Phoenix Academy: Awaken: A Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance

by Lucy Auburn

  Sebastian says, “Ezra. Enough.”

  Again, I get the sense that there’s a conversation running underneath the words that are spoken aloud, one I’m not a part of. And it frustrates me.

  “I’m going to find that spell I think... ah-ha!” Lynx beams, somehow sidestepping the awkwardness in the room, and opens up the book to a spot in the middle. Inexplicably, he kneels down to show the two pages to me. “This is a spell to drain necromantic power. It’ll return the White Phoenix to what she was before she was brought back to life through necromancy, and it’ll also release whatever hold the necromancer has over her.”

  I blink down at the pages, trying to understand the words. “Okay. Why are you showing me this?”

  Another look passes. Making a frustrated noise, Sebastian presses his fingers against my skin. “Your pain is mostly passed, Dani. Is it okay if I step back so Ezra and I can have a discussion in the other room?”

  I glance back and forth between them. “Sure.”

  “Okay. One, two...” He draws his fingers slowly back from my skin.

  Sucking in a breath, I prepare for whatever is being kept at bay by Sebastian’s touch to come rushing in full force. It hurts, but it’s the dull, distant ache I would expect after getting hit in the chest with a soccer ball or falling out of a tree. Whatever agonizing pain followed the White Phoenix digging her claws into my heart, there’s only a shadow of it left.

  Ezra and Sebastian withdraw from the wrecked living room, going into the study to talk in low, hushed voices. I glance at Lynx, whose face is carefully blank, the book still open on his knees. “You know what that’s about?”

  His mouth twitches. “We should probably figure out this spell.”

  So whatever it is, Ezra doesn’t want him to say, at least not until he’s given his approval. But if the way Lynx is avoiding my gaze is any sign, it’s something to do with me somehow.

  Maybe they have to leave me sooner than they expected. Maybe the instant I do this ritual to drain the phoenix’s powers, they’ll tell me to fuck off already and return to where they came from, waiting for another summoner to do some kind of black magic entrails spell and get them back.

  Well, if that’s the case, best to harden my heart to it now. Even though that heart just had enough wounds in it to kill me a second time in nearly a week.

  “Okay.” I force my eyes to the book, skimming the paragraphs of dense text. “This says something about using four demonic points around the White Phoenix to drain it, which works so far, and...”

  I go back and reread a sentence on the top of the second page, frowning.

  The Grim performing the spell must then cut open their palm and pour a few drops of blood onto the ground in front of the White Phoenix. Drawing on the demonic connection, the Grim should compel the demonic quartet to use their dark energy to weaken the White Phoenix’s second soul. A four-pronged dark connection will be formed. Placing a bloody thumbprint on the White Phoenix’s forehead, the Grim should chant the following words...

  “We can’t perform this spell,” I tell Lynx, heart sinking. “It requires a Grim.”

  He just says, “Keep reading.”

  I frown at him. “What’s the point? Unless you have a jar of that Grim’s blood from the other night... wait!” My eyes widen as an idea occurs to me. “If her body is still there, we could go get it and use her to defeat the White Phoenix! Of course, by the time we get to Sticky’s she’ll probably be gone, and the body is probably decomposed... or even Sticky noticed the smell and got rid of it...”

  “Dani.” Lynx has a pleading look in his eyes. “Just read the rest of the ritual and memorize the words.”

  I don’t understand why he’s looking at me with an unhappy frown on his face. But then Ezra and Sebastian come out of the study, a brooding look on Ezra’s face, something triumphant about the smirk playing across Sebastian’s mouth.

  “It’s been long enough,” he says, blue eyes alighting on me.

  “I know.” Ezra’s voice is sharp. “I thought we could delay this indefinitely, or it would work out on its own. You know that Sebastian. But I give up. You’re right.” He glances at Lynx, then up towards the ceiling, like he can sense Mateo. “You’re all right.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Instead of answering, Ezra paces around the couch, bloody sword strapped to his hip, soft brown hair pushed out of his green eyes. He kneels in front of me, arms coated in dust and splats of blood, looking worse for the wear.

