Midnight Fae Academy: Book Three: A Dark Why Choose Paranormal Vampire Romance

by Lexi C. Foss

  Somehow, Zakkai had bottled up that fragrance and wore it around him like some sort of sensual cloak. Or perhaps it was just his natural scent.

  “Aflora,” he murmured, the taunt in his tone unmistakable. “Do I need to join you under those sheets and wake you up with my tongue? Because I’m happy to oblige, just like I did in all our dreams.”

  Ugh. My cheeks flamed with the memories—the ones where I’d completely let myself go because I had thought he wasn’t real. The things I’d made him do to me...

  I shivered.

  He chuckled as though he overheard that thought. And maybe he had since he claimed to be my mate.

  The heat of his body swept over me as he sat beside me on the bed—not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel.

  His familiarity unnerved me, as did the sensation of his silky sheets moving along my legs as I rolled away from him. He didn’t try to stop me, just settled against the headboard and crossed his long legs at his bare ankles. I studied his feet for a moment before dragging my gaze up his pajama bottoms to his bare abdomen.

  Because of course he chose to go shirtless.

  Just like he had in all my dreams.

  The chiseled perfection of his body left no mystery as to why I thought I’d mentally created him. He was too godlike to be real with those long wisps of white hair and silver-blue eyes.

  “Keep looking at me like that and I’m going to accept it for the invitation that it is, Aflora.”

  Ugh, his voice was just as velvety smooth as the rest of him.

  The man encapsulated sex.

  And the grin curving his full lips said he knew it, too.

  “It’s not an invitation,” I muttered, curling deeper into his silky sheets.

  A pair of dimples graced his flawless cheeks.

  Yeah, he would have a killer smile, too. Because why not?

  Maybe he was really an Incubus from the Hell Fae realm. But no, I caught the flicker of cerulean magic lurking deep in his fathomless gaze.

  He took my wand, I remembered, frowning. No, he said it was his wand.

  My heart skipped a beat at the memory and Shade’s aloofness as he just handed me over as though I meant nothing to him.

  Why? I whispered at him. Why did you do this?

  He didn’t reply. Not that I expected him to. I could feel the block in our bond—the one he’d placed there before giving me to Zakkai.

  Zeph? I tried the other mate-strand in my mind, the one connected to my Warrior Blood mate. The ends of our bond felt frayed, his silence deafening.

  Shade had created some sort of mental block to isolate me from them.

  He’d warned me that I would hate him.

  He was right.

  I’d trusted him, loved him, mated him, and he’d repaid me by handing me over to the enemy.

  There has to be a reason, I thought. He cares for me. I know he cares for me. I’d felt it in our bond, had witnessed it in his thoughts. Maybe Zakkai had coerced him? But why would Shade block my mating links?

  My jaw ticked as I considered the endless possibilities of his intentions. Then I focused on the male beside me—the one who likely had all the answers I needed.

  “Why am I here?” I asked, sitting up with the sheet clutched to my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were? And how are you my mate? You never bit me in the dreams.” I also didn’t think a Midnight Fae could stake a claim in that manner.

  If they could, that would be dangerous.

  Fae, who was I kidding? Midnight Fae were danger personified.

  The male beside me oozed lethality as wisps of power swirled around him. I could taste his essence in the air and sense it deep within my soul. He embodied the source in a similar manner to Kols. I mentally stroked it with my strands of dark magic, curious and wary.

  His lips curled in response, his energy intensifying as though to welcome my prodding. “It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” His low voice rolled over me on a caressing wave. “Our gifts have more or less grown together over the years, creating an everlasting connection. I think that even if I were to break our bond now, you would still retain my Quandary abilities.”

  “Years?” I repeated.

  “Mmm,” he hummed, the response noncommittal. Just like everything else.

  “Why am I here?” I repeated.

  “Why do you think you’re here?” he countered.

  My grip around the sheet tightened against my chest. “We’re mates.”

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  “How?”

