This time, the trial grew colder with each step and I could see frost forming on the leaves. I shivered and goosebumps rose on my bare arms. Rubbing my hands over my arms, I continued forward, unsure of what I was going to find.
My breath came out in clouds and my teeth chattered. Maybe I would have been better off with the monster. It was as cold as the walk-in freezer at the restaurant I’d worked at.
Shivering, I continued forward. Was this the whole challenge of this part? Just getting through the cold? I wondered if I should turn back and chance the path with the monster. Just as I contemplated lighting a fire in my hands for warmth, I heard a rustling noise behind me.
About time I ran into a classmate. It was getting too quiet in here. I turned to see who had caught up to me.
I gasped. It wasn’t a classmate. It was the walls closing up behind me. Vines grew over the path I’d just taken, closing me in. No option to go back now.
Taking a deep breath, I rubbed my arms again and moved forward. After a few more steps, I realized I wasn’t feeling so cold anymore. Either the air was warming up or I was getting used to it. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
It was darker ahead, but I thought I could make out a circular space that appeared to have multiple pathways. At least I could get away from the weird closing walls.
I emerged into the opening and stopped walking. There were five different doors in front of me. None of them were open as I’d seen in the past. I had a feeling that some of those doors were more dangerous than others.
Moving closer, I reached out to see if I could sense anything behind them. With a creak, one of the doors opened. I jumped back, wondering which of my classmates ended up here.
The person who stepped through the door wasn’t a classmate. It felt like ice was running through my veins as dread seeped into every cell in my body.
“This is impossible,” I said. “You have to be an illusion. You’re in prison. They took you away.”
“Little fae, you didn’t think their prison would keep me locked up, did you? I’m not like your old teacher.” The shadow fae smiled at me.
“Your mate, you mean?” I asked. “You left her there?”
“She might be my mate, but she betrayed me. She deserves what she’s getting.” He took a step toward me. “You know who else betrayed me? You. And it’s your turn to pay.”
I glanced behind me, wondering if I should run. The trail I’d come through no longer existed.
I was trapped and alone.
33
Luka
I glared at Coach Miller. He was calling off names one at a time, purposefully leaving me until the end. The twins went through a few people after Raven and then Ben had gone. He just really hated me. With each student that went after Raven, it was more distance between the two of us.
He knew what he was doing. He split up all the friends. Makayla was still waiting with me. Finally, he called her. She glanced over at me. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Right.” With each passing second, I was feeling more and more anxious. Usually, I was able to calm my nerves. These things didn’t get to me. But today, there was something nagging at me that made me feel on edge.
Two more students went after Makayla and I moved closer to the front. There were only three of us left.
“Demon,” Coach Miller called.
I glared at him. He rarely used my name and he wasn’t calling me demon as a term of endearment.
“You’re up, lover boy,” he said.
Clenching my teeth, I walked past him, not giving him the satisfaction of a response. Finally, I could see if I could catch up to Raven. I didn’t care what he said about working together. I knew Raven could take care of herself but I’d feel better if I could be close to her.
I followed her scent, easily turning at each fork toward the direction I knew she went. Ever since the night we bound the book to ourselves, I’d felt like all my skills were heightened. It was as if everything had been amplified by the magic I’d taken inside me.
Right now, I was grateful for it because it was taking me straight to Raven. Everything inside me was telling me to get to her. It didn’t make sense. I trusted Raven and I knew she was powerful in her own right. And this was just a test. Despite the dire warnings, I never really worried about any of us finishing it. But there was something wrong. I could feel it.
The air grew colder and I ignored it, hardly phased by the change. My demon blood ran hot and while I disliked the cold, I could block it out. In the dim light of the tunnel, it looked like I was headed toward a dead end.
I stopped walking and reached out for the bond with Raven. She was nearby and I was going to trust my instincts.
Walking forward, I stopped at a wall of vines. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew she was behind the barrier and I was going to get to her.
The worst part was that I could sense that she wasn’t alone.
I reached out, tugging on the vines. As I expected, they didn’t budge. I could feel the magic coursing through them. It felt dark and heavy. Not like the magic I usually experienced at the academy.
This wasn’t a job for a demon. My magic wasn’t strong enough.
Whatever was happening to Raven wasn’t part of the trials. I was sure of it. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and used my magic to reach out toward the other three. We’d developed an unusual bond during our magic meld. Raven wasn’t the only one I could sense.
Their magic was weaker than hers and I could tell they were farther away. But I knew I needed them here. Raven needed them.
I sent a burst of my own magic out through our connection, trying to share my location. Raven’s in danger.
A surge of anger rolled through me that didn’t belong to me. Adrenaline spiked and I knew the others were responding. They heard my call and they were on their way.
I only had to wait a minute before one of the twins showed up. He was breathless and his shirt had a hole burned in it. I glanced at the hole then looked back up at him.
