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

by C. M. Stunich

  Whipping my head back around, I stared at Jasinda and then at Dyre, my mouth agape.

  “You're the lost prince?” I blurted, because the country of Vaenn had been dark for months, no messages, no signs of life. Everess had even tried to send a group of soldiers to visit the palace … and they hadn't come back. Well, they hadn't come back alive. One of their ghosts had shown up, but he hadn't been of much help. He hadn't even seen what'd killed him. He'd been riding a horse one minute … and a spirit the next.

  “The queen knows I know,” Dyre said, his voice as cold as ice. He didn’t even bother to answer Jasinda, the faint light from a few flickering torches catching on the rings in his lower lip. “About the dead prince. But if you’re trying to hide his death, you could certainly do a better job of it.”

  “Who asked you?” Air snapped, bristling and reaching up … to rake his fingers through his blonde hair.

  His blonde hair?!

  His hair was blonde! Not a shimmery see-through white/blue color. No, no, it was blonde and his eyes … as green as Frisch Lagoon. I guess seeing another prince in his turf was … inspiring him? I had no idea, but for a moment there, he looked as alive as I’d ever seen him.

  Dyre scoffed, the sound echoing off the high stone walls of the building.

  “What are you doing here anyway?” Elijah asked as the weird professor made some sort of noise behind us.

  “What do you think I’m doing here?” Dyre asked, but I couldn’t look at him. All I could do was stare as Air shimmered, flickered, and then faded back into the vaguest outline of his former self. But for a moment, he was there and it was the spark of extra hope and motivation that I needed. I’d been working tirelessly for days on that stupid list, painstakingly translating the runes my mother had copied down with both Haversey’s and Hellim’s second sights.

  It was no easy task.

  But … Goddess, it felt good to see Air like that again. So flubbing good.

  “My entire country was obliterated by shadows—just like the ones that killed you. One of them possessed my mother and dragged her all the way down here.” I finally forced my eyes back to Dyre and his sentient fox mask. As I stared at him … I also noticed the sweep of a fluffy purple and white tail that I’d somehow missed before?! “I intend to take her and my kingdom back.” Dyre lifted his chin in a fairly impressive imitation of Air, and then scowled. “So if you would, try not to reveal your dead prince and start a war just yet. I’d like to go home first.”

  “Eat ship and choke!” I called out as the Vaennish prince turned in a sweep of his fluffy tail and stormed out of the building.

  Both Jasinda and Talon were looking at me like I was crazy.

  “What? He was rude,” I muttered as Professor Cross hopped off the desk, looking irritated as he planted his hands on his hips and blinked at me. I figured he must be an early grad—someone that started their Royal College career at seventeen and finished by twenty-three. Tack on the extra two years for graduate schooling … and my guess was that he was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. So really, we weren't all that far apart in age.

  Maybe I would call him Spicer?

  That is, if I ever saw him again. Right now, all I really wanted to do was get to back to our new place and have a private talk with Air. That's it. Me and Air. And those three little words … I love you.

  “Students aren’t to be out past curfew,” Professor Cross said, blinking at us all like he hadn’t been mumbling like a crazy person just a few moments before. “Off with you all before I … well, I wouldn’t really report you to the dean, not with a dead prince to worry about.”

  “You’ll keep your mouth shut about all of this,” Air said, turning to look at the professor with a less than pleasant expression on his face. “If you tell a soul—and by soul, I mean a living one, of course—then I’ll have you promptly exorcised. Do you understand, Professor …?”

  “Cross,” he finished, giving us all an enigmatic smile and clapping his hands together. “But like I said, you may as well call me Spicer. Unless we’re in class together, then let’s stick to formalities, shall we? The dean already has it out for me.”

  “And that prophecy?” I asked, but Spicer was already shaking his head and adjusting his black tie.

  “Not time for it yet,” he said, backing up and then pausing half-in and half-out of the wall. “But when it is, I’ll find you.” He looked right at me with those sapphire eyes, winked again, and then disappeared from sight.

  Back at our new place—it was really flubbing weird to live anywhere but the castle—I stood in the kitchen and decided I was seriously going to miss the old cook’s vegetable soup.

