Midnight Fae Academy #3 by Lexi C. Foss

I caughtShade’s spell in my mind, yanking it back to life and realizing with sharp clarity what he’d done.

Kolstov.

He’d cast a Death Blood necromancy spell meant to hold on to life for as long as possible after death, typically used when wanting to question a spirit in the afterlife.

A clever fucking trick.

One that might just work.

“Aflora,” I said, needing her to bolster the spell, my energy waning fast. Help me, I demanded into her mind, shoving the enchantment at her and forcing her dark magic to life.

She gasped, her confusion quickly melting to shocked understanding.

“Kols,” she breathed, throwing herself at the body on the floor.

His essence, I hissed, yanking her mental focus back to me and the spell I barely had a hold of in my mental grasp. “What do we do with it?” I demanded through my teeth. “Shade. Tell me what the fuck to do with it.” Because I was about to lose it.

Aflora joined me, her mind forming a treelike branch that she used to ground the spell, her soul functioning as the root.

She started to shake beneath the power, the afterlife demanding its due.

This was the heart of true dark magic.

And she was using her affinity for life to keep Kolstov’s soul in our reality.

Shade began to chant, his voice a rasp of sound.

“What the fuck is going on?” Zephyrus demanded.

“Ground her,” Shade growled. “Bite her. Give her everything.”

Zephyrus looked at the Death Blood only once, then slid his fangs into Aflora’s shoulder. She cried out as his essence swathed her in a cloak of defensive energy. She immediately sighed, her relief palpable as her branch grew, twining around the magical strand inch by inch and disappearing into the ether.

I’d never seen anything like it.

The combination of magic a stunning sight.

“You, too,” Shade said through his teeth. “Now, Zakkai.”

Aflora trembled again, her lips parting in agony.

I mimicked Zephyrus’s position, kneeling on her opposite side with Kolstov’s still form on the ground before us, and bit her neck, her blood an aphrodisiac on my tongue that made me moan. Fuck, it’s been too long. I rarely drank from the vein. And lately, I had only indulged in blood-infused foods.

But Aflora…

Dear Fae, Aflora...

She cried out, causing my magic to instinctively react to her pain, cloaking her in my energy and giving her access to whatever she needed.

Puzzles ran through her mind as she sorted through the cacophony of information my essence provided.

Then she shoved all those details into her branch, using it to bolster her hold on Kolstov’s life, infusing him with dark magic once more.

Shade joined us next, taking a position across from Kolstov, wrapping his fingers through Aflora’s hair, and yanking her mouth to his. Rather than take her blood, he provided his own, feeding her his essence with his tongue before guiding her to his neck and encouraging her to bite down.

She didn’t hesitate, absorbing his power directly from the vein and engaging my Quandary side to learn all the Death Blood spells she needed to force Kolstov’s soul to heed her call.

Then she moved to Zephyrus, forcing him to release her shoulder so she could sink her teeth into his neck next. She used his Guardian bond to Kolstov to locate the remnants of the Midnight Fae Prince’s soul in the source, guiding them back to his being, pulling him back together one piece at a time.

Shade bent over Kolstov, whispering those words, his palms on the other man’s chest.

Air whirled around us, the source responding to the call to restore.

I closed my eyes, diving into my dark home and granting the required permission to create. The powers responded in warm welcome, recognizing their chosen architect and allowing Aflora’s enchantment to flourish.

My hair blew back from my face, my teeth leaving Aflora’s throat as she yanked me into a demanding kiss, her incisors piercing my tongue.

I allowed it, groaning as she sucked my essence into her mouth, swallowing greedily. Then I guided her to the pulse point of my neck and closed my eyes as she bit down.

Euphoria poured through me, my reserves somehow replenishing as though she’d just gifted me with the bite of life. Then I felt her pull everything she could from my soul and shove it through her link to Kolstov.

I flinched, the redirection of power uncomfortable.

But I felt her doing it from her other bonds as well.

And then from herself.

She poured the mixture into her branch, infusing the strand with intense vitality.

Shade took hold of the mental cord, his hum of Death magic causing all the hairs along my arms to rise as he closed his eyes and unleashed it all through his palms into Kolstov’s chest.

Silence followed.

None of us daring to breathe.

Aflora shivered, her cerulean irises on Kolstov, her bloody lip clenched between her teeth.

I swallowed.