“Fire breathing lizard,” he said. “Don’t ask. Where’s Raven?”
“I think she’s through here,” I said. “It’s sealed with magic. I can’t break it.”
“Where’s Raven?” Another voice asked.
Ben had arrived, his whole body tense. I could almost feel the anger vibrating off of him.
“Through here, I think,” I said. “Don’t shift on us yet.”
He growled. “I can’t hold it much longer. They tried to force a shift down that trail.” He lifted his chin in the direction he came from.
“Deep breaths, bro,” the twin said. “We’re going to get her out.”
“Hey, why am I last to the party?” The second twin arrived. He looked in better shape than his brother.
“Last again, Matt,” the twin who I now knew was Zach said.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “What are we doing here? If Raven’s in trouble, we need to move.”
“She’s through here,” Zach said.
The twins moved closer to the wall of vines and I stepped back to let them do their thing. This really was their area of expertise.
“I can feel her,” Matt said.
“It’s a shield barrier,” Zach said. “We can take it down. Be ready for when it falls.”
“We’re right behind you,” Ben said, his teeth bared.
I was pretty sure we were going to have a full-fledged werewolf on our hands any second. Hopefully he’d wait till we were through.
“Hey, Ben,” Matt said. “If your wolf can help Raven, don’t hold back. We’ll move out of your way.”
“We do this together,” Ben said. “But I will shift if needed.”
Matt nodded, then turned back to the barrier. He and Zach lifted their hands toward it and I could feel the vibrations of the magic they were creating. I didn’t know enough about spells and mages to know what they were doing, but I trusted them.
And it dawned on me that they trusted me too. I told them Ra
ven was in danger and without question, they came.
We were an odd group. But we were all in this together, no matter what happened next.
34
Raven
“How did you even get out?” I asked, hoping he’d go into an elaborate bad-guy speech. I had no idea what I was going to do and I needed time.
He grinned, showing his fangs. “I control light. I am the shadows. There is no prison that can keep me.”
My stomach twisted into knots as I thought about what I should do. This wasn’t about getting something from me. This was about taking me out. And I was not going to go down today.
It dawned on me that he had yet to call his shadow magic. Whatever his plans were, he’d kept the lights on. I had to attack first.
Quickly, I called to my magic and it surged through me, rising up in response to the fear gripping me. I lifted my hands and launched fire at the fae.
When the flames cleared, he was gone. But I knew he wasn’t actually gone. In the darkness of the vine covered enclosure, there were too many shadows. “Where are you?”
“Everywhere,” his voice filled the air around me, ethereal and echoing through the space. “Nowhere.”
I shivered, turning in a slow circle as I looked for anything that stood out. “Leave me alone. Just go away.”
“After what you did to me?” His voice was more solid now.
I turned toward it and saw him standing in front of me again. “You have no chance against me.” He clicked his tongue. “And to think, I offered to take you back with me.”
“You had no good intentions,” I said. “That book was dangerous in your hands.”
“And who put those ideas in your head?” he asked. “My old love, perhaps? The one who betrayed me before you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I made my choice.”
“You made a poor choice, taking her side,” he said.
This time, when he used his shadows, I could see them. They slithered toward me like tentacles, reaching for me.
I darted away from them, my skin already crawling at the thought of him getting his shadows on me.
The shadows moved slowly, swirling like smoke. They adjusted, slithering toward me.
I wasn’t going to be able to outrun them. Lifting my hands, I called the fae magic. I’d had limited success so far, but I had some shadow powers of my own. I grabbed hold of his shadows and tugged on them. They resisted my magic, still fighting to come toward me.
I wasn’t able to send them away as I hoped, but I had enough in me to keep them from coming closer.
“You’re learning some,” he said. “Too bad it’s not enough.”
Sweat formed on my brow and I struggled to hold the shadows at bay. I didn’t know what would happen if he won, but I wasn’t willing to find out.
I pushed against the shadows, using everything I had to send them back to him. My magic hummed within, rising up to force the shadows back. The new magic I’d gained seemed to be waiting in the distance, unwilling to give me a boost.
The shadows gained ground, one of them slipping past me. It wrapped its way around my ankle and tugged. I stumbled, nearly losing my hold on the other shadows.
This wasn’t working. There had to be something else I could do. While holding off the shadows, I called to the new magic. The magic that gave me the boost when I was opening the portals. It felt different, but it wanted out. I could tell it was ready.
I grabbed hold of the new magic, forcing it through. I had to control these shadows. With a scream, I threw everything I had at the shadow fae, going right for the source.
A burst of white light exploded from me, sending all the shadows away and leaving me standing in a circle of light.
The shadow fae growled and quickly rallied. He sent his shadows toward me again, but they stopped short, unable to pass the light around me.
He pulled his shadows back.
“I’ve won, your shadows can’t hurt me anymore,” I said.
