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

by E. M. Moore

  I nodded. I knew he would. I knew he would try at least. We’d come a long way since I first got here, and he was as committed to this coven as any of the rest of us were now.

  Liam and Randy came out of the back with boxes in their hands. Gabe had stopped behind the counter to clear a space off. I squeezed Travis’s hand and moved forward, digging through the boxes until I brought out the beads we needed, and the right stones. Then, I walked over and got some incense off the shelf that worked well with protection spells. Then I grabbed the herbs and spices, bringing everything over until I smiled at them. “Okay, this is how you make the best all-seeing-eye bracelet you can make. It wards off evil as we know. It doesn’t let anything past.”

  Liam nodded, and I could already see him making mental notes in his head.

  I took them through the process. We infused our magic into the tangible objects, making five strong as fuck bracelets. When Liam finished making his, he handed it to me. It was made with a mixture of dark purple and light purple beads. “This one’s for you,” he said.

  I smiled at him before slipping it on my wrist. Leaning over the counter, I gave him a kiss. This time, I dug deeper, reaching into all the warmth I had for every single one of them and infused it in that kiss. It couldn’t hurt to give any of them a little something extra for the battle to come. “Thank you.”

  17

  Murphy and Anna were the first to arrive.

  Anna looked like a brand new person. She had color back in her face, and a smile that could light up the whole room. Seeing her now and remembering what she looked like then when she was getting her powers drained from her, I realized what a ride she had been through, and how terrible she must have felt. They wanted to be put to work right away, and so Gabe showed them how to make the bracelets.

  Ren was next.

  I didn’t care, but it would still take me by surprise no matter how many times he showed up to do something good. Randy reluctantly became his teacher. All of us had varying degrees of power, but at this point, a little would help anyone.

  Dean and Owen came next. Mr. Reid had stayed home with his daughter, but Mr. Reid had sent a sizable check with his son. He handed it to me, telling me it was for my supplies. I sneered at him and handed it back, but Liam took it right out of my hand. When he looked at the amount of the check, his eyes widened. His gaze tracked up Liam and he said, “I’ll pay for half of whatever this cost. I’ll cut you a check when we know the difference.”

  “Suit yourself,” Dean said.

  Randy looked on at the two of them interacting. Sure, Dean was pompous and the type of witch that got anything he wanted, but he wasn’t a bad guy. If Liam wanted to pursue another friendship with him, one that he would remember, I was behind it. There was more than enough Liam to go around and Randy didn’t need to worry. Randy and Liam needed one another just like I needed both of them.

  As we worked, Travis went around and told them what the plan was. Walter had called and told us that the signal would be fireworks in the sky. Something inconspicuous, but also out of the ordinary enough that witches would notice, but regular folk and tourists would just chalk it up to locals having fun. Or some sort of witch event. I could see fear in their eyes when we spoke about it, but everyone seemed as determined as we were. We knew we were fighting for something bigger than ourselves. It wasn’t just our own individual lives at stake. It was our families, our friends, our children, and our next-door neighbor.

  Salem was under siege by a demon. It didn’t get any more real than this. A few hours into our bracelet craft time and together we’d already made a few hundred bracelets. A few of us had left the shop to go out around town and start handing them out to people. They chalked it up to free shop promo, but we all knew it was something far more important than that. I’d just finished one and stood up to stretch when I got a tug in my stomach. My hands immediately lowered to my stomach when the next cramp started. I doubled over the table. Owen saw me first. “Are you—?”

  Liam butted in. He put his hand on the back of my neck to sooth me. I knew he had to have been feeling similarly, but he looked at everyone instead. “Don’t be alarmed. It’s how we get the call when something bad is happening.”

  Did I mention I really fucking hated cramps?

  I looked up and locked gazes with Travis. He nodded, and we all moved toward the door. “Feel free to stay and keep working. We’ll be back.”

