Gwen D'Morte and The Hidden Spellbook: an Adult Academy Series (The Avalon Institute Book 2)

by Eve Stone

  Gwen D’Morte and the Hidden Spellbook

  The Avalon Institute Book II

  Eve Stone

  Copyright © 2019 by Eve Stone

  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.

  Gwen D’Morte and the Hidden Spellbook

  What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Clearly whoever said that never attended the Avalon Institute . . .

  After a massive betrayal, I’m on the run. Not only has my family been keeping secrets, but the one man I finally allowed into my heart—and bed—was working against me through the whole Trial of Crowns.

  Hidden behind a protective ward, my friends and I have teamed up with the Dowager coven to take on the council. But, to do that, we have to locate two missing spellbooks and find a way to convince the traitor coven to join our crusade.

  The last thing I need is distractions. . . . so when Tristan Locke and his mother show up, begging for asylum, I don’t know if I can simply forgive and forget.

  More murder, heartbreak, and decisions lie on the horizon—and I will either rise to the challenge or fall to the council.

  Book Two in the Avalon Institute Series: A New Adult Fantasy Academy Romance Series.

  Get ready for a breathtaking, sexy adventure you won't want to miss! This book contains adult themes/situations and is intended for readers 18+

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Ready for Book Three?

  About Eve Stone

  Prologue

  Disloyalty had brought me to my knees. I’ve been betrayed too many times to count, but it hasn’t gotten easier. With each stab in the back, I found myself growing bitter, shutting myself off to the world to protect what little of the old Gwen remained.

  My life had been full of hope. I’d escaped the indifference I’d felt living under the same roof as my father and was finally studying at Avalon Institute with my best friend, Lance at my side. We had recently begun a secret relationship and I was happy for the first time in a long time. Everything was finally looking up, but that all changed when Tristan Locke stormed back into my life, refusing to be ignored.

  He forced his way into my heart, and I allowed him into my bed. I gave him everything I had to give and he ruined it all. He ripped my heart out and shredded it into a million pieces before disappearing—again.

  His betrayal had changed me forever, but I wouldn’t allow him to walk away with anything more than my broken heart. The council wanted me dead or alive and he was tasked with bringing me to them. I wouldn’t go without a fight.

  Chapter One

  “Gwen, we have to get you out of here,” Lance said, cradling me in his arms. “For all we know, he’s on his way back with the council. We need to hide you.”

  “Let them come,” I said, feeling detached from the entire situation. My head ached and my heart failed to beat, or so it felt. Tristan had reached into my chest and yanked my heart out, crushing it beneath his boot and I had let him. I had practically begged for it.

  “He’s right,” Mallory said, grabbing me by the arms and yanking me to my feet. “We’ve got to go.”

  “What do we do with these two?” Holly motioned toward the heap, consisting of Galahad and Gareth.

  “Leave them.” Lance spat. “They’re the council’s issue.”

  With Lance on my left and Mallory on my right, they both held me up as we walked toward the exit.

  “Guys, I can walk,” I huff.

  “You can hardly stand on your own two feet. We need to move,” Mallory said sounding winded already from practically carrying me.

  I shrugged them off, took several deep breaths and willed my body to cooperate. They were right, now wasn’t the time for me to break down. No matter what Tristan had done, I had to make sure that all of my friends were safe. For all I knew, the council would kill us when they got here.

  Slowly, my breathing came under control and all the hurt was shoved down deep into a dark corner of my conscience.

  “Where are we going?” I questioned. “Nowhere at Avalon is safe right now and we can’t go off with a half-cocked plan.”

  The council would know everyone in this room was involved. They’d search all of our homes if they couldn’t find us here. There was nowhere to go. Powers or not, they’d find a way to corner us.

  “I have to remain here. My life isn’t worth more than protecting the other students. I can’t desert them,” Chancellor Andrews said sullenly.

  Chancellor Andrews had been my mentor and the one person in our society that had looked after me. He knew the council was harboring secrets and he had been trying to uncover them. By now, the council already had him being watched and at this point, he was in just as much danger as the rest of us.

  “They’ll kill you,” I screeched, hating his plan.

  “No, I don’t think they will,” he offered. “I have powers that are too valuable to them.

  They’ll need me.”

  He had alluded to having powers that he’d yet to show. I wondered what they could be. For the council to look the other way at his clear defiance, it would have to have been something extraordinary. Something like dream-walking or sight.

  “You’re going to form an alliance with them?” Mallory barked.

  “I’m going to do what needs to be done to keep all of you safe,” he answered far too calmly.

  “My family has a small cottage that nobody knows about,” Holly offered. “It’s about an hour south of here. We can stay there.”

