by Laney Powell
Waking Darkness
Academy of the Underworld Book One
Laney Powell
Copyright © 2020 by Laney Powell
Waking Darkness
Academy of the Underworld Book One
A Supernatural Academy Paranormal Romance
Cover Design: EmCat Designs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Waking Darkness
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Also by Laney Powell
About the Author
Waking Darkness
What do a sexy vampire, a broody demon, a dangerous necromancer, and a gorgeous reaper have in common?
Me.
My life in the motorcycle club is pretty much what you’d expect. I was raised by my single dad, I know everything there is to know about fixing bikes, and while the guys in the MC are rough around the edges, they are family in all the ways that count.
So when I grab my helmet and hit the road, what I don’t expect is the most irresistible urge to drive right off the pier—which is exactly what I do. As I sink into the depths, I see the most unexpected thing of all: my mother’s face.
Next thing I know, I’m wrapped in a glowing net and surrounded by the magical police who claim I’m an undocumented siren, and I can either go with them or be harpooned on the spot. I don’t know the first thing about magic, but with a harpoon in my face, what choice do I have? That’s how I come to be the newest student at the Academy of the Underworld.
While trying to figure out where I fit in, I meet a demon, a reaper, a necromancer and a vampire, all of whom draw me in with the same irresistible call that brought me to the water in the first place. As if that weren’t enough, I’ve arrived just in time to be terrorized—personally—by the angry supernatural being who has already killed two people on campus. He calls to me in the night and I fear if I answer him, he’ll find where I’m hiding. Yay me.
All I want to do is get out of here, but between this whole magic siren thing, my classmates that tend to be more bully than friend, the voice in the night, and the four hot guys who make my blood race, I’ll be lucky to make it to tomorrow.
Upcoming Release Dates for Academy of the Underworld
Waking Darkness January 9, 2020
Claiming Darkness February 12, 2020
Ruling Darkness March 11, 2020
Academy of the Underworld is a college-aged reverse harem paranormal fantasy series about a badass siren and the four hot men who grow to adore her. Keep reading for the start of your adventure into the Underworld!
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Xoxo,
Laney
Chapter One
“What the hell is going on, Raven?” Dad stood in front of me, his face dark with anger.
I looked up from where I’d been humming as I worked on the engine of the classic Indian motorcycle in front of me. “What?”
Dad leaned in, still angry. His voice dropped. “What are you doing with Mack?”
I blinked. “I’m sorry, but what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re flirting with Mack. He’s humming along with you!” My dad lowered his voice, not wanting to be heard by Mack, or any of the other three guys hanging around in the shop.
“Dad, I’m always humming, or singing.” I was patient. For the moment, anyway. “You know this. I’m not doing anything. Go ask Mack.” I turned back to the bike. We were down to the last couple of days to get this fixed, and this particular bike had been a pain in my ass.
Dad grabbed my left wrist. “Something is different, Raven. What is it? I can’t have all the guys in here, or in the club, getting all gaga over you!”
I yanked my wrist away. “Then maybe you’d better tell them to knock it off! As if!” I set down the socket wrench I was holding. “Because it’s not me making the problem!”
“Stop singing, Raven,” Dad said, turning away like that was the final word.
What the hell? He knew better than to try to walk away. I stepped right behind him, catching up and walking in front of him, turning to face him as I did. “I don’t know what your problem is, but it’s not me. Since you’re not willing to listen to me, I’m out!” I snaked out my arm and snatched up my helmet off of a bench next to us.
“This bike needs to be finished!” Dad roared.
“Get someone who’s not a problem to finish it!” I yelled over my shoulder, my legs striding toward my Triumph Bonneville Bobber, which I’d paid for with my earnings from my dad’s shop, Nox Cycles. Most of the guys favored Harleys, but I was a Triumph girl. I’d seen a picture in one of my dad’s magazines when I was younger, and that was it for me.
“Looks like the fireworks are going off again,” Berk, one of the members of Nox’s Knights, the motorcycle club that had sprung up around my dad’s shop, said.
The aforementioned Mack held a magazine up to his face, only his eyes visible. He was trying hard not to stare. I turned away, not wanting to laugh. The magazine was upside down. I didn’t want him to think anything about me—I meant it when I said I wasn’t doing anything with the guys in the MC. Most of them were older, closer to my dad in age than to me. I looked up to them as uncles. Slightly weird, overprotective uncles, and aunts, because there were women in the MC as well—but family.
