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

by C. M. Stunich

  “No,” he said, and there was a deep sadness in his eyes that made my heart ache. “Not all of them, not … not me.” Taking a step back from me, he shook himself free of spook dust and then disappeared. I expected him to stay in the room, but within a few short seconds, he was gone, taking his mice and his dog with him.

  On All Haunts' Eve, spirits were free to travel anywhere they wished. As soon as the sun hit, they'd be snapped right back to their haunting zones and everything would go back to normal. But as Elijah fled the room, I felt an emptiness gape inside of me that I didn't understand.

  I wanted him back.

  But why?

  “You okay?” Jas asked, leaning close and swiping some bangs off the forehead of my mask.

  “Fine,” I said, stepping away from her and heading straight for the refreshments table. Considering the fact that Airmienan was dancing with that b— … that blitz Felixa, I was going to need at least two or three stiff drinks to calm my head.

  Pausing next to the table, I surveyed the black silk tablecloth for treats, snatching up an entire platter of orange, red, yellow, and green bell peppers stuffed with cheese and spices. I didn't hesitate to shovel two into my mouth at once.

  “Lively party,” a voice said from across the table, making me jump.

  A spirit appeared out of the shadows—with the meager candlelight the only source of illumination, it was pretty dim in the ballroom—and grinned at me. Even with all the spook dust sifting down from the rafters, this man had managed to stay completely invisible. As for sneaking up on me, I wasn't surprised: there were so many ghosts out and about right now that my senses were going wild. I could hardly even comprehend the undead surge descending on the All Haunts' Eve ball.

  “Lively …” I started, and then realized that the man was making a joke. My mouth split into a smile as I straightened up, clutching my plate of peppers to my chest and looking him over. Holy Goddess' clit, this guy's flubbing hot. I wasn't sure what it was lately—maybe some sort of pheromone surge or something—but I was running into way too many sexy dudes for this to be coincidental. It felt as if … the goddess herself was sitting in the sky and watching me, penning my fate with vellum and ink. “I like your sense of humor.”

  “It's as dry as the cunt of the virgin goddess,” he swore, tickling his fingers over the plates of food on the table with a dramatic sigh. His hair was as red as the carved apples being used as centerpieces, their white flesh making rictus looking grins in the flickering candlelight.

  “Well, it's appreciated,” I said, trying not to appreciate him. With Air and … Elijah? … and I think that Vexer guy was hitting on me again, the last thing I needed was to start crushing on another ghost. “I'm having a simultaneously amazing and awful sort of night.” As excited as I was to have slept with Air again, he made my emotions go all crazy and haywire. I sort of felt like I might puke. But maybe that was because I'd just shoved four more peppers into my mouth?

  “That's the way with beautiful things,” the man said, a bandolier strapped over his chest and filled with vials. So. A poison whisperer, blessed by Venin, the god of venom, poison, and pestilence. People spoke his name with both reverence and fear, doing their best to strike some sort of balance between not pissing him off and not giving too much power to a deity that dangerous. “There's allllways an ugly side.”

  I stood there for a moment, eating my peppers and studying him. His hair was spiked up in the back with a generous swath of red bangs covering his forehead, and a long thin braid on the left side of his face. It hung down to his shoulder and was threaded through with tiny claws and fangs, attached with beads or bits of leather. It was all a part of his trade, objects that could poison and kill a man as large as Vexer in minutes … maybe seconds.

  The scariest part about it all?

  Even a dead poison whisperer could inflict pain and death on the living.

  I'd have to be careful not to tick this guy off.

  “You seem familiar somehow,” I said, and he grinned at me. Like, this big naughty grin that made his amber eyes sparkle with mischief. It suited him, that look. The man had a lean, wiry frame but the bare arms below his sleeveless tunic were corded with muscles and covered in tattoos. Each one of those beautifully inked designs was yet another spell that could be used to infect, poison, and kill. But holy Hellim's Hell, they snaked down his arms and over long thin fingers that teased the polished silver on the table like he'd filch it if he could.

