by Tiegan Clyne
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, events, places or names is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or transferred in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the authors. Uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without a permission of the authors is illegal and punishable by law.
Text copyright © 2019 Scarlett Snow & Tiegan Clyne
All Rights Reserved
Editing by Fresh Eyes Editing
Cover design by Christian Bentulan
Formatting by Champagne Book Design
Interior Artwork by MonoChromacat
World Map by Rainbow Danger Designs
Everafter Map by Gillian M. Pearce
With special thanks to beta readers: Jordan Simpson, Desiree Hayman, Manda McNeely, and Manda Ladd. Thank you so much!
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Maps
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Thank You
Are you ready for more?
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About Scarlett
About Tiegan
Appendixes
When everything around you is dark, be your own light.
This book features scenes where some of the characters use American Sign Language (ASL), which is a distinct language that has its own syntax and isn’t just another way to speak English. Words and their modifiers can be expressed with hands but also body language, intensity of movement, and facial expressions. However, for the ease of reading and clarity reasons, ASL sentences will be translated into English and shown in ::…::
All telepathic communication between characters and their familiars will also be shown in —…—
My first full moon as a student at Everafter Academy is ending.
It’s been eventful, to say the least.
I even managed to kill one of the werewolves who prowl the Great Forest, the same ones who hunt witches like me. I wanted to go after more but Broin, my best friend and Daddy, said not to since there were too many and it was just the two of us. He does his best to keep me safe, even when he’s cursed to be a raven until sunset.
Now, after hunting the hunters, we’re headed back to school. I need to sneak back in before curfew and he needs to pretend he’s my familiar for another day.
Wolves howl in the distance as we tread through the forest. Once Broin is certain we’ve reached a safe distance from the clearing, he lets go of my hand and turns to me. His face is shuttered in complete darkness. It’s only when he steps into the moonlight slicing through the leaves do I see him, and my breath hitches.
The look in his eyes is dark and sinister.
A delightful chill creeps down my spine. I know exactly what he’s feeling right now through our unique bond. He’s seconds away from tearing my clothes off with his bare hands.
The corner of his mouth curls upward. “I do believe you earned a reward tonight,” he says softly. “You fought well. You eliminated an enemy, and you didn’t get hurt, yourself. Not a bad performance, all in all.”
He rarely gives praise. I smile and preen for him. “Thank you, Daddy.”
Broin reaches out and holds my face in his big hand. His long fingers are in my hair, and he gives the black locks a tug, pulling me closer to him. I go to him willingly as my pulse starts to race.
He’s still gripping my hair in his right hand, and his left reaches out to cup my breast, giving the soft mound a squeeze. He rubs his palm over my nipple and it springs to life, electrified by his touch. His eyes are locked on mine, and the intensity of that look shoots all the way through me to the wetness between my thighs.
My Daddy smiles. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Daddy… sometimes.”
He chuckles. “Well, you’re honest.”
Broin pulls me into his arms, crushing me against his chest and kissing me as though his life depends on it. He’s so strong, and he knows me so well. The way his lips are crushing mine and his tongue is dancing with my own makes me dizzy. I put my arms around him and he picks me up with his hands under my ass. I wrap my legs around his waist. He chuckles without breaking the kiss, walking with me until my back presses into a tree.
Holding me with just one hand, he frees the other to roam over my breasts. The thumb of the hand that’s holding me up brushes against my lower lips, and I groan into his mouth. Two can play this game. I keep one arm around his neck, but I run my right hand down the hard muscles of his chest until I find his belt buckle. I’ve done this a hundred times before, so it’s easy to pull the leather out of the buckle and open his belt completely. He strokes me with his thumb again, and I pull back from the kiss.
“Is this my reward, Daddy?” I open his trousers and slip a hand inside. He’s hard already. I grab the hot flesh and give it a languid stroke, then I pull his heavy cock and balls out. “Or is this my reward?”
“Greedy,” he says, his eyes sparkling.
He tosses his head, and his long black curls fall back over my hand where it’s lying against the back of his neck. He’s so fucking sexy.
“I am greedy,” I admit. “So give me what I want.”
He grabs my face in his hand, squeezing. “You don’t give the orders here, little girl. Don’t make me remind you of your manners.”
I just stare into his black eyes, and I can feel him through our bond. He’s in my mind, in my soul, and damn it, I wish he was in my body. Come on already!
He chuckles. —So impatient.—
My answer is to stroke him again, and when my fingertips brush against the sensitive skin of his balls, he groans. Broin presses me against the bole of the tree, letting the wood bear the majority of my weight. He grabs my skirt and hauls it up my legs, revealing the black thong I’m wearing beneath it. His fingers grip the delicate fabric and pull it aside, and then he’s plunging into me.
I tingle from head to toe as he starts to thrust, his thick heat pistoning in and out of my welcoming pussy. I’m dripping wet for him, and he loves it. I know he does. I grip his broad shoulders, and he drops his hands to my ass, holding me steady. Our eye contact never breaks.