Certainly not dating material. For fuck’s sake—my dad should know better. Besides, any guy who wanted to take me out had to get past not only my dad, Derek Nox, but all the people in the Nox’s Knights Motorcycle Club. I had no interest in dragging some poor guy through all that. Which is why, at twenty-three, I was depressingly single. When I finally took the plunge, it wasn’t going to be one of the MC guys. Or any of the guys from New Castle, New Hampshire. Where that left me romantically, I didn’t know. But I knew what I didn’t want. I’d met all my choices and just… no.
Not only that, everyone knew me. One of the joys of a small town.
I roared off on my Bonneville from the shop. Thankfully, my dad hadn’t followed me. I didn’t want to talk. This was so strange. He didn’t normally blow up at me like this. He knew me better—after all, club and shop aside, it was just the two of us.
My mom disappeared when I was three. She’d gone to the store one afternoon, and never come back. Dad had looked for her for years, and no one ever found a trace of her. Finally, the police told my dad that he could have her declared deceased after ten long years. It was the only time I’d ever seen my dad lose his temper. The two policemen with the one who’d come to talk to us had to pull my dad off the guy talking.
“She’s not dead, Raven,” Dad had said, shaking his head aft
er the police left. “She’s gone, but she’s not dead.”
“How do you know?” I asked. I’d never remembered having a mom, didn’t know what it felt like to have one, and only occasionally got an ache when I was hanging out with my friends. I loved their moms, the baking they did, the ones who sewed—but my dad was the best.
Well, not right now. But generally. I smiled at the memory of him.
The wind blowing across me felt good, and I accelerated. This was the perfect day to be out and on a bike—sunny, nice breeze, the smell of the sea.
I loved the sea. Even here, on the border of New Hampshire and Maine, where it never truly got warm. The smell, the sound, the water that rippled through my fingers. That’s where I’d go today. Great Island Common, one of our parks, had a wide open area that would let me sit in peace and smell the sea and be able to make it home without braining my dad.
Not that I could escape the sea. I didn’t want to, but even if I had wanted an out, there wasn’t one. New Castle was a series of islands, and the sea was all around us. But the Common would be nice. I leaned into the next turn in the road, already smiling at the thought of sitting out by the water for the afternoon. My dad could handle the Indian bike. I was done for the day.
When I got to the Great Island Common, I drove through the park. I couldn’t have picked a better day. The Common was nearly deserted. We weren’t a big town, only twelve hundred or so. Most people were either retired, or doing jobs off-island to make ends meet. Me and Dad were some of the lucky ones. We had people come from all over the northeast to have us work on their bikes.
Looking out over the ocean, I marveled at the way it sparkled in the sun. My dad never came down here anymore, although I could sort of remember it when I was really little, with a woman that I guessed was my mom.
I was always told that my mother threw herself into the sea—usually by some of the meaner kids in my classes growing up. Maybe she couldn’t take it anymore, maybe she couldn’t resist the call—I’d heard it all. Then when the cracks about my mom lost their shine, their ire was directed at me. Hey, Raven, why don’t you take a dip? The sea will cool you down. One time, one of the parents had said something like that at a birthday party in my dad’s hearing.
My dad had stood tall, and looked at the other man. “What did you say, Bryan?” And Bryan had the stupidity to repeat it, ending with a nervous laugh. Well, really ending with a gurgling noise as my dad punched him and broke his nose. We left after that, and I was never invited to a birthday party again. When I cried to my dad about he, he said, “Raven, there are some things that will never be funny.” And he walked away.
Later, I learned that the day my mom disappeared, she’d been seen at a beach near here, and that was where all the so-called wisecracks came from.
I parked my Bonneville into one of the spaces, still watching the ocean. I always think about Mom when I’m here. It’s always bittersweet. I’ve pictured it a thousand time or more in my mind. My dad refuses to believe she would have died in the ocean, but I think it’s true. I wonder, what is it like to sink into the sea and let go – what was my mother thinking in that moment – did she even think about me as she decided not to fight against the waves, against the current and let the waves overtake her? Did she think about me and Dad? Was she afraid? The tears roll down my face for a few moments as they always do. I think that I’ll miss my mom the rest of my life.
A disloyal part of me would like to make all of this—my thoughts on her last day, the sadness, the tears—all part of my past, but I can’t seem to manage that yet. At least it’s contained to when I come here.
I wiped my eyes and looked around. I had a bench I liked to sit on, and watch the ocean. That would clear my mind. Then I did a double take.
Someone was sitting there, parking their ass right in the middle of my bench. It was Tuesday. What the hell was this dude doing here, reading a paper like it was his bench? My anger from my fight with my dad raced to the forefront again. Dad had been a bear the last month, and today felt like the thing that forced me over the edge.
And there was a dude on my bench.