  I watch him, as Lynx puts the book aside on the broken coffee table, still open to that damned useless page. There’s something in Ezra’s eyes, something to the frown on his mouth—he looks like he did right before Mateo pulled the pin on that second grenade, like he’s watching something explode and he doesn’t have any other option except to run from the blast.

  “Dani.” There’s hesitance in his voice; rubbing his chin, he looks away, then back towards me as Sebastian clears his throat pointedly. “You know how I told you I can see powers?”

  “Yeah.” I feel like I’m walking across quicksand, waiting for it to open wide and pull an ankle under, followed by the rest of me inch by inch. “What about it?”

  “You’re not just a phoenix.”

  The way his mouth twists, you’d think he was about to put a knife through his own heart and twist it. A feeling pulses through me, coming right from my strange connection to him, full of fear and doubt, recrimination and dread.

  “There’s something else, something I saw that night on the cliffs and didn’t understand at first. Then it became clear what was going on, and I didn’t know how to tell you about it. Didn’t want to tell you, because of what it means for us.”

  I suck in a breath, and some wild part of me already knows what’s coming, what’s been sitting at the center of my life since that day I watched my mother die and saw shadows flicker around the men who gave her the drugs, who supplied the needle she used to end things.

  I don’t want him to say it.

  Nothing that starts this way ends well.

  But it happens anyway.

  “Dani... you’re also a Grim.”

  Chapter 24

  “No.” I shake my head, the image of that Creeper who tried to kill me running through my mind, followed by the woman in Sticky’s attic aiming a gun at my head. “Grims tried to kill me. The headmaster said I’m just a normal phoenix. She did a test with my blood and everything.”

  Lynx looks up, regret in his voice. “Headmaster Towers lied. So did I. The blood test went black, just as it would for a Black Phoenix.”

  I feel like I’m falling through a pit, straight into another world, and it’s not fair. I’ve already had to deal with so much this week; I don’t know if I have the strength for any more. “A Black Phoenix?”

  “A phoenix born from a Grim.” Lynx’s voice is quiet, surprisingly subdued despite the fact that he’s doing his favorite thing: explaining something to someone. “One or both of your birth parents must have been members of a Grim clan before you wound up going into the system. That’s probably what saved you. Normally Black Phoenix don’t survive very long.”

  Sebastian’s voice is dripping with anger as he says, “The Grim clans kill any of their own that turn into phoenix. They view it as an abomination to be both. They don’t want to admit that the hearts they take for greed and dark magic belong to real people, so they sacrifice any who are turned.”

  Ezra murmurs, “But you were made on that cliff, Dani, far from any Grim clan. And you’ve survived long enough to prove you have the best of both sides in you. Now it’s time to use your powers to fight the White Phoenix. You’re the only one who can.”

  I stumble to my feet, tightening my torn shirt over my chest, feeling dizzy. Black Phoenix. “They didn’t even teach us that in school. I didn’t... I didn’t know I could be that.”

  Ezra starts to say something, but he’s interrupted by heavy footsteps running down the stairs. Wild-eyed, Mateo reaches
the bottom and shouts, “She’s starting to manifest her wings! Won’t be long now.” His eyes find me, and he grins wide. “Hey Dani. Looking much better.”

  “Did you know?” I stare at him, hollow in the middle.

  Mateo looks at Ezra and nods, a peeved expression on his face. “I tried to tell you a few times, but this one kept stopping me. Guess he thought you’d enslave us to your will for eternity. But you won’t do that, will you Dani?”

  Good old Mateo, always saying the quiet part loud. “I wouldn’t even know how,” I confess. “It didn’t... it didn’t even occur to me.”

  “But it will.” Ezra’s stands, looking away. “The more power you grasp, the more you’ll want. I’ve seen it happen.”

  “To Grims.” Sebastian’s voice is surprisingly strong, without its usual bitterness or violence. “We know what happens to Grims who use their power and get a thirst for more. We have no idea what happens to Black Phoenix. Almost no one does.”

