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

by E. M. Moore

  The gold sedan pulled into a driveway and Travis pulled up to the curb outside the house. It was a one-story golden yellow ranch. Murphy immediately got out of the car and then waited for us to pile out as well. Travis and Gabe went up ahead while Liam and I lingered behind. It was odd not to have him say anything or introduce any new facts about the case. He was just so quiet. Too quiet.

  Travis introduced me like he said he would, and then we all made our way into the house. The house was outdated, but cute. Small rooms lent itself to a chopped-up feeling, but it was also homey and pleasant.

  Murphy jiggled his car keys as he led us into the living room. A blue shag carpet at our feet, I only barely noticed the woman who slept on the couch. Murphy knelt next to her and rubbed her shoulder. “Anna, Honey. Do you remember Travis, Gabe, and Liam? They’ve come here to visit.” She blinked, the hollows under her eyes became more pronounced. Murphy helped sit her up. It didn’t help her appearance that her hair was stringy as if she hadn’t washed it in days. She had a small smile, but it didn’t reach her ears.

  Travis and Gabe glanced at one another. They seemed to have acknowledged something in their minds to one another, but I wasn’t privy to it. Unfortunately. However, I didn’t have to be a mind reader because we had Liam, and Liam said whatever was on his mind now. “Anna, you’ve lost some weight.”

  She looked up at Liam, her lips chapped. She did look frail, but I wasn’t sure if that was a normal look for her. Some girls had that skin stretched over bone look. “I just don’t have an appetite,” she said, her voice crackly.

  Travis shot Liam a warning look, but Murphy didn’t notice. He was staring at Anna with such affection. It didn’t go unnoticed by me and made my heart wrench. It was how I looked when staring at Liam now.

  “I keep telling her she has to eat,” Murphy said, smiling for Anna’s sake, but I could tell he didn’t feel it.

  She looked at him and her face did show a little sign of life as color rushed to her cheeks.

  “When did you get sick?” Travis asked.

  “About five days ago,” she said, coughing into her fist. “It just came over me all of a sudden. Murphy is freaking out, of course. That’s why you’re here, I’m guessing. I keep telling him that nothing is going on though. I haven’t done anything.”

  Gabe moved forward. “Something is clearly going on though, I’m not sure it’s magic related. Have you seen a doctor? You should probably get to one.”

  Murphy shook his head. “It’s not that. You’re not telling them everything, Anna. Tell them everything that happened. Tell them about the magic.”

  Her head twisted toward him and her mouth dropped. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I’m worried about you. We need to tell them everything.”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I can’t believe you just said that. I’m just sick. Okay? Maybe I got the flu or something. I don’t know.”

  “The flu?” Murphy prodded. He tried to stay in control of himself, but he was losing that battle. “You don’t have the flu, Anna. You can’t even do magic right now. It’s almost as if magic has left your body, taking your health with it.”

  Taking what he said into account, I searched inside myself again, using my purple magic to push out against the seams and search in front of me for any truth to what he said. I felt his magic, and I recognized those who were usually with me right away though Liam’s essence was a little cloudier than it usually was. As far as Anna’s power, hers was just a spark, a little ember barely on fire. If she was a witch, she was dangerously close to losing her magic.

  “Have you used a lot of magic recently?” Travis asked her.

  She shook her head. “No. Not at all.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Murphy said. “We aren’t heavy magic users to begin with. Just inherited—Naturals—and learned the basics. Nothing like you guys do though. I’ve never seen her like this before. I was hoping you guys would be able to tell us if she came across something she shouldn’t have.”

  “Murphy,” Anna said, but her words cut off into a cough that doubled her over.

  Travis looked around at the rest of us, but there was nothing else to say. There was absolutely no evidence of evil magic here. None. No feelings. No tugs. No awful aromas. There was one sickly woman though. “I’m sorry, Murphy. No signs of it or anything. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Gabe placed his hands in front of him. “I really think you should get her to a doctor, Mate.”

