Elemental Fae Academy: Book Two: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance

by Lexi C. Foss

  “All right,” I said, holding out my hand. “We need to go now.”

  “Fine.” She glanced at Titus and sighed at his expression. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You have no idea what you’re walking into, Claire,” he said, his anger creating a line of invisible fire across his aura. “And you just allowed Cyrus to bait you into going.”

  “He had me at ‘Exos,’ ” she replied, her smile sad. “If he has a lead, I have to follow it. And I would do the same for you.”

  “I’d never ask you to.”

  “And neither would Exos.” She cupped his cheek and went to her toes to kiss him deeply, the moment one meant for two lovers. I found it oddly satisfying. A strange sensation, since she wasn’t mine to care for, but I rather liked seeing her content. Something told me Exos would approve, too. “I’ll be okay.”

  “It’s a death trap,” Titus whispered. “The Spirit Kingdom is where they send fae to die.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m brimming with life.” She kissed him again, then stepped back. “And I have the Spirit King as my guide.”

  A smart-ass remark about her trusting me graced my tongue, but I didn’t allow it to escape. I really did need her cooperation if this was going to work, and as I had it, I wasn’t about to lose it.

  “If anything happens to her—”

  “You won’t have to worry about killing me, Titus,” I interjected. “My brother will do that for you should harm befall her.”

  He stared me down for a long moment before nodding. “Bring her back, Spirit King.”

  I held out my hand for hers and smiled. “If I have it my way, it’ll be Exos who brings her back.”

  Sol

  “She’s so small,” I muttered. Not necessarily as small as Aflora or my little sister had been, but definitely smaller than me.

  “Who?” Vox asked as he worked on fixing my latest damage to the Spirit Quad.

  What had once been a dining table was now a pile of splinters that Vox meticulously worked to reassemble. It took incredible power and concentration for the Air Fae to align each broken shard back together.

  I hadn’t meant to break it. Frustration had gotten the better of me, and, well, yeah.

  “Who?” Vox repeated, a hint of impatience in his tone.

  “Oh. Claire.” Who else could I be talking about? “She’s just so much smaller than me.”

  “And?” he prompted, finally looking at me.

  “I just…” I palmed the back of my neck, uncertain of how to word it. Maybe it was easier if I just said nothing at all. I mean, Vox didn’t need to know. He probably had his own issues to deal with where Claire was concerned. “Never mind.”

  “Oh, no. I want to know why you said that. Why are you thinking about her height?”

  “It’s not so much her height as it is her overall size,” I huffed. “She’s so small.”

  “Yeah, you said that.” He folded his arms. “Why do you care?”

  “Don’t you?” I demanded. “I mean, you hear her at night just like I do. You have to think about it.” And there were the words I didn’t mean to say. By the shock on Vox’s face, they also weren’t the ones he expected.

  “You’re talking about… like…” He made a gesture that left me frowning.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to be?”

  “You know.”

  “No, I really don’t.” It had looked like… well, I didn’t know. He’d scissored his fingers like he wanted to give her a haircut. “You’ve had sex before, right?”

  He blanched. “Sol!”

  “What?” I demanded. “Come on, with that little gesture, it’s a valid question.”

  “We’re not having this conversation.”

  “You’re the one who asked me what I was thinking about. Now you have an answer.” One he appeared to be judging me for, which was completely unfair. “You can’t tell me you’ve not thought about it, because I’ve noticed the abundance of showers lately.”

  “Oh, Elements,” Vox said, looking up at the ceiling.

  “All I said is she’s small, okay?” I grumbled. “I realize you don’t have to worry about that, but I do.”

  “What happened to not wanting to mate with her?” Vox prompted.

  “I… I don’t want that.” I think. Maybe. Fuck. I don’t know. I shook my head. “It was just a thought, okay?”

  “About her size in bed.”

  “And how I could break her,” I growled. “Never mind. Just keep doing whatever you’re doing.”

