Magic Awakened: A Reverse Harem Romance Complete Series

by Sadie Moss

  It was a gesture of intimacy and possessiveness he definitely wouldn’t have made even yesterday, and I flushed slightly as all three of my other men noticed it. Corin and Fen didn’t seem surprised—they almost looked pleased, actually. But Akio’s face hardened, and he blinked several times, his jaw clenching.

  My blush deepened, and I avoided his penetrating stare. I wasn’t sure what his problem was with me and Jae, but now wasn’t the time to get into it with him. Instead, I turned to Noble, who was speaking in low tones to the woman next to him.

  “So, I’m assuming you were brought up to date on what happened at the palace?” I asked. “Do you have any updates? What happened after we left?”

  He shook his head, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Nothing good. Rain Blackshear has taken control of the government and declared martial law. He’s being backed by Victor Kruger, Nicholas Constantine, and Jonas Nocturne.” His gaze shifted to Jae. “I’m sorry.”

  Jae dipped his head in acknowledgement. The mask of calm was back in place, but I felt his fingers tighten on my shoulder, and I was grateful he didn’t try to hide his response from me.

  “What about the other Representatives?” I asked.

  “Theron Stearns is dead. So is Simon Gaunt. We think Olene Romo may have escaped, but Rain was able to capture Eben Knowles alive.”

  My jaw dropped. “Eben Knowles? Fuck. You mean Rain has one of the most powerful wizards in the country?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Noble’s voice was grim. “Which means he’s found a replacement for you, Lana. And that means—”

  “The doomsday clock has started,” Fen interjected with a frown.

  “Godsdamn it. He could be doing the magic pull on Eben as we speak.” My heart clenched as I thought of the old wizard. He’d been the quietest of the Representatives, and though I had no reason to suspect he was a good man, I’d hated him a lot less than some of the others.

  “Yes,” Noble confirmed. “And if he is, that gives us less than a week to stop him before he’s ready to perform a large-scale magic pull.”

  “And we can’t count on the Representatives to stop him. There’s no fucking government left but Rain and his goons.” I kicked at the threadbare carpet, my heart rate ratcheting up. “Gods, I can’t believe how easily he demolished them. He’s stronger than he used to be. Whatever kink there was in his first spell that wouldn’t allow him to transfer magic to a new host, he’s worked it out. And we have to assume that by the time we go after him, he’ll be even more powerful than he is now. It’ll take a fucking army to stop him.”

  The woman next to Noble spoke up. She had dark skin, a long neck, and hair so short it hugged her scalp. “Most of us can’t fight him with magic. But we can be a first wave attack, distractions to keep him busy while those who can fight magically get into position.”

  I blinked. She’d spoken so straightforwardly it took me several seconds to realize what she was offering—that she and others like her would sacrifice themselves to give the rest of us a chance against Rain.

  “You can’t—”

  Her look cut me off. “We’re helping. One way or another, we’re going to stop that son of a bitch.”

  Determination straightened her spine, and Noble dropped a hand on her shoulder. The girl’s voice was light and musical, and when I looked closer at her, I realized she couldn’t be much older than eighteen. The hardness in her eyes had fooled me at first.

  I wanted to argue with her further but didn’t know how. Could I tell her not to fight? I sure as hell wouldn’t listen if our positions were reversed. But my stomach turned at the thought of what Rain would do to an army of Blighted men and women. Hell, with the new powers he was developing, he could probably take down an army of the Gifted without breaking a sweat.

  And still, we had to stop him. Somehow.

  I looked around the room at the gathered company. “We’ll work together. Blighted, Gifted, Touched—there’s power in numbers, and we all bring something to the table.” I grimaced, turning back to Noble. “If we go in now, we’ve got a better chance of catching Rain off guard, before he fortifies his defenses even more. But then again, we’ll also be going in blind, with no solid plan of attack. If we wait, we’ll be more organized, but so will he.”

  A smile flashed across his face. “You think like a general.”

