by Lexi C. Foss
“Violence cannot be countered by more violence,” Zen replied softly. “If you continue down this path, so many more innocents will be wrapped up in a war of blood and retribution. How is that a rightful solution?”
“They deserve to bleed for what they’ve done to our families,” one of the Midnight Fae hissed.
Another grunted in agreement. “The Nachts were never meant to rule. They’ve destroyed our source and polluted it with their false superiority.”
“Blood for blood,” a female said softly.
“Hear, hear!” the male beside her cheered.
Zen shook her head. “I understand you’re angry—we all are—but to kill the lineages entirely will dwarf Midnight Fae kind.”
“It’s what they did to us,” someone pointed out, his voice gruff and lost in the darkness. “It’s what they bloody deserve.”
“We’ve chosen our side, Zen,” Dakota murmured. “Perhaps it’s time you join us once more. I’m certain Zakkai would welcome you home.”
“It’s not the path I choose,” Zen replied sadly.
Aflora? Shade’s voice trickled through my thoughts.
I’m here.
Yes, I feel you, he replied. I’m about to penetrate the paradigm, and I need you to grab onto me as quickly as possible. There’s a fleet of Warrior Bloods waiting out here to attack.
What about your grandparents? I asked, suddenly worried for their safety. Odd, considering we hadn’t really met, but I felt a kinship to Zen, sort of like I’d met her in another life.
They’ll be fine, he whispered. She’s already seen what’s coming.
My lips parted in understanding. Because she’s a Fortune Fae.
Yes, he replied. Ready?
What about Emelyn?
Ajax will take care of her, he promised.
Ajax? I repeated.
He’s with me. And trust me, he’ll make sure she’s safe.
But he hates her. And while I didn’t have a lot of like for the woman, I didn’t wish her ill will. Especially after her show of solidarity here, even if it was for her own survival.
Ah, sweet little rose. Hate and love are so closely connected. Surely you understand that by now?
You mean—
I’ll explain later, he inserted, an urgency entering his voice. I need to come in there now. Are you ready?
I glanced at a pale-faced Emelyn, then took in the growing tensions outside our shield. The Quandary Bloods had begun arguing, with Zen and Dakota on opposite sides squaring off, their postures a strange mixture of defensive and broken at the same time. There seemed to be pain, coupled with a sense of rightness.
Because they couldn’t agree on a path forward.
Retribution on one half, reformation on the other.
A Midnight Fae faction driven apart by the greed and violence of the rest of their kind.
The question became, what side did I fall on? The Elder Midnight Fae had killed my parents. “Will the Elders pay for what they’ve done?” I asked, cutting off whatever some had been saying. “With reformation, will they pay?” I restated, wanting my direct query answered. “They killed my parents.”
“Yes,” Dakota replied. “They did.”
“Will they be punished? My parents were Royal Earth Fae. That assault can’t go unanswered.”
Zen sighed. “My child, there is so much you don’t understand regarding the circumstances and the consequences of our actions. It’s not as simple as one might predict.”
“That’s a riddle that doesn’t answer my question,” I replied, ignoring Shade’s roaring commentary in my head. He’d asked if I was ready, and the answer was no, not without additional information. “Will the Elders pay for what they’ve done?”
“We will ensure they pay,” Dakota said, her expression gleaming with approval. “And you will lead us as queen.”
I had no idea what she meant by that. “I don’t want to be your queen. I just want the Elders held accountable for their sins.”
“What punishment would you give them?” Zen asked me. “How would you see them properly reprimanded for their actions?”
“How would you?” I countered. “By restoring the balance, yet allowing them to live? They didn’t afford my parents the same consideration, so why should I give it to them?”
“Because it’s our responsibility as the architects of the source to ensure the survival of Midnight Fae kind, not act as jury and executioner,” the silver-haired male beside her said, his voice deep and kissed by darkness. “As the last remaining Earth Fae Royal, I would expect you to understand that sense of duty.”
“Am I an Earth Fae Royal?” I asked, arching a brow. “Or were my parents Quandary Bloods in hiding?”
Zen’s eyebrows lifted in surprise while her counterparts stared at me in confusion, making me wonder if I had deduced that incorrectly. But before I could ask, the ground began to shake, causing the Quandary Bloods to curse and weave their magic through the air in hypnotic shades of cerulean blue.
Shade’s grandparents vanished, the world shifting around Emelyn and me in a delirious dance of excessive light, blinding me momentarily before revealing the similar surroundings of the LethaForest once more.
Burning thwomps released an explosion of smoke and fire, causing me to cringe.
And chaos descended as magic wove through the air in a colorful eruption.
Emelyn grabbed my hand, yanking me to the side. I nearly shook off her grip, not wanting to fall into another enchanted paradigm with her, but then I saw Ajax on her opposite side, guiding us out of the field as his wand produced a thick black smog that hid the three of us from view.
He took off at a clipped pace through the woods, leaving the war behind us as the Quandary Bloods fought the Warrior Bloods—or I assumed that was the case. I hadn’t actually seen who fought whom, my focus primarily on following Emelyn out of the insanity.
