Of Beasts and Blood: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Arcane Arts Academy Book 3)

by Elena Lawson

  Turned out those dummies weren’t just any ordinary practice dummies. When Sloane blew her whistle, they came alive with swinging arms and kicking legs. Almost life-like save for their faceless square-shaped heads and footless legs and digitless fingers. Try to strike the dummy, she’d said. And it was the only instruction she’d given to the class as a whole. And for two whole hours, all we tried to do was hit the stupid things. Marcus managed to hit his twice, and Bianca and I each once. Which, from what Sloane said, wasn’t awful for our first try. Only a handful of others even managed to skim theirs with poorly aimed fists or weak kicks.

  I took the compliment, but Sloane hadn’t seen me fall on my face three times before I managed to hit it. If she had, I doubted I’d have been recognized for one punch that was more than likely sheer dumb luck.

  I clutched the railing on my way down the stairs—a little harder than usual, needing the support. My thighs were on fire, and with each step, my legs shook from overworking the lazy muscle within. I hoped the next lesson was more focused on the magical aspect of defense. I didn’t think my body could handle another evening lesson like todays.

  When I hit the bottom of the stairs, I sighed and limped the rest of the way up the east corridor and down the north one into the library.

  Cal and Adrian had left to go for that long run I’d wanted them to take—I wished they hadn’t gone at night—but now that we knew it was someone inside the academy and not some beast outside that was to blame, it took some of my worry away.

  They were big boys—they could handle themselves. Besides, their absence gave me time to think of a good way to tell them what I’d learned from Draven. Once they found out it was some psychopath student or professor that was killing people, they wouldn’t leave my side. And I didn’t want them to be subjected the same suspicion that was thrown at me on the daily.

  I didn’t think Adrian had it in him to sit there and take it. I didn’t think I did either if it came down to defending them. The other spoiled rich kids here could say whatever they wanted about me. They could speculate about my familiars and it was all just stupid unfounded theories. But if one of them actually grew a sturdy enough set off balls to accuse one of them to their faces—well, I’d be lobbing them sturdy balls clean off.

  They didn’t deserve that.

  “Yes?” The librarian asked after I’d been standing at her desk for nearly three minutes, afraid to interrupt her raptured reading of what looked to be a book that was definitely not from this library. The cover had a bare-chested man in a cowboy hat on the cover, his blue denim jeans as low as they could be on his hips without falling off. They nearly defied the laws of gravity.

  “Uh, I was hoping you could help me find some information.”

  She set her book down, utterly bored with our conversation already. Her horn-rimmed glasses were precariously perched on her thin nose like they always were, and she looked down on me with the tempered annoyance she reserved only for the students at the academy.

  “That is what I’m here for…” she said, trailing off.

  I took a long, deep breath and said what I came here to say. For Bianca. “If a witch was having problems with their… memory. Specifically, if he or she were losing chunks of time—”

  I’d piqued her interest. This wasn’t the standard, I’ve lost my sigils textbook, can you please point me in the direction of where the extras are kept request. No, this was something the old coot could sink her teeth into.

  “Well,” I continued. “I was hoping you may know of some texts that reference that sort of thing happening.”

  She stood from her high chair and came around the desk, a new crease in her brow. “This is hypothetical?” she inquired as she passed by me and entered into the stacks.

  “Yes,” I lied.

  She huffed. “Well, then hypothetically, could you explain this loss of memory a bit more to help me narrow it down. As it stands, what you’ve described so vaguely as losing time could be a whole host of issues, both magical in nature, and entirely humane.”

  Right.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, following behind her as she began to pull tomes from the shelf, moving on to the next area of the library to pull more books from their homes.

  “Well, in this hypothetical case the person experiencing these blackouts is fully conscious during the periods of the blackout. Sh—they are sort of zombie-like. Ummm, and they can’t remember being places that they were, or even things they said. And then whatever it is just kind of wears off and they’re right back to their regular selves with no recollection of anything that happened.”