  Panic flared, but I pushed it back down. I wasn’t the leader here. He was. I didn’t want that kind of responsibility, couldn’t be the one held accountable for the lives of all the Resistance members. Brushing off his words, I rolled my eyes. “I think like someone who doesn’t want to get her ass handed to her by a super-mage.”

  “Agreed.” Noble was still smiling fiercely, an expression that made him look a bit feral. “As to your question, I think we’re better off—”

  He was interrupted by another man entering the room. I recognized this one; he’d come to the war room to report to Christine once when we were there.

  “Sir? We’ve got company.”

  The atmosphere in the room grew tense, the air seeming to thicken.

  The smile slipped from Noble’s face. “How many?”

  “Two. Out front. They haven’t broken through the concealment spell, but they’re definitely trying to.”

  Noble nodded sharply then cocked his head at Jae and me. We rose smoothly, and I summoned a flame above my palm as we followed the Resistance member to the front door.

  “You take the one on the left. I’ll take the one on the right,” I whispered to Jae. Then I stopped. “Wait. Should you be fighting this soon after almost dying?”

  “If I could handle what you did to me upstairs so soon after a brush with death, I think I can handle this,” he murmured back, his voice so low no one but me heard him.

  I flushed but snorted a laugh. I’d always suspected Jae had a wicked sense of humor. It was nice to see him letting it out.

  We peered through the small window in the door. A Gifted couple loitered on the cracked sidewalk outside the house, almost invisible in the gloomy evening light. It would be full dark soon, and there were no working streetlights in this neighborhood.

  From what I could make out, they looked middle-aged and affluent. They also weren’t being subtle about their presence at all. Were they Rain’s soldiers? Some of his new recruits?

  I shot a glance at Jae. “Don’t go for a kill shot. We need to question them.”

  He nodded in agreement then gestured to Noble, who had his hand on the door handle. The Resistance leader twisted it suddenly and pulled.

  We stepped up to the open door, careful to remain inside the concealment surrounding the house as we raised our hands in unison.

  Maybe the couple somehow saw through the concealment spell. Maybe they sensed us.

  Or maybe they were just out of better ideas.

  Before I could hurl the ball of flame in my hand, the woman looked straight toward the house, and called out in a low voice, “Hello? We’re looking for The Crow. Please, we want to join you!”

  My arm froze in a cocked position, and I fisted my hand to put out the flame.

  “Oh shit, killer! They’re here for you!” Fen’s loud whisper from behind us made me jump.

  “Looks like our kitten’s got a fan club,” Akio drawled.

  I dropped my arm and scowled at him over my shoulder. “Did you forget I know your weak points?”

  Akio smirked, but stepped out of arm’s reach. Smart man. I’d discovered a while ago that he was ticklish, and I wasn’t above abusing that knowledge.

  But at the moment, I had bigger issues to deal with. Like the Gifted pair in the street who were still swiveling their heads around, as if at any moment they’d catch sight of the house in their periphery.

  They could be lying. Rain had taught me an unforgettable lesson about believing people too easily.

  But Corin had taught me another lesson. Trust had to start somewhere if we wanted to move forward. Even Akio, who’d been given maybe the best re
ason ever not to trust another person again, had decided to give Noble a chance.

  Trusting no one meant always being alone. And we couldn’t win this battle alone.

  Steeling myself against the urge to reignite my flame or at least pull a dagger from my thigh sheath, I stepped out of the house onto the crumbling front steps. As soon as I crossed the threshold, the couple’s attention snapped to me.

  “I’m—” I cleared my throat and tried again, hoping my words didn’t sound as dumb as they felt. “I’m The Crow.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. If she was disappointed by how I looked when I wasn’t painted on the side of a building, she didn’t show it. In fact, she appeared a little awed. “It is you. We… we’ve come to volunteer. To join the Resistance.”

  I glanced behind me. My four were crammed into the doorway, all looking extremely tense. Noble was slightly shorter than all of them, so I couldn’t see him through the wall of muscle blocking the doorway. But screw it. He was the one who’d made me into “The Crow,” so he could hardly complain about me making an executive decision on this.

