Broken Spells (Society of Ancient Magic Book 5), page 1
Broken Spells
Society of Ancient Magic, Book Five
Fiona Starr
FS Romance Press
Broken Spells: Society of Ancient Magic, Book Six
Copyright © 2021 by Fiona Starr
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by: Raquel Lyon, Crooked Sixpence
Created with Vellum
My Dear Reader,
Welcome back!!! Joely and her men are about to face challenges like none other… and that’s saying something.
I’m so excited to welcome you back to the world of Joely and her men…
Fall in love with them all!
xx
Contents
Society of Ancient Magic
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Also by Fiona Starr
About Fiona Starr
Society of Ancient Magic
Three wolf shifters tormented by a deadly secret.
Two worlds torn by a twisted legacy.
One girl determined to choose her own fate.
Fall in love with Joely and her men!
Book 1 - Dark Arts
Book 2 - Over Hexed
Book 3 - Witch Wars
Book 4 - Cursed Souls
Book 5 - Broken Spells
Book 6 - Magic Reclaimed
Series Complete!
Chapter One
JOELY
There are times when events happen which are so incredible, so thoroughly unexpected, that the brain simply cannot take them in. Sometimes the surprise factor is the reason for the cognitive delay, but sometimes it’s because what’s happening is unthinkable, unspeakable, unimaginable.
And yet… it is truly happening.
The unreality of it causes the brain to make it unfold in slow-motion, protracted and delayed, waking all the senses, allowing the body to absorb it in excruciating detail.
That’s where I find myself right now.
The auditorium is packed with all the people who came to hear from the authorities about the bodies of all the students we had found. Angus, Marco, and I are surrounded by alumni, trustees, faculty, students, families, and the news media.
They came to hear about the investigation from the police at the Department of Magical Affairs. They came to hear about the future of Blakeborne University. They came to find out what would happen with the Society.
Nobody expected what happened, and because the Universe is cruel and unusual, I watch it all happen at half speed.
“You say there are no wolves here? I beg to differ.” Dr. Kimberly Helspeth pushes toward the front of the crowd and drops the rotting, dirt-covered body of Porter Allbright at our feet.
The room goes completely still for a beat, as if the air is sucked out of the place. Then the smell hits. Someone behind me screams and Quinn Allbright drops to the floor, fainting about six feet from her father’s corpse. Her brother, Sebastian’s face goes livid, but he’s not grossed out, he’s angry.
What the hell? He didn’t look like that when we buried him. Angus’s thought flashes through my head and disappears before I can really grab on.
I’m staring at the dead body of my biological father, the man who tried to kill me, and the only thought I have is concern for my men. The way the body is torn up… whoever did that is trying to make it look like wolves mauled Porter Allbright to death. And it’s clear there is no way anyone is going to believe that he was actually killed by Damon Underwood when the vampire snapped his neck.
Oh shit. This isn’t good. Marco tenses behind me and I can tell he and Angus are bracing for a fight.
Don’t. Van’s thought shoots through the jumble that is our hive mind.
I grab Angus’s hand.
“Who are you?” Inspector Bonney asks from the podium. “What is the meaning of this?”
“You’ve been lied to.” Helspeth’s so angry that her voice is shaking.
My sister, Eliza, steps from the front of the crowd and points at me, shrieking. “They are hiding something!”
Inspector Bonney glances at me and the guys, and I can see that she isn’t concerned about anything Eliza says. We’ve had several conversations with the police inspector at length about what we found in the crypt and what we know was happening, and we coordinated the assembly so she could be here.
Inspector Bonney turns her attention back to the crowd, which is now starting to get unruly. “Okay people. Calm down. Nobody is hiding anything.”
“As I said, I beg to differ.” Helspeth moves with the impossible speed of a vampire and appears in front of Van. She flicks her finger under the necklace he wears to suppress his wolf and whispers something under her breath.
Van’s necklace snaps and drops to the floor.
Fuck! His word echoes through our hive mind.
An enormous white dire wolf appears next to us, shoving aside a bunch of people who had been standing around him. A couple of people land on the floor, eyes and mouths wide.
Helspeth smiles, and it’s clear this woman is not about to back down.
Van arches his back and growls at the vampire. His sound is so loud I can feel it vibrating through my skin.
People all around the auditorium scatter, shouting and screaming and pushing into each other and causing a crushing rush for the exits.
I’ve got her. Tobias, who had been hiding in the crowd, appears behind Helspeth in a blur. She tries to move, but he wraps his arms around her, immobilizing her for a split second as she’s unable to overpower another vampire like she would a human.
