Half-Blood Academy 4: Magic Unchained: an academy reverse harem paranormal romance Read online

  MAGIC UNCHAINED

  Half-Blood Academy # 4

  Meg Xuemei X

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Magic Unchained

  Books by Meg Xuemei X

  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

  CHAPTER 24

  Author’s Note

  SNEAK PEEK: CLAIM THE WOLF KING

  About the Author

  Half-Blood Academy 4: Magic Unchained © 2019 by Meg Xuemei X

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  The novel is a work of fiction. Any and all characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or events or places is merely coincidence. Novel intended for adults only.

  Books by Meg Xuemei X

  THE FIRST WITCH SERIES

  The Dragonian’s Witch

  The Witch’s Consort

  OF SHADOWS AND FIRE SERIES

  The Burn of the Underworld

  The Fall of the Underworld

  THE WAR OF GODS SERIES

  A Court of Blood and Void

  A Court of Fire and Metal

  A Court of Ice and Wind

  A Court of Earth and Ether

  HALF-BLOOD ACADEMY SERIES

  Magic Trials

  Magic Secret

  Magic Fury

  Magic Unchained

  Magic Flame

  THE CURSED DRAGON QUEEN & HER MATES SERIES

  The Fury Queen’s Harem

  The Dragon Queen’s Harem

  The Fae Queen’s Harem

  EMPRESS OF MYSTH SERIES

  Angel’s Lust

  Angel’s Obsession

  Angel’s Indecent Proposal

  Angel’s Mate

  TRUE MATE SERIES

  Claim the Wolf King

  Claim the Leopard Princess

  THE WICKEDEST WITCH SERIES

  Wicked Witch

  Dark Vampire

  Fallen Angel

  DARK CHEMISTRY SERIES

  The Siren

  The Prince

  The Red Queen

  Half-Blood Academy 4: Magic Unchained

  I abandon all hope that my demigods will come for me.

  In Hell's Academy, it's either kill or be eaten. Demons turn violence into an art form, and they've marked me as their newest victim.

  A charismatic archdemon offers me a way out of the pit.

  His price?

  Spend one night with him and his three dukes. They don't want to conquer my heart, but they have every intention of riding my body.

  I'm no longer the Marigold my demigods once fell in love with.

  I've become a nightmarish monster bred in an inferno.

  Yet when my mates find me, they insist I'm still their beautiful monster.

  Now and forever.

  Too bad the truth is dirtier than they could ever imagine.

  CHAPTER 1

  __________________

  My mates’ roars pounded in my ears, and then cold hollowness swallowed me whole.

  I’d been dead for a while.

  But why did such excruciating pain fill my every cell? As my consciousness stirred and fluttered, agony erupted from my chest like the hottest fire in an inferno and coldest ice in the galaxy.

  Couldn’t I find peace, even in death?

  I screamed at the burning pain—or tried to. My screams stuck in my parched throat.

  I snapped open my eyes.

  The cruel truth sank in along with the feeling of thousands of needles stabbing into my bones.

  I’d survived the blade that impaled my heart.

  Maybe I couldn’t die, like my Titan father, or maybe the elemental had done something to prevent my final death?

  Septum had crashed into me. The last fragment of his life force had flared in me like the dying light and heat from a supernova, and then everything had collapsed around me.

  What had happened to my demigods after that?

  I tried to rise. I must go to them, even if I had to accept their condemnation. But my body wouldn’t move an inch. I was paralyzed from the neck down.

  A new wave of panic swirled from my stomach, surged up, and choked my lungs.

  Faint, eerie light emitted from a tiny hole on the low ceiling a few inches above me. My eyes rolled slowly until I registered that I was trapped inside an iron coffin, my body bound by dark magic.

  I tried to scream again, to call for help, to get someone’s attention. And again, no voice came out. I didn’t know how long I lay like that on hard, cold iron that jutted into my back, waiting for this eternal torture to end and yet knowing it never would.

  Pain engulfed me.

  After what seemed like ages of torturous confinement, the heavy lid above me slid aside and revealed a stony hall so vast and a dark ceiling so high that all I wanted was to shrink back into the coffin.

  “The sleeping beauty is finally awake,” a dark, velvety voice whispered above me, chilling me to the bone. “You can talk now. I think the drugs have worn off.”

  I swallowed, trying to work my vocal cords, and my throat burned.

  “Where. The. Fuck. Am I?” I managed to string the words together, my croaking voice like a knife scratching on a gravestone.

  “You’re in Hell, Princess Celeste,” Loki, the demon prince, purred.

  CHAPTER 2

  __________________

  “You think you’re living your worst nightmare, cousin?” Loki chuckled. “This is only the beginning.”

