Spirited: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (The Academy of Spirits and Shadows Book 1)

by C. M. Stunich

  “Why are … you in her bedroom?” Air asked in a low, almost terrifyingly empty tone. His words were as cold as ice and his eyes were thunderous pools of dark green. “Elijah of Haversey.”

  Air ground his slightly pointed teeth together as Eli sat up slowly, pulling me along with him. Carefully, I folded my wings against my back and tried to get a read on the very awkward, very … interesting confrontation that was happening.

  In Amerin, it wasn't uncommon for women to date multiple men at the same time, so I was surprised to see the rampant jealousy snake across the prince's face. Besides, if I got jealous over every serving girl or low-ranking noble he dragged into his bed, I'd be … well, ship, I WAS jealous of every serving girl and low-ranking noble he dragged into his bed. I was constantly sick over it.

  Men were not supposed to have more than one lover; that was a woman's role.

  Goddess, I'm so old-fashioned! I thought as I tried to remind myself that men could now legally have more than one wife as well—that is, if they could find any Amerin woman that was willing to share.

  “We're …” I started, but then I got angry as I realized I had no obligation to defend myself. If Air really were in love with me as Elijah had stated, then why the flub hadn't he told me that sooner?! “We were making out.”

  “I can see that,” Airmienan said with a haughty air and a lift of his chin. The room was perfumed with the strong sweet fragrance of nicotiana, a night-blooming flower that covered the castle walls. I assumed either Air or Jas was wearing its scent. “My question is why? How long have you two known each other?”

  “Four days,” I snapped, curling up the edge of my lip in a slight snarl. “Which is four days longer than most of the women you make out with!” I should've said flub, but that was the exact moment when Air's green gaze dropped to the swollen mounds of my breasts … and stuck there.

  I had noticed some time ago that when we bathed together … my eyes weren't the only ones that wandered. And right now? I could feel his powerful gaze on my nipples, sensation zinging through me as Elijah adjusted himself and his erection ground against my heat again.

  “Get out,” Air said quietly, menacingly, striding across the room and pausing next to the bed. “I want to speak with Brynn alone.” I fixed the sea green silk, pulling it over my breast. It took Elijah a Heaven of a lot longer to move away from me than it should have, considering he'd just received a direct order from the prince.

  Then again, he was dead.

  I'd almost slept with a ghost?! What was wrong with me?!

  “This is bullshit, Air, and you know it,” Eli ground out, but Airmienan threw him a look dripping with menace.

  “You mean to be resurrected and return to court?” he asked with narrowed eyes. “Then get the fuck out.”

  Elijah turned to look at me, almost like he was asking with his gaze if he should stay. Frankly, I had no idea what to do, but … an order was an order, even if the prince was a friend … or a cousin. I sucked my lower lip under my teeth and nodded.

  As soon as Elijah caught my expression, he faded, flickered, disappeared completely. I felt his spiritual signature—and his rage—move from the room at the same time Jasinda stepped back and closed the bedroom door softly behind her.

  “Princes aren't supposed to be good at picking locks,” I mumbled and Air raised a blonde eyebrow.

  “I didn't pick the lock,” he said with a baffled twist in his expression. “It was open.”

  “But …” I started, completely confused and wrinkling my own brow. I didn't get long to contemplate it because Airmienan was striding across the room and pausing so close to me that the black knees of his breeches rubbed against my bare legs.

  “I thought you didn't fuck ghosts?” Air asked and I cringed. That made him smile slightly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said, with slightly more humor in his tone. “You know that doesn't make you lose any feathers, Brynn. Don't be so dramatic.”

  “Why? Because that's your job?” I asked with a derisive sniff, lifting my chin and flexing my wings. Air took another step forward, forcing my legs apart as my knee slid between his. Those sordid memories of our one night together flooded my head and made my limbs feel heavy. And my body? Well, my body was already worked up at having Air this close?

  It was torturous.

