Midnight Fae Academy: Book Two: A Why Choose Paranormal Vampire Romance

by Lexi C. Foss

  “A what?” Ella gaped at it. “It looks like a possum mated with a… a…” She squinted at the sharp-looking beak. “A woodpecker?”

  Zeph considered and nodded slowly. “I can see the resemblance, yeah. They’re a bit of a nuisance, yet incredibly powerful. And they’re known to absorb enchantments from whatever rock or stone they choose to destroy by pecking, hence the name stonepecker.”

  He set the dead little guy on the coffee table, then glanced at Clove. She’d perched on the back of the recliner chair and was busy preening her feathers.

  “Seems someone’s been playing in the LethaForest,” he mused.

  “The LethaForest?” I repeated.

  He nodded. “Stonepeckers are nearly extinct as a result of them being a nuisance to Midnight Fae housing structures. Their ability to absorb enchantments also enables them to be used for nefarious purposes, such as circumventing wards or runes.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, not understanding.

  Zeph brought his ankle up to rest on his opposite knee and stared thoughtfully at the animal, his brow furrowing. “Many important Midnight Fae establishments are protected by wards. You’ve seen the Academy walls; they’re riddled with protection charms.”

  “The snake vines,” I said, nodding.

  “And many others,” he replied, his expression darkening. “They’re controlled by a variety of spelled runes to ward off any evil intentions. But if a stonepecker were to peck at some of the surrounding walls, it could absorb the magic, which could then be used by a Midnight Fae to create a counterspell.”

  “A counterspell,” I repeated. “Like to dismantle the protection spells?”

  He nodded, his focus still on the stonepecker. “Yes. It would essentially create a safe portal for the fae to enter and exit through. It may also allow the fae to craft a shield of sorts to deflect any and all counterattacks that may be incurred after harming someone or something inside of the protected structure.”

  “Such as blowing up a building and writing Alqisian in flames above the destruction,” I suggested, following his train of thought.

  “Yeah. Just like that.” He looked at Clove, then at me. “Your familiar just brought us evidence.”

  “That can’t be good,” Ella interjected. “I mean, especially after Aflora sang about…” She trailed off, her hands twisting in her lap.

  “I didn’t do this,” I promised.

  “Oh, I know you didn’t,” she replied without missing a beat. “I’m just…” She cleared her throat and looked past me at Zeph. “Is someone setting her up?”

  My eyes widened as I glanced back at Zeph.

  His expression turned grim. “That’s certainly what it seems like. Why else—”

  “We have a problem,” Shade announced as he materialized across the room. He started toward us, then paused at the sight on the table. “Why the fuck is there a dead stonepecker in the living room?” Then his gaze widened. “Oh, shit. You need to dispose of that. Right fucking now. Before the Warrior Bloods arrive.”

  “She didn’t do it!” Ella blurted out, jumping up to her feet in a defensive stance. “She was with us the whole damn time. I will go in front of those Council idiots myself if I have to. And fuck their male chauvinist bullshit; I will bang down their damn doors and scream at the top of my lungs.”

  Shade blinked at her, then glanced at me and Zeph. “What is she going on about?”

  “Clove brought the stonepecker to Aflora,” Zeph explained, gesturing at the blood residue on my uniform. “We believe someone is trying to set her up for this.”

  Shade huffed a laugh. “Close, but no. The attack has Elite magic all over it, and my father is blaming Kols.”

  My jaw dropped. “What?”

  “There’s no time to explain. The Warrior Bloods are on their way to conduct a thorough search of the premises, and that cannot be here.” He pointed at the stonepecker.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Zeph scoffed. “Kols was in my class during the explosion. There’s no way he did this.”

  “While I agree, the scene reeks of source power. And Kols—”

  “Is the one closest to the source,” Zeph finished for him, cursing under his breath.

  Shade dipped his chin once in confirmation, his icy gaze holding a touch of unease. “He looks good for the setup, Zeph. Which means someone is trying to take down the future king.”