I let my Bonneville idle, thinking about where else I wanted to go, and then I looked out past the bench to the walkway along the jetty that pushed out into the ocean. Waves crashed around the rocks, sending up flicks of white spray. As I watched the jetty, the usurper of my seat was forgotten.
Something was calling me. I could hear it.
“Raven,” the whisper came on the wind. “Come.”
“What?” I said out loud.
The guy on the bench lowered his paper a little, but when I glared at him, he raised it again with a shake.
“Raven,” the voice said again.
I turned the bike in the direction of the jetty.
“Come,” I heard again, fainter, as if the voice was moving away.
“No!” I whispered. “Don’t go!” Whatever or whoever this was, I had to find it.
“Come, Raven,” I heard. It was near the water.
I gunned the bike, heading down the jetty. There were no people walking along it, just me and my Bonneville, accelerating. I heard something behind me, maybe the bench-stealer, but I paid it no mind. The only thing that mattered was the voice in front of me. Whoever it was, I couldn’t let them get away. I knew that like I’d never known anything else before.
“Raven,” I heard, even more faintly.
Oh my god. It was… it sound like… no! It couldn’t be, but—I had to see. “Wait!” I yelled. I gunned Bonnie, moving faster down the jetty, and then I was flying, free, over the water, the smell of the salt and the feel of the spray freeing me.
“I’m here!” I said as Bonnie dropped away under me.
The cold water that hit me as I landed took my breath away. I opened my mouth, and it filled with water. It was so cold I couldn’t breathe. I automatically took a breath, and I felt the water rush down into my lungs.
Shit. This was a bad idea.
“Come,” I heard again.
I looked around, trying to gauge where I was, not wanting to get washed up against the jagged rocks of the jetty. As I thrashed, I felt something warm near me.
Jesus. I’ve pissed myself.
“Raven,” I heard. I whipped my head around, and as I crashed into what felt like a rock, my mother’s face, the face in the picture next to my bed that held me and looked down at my baby self with so much love it hurt to see it, flashed in front of me. She was there, right in front of me, clear as day.
“Raven, you must find the dark light,” my mother’s voice—I assumed it was her voice—said. “Only the dark light can save you.”
Then another wave crashed against me and I saw nothing at all.
Chapter Two
“You need to cough,” a dry, irritated voice said in my ear. “Sooner would be better.”
I tried to sit up, and open my eyes, which nearly blinded me. I couldn’t move. I closed them again.
“Cough,” the voice said. “I do know what I’m talking about, siren. So should you, but that’s what I get for making assumptions.”
I let my head fall back, and coughed. My throat hurt. My head hurt. I remembered seeing my mom just before my head hit something. “Hey!” I shouted, trying to sit up. And I coughed at the same time. Gross. Water came up, splashing back onto my face.
“Are you sure?” a woman’s voice asked, not bothering to hide her disbelief. “This one?”
“She should be dead,” the dry voice, which I thought belonged to a man, said. “I’m sure.”
“Your call,” the woman said.
“All right, cough again,” the man said.
This time, I turned my head and raised my hand to cover my eyes. I couldn’t move my hand. It was bound close to my body.
“What the hell?” I tried to get out, but the words were garbled as I yakked up more seawater.
Lovely.
“Not the best specimen,” the woman said.
“What’
s your name?” the man asked.
I coughed once more, and finally let my eyes open, just a little. “Raven,” I said hoarsely. “Raven Nox. What happened?”
“What do you remember?” the man asked.
“I… I was on my bike. And I heard something, something calling me.”
“Saying what?” the woman asked, her voice sharp and interested now.
“It told me to come,” I said, feeling like the biggest idiot on the planet. “What happened to my bike?”
“It’s probably up against the rocks, where you should be,” the dry man’s voice said, clearly uninterested in my sweet Bonnie.
Dick. But that did let me know that I had, in fact, driven my bike into the ocean—the gossips would never let me or Dad live that down—and I had hit my head. While this wasn’t ideal, at least I knew sort of what was going on.
“I have to get up—” I sat up, struggling. Both of my arms were bound to my body, and when I was able to open my eyes, I saw that the binding was a net of some kind, like a fisherman’s net, only it was glowing. I looked up to see the people near me.
The woman wore a dark—was that a cape?—and a long skirt with a white shirt under the cape. The man was dressed in a brown suit made of nubby fabric. He looked as dry as he sounded. He peered down at me, his forehead shiny in the afternoon sun, through gold-rimmed glasses.
“We don’t have any records of a siren here,” he said. “How did you come to be here?”
“What the hell is a siren?” I asked. “And who the hell are you? How about we start with that?”
