Midnight Fae Academy: Book One: A Dark Paranormal Reverse Harem Bully Romance

by Lexi C. Foss

  I shivered, uncertain of how to react to that threat.

  “You won’t kill her,” Shade said, his mouth whispering over my jaw as he moved to hover against my lips. “It’ll hurt too much.” He kissed me tenderly, his tongue slipping between my lips to give me a taste of my own blood.

  Zeph nibbled my breast sharply, causing me to gasp, and Kols mimicked the motion against my earlobe. “What the fuck are we going to do now?” he asked.

  “Mmm, you’re the future king,” Shade murmured, speaking each word against my mouth. “I imagine you’ll figure it out. In the interim, I’ll tuck our sleeping beauty into my room for the night since you destroyed hers.”

  “Don’t you fucking—”

  I never heard the end of Kols’s statement, his words disappearing beneath a cloud of smoke. One that seconds later unfurled to reveal a bed adorned in rich purple silk.

  Shade’s bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Zeph

  “Fuck!” Kols shouted, his focus on the space Shade and Aflora had just vacated. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “That assuming you’ll be alive to do it,” I muttered, looking around the field. “You fucking mated her, didn’t you?”

  Kols expelled a long breath, several curses following before he said, “All three of us just fucking did.”

  “Oh, I know that part.” I pressed a palm to my chest, irritated by the strand circling my heart and linking back to a woman none of us had any business claiming as our own. “I was referring to before our little quad formation. Aflora was drenched in your power.”

  Kols grimaced, his palm gripping the back of his neck as he blew out a long breath. “We, uh, fucked.”

  I gathered as much by her half-dressed state. She’d run out here without shoes on, her hair a mess, and her shirt on backward. It was part of the reason I’d chased after her from the Elite Residence. The other part was driven by guilt. I’d been hard on her today. Maybe a little too hard.

  And now everything had gone to hell.

  “I get fucking her”—more than I ever wanted to admit—“but why the hell did you bite her?” I knew Kols. He had better control than that, even around someone as alluring as Aflora.

  “I didn’t. Not until just now, anyway.” He shoved off the ground to his feet, his focus shifting to the damage around us. “Her Elemental Fae bond initiated, taking us to the third level.”

  My lips actually parted. “That’s why I smelled her all over you.” I’d known it was deeper than sex, but I couldn’t figure out why she practically oozed his magic. Now I understood it. “She mated you.”

  “She did.” Anger colored his tone, but I suspected he was more furious with himself than with her. Kols knew as well as I did that the bond between Elemental Fae required mutual agreement to take form.

  Which meant that deep down he’d wanted to mate Aflora.

  And that had to be pissing him off.

  “It caused our powers to merge,” he added gruffly, taking in the destruction. “She exploded as a result.”

  “Your power sent her over the edge.”

  “And straight into the deep end.” He shook his head, his annoyance palpable. “I have no idea how we’re going to fix this. The consequences will be severe.”

  “They’ll absolutely kill her for this, and likely me as well.” Because I’d failed to protect Kols yet again. I’d also partaken in the four-way bond, not to benefit Kols but to save an abomination. That wouldn’t be forgiven lightly, if at all.

  “Yes,” Kols agreed softly. “They’ll slaughter her publicly to punish the three of us. Then they’ll take your life as well to hurt me specifically. And my father will definitely postpone my ascension.” He uttered the words in a dead tone, his golden irises flaring with power and knowledge.

  I slowly pushed to my feet, then tucked my hands into the pockets of my sweats. “Is that the path you choose?”

  He arched an auburn brow. “Are you asking if I’ll let them kill you?”

  “Will you?”

  “No.”

  “You won’t have a choice.” Once the Council found out about this, they’d have all our heads on a platter.