  “Where’s Tray?” Zeph asked.

  “With Kols. He’s the second potential suspect for obvious reasons.” Shade ran his fingers through his dark hair and blew out a breath. “I need to get back before they notice I’m gone. I came to warn you that the Warrior Bloods are on their way to conduct a search, authorized by the king himself. So I suggest you hide anything incriminating.” His expression flashed with meaning.

  Then he vanished into a puff of smoke.

  Zeph immediately pulled out his wand and uttered a spell that incinerated the evidence on the table. Then he uttered another one after it that caused the surface to shimmer. He spoke so quickly and efficiently that I couldn’t even decipher his words. When he focused on me next, I opened my mouth to stop him, but the magic was already working its way over my outfit and destroying all evidence of the creature from my lap.

  I gaped at my pristine uniform.

  “Well, that’s one way to do laundry,” Ella muttered, then shook her head. “Okay, there’s something I don’t understand.”

  “Only one thing?” I asked, completely taken aback by the last few minutes of conversation and the revelations Shade had dropped on us.

  “Well, many things. But what I really want to know is, why did Shade just come here to warn us? He hates Kols. I’d expect him to be gloating and celebrating the accusation, not”—she waved her hand around the space he’d just vacated—“you know.”

  Zeph cleared his throat. “Well—”

  A commotion at the door interrupted his ability to reply as three Warrior Bloods entered the suite with an irritated Sir Kristoff right behind them. “Fucking royals overriding royals,” the stone creature muttered. He waved at them and looked at Zeph. “I’m taking the night off.” His stone wings bristled and crunched, then he disappeared into a cloud of white chalk.

  “They can do that?” I asked, shocked.

  “Unfortunately,” Zeph muttered, standing up. At some point, he’d put his wand away, but I sensed his magic lingering in the air. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, his attention on the three male fae in the foyer.

  “We’re here on order of the king to search Prince Kolstov’s suite for anything related to the attack today,” the one with white-blond hair to his shoulders replied, his tone devoid of emotion.

  “You can’t be fucking serious.” Zeph folded his arms. “What the hell could Kols have to do with any of this?”

  “That’s Council business,” another of them replied, his chin notching upward in clear dismissal. “You’re no longer privy to that information, Headmaster.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Danqris. I’m Guardian-bonded to Kolstov, which makes me your superior by default. A temporary demotion will never change that.”

  Danqris’s lips pulled back into a snarl. “It will if I find anything that incriminates his ass.”

  Zeph scoffed at that. “Yeah, be my guest, asshole. But when you don’t find anything, and Kols returns to see that you’ve destroyed all his shit, I’ll be sure to tell him who to thank.”

  The Warrior Blood seemed to take that as more of a challenge than a threat and proceeded to rip apart the suite. When he reached my room, he demanded I unlock it.

  And then began to destroy everything inside.

  Including my new plant.

  Zeph vibrated with anger by the end, but it was nothing compared to Ella. She actually slapped two of the Warrior Bloods after they rummaged through her personal items. Then she kicked the one called Danqris when he went for her underwear drawer.

  I watched in amazement as they actually backed off, t
he blond one even looking a tad contrite as he sidestepped her to exit the bedroom.

  After what felt like hours of unnecessary damage, the three Warrior Bloods left without a shred of evidence.

  Clove hadn’t moved from the recliner, having chosen to nap there while they rummaged through the suite. But I sensed her alertness, as if waiting for me to call her to my aid should I need it.

  I wondered why she brought me the stonepecker, if it was something she found outside the walls or if she was trying to tell me something.

  My suspicions told me it was the latter, but I couldn’t figure out what she wanted me to know aside from the obvious—the perpetrator had used a stonepecker to breach the Academy walls.

  “I’m going to fucking kill those assholes,” Ella seethed as soon as they left, her eyes flashing with blue fire as she took in the mess they left behind.