  Above our heads, a scream of anger shatters the conversation. Eyes wide, Mateo runs back up the stairs, shouting, “I’ll slow her down!”

  Lynx shoves the book at me, the pages fluttering. “Memorize the ritual, Dani.”

  “I have a better idea.” I tug on Ezra’s bloody jacket, and he hands it over. Pulling it on, I button it loosely in the front for some kind of modesty. Ignoring the twinge of pain in my chest, I force myself to my feet, managing to wobble only a little. “I can read the words straight from the page. Not that I understand most of them, but...”

  “I’ll help,” Lynx reassures me. “I’ve studied this stuff.”

  Sebastian mutters, “You’ve studied everything.”

  “Afterwards, we’re going to talk.” I give Ezra my best glare, even though it doesn’t seem to have much of an affect on him. “I want to know if you’ve been keeping anything else from me.”

  Ezra cocks his head. “Other than the fact that you summoned us into your sex dreams, I can’t think of anything.”

  I know right then and there that my healed heart is working perfectly, because it manages to pump half the blood in my body straight to my cheeks in blushing embarrassment.

  And the guys just grin.

  The White Phoenix is strapped down to the ground, thoroughly tied up by Lynx’s impressive ability to use ropes and knots to his advantage. She’s been tied at the knees, the ankles, the wrist, and has four long lengths of rope tying her down to stakes on each side of her. Even the gag in her mouth looks like it could never be torn out.

  But behind each of her shoulders a feather of white energy is unfurling and growing, streaked through with black spots of corruption. Two white wings. The instant she’s at full power again, she’ll escape—I can see it from the mulish expression in her eyes, the way she’s trained her gaze at Mateo’s gun like it’s the first thing she’ll destroy.

  “I shot her in the leg, but it didn’t do much,” he tells us as we file in. “She’s regenerating faster than before. The black energy that’s running through her has somehow made her invincible.”

  My eyes trail over the veins in her arms, legs, and neck, which pulse with sluggish black-tinted blood. Even her eyes, brown without the White Phoenix power in them, are ringed with veins of black.

  It makes me shudder to think that I have anything in common with the necromancer who did this. But I don’t doubt that Ezra is telling the truth about my power, and there are a few things it clears up for me, shown in stark relief.

  The way I can slow down time when I’m freaked out.

  How I see other’s moves before they come.

  That moment the night on the cliffs, when Mateo looked out into the darkness and I desperately thought, don’t see me. He didn’t. He obeyed.

  Just like Ezra obeyed on the stairs the night of the White Phoenix attack, when I made him get out of the way and he looked at me, jaw tight, something dark in his eyes.

  I shake the memories off. There’s work to be done. “Okay, so... it says something here about a diamond quartet shape. The Grim... I guess that’s me... stands in front of the White Phoenix, and the four demons stand behind her, across from her, and on either side of the phoenix.” I swallow. “And then there’s the bit about the blood.”

  “Don’t worry.” Sebastian takes up the spot behind me and draws one of his sharp, deadly knives. “I can take the pain away. And my blades are so sharp, you’ll barely notice the cut.”

  “I’ll stand behind her.” Mateo paces around, his gun pointed right at her head. “Not that it’ll do any good, but... just in case.”

  That leaves Lynx to the left and Ezra to the right, each of them like points on a diamond.

  With a snarl, the White Phoenix jerks against her restraints. There’s something wild in her eyes, something almost familiar. Without the white energy streaking through her, the hair behind her shoulders is black and sleek, and I can finally tell her age. She looks so familiar.

  And then it comes to me. “You’re Yohan’s sister, aren’t you?”

  The expression that crosses her face at this is feral, and I take a step back, bumping into Sebastian’s chest. He puts a steadying hand on my elbow as the White Phoenix jerks on her restraints so hard that blood starts dripping from her wrists.

  She’ll kill herself getting free. But she doesn’t seem to care.