He smirked. “You forget. I control the light too.”
A moment later, everything went black. The light around me, the dim light from the gaps in the vines. It was all gone.
But so was our magic.
If he was desperate enough to cut off his own magic, he was afraid of me. At least I had that going for me. Because it looked like I was about to be stuck in hand to hand combat with a dude who was twice my size.
“You play dirty,” I yelled. I didn’t even care anymore. At this point, it wasn’t looking good for me. Who gave a fuck if I riled him up? “You have to pull out all your tricks to take down a girl with a year of magic training under her belt? You’re a fucking coward.”
The hit came hard and fast, knocking me to the ground and knocking my breath out with it.
I gasped for air as I quickly got to my feet, swinging wildly to attempt to land a blow of my own. All I hit was air.
He really was going to do this. Just hit me while I was blind until he took me out.
“Come on, at least make it a fair fight,” I called into the darkness.
“If you’d been raised in Faerie, that would have been one of your first lessons,” he said. “There’s no such thing as a fair fight.”
A fist hit the side of my face, sending my head back. My cheekbone made a sickening cracking sound and my eye swelled closed almost right away. Searing pain spread through my face into my head and the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth.
Stumbling forward, I moved away from where the hit had come from. Tears streamed down my face. The punch hurt like a mother fucker. I was angry and terrified. How the hell was I going to survive this?
I held my breath, trying to ignore the burning pain in my face. If I could hear him, maybe I could attack. Maybe I could take him by surprise.
Silence answered me.
I’d never felt so alone in my life.
As the seconds ticked by, the darkness seemed to deepen and I wondered if this was it. Was this how I was going to die?
After everything I’d been though, it didn’t seem right. I’d suffered too much. And there were my mates. The thought of leaving them made my heart hurt worse than my face.
I couldn’t leave them.
I needed them.
We were part of each other. Part of something larger than ourselves.
As I thought about each of them in turn, something shifted. It was as if I could sense them.
Of course I could sense them.
They’d been telling me to be more aware. More open to the bond. More in tune with our connection.
I wasn’t ready to leave them.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and focused on my mates. Their scents, the way their magic felt when we connected, the taste of their kisses, the feel of their skin against mine. The way my heart leaped out of my chest at the sight of them. The way they could comfort me with a word or a touch.
My memories were so sharp it was almost like they were here with me.
Magic ignited somewhere inside me like a song that had to be sung. It called to me, it called to them. I could feel it, one chord of a larger composition. A piece of a whole.
And it wanted the other members of the ensemble.
I could feel them, as if their hearts were beating inside me. As if we were one. They were so close to me.
Ignoring everything else, I walked forward into the darkness, guided only by my intuition, by this new magic that was begging for release.
My fingers brushed over a wall of vines. I set my hand on the foliage and spread my fingers wide. I knew they were there on the other side. I could feel their magic breathing to life through the barrier.
It just needed a little help.
Summoning the new power, I sent it toward them.
A blue light radiated from my hand, moving quickly like lightning until it had illuminated each leaf of each vine. I removed my hand and looked around at my prison.
The whole circular space was glowing and against the
opposite wall, stood the shadow fae.
His teeth were bared and he looked like he was ready to fight.
I wasn’t scared anymore.
I didn’t need to look behind me to know they were with me. “Welcome to the fight, boys.”
“We should have known you’d try to have all the fun by yourself,” Zach said.
“We’re not worried about sending him back to jail this time, right?” Luka asked.
“Oh, hell no,” Ben said.
The shadow fae lifted his hands and dropped them, quenching the light I’d created and sending us all into darkness.
Only this time, I didn’t feel my magic fade. Not all of it anyway. The new magic, the magic that called out to my mates was stronger than ever.
I reached for them, my hands easily finding two of theirs. I couldn’t explain what was happening, but the magic inside me was calling to them and theirs was calling to mine.
We were connected as one. The magic inside me bubbled to the surface and spread through me, shooting through my arms into my hands. A bright white light exploded from me and I could see all of us hand in hand.
The shadow fae was in front of us and he turned away from the light, shielding his face.
Letting out a scream, I sent everything I had at him. The light intensified, blinding me so I had to close my eyes.
When it settled, the normal dim light of the trials was around us, the light restored.
A pile of gray ash sat on the ground where the shadow fae had stood. My eyes widened at the sight.
We’d taken him out.
Whatever our magic did together, it was far more powerful than I could have ever imagined.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“We each have a piece of the magic from that book,” Zach said. “I think we found a way to access it together.”
“Shit,” Luka said. “Good thing we didn’t let him have it.”
“Good riddance,” Ben said.
“Is he really gone?” I asked.
Matt walked over to the pile of ash and touched it with his toe. “I don’t think there’s any coming back from this.”
Academy of the Elites: Unbound Magic Page 18