  He arched a white brow. “Surely you’re familiar with how the mating process works by now? I mean, you did recently bond a Warrior Blood, yes? And Shade?”

  “Are you always this insufferable?” Answering every question with a question. Pixie sticks, we will never get anywhere at this rate! “I think I liked you more when I thought you were a figment.”

  “That’s because you enjoyed my tongue between your thighs, Aflora.” He tilted his head. “Would an orgasm calm you down?”

  A growl slipped through my lips. “Where are my clothes?” Because I couldn’t continue having this conversation while naked in his bed.

  He nodded to a silk robe twisted into the sheets. “You can wear that.”

  “Yeah, I’ll take my clothes instead.” I couldn’t remember if I’d worn them here or if I’d lost them in the LethaForest. I really hoped it was the latter because the former would imply that he’d stripped me. And I really didn’t want to think about that right now.

  Sure, he was a pale-skinned, godlike fae.

  And apparently my mate.

  But that didn’t mean I wanted to be naked with him.

  Even if he did have a wicked tongue and skilled hands.

  I cleared my throat. “Clothes.”

  “No,” he replied. “You’re lucky I gave you a robe, Aflora. Don’t push it.”

  “Excuse me?” My eyebrows flew upward. “So let me get this straight. You dream-raped me, then—”

  “Dream-raped you?” he repeated, his expression rivaling mine as he released a disbelieving laugh. “You commanded me, sweetheart. Not the other way around. I came to you to talk, but you told me not to say anything and to fuck you with my mouth instead. As your mate, I obliged. I would hardly call that rape.”

  “I thought you were a figment of my imagination!”

  “And I told you more than once to consider that I was real,” he countered. “We can argue about this all day, or you can accept what happened and we can move on to the reconciliation phase. Your choice.”

  “How can I accept anything when you won’t even tell me why I’m here?!” I couldn’t hold back my shrill tone, my patience long gone. “How are you even real? How are you my mate? Stop talking in riddles and give me something useful!”

  “How about you stop asking ridiculous questions and look inside your mind for the answers that already exist,” he suggested flatly.

  My mind? He wanted me to go into my mind for answers? Yeah, all right. I’d go into my mind.

  The cerulean embers flared inside me, my magic humming to life in anticipation. I’d spent the last however many months trying to drown the power, to temper and control it, but I called it forward now.

  Come play, I urged, closing my eyes as the strands whirled inside my thoughts, flickering with electricity and sizzling in the air around us.

  Zakkai said something.

  I ignored him.

  He’d told me to go into my mind. So I had. And now he would experience the consequences of that suggestion.

  Maybe I could knock him out and run.

  I had no idea where I was, but surely a portal existed nearby. Or maybe I could figure out how to shadow again, or whatever it was I’d done with Emelyn.

  While Shade had blocked me from his mind, I could still feel his essence warming my blood. Zeph was there, too. Even Kols.

  And also… Zakkai.

  His presence was the strongest, perhaps because he sat beside me. Bu
t I suspected it went deeper than that. Our bond was old. I could feel the roots of it in youth, the magic somehow married to my connection to the earth source.

  He spoke again.

  And I continued to ignore him, too busy trailing along the roots, searching for the beginning, seeking a way to destroy him.

  No, not destroy.

  Hurt.

  Earth Fae weren’t violent. We created life.

  His kind killed.

  That was why I would never be a true Midnight Fae, no matter whom I mated or what powers roamed through me. My spirit was all Elemental Fae. His source inside me was foreign and wrong, had morphed me into an abomination against my will, and I still didn’t know how it had happened. Because he wouldn’t tell me.

  I growled again, my ire mounting with each passing second.

  This man played in my head without my permission.

  He’d bonded me at some point.

  Now he refused to explain any of it, instead choosing to kidnap me, strip me, and give me a solitary robe to wear.

  And he wanted me to play in my head, to search for answers.

