Phoenix Academy: Awaken: A Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance

by Lucy Auburn

  As I set my toothbrush down on the counter, I meet Sebastian’s eyes in the mirror. With a snarl, he says, “Give the word and I’ll make the pain of his grief multiply tenfold.”

  “No.” I shake my head, trying to force it not to hurt, like a giant ball of lead in my chest. “It’s just a rumor. I’ve dealt with them before. It’ll go away.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Lynx asks, softly. “What’ll you do?”

  “What I always do.” Sweeping the rest of my things out onto the shared counter, I don’t bother to organize them. There’s no point. “Run.”

  Halfway through lunch on Monday, I know I’m not going to last the rest of the day.

  I saw it in Yohan’s eyes when my wings didn’t come yet again, the shadow of a question he didn’t ask, the questions he put to me about what happened last night.

  I’ve heard it all day in the whispers in the hallways, the glances sent my way, the questions that keep bubbling up.

  The new girl, they call me. The phoenix who won’t show us her wings. Who won’t prove she isn’t what they say she is. And, did you hear she stabbed a kid in her foster home... set a house on fire... stole the headmaster’s things... was found with her hands in Kayla’s wounds, digging her fingers in, blood all over her, staining her...

  I can’t stand it anymore.

  The last straw is when I’m walking over to my usual table at lunch, next to Liam, Sam, Petra, and Olivia, and a hush falls over the table the instant I show up. They all look at me, and I wonder if it’s pity in their eyes, or suspicion. I can’t tell the difference anymore.

  Then Olivia, voice quiet asks, “Dani, did you steal my ID card?”

  And even though it’s true—even though the ID is a weight in my pocket, just waiting for a chance to slip it back—I can’t help the anger that shoots through me.

  Of course I’m the first person she suspected. They’re all waiting for me to fail, the lost little orphan who doesn’t belong, just like in every home I’ve ever been placed in.

  Glaring around at all of them, I grab the cornbread off my tray and hightail it out of the dining hall, ignoring Petra’s voice calling for me to come back, Olivia’s blurted apologies, Sam and Liam’s shouted cajoling.

  I’ve got the book I need, and this place has nothing else for me.

  It’s time to get the hell out. Permanently this time.

  Chapter 21

  “Dani, are you sure about this?” Ezra watches me shove my stuff into a duffel bag, his green eyes slightly reproachful. “That White Phoenix could attack at any time.”

  “It attacked me here at the school,” I point out. “And the teachers weren’t exactly helpful. They didn’t show up until Kayla was already dying. And no one warned me when I came here that another student had been attacked, or that one died the night I was gone. They kept it all a secret.”

  “That’s all true,” Lynx points out. “I’m sure they had their reasons—maybe the headmaster didn’t want to freak the students out, or people didn’t want to talk about the murders—but it’s not like it’s safer here than it would be out there.”

  Mateo argues, “Out there, Grims will find her and follow her. In here, there’s just the one threat. It’s clearly the safer option.”

  “We’ve got the book now.” Sebastian sounds unruffled, unaffected. “No reason to stick around. Not unless Dani wants to.”

  Lynx sighs, sounding forlorn. “I will miss the library. And the food.”

  “You didn’t get to eat it,” Ezra says.

  “Yeah, but I got to watch her eat it, and that was almost as good.”

  I let their conversation fade to the background as I grab each item I own in my hands and try to decide if it’s worth carrying out of here. Once I’m back on the streets, I’ll have to carry everything with me, and if I’m going to be hunted by that crazy white-winged bitch I don’t want to be weighed down. It also won’t be safe to take all my cash with me to one of the shelters, where I’ll no doubt get robbed while I’m asleep.

  There’s only one place I can think of that’s safe to go to.

  And I don’t even care if I’m doing it the right way anymore. If I’m going to be called a murderer, a liar, and a thief, I might as well lean in to my reputation.