  I’m tempted to say her name, Victoria Cheng, but based on the look on her eyes it seems like a bad idea. Hand shaking, I set the book down at my feet, the words of the chant swirling in my mind. And I take the knife from Sebastian’s hand.

  “Okay, so first the blood.” Stepping forward, I grimace as I slice open my left palm and let a few red drops slip onto the floor in front of Victoria. She makes a strangled sound of anger, and the white sliver of her wings grows until I have to step back from the heat. “And you’re supposed to use your dark energy to weaken her second soul, whatever that means.”

  “No, Dani.” Ezra’s voice is soft but firm. “You have to compel us to use your energy to weaken her. It won’t work otherwise.”

  Swallowing, I take my place back in front of Sebastian, and his hand brushes against my arm, sending tingles up my skin—and taking the pain away from the cut in my palm.

  “I don’t want to force anyone to do anything,” I tell them.

  The White Phoenix screams around the gag, white wings burning behind her. Two of the ropes holding her down start to smoke as her flame burns through them. Quickly, Lynx pulls a length of cord out of his belt—they seem to never end—and reties her at the neck, stretching it down to nail it to the floor, but it’s not enough. He has to get so close to her wings that I can feel the scorch of the white fire through our bond.

  “Dani,” Mateo says, sounding nervous. He cocks his gun. “You have to do it.”

  Sebastian murmurs in my ear, “It’s not wrong if we say you can.”

  “In my experience, the quartet bond only works when channeled through a Grim. That’s what all the books say, at least.”

  Trust Lynx to know every text. I can feel them all urging me on; the White Phoenix’s eyes are on me, burning white hot with the power of her reborn energy, laced with black necromancy.

  Still I hesitate, looking to Ezra. “You didn’t want me to know... because of this.”

  “Do it, Dani.” He draws his sword, voice firm and commanding, ever the leader. “We can’t finish this without you, and I don’t want to watch you die again.”

  “No one likes a repeat,” Mateo quips. “Time for something fresh and new. We’ve never worked with a Grim before.”

  I take a deep, steadying breath. Closing my eyes, I reach out—towards them.

  All four of them burn like bright spots of energy around me, their dominant emotions at the surface: Sebastian’s bitter anger wrapped around him, Mateo’s reckless abandonment, Lynx’s endless fascination and curiosity with the world, and Ezra’s burdensome responsibility, the sense of leadership that makes him feel like he has to hold the world on his shoulders.


  I shouldn’t be able to do this so easily. There should be lessons, like the ones I’ve failed with Yohan, or a spoken history, one Mr. Johnson would give in an expressionless voice. But somehow I’ve always known I could reach out and grab on the demons from the very moment I woke up from dying and discovered what it was to live again.

  Breathing out, I tug on the four of them, drawing their energy to me. I push on their bright centers, wrap my finger around them and feel the way they bow and give without resistance.

  Opening my eyes, I imitate Ezra’s best commanding voice as I say, “Use your dark energy to weaken the White Phoenix’s second soul.”

  The connection flows through me. Raising their right hands, eyes trained forward, they obey. I can see so much more now with their souls wrapped around mine; the energy inside the White Phoenix is doubled, like that optical illusion of the rabbit and the duck. There’s the white of her own energy, but look at it differently and you can see the black of the one who controlled her, who brought her back to life.

  There it is: her second soul. A dark blackness that sits underneath her skin and compels her to come back from death, long after she should have given over to it. My demons, in perfect synchronicity, yank on that blackness and draw it into them until it’s a small, hunched-over shadow of itself.

  I take a step forward, away from Sebastian’s touch, but the pain doesn’t flood in. Linked as I am with them, open and fully, his power is my own. I can make the pain go away or I can bring it back. I can see her soul, just like Lynx; I can see her powers even more than I could before, with the enhancement of Ezra’s vision.

  It’s almost over.

  Body jerking, she spits out the gag in pieces, swallowing half of it. I expect her to open her mouth and scream, but instead her voice comes out soft, almost human. “Please. Make it end. No more.” She shudders all over, and I feel her pain. “My Master won’t let me die.”