  “Whatever I’m doing is cleaning up the damn mess in the kitchen,” he snapped. “Because you broke the table. I suppose that’s fitting, considering your concerns.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair.”

  “Isn’t it?” Vox demanded. “You know what? You should fix it.”

  “Why are you being such a dick?” This wasn’t like my best friend. Sure, he had bouts of temper in the past, but this seemed deep-rooted, as if there was something else going on. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t fix dinner, Sol. Because we have nowhere to eat it. That is what’s wrong.” He waved at the mess, creating an air vortex that swept it all away and out the open door. “And why in the fae are you thinking about fucking Claire?”

  My eyebrows shot upward. “Are you telling me the thought hasn’t ever crossed your mind?”

  “Of course it has,” he replied, his cheeks darkening. “I mean, I hear the same things you do.”

  “So why are you giving me a hard time about it?”

  “Because neither of us wants to mate with her!” Vox exclaimed, a gust of wind amplifying the lie he was trying to tell himself. I hadn’t been exaggerating about the showers, and he knew it.

  “We don’t?” I asked, testing the thought aloud. “Because if you wanted to, and I wanted to, then maybe it could work.”

  And maybe Vox would stop being such an uptight dirtwad and I could get my head on straight again. The Spirit Quad would be grateful; I’d certainly done enough damage to it over the last month.

  Vox balked at me, making me frown. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  He threw his hands up. “It’s weird, okay?”

  “Weird,” I repeated. “Mating with a gorgeous woman is weird. Okay,” I grumbled and turned to face the swirl of air that was keeping the table somewhat assembled in the shape it should have been. Fine cracks lined its broken seams, and I forced my earth magic to reach out and command it to remember its form. It was once wood, born of the earth, and had known life and seasons long before it’d been smashed by my careless whims of power.

  “We’d be sharing her,” Vox said after a long bout of silence, his voice softer than before. “Don’t you think that’s weird?”

  I shrugged. “Honestly, no.” Did I want to be intimate with other men? Not really. But if I trusted anyone to share a woman with, it was Vox. “If anything, you’d help me with my control so I wouldn’t hurt her.” The words came out on a mumble meant mostly for me, but Vox’s affinity for air would have made them loud in comparison.

  My best friend froze. “What?”

  I sighed. “You heard me just fine.”

  “You’ve thought about… the three of us?” He sounded so alarmed I had to laugh.

  “Dude, it’s not like I fantasize about you. Just, you know, how it would all—” I shook my head. “You know what? Forget I ever brought it up.”

  “Forget that you want to have a threesome with Claire?” Vox asked, the wheeze in his tone irritating me.

  You know what? Fuck this table. I smashed it into little bits, much to Vox’s horror, and created something from the ground instead.

  Something I knew Claire would love.

  Recalling her magic from class, a tree not of this world rooted into the floor, its earthly spirit thriving as I searched the fine grains. It grew, reaching out fresh limbs and blooming with some of Claire’s impossibly fuzzy, sweet fruit. What had she called them?

  Peaches.
r />   I re-created their essence in my palm and sent several seeds scattering, telling them to remember Claire’s element.

  “Sol!”

  Vox had been yelling at me for quite some time, but it was only when he slammed a wall of air into my chest that my eyes flung open, my energy ripped free from the magic and peaceful thoughts that had taken me under.

  I stared at the result of my creation. What was supposed to be a dining table was now a long slab of wood with branches sticking out of the ends. Long roots burrowed into the broken tiles of the floor, and an engraving of Claire’s peach tree decorated the polished surface. Sister trees sprouted out of the sides and leaned against the ceiling, heavy with fruit.

  I smiled.

  Vox balked at me. “What in the five elements has gotten into you, Sol? Now the entire floor is ruined and we have trees in our kitchen.”

  Titus chose that moment to walk in, sparking embers across his fingertips that looked like tiny explosions. He’d already been wearing a scowl when he’d entered, but when he saw my handiwork, he stopped midstride. “Well, somebody’s redecorated.”

