Secret of the Gods (Magic Blessed Academy Book 2)

by Eva Ashwood

  They would not have taken that lightly.

  The ceremony finally concluded, and the men and I filed out of the auditorium. At least fewer people wanted to speak to me this semester, since I wasn’t the one who’d won a stupid gem.

  As soon as we stepped out of the large room, a small body barreled into me, almost knocking me over. Eden hugged me tightly, and I chuckled, hugging her back. I could hear the fear in her voice when she spoke, her words slightly muffled by my shirt.

  “Holy shit, Aria, that looked so much worse than last time. I thought you’d died for sure. When I saw you come through the portal, I just about passed out. I don’t care that you didn’t win, I’m just glad you’re back.” She pulled back to stare up at me with wide blue eyes. “There was a good portion of time that no one could see you guys. I don’t know if they were searching for you or not, but after a while, they didn’t even try on the screen. I thought for sure…” She swallowed, then shook her head. “But you’re not. You’re alive.”

  I patted her awkwardly on the back and tried to smile, feeling her grip grow even tighter. “Eden… uh, I can’t breathe.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes flew wide, and she loosened her grip a bit with a nervous laugh. “Sorry. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”

  I pulled down on my shirt and chuckled. “I’m glad I’m back too. I’m not happy that Wesley won, but at least the guys and I made it back alive.”

  Eden pointed at me, her expression growing very serious. It took everything in me not to laugh. “That’s right. You have to look at the positive. You went to the godly realm twice, and you survived both times.”

  I nodded at her, and the men fell into step around me as we walked down the hall, joining the flow of students. Though I kept a smile on my face for Eden’s benefit, I was bitterly disappointed. We had made it so fucking far, only to be yanked back at the last second. The guys had risked their lives, and so had I, just by entering the challenge in the first place.

  I was right there! I was so damn close.

  The gods had been speaking freely right in front of me, about to reveal their secrets—and I’d been dragged back to earth. Now I was left battered, bruised, closely watched, and with no new information.

  Shoving down my frustration, I turned to Eden. “Anything new and exciting happen while we were gone?”

  The perky blonde girl scrunched up her nose. “No, not really. There was about a week after you guys disappeared when we didn’t see the dean, but then she showed back up as if she’d never been gone. I think she has some weird mage boyfriend she keeps hidden.”

  I pretended to barf and shook my head. “That’s gross.”

  She giggled, the sound light and airy, and despite my anger and frustration, it lifted my spirits a little. Information or not, I had to admit it felt good to be back, to be alive.

  But I could never forget that there were many who would never laugh again, who hadn’t made it back from the challenges. Their absence made what I was doing seem all the more important.

  The memorial wall in our school was no longer enough to find solace in their deaths.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  All the contestants who’d made it back from the godly realm resumed classes the next day.

  I remembered what it’d been like the last time, trying to catch up with everything that I had missed. This time it seemed almost harder. I should’ve been playing catch-up, studying, working on my magic, but I couldn’t fucking focus. I was wrapped up in the questions that continued to swirl through my mind. I had thought going to the godly realm would give me answers, but all it’d done was build new puzzles for me to pick apart in my head.

  Not only did the gods seem to want some of us magic users dead, there was dissension among them, a power struggle between two would-be leaders. And the gods themselves were facing some kind of threat.

  I had no idea what that might be though, and I found it hard to dredge up much sympathy for them. Not when they wanted more of my classmates dead.

  A week after our return, my head still hadn’t stopped spinning. I made excuses to Eden and left lunch early. I wasn’t hungry, and I couldn’t bear to sit still, so I went for a walk around the school.

  Merrick must’ve been having the same problem, because we ran into each other in one of the barely used hallways on the third floor.

  “Shouldn’t you be at lunch?” I cocked an eyebrow.

  He chuckled, his hands in his pockets as one corner of his lips curved up. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  Turning, I leaned my back against the wall. “Touché. Ugh, my head is just so fucked up about all of this.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Same.”

  “I feel like I’m going crazy, and I’m suspicious as hell about almost everything going on at the school.” I kept my voice low, but my words felt like a shout anyway. “I think I’m driving myself crazy. I can’t figure out what the gods’ motivation is for giving new humans magic. Especially when they then try to kill half of us off. And the school? What are the admins’ plans? What’s their role in all of this? Are they being forced to do what they’re doing, or are they the ones behind this? Everything is so unclear. It makes me think that nothing in these walls is actually meant to help us at all. Like we’re fucking flies trapped in a spiderweb.”

  Merrick let out a long sigh. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Since we don’t have any answers or concrete information about what’s going on, I’m questioning everything that the professors do and say. Sometimes I think I’m almost seeing things that aren’t there, just because I’m so suspicious of everyone.”

  I rubbed my hands over my face and growled. “We were supposed to come back with answers, with a plan of action. But if we don’t know what the threat is, how can we fight it? I was right there, Merrick. And then I was fucking snatched away.”

  He tugged my hand from my face and wrapped his around it, bringing it to his lips to kiss the back of it. It was a simple gesture, but it calmed some of the agitation raging through me.