  “My job?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest, his blonde hair mussed up but silky and beautiful as usual. Clearly, he hadn't been up long despite the late hour which made me wonder who was in his chambers last night. There was usually someone. It was a hot night in Heaven or a cold night in Hell when Air's receiving sofa—he didn't actually take girls into his bedroom—was empty. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you're an arrogant, cocky prick who thinks too much about himself and what he wants.”

  Air's eyes flashed with emotion, but he kept his arms crossed and hooked a smirking smile down at me.

  “That's true,” he said, which didn't much surprise me. Airmienan knew his faults and had no trouble acknowledging them. He also didn't do ship to try and change things or improve himself. But I loved him anyway, faults and all. I'd never cared about those sorts of things. In fact, I kind of liked them. The prince wasn't just a sum of his positives or a sum of his faults, he was an equation of both things and I wanted him just as he was.

  Alright fine, I could've lived without his constant whoring himself out. But that was just jealousy talking. It was because I liked him so much that I wanted him to stop sleeping around. The only person I wanted him sleeping with was me.

  “Is there a reason I should be thinking of you, Brynn of Haversey?” he asked, his eyes trailing down my body with stark appreciation. But it wasn't just my body that I wanted Airmienan to look—it was my spirit. I spent enough time with ghosts to know how fleeting the physical really was and how important the soul inside became.

  “There's no reason the future king of Amerin ever need worry about someone as insignificant as me,” I breathed, but I didn't mean it and we both knew it. I was what the blue-blooded Amerin nobles called an anti-royalist. I didn't really believe that significant worth came with birthright. Nor did being born poor or magic-less mean someone was worth less.

  Unfortunately, I was in the minority on that front.

  “But I'm not just the future king of Amerin to you, right Brynn? And we both know you're far more than some Double Blessed whisperer.”

  “A-am I?” I choked out as he leaned close and put a hand on both sides of my body. Our faces were so close, and I could feel his pelvis as he leaned in against me, swooping in and stealing Eli's place. He fit nicely in it, although so had Elijah. But the two men each stirred up something different inside of me, and I liked them both.

  “Do you remember …” Air started and then paused, flicking his eyes to one side and then turning his gaze back to my face. We were so close, I could feel his breath on my mouth, and his was real. I didn't want it to matter so much, but it did. Ghosts were meant to move on, and those who were still living were meant to enjoy this life together.

  “Do I remember what?” I asked, feeling Air's cock thicken inside his breeches. It was impossible to miss, pressed up against my pulsing heat like that. Fuck, I want him inside of me again.

  I yelped as a feather detached … and he caught it between his flubbing teeth.

  “Don't do things like that,” I said with an eye roll, but our compromising position kept me from whingeing anymore about it. Besides, even though it was cheesy, it was kind of hot, watching the future heir to the throne catch an ebony feather between his slightly pointed teeth.

  “Do you remember that night we slept together?” he asked blatantly, pulling the feather from his mouth and making me want to scream as he pushed forward and ground us together. My clitoris was humming a hot sweet song, and the only thing my body didn't like about the equation was the fact that Airmienan wasn't inside of me.

  “You've never brought it up before,” I grumbled, turning
my eyes to the side and refusing to look at him. That night … I'd thought that maybe it was the beginning of something between us, something new and ardent, something worth fighting for, worth dying for. But I'd woken up in Air's bed to find him missing, slogged down to breakfast, and then sat in the royal family's dining room reading until lunch rolled around and he showed up, flopping down next to me and then sitting there sullen and quiet.

  I'd stopped talking to him, threw a silent fit of my own, and then three days later we were back to picking on each other and goofing around.

  We had literally never mentioned it. But I thought about it a lot. And I hated him for not noticing when I disappeared into a flora whisperer's shop and came out with a spell to keep from getting pregnant. My family was ridiculously fertile. I had eleven sisters that lived in Nomaid with my mother's extended family. According to Layna, every single time she'd had sex without taking a flora whisperer's birth control potion or getting a morning-after spell, she'd gotten pregnant and had a successful, live birth. Thus her nickname for me—The Last Mistake. Hah.