Ajax didn’t stop until we were under a blanket of darkness, the trees in this area of the LethaForest boasting leaves.
I squinted.
No.
Not leaves.
Bats.
So many that they completely blocked the moonlight above.
If they were bothered by our presence, they didn’t show it. Only one seemed to care, his little feet moving along the trunk of the tree as he carried himself down until he was a few inches from my face. I slid my wand back into my pocket and studied the adorable little creature with intelligent eyes. He seemed to be doing the same to me.
“Good job, Draco,” Shade said from the darkness, startling me. He stepped forward, and the bat landed on his shoulder with a little clicking chirp. Then his icy blue eyes met mine. “We need to go. Now.”
“I’ve got Emelyn,” Ajax said. “Go.”
I glanced at the pair, who were locked in a hug that spoke volumes about their relationship. It left me wondering what their history entailed, because clearly one existed here.
Shade grabbed my wrist, a thick cloud enveloping us before I could ask for details or even voice my approval, and a moment later, our meadow appeared. My shoulders immediately relaxed, the flowers and sunshine calling to my element. I wrapped my arms around him, breathed in his familiar peppermint scent, and sighed.
Just for a moment, I allowed myself to calm.
To release the last however many minutes or hours of chaos.
To exist in a world that was me and Shade, surrounded by the familiarity of home.
Only, I sensed another presence, one that had my brow furrowing in confusion.
That was when I realized Shade’s arms weren’t around me, his body stiff against mine.
I pulled back to study his eyes, noting the coldness lurking inside. Shade?
No reply.
My lips pulled downward as I tried to access our link and found it closed, just as he’d done before when keeping me out of his mind.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“I know,” he replied, his attention on
something over my shoulder.
No, not something. Someone.
Because I could feel him.
The familiarity of his magic.
The hint of an ocean kiss.
The faint memory of several sleepless nights.
I turned slowly, already knowing whom I’d face—the white-haired male from my dreams. “You’re not real,” I whispered.
He stood leaning against a tree, his silver-blue eyes glinting with amusement. “We’ve had this discussion before, little star. And I suggested you reconsider that thought.”
I stepped backward into Shade, begging him with my mind to whisk us away from here, but other than place his hands possessively on my hips, he did nothing.
“Why are you here?” I asked, terrified of the answer, praying he said anything other than what I feared.
“Because this was where Shadow and I promised to meet for the exchange,” he replied, killing all my hopes.
How could you? I asked Shade. But our link remained closed, the willow stump doing the one thing he told me not to do only minutes earlier—he shut me out.
Zeph! I called, quickly opening another channel.
Silence.
But not in the same way as Shade’s.
Zeph felt… unconscious.
“What did you do?” I asked, shivering uncontrollably despite the warm sun overhead. “What did you do, Shade?”
“What fate required me to do,” he replied against my ear, his lips brushing my temple. “I warned you that you would hate me. Now you know why.”
“Because you’re working with him?” But I didn’t even really know what that meant. This male had attacked the Academy, seduced me in my dreams, tried to trap me in the village, and now stared at me with almost illicit intent. “Who are you?” I asked him. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m Zakkai,” he replied. “As to why I’m doing this, well…” He smiled, pushing off the tree to saunter toward me.
Shade held me in place when I tried to step to the side.
Energy kissed my fingertips as my powers ignited in automatic defense, only a wave of Zakkai’s hand calmed my power. I pulled out my wand to try again, and he smiled fondly at the item.
“Ah, I’ve been looking for that,” he murmured, plucking it easily from my palm and twirling it between his fingers. “I should have known those figments at AcaWard would give it to you.” He chuckled and canted his head to the side, his silver-blue eyes holding mine as he slid the wand under his cloak. “Thank you for keeping my wand warm for me.”
“Your wand?” I repeated, my mouth dry.
His lips curled again, causing little dimples to appear at the edges. “Yes, sweet star. My wand.”
“I-I don’t understand,” I whispered. “How?”
He reached out to tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear, then stepped into my personal space, trapping me between them, with Zakkai in front of me and Shade behind me. “Close your eyes,” he whispered.
I didn’t want to obey him, but my eyelids slipped shut as if he’d drawn them down with a spell. And then I felt him in my mind, untwisting a strand of magic that led to the root of my mate bonds.
One that finally allowed me to understand and see the connection at the end.
The missing link I’d failed to comprehend all this time.
The real reason I had access to Quandary Blood abilities.
It was never my parents or my own heritage or my lineage.
It was him.
Zakkai.
My Quandary Blood mate.
“You had better be right about this,” I muttered to the white-haired male standing in the place Aflora had just stood thirty minutes ago. Before Zakkai took her. Before I betrayed her in the worst way possible.
“How many times must you live the same history to believe my method?” Tadmir asked, his black eyes flickering with a millennium of secrets. “This is the only way. Even Kyros agrees, and he rarely agrees with anything.”