  Instead, I found the source of my magic and balled it up into a focal point all aimed at him. He didn’t want to explain, and I was all out of patience for this game.

  I opened my eyes to find him still seated beside me, his expression one underlined in amusement.

  I hated that smile and those dimples. I loathed the crinkle at the sides of his silver-blue eyes. I despised his very presence and the chuckle shaking his chest.

  He thought this was funny?

  Then I’d give him something to really laugh about.

  Flames shot out of my fingertips and directly at his chiseled chest.

  Only, rather than burn him, they were absorbed by him, his grin morphing from amused to something else entirely. Heated. His irises smoldered with the power I’d just unleashed on him. And then he opened his hand.

  I tried to duck out of the way, but he was too quick, the spiraling sphere of electricity nailing me in the chest and binding me in a web of intense power. My lungs halted, my heart stopped, and a puff of air escaped my lips.

  “Figure out how to untangle yourself, Aflora,” he replied, the bed shifting as he slid from the sheets to his feet. “When you’re done, come find me and we’ll talk.”

  A laugh threatened my frozen chest, one lacking humor. Talk, I repeated in my mind. All you do is unleash riddles!

  Try solving them, little star, he shot back, his voice like liquid chocolate in my mind. Start with the cords around your chest before you suffocate yourself to death.

  Zakkai!

  Nothing.

  Just the kiss of an ocean breeze to my senses and the soft snick of a closing door.

  He’d left me to unravel his magical net without a wand or any instructions.

  And I was already seeing spots due to the lack of air in my lungs.

  Zakkai!

  Focus on the strands, Aflora. Then find me when you’re done.

  I’ll find you and kill you, I vowed.

  I can’t wait to watch you try.

  AFLORA LOST consciousness as I locked the door to my room, her final thoughts all surrounding the myriad of ways she intended to make me suffer. My lips curled in anticipation.

  As an Earth Fae, she was all about life and love and peace.

  But my Quandary Blood had provided her with a lethal edge that I intended to exploit.

  One moment, she promised never to kill a living thing. And in the next breath, she vowed vengeance and devastation. Namely, my death. But I would morph that train of thought into something more useful.

  It was all part of her training.

  Just like the web I’d woven around her.

  She’d figure out how to dismantle it eventually, and I’d be waiting for her when she did. Her life essence was tied to mine, pulling on my energy to revive her. I allowed it, knowing she would need a few breaths to begin the process.

  Her roar in my head widened my grin.

  I refused to answer her now, listening as she puzzled through what she needed to do. Her mind fascinated me, her convoluted thoughts so similar to my own. She had no idea how alike we truly were, only I’d accepted my fate and destiny in life, while she was still trying to find her own.

  The path would reveal itself very soon.

  She eventually quieted, her affinity for solving problems springing to the surface as she began to expertly unweave the magic I’d wrapped around her.

  So beautiful and cunning. All my previous intentions wavered, including the steps I took now toward the main rooms.

  My father wanted an update.

  But all I wanted was to walk back to my room, lean against the wall, and watch the stunning female play with magic in my sheets.

  Alas, I had to make an appearance before he ventured to my rooms to search for me.

  I snapped my fingers and uttered a spell, beckoning for my wand. It ignored me. The damn thing had a mind of its own and seemed to prefer Aflora for the moment. Fine. She could continue to borrow my conduit while she trained. She needed it more than I did anyway.

  With a muttered incantation, I changed my attire into something more suitable for a meeting with the others. It was a lazy approach, but also necessary, because if I’d remained in that room for a moment longer, I would have lost all my desire to leave.

  Aflora was a sight to behold in so many ways that went beyond her physical appeal. She was admirably gifted in the dark arts, perhaps because she’d been tied to me for fifteen years.

  I’d meant what I’d said earlier—it was fascinating to see how my essence had bonded with hers. She almost resembled a Quandary Blood. Except I could taste her earth magic, too. Just as I felt her element roaming through my veins, kissing me with a breath of her vitality and goodness.