  “Kols will take care of them,” Zeph promised. “But in the interim, we should probably clean this shit up.”

  Ella muttered a few more choice words before pulling out her wand. “I’ll be in my bedroom.”

  Zeph nodded, his gaze catching mine. “Come on. I’ll help with your room.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I can, uh, well, I can pick up everything,” I finished lamely, my lips twisting to the side.

  I totally had this. I would just put everything away by hand. How hard could it be?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Zeph

  “I totally do not have this,” I heard Aflora mutter to herself on the threshold of her room.

  My lips twitched as I took out my wand and created a pair of figments. “Put everything back where it was two hours ago.” They would be able to sense the history of objects to know where each item went.

  The two invisible entities started immediately, causing items to essentially float across the room as they followed my edict.

  “When you’re done in here, work on the kitchen, then the study area and the other guest room.”

  They didn’t reply, but I felt their agreement through my magical bond to them.

  I left them to it and followed Aflora’s scent down the hallway to her room, where I found her standing in the center of a disaster zone with her hands on her hips. “You sure you don’t want my help?” I asked her softly.

  She studied the shattered pot in the corner, her brow furrowing. “Why did they destroy the fairy plant? I mean, what could it possibly have been hiding?”

  “They were being assholes,” I told her from the entrance of her room, my hands in my pockets. “Want me to teach you a spell that can fix it?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at me. “We can fix it?”

  I smiled. “Magic can fix almost anything, Aflora.” I pushed off the door frame and walked toward her. “Here, take out your wand and face the plant.”

  Surprisingly, she did exactly what I requested, her focus intense as she surveyed the corner. “Okay. Now what?”

  I lightly pressed my chest to her back, then drew my fingers down her arm to the hand holding her wand. “Lift it up to about here,” I explained, guiding her wrist upward. “You want to aim at the plant and draw a U just like this.” I demonstrated while I spoke by moving her hand subtly into the shape I described before leading her back to the beginning point and releasing her. “Now repeat that action while saying, ‘Illa’shala.’  ”

  She cleared her throat, then followed my instructions to the letter. Excitement hummed through her as the object adhered to her command to repair itself.

  “Try it again on your closet door,” I suggested.

  “But the plant isn’t done.”

  “Don’t worry. The spell will continue until it’s finished or until you tell it to stop. Trust me.”

  She shot me a look over her shoulder, one that said she didn’t trust me in the slightest, then grimaced upon realizing what she’d just done.

  I didn’t comment, allowing the moment to pass, and waited for her to try the spell again.

  After a few seconds, she conceded, her shoulders tense as if expecting the enchantment to backfire. When it didn’t, she visibly relaxed.

  “Now say, ‘Badan clothes,’ and do a zigzag motion over the closet,” I murmured.

  “Zigzag, like this?” She drew her wand through the air in a Z pattern.

  “Yes, but don’t exaggerate your wrist that much.” I reached for her again, this time placing a hand on her hip while my opposite reached for her hand. She didn’t tense, so I took it as an invitation to press my chest to her back again, then brought my lips to her ear. “Like this.” I guided her through a much smaller Z, then drew my fingers up her arm to rest on her shoulder. “Try it.”

  She did and grinned as her wardrobe pieced itself back together. I was about to tell her to repeat the command for her shoes when she beat me to it, her boots and other articles lining themselves up in the same place they’d been before Danqris had sent a tornado through her things.

  Aflora focused on her dresser next, using the same command, then looked at her books. “Do I restack those manually?”

  “You could, or try the same spell and see what happens.” I still had my hands on her with my chest pressed to her back, so I felt her hesitation once more. But rather than look at me questioningly, she chose to utter the incantation.

  All her school supplies returned to her nightstand and to her spot in the corner where she seemed to keep her books.

  “You need a desk,” I realized, frowning at the space.

  “There’s not enough room for it,” she replied.