  “Do I now?” he said, smiling and standing upright, his black tunic and tight leather pants a very impressive sight. I mean, if I were even inclined to look. Which, you know, I wasn't. I had Air and now Eli to think about. Yes, some women had harems of up to twelve men but frankly, I wasn't even sure if I could handle one. “And why do you think that is?”

  The ghost leaned forward, his face emerging from the shadows and giving me a much closer look at his features.

  Sharp eyes, narrow but handsome face suited to his thin form, and … that mouth.

  “Oh my Goddess, it's you!” I screeched, dropping the plate of peppers right onto my foot. The glass hit the open toe of the hideous peep-toe shoes that Jasinda had made me wear. I'd argued for boots because, you know, they'd be hidden underneath the dress. Then of course she'd pointed out the deep slit that flashed my black lace panties and thigh-highs. It was intentional, to show off lingerie like that. Every Amerin noble was wearing a dress just like it, but … it gave Jasinda the ammo she needed to make me wear the sparkly peep-toes.

  The plate smacked my foot and it hurt. Then it bounced off, hit the floor, shattered to pieces and flung back one sharp shard to make me bleed. I was starting to wonder if I wasn't Double Blessed but Double Cursed perhaps?

  Air and Vexer appeared on either side of me, both of them looking concerned which was just so … male and ridiculous.

  “Everything alright?” the prince asked, giving the spirit a look that promised pain—ghost or not. He could order the Royal Spirit Whisperer to exorcise him. That woman was a beast. She could take a spirit out from across the room without moving a single muscle.

  “It's … him,” I repeated as Vexer bent down and picked up the shards of glass, snagging a napkin from the table as he went and using it to mop the blood from my foot. I didn't even know the guy and he was cleaning up one of my messes.

  That boded well for him, to be honest. I tried not to like him more for doing it and failed miserably.

  “It's me,” the ghost said, walking right through the table and standing inside of it so he could look me straight in the face. The spook dust seemed to settle around rather than on him. I knew spirits could shake it off if they wanted, but I'd never seen one resist it so thoroughly. “Your first kiss.” He tapped a finger to his lips and smirked, not unlike Elijah. Well, no, the cockiness was there but the lazy ease wasn't. This guy was sharp as the knives he had strapped to his waist, legs, and down his back.

  As soon as I realized it, I wondered how it'd taken me even a second to figure it out in the first place.

  “This … mother flubber, he tricked me!” I said, pointing at him with an accusing finger.

  “I never tricked you,” the ghost said, his pointed ears a clear sign that he was a dämon, one of Hellim's favorite species on all the planet. I didn't trust them because they had tiny bat-like wings that graced their shoulders. What could a person possibly do with wings that small anyway? And also, maybe I was slightly jealous that his wings didn't make him topple over like a one-legged razor wolf. “That was a kiss rightfully given and it is mine.”

  “You're the fiend that stole Brynn's first kiss?” Air asked, his eyebrows raised as he reached out and snagged Jasinda's wrist from the dancing throng, yanking her close enough to me to touch. So I could exorcise the red-headed dämon ghost if I wanted.

  It was against the queen's decree to take any ghosts on All Haunts' Eve unless they specifically asked or they threatened someone with bodily harm. I guess Air either thought he was abov
e his mother's rules—he might be, I wasn't sure—or else he thought stealing my first kiss was close enough to harm to count.

  “I didn't steal anything,” the man said, chewing on his lip for a moment. “Wait, rephrasing that—I didn't steal anything from you.” The spirit paused and glanced over at Vexer whose lips twisted in a violent scowl. Huh. Guess the griffin man did have a bit of a crush on me? “Except maybe an inappropriate glance or two, but those were mostly accidents.”

  “You've been haunting the castle?” Air asked, his green eyes widening. “For four years?!”

  “Five actually, but I spent the first figuring out how to avoid getting caught.” The ghost crossed his arms over his chest. He was shorter than either Air or Vexer (to be fair, the latter man was huge) but much taller than me. Hell's bells, everyone was taller than me. Well, except for my sisters. They were all pure-blooded Nomaid, and the tallest of them topped out at a whipping five foot three. She could still gut a man with her knives before he even realized she'd come up on him though. Size wasn't everything.