  “Come in. It’s not safe out here.” I gestured behind me, ignoring the tension radiating from the bodies at my back.

  The couple darted up the steps quickly, casting furtive glances around them. The street was deserted, but I assumed at least some of the houses nearby were occupied. It really wasn’t safe for us to be out here.

  Grudgingly, the men stepped back, and as soon as the Gifted pair were inside, Noble closed and locked the door. He leaned back against it, arms crossed over his chest, watching the couple intently. Their eyes, however, remained fixed on me.

  “Our names are Grace and Silvius,” the woman began, a slight quaver to her voice. “We—we saw you on television today. We didn’t go to the palace for the ceremony, but we were watching. We saw your spell, saw your memory. I can’t believe….”

  She broke off, drawing deep breaths as tears glistened in her eyes. The man, Silvius, wrapped an arm around her waist, picking up the thread where she had left off.

  “We couldn’t believe what the Chief Advisor did. All this time, we didn’t know. We thought it was the—” He glanced at Corin, Noble, and the several Blighted Resistance members surrounding us. “Well, you know.”

  Tension thickened the air in the room. These Gifted might finally believe the Great Death wasn’t caused by the Blighted, and they may truly be here to help us—but old prejudices died hard on both sides.

  “We never attacked the Blighted,” Grace said, her voice low. “But we didn’t do enough to defend them when the Gifted mobs went looking for blood after the Great Death. We were still reeling from what had happened.” Her thin face was drawn, her eyes haunted. “The sickness struck so fast. A perfectly healthy person would be dead within hours, and so many people were falling. Bodies were left on the street. People barricaded themselves inside their houses, but it didn’t help. We didn’t know where it would stop, if it would stop. Or if it was coming for us all.”

  “I lost my entire family,” Silvius murmured. “It’s a miracle I still have Grace.”

  Grace gripped her husband’s hand so hard her knuckles turned white. “We tried to rebuild our lives after that, to climb out of our shock and grief. We heard stories, rumors that the Blighted were to blame, but we never attacked them. We just… tried to get by.”

  Corin let out a muffled sound behind me, but he stifled whatever he’d been about to say. I could guess his thoughts though. “Getting by” was something the Blighted were intimately familiar with.

  Grace licked her lips before continuing in a halting voice. “Last year, our daughter… ran away with a Blighted man. She told us she’d fallen in love with him and asked for our help. But we were afraid of what it would mean for her, afraid she’d be an outcast in society. We refused to help her. So she slipped away with him one night, and we never saw her again. We don’t know if she’s alive or dead, or—”

  She broke off, covering her mouth as a sob burst forth.

  “We lost our only daughter because we were too damn blind to see the truth,” Silvius continued grimly. “We need to make it right. We can’t undo the damage or make up for the violence against the Blighted, but Chief Advisor Rain needs to pay for what he’s done.”

  “And you’re willing to work alongside the Blighted to make that happen?” I asked, trying not to let suspicion color my tone.

  “Yes. If—if you’ll have us.” Grace wiped her eyes with trembling fingers.

  “We welcome your help.” Noble stepped smoothly away from the door, drawing the couple’s attention for the first time. “You’re right. You can’t undo the damage. No one can. But if you want to create a better future for your daughter, and for others like her, you’ve come to the right place.” He grinned, his body practically vibrating with energy. “We’re moving against Rain soon. And The Crow will lead us to victory.”

  My stomach soured. If there hadn’t been two new Gifted recruits standing between us, I’d have kicked Noble in the shin—or the balls.

  Fuck, that was a hell of a vow for him to make. Especially when he wasn’t the one who had to live up to it.

  But I affixed a confident look on my face and met Grace’s watery gaze. “I will. I promise.”

  I bit my lip against the words that wanted to follow. Or else to ruin.

  Chapter 16

  “He shouldn’t be doing that!”

  “Relax, kitten, he’s fine. Also, I’m pretty sure he can hear you.”