Everything had been done on instinct, Aflora taking charge and demonstrating why fate had chosen her for this destiny.

But had she done it right?

Shade’s palms remained on Kolstov’s chest, his focus on the prince’s face. He narrowed his gaze, then lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down. “Blood,” Shade said. “He needs blood.” He started to lower his offering to Kolstov, but Aflora caught his arm.

“He needs mine.” She bit down on her wrist and pressed it to Kolstov’s lips.

Energy pooled around her as she combined all our essences inside her and poured it through her bloodline, directly into the man’s mouth.

Seconds passed.

Nothing happened.

I met Shade’s gaze, wary.

Zephyrus wore a similar expression of concern as I looked at him.

Then a subtle thud met my ears.

A second one ensued.

And a third.

Followed by a gasp from the male below as his eyes flew open, his golden irises dimmed to a burnt bronze. His focus fell entirely on Aflora, his throat working as he swallowed her blood.

Magic swirled around all of us, coating our skin in a unique essence that smelled like flowers in bloom.

Aflora.

She was claiming us all with her elemental soul.

Securing our bonds.

Strengthening us with earth.

Her source welcomed us, admiring our different powers and zeroing in on me as a known architect.

Warmth touched my spirit, power igniting and merging and creating life all around us.

Vines crawled along the walls, flowers budding at the tips, adding a splash of color to the otherwise modern room.

A bed of grass formed along the ground beneath us, overtaking the carpet and creating our own little oasis.

Aflora shifted, drawing my attention back to her and Kolstov. She’d bent to comb the fingers of her free hand through his hair, the auburn locks tinged with ash on the ends.

Kiss of death,I realized, noting his burnt irises again.

He no longer bore the mark of the dark source, but a branding from the afterlife.

I studied his magic with my own, noting the way everything had manifested inside him.

Part Earth.

Part Death Blood.

Part Quandary Blood.

Part Warrior Blood.

And a tiny bit of Elite Blood.

A true abomination. A complete work of art. A miracle.

I stared at Aflora, awed by her power and kindness. I finally understood why fate had instructed us to walk this path together.

She possessed all the qualities that a royal should.

A true monarch.

My queen.

The kind of female worth giving up all my plans for, which I’d done when I helped her revive the prince I was destined to kill.

Or maybe it was never him at all.

But the king who had taken over his ascension.

Constantine Nacht. The Elite Blood who started it all.

“He needs more blood,” Aflora whispered, her fingers still combing through Kolstov’s hair.

Zephyrus bit his wrist and held it out for the other man, his eyes falling closed as his lover and friend latched onto him for a drink.

Aflora pulled her own arm away, the wound still fresh. I took her hand and pulled her wrist to my mouth, laving the laceration and gently kissing her tender skin.

She leaned into me, seeking strength, which I happily provided.

Shade gave Kolstov blood next, the Elite Blood’s eyebrows drawing down at the offering but accepting it when Aflora whispered, “Drink.”

I was last.

Leaving me with a choice.

Give him the essence he needed to finish the healing process, or walk away.

A week ago—hell, an hour ago—I would have laughed and left him to his fate. But now I understood the destiny carved out before us, the path we were always meant to walk, and the reason Shade had gone to such lengths to coax us into this line.

I held my wrist to Aflora’s mouth, allowing her to do the honors with her blunt teeth, then lowered the offering to the bewildered male on the ground.

He jolted as my blood touched his tongue, the power inside me writhing in response to the former heir’s essence, bathing him in dark magic and restoring the last of his reserves.

A bond slid into place between us, tying our souls together for eternity and officially squandering my ability to ever kill him.

Because our lives were linked now, and the flare of his nostrils confirmed he felt it, too.

I sensed his finalized bond to Zephyrus and budding one with Shade.

And his nearly complete tie to Aflora.

Thank you,she whispered into my mind, aware of what I’d just sacrificed by allowing him to imbibe my essence. My retribution would need to be redefined.

But I already knew that.

It’d been obvious the moment I felt her pain. I would never allow her to experience such agony again.

I leaned in to kiss her, allowing my mouth to do all the talking without words.

With one arm around her and my opposite hand at Kolstov’s mouth, we formed a pretty awkward triangle. Only heightened by the other two men in the circle, their presence an unexpected comfort to the situation at hand.

It allowed me to devour her properly, without having to keep my guard up to protect her.

