Order of the Akasha: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Complete Series)

by E. M. Moore

  When the senior members of the Order came, they went to the sorority house and deemed it safe. There were remnants of evil magic, but they had no answers for us other than that. They had no idea why the guys hadn’t gotten the pull. They had no idea who Dupre was, much less Jay. As far as the whole demon thing? That sparked their interest. They left with no answers, and even more questions on our side. We had to take a ‘wait and see’ approach. To me, that just translated to ‘wait and see if they get killed’. Nope. That wasn’t going to happen.

  I didn’t know what our grand plan was, but it certainly wasn’t to sit back and wait for Dupre, or Jay, to come after us.

  Hands fell on my shoulders and started to work deep into my muscle. “You’re always so tense,” Gabe said.

  “I’m not used to having a target on my back.”

  “Eh, you get used to it, Love.”

  I rolled my eyes at him.

  “Truthfully. No, maybe not truthfully, but when you’re as good as us, you really don’t have to worry about things like demons and such.”

  “You’re too much,” I told him, knowing where he was coming from. You had to bring humor into things like this or it would feel as if the whole world was falling down on you. No thanks.

  He kissed my neck. “The truest part about that statement was that we’re badass.”

  “Well, that I already know.”

  Gabe waggled his eyebrows at me, but just before he could go in for the strike, Liam popped up. “I got that address for you, Norah.”

  I scrambled out of Gabe’s arms and took the piece of paper Liam held up. 120 Crescent Lane, New Orleans.

  “What’s that?” Gabe asked, reading over my shoulder.

  “Address to Dupre’s ex,” I told him, shivering again wondering what horrors he placed upon her. The guy was twisted, and no one deserved his wrath. “I want to go there to help her.”

  “Let me guess,” Randy said from his spot near the doorway. “That’s who Dupre bought the voodoo doll for and you want to go save her?”

  “It is what we do, right?”

  His head fell back against the doorjamb. “I have work on Monday though, so we’ll have to be back before then.”

  “I have a game Saturday, but I’ll cancel.”

  “I’m free,” Liam said.

  “Yeah?” I asked, a seedling of warmth taking hold inside me. It was these moments that I loved, where the outside world could just go to hell because it was these guys around me that mattered.

  “Where are we going?” Travis asked, pushing past Randy and entering the living room as if he owned the place. He was decidedly trying to be nicer to me since shit went down at the sorority house. Liam thought it was because he saw how we worked together putting the magical cell around Mandy-slash-Dupre. I reminded him that the cell melted away into a big pile of shit, but it didn’t matter, only members of a coven could’ve been able to do that. Well, I guessed that was our stepping off point. I had high hopes of pushing Travis from Hate-that-Bitch category into Not-so-bad. We’d have to see how it went.

  “New Orleans,” I said, smiling. “I want to help someone. You in?”

  He sighed. “Well, I was going to go out with Kaitlyn this weekend, but—”

  The air sucked from the room as my face immediately fell into the ‘I will fucking murder you’ face.

  Travis laughed. “Kidding. I’m in.”

  “Like I said,” Gabe whispered in my ear. “Explosive.”

  Damn right it was going to be explosive because if we didn’t start getting along better soon, we were going to end up killing each other. How much more explosive could you get?

  “I call shotgun,” Randy said. He checked my face to see if I was offended. “Sorry. These legs need space. It’s like a closet in the back of the Jeep.”

  “Maybe we should get a new car,” Gabe suggested. “You know, if we’re all going to be riding with one another from now on.”

  “Like a minivan?” Liam scoffed.

  “I don’t know. I was thinking a kickass Escalade, but if you want a minivan…”

  “Maybe just a bigger Jeep,” Travis offered.

  “Like a purple one!” I was really getting into this. Making plans with them felt right.

  They all turned to me, varying degrees of disgust on their faces.

  Alright, so I was taking that as a no. Oh well, I’d still won in all this. As far as I was concerned, it was still Norah-one, enemies-zero. I hadn’t lost a damn thing since coming to Salem, I’d only gained. The proof of it was right here gathered around me, willing to go to New Orleans on a whim because I wanted to help someone. I was pretty lucky.

  The End

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Thank you for reading the first part to my coven o’ hot witches! I’ve been waiting to write this story for awhile. I hope you love it as much as I do! I’d like to give a big thanks to Sandi, Kala, and Danni who beta’d this book for me. You guys rock!

  Make sure you “Follow” my author page on Amazon, or like me on Facebook, so you’ll be notified of all my new releases.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by E. M. Moore. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact E. M. Moore at emmoorewrites@yahoo.com.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition March 2018

  Created with Vellum

  1

  Excited wasn’t the word for it. There wasn’t a word in the English language that described what I felt at that moment.

  Nerves fluttered in my stomach at the same time the pull tethering me to Liam tightened. The delicious pull. It was the one solid thing in my life right now, keeping me afloat and safeguarding me from the mysteries surrounding us.

