Half-Blood Academy 5: Magic Flame: a Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance
Page 22
I leapt around the counter with the glass of milk still in my hand and stepped in front of my siblings, blocking them from the fiend’s view.
“Don’t run until I say so,” I told them. “If you run, it’ll chase you. Let me deal with it.”
They didn’t protest, which was a first. So I laid out the rest of my instructions as calmly as I could manage.
“When I engage it or it charges me,” I said, “you’ll run upstairs like hellfire on your tailbone. Lock the door and call 911.” I coughed and cleared my throat as I felt the effect of smoke in my airway. I couldn’t tell if it was from the stench of the monster or my own fear.
“You can’t…fight it, Evie,” Emmett said in a shaking, dismayed voice. “No one…can fight … something like that.”
“It’ll bite you in half,” Safiya sobbed. “And then it’ll come after us before it finishes eating you.”
“That graphic is very encouraging yet unnecessary,” I hissed.
“We’re dead,” one of the twins whispered. “The monster came out of our video games.”
“I think I peed,” the other twin whispered back. There was more terror than embarrassment in his voice.
“Dark. Princess. Kill.” The fiend uttered three broken words, its fangs dripping a string of saliva.
Fuck, it talked! I didn’t recognize its speech as any human language, yet I understood the words perfectly.
Then it raised its claws and lunged.
My siblings screamed. I instinctively chucked the glass of milk at the monster’s snout. The glass slammed into its nose hard enough to stun the beast, and the liquid splashed into its eyes and nostrils.
“Run!” I screamed as the glass crashed into pieces on the floor. The kids bolted toward the stairs.
My every instinct screamed to follow them before the monster finished wiping the milk from its eyes, but running would only doom my siblings. Trembling with fury and fear, I snatched a fork and a butter knife and jumped onto the table, planning to flip and land on the fiend’s back so I could stab it in the eyes.
I prayed I wouldn’t miss.
The beast snapped its eyes open and snarled viciously. An answering roar tore out of my throat, fueled by fear and protective fury, a sound so savage I could scarcely believe it was my voice.
A wave of unexpected energy rolled across my belly, and a surge of shadow fire blasted out of me, crashing into the monster. The nightmare sailed across the kitchen and smashed out of the window, howling in pain and surprise.
The glass shattered and shards fell all over the counter, followed by chilling yowls and a loud thud outside.
I shook, staring at the broken window. I’d somehow shot out a dark fire, and it had flung the monster out of the house.
What kind of freak was I?
Panting, I looked around wildly to search for more threats.
“You’re the Night and Dawn Star, Evie,” Fawn said with pride. “You defended us.”
I gazed down, my pulse still pounding in my ears, as my sister hugged my leg from behind.
My other siblings had fled, locking the door behind them and not making a sound.
“Go up the stairs, angel,” I warned as I extracted myself from her. “And don’t come out under any circumstance!”
She did as I ordered, and when she disappeared upstairs I padded across the kitchen to the mudroom by the back door. A classic umbrella with a wooden shaft and a metal point leaned against the corner. I grabbed it, then saw a bottle of bathroom refresher on the bench, and snatched it, too.
Cassidy must have brought out the refresher from one of the bathrooms and forgot to put it back. The eight-year-old nuisance liked to rearrange things in the house.
I yanked the backdoor open and peeked into the backyard, checking for the whereabouts of the monster.
The sky had brightened, gracing us with more pink than gray now. It promised a lovely California sunny day, yet I still shook in dread. I’d have crumpled onto the red wooden stairs outside the door if I hadn’t been running on a rush of adrenaline.
I surveyed the butterfly bushes all around the fences. The beast could be badly wounded or even dead, but I needed to make sure it was out of the bounds of my property. I wouldn’t allow it to remain a threat to my siblings.
And I spotted it. The nightmare crouched under a lemon tree. A hummingbird fled from picking honey from a blossom.
I charged down the steps, hissing, ready to throw my shadow fire at the monster again. This time I’d make sure he stayed dead, for he had uttered the word “kill” with the very intention of harming my family and me.
The thing glared at me, hatred glowing in its murderous red eyes. Then it turned to a plume of smoke and sank into the ground.
Just like that, it was gone.