  “I’ve got a place to go. It’s about as safe as I’ll be able to find right now.” Heaving my purse over one shoulder and my bag over the other, I give my temporary room one last look—and reflect sadly on the girl who lived here up until a week ago, when everything changed. “There’s no point staying here, so I’m leaving. Are you guys coming?”

  Ezra is the one who answers for all four of them. “We didn’t get to finish what we started last night. She’s going to come back, I just know it. So we’re with you no matter what.”

  The FOR SALE sign out front is like a hot knife twisting in my chest. I know Sara hasn’t physically lived in this house for years; shortly after I was moved into the group home, she went into hospice, and I called her every Sunday—at least until I ran away. But while the house wasn’t her home when she died, it’s the only place I ever remember being truly happy, and it seems incredibly unfair that someone else is going to be able to make new memories in it.

  Sara’s house is two stories, with white clapboard siding and dark blue shutters. Everything, from the rose bushes out front to the welcome mat nestled against the door, is the same as it was when I lived here. My heart aches to look at it.

  Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I’d never met Sara, never had her to believe in me and teach me what love is like for a glorious year and a half. Maybe I would be better off if I’d never lost something that mattered, but I can’t imagine my life without her. She’s the only person who wanted to keep me but couldn’t.

  It took a few hours for me to make my way across town to this place, and now the sun is low in the sky, an autumn chill gathering in the air. Walking around to the side of the house, I glance over my shoulder for any witnesses and heave myself over the fence once I’m sure the coast is clear.

  The backyard is small, mostly taken up by a large tree near the fence and a roaming unkempt garden that Sara always joked was a home for mice and bugs more than a decoration for her. There’s a bird bath near the back porch, long since dried out and cracked in the middle where water once leaked from its basin. Whoever is selling the house hasn’t bothered to do much to fix it.

  Dropping my bag on the ground, I pace over to the window by the back porch, which is just the same as always: loose locks, no screen, and at a perfect height to shimmy through, with the kitchen table on the other side.

  My heart pounds as I take a bent clothes hanger out of my bag and shimmy it through. If the realtor added an alarm to the house before putting it up for sale, I’m done for. But if not, I can get in and out without anyone even knowing.

  The risk doesn’t matter anymore. This is where I need to be.

  “What a miscreant.” Ezra’s voice comes from behind me; I can see his reflection in the window, a bemused smile on the face. “Who knew our little Dani was such a troubled youth.”

  Mateo tells me, “If I ever get corporeal long enough, I’m gonna teach you how to hotwire a car.”

  “I know how to hotwire a car.” The hanger slips between the lock and the frame; now to just apply enough pressure to click it open.

  “Make a bomb?” Mateo offers, sounding a little too eager. “Unless you already know that one, too.”

  “I can’t say that I’ve ever exploded anything, so no, I don’t know how to make a bomb. Sounds dangerous, though.”

  Dryly, Lynx says, “Let’s just say our overeager explosions specialist is lucky he heals quickly, because he’s burned off his eyebrows more than once.”

  His words remind me of the small bandage one of the teachers put on my shoulder last night to cover up the burn. When I woke this morning it’d peeled off, but there was nothing except baby smooth skin beneath. Whatever wingless phoenix I am now, the healing powers
have already come in handy, even if they’re slower than whatever juice the demons have that made their burns go away so quickly.

  The lock clicks open. Nervously, I slide my fingers under the loose edge of the window and push it up, leaning forward to look for signs that an alarm somewhere is going off, silent or otherwise.

  But I don’t sense anything. And it’s not just that I don’t see or hear something; I don’t feel that little tickle in the back of my throat when danger is near, or the jumpiness that makes me leap out of the way.

  “C’mon.” I throw my bag through the window, my right leg following soon after. “Let’s go inside.”

  Moments later, four forms shimmer as they walk right through the walls, no open window needed.

  We’re here. We’re home.

  I just hope it stays safe for a night or two, while I figure out what happens next.