  I shook my hands out and closed my eyes. My stomach tumbled over itself until Liam reached out and interlaced our fingers. My whole body sighed in content. Together, we walked toward the steps to our shop. Yes, our shop. Liam offered to purchase the perfect location for the magic store as long as he could be a silent business partner. Not going to lie, I pushed for the silent part. I was used to operating things on my own, so when he first brought the idea up, I wasn’t one-hundred percent on board. After all, wasn’t it natural for someone who put up a lot of money for something to want their opinions heard? Stressed didn’t begin to describe the nerves I felt. No amount of money or joint business venture was worth the connection we had.

  However, the decision turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened. Liam was truly brilliant, which was obvious to everyone within the first five minutes of meeting him, but he also had a business savvy that made me trust in him right away. He offered ideas, but never pushed my hand or made me feel obligated if I wanted to go a different direction. I hadn’t regretted my decision once.

  “You ready?” he asked, pure energy wafting off him. Between the two of us, we could probably light up all of Salem. Then again, he had reason to be nervous. It had been his idea to stock the store using a professional service. Apparently, there were people with mega marketing skills who decorated and designed retail shops to best display its merchandise to sell. It was like house staging for realtors, but only with retail businesses.

  Yeah, it was new to me too. I was so hoping I wouldn’t hate it.

  I sucked in a deep breath and let it out. Us taking this step together went even deeper than just the four inch step up to the entry.

  He held the glass door open, and we walked over the threshold. My mouth dropped. I didn’t know where to look first. Rows and rows of crystals, potion ingredients, and knickknacks filled the shelves. Salem tourist trinkets were spattered around like highlights in a sea of mystical items that lended itself to t
he perfect balance of each. More than that, it was the ambiance. The experts we’d hired decorated the interior to fit the feeling I wanted, but didn’t know how to put into words. It was dark without being creepy or dingy, and a magical aloofness made the store a wonder without being a joke.

  Liam double pumped my hand. “You like it?”

  I was struck dumb. Did I like it? I fucking loved it. This was ten times better than my store in New Orleans. There was no chipped paint, or mildew smell that no matter how much I cleaned, I could never seem to get rid of. Beyond that though, the store immersed the customers in magic. It was one complete picture from top to bottom. If magic had a feeling, it surrounded you in this space. It was like promises, and dreams, and that special flicker of hope that maybe you could do anything lingered just within these walls.

  “How much was all this?” The more I looked, a realization had begun to take shape. I’d have to pay Liam back for my half over years and years. There was no way I could afford anything like this right now, or probably even in the next decade.

  “Just let me worry about all that.”

  I gave him a look. We were so not going to have this conversation again. We’d had it a bunch of times over the past month. I wasn’t going to owe anybody anything. As soon as this store got off the ground, the profit would go to pay Liam back first and foremost. I hated he’d delved into his parents’ money, which he didn’t even want, let alone want to spend. My mood immediately darkened and Liam made me face him. “Hey, don’t do that. This is your day. You’re moved up here, finally. We got your entire stock from New Orleans up here. The stagers did an amazing job. You should be nothing but happy.”

  I tried to smile. “I know,” I told him. Deep down, though, I worried he’d hold this against me. If not now, then someday. Using his parents’ money was probably eating him alive, and I didn’t want our relationship associated with that. What we had—what we all had—was just too important to me.

  He dipped his face and pressed his soft lips to mine. I closed my eyes and leaned into him, loving the perfect curve of his mouth and the sweet way he expressed his feelings.

  Over the past month or so, Liam had become more confident around me. Though things were far from perfect around us, I enjoyed how we kept ourselves sane with this project. The threat of Dupre and Jay was there, but pushed to the back burner for now. Things had been quiet, which was a complication in and of itself. It brought up too many questions we didn’t have answers for. Was our magic off? Were we missing the pull like we had with the sorority house? It must’ve taken a lot of magic to hide all that from us. If Liam’s theory was correct, and I was willing to bet it was, you didn’t hide limbo in a sorority house without massive amounts of magic. That could only mean Jay was as powerful as Dupre said. Demon’s blood.

  An involuntary shiver ran up my spine. I understood—and believed—the whole heaven and hell thing, so I wasn’t sure why I was surprised to hear about demons. But damn, to think that they could sway what was going on up here. I didn’t like it. At all.

  “Well, c’mon,” Liam said, pulling me further in.

  The scents of the herbs coaxed me in further. To my right, an area for customers to make their own spell was a focal point. A Victorian looking spell book jutted out from the shelf containing spell recipes. From bringing love into your life and awakening your spiritual self, all the way to keeping evil spirits away, I’d designed and made up recipe cards. In front of those were the herbs and stones to perform the recipe and little brown canvas bags with tie strings completed the package. For the small fee of $9.99, customers could pick out their own spell ingredients, put them in a bag, and go home with a way to ‘perform magic’ on their own.

  This was going to be amazing. I could see tourists going nuts over that feature. We were selling the dream of doing magic, and who wouldn’t want that?

  My hand swept over the mahogany spell-making station before turning to the back of the store. I stopped mid-stride. Randy, Gabe, and even Travis, stood behind the counter. “What are you guys doing?”