“It doesn’t feel right,” I admitted, pressing my palm to my heart.
“Sacrifices rarely do,” he replied softly. “But the outcome will prove our pain worthwhile. Trust me, Shadow.”
“The last time I trusted someone, I bit an Earth Fae, fell in love with her, and watched her destroy the world in seven different ways,” I said, recalling each version of our lifetimes together.
They all linked back to that pivotal moment in Kols’s suite when Aflora threatened to break the bonds. I’d been living the same reality over and over again, several different ways, all of them ending in war no matter what I did to avoid it.
So this time I gave Zakkai what he wanted—our mate.
Which had been the plan all along.
He was the reason I’d bitten Aflora, after all. He’d warned me she would be beautiful, that I would crave her, but that she wasn’t mine to take.
Yet I did this time.
Because she bit me and I couldn’t help but claim her in return.
I’d expected him to try to kill me after I told him, but instead, he’d shrugged and said it only empowered her more. Which was why I’d guided Zeph down a similar path, providing him with the opportunity to finish the bond with Aflora.
I knew the Council would convene to tell Kols the truth on our first break day—as they’d done every time during the last seven iterations of this sequence.
But unlike before, I hadn’t voiced discontent with Aflora and Zeph going to the village. However, I hadn’t counted on Zakkai’s interference—an error that had almost destroyed everything.
Only, it led to Zeph taking Aflora to the Human Realm and finishing the bond.
That left Kols, who, unfortunately, never took the opportunity to finish the mating before his duty to the source.
Thus leaving Aflora with only two of her anchors and a sadistic third mate.
“I hope it’s enough,” I whispered to myself. “I hope we can pull her back.”
“It’s never been just about her, Shadow,” Tadmir replied. “That’s the piece you’ve failed to see—her fate is tied to Zakkai. To win this war, and to ensure the future we both desire, she needs to convince him to take the appropriate path. That’s the key.”
“And there’s no going back this time,” I added.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Not without risking your memories and hers, and then we’ll be right back where we started when I first approached you about fate.”
That seemed so long ago now.
And yet…
“Has that happened before?” I asked him, curious just how many times he’d used his Paradox Fae abilities to yank us through the circle of time. The purple sword on his hip glinted at me, as if in agreement with my thought process.
“You’ll never know,” he replied, but by the gleam in his gaze, I suspected it had happened at least once.
Which explained my inexplicable connection to Aflora.
Our souls had linked many times before, just as she’d bonded Kols and Zeph to varying degrees. I’d witnessed some, but perhaps not all.
And I’d seen what happened when she cut them off indefinitely as well.
Those were the worst iterations of fate.
The ones I never wanted to experience again.
“Aren’t you exhausted?” I asked Tadmir. “So many hundreds of years of masquerading as a Malefic Blood while traversing the realms of time and space in unending loops?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I do what I need to do to ensure that fate follows the correct path.”
His existence baffled my mind. He was half Midnight Fae Quandary Blood and half Paradox Fae—the true definition of an abomination—and he’d used his Quandary skills to rewrite his abilities to appear as a Malefic Blood after skipping into the future and witnessing the demise of his kind.
And he’d been plotting for this moment ever since.
The one where Aflora aligned with four mates to right the wrongs of the Midnight Fae Elders and the Council.
I’d o
riginally joined the wrong side, choosing to listen to Zakkai’s rhetoric about the need for retribution.
Then I saw where that path ended several times over.
Now it was time to walk in a new direction, one Tadmir had tried to drive me down multiple times before. Only, on this attempt, I’d finally listened.
And broke my heart in the process.
I’m sorry, Aflora, I thought, wishing I could open our connection and tell her everything. But Zakkai was in her mind. Which was why I’d blocked her initially. If he found out what I’d hidden, all the fates I’d lived, the futures I’d seen, we’d be doomed.
Keeping Aflora in the dark was the only way we’d have a chance at winning this war before it truly started.
I just hoped she’d be able to forgive me in the end.
The trilogy concludes with Midnight Fae Academy: Book Three…
Thank you so much for reading Midnight Fae Academy: Book Two. I know you probably hate me for the cliffhanger. Sorry! I promise it’ll all be resolved in Midnight Fae Academy: Book Three!
Curious about Tray and Ella’s story? Check out Ella’s Masquerade. It’s a standalone Midnight Fae Academy novel with Cinderella elements.
Want to know more about the Fortune Fae? Click here for details about Fortune Fae Academy, an Omegaverse trilogy centered around Gina and her four mates.
And if you’re hungry for more fae, pick up the complete Elemental Fae Academy trilogy on Amazon to learn more about Claire and her five elemental mates.
Retribution.
Reformation.
Two sides of a revolution, both vying for my allegiance.
Well, I pick neither side.
I’m an Earth Fae Royal bound to four Midnight Fae. My powers are growing stronger every day, and I’m tired of being a pawn in a war I don’t understand. Now that I know all the players involved and the risks at stake, I’m ready to ascend.
No more tricks.
No more lies.