  Whatever it was that Jas and I had created in this pot, it looked like a spell. No, no it looked like a curse and definitely did not look anything like dinner. My tummy rumbled and I put a palm over it to quiet the sound.

  “When does the dining hall open for business,” I moaned as I dropped my wings to the floor behind me. It always felt good to give my back and shoulder muscles a rest.

  “The Saturday before orientation,” Jasinda answered as she pulled out a tray of … black bricks from our wood fired oven. They were supposed to be sourdough rolls.

  We sucked.

  “If I could still eat food,” Talon inserted, hanging upside down from the ceiling and watching us in amusement, a constant running commentary on our shippy cooking skills, “then honestly, I’d probably starve and die living with you two. How hard is it to chop vegetables and drop them in broth? Good gods.”

  Stirring the food, I tried not to think of Air standing behind and to the right of me. I think he was waiting for some sort of acknowledgment of his earlier confession. Something, I mean, other than the weird shriek and the stumbling near-faint that I gave him earlier.

  I’d get there.

  I would.

  I was just … just going to have a bowl of this mucky soup first.

  A knock sounded at the door and Elijah popped his head out to see who it was.

  “It’s the scribe,” he said, his face sticking half out of the wall.

  “Come in!” Jas called, tossing the tray of burnt rolls onto the counter. Matz came in with two large canvas bags slung over his shoulders, an umbrella popped open against the rain. The wrinkled expression on his face spoke volumes as to how he felt about the smell. “This is your place, too, silly. You don’t need to keep knocking.”

  “Ah,” Matz said, sniffing and straightening his spine. “Right.” His eyes flicked back and forth, searching for ghosts. There really was one standing right next to him, but I wasn’t about to tell the guy that. Unbeknownst to be, Matz of Affina actually had phasmophobia—a fear of ghosts. Poor dude.

  “Did you get all the supplies?” I asked, trying not to choke on a sudden surge of emotion. But supplies meant spell attempt and spell attempt meant … probably failure, but also a very slim—very slim—chance that …

  Whirling around, I accidentally smacked Jas in the face with my hair and my wings. Oh, and also sent a dish towel flying into the wood stove where it promptly caught flame. Crap. But at least the mess was self-contained?

  “I got most of them,” Matz said, setting the bags down on the floor as Elijah crept up close to him, trailed his fingers over the back of the man’s neck and whispered, “Boo!”

  The poor scribe screamed and stumbled back, tossing his umbrella into the air and falling to his as— butt. Falling to his butt. All that noble blood and perfect breeding and he could barely handle a little teasing from a royal spirit? Hmph. No wonder I was an anti-royalist.

  “Wh-what was that?” he asked, swallowing hard and looking in the complete opposite direction of where Elijah was actually standing.

  I gave Eli a look which he returned with crinkled eyes, a wink, and a smirk that made my skin feel tight and achy over my bones. Gods. He was persuasive, for a ghost.

  “Elijah of Haversey,” I said, and Matz nodded, like he actually gave a crud who the ghost
was. Pretty sure he was afraid of them all in equal measure. “Don’t worry; he’s harmless.”

  “Am I?” Eli asked, reaching out and pulling a strand of Matz’s ebon-dark hair. The boy gulped, his eyes wide in fear, but he didn’t move. Good for him.

  “Stop that!” Jasinda said, her spirit charm still invoked, as she marched over and offered out a hand to Matz. “You’re being a bully, Elijah of Haversey, and if Air and Brynn can confirm one thing about me: I don’t abide by bullies.” As soon as Matz was on his feet, she swept one of the extra spirit charms off her neck and tossed it over the scribe’s head. “Activate it,” she whispered as the boy’s eyes went wide and his jaw clenched in fear.

  But he did as she asked, reaching up and squeezing the glass until it broke.

  As soon as it did, his eyes locked onto the prince and he swept a rather magnificent looking bow.

  “Your Highness,” he breathed, but Air just smiled tightly and waved his hand for Matz to rise. “I … almost didn’t believe you were dead.”