Because I knew Zephyrus and Shade had that part covered.

Then Kolstov released my wrist, his energy warming the air. Aflora slowly pulled away from my kiss, her cerulean gaze falling to the former royal on the floor.

They stared at each other for a long moment, his expression intense. Then he glanced at Shade, his eyes narrowing.

A humming current floated through the air, the Death Blood engaging a telepathic link with Kolstov that the rest of us could feel but not hear.

They were only mated on the first level, but Shade was no ordinary fae. I wasn’t surprised that he could converse mentally at an initial stage of a mating. He probably could have done the same with Aflora.

“Out loud,” Zephyrus said, those two words underlined in command.

“I’m telling him how we saved him,” Shade replied, his voice soft and reverent. “How Aflora saved him.”

“We,” she corrected. “You were right to say we.”

“What happened?” Zephyrus asked. “How did…? Why did…?”

“Constantine knew about the mating,” Shade said, holding Kolstov’s gaze. “He’s known since the beginning. And not initially from me.”

“Dakota,” I muttered.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “But I knew from previous experience that she was feeding him information. So I did as well to win his favor.”

“How many times has this happened?” I asked.

But I already knew the answer.

There was no turning back time with death.

We were in the final version of events, Kolstov forever in this state. If we went back, we risked leaving him behind.

“Everything always comes to a head at the Blood Gala,” Shade replied, his voice gruff. “Aflora detonates. People die. But this is the first time Kols has ever been stripped of the source.”

“What about your grandmother?” Kolstov asked. “They were going to get her?”

Shade snorted. “That was a ploy to make you both react. But it’s true that Constantine has known my grandmother’s location. Dakota told him, as did I—again, to win his favor. However, he can’t use the information because of where she created the paradigm.”

I smirked. “Yes, the Hell Fae realm isn’t typically fond of visitors. I’ve always wondered how Zen convinced them to allow her to hide there.” She must have engaged in a deal with Lucifer. From what I understood of the old fae, he was fond of those.

Kolstov and Zephyrus looked at me for a moment, then the latter shook his head.

“Okay, so what changed?” Zephyrus demanded. “Why would Constantine choose to act now and not before?”

“The bonds,” Shade whispered. “They didn’t exist before. Not for you. Not for Kolstov. Not like this.”

“She always undid them,” Kolstov replied, his voice gruff. “In my suite.”

“Yes,” Shade confirmed softly, his gaze going to a stunned Aflora. “You carried through with your threat in various ways, sometimes that day, sometimes a few days or weeks later. But it always ended the same way. And it took me seven catastrophic events to realize what you needed. What we needed. And it’s finally done. We’re finally… here.”

Silence fell, all of us consuming that information in our own ways.

I already suspected most of this, had dreamt of many different instances that just felt too real to be fantasy. Aflora detonating… then nothing.

“You never let her finish,” I realized out loud. “That’s why there’s no end.”

“Not exactly,” he replied. “I… I watched her lose herself… and I saw what it would do to her in the end. All those lives taken and destroyed, by her hand…”

“She destroyed herself afterward,” I said, swallowing thickly. “That’s what you foresaw.” Or perhaps not him, but Zen.

He dipped his chin once, confirming. “Every time.”

“I would never… I could never…” Aflora shook her head, looking between us all. “Don’t ever let me do that.”

“We stopped you tonight,” I reminded her. “Which I’m guessing has never happened before.”

“The catalyst for her eruption changed,” Shade said. “Constantine has always found a way to provoke her, but he’s never used Kols.”

“Because Kolstov always sided with Constantine,” I translated.

“Yes,” Shade replied.

Kolstov shook his head adamantly. “I would never side with him.”

“You have and did,” Shade assured him. “Several times. Zeph, too.”

“Bullshit,” Zephyrus retorted.

Shade sighed. “She severed the bonds. Which took a great deal of power. And the experience changed us all in varying ways.”

“Because severing bonds requires sacrifice,” I said, something my father had to know yet never told me. However, it made sense to me now. “It’s soul magic. Undoing it…”

“Hurts,” Shade finished for me. “It hurts. A lot. Which you already know.”

“I never unraveled our bond.”

“But you built a cage around it and blocked yourselves from feeling it,” he replied. “You know what it takes and what it can do.”