  Gabe smiled. “Waiting for you, Love. Are you happy?”

  My heart melted a little in that moment, and no, it wasn’t just the British accent. “Unbelievably,” I told him, still overwhelmed by their presence when we were all together. My mind must’ve been so fixated on the new store that I hadn’t felt the pull to them all as soon as we stepped in because it was on in full force now. My fingertips tingled with my power just waiting and at the ready. “What do you guys think?”

  “It looks great,” Randy said, his eyes wandering up and around all the design flourishes that made the space unique. “It’s amazing what they were able to do with it. I mean, just two days ago it was a bare shop.”

  I agreed one-thousand percent. We were due to open in a couple days and I’d been starting to freak out. Stupidly, or so it seemed now. I was itching to put the Open sign on the door and start ringing people up this very moment. Even when Liam and I were heading up to the place just then, tourists lingered out on the sidewalk peering in the windows to “A Touch of Magic”. We had to lock the door behind us to keep them from straying in.

  I glanced at Travis. He was the only one yet to say anything. Not that that should be a surprise. We were basically on ignoring each other terms. We talked only when necessary about Order business or during team meetings, which he only grudgingly allowed me to attend. It was what he didn’t say that unnerved me. Or, actually, it was the faces he made when he didn’t say anything. He always peered at me half in disgust, half in contemplation, making me feel as if I was just a poor substitute for the previous fifth, and that was the reason for the root of all his anger. Not that he’d ever open up and tell me that though. For me, being around him was becoming more difficult. It was hard to want to let someone in who didn’t feel the same.

  When it came to Travis, the store’s opening was the least of my worries though. I raised my eyebrows hoping he’d just come out with the information I wanted so I wouldn’t have to ask. After we’d all traveled to New Orleans for the last time to grab the rest of my stuff, he stayed behind to see if he could find a trail that led to Dupre, or Dupre himself. When I hadn’t been thinking about the store, I’d been wondering what he was able to find out.

  Travis shrugged. “What?”

  I knew he’d make this harder than it had to be. “I see you’re back.”

  “Couldn’t miss this, could I?” He rolled his taunting green eyes, making it clear what he thought about this whole idea, or maybe just the idea of me in general. I could never tell with him.

  My stomach tightened. I didn’t give a shit about the store when we were talking about real witch stuff. Especially when it came to keeping us all safe.

  “Travis,” Liam said, an exhausted warning flavoring his tone. I squeezed his hand to stop him. He didn’t need to fight my battles for me. I was completely capable of doing it on my own.

  “Dupre, Travis,” I said, raising my voice. “What did you find out about Dupre?”

  Another shrug. I didn’t know what I hated more. When he deliberately tried to evade me, or when he deliberately said things to piss me off. He leaned against the back wall behind the cash register, crossing his arms over his chest and piercing me with a challenging glare.

  My heart thumped. I had to admit Travis was undeniably attractive. He had that ‘I’m hot and I know it’ thing going for him. Usually I hated guys like that. I was blaming the link for wanting to jump his bones even though he was so aloof. I could restrain myself though. Travis needed a lesson in how to treat women. He wasn’t going to get anything from me unless he decided to play nice.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Randy said, exasperated. “We’re all on the same team.” He turned to me. “Travis didn’t find anything in New Orleans that we didn’t already know. Dupre owned a house up there that’s still in his name—.”

  Travis held his hand up. “I can tell my own story.”

  “Then do it without all the fu
cking dramatics, bro. It’s making my head hurt.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, freeing myself from Liam and stepping in before it got worse. It wasn’t good when the guys started to fight. Everyone was really at their wits end with Travis. They’d given him so much slack already and then he acted like he couldn’t stand me.

  Travis was entitled to his opinion, but we really did need to try to get along for the group. One of these days, I was going to have to have a sit-down with him to talk things out all nice and formal like. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I had a feeling it was going to push me over the edge either way. If I didn’t try to kill him afterward, I was probably going to try to have sex with him. What was a girl to do?

  I took a deep breath and put all that in the back of my head. I leaned against the counter in front of the guys and eyed the green-eyed, super hot, pain in my ass. “I think I can say it for everyone when I say we’re glad you’re back, Travis.” That much was true. It was hard having one of us away. Even though we didn’t get along, it was like having a special part of me missing. It would’ve been a nightmare if I fought the pull to these guys. That much I could tell already. “As for me, I’d like to know what you found out.”

  He tilted his chin in the air. “Thank you.” He then launched into his spiel as if the back and forth between us hadn’t happened. It took me a moment to catch up to what he was saying. Everything he did was a mystery to me. Especially the why behind it all. I didn’t understand him one bit, but that was a problem for another time. “Dupre’s house in New Orleans is humongous,” Travis said, forcing his hands apart as if he could convey its true size. “It’s right on the main strip where the famous and rich people live including Anne Rice, so if that helps you get a clearer picture of this guy, there you go. I talked to his housekeeper. Nice lady. I pretended to be an old friend. Coupled with my charm, she was pretty forthcoming.”