  His handsome face, which seemed to be carved out of dark gold, hovered above me. His curly, dark hair spilled over his broad shoulders. Even in the dim light, I could make out his lush eyelashes, his strong cheekbones, and cynical lips that held the sensuality of the Underworld.

  The demon prince was as I remembered, but his eyes were different. They weren’t pits of infinite darkness born to devour the light this time. They were piercing green like mine, sparkling with cruelty and amusement.

  I held his gaze, paying no mind to his taunting.

  His demonic, seductive power couldn’t touch me either.

  Now that I wasn’t dead,
I must get acquainted with my new environment, process it, and figure out my next move.

  Pain battered at me like unceasing waves crashing on the shore, but I ignored it. I tried to block out my unrealistic longing for my demigods as well.

  I was in enemy territory, surrounded by powerful, vicious beings.

  “What are you doing here, Loki,” I asked in mockery. My voice was still hoarse, but words flowed out easier now. “Where’s your daddy? He dragged me down here. I thought he wanted a chat.”

  He smiled at me. “That’s my girl. They haven’t broken you.”

  “I’m not your girl. Never will be.”

  “I thought your first question would be how long you’d been down here.”

  “That too.”

  “How much do you remember?”

  I looked at him blankly as something dark flashed in his eyes. “What kind of game are you playing? I don’t have time for that shit.”

  “They dissected you,” he said with a sigh, “reveled in your pain, and then put the most potent spells on you to bind your power.”

  I didn’t remember any of that.

  The last things I recalled before waking up in the coffin were a blade plunging into my heart, the devastated roars of my demigods, and the agony of the world in their eyes.

  “I couldn’t stop them,” Loki continued. “I had to watch them cut you open again and again to search for the source of your power.”

  That was why everything in me had screamed in pain when I’d woken up. Without clarifying it with Loki, I knew “they” meant Lucifer and Ares.

  The fuckers had caused such misery in my life.

  I summoned my power.

  A spark of ember stuttered in my deep well, then slumped beneath layers of thick, cold ash.

  “It was just as I thought,” Loki said with satisfaction. “You evacuated your consciousness when they tortured you. They brought you up from the coffin, lifted you in the air with iron chains, and nailed your wrists to the wall. While you were spread-eagle they cut you open. You bled out. In the end, you still healed. You still regenerated. But you don’t remember.”

  A flitter of pain and envy passed by his gorgeous face, as if he was speaking from experience.

  “I hope I can learn how you did it,” he whispered. “Your survival instincts kicked in and shielded you from being forced to witness the most inhuman treatments.” His dark green gaze pierced me, but his voice softened. “They failed to take your power, Celeste.”

  I froze the rage that threatened to erupt from my every fiber. I needed cold clarity to deal with my enemies, and they were plenty.

  Ares and Lucifer had stolen the elemental’s power, and they’d tried to do the same to me. Yet they’d failed.

  Why?

  Had my spirit managed to escape while my enemies brutally violated me, so my soul wouldn’t be scarred?

  My eyes dipped down. Numerous white and red scars crisscrossed my chest. Loki hadn’t lied. Every inch of me had been sliced open. Only now was I mentally returning to review what horrors had been done to me.

  “They tried everything to force your consciousness to surface and bring you to the present to watch what they were doing to you,” Loki said, studying every subtle expression on my face. “You beat them. You found a way to persevere yourself and remain unbroken.”

  The fuckers wanted to break me to serve their purposes. The sadistic war god had first attempted it when he’d held me captive in his castle.

  I let out a peal of hoarse laughter. Those dipshits would never get anything from me.

  My thoughts drifted to my demigods, and another wave of angst assaulted me.

  I didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they lived to fight another day.

  “How long have the two punks kept me here?” I asked.

  “Two moons,” Loki said.

  I tried not to blink. It’d been two months since I’d been dragged to Hell.

  No one had come for me.

  It wasn’t that I expected a rescue, but it still hurt like a punch right through my guts to know that everyone had abandoned me.

  No, they hadn’t abandoned me. The demigods had seen with their own eyes that I’d fallen under my own sword.

  They believed I was dead.

  I’d revealed my dirty origin. I’d said my goodbyes to them. There was nothing left after that. I doubted the demigods would welcome me back from the grave.

  All that was left to me was revenge.

  “It’s been two weeks in Earth time,” Loki said casually and carefully, as if he wanted to stoke the fire of hope in me when there was none. He’d seen the light dim to nothing in my eyes. This fucker didn’t miss anything.

