Phoenix Academy: Forged (Phoenix Academy First Years Book 3)

by Lucy Auburn

  Reeling from the workout of my first Advanced Fighting Styles class, I lean on the banister hard as I take the steps up to my bedroom. Normally I'd go straight to dinner or the library after class, but apparently a summer of relaxed living—even with Yohan's continued instruction—has made me weak. My abdominal muscles feel like a dozen overweight Labrador retrievers spent the afternoon running across them.

  To put it plainly, I need a fucking nap.

  Stumbling through my door, I pull off my blazer, yank off the button-up beneath, kick my shoes across the room, and step out of my skirt. By the time I make it to the bed I'm half naked with pleated plaid around my ankles, face down in about a dozen pillows. The pillows, thankfully, aren't phoenix branded regulation academy pillows with low thread count and flimsy foam. They're real pillows, full of feathers and down, commandeered from Petra's family's guest house in Montauk.

  I figure it's a beach house, and no one goes to the beach during winter. They won't miss them. As long as Petra doesn't spot that I've stolen them between now and the end of next semester, I might just survive the school year with seven lives still intact.

  And unholy fuck are they comfortable.

  The only thing that would make this better is my very own masseuse. One with magic, pleasure-giving fingers maybe.

  Though summoning Sebastian and trying to get him to unknot my kinky muscles has the high probability of backfiring—especially considering the other kinky things he's wanted us to try lately. I have time before dinner, but not much time. My stomach is liable to growl as loud as Petra's wolf if I try to schedule a round of sex between classes and dinner.

  Then again, they say nothing relaxed muscles like those feel-good chemicals that drunkenly skip around your brain after a good orgasm.

  I'm still waffling between food and sex–the two most, nay, only important things in life—when sleep drags me down into its clutches. Considering the number of fluffy feather-stuffed pillows I've face-planted into, it's not much of a surprise. My stomach will wake me up when it's time for dinner.

  Instead of slipping into easy, dreamless sleep, though, I find myself somewhere else. Not just dreaming, but very aware of the fact that I'm dreaming. It's disorienting to say the least.

  I'm standing in a soft, endless white. Like clouds. Or the downy insides of those stolen pillows. A fluffy kitten's fur.

  You know, comforting shit. So why do I feel so uncomfortable and creeped out?

  I don't realize why until I turn around.

  "Mom."

  It's like that time I died—well, the most recent time I died—and briefly crossed over into... somewhere. I've asked the guys a dozen times since then, but even they aren't really sure where I was, except that it wasn't Purgatory or that nowhere place.

  I know that it's her, without even really knowing how I know it's her. That pointed chin, the pale blonde hair. She's just like I remember her, except vital and alive—and smiling at me.

  "Dani."

  I jolt at the sound of her voice; the last time I was here, she didn't speak. She was more like a wax figurine.

  Her voice is deeper than I remember. Fuller, too.

  There are so many things I need to say to her.

  I don't know how to, though.

  She speaks again before I can. "Dani, my precious girl, I need you to wake up."

  "What?" My brows knit together. I'm vaguely aware, briefly, of the pillows beneath my head. But the boundless white yanks me back to it. "I don't know what's going on, but just leave me alone. I'd rather have that dream about Yohan's head on a baby's body again than this shit."

  This isn't really my mom, and she can't really give me any answers. So I decide to ignore her until I get hungry enough that my stomach wakes me up. It'll happen any minute now.

  But when I turn my back on her, she's still in front of me.

  I whirl around—she's there. Left. Right. Everywhere. The boundless white is spinning her around in front of me no matter where I look. That, or there are a billion of her, and I can only ever see one at once.

  Yeah, this is getting freaky.

  Maybe if I think about warm mashed potatoes for long enough, my stomach will grumble and get me out of here.

  "You need to pay attention." Mom-not-Mom approaches me, frustration on her delicate face. "Look at me, Dani. I need you to wake up."

  Something about the urgent loudness of her voice jolts me out of the endless white space and back to my bed. Jerking my face back, I stare at the fluffy pillows, wondering why my danger senses are screaming at me.

  Maybe Petra is standing at the foot of the bed, scowling at me threateningly because I stole her dumb pillows.

  If I die by her four furry paws, it'll all be worth it for the pillows. As long as they don't give me another dream like that one.

  "Good, you're awake. It worked."

  I jerk upright, staring at the corner of my room, heart racing.

  She's here.

  Mom-not-Mom is standing at the foot of my bed, staring at me, like she's not a dead person.