He’s fucking me hard and it’s just like it used to be in the woods outside his cabin. It’s like my home is still a real thing, a real place again, not just a memory and a pile of burned wood. It’s Broin and it’s me, and it’s us together, fucking and loving and being part of each other, body, mind and spirit.
—You belong with me, Ravyn.—
The possessive edge in his voice lets me know exactly what he’s trying to do. He’s fucking me senseless, yes, but he’s also trying to reclaim me for himself. He tried to erase Satan by recarving the symbol on my back—a symbol that is rough and raw and being gouged by the tree bark, adding the necessary pain
to my pleasure. Now he’s trying to erase Lockwood by reminding me of our history together, by taking me the way he’s taken me a hundred times before.
“Yes, Daddy,” I gasp breathlessly. “I do.”
He shoves his cock into me as far as it will go, and I can feel it throbbing inside me. He stops thrusting and just holds me there, impaled on his length, as close to him as I could ever be. He kisses me deeply and I squeeze my inner muscles around him. He shivers.
—Do you like that, Daddy?—
—You know I do.—He pulls out halfway, then slams into me again. I shudder. —And you fucking love this.—
I close my eyes and cling to him as he snaps his hips, embedding himself in my cunt over and over. I’m making little mewling sounds in the back of my throat, and my climax is just a heartbeat away.
“Tell me who you love, Ravyn,” he commands, his voice gruff.
He’s still driving into me, fast and hard, and I’m nearly losing my mind. I tell him what he wants to hear, and it’s delicious because it’s true.
“I love you, Daddy.”
Broin smiles and increases his speed. I can hear how close he is from the way he’s groaning. “You can cum, babygirl…”
Those words are what I needed to get me there. I tip my head back and scream my pleasure to the dark night sky, and he plunges into me one last time before his orgasm overtakes him. He empties into me, and my legs quiver and spasm as my own climax wracks my body.
It takes a while to come down, but when I do, he puts me gently on my feet and we both lean against the tree. I run my hands through his hair and look up into his beautiful face.
“You keep worrying that you’re going to lose me, but you’re not,” I whisper to him. He searches my face intensely, and I add, “No matter who else I might have, I will always be with you.”
He kisses me again, but this time it’s tender.
—Thank you. That’s what I needed to hear.—
Alice is curled up on the bed, sleeping quietly. She has a rare ability I’ve never encountered before, a kind of astral projection. Just hours ago, she went out to find her friend Redera and warn her about the wolves. Now she’s exhausted.
Everybody knows the forest is full of wolves on the full moon. That’s why anybody with any sense locks their gates and closes their doors until the night hours are gone. Redera, for reasons that completely escape me, went outside school grounds during the height of the full moon, when the wolves were howling close outside the walls. I’d have been too terrified to go near the walls at all, let alone to venture outside the gates. But Redera was out there, and Alice, her roommate, was worried.
And that’s how we ended up here.
Everafter Academy is located in an old castle that has a lot of hidden corridors and secret chambers. Alice and I are in one of those hidden rooms, one that’s off a long passageway that can be accessed through a door in the back of a maintenance closet. She brought me here for some privacy so she could do her… walking thing.
I don’t know what to call it.
It’s clear that she’s spent some time setting up this room. There’s a twin-sized bed, the one that Alice is lying on now, with a brass frame and a thin mattress that can’t be comfortable. A three-legged wooden stool sits next to the bed and it’s holding an ever-burning magical candle. The light from the flame is golden and warm.
Before she went out on her spirit walk, Alice handed me a piece of her soul, a glowing line that stretched out like a leash. She told me to hold it so she wouldn’t get lost. She trusted me to do that. After everything my friends have done, and everything I’ve failed to do, she trusted me. It’s humbling.
As it happens, Alice came back on her own and I didn’t need to pull the glowing spirit thread to bring her back. She returned to her body, looked up at me with her big, beautiful eyes and passed out stone cold. I put her on the bed so she’d be more comfortable, her dark head on the pillow and her little feet up on the bedspread, and now I’m watching her sleep.
When she’s awake, Alice seems tiny and a little fey—all whispery-voiced and staring. She’s seen things. You just know she has. But when she’s asleep, she seems so much more vulnerable.
I’m not a big, macho guy. I’m tall, yeah, but I’m not the strongest bloke in the world and I feel like anybody could beat my ass anytime they want to. I’m not tough. Alice, though, makes me want to be. I want to protect her.
I don’t know why. She’s just… tiny.
Full of shadows.
So I watch her sleep like I’m some sort of stalker, sitting on the floor across from her with my back against the wall. If I stretch out my legs, my feet disappear under the bed—that’s how narrow this room is. The candle’s magical flame has actually heated up the space, and it’s cozy and warm. Eventually the silence and the warmth conspire against me, and I nod off.
I wake up after who knows how long. My neck is stiff, my butt is numb, and Alice is crouching beside me with her hand on my shoulder.
