by Rae Foxx
The Bloodwood Academy Shifter
Semester Four
Rae Foxx
Text Copyright ©2020 by Rae Foxx
The Series, characters, names, and related indicia are trademarks and © Rae Foxx.
All Rights Reserved.
Published by Market Street Books
No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For Information regarding permission, write to:
Rae Foxx at [email protected]
Production Management by Market Street Books
Printed in USA
This Edition, August 2020
Contents
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
The Story Doesn’t End There…
Zero Fox to Give
Also by Rae Foxx
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About the Author
Chapter 1
My father stood on the dais in the middle of the bubbling pool of blood, ribbons of red streaming down his nakedness as it returned to the bowl.
The bowl of my blood that created him.
The bowl of my blood that had summoned him.
The bowl, the Nascence book, and the man they had created were all on the long stone table, looking like something out of a horror movie.
That’s what this was, a goddamned horror movie. And I was the blonde bitch who went down to the basement unprepared. Now I was being held up by a vampire as I bled out all over the floor. It was all starting to make sense.
Fucking Danvers.
“Oberion is in my control,” Nicky boomed to the monster of my father, her arms out like she was some kind of deranged god as she faced the man that looked at me with lifeless eyes. I was surprised she didn’t follow it up with a 'mwahahaha'.
“Fuck, woman, you are such a movie cliché. I swear to God.” Blood dripped from my mouth as I snapped at her.
“Too bad the hero won’t save us all this time.” Danvers’ snarled in my ear; her vampire canines glistened in the dark that was consuming me.
Dark as his eyes.
Dark as the death that was pulsing through me, throbbing along the ragged edges of where I had been stabbed. Pulsing like the blood that was pouring from me.
“What would you have me do?” The monster of my father sounded as lifeless as he looked, his voice echoing in my mind as blackness blurred the edges of my vision.
“End them all.” Her words slithered through the cave, through the screams and shouts that faded in and out in time with the beating of my heart.
"You going for Uber villain now?" I attempted to mock her again but wasn’t quite sure the words had found their way out of my mouth--pretty sure it was all in my head.
Trapped behind my bleeding, dying heart.
God, I sure was dramatic when I was dying.
My heart pulsed in my chest, the cave fading in and out as though my own heart rate was counting down my end.
Pulse.
Screams of my mates as they called to me from the other side of the runes that spun around us like a merry-go-round.
Pulse.
A flash of black stone and dead eyes as the monster laughed.
Pulse.
A high laugh as painted nails pressed into skin. Cutting me.
Pulse.
Howl and Saxon fighting off the witches that were everywhere in the cave.
Pulse.
A hollow ‘ping’ of my magic as I tried to use it, as the runes drowned my ability into a shadow, empty and worthless.
Not even enough to heal me.
The world went in and out of focus with each beat of my heart, more and more of it fading as my blood poured from me. As the black threatened to take me, all of the screams and panic from the battle became nothing. A comfortable, beautiful nothing that gently cradled me to the other side.
I must be dying. I had officially hit drama level one-thousand.
‘Ivy! Don’t give in! Ivy. You have to fight!’ Howl’s panic ripped through the black, bringing back a bit of stone and screams as he pulled me out of the comfort of whatever was beyond this.
‘Ivy! You’ve got to stay with me, little wolf. This is important!’ His panicked yell rattled my head, my bones. It jerked me out of the black and brought all of the screaming with it.
No fucking shit. I know this is important.
“I want to watch as you rip her limb from limb,” Nicky laughed. Danvers shook me toward the stranger who smiled as he stepped from the dais, stalking towards me. Nicky clapped her hands like a boy seeing his first nip slip.
Well, a psychotic boy who cackled like an old witch. The sound ground against my skull. I jerked away from her, needing to fight, to escape, to call my goddamned magic. Fuck it all! I had magic; I should be able to fight this! All I got was a throbbing belly and the heavy sound of splashing that could spell nothing good.
‘Focus Ivy,’ Howl yelled over Nicky’s laughter. ‘You’ve got to fight. Fight her.’
Fight her?
Like, poke her eyes out? Kick her she-balls in? Both seemed impossible with the hole in my belly bubbling my guts out second by second. I kneeled in a puddle of my own blood as more dripped from my lips, coppery scarlet pooling behind my teeth, making me gag.
‘You’ve got to get rid of those runes, Howl.’ With those things spinning around and blocking my power we were all dead.
“Kill her slowly,” Nicky drawled as my father took another step, his eyes looking through me.
“Dad,” I gasped desperately, gripping my side as Mama yelled something indistinguishable from the other side of the cave.
“He doesn’t recognize you as his daughter, Ivy,” Nicky side-stepped around the still approaching murder-zombie, leaning close as she taunted me. “Although I wish he did. It would make your death that much more beautiful.”