  “That’s the whole idea of it,” Jas said as she picked up the bags of supplies and carried them over to the table. Matz followed her and took the list from his pocket, waiting as Jasinda started pulling items out one by one. The scribe dutifully re-checked them off the list which I appreciated. “Tomorrow, I’ll go out and start on the rarer ingredients. Since it’s extremely unlikely—nigh impossible—that we’ll get it right on the first try or even the first dozen tries, we’ll need to locate reliable suppliers.”

  We still had a week until orientation.

  That was long enough to make a go at it, right?

  I was almost afraid to try. Because if I didn’t try, then I couldn’t fail. And then … I could cling to the small flicker of hope deep inside my chest, the miniscule flame that told me there was a chance I could have Air back. That I could grant Elijah’s wish. Given Talon a chance to live a more honest life—one that didn’t involve stealing panties from the castle.

  Groaning, I reached up and slid my palms down my face again.

  It was getting late and dinner was a disaster. I’d wasted enough time trying to make it that … it was getting to be about that time. Time to talk to the prince. Snagging the thick paper sack of crescent rolls we’d bought in town earlier, I dragged one out, lifted the heavy stone lid of the butter tray and then used a knife to smear a more than generous amount across its surface.

  “Do you need any help …?” I started, but Matz and Jasinda were already deep in a conversation about proper cataloguing of spell ingredients, and there was about a ninety-nine percent chance that I’d flub it all up if I tried to participate. Instead, I took a deep breath and flicked my eyes to Air, grabbing a giant mouthful of butter and flaky goodness before I spoke again. “I’m going to bed. Wake me up when you go to town in the morning.”

  They ignored me, conversing excitedly about the prospect of growing some herb in pots in the front windows. Good for them. I killed plants just by touching them. I most definitely had not inherited my mother’s green thumb.

  “You, and you,” I said, pointing at Talon’s upside down face and Eli’s smirking one with my roll. “Stay out of my room. Air and I need to talk.”

  “Are you going to confess your love?” Elijah asked, the slightest hint of jealousy in his voice. I ignored him and reached down for Air’s cold hand. Frozen as an iceberg in the Nördlich seas it might be, but it was still Air’s fingers that I was grasping in mine. I needed to remember that.

  “None of your business,” I said and hoped my cheeks weren’t as pink as they felt.

  Tugging on Air’s hand, I led him upstairs and into my room, closing and locking the door behind us. Not that it really mattered with ghosts in the house. Spirits came and went as they liked. But I would seriously exorcise any bum-hole that stuck his head in here while we were talking.

  “This is a beautiful house,” I said as I sat on the edge of the very same canopy bed I’d occupied in the castle. The queen had had servants disassemble it, carry the parts down here, and reassemble it again. I guess she wanted the woman in charge of resurrecting her dead son to have comfortable lodging?

  “It is,” Air said carefully, standing near the door and looking confused as to what the Hell he was supposed to be doing in here. “Mother certainly went out of her way …”

  And by that, I was pretty sure he was referring to the fact that Everess had ordered all of her son’s things moved into the house as well. Airmienan was dead and yet his underwear was carefully transferred and folded into a drawer. A generous selection of soaps, lotions, and fragrances lined his windowsill. And he couldn’t use any of them. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

  “What you said earlier …” I blurted, smoothing my hands down the short pleats of my skirt and then glancing sheepishly up at Air’s see-through face. I wanted to see another flicker of energy, the golden fall of his hair, the beautiful green of his eyes. Desperately. I wanted it desperately.

  “What about what I said?” he whispered, moving across the room to stand beside me. A gas lamp was burning on my side table, illuminating the darkness. I decided that I didn’t want it on. Talking to Airmienan in total blackness would be better than having to stare at his shimmering form, right? At least then, I could pretend that we were just lying in bed, chatting, like we used to when we were kids. When had that stopped? Right about the time we hit sexual maturity?

  Ugh.

  What a mess.

  Turning the metal knob on the lamp down, I snuffed it out and then laid back on the mattress, my wings spread flat beneath me in two curved, feathered arcs that tickled my bare thighs. Even though it was dark as pitch, I closed my eyes to block the slight glimmering disturbance in the air that was the prince.