“Come on,” she says in her little voice. “We have to check on Aladdin.”
Aladdin is the janitor. He’s also, as we found out last night, a werewolf, and therefore most definitely not supposed to be at Everafter. My mother is the Queen of Fantasia, the kingdom that hosts our academy, and she has outlawed werewolves explicitly. She’s going to flip her lid if she knows there’s one here at the school.
I guess what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. It’s not like it’ll be the only secret I’m keeping from her.
I manage to unfold my legs, and I beat my thigh muscles with my fists a few times to try to get the pins-and-needles feeling to go away. Alice watches me like she’s never seen me before. I can’t read her expressions half the time. At least I know she’s kind.
Well, I think she’s kind.
I don’t really know a lot about her other than she’s the girl who escaped from Underland. That, in itself, is enough to tell me she isn’t cruel. Why would she want to leave if she were? And not many people manage to run away from there and live to tell the tale.
A heavy weight presses against my heart. She must have endured unspeakable acts of cruelty at the hands of the Mad Hatter. I can’t even imagine what she went through.
I really don’t want to.
Perhaps this is why she appears so tiny on the outside, but once you scratch beneath the surface, you find a powerful girl hiding behind her wall of shields. She may be small, but my father always said that what doesn’t kill you gives you the strength of a king and the courage of a thousand warriors. I really think Alice is living proof of that. Time will tell if I’m wrong, though.
We leave the hidden room and sneak out into the hallway to the common area. It’s long before curfew has been lifted and there’s nobody here, but I’m scared and startling at shadows. I don’t want to get caught out of my room after curfew again. I did that once, and I felt the resulting punishment for days. I don’t want to repeat that experience. It was… confusing to me.
Alice is fearless and scoots right through the darkness, leading the way down to the greenhouse. Flashes of her pale skin make her appear almost like a ghost.
When we left Aladdin last night, he was naked and chained to a greenhouse bench, connected to the wooden leg by a chain locked to the collar around his throat. Quasimodo, the gardener, was taking care of him, which is good, because I think Aladdin needs a keeper. Not in a zookeeper way. I mean he needs someone to take care of him. He’s awfully young, maybe even younger than us, and I think he’s been alone for a long time. Sometimes when Gideon picks on him, he just sags like a dog that’s been kicked so many times it doesn’t even react anymore. It’s heartbreaking.
I don’t know why Gideon is such a bully. He’s my roommate and my closest friend. He’s not a bad person at heart. He just keeps acting like a villain and I don’t get it. He’s supposed to be a hero. We’re all supposed to be heroes. Why are we mean to people like Aladdin and Redera? Aren’t they the people we should protect?
Gideon thinks Redera is a Darkblood. He’s obsessed with those people, and it’s honestly really bigoted of him. I asked him one time if his kingdom was having trouble with Darkbloods, and if that was why he hated them so much, but he wouldn’t really answer the question. He just distracted me with… something else.
Turns out it’s easy for him to derail my brain. He knows exactly what to do to manipulate me, and I ought to be mad at him, but I’m not.
I’m such a fool.
Alice drags me after her into the greenhouse. The pale morning light is starting to illuminate the stained glass portrait of Esmeralda, a former professor here. I don’t know much about her. I just know that Mrs. Thornhart says Esmeralda was important to Quasimodo, and so he built a lovely garden of flowers and medicinal herbs to honor her. I’d ask him why, but he can’t speak, and we can’t communicate. I don’t even know if he’d be able to tell me. He might have some sort of mental disability to go with his hunchback and misshapen face. He’s kind, though, and that’s important. He’s also really, really good with plants. If being a good gardener means you have a green thumb, well, Quasimodo’s got green all the way up to the elbow. He’s that good.
The greenhouse door is standing open when we get there. To be honest, I’m a little nervous to go in. Alice steps right through, brave as anything. You’d think she’d be more timid, especially with a bunny for a familiar. My familiar is Phillip, and he’s an owl, and we’re the same—we both watch things. He looks intelligent with his piercing stare while I just look empty-headed. That’s what my mother always says, anyway. She’s so grateful that my sister Rapunzel is the older of her kids. I think she’d weep for our kingdom if she had to leave the throne to me.
Anyway… enough of that.
I follow Alice into the greenhouse. It’s silent, and it smells like potting soil and fertilizer. There’s no sound or smell that would tell me a wolf has been here. Last night, Quasimodo brought in a full water bowl, and now it’s lying upside down and empty on the gravel. The chain and collar are lying under the workbench. There’s a very clear set of scratches in a circle where a wolf reached as far as the chain would allow and tried to dig his way out of the greenhouse. Dirt, gravel and claw marks are everywhere. Without thinking, I grab a garden rake and start concealing the evidence, hiding the places where the wolf was digging and trying to put the dirt and gravel back in order. Alice bends and helps me, scooping gravel with her hands to fill in the deep channels that the wolf dug.