She was smiling, eager for my end. An end that she had tailored from the beginning...
Fuck this shit. If she thought I was going to go down on her terms without a fight she was very much mistaken.
“Bitch,” I snarled, blood spluttering through my teeth before I heaved forward, and spat on her. Bright red drops of red sprayed over her lips, cheeks, and nose like freckles. Horrifying freckles.
Nicky swore. Danvers gasped. And for good measure, I turned around. Screaming through the pain and faced the lying bitch-monster to spit in her face too.
‘Good girl! Don’t stop there,’ Howl said, grunting as he fought whatever member of Nicky’s weird army he faced. I didn’t have time to celebrate. That one act had knocked the wind right out of me.
“Fuck!” Danvers’ screamed, gripping me harder with one hand as she smeared the dots of blood into rivers on her skin. She looked like a tiger after their first kill.
I spat at her again and kicked weakly, trying to break free. Her nails dug in deeper even though she was covered in globs of red now. I would’ve laughed if my guts weren’t hanging out of my stom
ach.
“Never too far from the trailer park, I see,” Danvers’ fingers dug in as she shook me, throwing me to the ground right before the bare feet of my father.
Spitting blood over his curled toes, I looked up at the monster who stared at me with dead eyes as he lifted his hands to end me with whatever power he held.
“You’ll never be more than the trash you came from,” Nicky drawled still smiling in smug victory.
“Wrong. It’s the trash that taught me how to defeat you.” I smiled with a blood-red grin, clutching my hand to the slick, shredded remains of my stomach. Howl caught wind of my plans a second before I enacted them and yelled for me to stop.
Too fucking late.
I ignored him and jutted my arms forward, wrapped them around my father’s ankles and rolled, taking him with me.
Every muscle, every bone, every internal organ that I hadn’t cared about until now was trying to rip its way out. My spine cracked. Blood pooled and smeared over the stone as I rolled away like a meatball.
He toppled like a drunken cow, landing face-first into the stone I had vacated and barely missed Danvers who was trying to catch me, lift him, and ignore Nicky’s screaming; all at the same time.
Blood soaked my clothes and dripped from the hem of my skirt, coating the marble beneath me as I army crawled toward the red-streaked wall of spinning runes and the only things that could save me. My mates.
I needed to hurry. Hard to do when your body was being ripped in half.
“What are you doing?” Nicky roared as my arms gave out and sent me face-first into the floor. My nose cracked against stone and I screamed, but it was only one noise in an already flooded space.
“Oberion Potter, you will kill Ivy—now,” the shifter bitch screamed louder. I chanced a look as she and Danvers practically pushed my father to his feet, like he was little more than a paper doll.
Nicky turned to him, still yelling about killing me as Danvers positioned him toward his target.
My father’s lips twitched, jaw clenched as he shook his head back and forth like a schizophrenic patient with one too many voices telling them what to do.
Maybe that was why they stood him up and faced him toward me.
Creepy, psycho, rag doll.
That book didn’t just summon him. It had summoned a puppet. A soulless shell.
‘Are you saying he can’t stand on his own?’ Howl asked from somewhere else in the room, monitoring my near-death battle cry.
‘More like he can’t think on his own enough to stand.’
The second he stood, however, the guy was on a rampage toward me, the entire fucking crypt shaking like he was the epicenter of an earthquake.
I flexed my fingers, balling them into fists and then stretching them out, beckoning and begging my magic to do something. Even if it started a tiny flame at the tip of my fingers, it would be something.
My red-stained fingers just shook and trembled.
“Shit.”
His calloused hands wrapped around my neck as he lifted me from the blood-soaked stone to hover in the air, my body dangling like ripped and sopping fabric. Blackened eyes peered into mine, the colorless depth holding no emotion. No life. Not even a soul.
I flailed as best I could, kicking and batting at the monster as the world continued to blacken and fade in and out.
‘Fucking fight, Ivy! Use your magic! Do something. Anything!’
Then get rid of the damn runes…
Clearly, he had forgotten that Nicky’s witch-bitches had done something to block the magical part of me. On the other side of the runes Finn and his Fae warrior, Alias, were making fireworks rein alongside the witches they fought; but here, I couldn’t even feel my power.
I tried anyway, grunting in an attempt to throw the guy across the room, or summon some sort of fire attack with my hands. All that happened was that more blood gurgled over my skin, more black tried to seep in around the edges of my vision and pull me under.
“Make her hurt,” Nicky pranced behind Oberion, demanding of him like I was on some murderous menu.
Like I was on the menu.
An overpriced steak.
Rare.
“Try, Ivy. If there’s one fucking person in this world who can, it’s you!”