  Glancing quickly at Air, I decided that maybe size was something though when it came to co—

  “And I didn't steal the kiss. I made you like me. And then you kissed me.” My cheeks flushed as both Jas, Air, and Vexer—what was he still doing over here anyway?—glanced over at me.

  “I … I thought you were alive!” I spluttered and the ghost laughed. “I was young and inexperienced and I thought you were a … well, that you were …” I paused and my nose wrinkled up. “Wait, how old were you?! I was fifteen, you perv!”

  Air looked like he was about two seconds from murdering … oh wait, the guy was already dead. Well, he looked about two seconds away from something, the rampant jealousy in his eyes making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I'd always thought Air was mad about that kiss because he thought of me like a sister or something, but … after the afternoon we'd just shared, I was pretty sure that was an incorrect assumption.

  “Nineteen,” the ghost said, canting his head to one side and making the tiny red braid at the front of his hair swing with the motion. “I died when I was eighteen, kissed Brynn of Haversey when I was nineteen, and,” he continued, giving Air a smug, confident sort of look, “overheard the queen discussing a resurrection spell when I was twenty-three.”

  “A resurrection spell?” Vexer growled and the poison whisperer grinned again.

  “Oops. Maybe I shouldn't have said that in front of the master of the Travelers' Guild.” But the way he smirked and crossed his arms over his chest, thick arm muscles dancing and bulging with ink, he might have said oops, but I had a feeling that this ghost knew exactly what he was doing.

  A spirit didn't exist completely undetected in the royal palace without being a mother flubbing master at subterfuge.

  “Who are you?” the prince demanded, lifting his chin with a haughty, royal air. He, too, crossed his arms over his chest and stared the ghost down.

  The red-haired dämon man split his lips in another grin as he took a sharp bow, rising up and tossing a very derisive look in Air's direction.

  “Talon of Venin, at your service,” he said with a swanky little swagger. Meanwhile, Vexer was standing next to me, raking his tattooed fingers through his hair and looking at me like he … wanted to cart me off on his back and have one of those weird, monogamous griffin weddings.

  “Mother had you hung,” Airmienan choked out, blinking stupidly and dropping his arms by his sides. “You were hung in the castle courtyard for your crimes. You stole my mother's panties!”

  “Excuse me,” Talon said, planting a hand on his hip. “But your mother had God Gems sewn into the fabric to hide them. A clever spot. Not many would think to look there, but ah! I have a knack for these things. There's a reason I was known in life as a master thief.” Talon delivered the title with a roll of his eyes that … almost made me kind of like him. A little. Sort of.

  But God Gems?! The queen had God Gems?! Just one tiny sliver of a God Gem could gift a person magic from a god whose blessing they didn't have. They were rare, illegal, and extremely dangerous in the wrong hands.

  The hanging they spoke of, I never personally saw, but I did hear of it. I'd always wondered why such a harsh punishment. Thievery wasn't exactly a crime that was punishable by death in Amerin. But now it all made sense. Once Talon found the God Gems, he had to be gotten rid of.

  Speaking of …

  Both Air and I turned to look at Vexer.

  Ship. Ship, ship, ship. Mother flubbing son of a blitz.

  “Please don't hurt him,” I said, spinning to look at Air and fully and completely smacking the griffin with both of my wings. If he hadn't been such a big, strong man, I'd have sent him flying into the table of food. As it were, I felt his wings brush mine and chills exploded all across my skin.

  “He … the resurrection spell …” Air started, looking at me with his green eyes whirling in turmoil.

  “So, are you going to hang the master of the Travelers' Guild, too, your majesty? A man completely and utterly innocent of any crimes.”

  “I didn't have you hung,” Air snapped, flicking his eyes over to Talon as Vexer stepped around me, tossing a much too appreciative look in my direction. “That was the queen's decree. Sometimes she makes decisions that I don't approve of.”