  She was right. “Okay.” I considered for a moment. “I want you to draw a square in the air and say, ‘Kala’key bookcase.’ And when you do it, picture the kind of bookshelf you’d like in the corner.”

  “I thought Tareero was the spell for wanting something?”

  “Only food. Kala’key is how you create something, but you have to be very specific in your mind and make sure to push that knowledge to your wand. Otherwise, nothing will happen. Or you’ll get something you don’t want. Depends on how it’s done.”

  “That’s… promising.”

  “Do as I said and you’ll be fine.” And if she didn’t, I’d help her fix it.

  “Right.” She took a steadying breath, then muttered something about tulips under her breath.

  My lips twitched in amusement. “Not flowers, a bookshelf.”

  “I’m concentrating,” she chastised.

  I released her shoulder to grab her hips with both hands. “Okay. I’ll be right here.”

  She didn’t seem to hear me, or perhaps didn’t care, because she continued to stare at the corner like she could will the bookcase to appear without a spell. Which would be a neat trick and entirely possible for an older Midnight Fae, but she wasn’t quite there yet.

  After a few moments, she nodded, lifted her wand, and spoke the enchantment out loud while drawing her box. Then she added, “Badan books.”

  A floor-to-ceiling shelving unit appeared, the wooden poles on the sides decorated with vines of gorgeous blue blossoms that reminded me of her eyes. And on the shelves sat all her books, including the ones from her nightstand.

  “Beautiful,” I praised.

  She gave a little clap and spun around to face me. “I did it.”

  “You did,” I replied, smiling at her. Then I gestured with my chin to the ceramic pot in the opposite corner. “Looks like your plant is appreciative as well.”

  Aflora twisted toward it, her eyes widening. “Oh! How pretty!”

  Hmm, I’d have to mention to Kols later that she’d finally figured out how to access her earth magic through the collar, which implied our earlier enchantment that diminished her power had finally worn off. We’d discuss it right after I told him how Clove delivered a stonepecker moments before the Warrior Bloods arrived.

  My jaw ticked as I considered the situation. “When you’re done in here, we need to talk about your familiar.” I realized the mistake of my comment the m
inute I said it because Aflora froze, her excitement over the plant dying in an instant.

  Fuck.

  We still hadn’t discussed that day in class when Raph killed Clove. I’d been in a mood, and it seemed right at the time to teach her a lesson about familiars and etiquette.

  And yeah, that hadn’t gone as planned.

  She practically hated me after that.

  “I mean in regard to the present she brought you,” I amended quickly. “I want to make sure she’s not enchanted or under the influence of another fae.”

  Aflora frowned at me. “You think someone cast a spell on her?”

  “Why else would she bring you the stonepecker?” I countered.

  My little mate didn’t speak for a moment, her expression going from confused to wary. “What do you have to do to her to determine if she’s been enchanted?”

  I sighed. “I’m not going to hurt her, Aflora.”

  Her eyes told me she didn’t believe me. “Okay.”

  Right. I’d have to prove it to her, then. “Are you done in here, or do you have other things to straighten up?”

  “It’s mostly good, I guess,” she replied, noting the rumpled bedding, skewed rugs, and ripped blinds.

  I called forth a third figment and told her to tidy up the mess.

  Aflora’s eyebrows lifted. “Why didn’t you just show me how to do that?”

  “Because the other spells provided a teaching moment.”

  “Since when do you like to teach?” she asked, her gaze holding a touch of humor that lightened the atmosphere a little between us.

  “Never,” I admitted. “But I don’t mind teaching you.” It was the truth, but I didn’t expect her to accept it. Rather than wait around for another of those distrusting looks, I said, “Come on. Let’s go have a chat with Clove.”

  “A chat,” she repeated with notable sarcasm. “Sure.”

  “I’ve been an ass and you don’t trust me. That’s fine.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and hugged her to me, my lips going to her ear. “But keep it up and I’ll torment you for the rest of the evening and day with my tongue.”