  “Don’t say anymore,” Chancellor Andrews said. “The less I know the safer you’ll be. They might not have powers, but they have means of using students to get the information they need,” he looked to me. “Go with Holly. You’ll be safe.”

  “Why should we trust her? It was your mother’s coven that helped murder the Knights,” I asked him, hoping he’d give me something that would put my mind at ease. I wasn’t loving that idea any more than him staying behind.

  “My mother defected from that coven years ago,” she gritted her teeth.

  Chancellor raised his hand to stop our bickering. “As far as I can see it, you don’t have a choice but to trust her. Unless you have somewhere else to go that the council wouldn’t think of.”

  I didn’t. Since we’d been standing here, I had thought of about five places and every single one of them would lead the council right to us. We had to trust her or else we were all at the mercy of the council.

  “Let’s go,” I ordered. We didn’t have time to sit here.

  As the others filed out of the room, I stayed behind to speak to Chancellor Andrews one final time.

  “Are you sure they won’t kill you?”

  My eyes began to mist with tears. He had been like a father figure these past couple of years and to think that I c
ould be the cause of his downfall pains me.

  “One can never be certain what the council will do,” he admitted. “But I have very compelling reasons for them not to,” he smiled weakly. “Take care, dear girl. Use your abilities. You can control what you see if you only think on it,” he winked. I lunged forward, throwing my arms around his waist, catching him off guard. “Whoa, there,” he chuckled.

  I sniffed, trying desperately to hold back the tears. After everything we had been through, I didn’t want to leave him behind.

  “There. There. Don’t cry. You have to be strong, Gwen. It’ll take everything you have to make it through. Be careful who you trust.”

  I cringed at his reminder that I’ve had terrible instincts in the trust department. The reminder brought Tristan to the front of my mind and intense pain shot through my chest. No matter how far I pushed him down, he kept creeping up.

  I nodded and headed toward the auditorium exit to catch up with the others.

  “Gwen,” the Chancellor called.

  I turned to look at him.

  “It’s imperative that you find out who the hooded woman is. She may be the key to your survival.”

  I bit my lip. Tristan had been charged with uncovering that. Perhaps it was time that I revisited the dream on my own.

  “On it,” I smiled, before leaving him and Avalon behind.

  After leaving the chancellor, we all broke up to grab various essentials.

  We had fifteen minutes to get what we were tasked with and any other items we wished to take. The council’s headquarters were over an hour’s drive away. Calculating the time from when we dream walked, the council would not have had enough time to get here before we could get out, unless a few of them were in the area for some reason. In that event, we’d have to overpower them. We had abilities, they did not. Regardless, we needed to get out of there as soon as possible. So, anyone not at the back of the building within fifteen minutes would be left, including me.

  I ran straight to my room, grabbing two large duffle bags from my closet. Knowing I may never get back to Avalon again, I shoved as many practical outfits and undergarments as I could into the first. There was just enough room to shove my toiletry bag in and still zip it shut. The other bag was reserved for the items I needed to grab for the group. Grabbing them both, I started for the door when I realized it might be a good idea to take the letters from the trials. Who knows, maybe they could come into use at some point.

  I reached under my mattress and pulled the two letters out, but the third letter that was lying on top made my heart stop. My name was scrawled across the blank white envelope in a hurried script. I had already taken too much time here in my room and I still had additional items to get, but the need to rip it open was unbearable.

  Discarding the torn envelope, I inhaled sharply when my eyes confirmed what I already suspected. Tristan had been in my room. I sat on the corner of my bed, breathing unsteadily as I tried to work up the nerve to read the words on the page. Did I even want to hear anything from him?

  Desperately.

  No matter how damn much he had hurt me, my mind begged for answers, some fucking explanation for why he had done this. My hands shook as I raised the letter to my eyes, but the school alarm began to sound, and I jumped from the bed.

  Shit. That can’t be good.

  I shoved the note into my back pocket, grabbed the two bags and rushed from my room.

  Holly was in the hallway jogging toward me, eyes wide.

  “What’s going on?” she yelled over the blaring alarm.

  “No clue, but we need to go.”

  The closet down the hall held all the toiletry items I was tasked with grabbing for the group. I threw open the door and swiped as many bottles of soap, shampoo, and conditioner as I could fit, along with several tubes of toothpaste. It was enough to get us through a couple of months.

  “We have to move,” Holly said, grabbing the bag with my clothes and throwing it over her shoulder with her bags.

  “You only have one bag?” I asked with a raised brow.

  “Toilet paper,” she said patting her maroon duffle. “I have a whole wardrobe full of clothes at the cottage.”