  Though many practice the arcane arts, few truly understand them. Demonic summoning is the most maligned and least understood of these arts. Many feel that the control Grims exert over demons is darkly evil in nature and should not be tolerated. As a phoenix, however, I feel that it’s best to know my greatest enemy, and understand him truly. Which is how I came to research the knowledge that...

  “You don’t have to read that, you know.” Lynx’s words pull me out of my reading; sitting on the ground in front of me, he’s organizing his lengths of rope—and thankfully wearing a shirt finally. “We decided we’d stick around for a while. There’s no need to perform the ritual.”

  “I know. I just got curious.” Flipping back to the table of contents, I let my fingers skim through each section. “Did you know there’s a chapter in here about White Phoenix?”

  His eyes jerk up at that, suddenly intensely curious. “No. What does it say?”

  “Nothing you haven’t already mentioned, or that we didn’t learn last night.” I shiver at the memory of the phoenix’s long, dark claws extending from her fingers. “But there’s stuff in here about necromancy I don’t quite understand, and I thought maybe if I read more about it I would.”

  “Curiosity is always admirable.” Of course Lynx would say that; he’s like a walking dictionary. “Necromancy is considered a dark art, even among Grims and dark magic users. The dead aren’t meant to be brought back to life.”

  “I came back,” I point out.

  “Because it was in your nature. Not because another life was forced on you.” The others are out scouting the neighborhood, so Lynx, who stayed behind with me, is able to ramble freely without Mateo’s scoffing or Ezra’s sighs. “When the dead come back to life, there are two paths for them: the free path, like phoenix, or the enslaved path, like the risen and White Phoenix. As well as... others.”

  There’s a world of unspoken knowledge behind the way he says “others,” but I decide not to prod at it right now. It’s the attacker from last night I’m most curious about, and the last thing I need to distract me is the discovery that zombies are real.

  “I still don’t get how she just disappeared like that.” The memory of the way her body arced back, her wings suddenly changing, is stark in my mind. “We had her, or at least you guys did, and then she was just... gone. She vanished completely.”

  Lynx glances over towards the front door, then leans in towards me, voice unusually low. “I have an idea what that might be about, but... I’m not completely sure, so I probably shouldn’t say anything.”

  I frown at him, brows drawn together. “What is it?”

  Reluctantly, he tells me, “Just... read the portion of that book that covers Grims. You’ll probably need to know more about them now that you’re away from the school and they’re hunting you.”

  “Of course.” That seems obvious. So why is it that he’s acting like he just shared a secret with me—one he doesn’t want the others to know about?

  I don’t have the time to parse his words. Running through the exterior wall, Sebastian stops in front of us with a grim look on his face. “It turns out that White Phoenix doesn’t just hunt in the academy. She found your trail somehow, Dani, and she’s on her way here.”

  Chapter 22

  The fear that grips me is so all-consuming that I don’t know what to do. I’ve got a butcher’s knife in my hand, swiped from Sara’s kitchen, but it feels useless. I couldn’t kill her with a real knife; no way is some Cutco piece of garbage gonna do it.

  As Ezra and Mateo join us, grabbing their weapons and getting into fighting formation around the room, I find that all I want to do is run.

  From the moment I jumped off that cliff and landed on the rocks below, my life hasn’t felt like mine anymore. I just want it to be over; I just want things to be easy again.

  But, as I look around at Sara’s empty house, the furniture that’s moved and changed, bright painted walls made white and blank again, I realize that I’ll never have an easy life. What I had here isn’t ever going to come back, no matter what I do.”

  “Dani?” Ezra is looking at me, green eyes worried. “What do you want to do? We can run if you want. Or call the headmaster and see if she can help.”

  Sebastian snorts. “A Red Phoenix can’t defeat a White Phoenix. Their fires burn just as hot. There’s only one way that bitch is going down, and you know it, Ezra.”

  Those green eyes flash at Sebastian. “Now is not the time.”