  After that night, I'd started taking regular spells for birth control—as well as flesh whisperer made disease prevention spell—just in case the opportunity for something hot and heavy ever arose. Not that it often did, but … I was prepared anyway. I even had a whole case of potions in my drawer for ghost pregnancy—yeah, believe it or not, a ghost and a human could have a baby together. Although it wasn't really something I'd recommend … Children born of living and dead flesh were known as shadows, and they didn't exactly grow up to be pillars of society, no matter how hard their parents tried.

  “You never brought it up either,” Air said and I scooted back all of a sudden, up the bed and away from him. He followed, crawling onto the mattress and using a hand to push one of my knees aside so he could sit between my legs again.

  I let him.

  “But …” I started, realizing that … that was true. Was that why Air had strode into the dining room and stood beside me like he was waiting for something?! Had we both made the same stupid mistake?! “I … I had to get a morning-after potion, I …”

  Air's eyebrows went up and I realized he was used to girls with more … experience than me. He probably hadn't given it a second thought. Or maybe he used birth control spells himself and didn't think to mention it?

  “Brynn,” he began, but I didn't want to hear apologies or excuses or whatever else was going to come out of his mouth so I … leaned forward and kissed him. Hard. Pressed my lips so firmly to his that he groaned against my mouth.

  Air teased my lips with his tongue, flicking the slick tip of it against my lower lip and grinding his pelvis forward at the same moment. Heat surged through me, violent and overwhelming, taking up residence in every inch of my body, from my head down through my toes.

  With a frenzy I didn't know I had in me, I tore his silk shirt open and pressed my fingers into his chest, dragging my nails down his skin and reveling in the noise that tore from his throat. Air was always so … wonderfully pompous and self-assured. He sounded a bit like a ragged, desperate man in that moment.

  Using his right hand, he shoved the thin silk of my nightgown up my hips, exposing my heated skin to the cool air. The fireplace had yet to warm the room, but it didn't matter. The only flames I needed to be warm were roaring inside of me, my feelings igniting into a blaze that took my breath away. Good thing I didn't need that either—I had Airmienan of Hekkett to breathe for us both. As we kissed, I tasted the sweetness of his breath, that mint and chocolate taste that was distinctly Air's.

  “We should probably stop and get ready for the celebration,” he murmured, but I was curling my fingers in his blonde hair and pulling our mouths together for another kiss.

  Cursed spirits, if I'd known all I had to do was make out with his cousin to get his attention, I'd have tracked Elijah of Haversey down a lot sooner. I wish I'd tracked him down sooner, when he was still alive. The thought trickled through my mind, but it was sobering and melancholic so I pushed it back and focused on the prince.

  “I could care less about the celebration,” I whispered, my hands dropping to the prince's breeches, tearing the button open, and slipping my hand inside. My breath whooshed out as I felt the thick, velvety length of his shaft slide against my palm. Air shuddered and trailed his mouth along the side of my jaw and down to my throat, sinking his pointed teeth into my skin and making me buck my hips. It was just painful enough that it highlighted the pleasure of his right hand closing over my breast, thumb tracing back and forth over the peak of my nipple.

  “Me neither,” Air groaned as he thrust into my palm, encouraging me to stroke his shaft. I used the pearl of liquid at the tip as lubrication, squeezing the base of his cock with tight fingers. “Mm, Brynn of Haversey, your fingers are positively addictive.”

  “Don't use lines on me,” I growled back, but in reality, I liked it. I liked that he was using his lines on me and not someone else and really, I just found his over-the-top flirtatiousness sexy. That confidence spoke to me. While I was fairly aggressive and able to stand up for myself, I didn't have that inner core of steel the way Air did, that inner voice that told him he was good, he was righteous, and he had worth. I wanted it. But I'd also settle for basking in his glow.

  Air dropped his mouth to my nipple, sucking it through the thin silk fabric. His tongue traced designs around the hardened peak, making me twist and writhe and thrash beneath him. The pleasure was so intense that when he used his teeth on my breast, I lost my grip on his cock.