  “It fucking sucks, Ari. I won’t deny that. But there is a bright side. At least we made it back. We could’ve been stuck in the godly realm forever. When we crossed out of the challenge playing area, there was no real definitive answer as to whether we would be pulled back or not. And I don’t think it would’ve worked out well for us if we’d gotten stuck there.”

  “Yeah.” I swallowed, hating that I’d brought my men into such a dangerous situation. “We’d probably be dead. I can’t imagine that the gods would look too kindly on us if they knew we were sneaking around their palace, spying on them and questioning their motives.”

  A sound down the hallway made us both freeze, and I pushed away from the wall and glanced around, suddenly certain we weren’t alone. There was no other sound, and no one walked by, but a shiver ran up my spine. I looked over at Merrick, seeing the tension gathered in his shoulders.

  “We need to meet tonight. You, me, Trace, and Lachlan. We need to talk. Figure out where to go from here.”

  Merrick smiled, leaning forward and pressing a soft, warm kiss to my lips. “You got it. And if you need anything, you know where to find me.”

  He moved to draw back, but I went with him, prolonging our kiss. I felt him smile against my lips, and his arms banded around my waist, his hands gripping me firmly as his tongue stroked mine. When we broke apart, we were both a little breathless, and for a moment, my mind was blessedly free of worry.

  Gods, how do these three men do that to me?

  “Thanks, Merrick,”

  I pressed one last kiss to his lips, then turned and walked off.

  The rest of my classes passed in a daze. Merrick found me again at dinner and murmured into my ear, letting me know when and where to meet him and the others. We couldn’t be sure there was any place inside the walls of the academy where we wouldn’t be spied on, but we’d decided to avoid talking about any of our suspicions or plans in our rooms. It would be easiest for the admins to s
py on us there, and if Dean Frost was as suspicious of me as I thought she was, I didn’t want to make it easy for her to track my activity.

  About twenty minutes after midnight, I pulled on my shoes and slipped out of my room, heading down to the practice rooms on the first floor. The hallways were dimly lit and eerily quiet. None of the students would be practicing magic this late at night, so I knew we wouldn’t have any disturbances.

  When I rounded the corner, I found all three men standing outside one of the practice rooms, waiting for me.

  Trace bowed dramatically. “The lady has arrived.”

  “I like to keep you waiting.” I smirked, lifting one shoulder.

  Merrick huffed a laugh. “That’s an understatement.”

  Lachlan grinned, dipping his head to kiss me on the cheek. “For you, lass? I’d wait forever.”

  We entered the practice room and Trace used a new spell he’d learned to seal the door from anyone trying to listen from the outside. The room was set up sort of like the big rooms at the boxing gym where I had trained with Vin. The space was open, and mats lined the floor, meant to soften the blow if students were thrown off their feet by backlash from a spell.

  We all sat down on the mats, and Merrick leaned back on his hands, his long legs in front of him. “It’s been hard to find time to talk—or at least, time when we can be relatively certain we aren’t being watched. So now that we have a chance, let’s go over what we all learned in the gods’ palace one more time.”

  Trace shrugged. “I really didn’t learn that much. The wine is gross, the women are kind of snobs, and apparently the gods don’t like it when you trip over their feet. Other than that, they gossip a lot but, most of it is just senseless and useless.”

  Merrick nodded. “That’s pretty much what I got too. I didn’t have enough time to really snoop before getting pulled out of there. The crowds were heavy, and messengers and other mages were everywhere.”

  Lachlan rubbed his nose, pursing his lips. “The only thing I overheard was that there’s a leader among the gods. I didn’t get his name or anythin’ though. I’m assuming it was the big bloke sittin’ on that giant golden throne.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded grimly. “That’s him. His name is Omari, and I think he’s the unofficial leader. There’s another god named Ryker who opposes him, and it sounded like they’re sort of fighting for the support of the other gods. They disagree about how to handle some threat, I got that much—but I couldn’t tell you what that threat is.”

  Trace looked suspiciously around the room. “Speaking of threats, what about the fact that I constantly feel like I’m being watched?”

  Merrick nodded. “I feel that way too. Like there’s always someone just a few steps behind me. I never feel alone anymore. I really thought it was just me being paranoid, but who the fuck knows? There could be something to it.”

  Lachlan scratched the back of his neck, a scowl creasing his face. “I hate feelin’ like I’m bein’ watched. I’m just gonna have to start givin’ them a show when I’m in the shower. Swing it around a little bit.”

  He gyrated his hips, as if he was worried we might not’ve understood what he meant, and a laugh burst from my lips before I could stop it. The sound bounced off the walls, and I looked around quickly. I knew Trace had used his magic to help block noises from escaping, but my heart still beat a little faster.

  “Well, we know for sure that the playing area is watched during the challenge—not just by the gods, but by the admins, students, and even by magic users outside of the academy, if what I’ve heard is right. And we know that our illusions went missing for about a week. Eden said they just stopped showing us on the feed. She thought we’d died.”

  Trace frowned. “You think Frost knows we snuck out? If they knew, why wouldn’t they have stopped us? Or, hell, killed us?”