  Heat scalding my skin from embarrassment, I took a seat at one of the overgrown stumps at the table and plucked a peach from a lower branch. “You were making dinner, weren’t you, Vox?” I reminded him. “You wanted me to fix the dining room, and, well, I did.” Simple as that. I sank my teeth into the delicate fruit, relaxing instantly.

  Vox glowered, then deflated—literally. A puff of air sent his loose hair floating around his head, the band having broken free in his attempts to reassemble the table. “Fine. I’ll cook. Maybe some food will calm down whatever’s gotten into you.” He glanced at Titus, who had steam wafting off of his skin. “And you, too, apparently.”

  Titus took a nearby stump and glowered. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Flames slithered over his skin like snakes, making me flinch.

  “Don’t burn down the trees,” I chided. “I made it for Claire because she likes peaches. And I do, too.”

  Titus hummed in approval, some of his fire dying. “Assuming she makes it back, I’m sure she’ll love them.”

  There was so much resentment in his voice that I stopped eating. Juices from the peach ran down my wrist, and I wiped it on my pants. “Assuming she makes it back from where?” It struck me then that if she wasn’t with Titus, she had to be with Cyrus. Or maybe Elana.

  Titus growled and clasped his fist in his hand. “Cyrus took her to the fucking Spirit Kingdom.” His eyes flashed with rage. “He claims to have a lead on Exos, but I call pixie shit on that.”

  “But classes start up again in a few days,” I said, confused. “Why would he take her there? She could be gone for weeks. And then she’ll miss the ball.” That last part wasn’t meant to escape, but I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it for over a month. I never actually said yes, and she’d not brought it up again, so I didn’t know if we were going or not. But I sort of wanted to take her.

  No, I really wanted to.

  Which was definitely a problem because we were supposed to be just friends.

  Except my fantasies were decidedly not friend-based.

  The silence overwhelming the kitchen had me looking to Vox and Titus. They were both gaping at me.

  “Claire’s been dragged off to the undead wasteland of a realm, and you’re worried about the ball?” Vox asked, sounding incredulous. “Since when do you care about those things?”

  I creased my lips together and frowned. I’d already said too much, and Vox was right. Claire was in danger, although I highly doubted even the Spirit Kingdom could dampen her life. Still, this was no time to worry about stupid Academy social events.

  Even if I was starting to look forward to it.

  “Yeah, Sol,” Titus said, his flames receding as a spark of amusement flashed across his face. “Why do you care about the ball?”

  “Did she ask you?” Vox interrupted, an odd note in his voice.

  “So what if she did?” I demanded, taking another bite of the peach. “Titus didn’t ask her to go, and she said she’d go with me and we’d wear jeans.” We just never finalized our plans, but she still planned to go with me. I think.

  “Formal attire is required,” Vox reminded me. “You can’t wear jeans.”

  “Well, she said we’re wearing jeans, and I’m good with that.” And there wasn’t shit he could do about it.

  Vox’s brow furrowed. “I’m going to win our bet. You’re falling for her.”

  I snorted. “Dude, I haven’t lost yet. We’re not mated, just friends. Besides, what was I supposed to do? Tell her she can’t go to the ball?” Even I could hear the defensive quality of my tone, but fuck if I would admit it out loud. It was a ball. Who cared if I wanted to take her?

  “If you don’t want to adhere to the social customs, you should let someone take her who actually wants to dress up,” Vox grumbled, slamming his knife down into the slab of meat with a gust of wind. He cursed when he couldn’t get the blade free from the cutting board.

  Titus leaned back against one of the peach trees and smirked. “Are you two seriously bickering over who gets to go to the ball with Claire? Why don’t you just both take her?”

  Vox stopped trying to yank his knife free, and I stared at the Fire Fae. “You’re not upset?” It was his mate, after all.

  Titus shrugged. “Look, when she gets back from whatever nightmare Cyrus puts her through, she’ll need a distraction. I think the Solstice Ball is a great idea, but I can’t go. Banned, remember?”

  “Oh yeah.” Vox chuckled. “You burned down the pixie orchestra at the last ball. That was hilarious.”

