by Lola Gabriel
“None for me, thanks,” Nyx declined, shaking his head.
“Oh, come on. You haven’t had a drink all night,” Dax muttered.
“Hey, stop hassling him. Respect his no, okay?” Oryn chimed in, playing the role of the eldest, most responsible brother, as he had done his entire life.
“You have to admit, it’s weird for all of us to not see you drink, especially since you’re getting married tomorrow,” Dax pointed out. “I mean, I hardly ever drink now, because of Becca being pregnant, but I admire your self-control, Nyx.”
“Thank you.”
“Absolutely, son. There comes a time in a man’s life when he realizes what is important in his life, and what isn’t,” Arlo said suddenly, and the four princes looked at him in slight disbelief, and with some apprehension from Nyx and Pyre.
“Since when do you realize what is important in life, Dad?” Pyre asked, being the only one brave enough to ask him something like that.
The others simply stared elsewhere, avoiding eye contact.
“Well, Pyre,” Arlo said, looking intently at him. “Your mother came close to dying last week.”
Their heads snapped up and stared at Arlo.
“What?” they all gasped.
“I didn't want to alarm all of you, she’s fine now,” Arlo assured them.
“What happened?” Oryn asked.
“Her thread was about to run out, but I refused to let her go.”
“What did you do?” Nyx growled, feeling the anger build up inside him.
“Easy, Nyx,” Pyre grabbed his arm. “Let him talk.”
“I called an old acquaintance, someone I knew from our time in Russia. He’s an elder warlock, with ties to Livia,” Arlo explained. “I told him about your mother’s condition and he offered to help.”
“In exchange for what?” Oryn asked.
“That he could take half of my life, or whatever is left of it,” the Dragon King answered. “I am having the palace in Lunca repaired for your mother, when I’m no longer there.”
The princes exchanged perplexed and quiet glances with one another and Nyx asked, “Why would you do that?”
“Yeah, you’re not exactly known for your generous heart and kind spirit,” Oryn retorted.
Arlo looked at his sons and sighed. “I know what you all think of me, and I don’t blame you in the least. I’ve done terrible things; some you have witnessed and some you’ve only heard about. They are all true. I was who I was, and what everyone said I was. So, it may be hard for you all to believe that I have changed.”
Nyx lowered his gaze and stared at the ice melting on the bottom of Pyre’s glass. “What made you change?”
“It was the night before I saw the elder. Your mother collapsed on the floor of our home. I thought she was dead. I picked her up, placed her in our bed. I cried for the first time in my life, because I felt empty. I felt the hole in my heart which only she could occupy. The hole left there which I would never be able to fill again. She loved me despite everything I had done, everything I had put her through. And you boys as well,” Arlo said and lowered his head in shame. “When the Elder came, and healed her, extending her thread by shortening mine, my heart was full again, and I vowed to never take away anything from anyone again. I know how it felt now, and I don’t wish that upon anyone in this world.”
“Is that why you came?” Nyx asked. “Because you felt guilty for not being there for us the way you should have been? Like a father should have?”
Arlo leaned forward and placed his hand on Nyx’s shoulder. “I am here because I love you all, and I can’t imagine my life without my sons in it. Plus, I wanted to restore the bond between us which had been broken since I believed that my personal vendetta against all the other Immortals and the humans were more important than the bond with my sons. I am here to restore it, if you let me.”
One by one, the princes nodded, giving Arlo the opportunity to repair what was broken between them. The air vibrated around them and it was strange to all of them, as they never thought they would feel as connected to their father as they did at that moment. Arlo’s love for his sons was unexpectedly visible, manifesting itself in front of their eyes, each in their own special way. Pride filled each and every one of them as they suddenly felt the love they had craved from Arlo ever since they were hatched.
A sudden wave crashed over them and the air cleared almost immediately. The princes and the king were stunned at the sudden impact of their emotions, and it was quiet in the drawing room for a minute. They each felt the power of what had happened. The world didn’t explode, but their powers intensified.
Oryn was the first one to speak. “We have a second chance. Instead of using our powers to control, we must use them to unite and bring peace among the Immortals.”
Dax smiled. “Yes, that is exactly what we must do, but not today. This day is all about Nyx and Romi.”
“Hear! Hear!” Arlo said and raised his glass.
Pyre glanced down at his glass. “So, who’s up for another drink, then?”
The drawing room filled with cheerful laughter and for the first time in five thousand years, there was finally peace among the male dragons of the Veskovic family.
***
Elite Magic
Paranormal Romance Collection
Elite Magic
Text Copyright © 2020 by Alexis Davie
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
First printing, 2020
Publisher
Secret Woods Books
[email protected]
www.SecretWoodsBooks.com
The Warrior
1
Kaia stared at the sealed envelope in her hands, which were shaking. She didn’t think she had ever been this nervous. It wasn’t like her entire future depended on what the letter said, since she was technically immortal and could never run out of time to do what she wanted, but she was still hoping she had not failed this time, not in this—in the only thing that truly mattered.