  “There’s always a choice,” Kols countered, his gaze holding mine. “Killing Aflora will literally destroy a piece of my soul—thanks to our illegal mating bond—and leave me in a shell of misery. I’ve seen it done to other fae. It’s the worst kind of punishment imaginable.” He stepped forward to grab my shirt, yanking me to him. “And losing you is a fate I refuse to ever accept. I won’t allow them to take you or Aflora from me.”

  Aflora, I knew, was more for his own survival. Losing his mate would destroy him, and she’d bonded him as both an Elemental Fae and a Midnight Fae, marking the consequences of her loss as undefinable. It might very well kill him.

  However, he could absolutely live without me.

  He just didn’t want to.

  I grabbed his shirt with one hand, my opposite palm going to the back of his neck, and kissed him to return the sentiment.

  As much as I sometimes despised this male, I also couldn’t live without him.

  Even when I wanted to.

  He returned the embrace, his tongue laced with Aflora’s blood as he delved deep into my mouth in a dominant sweep of power. I returned the move in kind, taking him with a ferocity I knew he couldn’t deny, and smiled when he groaned.

  Now wasn’t the time or place.

  I also wanted to add Aflora to the mix. We were all going to hell anyway, so I might as well grant myself the taste I’d craved for weeks.

  But first, we needed a plan, and to properly form that, we required time.

  “Your father would have felt the disturbance of power,” I said, releasing Kols almost as swiftly as I’d grabbed him.

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “Either you tell him the truth and damn us all or you give him a cover story. And if you choose the latter, then we need to do something to hide our connection to Aflora.” Because everyone who walked near us would be able to smell her in our blood and vice versa. It would be obvious to them all what we’d done tonight, and word would spread quickly through the ranks. Especially when several Council members’ children attended Midnight Fae Academy.

  “I can handle the cover story,” Kols murmured. “But we need to make sure Shade is on the same page, as he’ll be the alibi.”

  “You’re going to tell your father the two of you engaged in an illegal duel,” I translated.

  Kols nodded. “It’ll explain this.” He gestured around the burnt clearing that Aflora had created with her explosion of power. “My father will reprimand us both, but it’ll be a verbal warning more than anything else. He’ll claim it’s a rite of passage for us to fight.”

  A good and fair point. “That’ll work, but we need something to hide the bonds.”

  “That’s going to be harder,” he muttered.

  “No, it’s going to cost us,” I corrected. “A lot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know a guy,” I muttered, massaging my jaw as I considered what I was about to reveal. “He can help hide things, like bonds.”

  Kols narrowed his eyes. “Like protection oaths?”

  “Yeah. Like protection oaths.”

  He fell silent, his astute gaze holding mine as a myriad of emotions ran through his expression.

  Understanding.

  Hurt.

  Anger.

  Pain.

  Each emotion hit me in the gut, making me feel worse by the second. Because yeah, I knew the guy as a result of my own research in regard to how to break bonds. Specifically, the protection oath I’d spoken to Kols. He needed someone else, someone better suited, to guard him. And I’d proven more than once now not to be the right man for the job.

  Case in point, he’d gone and mated an abomination on my watch.

  That marked me as the worst Guardian in Midnight Fae history.

  “We’re going to discus
s how you know him later,” Kols finally said. “For now, can you reach out to see if he can help us mask the mating bond?”

  I nodded, saying nothing more. He could bring it up all he wanted, but it wouldn’t change anything. What was done was done.

  “It’s a temporary solution that gives us time to figure this shit out.” Kols blew out a long breath, his focus shifting to the dawning sky above. A million thoughts ran through his features, each one tied to an emotion I could taste from his aura without him having to say a word.

  Because I felt the same way.

  This was so utterly fucked up.

  When Kols suggested the three of us bite her at once, I didn’t hesitate. I’d accepted the solution almost eagerly. Too eagerly. To the point where I hadn’t once considered the consequences. I’d just wanted to save Aflora.

  I should have killed her instead.

  It would have made all of this so much easier.

