by Bea Paige
Contents
Bea Paige’s Books
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Fern’s Wings
Sisters of Hex: Fern – Book Two
Copyright ©: Kelly Stock writing as Bea Paige
First Published: 22nd July 2018
Publisher: Kelly Stock
Cover by: Arizona Tape
Kelly Stock writing as Bea Paige to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Bea Paige’s Books
The Sisters of Hex series
(paranormal romance / reverse harem)
Prequel to The Sisters of Hex series:
Five Gold Rings: https://books2read.com/FiveGoldRings
Sisters of Hex: Accacia
OUT NOW:
#1 Accacia’s Curse https://books2read.com/AccaciasCurse
#2 Accacia’s Blood https://books2read.com/AccaciasBlood
#3 Accacia’s Bite https://books2read.com/AccaciasBite
Sisters of Hex: Fern
Out Now:
#1 Fern’s Decision https://books2read.com/FernsDecision
#2 Fern’s Wings https://books2read.com/FernsWings
#3 Fern’s Flight https://books2read.com/FernsFlight
The Brothers Freed Series
(contemporary romance / reverse harem)
#1 Avalanche of Desire https://books2read.com/AvalancheOfDesire
#2 Storm of Seduction https://books2read.com/StormSeduction
#3 Dawn of Love https://books2read.com/DawnOfLove
Links to Bea Paige’s Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BeaPaige/ Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/beapaigeauthor/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeaPaigeAuthor Web:https://www.beapaige.co.uk
Prologue
The pain is gone.
Death had tried to tear me to shreds. It had ripped and torn. Clawed and bitten. It had strangled the breath from my chest and pulled the skin from my bones.
I fought death with every piece of me.
And I had almost lost the battle.
But light cuts through the darkness now.
Their song calls to me, turning fear into hope.
Their touch pulls me back from the brink, it brings life.
My Angels of Death have saved me and now I am different.
I am more.
Warmth returns the feeling in my arms and legs, my chest and back. A blaze of fire rouses my mind and the cool touch of ice spears my soul, awakening it once more.
Awareness seeps into my consciousness.
Light, brighter than the sun, ripples over my skin. It pumps through my heart, rushing through my veins into every blood cell.
I still hear the lingering sound of their voices. They pulse around me, drawing me upwards and out of the dark. A deep rumbling bass. A level, steady baritone. A tenor rippling above them both. I am no longer afraid. I follow the sound, the light, because the darkness isn’t who they are, not really. Not anymore.
I’m home.
At last I’m home amongst the angels.
Chapter One
Trails of blue stars sparkle against a misty background. I blink hard, squeezing my eyes shut before opening them again. The stars and mist disappear, replaced instead with three faces I recognise.
Ether.
He’s leaning over me, his eyes shut. I can see the weight of the responsibility his position as leader brings him. It pulls at his eyebrows, drawing them together. I want to reach up and wipe away the stress he holds in his face. I want to share the burden. I want to be his equal in everything. Perhaps one day I will find a way to do that. The heat from his touch zings across my cheek and I turn my face into his hand, my lips grazing against his palm. He opens his eyes slowly and for a few seconds we just stare at one another. Ether looks at me with a mixture of shock, awe, and something much harder to decipher.
“Welcome back,” he mouths with a gentle dip of his head. His shoulders are tense, a muscle ticks in his jaw. His hand trembles against my skin- with the need to withdraw or to stay, I’m not sure. His fingertips flutter over my lips. I smile tentatively, watching him.
“Fern,” he murmurs.
Something changes, his eyes burn with a fire that moves me, that constricts my heart. They blaze with passion, with respect, with want, with a whole host of emotions that even Ether appears to have trouble hiding now.
In that brief glimpse I see the truth of him. I see the man he tries to hide from everyone, the man who has seen and felt pain, who shows strength even when he feels weak.
His hand falls away from my face and the protective wall that shields his heart stacks back up. But I’ve seen him, and he knows it. There’s no going back now.
I watch as he rests his hand on the shoulder of the man who is holding me safe in his arms.
Mihr.
Turning my head, I meet Mihr’s summer-blue eyes. They are filled with happiness, with joy. It shines brightly out of his face.
“Hello, Fern,” he signs one-handed.
It makes me smile. Choosing to converse this way. Somehow, it has become our way now.
“I’m so happy you’re okay,” he says softly.
Did I just hear him speak? Mihr, who hasn’t said a word to me since we met. I’ve only ever heard him sing and even then, there were no words, just a beautiful melody.
“You’re talking?”