  I summon the demons. Nothing happens. I blink and shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut; when I open them she's still here.

  "Fuck."

  I'm about to go get the headmaster when she holds her hand out, palm towards me, and I freeze.

  The light goes through her. Not completely, but enough to send creepy crawlies up my back. And, the more I study her, the more I realize something.

  In the white place of my dreams, where I went when I last died, she was healthy and whole. The dress she wore was an off-white gossamer that floated around her, blending with the fluffy white. Her arms were unblemished.

  Here, in the real world, she's not just a little bit see-through. She's wearing the clothes she wore the day she died: homemade cutoff denim shorts, a tank top with embroidered roses on the front, cheap bangle bracelets that do nothing to distract from the track marks on her arms. There are hollows beneath her eyes, and the blonde hair that brushes her shoulder is stringy and scraggly, screaming for someone to wash and deep condition it.

  "Mom." I blink, and find two dumb, fat, weak tears rolling down my cheeks. Traitorous tear glands. "It really is you."

  She smiles.

  I wait for her to open her mouth and give me a message from the Great Beyond. Something like: I'm at peace, or I love you and I'm so sorry. Hell, I wouldn't be mad at a little here are tomorrow's winning lottery numbers.

  But no, dear old dead ghost Mom isn't here to give me that kind of message. That becomes abundantly clear when she opens her jaw so wide that her face is nearly cleaved in half and vomits hundreds of black beetles onto the floor.

  They go racing down her chest and legs to scuttle around on the carpet and crawl their way up to my bedspread. Scowling, I jump off the bed and yank the comforter off, beating it at the things.

  I spare a little of my glare for Ghost Mommy. "You know, I was fucking homeless for two years. It'll take more than a few insects to scare me, whatever the fuck you are."

  She closes her mouth. Blinks at me with big, glossy eyes.

  Then lunges for me, takes my wrist in her hand, and clamps down on it so hard I see stars.

  "Bitch!" Screeching, I try to jerk my hand away. "Fucking let me go!"

  She cocks her head at an unnatural angle, very inhuman now. I scramble for the bond with the demons, but again—nothing. It's like someone or something wiped them out of existence.

  For a moment of panic, I wonder if Meyer has escaped and taken them from me again.

  "There's something I need to show you, darling." It's not fair that her voice still sounds like a mother's comforting tones, even after the whole beetle thing. "I don't have much time. Being in this world isn't good for me, as you can see."

  As she says this, she stomps on one of the beetles. It—and all the rest of them—vanish into nothingness at the crunch of her foot on its carapace.

  "Whatever you want, lady, I'm not buying it."

  She blinks.
Sighs. Loosens her grip on my wrist a little—but not so much that I can escape her. "I know this is confusing, Daniella. But I need you to trust me."

  I stiffen. Freeze. Whisper, "What did you call me?"

  Her smile is a painful thing. "It's the name I meant to put on your birth certificate. The one your father didn't like. He called it 'hippy shit.' But it was what I always called you. I guess you don't remember."

  Even the littlest of little girls doesn't forget what her mother called her before she died.

  I've always hated the name Danielle. It wasn't the name my mother gave me; it was the name the man who abandoned us both gave me. She never used it on me, not once. If she called me by something other than Dani, it was always Daniella.

  And no one knows that but me, and her.

  "Whatever this is, if it's a trick, I don't like it."

  "Just come." She yanks on my wrist, takes a step back—and I follow, because like always, I'm the one who does the dumb things first and regrets them later. "It'll only take a few moments."

  A step or two. That's all it takes. We were in my room at the academy, and now we're somewhere else.

  Somewhere very, very dark and very, very bad.

  We're surrounded by black, dying trees that hang down towards the earth—only instead of dirt beneath our feet, it's nothing but ashes. I take a step forward and cringe as I feel something crunch beneath my feet; it's a fragment of jawbone, complete with a few intact teeth.

  "You know," I comment, "it would have been nice, creepy poltergeist ghost mom, if you'd brought me here with my clothes still on."

  Her grip on my wrist tightens so hard that I feel bones rub against each other–then abruptly loosens. Grimacing, she rubs her hand on her tank top. "Sorry about that. Like I said, I'm feeling a little unwell, being here. This way."

  I follow her, because why the fuck not, after all. She takes me deep into the woods, past blackened trees that have been cleaved in half and piles of desiccated bones.

  All the way to a clearing in the trees full of neat rows of graves.