  Had I just taken her out when she first arrived, Kols never would have mated her, his future wouldn’t be in jeopardy, and he could have lived his life the way it was meant to be lived.

  She’d been a weakness to us all from the day she arrived. Part of me hated her for it, hence Raph’s behavior in class today. He’d acted upon my aggression toward her, taking it out on her precious familiar.

  Wrong, yes.

  However, it’d felt good at the time to expel some of my frustration so violently. Until the guilt hit me square in the chest.

  The female had some sort of magical pull over all of us, creating a web of dangerous choices that both Kols and I had fallen into almost willingly.

  I despised her for it.

  And adored her at the same time.

  “I’m glad my solution worked,” Kols said, his mind clearly following a similar path to my own because I felt the exact same way. “It’s wrong, and I hate her, but I hated watching her suffer more.”

  “Because you don’t really hate her.” Just as I didn’t.

  “I know,” he agreed quietly. “But I want to.”

  “I know,” I replied, purposely repeating his words.

  A moment of mutual understanding fell between us, our minds aligned in that eerie way we’d come to respect over the years. It was why we worked well together, even when we shouldn’t.

  “I’ll handle my father and Shade, while you...” Kols trailed off, his focus falling to the ground. He bent to pick up a discarded wand, his lips curling down. “I guess I’ll talk to Aflora, too. This is hers, right?”

  I hadn’t actually studied her wand much, but it looked right. “Yeah, I think so. But I don’t remember her using it.”

  “She probably summoned it without realizing it.” Kols eyed the magical tool with interest, raising it into the light provided by the rising sun, and frowned harder. “Her essence is all over this, so it’s definitely hers, but I swear it’s changed somehow. See that blue streak? Looks like a crack, doesn’t it?”

  I studied the sharp gold tip and noted the letters inscribed at the top. “This wand used to belong to someone else. Are you sure it’s hers?”

  “It’s definitely her wand,” he said, catching and following my focus to the word. “Lahaz. That sounds like a spell.”

  “Or a name.”

  “I’ll ask her if she knows what it means when I confirm this belongs to her.” He tilted the wand again, his brow furrowing. “How have I never noticed the cerulean lines before?”

  “Maybe the wand changed formation,” I suggested. Magical conduits were known to grow with their masters. “It could be maturing, just like Aflora’s connection to the dark arts.”

  His jaw clenched, his gaze finding mine once more. “She’s going to be a handful.”

  “She already is.”

  He snorted. “True.” With a soft curse, he shifted focus to the clearing again. “Right. You talk to your guy. I’m going to find Shade and give the asshole a piece of my mind. Then I’ll make sure we’re on the same page.”

  “And if we’re not?”

  “Then I really will have a duel to report.” He turned on his heel, frustration and irritation pouring off his essence.

  All because of a girl.

  One neither of us wanted to be tied to.

  Yet I didn’t really regret claiming her, even though I knew I should.

  That nagging little realization followed me as I made my way to the portal and all the way to Ching’s place. By the time I arrived, I still had no answers, only a resolute opinion that we’d done what we needed to do and that there was no real alternative.

  Which couldn’t be true at all.

  We’d shattered our futures all for a girl who didn’t belong here.

  An abomination.

  A wrongness.

  So why did it feel so right?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Aflora

  Several Minutes Earlier

  Silk sheets.

  Violet undertones.

  Obsidian furniture.

  It all matched Shade’s usual furnishings when he visited my dreams, the notes of his preferences in every minute detail.

  I sat on his mattress, too exhausted to fight him or demand he take me to my room. What did it matter anyway? I wouldn’t be alive much longer. Might as well go out in style.

  My head fell to my hands, my body shaking from the power exchange in the field. I felt all three of them inside me, their presence somehow grounding me. The question became, was it permanent or temporary?

  Not that it would change my fate.

  I was absolutely an abomination, my power surge proving it. “I’m a danger to everyone,” I whispered, my shoulders caving inward.