I stared at him for a long moment, slowly understanding his statement. “It changes you,” I said, repeating what he’d already said. “Makes you not recognize who you used to be.”

All these years, I thought it was my father’s training that had altered me on a fundamental level. But that wasn’t it at all.

Closing off our link, ignoring half of my spirit, was what morphed me into a darker person with a desire for vengeance. Experience helped, too, but it went so much deeper than that.

“It’s like killing off half of your soul,” I breathed.

“Exactly,” Shade replied. “And it took me far too long to realize that. But when you alter fate in such a way, you’re burdened with a price.”

“Kolstov,” I said.

“Kolstov,” he agreed, gazing down at the male in question. “However, I wasn’t willing to pay that price. So I bit you and worked with Tadmir to come up with a plan that would save your life. And it worked.”

“Which means we’ve altered another strand of fate,” I murmured, my eyes narrowing. “What path are we on now?”

“One that has yet to be written,” Shade replied, his voice thick with emotion. “One we can never go back from.”

Because it would jeopardize everything we’d just sacrificed for Kolstov.

Another bout of silence fell, the four of us kneeling on the floor around Kolstov’s prone form. I squeezed Aflora’s side, my arm still around her lower back.

She glanced up at me and then at each of her mates, her cerulean gaze alight with renewed power. “What now?” she asked.

“We kill Constantine,” I said without missing a beat.

“We kill Constantine,” Zephyrus and Shade agreed in unison.

All of us looked down at the former Midnight Fae Prince, awaiting his verdict. “We’ll need a plan,” he finally said. “A good one.” Then he glanced around, frowning at the bedroom. “Where the bloody hell are we, anyway?”

Great fucking question, I thought, following his gaze to take in all of Aflora’s earthlike decorations.

“A paradigm,” she whispered. “Shade created it.”

The Death Blood grinned. “That I did, little rose.”

“I can feel your energy all over it,” she admitted, her eyes closing in content. “I can feel all of our energy here.” Her lips curled as more earth sprouted to life around us, her power humming through the air with renewed strength.

Renewed strength underlined in need.

She’d expelled a lot of energy.

Had exchanged so much blood.

And now the Earth Fae in her was craving invigoration of a different sort.

My lips curled. Oh, little star. Do you need something from your mates?

Her muscles tensed along her back as she clenched her thighs beneath the dress, her pulse a beacon begging to be bitten. Zephyrus noticed it as well, his green eyes roaming over her with the knowledge of a man well versed in reading female anatomy.

I glanced at Shade, noting his smirk.

We all sensed it. Even Kolstov was reacting to it, albeit a little slower than the rest.

This was a safe place. I could feel it in the infrastructure of the paradigm. But I added a touch of my magic to it, bolstering the walls and adding a few trigger warnings, just in case.

Because I had a feeling we were about to be preoccupied for a while.

Well, at least Aflora would be. I might just stand by and watch her work. I didn’t want our first time to be with an audience.

That said, if she kept radiating all that sexual energy, I might be inclined to change my mind.

What’s wrong, Aflora?I hummed into her mind, well aware of what bothered her. But she hadn’t answered my question, which really was more like an offer.

If she wanted to play, we’d all oblige.

It’d been an intense day. We could all use the relief, and sex would provide that.

I… I feel… She trailed off, biting her bottom lip.

Needy? I suggested, leaning in to nibble her neck. Hot?

Yes,she moaned into my mind. But I don’t… I…

I smiled. For someone so incredibly fierce, I found it rather amusing that she could revert so quickly to her shy and delicate side. Or perhaps she didn’t yet understand that her body required nourishment to help replenish her reserves. She’d expelled so much today, more than she likely ever had before. And now her spirit required supplemental nutrients from her mates.

Technically, some blood would help.

But I preferred her body’s suggestion instead.

“Aflora?” Kolstov breathed, his pupils dilating as her sensual energy rolled over him. He, too, would be craving life after being so close to death.

All of us were.

A hum stirred among us, one simmering with desire and yearning—a yearning only our heart could appease. Our Aflora.

Kolstov breathed her name again, reaching for her as she opened her eyes.

“Kols,” she whimpered, her instincts taking over as she practically collapsed on top of him. Her body molded to his, her mouth claiming his.

My blood heated in response, her power a seductive pull that left me useless to stop her.

Bow to the queen,her essence whispered.

And so I bowed, my soul hers to command.