  The Librarian bent her head down to consider me from where she was climbing a ladder to reach a tome that was higher up. But upon hearing what I had to say her hand froze and she abandoned the book, stepping back down.

  “This isn’t hypothetical, is it Miss Hawkins?” she asked, placing her thin boney fingers on her hips, but bless her as she lowered her voice to make sure no one else would hear us.

  I clenched my teeth and looked away, making it clear that I wouldn’t tell her one way or the other. Letting her think if it were the truth, that it was me who was experiencing these symptoms.

  The librarian went to where she’d set the other books she’d begun to gather down atop a table and picked two from the pile. “I won’t press the issue,” she said quietly as she placed the two thick volumes into my hands. “But if you are experiencing what you described, you should seek medical attention here at the school. If it’s not something mortal in nature, like stress related, then there are only two things it could be.”

  She glanced from the books and back up to me. I looked down at the volumes in my arms. One was called, A History of Vocari Compulsion, and the other was titled, The Dangers of Memory Magic.

  “Memory Magic?” I asked, shivering at what either of the books was suggesting.

  The librarian finished scooping up the other tomes I wouldn’t be needing to place them back where they belonged. “Yes. What you described could be a side effect of tampering with memory. So, you are aware, it’s illegal for anyone to use such magic without council approval, and even then in only the rarest of circumstances. If you think you’ve been a victim of memory wiping—”

  “Hypothetical, remember?” I said with a smile, eager now to get the hell out of there. This was some really messed up shit. But at the same time, I didn’t know how I hadn’t thought of it before. Draven had compelled me a couple times now. He didn’t order me to forget anything—I didn’t think—or to physically do anything, but I knew that could definitely be what was happening. The other option—that her memory was being magically erased by another witch was less likely since the spell was incredibly complex and highly illegal. But not impossible.

  “Thanks,” I added hastily before I sped out of the library and into the hall.

  I held up the books up side by side. Not sure what I would tell Bianca. It seemed her memory problems, if they weren’t explainable with human science, were either to do with vampire compulsion or magical memory erasure by another witch.

  Either way—I knew for certain she was going to lose it when I told her.

  Not wanting anyone to see what I was carrying back to my dorm, I clutched the books tight against my chest—being careful that the titles on the spines were covered with my fingers as I rushed back through the halls and up the stairs into our room.

  I shut the door behind me and leaned against it, my mind whirring with all the new information it was trying to sort through. So, I didn’t notice right away that Marcus was in our room, with Bianca, and by the blushes on their cheeks and their closeness I had to guess they had been doing more than studying the books they had laid out between them before I came in.

  “I can leave,” I said in a hurry, and Marcus jumped to his feet, smoothing down the creases at the front of his uniform shirt.

  “No, that’s alright. It’s late. I should—”

  “No,” Bianca said, her eyes down
-turned. “Stay? Just a little longer?”

  Marcus turned to her and one side of his mouth quirked up into a dopey smile. “Of course, if you want me to,” he said. “And if it’s alright with you?” He turned to ask me.

  “Tell you what,” I said stuffing the books into a tote bag of Bianca’s before I slung it over my shoulder. “Why don’t you stay here the night?”

  I winked at Bianca when Marcus wasn’t looking and she gave me a wide-eyed glare of what the fuck are you doing?

  I stared right back at her, quirking a brow in a way that I hoped communicated, You know you want him to.

  “I don’t know if I could…”

  “No, really,” I said before he could finish. “I’m going to see Cal and Adrian. I haven’t seen them since…” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. I didn’t want to bring it up.

  Marcus cleared his throat and sat back down next to Bianca. “I’ll stay if you want me to,” he said.

  She nodded shyly.

  “But how will you get out to them?” Marcus asked me, watching as I stuffed some pajamas into the tote with the books.

  “Yeah. We aren’t allowed outside after dark right now. And definitely not alone. It isn’t safe, Harper.”