I don’t know who said it, but the voice pulled Oberion’s attention and his grip lessened. Taking my chance, I kicked like hell and sent my foot right between my dad’s bare legs, kicking him square in the nuts. He let out a long grunt and doubled over in pain, dropping me on the spot into a crumpled mess, arms and legs spread out like a murder scene chalk outline.
“Well, would you look at that,” I gasped, clutching my stomach as if I could put myself back together. “Originals have weak little balls like all the weak mortal males I know.”
“You bitch!” Nicky and Danvers said together. I jumped into action, screaming through the pain in my stomach as I lunged at Oberion, both of us tangling and grappling as whatever super immortal magic he had flared, and his hands started to heat.
“Shit,” I gasped, my bloody hands slipping against his skin as everything faded again.
“No!” The yell echoed around me, the sound coming from the battle like spokes on a wheel.
Spokes that pulled at me like a web.
A web from where each of my mates fought.
Oh my god. I didn’t know if I was delusional in my near death, but I didn’t care. I felt my mates around me, sensed them fighting, heard them grunting. Their voices, their pain, their struggle. They pulled at me like a web of rope was wrapped around us, connecting all of us. Pulling me toward them, keeping me upright.
As though their energy was tethering me to the world.
Supercharging everything.
Heating everything.
My magic. I could feel my magic! It buzzed and bumped against each spot where my skin made contact with his.
Somehow, I had connected to my mates. Somehow, they had brought my magic back.
Yep, totally delusional, but I was going with it.
I had a fucking chance.
I could end this.
I could end the she-bitch and her greased-up zombie man.
My back arched as my guys’ power spiraled through my marrow, weaving up and down my spine and renewing cells that had all but given up. Screaming, I smashed my hands into my father’s face and pulled all of that energy and power that was ripping through those ropes right into him.
The gaping wound in my stomach widened as I expelled the magic, as I pushed every part of myself into the attack.
There was nothing I could do to stop it. My magic took over, boiled my muscles in a bloody broth and singed my veins from the inside out.
Everything boiled.
Everything detonated.
Light exploded from my skin, a blinding iridescence smothering the room and soaking everything in white. My scream turned into hollow agony as I contorted against the energy that was eating me alive.
The sound reverberated over the battle, falling still as it pierced the crypt, that shaking vibration resonated over everything as the cave shifted. The ceiling coming down on top of us.
The crypt was collapsing.
I don’t know if it was my light-exploding skin or my banshee scream, but the floor was shifting, the walls crumbled and everything moved to bury us alive.
This might be the fucking end, I thought as blackness blurred the edges of my vision and I was sure that death had won the fight after all.
Chapter 2
"Ivy!"
"Ivy!"
Voices echoed in a familiar panic that rattled off stone. Rattled everywhere. It pressed against the bones in my skull that felt like it had shattered. My legs twisted awkwardly, the limbs pulled and broken as though I had jumped from a very high building and landed on solid concrete. Although instead of landing like some bad ass superhero I had more splatted like a water balloon. It would make sense as to why my chest ached, why everything felt shattered an
d why my lungs felt as though they were one inhale away from collapsing.
Collapsing.
Oh my god. The cave.
"I'm here!” I tried to yell at them, to tell them I was alive and everything was fine. That I was fine. God, seconds away from death and I lie there, crushed by stone. I wasn't fine, and the inhale of dust, rubble, and blood that coated my mouth proved that. You know, if the boulder that was sitting squarely on my chest hadn't already.
"I'm here," I tried again. Sure the words hadn't worked their way passed the blood that gurgled from me. They weren't words as much as they were babbling noises from a broken fountain.
"Ivy!" The voice came again, and this time I recognized it. Howl, yelling both in and outside of my head. No wonder everything throbbed. His voice literally knocked around inside my skull.
"I'm here!" I tried yet again, yelling into the dust that wasn't coating my skin as thick as the rock that was so close I could kiss it. Everything was too heavy, too far away. "I'm here."
"I heard her!" Howl yelled; his voice so close that I was sure he was above me. When I opened my eyes, and I tried to shift against the stone that was on top of me, it was clear I wasn't going anywhere.
I hadn't just been pinned by some large boulder as it fell from the ceiling; I had been buried in them. Rocks surrounded me on all sides, the grey stone nearly black thanks to the absolute lack of light. It was all packed so tightly that I might as well have been a piece of paper among them. Crumpled. Torn. Broken.
My paper airplane days were long gone.
"Where are you, little wolf?"
Here. I attempted to push the word into his mind, but all that came out was a scream and a gasp. The heavy stone of my chest made it hard to do anything else. Because of course, it had to land jagged side down, too. Not only was I being crushed, but I was also being stabbed by the heavy rocks.