  I nodded alongside him. It didn’t appear to be a witch problem, it just seemed to be a natural human problem. Though, as witches, we didn’t get sick like humans did. There was something about the magic in our blood that helped us repel things like the common cold or flu. I hadn’t known Anna when she was healthy, so I didn’t know if she was a powerful witch or not. It was clear she wasn’t now though. It was heartbreaking to see her like that. Someone’s life stripped away from them, almost glaringly so. She lacked the glow most people had.

  “We’ll keep in touch, though,” Travis said. “If something comes up, we’ll let you know.”

  “Let us know, too,” I added. “If you take her to a doctor, please let us know what they say.”

  I’d seen Granny heal a witch once who’d gotten sick. Something about chakras and a lot of things I hadn’t understood at the time. If it came down to it, I could get Granny to visit me in a dream again, so I could ask her what to do.

  Anna stared up at me and she smiled. “Thank you.” Her cheeks pinkened just a bit more. Just our presence had improved her mood a little, or so it seemed. Maybe she needed fresh air and company other than just herself and Murphy.

  We all said our goodbyes and then Travis, Gabe, Liam, and I walked wordlessly back to the big Jeep.

  “Poor thing,” Gabe muttered. “She looks so different.”

  We got in the car, and Gabe held me to him a little tighter. I knew that feeling all too well. It hurt to watch Murphy with Anna. It was obvious they cared so much about one another and that he was going through this illness with her. I peeked at Liam and frowned. There was a lot of that going on lately.

  7

  By the time we got back into Salem, it wasn’t worth it to open the shop for the day, and the guys had already missed their classes. Gabe still wanted to get dropped off because he had practice and he wasn’t willing to miss that. It was becoming evident that having one car and one motorcycle between all of us wasn’t cutting it. The idea of having a Jeep big enough to fit all of us in it was a good one, just not practical when we all had our own things going on. Especially when the guys graduated college. Everyone would probably be going in separate directions then.

  If we didn’t want to get another car, we were going to have to find a new place to live. Somewhere closer where we could walk to where we needed to be.

  I fell asleep in the Jeep on the way home and only woke up when I felt the vehicle come to a stop. I blinked, disoriented for a moment before recognizing the walkway that led up to the front of Liam’s parents’ house. Head still groggy, I pushed the Jeep door open and hopped down.

  Randy was in the kitchen making himself a sandwich when we came in. Travis filled him in on the particulars, and then Randy motioned for me to follow him up the stairs. My heart lurched. I grabbed a banana from the bar and tried to step around Travis when he said, “Um, Norah?”

  I stopped and looked back at him.

  He ran a hand through his dark hair, his green eyes glinting. “Can you wait a sec?”

  I looked back at Randy. “Talk to you later?” I guessed. Since Travis and I rarely ever conversed, this must be important.

  Randy waved at us both and headed up the stairs, a small smirk on his face. Liam had already sat himself on the couch in the living room and pulled the laptop into his lap. Travis motioned for me to follow him into the vestibule. Instead of stopping there, he led me out the front door. “Sorry for being so secretive,” he said. “I didn’t wan
t Liam to hear what I was going to say.”

  “Oh. Okay.” That didn’t give me much information at all, but sure.

  “I’ve been thinking we should probably practice magic together. I know you four have done it together and found some things out...”

  “And you didn’t want to join,” I added. I didn’t want this to turn into a conversation about him being left out. He was the one who refused to join in on shit like that. It was never us excluding him.

  “Right,” he said. “I didn’t want anything to do with it, but today’s a different story than it was before. We’ve got a lot more things going on. With Liam having the familiar and Dupre lurking around somewhere, I need you to be up on your defensive skills. But also,” he sighed as if it killed him to admit this. “I need to work with you. I need the feel of having you be part of the coven instead of…the other person.”