Even the sound of my own voice is loud in my ears. I’m still deaf, aren’t I? And yet I can hear him, and my own voice now with ease. Before it was only Gabe and Ether’s, never mine. Never Mihr’s.
“I am, it would seem.”
He has a beautiful voice. I hear every musical note as he speaks, the soft lilt of an accent I can’t place. I love the sound of it, it’s so lyrical. A thread of comfort pulls in my chest as his fingers tighten around mine. Mihr runs his thumb over my knuckles; the brief touch has my skin tingling. No, more than tingling. It’s like he’s giving me an electric shock but in a good way, a very good way.
“How do you feel?” he asks, gently pressing his lips against my hand.
“Strange. Better, I think.”
“I’m glad.” He guides my hand back to my chest, resting it there. His fingers pull away, but not before they graze against my collar bone. Electricity shoots out over every inch of my
skin, both covered and uncovered.
I feel everything, I hear everything, I see them all with absolute clarity. To my surprise, I moan a little. My body feels wired in a way that is different now.
That sound seems to snap Gabe out of whatever trance he appears to be in. He jerks awake, his soul-stripping eyes resting on my face. It takes him a second to come to, but when he does the change is remarkable.
“You’re okay. Life damn it, you’re okay!”
Gabe.
His response is different to Mihr’s gentle welcome and Ether’s restraint. He drops my hand and hauls me out of Mihr’s lap, pulls me into his and crushes me against his chest. Gabe’s cheek presses against mine as his hand finds skin above the waistband of my jeans, cool fingers scorching a trail over my lower back.
“Fern, you’re alive. Thank all that is Life, you’re alive.” He rocks me against him, holding me close. I can feel the frantic beat of his heart under my palm as his lips press against the curve of my neck, sending another electric pulse rushing over my skin. And even though the cold is still there, it doesn’t hurt. This time my skin lifts in goosebumps for the right kind of reasons. It’s a wonder to me.
“Let me look at you.”
Pulling back, Gabe cups my face in his hands. His glacier eyes seem to splinter and crack as he commits every detail of my face to memory. A few strands of his coal-black hair fall into his eyes and I push them away with a gentle brush of my fingers. This time I do not fear what touching him could mean. A sad smile pulls up my lips as I stare back. I see the baby he stole within the depths, I see a thousand souls lost to his touch, and for the briefest of moments I am overwhelmed with a deep, heart-wrenching sadness. I feel it right in the depths of my soul. His pain is mine now. His darkness is mine, just as my light is his.
I am connected to him, to all of them, in a way that surpasses physical touch, sight and sound.
I am one of them now.
I am different.
I am more.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you…” he says, pressing his forehead against mine. His fingers grasp at my hair as he draws my lips against his.
“I’m sorry… for the pain. I’m sorry, I hurt you. My love…” he mumbles against my mouth, the low base of his voice rumbling in my chest as one hand falls to my back and pulls me closer against him. Unable to keep the pain in a moment longer, he crushes his mouth against mine, his tongue spearing my lips.
We kiss and his ice splinters, cutting me, marking me, making me his.
I’ve never been kissed this way before. It is filled with his guilt and pain, and I return the kiss with my acceptance and gratitude. It is everything a kiss should be: passionate, thrilling, heart-stopping, stomach-knotting. But most of all, it’s no longer the kiss of death. This kiss, it breathes a new kind of life into me, one that stokes a deep need right in the pit of my stomach, in my soul.
Eventually we pull apart, our chests heaving, our hearts beating in unison, our connection secured.
“Give Fern space to breathe, Gabe,” Ether says with a light laugh.
I twist in Gabe’s lap, expecting to feel embarrassed, surprised that I’m not. I glance at Ether, then at Mihr, a smile pulling at my kiss-bruised lips. Neither seem annoyed or upset by the kiss. On the contrary, the heat in the room seems to have risen a notch.
“Fern has just Awoken, you must give her time to adjust,” Mihr says.
Awoken? Is that what they call this? What is this exactly?
Gabe grunts in response, his hand gripping onto my hip possessively. I run my palm against his arm, reassuring him that I am not going to leave his hold just yet. I don’t want to.
“What happened?” I ask.
Ether tips his head to the side. “You don’t recall?”
My eyebrows pull together as I try to remember. “I was talking with Gabe,” I begin. Mihr is watching me intently, waiting patiently for my memories to return.
“You were doing more than talking,” Ether points out. I catch the tilt of his lips and know he is teasing me. A flash of desire sparks the fire in his blue eyes once again as he looks between me and Gabe. He blinks, squashing it. Why does he do that?
“I was?”