  “You are,” Shade agreed, as helpful as ever. “But we can help you manage it.”

  I nearly laughed. Except it came out as some sort of half-sob, half-crazed snort. “Fae, I’m hopeless,” I mused, broken. “When did I become this weak shell of nothing?”

  “You’re not weak, little rose,” he whispered, his knuckles brushing one of the hands still covering my face. “You’re one of the strongest females I’ve ever met.”

  This time I did laugh and lowered my hands to my lap while meeting his gaze. “That’s not what you said when we first met. I believe you called me a delicate flower, just after saying someone called me beautiful.” I frowned with the memory, my focus sharpening. “Who told you I would be beautiful, Shade?”

  “Does it matter?” he countered. “What’s done is done.”

  “As I’m going to die soon, I’d like to know who subjected me to this fate. So yeah, it matters. Who in the Fae gave me to you as a mission?” Wasn’t that what he’d called me when we first met? A “task”?

  “You’re not going to die soon, Aflora.” He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger, giving it a subtle squeeze. “We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  We being him, Zeph, and Kols.

  Ha. “Yeah, I believe that.” Not. Had the three of them helped ground me? Yes. But that didn’t inspire much trust, not after my last few months with them. “Why did you bite me?”

  I meant all of them at once, which he must have understood because he replied, “To save you from exploding again.” His tone suggested his response was obvious.

  He was right only because he hadn’t told me what I really wanted to know.

  “Why would you care if I detonated? I mean, why not just kill me? I’m a danger to you, to everyone. Why help me?” I should be dead. A buried abomination. Destroyed. Not feeling centered within my myriad of power. Not entertaining mate-bonds to three male fae.

  None of this made any sense.

  He sighed, released my chin, and turned toward one of his dressers. I waited for a reply as he opened a drawer. Continued to wait as he opened a second. Then arched a brow when he turned around to hand me a pair of boxers and a shirt.

  “I don’t want clothes. I want answers.”

  His gaze slid downward, heat flaring in his pupils. “Well, that’s up to you,
but I have to admit my focus is a little distracted with you wearing nothing in my room. Particularly after two months of foreplay in our dreams.”

  Ugh! I’d forgotten I was naked, my attention divided between my fate and my confusion over what just happened outside. “How did I lose all my clothes?” I’d run out of my room with pants and a shirt on. No shoes. But I had no idea how—

  “You destroyed them when you blew up out in the field.”

  I blinked. “Blew up?”

  “You went up in flames, Aflora.” He dropped the shirt and boxers beside me. “Bright cerulean flames, I might add, and you destroyed the entire clearing. I’d be impressed if you hadn’t nearly killed me and Zeph in the process.”

  My eyebrows flew upward. “What?”

  He studied me for a long moment, his icy blue irises thinning as his pupils dilated. “There’s too much power inside you, little rose. It required a release, only your explosion wasn’t enough and you were gearing up for a larger one. So we reacted accordingly.”

  By biting me, I translated.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why does there need to be a reason?”

  “Because I should be dead, Shade!” I snapped, irritated by his continued evasiveness. This hot and cold game with him needed to end. “Just tell me why this is happening. Why did you bite me? Who put you up to this? What’s your—”

  His lips captured mine, just as they always did at this point in our dreams.

  I refrained from biting him, aware of what that would do.

  And instead dug my nails into his neck, deep enough to draw blood.

  He flinched and encircled my throat with his palm, pushing me down to his bed. “Is that how you want to play, Aflora?”

  “I’m tired of playing,” I told him, my voice holding a low growl in it. “I want information, Shade. No more of these half answers.”

  “A half answer implies I’ve given you at least a partial response, which I mostly haven’t.”

  “Exactly,” I said, exasperated.

  He used his grasp on my neck to pull me up the bed until my head met a pillow. He settled beside me, balancing himself on his elbow while his opposite palm remained around my throat.