  Titus frowned. “Only because some Water Fae were being dicks. I wasn’t in the mood for their shit.” He shuddered as if the idea of any Water Fae revolted him. I wanted to remind him that Claire had control over water as well, but I didn’t want to be the next thing he burned. “Anyway, you both should take her. It’ll help get her mind off things after Cyrus inevitably comes back empty-handed.” His jaw flexed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is all a ruse on his part to make her stronger. He’s been a complete ass since day one.”

  None of us were about to disagree with him, but the idea of both Vox and me taking her to the ball had me distracted. I couldn’t dance—not without destroying half the ballroom—and Vox could pull off a ballroom suit a lot better than I could. He could show her the good time she deserved without me trying to turn her down and probably hurt her feelings in the process.

  “So, what are we supposed to do while they’re gone?” I asked, having grown accustomed to teaching Claire at earth class. The other students looked forward to watching her magic. It had been so long since we’d had an Earth Fae with her kind of power and control—she didn’t realize it, but we were learning from her.

  Titus glanced up at the peach tree. “I think I have an idea.”

  Claire

  “This is your childhood home?” I asked, marveling at the white marble walls and obsidian floors. It was so clean. So stark. So bare.

  Cyrus leaned against one of the pristine pillars, his icy gaze holding me captive. “This isn’t just our childhood home; it’s our current one, too. It’s the Royal Palace of the Spirit Kingdom, Claire.”

  I’d gathered the royal part by the grandiose appearance outside, but it seemed so unlively. Even the moats along the stone walls seemed still. “There’s no one here.” I grimaced as soon as the words left my mouth. “I mean, it’s—”

  “Death,” he finished for me. “Yes.” He pushed away from the stone column and walked toward a balcony overlooking the grounds, his hands tucked behind his back.

  I glanced at the old paintings hanging from the walls as I followed him, noting the portraits of all the stoic fae. That seemed to be where Exos and Cyrus obtained their hardness from, or maybe it was a result of growing up in this massive home alone.

  Wisps of dead trees, still waters, and vapid land met my perusal outside. Even the
setting sun seemed dim, the world around us awash in blacks and whites and little splashes of color. Except for what appeared to be a city in the distance, the glowing embers of a fire catching my gaze.

  “Springfall,” Cyrus murmured, following my gaze. “It’s the only Spirit Fae community left in existence.” His hands had slid into his pockets, his expression closed off. “We have a residence there, one in the heart of the court, but Exos and I prefer staying here. It keeps us focused, reminds us of our failures and the journeys that rest ahead.”

  “Sounds lonely,” I admitted.

  He nodded. “It is, but it’s also necessary.”

  “How do you help your people by living in isolation?” I wondered out loud, not following the logic. “Surely they would prefer to see you. And why are there no Spirit Fae at the Academy?” I’d started to assume there were no Spirit Fae left, but the colony of light appeared sizable, even at a distance.

  “There are no fae of age to attend the Academy, Claire.”

  I frowned. “Are they too young?”

  “Claire,” he said, forcing my attention back to him. “You’re the youngest Spirit Fae in existence. No others were born after you.”

  My lips parted. “Because of the plague.”

  He nodded. “Yes.” He tilted his head. “Has my brother not spoken of this? Of the importance of your mating and what it means for our people?”

  I swallowed and slowly shook my head. “We’ve… It’s been… Well, I mean—”

  “A simple no would suffice,” he interjected, his tone suggesting his displeasure at my rambling.

  But it wasn’t like there’d been an abundance of time for Exos and me to discuss all of this. Between my recruitment—if I could even call it that—into the Academy, and all the insanity that followed, plus his disappearance, we hadn’t gotten around to what it meant for him to be a royal. Or, really, anything about Spirit Fae history other than my mother’s impact.

  “My people will pray for your fertility, Claire,” he said, his gaze returning to the glow of Springfall. “You’ll be our only hope at creating an heir to the Spirit Kingdom.”