Please, Kaia begged whatever gods were listening. Please don’t let this be a rejection letter. Please let me have succeeded.
She tore open one of the ends of the envelope and pulled out the letter within it.
Ms. Kaia Blackwood,
We are delighted to inform you that you have been admitted to Elite Magic University, one of the most prestigious schools for immortals and shifters worldwide.
Kaia screeched in joy and began to jump up and down in her place, not needing to read anything after that. She would later, but for now, that sentence was the only thing she cared about.
“I got in!” she screamed gleefully. “I got in. I got in. I got in!”
She rushed through the rooms of her mansion to her father’s office, members of the staff glancing at her as she seemed to almost fly past them. The doors were slightly ajar, which meant that her father was currently not busy. Even if he had been, Kaia probably wouldn’t have cared at the moment; she was just so excited, and she couldn’t wait another single second to tell the whole world, starting with her father.
She wasn’t even fully inside the office yet when she yelled, “Dad, I got in! I got into EMU!”
Her father looked up at her from his desk and grinned widely.
“Did you now?” he asked, standing up from his chair.
“Yes, I did!” Kaia waved the letter in front of his face. “See? I told you I could do it on my own!”
“Of course, my darling, I never doubted you could,” her father said, pulling her into a tight embrace.
Kaia wanted
to say that he had told her, more than once and quite explicitly, that he could arrange for her to attend in case she wasn’t accepted, but she decided not to bring it up. She had adamantly refused his offer, obviously, wanting to get into her dream school on her own merits rather than buying her place in it.
It was one thing to have everything handed to you just because of who you were—and Kaia was completely aware of this, being the Fae King’s daughter and having had her every whim and command fulfilled—but it was another thing entirely to earn it yourself. Kaia had worked her ass off to earn the letter she was now holding in her hand, and she was going to relish her accomplishment for all it was worth.
“Do you know when you have to move into your dorm room?” the king asked.
“Oh!” Kaia pulled back from her father’s embrace and scanned the letter. “The final weekend of August! I can move in before, as long as it’s after mid-June, but that weekend is some sort of freshmen orientation event right before school starts.”
“Excellent!” her father said. “That’ll give Sebastian time to get ready.”
Kaia could’ve sworn that her brain made the scratched record noise from the old movies made by mortals.
“Sebastian?” she parroted. “What’s he got to do with this? Why does he need time to get ready?”
“Because he’ll go with you,” the king answered.
“What? No!” Kaia cried. “I don’t want him to go with me!”
“Then who’s going to keep you safe?” her father demanded.
“No one!” Kaia said. “Me! Dad, I’m going to school, not to a warzone! I don’t need Sebastian following me around while I go to class!”
The king gaped at her, aghast at the mere idea of his daughter apparently walking the halls of a perfectly safe school by herself, without her annoying, completely unnecessary bodyguard.
Well, Sebastian wasn’t exactly a bodyguard, per se. He was one of the king’s fae warriors, had been ever since Kaia was a child, and he was the best of the bunch. At least, that was what her father said. Sebastian was only a few years older than her—he was actually the youngest warrior under the king’s service—so he and Kaia had basically grown up together.
As a child, Kaia had had a bit of a crush on him, seeing him as the classic human cliché of a knight in shining armor, given her status as a princess. It didn’t hurt that he was good-looking, too, much prettier to her young mind than the older warriors in the Fae Royal Force; a little boy with blond hair and bright green eyes, she had thought he matched with her nearly white hair and crystal blue eyes.
Taking advantage of the fact that they were quite nearly the same age, the king had assigned Sebastian as Kaia’s very own personal guard, with the duty of basically following Kaia around like a puppy and making sure she was safe at all times.
At first, Kaia had loved having what she’d thought of as a playmate. Sebastian was mostly always there, except for when Kaia had classes, which was the same time as his training so that he wouldn’t fall behind on his duties as a fae warrior. They had played many games together, even trained, and Kaia had always thought as Sebastian as her very first friend.
But eventually, Kaia had wanted to be her own person, not just the princess under the watchful guard of a warrior. Whenever she’d tried to do something a little riskier, Sebastian had been there, trying to stop her.
“Princess!” he would call her. “You shouldn’t do that! It’s dangerous!”
“Nothing’s gonna happen to me, Sebastian!” she’d reply, one foot out of the window of her room because she wanted to climb the big tree growing right outside, in the backyard.
“You could fall and hurt yourself!”
“But I won’t!” He should know, he had seen her climb tougher surfaces.
“I’m sorry, I can’t let you!” And he would pull her back into her room, stopping her from having the fun that a child her age should be having.
With time, Kaia had realized that Sebastian couldn’t actually be her friend—not in the way that she wanted, not in the way that counted. He would always see her through his warrior-tinted glasses, always looking out for her, even when she found him almost suffocating. In the end, her crush on him had faded when she had started to resent him for being a warrior first and foremost. Even his voice had become kind of irritating, and she had been glad when she had turned eighteen and convinced her father that she didn’t need a personal guard while at home anymore. It wasn’t like she really went anywhere, anyway.