  The connection had always been there, even during our separation. Although, my father’s enchantments had severely dulled it. Then she’d broken that enchantment with her song and nearly knocked me off my feet.

  I’d immediately thrown up my walls, protecting us both, but that hadn’t stopped me from playing in her dreams.

  “Kai,” my father called as he stepped into the hallway, his eyes narrowing at my lingering state. “Is there a problem?”

  “No. Just observing Aflora’s struggle against my binds,” I replied, doing my best to keep my tone flat and emotionless.

  “Binds?” he repeated. “You were supposed to talk to her and bring her here to meet the others. It wasn’t a difficult task.”

  I nearly snorted. He remembered the impressionable little flower from my youth and had no idea how formidable Aflora had become. “She required a riddle to properly prepare. Once she solves it, I’ll introduce her to the others.”

  My father’s jaw ticked. “That’s not what we discussed.”

  “I have it under control.” I underlined my tone in steel, reminding him of my position among the resistance. He might be my elder and father, but I was the Source Architect.

  He studied me for a long moment, his silver-blue eyes—the same shade as my own—flaring with power. But it didn’t match mine. I’d ascended a little over a month ago, taking over his role as the Quandary Blood King. He stood no chance against me, even with his age and experience.

  “How is she really?” he asked softly, a note of concern in his voice. “Did you talk about her parents?”

  “No. She tried to kill me with a very interesting mix of WarFire instead,” I drawled. “But I’ll try for that topic during our next conversation.”

  “WarFire?” he repeated, his ash-blond brows shooting upward. “Does she not realize you’re her mate?”

  “Oh, she knows. I think it’s her version of foreplay.” A complete lie. I’d absolutely taunted her into playing with me. And I hadn’t been disappointed. “We’re working it out.”

  And by that, I meant she was working through my web, which would provide her with all the answers she so desperately craved
.

  “She’s safe, Dad,” I added as the concern in his features grew. “That’s what matters.”

  He fell silent for a moment, then nodded. “The debt to her parents is officially repaid.”

  “I’m not sure they would agree with that,” I replied. “You let the Council use her as bait.” It was a sore topic between us. I’d wanted to take her at the coffee shop several months ago, but he’d convinced me to let Shade bite her.

  “We needed Constantine to come out of hiding,” he said, repeating the statement he’d used several times over the last few months.

  “And you wanted to put a leash on Shade,” I added. “Yes, I know. I’m just saying, I don’t think her parents would appreciate her being used as a pawn.”

  “The Council was going to use her whether we approved or not. This just allowed us to make use of the predicament.” He shrugged. “Her parents would understand. They signed her up for this fate when they agreed to the temporary mating.”

  “Fifteen years isn’t temporary,” I said, disliking the term.

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “It’ll feel temporary when you reach my age, Kai. You’ll see.”

  I forced a smile. “Sure.” He still assumed I intended to undo the mate-bonds. It had always been my plan to do so. Even when I’d seen her in the coffee shop, I’d still meant to shatter our connection.

  But then she’d undone the enchantment with the song we’d taught her all those years ago.

  And I’d joined her in a dream.

  The moment our eyes met, I felt as though I was looking into my very soul and finding my other half. My childhood best friend had grown into a gorgeous woman with sexual needs I couldn’t help but fulfill.

  Seeing her in that manner had felt like my first time, which was insane. I’d fucked women, most of them human and during a feeding. The enchantment over our bond had muted her to a dull ache, one I’d never intended to keep.

  Then she’d shattered everything with a throaty moan and a voice that beckoned sex.

  I hadn’t been able to look at another woman since, and that’d all just been foreplay in our dreams. It was a total mindfuck that I didn’t know how to fix.

  Well, I had some ideas. Most of them involving a few nights in the sheets. But my instincts said that would never be enough. There was just something so intoxicating about Aflora. Our history only heightened the sensation, leaving me utterly conflicted about the future between us.