  The prince shoved his pants down below his ass and positioned himself to enter me, our eyes locking just a split second before he drove his hips into me and filled up that aching, emptiness between my thighs. Thank Goddess, I thought as tears of relief and pleasure pricked at the edges of my eyes. And even though he didn't have wings, Air was smart enough to know that mine needed caressing, kissing, touching. He dug his fingers into the feathers and gripped tight, moving his hips in rhythmic undulations that spoke of great practice and careful control. When he briefly moved his mouth from my breast to tease his tongue beneath the feathers on my left wing, I almost lost it completely.

  “Fuck, you sure know to please an angel girl,” I choked out as Air used the fingers of his right hand to spread my feathers, drawing designs on the skin of my wing with his tongue. He may as well have been licking my clit, the flesh there was so flubbing sensitive. But as I cursed a feather came loose and ended up in the prince's mouth.

  With a sharp look and a hard drive of his hips, Air reached up and pulled the ebony feather from between his lips.

  “You little vixen, you,” he said, readjusting his grip and pushing my left leg up and back, opening me even further. This time, when he drove in, it felt like he was twice as deep, his balls slapping my ass as our pelvises clashed together in a slick, sweaty mess.

  I loved every flubbing second of it.

  Grabbing fistfuls of Air's hair, I yanked on it until he made an animalistic sound in his throat and started to pump faster, sending lightning bolts of electricity through me. He might've been a magick whisperer, but I felt like I was being electrocuted by a storm whisperer's lightning bolts, his fingers the bright blue zigzags of energy from the sky, his groans the thunder.

  The walls of my cunt locked tight around him, making Air curse so colorfully that I would've sworn he burned a few feathers off of me. Wrapping him with the slick muscles of my body and my wings, I pulled him close to me and threw my head back into the pillows. Airmienan took that as an invitation to bite me again, hard enough to draw blood. I could smell the metallic copper sting in the air, and when he flicked his tongue out to drink a drop, I lost it.

  My climax ripped through me, that wild storm tearing me apart from the inside out, a rainstorm of pleasure falling across me as I pulsed and fluttered, caressing Air's thick, heavy shaft. He kept thrusting forward, kissing and sucking the small bite on my neck as he screwed me into the mattress and then came with
a violent sounding cry. His nails curled into the sheets next to my head and he bit down on my neck a second time—hard.

  The excruciating mixture of pleasure and pain whipped through me, and a second orgasm took hold, locking the muscles in my body as Air gave me the hot tide of his own climax, filling me with semen that I was at least prepared for this time.

  Last time … well, I wasn't going to think about last time, not now.

  “Are you two done in there yet?” Jassy asked, opening the bedroom door a crack and then gaping. She must've gone downstairs for lunch and missed the, uh, sounds of our lovemaking because she looked shocked to see us in such a compromising position. Although Elijah is stuck with me; he definitely heard, I thought and then I felt guilty for trading him out for Air.

  “If you would, just close the door for a moment and we'll be right out,” Air said, his usual pompous tone back in place. Jasinda stood there blinking and gaping for a moment, a pastry clutched in her right hand. And then slowly reached out and pulled the door back toward her. “Hmm. She's going to chew me out later, isn't she?” Air asked, looking back at me and propping himself up with an elbow next to my head.

  Just so long as you don't break my heart, she'll be thrilled, I thought, and then I opened my mouth to ask one of the million questions racing through me. But … I couldn't bring myself to put words to any of them, not with my heart beating so fast, with Air still buried inside of me, his weight pushing me into the soft down of my mattress.

  “Maybe,” I whispered, looking up into his pale green eyes and wondering if this was all a dream. Last time, I would've truly believed it was if I hadn't been so damn sore. Right now, I just felt liquid and languid and … surprisingly happy.

  Happier than I'd felt in … Goddess, two years?

  “But it was worth it, right?” I asked, touching a hand to the side of Air's face, loving the droplets of sweat clinging to his forehead. The way he looked at me in that moment, I would've sworn to any god or goddess in the pantheon that he was going to make me his queen—as improbable, unlikely, and foolish as that might've been.