  I swallowed, staring at Travis as we walked around the side of the house. His gaze already focused out at the water. It had taken a lot for him to say that. It wasn’t anywhere near an apology, but all the little things that had been going on lately made me sure we were moving in the right direction. “I agree,” I told him. “When we get into a situation like we were the other day, we need to see how we can react and how we all work with one another.”

  Travis looked up. “And Liam is scaring me a little. We’re not sure what the familiar is doing to him. We know the familiar allowed the psychic to mark the Liderc’s targets, so it could really be capable of anything. We know she wasn’t aware of that part, so what if Liam is doing something he’s not aware of…”

  My stomach twisted. I hoped to God that wasn’t happening.

  I stopped when we were in the wide-open clearing, about in the same place we had been when it was just Liam, Randy, Gabe, and myself out here. I took a seat on the grass and stared up at him. The sun made my eyes squint, so I used my hand to ward off as much as I could. “Let’s see what you got.”

  Travis did what I’d seen the others do. He took his stance, right foot forward with this hand taut as he waited to pull his magic from him. I concentrated on his hand, waiting for a color to show up like I’d seen with the rest of the guys. Nothing really accumulated there like it had with the others. Instead, a swirling wind came up from around Travis, catching at his sleeves and flapping the extra material in the wind. The more Travis concentrated, the more the wind picked up. Pieces of my hair even came around and stuck to my lips.

  Wait a minute. Liam made fire. Randy moved the earth. Gabe used the water from the ocean. “You’re wind,” I told him.

  “What?” he snapped, frowning down at his hand. The magic flickered and went out. He’d obviously felt as if it should’ve been going better than it had, and I’d just ruined his concentration.

  “Wind, Travis,” I said, standing up and moving toward him. “Try again.”

  He pulled at his magic again. I waited until the wind picked up once more and then I stepped into his vortex. When he finally looked at me and noticed the wind swirling around us, his eyebrows rose.

  “You were watching from the window before,” I told him. “You saw how Liam made fire, Gabe moved the water, and Randy—”

  “—made a big fucking hole in the ground?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, chuckling. That pretty much summed it up. “I’ve heard of witches being able to control the elements, but isn’t it weird that you each gravitated toward one?”

  “I’ve never been able to do that before,” Travis said. “Though, it’s not as if I’ve ever tried.”

  “Did you try that time?”

  “No, I was just trying to call my magic out, maybe make a hole in the ground like Randy had to see how much power I could get.”

  “Instead of that, wind came to you. Every time you concentrated harder, the wind swirled faster. Is this an Akasha coven thing?”

  Travis gave a curt shake of his head. “I’ve never heard of it before. It makes sense though. Randy also buried the Liderc alive at his parents’ house. He moved the earth again to do that. Maybe we can control separate elements.”

  Yeah, that had been badass. I’d wondered how we were going to get rid of that thing and when the psychic mentioned sending him back to hell, I hadn’t realized we were going to physically send him there by breaking open the ground and shoving him so far deep inside that he would never be able to get out again.

  “If we can do that,” Travis said. “What’s yours?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve never felt anything like that. Maybe I’m different because I come from a voodoo background. I don’t know.”

  For the next half hour, Travis used his newfound magic to fling things through the air at me while I practiced my defensive skills by deflecting them away and sending them spiraling in the other direction. When I felt the magic start to tug at me, as if the edges were splitting and fraying, I held my hand up at the rock he’d sent at me about a hundred times. I tossed it to the ground in front of him. “I need a break.”

  He dropped his hands to his side, blinking, as if he’d just come out of a trance. “Wow. I guess so. We’ve been doing that for a while. Are you okay?”

  “Time flies when you’re flinging things at me, I guess.”

  “Actually,” he said, pausing. An enormous smile graced his face, and it was hard not to get swept up in it. “It really does.”

  I rolled my eyes. Then, we just stood there staring at one another for an awkward few moments before I started toward the house. I looked over my shoulder to find him running to catch up. When he got next to me, I said, “If we can’t find a way to get the familiar off Liam, we’re going to have to find a way to get him to live with it. You see how his whole demeanor has changed, haven’t you?”