I cursed and halted in the middle of the yard, staring at the space where the nightmare had been, waiting for my brain to work again as reality and unreality blurred the line. Then renewed fear washed over me, seizing my throat. How could I protect my family when no door or wall could stop the smoke monster from returning?
The uneasy feeling of being watched pulsed in me again, and the space between my shoulder blades prickled in cold air.
I snapped my attention in the direction I felt the unwelcome weight of the scrutiny. A giant man tried to blend into the shadow of an oak tree at the far end of my yard.
I narrowed my eyes in cold rage and fear. Had he sent the creature? Or did the monster turn into the man while it vanished as a puff of smoke? After that mind-bending phenomenon happened right in front of my eyes, I’d believe anything was possible.
The shadows hid the details of his face, but surprise flitted across his expression as I stared him down, as if he never expected me to bust him.
The man peeled from the shadows and strolled toward me, his cold gray eyes never leaving mine. I sucked in a breath as the morning light revealed his gorgeous features. Silver hair flowed past his massive shoulders, complementing the high cheekbones and regal nose that could have been carved from ice. He was large, yet perfectly proportioned. My gaze roved over him and dipped to his powerful legs, mesmerized by his lithe gait and hard muscles.
“Halt there!” I barked at the silver-haired dude while I flushed. I wasn’t going to let my guard down just because he was pretty, especially after the assault of the monster in my house.
Then I caught another flash of movement.
Another giant man with claret hair down to his tanned chin jogged toward me like a glorious sun god, his bright amber eyes snagging on me, predatory like a hungry tiger’s.
The tiny hairs on my arms instantly stood up on alert, yet part of me purred.
He wore a scarlet designer shirt and stretch leather pants. Very few men could pull off that kind of flamboyant style and still look classy, but this guy made the fashion statement work.
He didn’t button his shirt up, but showed off the top part of his chiseled chest, a trace of golden hair leaving less for imagination.
It wasn’t appropriate to gawk at a stranger’s torso, so I tore my gaze from ogling the newcomer’s smoking-hot body and let it stay on his obscenely beautiful face. Yet my eyes involuntarily slid to his sensual lips, as I sighed inwardly.
Perfection like these two specimens should be ruled as illegal.
The golden dude winked at me. His smile was flirty, yet his eyes appeared cruel and dismissive. He must have brushed me into the same category of those women who drooled over him and wrote their numbers on his pompous ass.
How had he even gotten past the fences around my house? I hadn’t seen him a second ago.
Annoyed with how he strode across my backyard as if he owned the property, I pointed the sharp tip of my umbrella at him. “You halt there, too, mister. I haven’t invited anyone to a tea party in my yard.”
And I wasn’t the only one who was irritated.
The silver-haired hottie, his thin trench coat billowing in the morning breeze, stalked to the scarlet-shirt d
ude, stopping a few feet from him and blocking his advance.
“Baron, what are you doing here?” the silver-haired man demanded in an icy voice.
“You shall address me as Summer King, half-brother,” Baron sneered. “Certain court courtesy and formality should always remain, King Rowan of the Winter Court.”
These two were nuts.
Before I could shoo away the crazies with my umbrella, they talked over each other, trading insults. And I shockingly registered a new detail—they were speaking in the same tongue the monster had used.
The men sounded refined, velvety, and musical. Yet every timbre in their speech carried hostility and cruelty.
Both men and the monster showed up almost in the same time frame, and spoke the same exotic tongue. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
But how could I understand their language that I’d never heard anyone else speak before?
So, instead of marching to them right away and interrogating them on their business of trespassing in my backyard, I opted to listen to their squabble while putting up a befuddled expression to indicate that I had no idea of what the fuck they were arguing about.
After a few more insults, both males glanced my way.
“Did you enthrall the pretty peasant mortal?” Baron demanded.
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Releases June 6, 2020
About the Author
Meg Xuemei X is a USA Today and Amazon Charts bestselling author of paranormal and fantasy romance. She finds it delightful to be around drop-dead gorgeous alpha males who are forever tormented by her feisty heroines, unseelie fae, dark vampires, menacing demigods, demon A-holes and fallen angels, fun shifters, and cunning witches.
She is always happy to hear from readers and welcome new friends on Facebook.
Email: megxuemei@gmail.com
Table of Contents
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
Author’s Note
About the Author