  “If we talk like this, I can pretend for a moment that you’re still alive,” I said. Air didn’t respond, but I could feel him as he walked up to the end of the bed and crawled onto the mattress, lying next to me and bumping my right wing with his elbows as he lay on his side.

  “I do love you, Brynn. I wasn’t just saying that because … of my current state. I meant it. I’d been planning on telling you on All Haunts’ Eve. I just … didn’t get a chance.”

  Sucking in a sharp breath, I tried not to think of that night, of Air’s voice whispering to me, of the crash of glass, all that blood …

  “I wish you’d told me even sooner than that,” I whispered back and I felt him cringe. The high and mighty Prince of Amerin, cringing? It wasn’t something I’d seen much of.

  “I know, and I’m sorry. Unfortunately, it’s the sort of mistake a man can only make once …” His words trailed off, and I was thankful that at least his voice was normal, if a little sad. But he still sounded like Air, this rich commanding tones that spoke of his schooling, his time in court, his bloodline. It was a proud, fierce voice, one that I’d always looked up to when I needed to bolster my confidence.

  “If I … somehow managed to pull this spell off, then what?” Touching a hand to the pocket on my new Royal College jacket, I felt the small, hard lump of the royal ring. Everess must be ticked all the way off knowing that I still had it.

  “Then I’d … sweep you off your feet or fall at your knees, whichever you preferred.” Air sat up and leaned over me, forcing me to open my eyes and look up into his face. For a second there, his image flickered, nice and strong, and I felt my heart catch in my chest. “I’d beg you to marry me and then I’d put a crown on your head and a throne beneath your perfect ass.” My mouth twitched as he smiled down at me. “Then we’d travel the world for a few years, come back, and I’d put a royal baby in this belly.”

  Air poked me in the stomach and I wrinkled my nose.

  “We’d have to finish school first,” I said, and he raised both eyebrows at me.

  “School before … royal babies?”

  “School before travelling,” I clarified, heart thundering as I studied the fullness of his mouth, the arrogant line of his cheekbones. Half of Air�
�s heritage came from the huldra people, a mysterious race from the country on Amerin’s eastern border known as Rúnda. That’s where he got the extra rings of emerald around his pupils, the slight yellow-gold shading on the outer edge of his irises. I couldn’t see any of that color now, but I could live a thousand years and I’d never forget.

  “But … you would marry me then?” Air asked, and there was this smug, male confidence in his voice that made me reach up and curl my fingers in his tunic, yank him toward me. I didn’t pay attention to the hole in the midsection. If I thought too hard about that boar’s tusk … No. No, I wouldn’t go there. At least if I put my hand through the ruined fabric, I’d feel the hills and valleys of his abs. Ghosts didn’t carry the physical marks of their own deaths unless they wanted to.

  Almost none did, not even the scary ones.

  “I …” I paused, not even sure why I was letting myself think about this. There was nothing to think about. I’d wanted Airmienan forever. It was what I’d always wanted. But was promising my heart to a ghost asking for trouble? Gods, it was my literal nightmare come true.

  Then again … the only thing worse than him being a ghost … was not having him at all.

  “Never mind,” Air breathed, settling his weight on top of me. As a spirit whisperer, I could feel him, even if he wasn’t skilled enough in his new form to breathe true breaths or make his heart beat, warm his skin. Didn’t matter, he still felt like Air, if a little cold. “Don’t answer yet. I don’t want an answer until I’m hot and warm and inside of you.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the side of my neck. Even with lips like ice, it felt good and I shivered. “Once we’ve mastered the resurrection spell—which we will—I’ll ask again. And then you can answer.”

  “Air,” I started, but I could feel his hardness against me, and my knees lifted and spread of their own accord. I swear, I had no part in it. The short academy skirt rode up and then Air was exactly where I wanted him to be, the thickness of his cock pushing against the hot heat between my thighs. Through my panties and his breeches, he wasn’t quite so cold … Or maybe, was he warming himself up?! Putting my hands on either side of his neck, I pressed my palms to his skin and felt him heat under my touch. “What in Hellim’s hell?!”