  I pushed open the window and looked down at the ground a good twenty, maybe thirty feet below. Gulped. “I’ll be fine. They’ll sense me coming and come meet me. Besides, it’s like fifty meters away.”

  “You don’t even know how to levitate properly,” she challenged me, and I realized she didn’t think I was actually going to do it, which just made me want to prove her wrong.

  I could do it. I could totally do it.

  “Hey, wait, did you find anything at the library?” Bianca asked.

  I grimaced, not wanting to tell her what I found just yet. I had to be sure one way or the other what was happening to her before I scared the living hell out of her with whatever these books contained. I had a lot of reading to do…

  “Nothing definitive,” I replied, and stepped up into the window sill.

  Bianca jumped from the bed to stop me. “Harper!”

  “Leviticus,” I said and let my body fill with magic. I focused it with my mind and imagined it like a soft bubble wrapping around me. A bubble filled with helium that would carry me where I needed to go. I fell forward, holding my breath, trusting fully in my magic to save me from the fall.

  If it didn’t work, I could heal the broken bones… no sweat… right?

  My body dropped like a stone, but only for a second before the bubble snapped up around me. Or rather—the incantation took effect, and I wobbled around in midair, trying to flip myself so my feet were pointing down, and my head was the right way up. As it was, I was staring at an upside-down forest and a night sky that wasn’t where it should’ve been.

  “Harper, are you alright!” Bianca called from the window.

  I hushed her violently, kicking my legs around to try and right myself as I drifted down to the earth. Giving up after several more frustrating tries, I crossed my arms and waited until I was close enough to the ground to release the spell and flipped my body before my head could smash into the dirt. Landing with an oomff onto my back.

  “All good,” I called back up quietly.

  Aside from the fact that I was bottom up the whole way down, I figured I’d done alright for my first time. No broken bones, so in my books that was a win.

  Cal and Adrian came barreling through the underbrush a second later, in their wolf forms, probably alerted to the momentary spike in fear and adrenaline when I first launched out the window.

  Adrian tackled me, his front paws pressing down on my chest as he licked my face. Cal came to join him, and I got a hot kiss of wolfy saliva up the side of my neck. “Stop,” I said, shoving their huge bodies off of me. Adrian jumped back, lowering his head, his front paws stretched out in front of him with his ass up in the air—tail wagging. Tongue lolling from his mouth.

  I stood and brushed the dirt from my chest. I heard laughter from behind me and spun to see Bianca and Marcus laughing out the window, hands pressed to their mouths. “Oh, go to bed!” I called up to them, and shook my finger at Adrian. “I’m not playing. Don’t you dare tackle me again.”

  He rolled over and growled indignantly, and Cal came to lift my hand with his cold, wet nose, asking politely for another pat.

  I shook my head. “Come on,” I said, scratching the spot behind his ears that he liked. “It’s dark, I need you to lead the way.”

  I couldn’t risk anyone seeing my witch-light. The snap of the window closing behind me spurred me into movement and I rushed with my wolves on either side of me, into the shadowy tree line.

  I kept a fistful of Cal’s fur in my hand as we walked, barely able to see more than a few feet in front of my face in the dark. The sounds of nighttime on the mountain were so ominous in the dark and I found myself twitching and jumping at every noise. Every twig snapping, every strong breeze that shook the leaves, and every groan of the ancient stone far beneath our feet.

  Ugh.

  Even knowing it wasn’t some wild animal that killed Lacey and Heather, I couldn’t help the feeling that some sharp-toothed creature could pounce on us at any moment.

  When we finally made it to where the converted toolshed was standing tall among the trees, casting its boxy shadow over us, I couldn’t wait to get inside. I let go of Cal and fled to the door, stepping into the safety of the warm light inside.

  “You okay?” Cal asked, coming into the shed buck naked with a worried stare. “You were shaking out there.”

  I shook my head, cleared my throat, looked at anything but where I actually wanted to look. “Fine. I’m fine.”