  I worked on my magic again stealthily. I needed to break this bind and escape this prison. When I did, I would kill the prince first, then slay the rest of his crew, who were posted outside the door. As my consciousness had returned, I’d felt the pulses of powers inside three beings—one demon, one witch, and one dark mage.

  I bet they’d assisted the devil and the god in opening me up.

  Once out of here, I’d slay every fucking being in my warpath until I cut down Lucifer and then Ares if he was still in the realm.

  However, the bloodbath as I left piles of bodies behind me was pure fantasy at the moment.

  I couldn’t move a fucking toe.

  Loki tugged up the corner of his lips in dark amusement as if he saw all the schemes and images rushing in my head and yet indulged me.

  “Venom and spells from both Lucifer and Ares have soaked into your bloodstream,” he informed me as he adjusted the gold cuff at his wrist. “They can’t kill you, but they bind your magic. You won’t be able to use your power against my father while you’re in Hell.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you to be such a jubilant messenger boy,” I said. “I thought Hell’s prince had better things to do.”

  He grinned, showing off his white teeth, sexy and predatory. Other women or demonesses might swoon, but not me.

  “What do you think are better things to do?” he asked in his typical purr.

  I shot him a bored look while being held immobile. I hadn’t given up on busting out my magic, despite what the dark prince had told me about the venom and spells.

  “They couldn’t break you after their every effort,” he said. “So I persuaded my father to give you to me so I can bend you for him. I have a reputation, and I plan to maintain it.”

  Chills surged up my spine, the iron beneath me turning cold as ice.

  “You never awoke in their presence, but you did for me. For the first time in two months, you’ve woken up because they are gone and I’m here. You feel safe with me. Your instincts recognize who I am. Your body knows me.”

  I almost laughed. Did he mistakenly think that he could seduce me?

  “I woke up to a bad actor in a soap opera,” I said.

  He threw his head back and laughed.

  “They didn’t break you, and now I can do my job,” he said, his eyes holding dark delight.

  I was his job.

  My body couldn’t move, yet I shuddered.

  He thought he could break me when the devil had failed.

  I should zone out again and leave an empty shell for him, but deep in my psyche, I knew I couldn’t escape this time. I’d left the unknown realm I’d fled to, and now the path to it was gone.

  I wondered why I hadn’t faded while those assholes mutilated me. When I was on Earth, I’d had to feed from my demigods at least once a week to keep my Titan power from consuming me.

  Yet I’d survived in this realm, even while I’d been assaulted and maimed over and over. Was it because I was a native to Hell? Or perhaps the venom and spells the god and the devil had put in me to bind my power were also preventing me from fading.

  I prodded my magic again and pushed it to the surface. All I had was a spark stirring in the ash, as insignificant as a speck of dust.

  “I’m sorry, Celeste,” Loki said. “I ha
te to see you suffer, but you’ll have to lie inside this box for a little longer until I’m allowed to come back for you.”

  I tried to quench the cold dread seeping through my bones.

  His game had started. Lucifer’s heir was pumping terror into my veins by showing me he could and would let me rot in this coffin.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get my magic out. And I wouldn’t be able to fall back into oblivion anymore. I would have to stay awake, staring at the coffin’s low ceiling, counting every second pass without knowing when or if he’d ever return for me.

  I would watch myself be buried alive for eternity.

  “You bastard,” I said, my voice bearing the emotion of cold stone. I wouldn’t let him get under my skin. I wouldn’t let the demon prince break me, either. “I told you when I first met you, and I’m telling you again. Don’t return for me. I don’t want to see your fucking face.”

  “Shush, cousin,” he said almost fondly, his silken voice caressing me, and I shivered. “I’m not like my father. I won’t discard you. I’ve never forgotten you for a second. The only reason I’ve been avoiding you is to ensure your survival. I need to finalize the contract and protect my interests. When I come back and get you out, I won’t go easy on you. You’ll have to fight for your every breath.”

  One could never tell if a demon prince’s words were a promise or a threat.

  I’d hold on, no matter how hard it was. And then I’d kill him at the first opportunity, then his father, then the fucking god.

  The iron lid to the coffin slid back above my head, isolating and trapping me. I lay in the dark as fear roared in my ear.

  Hunger gnawed my insides as pain that I could no longer block out beat vividly in my every cell.

  Loki’s footsteps, leather shoes I guessed from the soft sound, retreated.

  The door opened with an eerie, creaking groan. It must be heavy. It could be made of iron, like my coffin. The door shut with a sharp click.

  “Heir.” A female’s voice rose to greet him.

  She sounded human, so she must be the black witch among the three of my jailors. The other two were a level-seven demon and a dark mage.

  “No one is allowed to enter this dome except my father and me,” Loki said. “Anyone tries, kill them on sight.”