  “I don’t know.” I bit my lip. “That’s what gives me hope that maybe they don’t know. But we have to consider the possibility that the admins and possibly even the gods know that we’ve been poking around.”

  Lachlan let out a low grunt. “That wouldn’t be good.”

  I shook my head. “No. And I hate that we took that risk and have nothing to show for it. The fact that we have to wait until next semester to go back absolutely drives me crazy.”

  “That is, if we even qualify next time.” Merrick lifted an eyebrow. “It’s getting harder and harder every time we go in there, and by next fall, I have no idea what we’ll have to face.”

  My gaze shifted around the small circle we had formed as the men continued to talk.

  It suddenly hit me how lucky we were to have all made it back in one piece. Just the thought of the guys taking that kind of risk again made me want to punch a fucking wall. I hated it. At the same time, though, I loved the fact that they were willing to try.

  They might say they were doing this just for me, but I knew that wasn’t true. And their dedication to the truth, to helping others like ourselves, made me care about them even more.

  It made me love them.

  I love them.

  I blinked as the realization hit me, my heart skipping a beat. But I didn’t feel afraid. I didn’t feel doubt. I was more sure of this than I had ever been about anything.

  “I definitely think some of the professors are in on it,” Merrick continued, his gaze thoughtful. “But there are others that either don’t know or do know and disapprove of the whole thing. If we can find out which ones—”

  As he spoke, I moved toward him. He broke off as he saw me approach, and when I reached him, I held his face in both hands for a moment, gazing into his burning amber eyes.

  “What is it, Aria?” he asked.

  “I love you.”

  His eyes widened, a dozen emotions filtering through them. Then he banded his arm around my waist and hauled me toward him, kissing me deeply. We were both panting when we broke apart, and the depth of emotion in his eyes had only grown. He brushed his nose against mine, nipping at my bottom lip before murmuring, “I love you too, fierce one. So fucking much.”

  My heart seemed to swell in my chest, and I wanted to press him down to the floor and rip his clothes off—and I would do that, but there was something else I needed to do first.

  Reluctantly pulling away from Merrick, I turned to Lachlan. The burly Irishman sat still as a predator, watching me with a hungry gaze as I moved toward him.

  “I love you, Lach,” I murmured, and he answered with a growl and a kiss that seemed to steal my soul.

  My world was spinning, my body humming with pleasure when we separated, and I turned toward Trace last. The rock star had never been one for subtlety or patience, so before I crawled over to where he sat on the floor, he launched himself toward me, tackling me and kissing me hard. I laughed breathlessly as he finally broke the connection between our lips, his blue eyes shining.

  “You better have been about to tell me you love me, Snow, or I’m gonna feel like a real asshole here.”

  That only made me laugh harder, and I grabbed his face, bringing it close to mine again. “I love you, Trace.”

  I kissed him again, savoring his taste and his scent, as he settled himself between my legs, grinding his hips against mine.

  “Love you back,” he murmured. “We all do. Can we show you how much?”

  “Fuck, yes.”

  “Good.” His smile was wicked as he lifted his head. He shot another burst of magic toward the door, adding a layer to the protective spell he had already put on it. When he looked back down at me, he pulled his full bottom lip between his teeth. “Gotta make sure no sound can get out. Because we’re gonna make you fucking scream.”

  My core clenched at his words. My heart felt so full I was surprised it could still pump blood, and I felt giddy, almost lightheaded with happiness.

  Seeming satisfied with the strength of the sound-dampening spell he’d put on the door, Trace dropped his head again and kissed me until I was gasping for breath. The other two men jo
ined us, and Trace pulled me up to my knees, passing me over to Lach and then to Merrick. As each of them kissed me, the other helped me undress before getting rid of their own clothes, until there was a discarded pile of pants, shirts, and shoes beside us.

  As Trace scraped his teeth along my collarbone, making goose bumps spread across my skin, Merrick palmed one of my breasts, rolling my nipple between his fingers. Lachlan was behind me, and when I felt his hands glide over the curve of my ass before spreading my cheeks, I let out a strangled noise of arousal.

  He chuckled behind me, his thumb pressing gently at my back hole. “I want your arse, Ari. I love ye so fuckin’ much.”

  Maybe from another man, those two sentences wouldn’t have fit together so well. But for Lach, they did. The big man was fierce and primal, so of course he would show his love by taking a part of me for himself. By claiming my ass.

  I groaned in appreciation, arching my back and pressing into his touch to show him how much I wanted what he was offering.

  “We’ll all take ye together this time. All at once. Get the others ready while I get ye ready.”

  He gave my ass a slap, rubbing away the sting a second later, and a flood of wetness seeped from my pussy, sticky arousal coating my thighs. Merrick and Trace sat on the floor in front of me, side by side, and I leaned forward, licking Merrick’s cock from base to tip before switching my attention to Trace’s. I used one hand on the floor to steady myself as my other hand worked up and down Merrick’s shaft, spreading my saliva and mixing it with his precum.

  This position gave Lachlan exactly what he wanted. Access to the most intimate, forbidden part of me. With my back arched and my head dropped low, my ass was presented to him like a fucking prize.

  And he took it.