  "Cool." I back away. "No thanks though."

  "Come." She takes my wrist again, her mouth a thin line. "I have only a few more moments with you. You need to see this, Daniella. They need you—you're the only one who can help them."

  I'm getting real tired of cryptic shit from my birth parents. "Look, if you need to tell me something, just spell it out in clear words. Like if I've got an evil half sister or you're actually an evil near-immortal being, I'd like to know now."

  "You're still mouthy." She sighs, shakes her head. "I thought you'd grow out of that. Here." I let her pull me towards one of the graves, because maybe this will be over with soon. "Stand here. Feel the earth through your toes. Let one of them speak to you. Maybe then you'll understand why they need you, why the world needs you—and why I had to let you go."

  I frown at her and open my mouth to ask for a little clarification on the bullshit she's spouting, unsure if I'm going insane for actually believing the beetle-puking ghost-thing is actually my mom.

  Before I can get anything out, though, a hand bursts out of the ashes of the grave, closes around my ankle, and yanks me down.

  Far down.

  All the way to Hell itself.

  Preorder Phoenix Academy: Reborn now!

  Want to get snippets and excerpts from Dani’s classes, winter break, summer school, and more? Join my Facebook group!

  Love the Phoenix Academy series? Want to see it keep going, with new students and main characters? Read, review, and recommend the books in this series so I know you want more.

  Read Next: Fae Like Me

  If you like new adult romance, especially urban fantasy and paranormal romance with a kick, check out my Selena Pierce series!

  I just learned I’m a part fae succubus. And I need to find the men to sate my sexual appetite...

  Here I thought I was a normal college girl with a high libido. Turns out that’s wrong—I’m so much more. I have powers, and if I don’t learn how to control them, I’ll wind up killing someone.

  Baton Rouge has never been so hot as it is when I meet Leon and Naomi. And Tae Min, Petyr, Elah, Vincent: all fae. Here to guide me into my new life.

  A life that includes hunting down the demon summoner who framed my best friend for murder. Catching bad guys, meeting dark fae, making a harem—my new life is different.

  Worst of all, now I know my parents lied to me. I was never theirs. And my real parents?

  Well, they’ve got a hell of a surprise in store for me.

  Life isn’t easy for a fae like me.

  Read Fae Like Me now!

  Read Next: Three for a Witch

  Looking for a standalone reverse harem romance? Look no more! Three for a Witch has heartache, action & adventure, and of course some steam.

  After catching my boyfriend screwing my best friend, I have only one place to go: home to my witchy aunts, their magic and our coven.

  I was supposed to cry my broken heart away. Instead I did a spell to draw three men to me: Orlando, Roman, and Jack.

  They were my best friends when we were kids. Then something more when we were all fourteen. And I still long for them.

  But things have changed since we were kids. There are cracks and missing pieces. And somewhere out there in the woods, a darkness lurks… a darkness coming for us all.

  I just hope we can reunite in time to face it, or we might not live to see tomorrow.

  Three for a Witch is a complete, standalone novel with no cliffhangers in sight.

  Read Three for a Witch now!

  Also by Lucy Auburn

  Phoenix Academy

  Phoenix Academy: Awaken

  Phoenix Academy: Unbound

  Phoenix Academy: Forged

  Phoenix Academy: Reborn

  Coleridge Academy Elites

  The Snake in the Grass

  The Pawn

  The Knight

  The King

  The Queen

  Selena Pierce

  Fae Like Me

  Hell Sucks

  Godspring

  Seven Trials

  The Black God

  Wild Heart Chronicles

  Primal

  Feral

  Savage

  or… get all of the above as the

  Wild Heart Bundle (free!)

  Standalones

  Three for a Witch

  Want three free books? All you have to do is sign up for my mailing list.

  I’ll email you a free book bundle as well as new release alerts, book sales, and the occasional fun newsletter.

  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/2mmiulv36m

  Want to get snippets and excerpts from my books, discuss spoilers, and win giveaways? Join my Facebook group!

  About the Author

  Lucy Auburn is an urban fantasy/paranormal romance writer who lives in the Southwest. She loves writing interesting stories about strong women. Some of the writers who inspire her include Patricia Briggs and Sarah J. Maas.

  She values her privacy and does her best to keep her online life and her real life separate.

  Catch up with her…

  www.LucyAuburn.com

  LucyAuburnBooks@gmail.com

  To get updates from Lucy Auburn, subscribe to her mailing list!