Fuck you and your whole fucking family! Van’s words are laced with so much pain. So much anger for all the things the Underwoods took from them. For everything they did to them. He swipes his paw across her throat decapitating her.
Tobias is gone before her body even hits the floor.
Van follows his brother, bounding through the crowd, sending the people scurrying to make a lane for him. His thoughts fill the hive mind.
Don’t reveal yourselves. Act surprised. Get Joely out of here.
One thing is for sure, there is absolutely no acting required for any of us. Angus and Marco and I gape at each other as the crowd around us devolves into chaos.
“I told you so! I told you all! There are wolves!” Eliza screams. She looks apoplectic as she rants to anyone who will listen. She backs up and trips over Helspeth’s head, which stops rolling under her feet. Smears of thick, dark blood spread all over my sister’s clothes as she slips in the muck.
Behind her, Sebastian Allbright stands in the center of the space in front of the podium. He watches Van run off and then he turns and stares right at me.
I can’t tell what’s going through Sebastian’s mind, but the way he is looking at me makes my body go cold.
“Let’s get out of here.” Angus grabs my arm and pulls me back toward the door behind us that leads into the school. I pull back, waiting, watching Sebastian.
Sebastian’s eyes darken as he makes his way to the podium and grabs the microphone. “My name is Sebastian Allbright, and I am offering five million in pure gold bullion for the head of that dire wolf. His name is Harry VanDemaar, and I don’t care if I get his human head or the white beast.” He points to the door where Van just departed and then drops the mic, picks up his sister where she fainted on the floor, and carries her out of the auditorium.
Eliza’s face appears inches from mine. “You knew! You knew! What else is there that you’re hiding? Maybe Van’s brothers are also wolves?” She’s got a smear of brown-red blood on her cheek and in her hair and she’s shouting and pointing in my face and spewing spittle on me.
“Don’t be an idiot, Eliza.” Roz grabs Eliza’s shoulders and shoves my sister aside, sending her sprawling again in the growing puddle of the vampire’s blood. My friend wraps her arm around my hip. “You need to leave.”
I nod at her, still reeling from the time warp slow-mo, and trying to make my brain catch up with the clock. We push through the crush of the screaming crowd, making our way for the door. I look over my shoulder and catch Kate helping Eliza stand up, the two of them fighting to stay on their feet in the slippery mess.
Once in the hallway, Angus eyes Roz and then looks at me.
We need to be alone.
His thought registers in my head and I nod absently, pulling Roz closer. There’s no way I’m letting her out of my sight. She’s coming with us.
“There they are!” a guy shouts from across the hall. He’s a student I recognize from campus. He’s standing on a bench so he’s at least a foot taller than the rest of the crowd. He’s pointing at me and th
Another guy next to him joins in. “What the hell, Angus? Did you know Van was killing people?”
The vibe in the hallway changes a little as more and more people start looking at us.
Someone shoves Marco. “You make me sick, asshole.”
“Someone, stop them!”
“Grab them!”
“Ow!” I shout as a hand grabs a handful of my hair, wrenching my neck backward.
Angus glances around at the people, half of whom are still rushing for the door and the other half who are starting to look at us. He pushes even faster through the crowd, pulling me and Marco and Roz behind him. It’s no use, because we can’t go any faster. We are packed like cattle in this hallway.
“We need to get out of here.” Angus’s voice sounds strained.
Let’s just shift and show them all. Marco suggests. They’ll get out of the way, then.
Angus replies. Don’t be stupid. There’s already a manhunt for wolves, and now they know it’s Van. We haven’t been outed yet. We can still try to get through this without exposing ourselves.
We pass the chemistry lab, and I don’t think. I just push the door open and pull everyone in with me. We don’t have much time before they realize where we’ve gone. I open my arms wide and wave everybody in. “Come in. Closer.”
Angus and Marco step behind Roz and me.
I wrap my arms around them and pull them against the professor’s desk. “Everyone hold on to me.” As soon as everybody is in as tight as possible, I whisper the spell to cloak us. “Conceal.” I visualize a rippling sheet of magic covering the four of us in invisibility. We won’t be able to get through a crush of people right now, because even cloaked we could bump into them, but maybe once it thins out a little, we’ll have a chance.
The door flies open and the red-faced student steps inside. He glances around the room, eyes moving right past us, and then checks behind the door. “You said they went in here!” he calls over his shoulder.
A female student peers in from the hall, she’s tall and she’s got a blonde bob with straight fringe that makes her look like a doll. She takes in the apparently empty room, and then looks confused. “That’s weird.”