  Anticipation grew in my stomach, twisting my insides to knots. The sick feeling grew as we jumped into the Jeep. It was close. The Akasha wasn’t taking us to a place too far away. Up front, I saw Travis get on the phone from the passenger seat as Randy asked for the keys. Immediately, he said, “Why are we getting the pull?”

  Of course, I thought. We weren’t Akasha members anymore. Why the hell were we getting the pull?

  Travis nodded as he heard Walter out on the other side of the line. “A little heads up would’ve been nice,” he snapped.

  A moment later, he hung up the phone and shook his head. Gabe peeked around the seat. “What did he say?”

  “He said they decided to reinstate us as the Order in Salem.”

  “A heads up would’ve been nice,” I said, grimacing through the latest cramp. I had a feeling that because I was a girl whose body was already predisposed to cramps, I felt them more than they did. It was a theory, and I was going with it no matter if it was the case or not.

  I knew instinctively when Randy was going to take a left down the street and then another left just past the Salem Witch Museum. We were kiddy corner from the park where we were earlier, but that was where the pull took us.

  “Are they going to meet us here?” Liam asked.

  Travis shrugged. “I don’t know. I hung up on him.”

  I didn’t know why, but it made me laugh. All this other shit was happening, and it still felt good to get back at someone who’d been a dick.

  Liam didn’t find it all that amusing. “We could probably use their help.”

  “I doubt it,” Travis said. “You know yourself that wasn’t a really big pull. I doubt it has anything to do with the demon. Or if it does, it’s not Jax himself.”

  I checked on Travis. His face was clear, yet concentrated. I wondered if he thought he’d find his sister in here. He at least had to have a small fragment that that could happen. If it was her, I hoped she wasn’t hurt.

  We emptied into the small foyer. There were people gathered there, waiting for the next showing. Gabe went up to the counter, all smiles. He came back with stickers for each of us that allowed admission. Luckily enough, the girl running the register was a witch and had been at the equinox celebration earlier. She’d give us five minutes to check the place out by ourselves.

  After a minute had gone by, she stuck her head in the door and then waved us through. We each inched past her and she shut us in from behind. I heard her voice coming from under the door where she said there would be just a slight delay in the next showing.

  There was one single faint light shining down in the middle of the floor. The rest of the room was in shadows. I didn’t know where to look first, but the guys started checking out the side walls and when I looked a little closer, I saw that there were scenes depicted in different areas around the room. It took me looking at two different scenes before I realized why we’d gotten the call.

  Where there was supposed to be wax people to represent the different characters in Salem’s witch history, there were real people.

  Gabe got out his phone and shone the flashlight on it into the corner of the room. I recognized the scene from one of the stones I read when Gabe was taking me around to the cemetery and the Witch Trials monument. Giles Corey had been pressed to death. Instead of seeing a model there, there was an actual guy laying between the piles of stone. His face was pale, and blood poured out of his mouth.

  The faint smell of rotten meat trickled into the air around us. These guys had been killed somewhere else. The stench was still on them. But
they’d been moved here as a statement.

  Randy cleared his throat. “I think I know where Walter’s new Salem Order ended up.”

  My mouth dropped. Of course. Who else could it be?

  Reluctantly, Travis took out his phone and called Walter. His coven would be the only ones to identify them. How the hell had this happened? If this was them, were they not prepared for what they were getting into? Had Jax ambushed them. There were so many questions and not enough answers to go around.

  When Travis got off the phone with Walter, he took a closer look. I noticed the shine of his flashlight strayed the longest on the female models. Luckily, those were still wax.

  Jennie was still alive then, as far as we knew. She’d better stay that way too because I wasn’t sure how Travis would handle that at all.

  It didn’t take Walter and his coven very long at all to make it to the museum. They’d mastered the art of just showing up places. I guessed that was what age and wisdom got you.

  Gabe had arranged it with the girl at the counter to let in the superiors. Soon, they’d learn that not another person was going to be let in here anytime soon. I assumed the Order would want to take the bodies away instead of involving the local police, but all that still took time.