  “Yes, well, and now it's your turn to make a decision. The griffin over here knows about both the God Gems and the resurrection spell. What are you planning on doing with him?”

  “I …” Air started, trailing off and looking down at me. With our gazes locked, it was impossible for me to forget about the sex we'd had earlier. His caresses had left fiery brands on my skin. Just standing this close to Air made my cunt tighten and clench with need.

  “You need not worry about me, Your Majesty,” Vex said, dropping into a half-bow, his brunette hair reflecting back the orange flicker of the flames. When he turned his thundercloud gray eyes to mine, I found myself wetting my lower lip on accident. It was Air's fault for sure, stirring up all these hormones. I'd had like … a handful of sexual encounters in my entire life. I wasn't like Air, with a new person in my bed every night, and yet here I was, acting like him and flirting with anything that moved. “You have my word as Master of the Travelers' Guild that I won't speak of this to anyone outside this circle, not without your permission.” His eyes flickered at the same time his tail did, twitching with frustration.

  When he lifted his hand, showing off his tattoos, the center one glowed. It was a promise of magic given to the Travelers' Guild master so he could make binding deals with other trade guilds, the crown, and establish foreign trade and commerce. It gave him the power to both accept and give binding bargains.

  If they were broken, Reisender, the god of travelers would punish the party in the wrong.

  I'd seen guild deals go bad before—it wasn't a pretty sight.

  The symbol in the center—a stylized image of a griffin in its animal form—shimmered with blue light, the color leaking out to the rest of the tattoo until his entire hand was shining as brightly as Jasinda's eyes.

  “Beautiful,” she murmured in awe as Vexer dropped his hand to the side and gave the prince a small nod.

  “I … accept your decree,” Air murmured, turning his attention back to Talon. “What I don't get though is your angle. What do you want, thief? Other than the exorcism you so rightly deserve, I mean.”

  “What do I want?” Talon asked with a laugh so caustic it burned like the poison he was no doubt able to inflict. “I want to walk the earth again, like any other spirit.” As he spoke, I took a deep breath in and tried to get a read on his spiritual signature.

  It … smelled like nicotiana flowers and was oddly familiar to the one I'd sensed when …

  “You picked my lock!” I gasped and Talon flicked those amber eyes back to mine, the color a vibrant yellow whereas mine were burnished gold. So pretty though. Why did he have to be so damn pretty?! “On my bedroom door this morning.”


  “You needed to get laid and this idiot wasn't going to make a move without the right sort of pushing,” Talon scoffed, giving the prince another look. “I want to be resurrected, too. Let me act as a test subject along with that weird cousin of yours, and I won't tell a soul a thing. Cross my heart and hope to die an agonizing death by arsenic.”

  Talon drew a wild X shape over his chest.

  “You're … threatening the crown prince in order to get what you want?” Air asked, his voice growing low and cold. His mother, Everess, was a good ruler, and she'd done things for the country of Amerin that nobody had thought possible. But she was also the daughter of a god and her son … it was obvious that he knew where his lineage lie. Oh, Airmienan.

  “What's wrong with another test subject?” I asked, curious about the thief that dared steal the queen's panties, convince me to give him my first kiss (which now that I thought about it, I think Air wanted), and had the balls to try and barter with royalty. “If he gets on my nerves, I'll just exorcise him.”

  “You could try,” Talon purred, sticking his tongue out at me. “But the Royal Spirit Whisperer has suspected my presence for years and not once has she ever been able to catch me. Think you'd fare well, Academy Reject?” I stomped on his foot with my heel and he howled with pain. Hah. Ghosts were so used to people being unable to touch them, that they tended to forget that spirit whisperers could. “You trickster!” he chortled as soon as he was done wailing, clutching his foot and taking a seat in … well, in midair.

  “You want to give into his demands?” Air asked, giving me a look like he'd never seen me before in his life.

  “I'd highly recommend it,” Talon said as he rubbed at the top of his foot, removing his leather boot and sock to massage the tattooed surface of his skin. “I know every secret there is to know in this castle. Every secret, Prince.” He locked eyes with Air and I saw every ounce of color drain from his face.