  An argument simmers below the surface, one I don’t understand. There’s anger running through the four of them, as well as frustration and tension. “No fighting. We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do about the phoenix.” I glance over at Lynx. “You said something about necromancy?”

  He licks his lips, inexplicably nervous. “Yes, that’s how White Phoenix are made, when they’re brought back to life shortly after dying their last death. In theory she could be defeated if the power that brought her back was drained. But...”

  “What?”

  “The only supernatural creatures that can reversed necromantic spells are Grims. And undead practitioners of dark magic, which you aren’t.”

  Mateo makes a frustrated noise as he puts a clip in his gun. “We should just tell—”

  He’s interrupted by a scream that curdles the blood in my veins and freezes me to the spot.

  Outside of Sara’s house, a light blazes, one so bright it’s surely going to get the neighbor’s attention. The White Phoenix is standing in the backyard, a destroyed wooden fence at her back, glowing white wings fanning out behind her.

  And though she has a scar on her knee from being shot, and her flimsy white dress has a hole in it right where I stabbed her in the chest, there’s no sign of the wounds she got just last night.

  It’s like it didn’t even happen.

  Except it’s happening all over again.

  “Dani.” Ezra’s voice is sharp; he has his sword drawn, but white light floods through it, showing his translucent incorporeal state. “Dani, you need to pull us into this plane so we can fight her off.”

  Mateo grabs a grenade from his vest, gun in hand. “What she needs to do is use her powers.”

  But I can’t even call my wings when I’m alone in a classroom with nothing to worry about except Yohan’s reproachful, disappointed stare. If they’re there—if I’m not some as-yet-unheard of Wingless Phoenix—they’re curled up inside me like a dick that refuses to rise.

  That’s me, the magical eunuch, in desperate need of wing Viagra.

  “Dani.” Sebastian’s voice is sharp. “Hurry up, Dani.”

  The White Phoenix is stalking towards the back door, hands raised and swirling with white flames that will burn it to the ground. I reach for my connection to the guys, try to pull them into this plane and make them corporeal again, but my mind keeps skittering away in fear. All I can think about is how it felt last night when she threw white fire at them and I thought they might never get up again.

  I did that to them. I made them vulnerable flesh and blood. I don’t know if it can do it again.

  L
ynx says, “She needs to know that—”

  Boom. The door flies off its hinges in an explosion of white-hot fire. Stalking through the burned remains, the White Phoenix leaves scorch marks behind with her wings. She stands in front of me in a fighter’s stance, claws extended, face twisted in rage.

  Black fire licks at the edges of her white wings, like a night consuming the dark. And black flows through her veins where blood should be. Wrong scream my senses, but I’m too busy shaking with terror to figure out why.

  “Dani!” Ezra swipes his sword out in front of him, trying to fight her off. “Dani, make us corporeal!”

  I can’t watch her hurt him again.

  “Weakling,” she spits out, her white hair spilling over her shoulders. “The weak must die so the rest will survive. But I’ll make it quick. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

  Great. I came all the way to phoenix school to get killed by a loon. I could’ve done that on the streets without all this drama.

  Taking a deep breath, I drop into a fighter’s stance myself, and hold my mail order chef’s knife in front of me. “Bring it, bitch.”

  She snarls. Flames lick up the room. The guys remain incorporeal, uselessly rushing at her to try to stop her despite the fact that she doesn’t even feel them. Lynx makes a frustrated sound as his loop of rope slices through her throat uselessly.

  I wonder if they’ll be free when I’m gone.

  I hope they will be.

  It’s not fair for them to risk their lives for me, even if they are demons.

  And then Sebastian reaches out, brushes against my shoulder, and says something in my ear. “Don’t make us watch you die, Dani. That’s the worst kind of evil at all, to take away our will like that. We want to fight.”

  His words reverberate inside me, filling a hollow place in my chest I didn’t want to admit existed. The shining connection I have between all four of them sings with their despair at their useless incorporeal forms. He’s right; they want to fight, more than anything, and I’ve denied them that right.