  When he walked in, his face paled right away. Randy’s flashlight was spotlighting one of the guys. The peek of modern-day clothes was unmistakable. “That’s them,” Walter said, his voice gruff.

  The other superiors looked on horrified.

  “They didn’t make it very far,” Randy said. Then, he looked at the others who’d just entered. “I’m sorry to find them like this.”

  Creases gouged his forehead, and I wanted to go to him, but there were so many solemn faces in here right now. All these guys had friends and families just like us. They didn’t deserve this.

  “No Jennie?” Walter asked.

  Travis shook his head.

  “That’s good,” Walter said.

  I happened to agree with him. I was hoping that if there was any piece of Jax left in there that he would somehow remember his feelings for Jennie and let her live. Let her come out of this without any scars or hurt or pain. If he ever loved her, he could at least give her that. I would vow that to my coven right here and now. If it was at all in my power, I would never see them hurt or in pain again. It was a vow I would die to keep.

  “You know what this means,” Walter said, speaking directly to Travis.

  His jaw ticked. I watched them both carefully. Sometimes I still felt as if I was very much a newbie at all this. I’d dove right into this headfirst without an instruction manual, so sometimes I didn’t quite understand the ins and outs like they did.

  “He’s declared war on the Order.”

  Travis stared up at the ceiling, his head dropping back as if he’d given up all fight. “He won’t be shown any mercy,” Travis said.

  I looked to Liam. He nodded. “If a witch kills an Order member in retaliation for any wrongdoing, they are immediately proclaimed an enemy.” He paused. “They won’t even think about taking him alive now. I’m not sure they’ll even care if they can separate Jax from the demon. He’ll have to go under the Akasha again.”

  Travis’s lips moved, catching my attention. Mumbled noises came out of it, and when I looked at him, I noticed he still stared at the ceiling. I followed his gaze and noticed there was writing on the ceiling in blood.

  The mighty will fall.

  18

  We decided to go home so the superiors could clean up the mess. After all, it was their idea to bring in another Order.

  I wished they hadn’t. I wished they had just trusted us to know what was right.

  The mighty will fall.

  How poetic. I had news for the demon, or Jax, or whoever he fucking was. Nothing was happening to us. I forced Travis into the backseat of the Jeep. I held tight onto his hand while he tried to drive, but I wasn’t going to let him. Out of all of them, he needed me right now. And I needed them.

  I pushed him in the back and then climbed on top of him, not giving him room to protest. Not that he would. I yanked his shirt up and over his head, then sealed my lips to his, trying to get as close to him as I could.

  “Well, alright,” Gabe said.

  “What are you doing?” Travis said between kisses. He didn’t let up. He didn’t push me away.

  “Shh. Just go with it.”

  He kneaded my ass through my jeans and I plastered myself over his lap, grinding into him. “Stay right here with you?” he asked.

  “Exactly.”

  He pulled my shirt over my head and I felt another pair of hands on me too. I sneaked a glance to Gabe who had a wicked glint in his eye. His hands moved over my hips to the front of my jeans where he unclasped the button while Travis slipped his hand under my bra, skin-to-skin. I let out a low groan, then reached down to undo Travis’s jeans before helping him shimmy them down his hips. Gabe worked on mine while Travis took my bra off, dropping it between Gabe and us on the seat.

  “That’s it. Get him, Norah,” Gabe urged.

  Oh, God. All the hotness.

  I worked Travis’s dick free of his boxers as we kissed. Everywhere Travis’s hands weren’t, Gabe’s were. As Travis’s hands worked up and down my back, pulling me closer and closer, Gabe’s snuck between us and rubbed against my nipples with the pads of his fingers.

  I threw my head back and took in a deep breath. Yes. Sometimes I didn’t remember how lucky I was until I got to share this experience with more than one of them.

  I gripped Travis’s cock in my hand and poised myself above him. Right before I lowered myself on top of him, I looked at Gabe. “Take your pants off.”

