  My boots sank into the snow. The cold and wet seeped into the fabric, chilling my feet right down to the bone. I searched the sky again to where I’d seen the orange glow come from and still came up empty. Either way, I was headed in the right direction. I just thought that if it had been a plane crash, there would still be a fire or something to mark where it was. It couldn’t be that far away though. Not when I felt the impact myself like a shockwave. Even people who lived in town a couple miles away were sure to have heard it. There were probably already cops, fire trucks, and ambulances on their way out.

  It was dark in the forest. It was dusk already outside, but in the canopied forest, it was almost as if it was midnight with flecks of white blowing through the air. My boots slipped over a patch of ice and I pulled the sleeves of my coat down to cover my freezing fingers.

  Squinting through the dark, I thought I saw something. No light. No fire, but a change in the terrain ahead of me. I pulled out my phone from my back pocket and turned on the flashlight app.

  Stumbling to a stop, I inhaled sharply.

  Up ahead, a whole section of forest was gone. Wiped completely clean. In its place was a snow-free crater the likes I’d never seen before.

  Just what in the hell happened here?

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