Nowadays, Kaia tried to avoid Sebastian as best she could, just to avoid the ensuing awkwardness.
“Kaia, my darling,” her father said. “You can’t possibly think about going off to a strange place on your own! How will I know you’re safe?”
“You can call me,” Kaia answered, holding back the urge to roll her eyes. Her father could be so goddamn dramatic sometimes, and she was the young princess here. “Or video-call me. Or text me. Or you can contact me literally any other way and ask me if I’m safe! And just so that there’s no doubt about where I’m going—” she nearly pushed the letter in her hand against the king’s face, “—it’s a university campus. Look, it says so right here. They’ve got campus security and everything. There’s nothing for you to worry about!”
“Love,” he said, gently pushing her hand away.
“Don’t you trust me?” Kaia interrupted. “Don’t you think that I can take care of myself?”
The king took a deep breath and exhaled it in an equally deep sigh.
“Of course I think you can take care of yourself,” he told her.
“Really?” she pressed. “Because I’m already 22 years old, you know. I’m not the little Fae Princess who used to hide behind the hanging banners anymore.”
Her father laughed, probably remembering that time when Kaia, a little six-year-old Fae Princess, had decided to hide from the king and the mansion’s staff behind one of the several banners hanging all over the place. Back then, Sebastian had still been fun to be around, and he had hidden alongside her for nearly two hours before one of the guards finally found them, to her father’s (and everyone else’s) relief.
“I know,” the king said. “I know, my darling. I guess…” He cupped her cheeks with his hands and sighed. “I still think of you as my little girl, not as my young daughter who’s going off to college.”
“You had to know I wouldn’t stay a kid forever,” Kaia said with a soft smile. “I know we’re immortal, but that doesn’t mean I’d never grow up.”
Her father sighed once more. He still didn’t seem to be convinced, so Kaia grabbed both of his hands in hers and lowered them.
“Dad,” she began. “Think about how ridiculous it’d be for me to be followed around all the time. Don’t you think that having a bodyguard would raise more suspicions?”
“Sebastian isn’t a bodyguard—”
“I know, I know, he’s a warrior.” Kaia rolled her eyes. “But I’m not going to be facing a horde of evil wolf shifters or anything. I’m going to school! Sebastian wouldn’t even have anyone to fight! He’d end up being a bodyguard, and no one at EMU has one of those. Or at any other magic school, for that matter. I don’t want to be the only one who does. Besides, I’ve been trained in self-defense nearly my whole life. Please, Dad. Can’t you just trust me on this?”
The king looked down at the ground for a moment. Kaia hoped he wouldn’t start with the story of how she had been a miracle, of how much the Fae King and Queen had struggled to have a child, of how the entirety of the fae population had celebrated her birth because she had been the first fae child to be born into the royal family in almost three hundred years. That was why she had been trained in self-defense to begin with, almost as soon as she had been able to understand instructions.
The last thing she needed was some sort of guilt trip to convince her she should take the best of the fae warriors with her when she went off to college. Kaia could take care of herself.
Finally, her father lo
oked up at her.
“You’re right, Kaia,” he said. “You’ll one day be queen of the fae, and you won’t need a personal guard. This is as good a time as any to let you go out into the world on your own.”
“Really?” Kaia asked, her smile widening. “Are you serious right now?”
“I am,” said the king. “Just promise me you’ll tell me if you change your mind, or if you need help, and promise me you’ll carry a weapon with you at all times—”
“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, yes, I will!” She threw her arms around her father and hugged him with all of her might. “Oh, Dad, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you so much! You won’t regret it, I promise!”
Kaia didn’t think she was going to change her mind at any point in the foreseeable future. She wanted to enjoy being a regular college student—hang out with friends, maybe skip class once or twice, become best friends with her roommate, have a crush on the most popular guy in the campus… She had always been homeschooled, what with the king not wanting to subject his daughter to any danger or peril, so she was not going to waste her one opportunity to be truly free for the first time in her life.
“All right, then.” Her father broke their embrace and smiled sweetly at her, holding her shoulders. “Start making a list of what items you want to bring and what will need to be purchased so we can have everything arranged.”
“Good call,” Kaia said. “I’ll get started right now!”
She swirled to the doors of her father’s office and made her way to the hall outside it. She had so much stuff, and the mere thought of trying to take everything with her would most likely give her a headache. She didn’t need all of it, and whatever she missed, she could probably just buy again. Maybe she could even ask someone from the staff to get hers—
Kaia shook her head to herself. She wasn’t going to rely on her royalty status while she was at EMU. She wouldn’t be Kaia Blackwood, Fae Princess and heir to the throne of the fae. She would simply be Kaia Blackwood, fae student at one of the most prestigious magic schools in the world, along with all of the other fae students that would be attending.