  Inch by inch, I forced Travis into me, my insides quivering as I took every inch of him inside. He groaned, long and deep.

  In the front seat, I heard Liam and Randy sigh, as if they too were all a part of this.

  As I rolled my hips into Travis, taking him in time and time again, I checked on Gabe. He sat right up against my leg now, his pants around his ankles and his cock standing at attention. I gripped him and as I lowered onto Travis, I moved my hand down over him. I matched my hip movements to my hand movements as if I could be riding Gabe at the same time I rode Travis. Their mixed moans of pleasure only made it more exciting for me. Travis tweaked my nipples as Gabe’s hand clenched my ass, moving me over Travis faster, therefore, increasing my pace on his cock as well.

  “Fuck him,” Gabe grunted. “Both of us. Fuck both of us.”

  He hissed as I tightened my grip on him. Travis lowered his head, taking my nipple into his hot mouth. I cried out and Randy swore in the front seat, mumbling something about having blue balls. If I had enough hands and holes, I’d invite them all.

  Travis’s hands settled on my hips. “God, Travis. You feel so good.”

  My grip on Gabe faltered, so he closed his own hand around my own. He took over the strokes as my pleasure increased. Travis pulled me down over him again and again.

  I looked at Gabe. His attention was on my breasts. Or Travis’s tongue swirling my nipples, to be exact. His attention never wavered as his hand speed increased until I was pumping him faster and faster. “Fuck, Norah.”

  “Please, Gabe.”

  I wanted him to feel as good as me. I wanted him to feel a part of this.

  He didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled my and down over him and paused. A second later, he cried out. His cum hit my forearm, dripping off and down onto his legs.

  “Oh fuck,” Travis swore. He looked down at Gabe and moved faster. “Fuck, I’m going to come.”

  My pussy tightened in reaction. Had Gabe’s coming just pushed Travis over the edge?

  Fuck, I hoped so.

  Gabe sat and inched his hand down my body, finding my clit. He massaged me as Travis started to shake and then pulled me down hard before emptying himself inside me with a yell. As soon as I felt him lose himself and Gabe’s fingers urging me forward, I came on top of
him. My world broke into a million dazzling diamonds before my eyes, and then I collapsed over Travis.

  Gabe sneaked his hand out from in between us and then laid it on my back as I breathed in deep. Cinnamon and the fresh smell of rain swirled around me

  “When we get home,” Randy warned.

  “Don’t tempt me with a good time,” I said, still trying to catch my breath.

  As Travis held onto me and Gabe rubbed my back, I felt fulfilled, whole. With so much ugliness around us, we needed this. It could only help us moving forward.

  19

  I awoke with a jolt, my head spinning and my heart thumping about what I’d just seen in my head. Now, I saw lots of things in my head and sometimes, they actually happened like when Granny came to visit me. This was like that.

  Jennie. I saw her tied to a standing cross in the middle of a field, screaming for Travis. Her eyes were bloodshot and large. Around her, the wind blew, and she choked on the smell of evil along with…the smell of gas.

  Shit. The demon was going to kill Jennie.

  I’d been staring at the ceiling working this all out in my head, but I sat now. We were all laying in the middle of the living room again, Randy and Liam sleeping closest to me this time since, as they put it, Travis and Gabe had already had their time. But where was Travis? Just on the other side of Liam, I saw a peek of dark black hair. I reached over, practically shoving my breasts in Liam’s face and shook Travis. “Wake up!”

  Fuck this.

  I threw the covers off me and stood. “Everyone wake up. Now. I just had a dream.”

  Gabe, Travis, and Liam were alert within a few moments, but it was Randy that needed an extra shove to get him going, which Gabe was all too happy to do.

  “It’s your sister, Travis,” I said, looking around the room for my clothes. I pulled a shirt on over my head. “I saw her in my dream. She was on Gallows Hill, I think, tied to a cross. He has her there. She was screaming for you…Where the fuck are my pants?”