  Adrian followed his brother inside, still in his wolf form. He shifted in the blink of an eye, and I was faced with not one naked man, but two.

  Seemed he wasn’t all that concerned with being naked in front of me anymore, either.

  I dropped the tote bag, fumbling to pick it back up, blinking rapidly. “Could you, um… not be naked right now?” It hurt to say it—really it did. But we had things to figure out. Mysteries to solve. And I had a lot to tell them. About what Draven told me. About Bianca. I needed their help. And then maybe when we were through there could be some clothing-optional time.

  “If you insist,” Cal said with a smirk that made my insides quiver.

  “I do,” I said quickly so I wouldn’t change my mind.

  Adrian brushed against me as he passed. “Such a shame,” he whispered, his breath playing in my hair. I shivered.

  Swallowing, I snagged the bag of books from the floor to set them onto the small table at the middle of the room.

  Focus, Harper. You need to focus.

  “What’s all that?” Cal asked, tugging on a pair of shorts—jerking his head at the books with an expression that told me he wasn’t the least bit excited about this turn of events.

  “Do you need help studying?” Adrian asked. “Is that why you risked the wrath of Granger to sneak out? Can’t you study with—with uh… Bianca?”

  “Yeah, you might be surprised,” added Cal, dragging out a chair from the table and falling into it. “But we aren’t exactly well-versed in all things witchy.”

  I rolled my eyes at him, taking my own seat. I tugged my unruly hair into a high ponytail and rolled up my sleeves, flipping open the first of the two books. “I wish that was why I’m here,” I said with a sigh.

  A tightness replaced the smirk resting on Cal’s lips. His oakmoss eyes narrowed, darkening.

  “Unfortunately, we have bigger problems than my ability to pass this year’s ACE examinations,” I said and shoved the book on The Dangers of Memory Magic across the table to him. He caught it in his large hand and cocked his head at the title. “Much bigger problems.”

  I launched into filling them in on that they’d missed while being holed up out here, not bothering to skate over anything or downplay the ugly parts. They needed to know all the facts
if they were going to be able to help me. And to help Bianca. Not to mention to put an end to whatever was happening to the students at the academy.

  When I finished, I waited with bated breath for their replies. I’d saved the most bothersome bit of information for last—that the murderer, supposedly, was someone in the academy.

  Adrian stood and began to pace, trying, in his way, to work off the fury that tried to take hold of him. He worked his jaw, grinding his teeth as he seethed, cursing in whispers under his breath.

  Cal sat silently in his chair, pensive, his fist clenched atop the table. “Well, that’s settled then,” he said after a minute of thought. “You’re staying here tonight. And then tomorrow either you remain here, or we’ll be coming to class with you.”

  I was afraid they would say that.

  “You can’t—”

  “It’s not up for discussion,” Adrian roared, backing up his brother as he came to an abrupt stop in front of my chair. “You don’t leave our sight until this bastard is dealt with.”

  Wow.

  I stood up straight, my own anger surging, mixing with the magic leaking into my blood. “You do not get to tell me what to do,” I yelled at him.

  “Oh, yeah?” he challenged, a spark coming into his whiskey-colored eyes as he leaned in, as though trying to assert his physical dominance over me, his eyes glowing wildly now. I knew this was his inner wolf reacting to the thought of me being in danger. Somewhere hidden deep under a layer of rage, I knew Adrian wouldn’t ever try to actually to control me. Right now, though, I was pissed.

  “Yeah,” I answered with a glare and shoved him back. He stumbled, a flash of shock crossing his face before he rebounded, looking as though he might be ready to shove me back, but I knew he wouldn’t. Even though his claws were slipping from his nail beds at his sides.

  “Enough,” Cal growled, pushing Adrian back, and turning a disappointed look my way. He didn’t have to say anything, in that one glance, I knew I’d fucked up and felt immediately awful, which only made me more frustrated. More furious.