Roz presses in close and whispers in my ear, “I’ll see you later.” She kisses my cheek and then crouches down, pretending that she’d been hiding behind the desk. Then stands up as if she’d been playing hide and seek and she’d been found. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. These crowds have me totally freaked out. Do you think you could walk me back to my dorm?” She steps up next to the guy and pleads with her eyes.
The guy’s demeanor changes instantly. “Um. Yes. Sure. Of course. You can walk with us.”
The girl with him nods and smiles and puts her arm over Roz’s shoulder. “Come with us. This is a madhouse.”
“Thank you so much. I’m in Rubydown Hall,” Roz says.
“Did you see anyone else come in here? Andrea said the guys who were with the wolf shifter ducked in here,” the guy says as they leave.
Roz glances over her shoulder at the empty air where she knows we’re watching her. “No. It was just me. I thought I saw them on the lawn out the window. Can you believe we actually have a dire wolf shifter living here? I’ve never seen one in person before. He was huge! I’m Roz, by the way.”
“Patrick,” he says, nodding. “This is Andrea.”
The door clicks shut, muffling the noise from the hall.
I drop the concealment and the three of us let out our breath.
Angus locks the door. “We need to get the hell out of here. Like leave town. For good. Like now.”
“We have to find Van,” I say.
“Van and Tobias will be fine.” Marco rubs his hands over his face. “How did that woman find Allbright’s body?”
“What the hell did she do to his body?” Angus leans against the door and listens, shaking his head.
“And how the hell did she know about Van’s necklace?” Marco asks.
I don’t care if Van and Tobias will be fine. I have to find them. I have to see them with my own eyes and know that they are okay. I walk to the back of the chemistry lab and find another door leading to an adjacent classroom with its own exterior door. “Hey, we can leave through here.”
Chapter Two
VAN
Fuck!
I pull on a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt and watch my brother dash around the house in a blur. He’s moving with vampire speed, throwing things into a pair of backpacks on the couch in front of me.
I got your clothes. Your phone. A charger… Tobias darts from room to room, collecting random things and dropping them into the bags.
Leave the phone. They can trace us with it. I lace up my boots and then climb the stairs two at a time and hurry to my bedroom at the back of the house. I do a quick scan of the room and then gather up all my books and research, stashing them out of sight.
They can find you using your phone? Really? You’ll have to explain that. Tobias says. It’s easy to forget that he’s new to so much in the world. Technology is lightyears beyond anything he once knew… hell, lightyears are lightyears beyond him. He’s new to everything.
Yeah. That means you leave your tablet too.
He stops in my bedroom doorway, his eyes taking on a puppy dog look. “Not my tablet? I have a streak going with the ninja chopping game.”
I shrug. “Sorry man. Don’t know what to tell you.”
Tobias shakes his head and heads back downstairs at normal speed, shoulders stooped.
I grab a hoodie from my shelf and give my room another glance before heading back down. Tobias is on the couch, his tablet, headphones, and charger in a pile on the table next to his cat. He strokes the animal, rubbing along the length of its body as it arches under his touch.
“We can’t take the cat, either,” I say.
“I wasn’t…”
“I can hear your thoughts, brother.”
“It was only a thought.” He shrugs and grins and for a second, he’s the old Tobias again. My funny, thoughtful brother with the fiery sense of humor to match his fiery energy.
I clap him on the shoulder. “Let’s go, Fireman.”
We zip the packs closed and heave them onto our shoulders, heading toward the kitchen as the front door flies open behind us. Joely is in my arms before I can turn all the way around.
“Thank god you’re all right.” She reaches for Tobias and grabs his arm, holding onto the two of us. “Thank god you’re both all right.” She steps back and notices the packs on our shoulders. “Where are you going?”
I pull her back into a hug and breathe in her summery scent, holding her against me. I want to stay right here with her in this moment forever. With my brothers right next to us, all of us safe. But for right now, that can’t be.
I kiss the top of her head and step back. “We can’t stay.” As soon as the words leave my lips, I feel the pang of anguish that hits her.
The pack mind is great for a lot of things, but not when I can feel the pain this is causing her.
She glances at Tobias and the bag on his shoulder. “Wait… you’re both going?” I can hear the tears threatening her voice.
Angus glances at me and steps up behind her, wrapping Joely in his arms. “They have the same face, Joely. If they’re looking for Van, they’re looking for Tobias, even if they don’t know it.”
Joely shakes her head. “This isn’t right. We were just getting everything started with the investigation. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“I think that all went out the window when I killed Dr. Helspeth in front of about five hundred people. Not sure how that can be explained away.”
“It was self-defense! She threatened you. We’ll tell them about the soul coils, and how she was using them. I’ll explain how she was the one who designed the vessel to kill. I’ll make them see. Just please don’t leave.”