  Travis nodded. “He’s not telling us the whole story. When I think about it, it’s just like him to do that. He doesn’t want to be the center of attention, therefore, he’s not going to tell us what’s really going on with this thing on him. He doesn’t like to rock the boat, you know?”

  “I’ve tried talking to him,” I said, feeling completely helpless. “He told me he couldn’t be a safe space for me anymore. That stung like a bitch.”

  “We should all keep trying,” Travis said, emphasizing the ‘we’. “Maybe we could sit him down and try to talk to him when Gabe gets back tonight.”

  “He’d hate that,” I said, picturing an intervention in my mind. That would make him crazy. “Maybe we could each try to talk to him separately to see if we can get anywhere with him.”

  Travis rubbed his chin. “You’re right. It’s been long enough, and we can’t keep letting him try to do this alone. If you think back, it’s only gotten worse. When the familiar first attached to him, he was better off than he is right now. He helped heal you. Now he acts as if it’s a chore to be around you.”

  My hands turned to fists. “Thanks for that.”

  He shrugged. “It’s the truth.”

  I’d had my fill of Travis time for the day. We went inside, and I immediately climbed the stairs. We’d been doing so well, too, but apparently, I still had my limits when it came to him. I headed to Randy’s room, but when I opened the door, he wasn’t there. I stopped at Liam’s room next. I stuck my head in and found him sitting on his bed with his laptop in front of him. He looked up when I came in. “Have you seen Randy?”

  “He left to get Gabe from practice since you and Travis were busy.”

  It wasn’t so much the words he’d said, but how he said it. I stepped in and closed the door behind me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He kept his bloodshot eyes on the laptop screen. My patience was wearing thin. A few hours with Travis could do that to anyone. I sat down on the bed and put my hand on his calf. “Come on, Liam. Talk to me.”

  “I told you this morning there really isn’t anything to say.”

  “You also said a bunch of other crap I don’t believe either.”

  He looked up at me, the shadows under his eyes darkeni
ng. Before he could turn back to his laptop, I shut the screen and tossed the whole thing to the side of the bed. “Liam, this is getting serious. Everyone’s worried about you and you won’t talk. We just need to know what’s going on. If we don’t know what’s going on, how are we supposed to help you?”

  “I don’t need help,” he said, sighing, and reaching for the laptop again.

  I grabbed his hands and pulled them to me. He tried to yank them from my grasp, but I squeezed tighter. “Not happening. Liam, I miss you.”

  His hard exterior chipped a little. It was a brief flicker, but then the shadows grew over his face again. “Miss me, huh? Is that why you’re outside doing magic with Travis?”

  My mouth dropped. He’d never so much as raised his voice to me before. I gritted my teeth. “I’m outside doing magic with Travis, so we can both practice. We hadn’t practiced together before. You know that.”

  “Yeah, and suddenly he can stand you now? He’s not biting your head off at every turn.”

  I resisted the urge to release his hands because I had a feeling that was exactly what he wanted. It was clear that this wasn’t Liam saying these things. He was trying to push me away. “Yeah, it seems you guys have traded places.”

  He visibly flinched.

  I saw it as my opening. I dropped my voice to a whisper and worked my way closer to him. “Liam, Randy and I are working on something. Just stay strong for a little while longer. You’re doing great. You’re so brave.”

  His hands relaxed in mine. I retreated to look in his eyes and it was almost as if I was staring at the old Liam again. His jaw clenched. “Please,” he said.

  That was all I needed to hear. We needed that damn book. Or an exorcism.

  An exorcism? I hadn’t thought of that before. Maybe that would get the damn thing off him.

  I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. This time, he let me, his eyelids drooping low for a brief second.

  I stood to leave him alone when a soft pull started in my stomach and then grew and grew. I whipped around to face Liam. “I feel it too,” he said. “Faint, but it’s there.”