  “He can,” Jae said calmly, though his eyes remained closed as he hovered his hands a few inches away from the peeling paint on the wall. “And Akio is right, I’m fine.”

  “But creating a portal is how you almost died yesterday!”

  “Tearing open a portal quickly is what almost killed me. Creating one the right way is no more difficult for me than casting a concealment spell.”

  “I still don’t like it.” I paced nervously to the other end of the room, unable to watch the blue glow slowly spreading across the wall. “Why can’t I do it?”

  “She’s got a point. Why can’t she do it?” Akio watched me with glittering eyes from where he lounged on the bed.

  When he’d flopped down onto it earlier, he’d paused before shooting me an inscrutable look. I swore he somehow knew exactly what had happened between Jae and me in the spot he now occupied.

  Was that why he was being such a crabby ass?

  “I will teach you how to open portals, Lana,” Jae promised. “But a portal that takes me an hour to open now would’ve taken over six hours when I was first learning. The newer you are to it, the slower you have to go to stay safe, and we don’t have time for that right now.”

  He had me there. With Rain only days away from being able to perform another magic pull, we didn’t have time to waste. My four and I had all crashed in a slightly less musty bedroom downstairs last night, and I wouldn’t have wanted to trade those six hours of sleep for six hours spent doing portal magic.

  I sighed. “Fine. I understand. But please be careful.”

  Wrapping my arms around Jae from behind, I pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades, running my hands up his stomach and chest. I reveled in the feeling of his muscles relaxing under my touch instead of tensing like they had for so long.

  A sound like a muffled growl came from the direction of the bed, and I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t sure what had gotten stuck up Akio’s ass, but he was in a damned pissy mood today.

  Before I could call him out on it, Fen and Corin entered the room. I reluctantly dropped my hold on Jae so he could concentrate.

  “How’s the portal coming?” Fen asked, pulling me toward him and burying his face in my hair. I melted into his arms, letting myself bask for a moment in the scent of pine that always surrounded him. Maybe someday our lives could involve more of this, and less running, hiding, and fighting.

  “Almost done,” Jae murmured softly.

  “Noble said he’s heard from
several other Resistance cells.” Corin sat on the end of the bed near where we stood, catching my hand and running the pad of his thumb over my knuckles. “They’ve all had people wanting to volunteer. A lot of Blighted, but Touched and Gifted too.”

  “I can’t believe Rain hasn’t lost the support of everyone in the Capital,” I said bitterly, sinking down onto the mattress beside Corin and leaning into him.

  He shrugged. “Greed and fear are both powerful motivators. As long as people are ruled by one or the other, they won’t stand up to him. Whether they support him or not.”

  I gnawed my lower lip. I couldn’t really relate to the lust for more power, but fear? I knew that emotion well. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t fight though. In fact, the more afraid I was, the harder I fought.

  We’d decided it was too dangerous to leave the dilapidated house and risk exposure, so Jae was creating a new portal to the Resistance headquarters. We’d meet other cell leaders there and start to coordinate an attack on Rain—an undertaking that was finally starting to seem possible with our expanded numbers.

  “There.” Jae stepped back from the glowing blue patch on the wall. “It’s small, but it’s fully formed. It’ll do for our purposes.”

  “I’ll go tell Noble.”

  Akio rose gracefully from the bed and left the room without another word. As he passed through the door, my heart did a little stutter-step in my chest, already missing the feeling of rightness that came when my four were all near me.

  Unbidden, the story he’d told me about Ria rose into my mind. Would he always resent me for the bond between us?

  Trying to ignore the pit that opened up in my stomach at that thought, I followed Corin over to the portal, Fen right behind us. It was definitely smaller than usual—I had to hunch over to fit through it—but we emerged safely in the tunnels under the Resistance headquarters.

  The guards who greeted us at the entrance kept shooting me awed glances, making the hair on my neck stand on end. It was better than the distrustful glares I’d gotten the first few times I came here… but not by much.