“Hhm-mm,” he responds. Ether’s eyes flick to my parted lips and up again.
Gabe’s fingers curl tightly around my hip, just on the side of painful. I sense the darkness in him and am drawn to it still. It’s a part of who he is, but it doesn’t scare me, not now I understand him.
“I can remind you, if you like?” he growls into my ear.
The soft brush of his breath against the fine hairs of my neck sends pulses of sensation over my skin. My senses are heightened far more than they ever were before.
Before? Am I so different now? Yes, there’s no doubt.
“What happened exactly?” I repeat my question, needing to understand.
“You kissed…” Mihr begins, the rest of the sentence lost on his lips. He moves towards me. I find myself shifting forwards in recognition. A pull, different to Gabe’s, is luring me back to him.
“When we first met, we all touched you. It started a process that was inevitable. The Harmonious bond does not belong to just you and me, Fern. It belongs to all of us.”
“Us, as in Ether and Gabe too?”
“Yes, when Gabe kissed you it started a chain of events that could either lead to your death or to your…”
“Rebirth,” I whisper, knowing that Mihr is telling the truth. Understanding what this is.
“You have Awoken. Just like all Clan Vitae did a thousand years ago,” Ether confirms.
“Does that mean...?” I push all the terrifying thoughts away. I can’t process that, not yet.
“Fern, we will get through this together, okay. We’ll figure it out,” Mihr says.
“Please, go on,” I say, swallowing down the rising nausea.
“You were sick for a few days. Really sick. I thought Gabe’s touch - the fact that he’d Marked you and then his inability to stay away - had caused your pain, and to an extent it had. I brought you her because I believed you were dying. This is Clan Vitae’s most sacred place.” His voice cracks a little, and the connection between us yanks me forward.
Go to him, it tells me.
Gabe, for all his possessiveness, loosens his hold but not before pressing a kiss against the curve of my neck once more. I get out of his lap and kneel in front of Mihr.
“How am I alive, Mihr?”
Mihr takes my hands in his, squeezing them tightly.
“Gabe. He wouldn’t let it go. He knew something more was happening. I had hold of you in my arms,” he says, running his thumb over the back of my hand. “He touched you again, and this light erupted. I understood then what was happening, what needed to be done to save you. To complete the change, Ether needed to touch you too. And well, here you are. Safe.”
“Safe,” I repeat.
“Yes, it is as it should be. The Harmonious bond has settled between us all now, mind, body and soul. You are ours, Fern.” He glances at Gabe, then at Ether, finally resting his eyes on me. There is so much light behind them.
“As you are mine,” I whisper, acknowledging the connection.
Confirming it, I pull my hands from his grasp and slide them up his chest, to his shoulders. I lean in and press a soft kiss against his mouth. Mihr’s arms circle around my back, glide up my spine and across my shoulders before tangling in my hair. The warmth of his kiss is like the sun across bare skin. It’s both relaxing, soothing, and incredibly life-affirming. Our mouths mould against each other. His kiss is different to Gabe’s all-encompassing one, but no less passionate for it. My connection with Mihr is born from trust, safety and belonging.
When we do eventually part, there is no need for candlelight because Mihr’s smile drives all the darkness out. I can’t help but grin, his joy is infectious.
I feel something settle in my chest, an almost tangible connection with him, with them all, but it isn’t fully s
ealed quite yet. Not in the way it must be for me, and, I suspect, for all of them. I turn to face Ether. His connection is less settled. It’s there, I feel it, but there isn’t as much strength in it. I want that to change. I need it to if I am to accept my future.
“Ether…” I start, suddenly shy.
Instead of leaning towards me, he leans away. It makes me question myself. Then I glance at the way his palms are fisted, the set of his jaw and the look in his eye. He is holding himself back, but why? What is he waiting for?
Ether stands abruptly, and gazes down at me. For a long while he remains where he is, him looking down, me staring up. On my knees in front of him I don’t feel inferior. If anything, I feel as though he is looking to me for strength. He wants something.
Then it hits me, and I remember what I saw when I first woke up. The vulnerability he holds locked behind a façade of strength. He needs support, he needs an equal. Ether needs someone who will stand by him no matter what, who will call him out when he makes a wrong decision and back him when he makes the right one. Someone who can protect him in return.
I stand, understanding now.
The sudden urge to unfold my body, to stretch, is powerful. My spine lengthens, my hips centre as I part my legs to stand firm. I lift my gaze and lock eyes with his. I realise the room has gone deathly quiet, an air of apprehension floats around us. I know Gabe and Mihr are watching us closely. I feel the heat of their gaze burn into my back.