  “We have five minutes to get out back.”

  “They can hardly leave without me. I never gave them directions,” she smirked.

  Despite that fact, we took off in a sprint, the alarm signaling that trouble was upon us.

  Running down the halls, people eyed us curiously, but we didn’t stop or pay them any attention. We were running out of time.

  When we got to the stairs leading down to the foyer, that inner voice whispered a word of warning. Danger was near.

  “Stop,” I said, pulling Holly back by the arm. “I don’t think we should go that way.”

  Her brow rose in a mixture of confusion and agitation.

  “It’s the fastest wa…” Her words were cut off by the boom of the front doors slamming open. I was able to pull Holly out of view just in time.

  “You two head upstairs to her room, while the rest of us search for her and Andrews on the main level,” Martha Craft ordered.

  Oh, God! They were here. Tristan, Galahad or Gareth had warned them, and they made it here. We were too late. Panic spread through my chest, threatening to paralyze me until footsteps on the stairs had me snapping to. They were heading our way, we had to move.

  “This way,” I whispered, motioning for Holly to follow me toward the back staircase.

  We were sprinting side-by-side, breathing heavily. My nerves were at death con as I worried about the others. Had they been found? Was our escape thwarted? Did they have to leave us? So many questions that would all be answered in a matter of minutes, if we ran faster.

  My arms pumped as fast as they could, helping my legs to move forward. The two heavy bags didn’t help, but so far, we seemed to have a long enough head start. There were several students milling about, which worked in our favor. The council wouldn’t want to draw unwanted attention their way, so Holly and I used this to our advantage. We ran for our lives.

  Twisting down the never-ending maze of hallways, we finally came to an empty one. I felt confident we had lost anyone who had been in pursuit, as I didn’t hear anyone approaching from behind. Holly must have thought the same because she slowed to a stop, bending over and trying desperately to catch her breath.

  “Holly, we need to keep going,” I said in between gasps for air.

  “I just need a minute,” she said holding her hand up to stop me from moving forward.

  My eyes caught on a clock at the end of the hall. We had less than a minute to meet the group. “You’re in better shape than me,” I cried. “We don’t have time. They’ll find us soon.”

  I bent over to pick up her bag but stopped short when a commotion at the end of the hall caught my attention. A member of the council was heading in our direction, eyes trained on me.

  “Shit,” I screeched, throwing her bag over my shoulder. Grabbing her elbow, I forced her to stand. When she saw who was heading in our direction, her face paled.

  We ran down the hall until we came to the stairs, practically jumping down several steps at a time. The door leading out back was held open.

  “Ladies, move it,” Lance screamed from the school van that he had commandeered.

  “You got the keys?” I asked skeptically.

  “Like taking candy from a baby,” Mallory said, dangling them from her fingers.

  “We’ve got company,” Lance motions towards the door as three members of the council come running toward us.

  Lance opened the van doors, grabbed the bags and threw them in, while Holly and I jumped inside. As he slammed the doors shut, more and more council members flooded out the back door.

  “Move. Move. Move,” Holly screamed as they got closer to the van.

  A shot rang out and the glass window at the back shattered. We all screamed, not knowing what the hell was happening.

  “Was that a bullet?”
Mallory screeched. “Are they shooting at us?”

  There was no doubt that they were shooting at the van to stop us. They didn’t have magic, so they’d have to resort to cheap methods.

  “Keep going,” Lance shouted. “Swerve so they can’t get a good aim on the tires.”

  “I’m doing the best I can,” Mallory’s voice shook in fear.

  “Do something,” Holly screamed, from the floor. Her hands were covering her ears at the noise of the bullets ricocheting off the van doors.

  Four black SUVs came thundering around a corner, heading straight for us.

  “Lance, can you stop them?” I screamed.

  He took a deep breath, let it out, and raised his hands. With a few whispered words the SUV at the front flew into the air and landed on top of the one behind it.

  “Yes,” Mallory cheered, but we weren’t out of the woods yet.

  The other cars were still in pursuit, having maneuvered around the wreck.

  “Mallory?” I said, beginning to panic as I saw her bee-lining it right for the line of trees leading into the forest.

  The van bounced roughly as we hit the overgrown weeds just outside of the woods.

  “Mal, what are you doing?” Lance yelled.

  “Relax,” she said sounding far too confident. “I took a walk on the first day I was here. There’s a trail and this van can get through it, but you’ll need to hang on.”

  She wasn’t kidding. The terrain was rougher once we were on the trail. The van lurched, throwing Holly into my leg as Mallory swerved to miss a few boulders. The only positive was that the council appeared to be out of bullets, as the gunfire had ceased.