Fortune Academy Underworld: Book Seven, page 1
Fortune Academy Underworld: Book Seven © 2022 by J.R. Thorn
* * *
Cover Art by Covers by Juan
Interior Illustration by Ricky Gunawan Book Cover Art
* * *
All Persons Fictitious Disclaimer:
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.
* * *
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system.
Published in the United States.
Contents
Trigger Warning
Blurb
A Fucking Journal Entry - Because that’s what I do now
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
Author's Note
Unicorn Shifter Academy
Fortune Academy Underworld: Episode 1
Recommended Reading Order
For all of us who aren’t ready to face our past, don’t be afraid. When we overcome our past it can’t control us anymore.
* * *
Thank you, Lily, for teaching us how it’s done.
Trigger Warning
This is a trigger warning exclusively for my mother.
Yes. I am writing a trigger warning for my mother. (Trust me, it’s necessary.)
This is the first book I’ve written since my family discovered my super-secret pen name all because Facebook shared a preview of a video posted in a closed group with me holding up one of my J.R. Thorn books.
Good going, Facebook. Thank you for making all future family events awkward after five years of successfully keeping my alter-ego under wraps.
Anyway, back to the triggers. Every other paragraph will trigger you, mom. Seriously. There is a lot of “mommy porn” and “nasty” scenes that put that scary mom-look on your face , an image that made me scrunch my shoulders every time I worked on this book.
But, I wrote it anyway.
Because this series is not “mommy porn,” it is an expression of female empowerment. It is an expression of darkness, of fears, and of overcoming challenges. It is an expression of upholding the desire that a woman be loved, cherished, adored, and respected. I hope this book gives every reader who picks it up a sense that she is not alone.
There are magical challenges. Darkness. Epic adventures. Wild romances.
And sex.
There’s a lot of that, so please, don’t turn the page unless you agree to have no eye-contact for the next five years.
Cool?
Cool.
The ultimate sacrifice has been made.
Cole has paid his penance.
Now it’s time for his revenge.
Lucifer has been crowned King of Earth, his royal boon something every mortal craves.
* * *
To be powerful, immortal, and feared.
* * *
He’s converting mortals into supernaturals thanks to his alliance with Calamity, but it doesn’t work out for everyone. This is an unnatural push against the balance. Supernaturals have their own realms and their own rules, but Calamity thrives in chaos.
Lucifer thinks he can control it, and I realize one important distinction.
* * *
He wants me alive.
* * *
He wants his brother on his side, Cole, a demon of rage who has proven himself worthy of my love.
After our last battle, Lucifer is content to wait, to build his unnatural army until he can storm Fortune Academy Underworld’s gates once again.
* * *
I’m tired of staying one step ahead of Lucifer. If I had learned anything from our last battle, it was only one thing was going to win this war against the devil.
Love.
* * *
With eight mates, a girl’s going to be busy, so this might take a while.
A Fucking Journal Entry - Because that’s what I do now
Penned by Cole, Demon of Rage
Era: Third Echo of Calamity written during the Supernaturals War
Kaito suggested that I write my thoughts down, or feelings, as he calls them.
He and I don’t have the best relationship, more like a necessary bond built between males of a mate-circle.
He knows how to crawl under my skin and get to me.
He also knows what I need, even though I’d never admit that to him.
(So if you’re reading this, Kaito, I’ll fuck you so hard up your ass my dick will come out your throat—although you’d probably like that, you sick fuck.)
So, right. Where was I.
Feelings.
Lilith changed me. She’s my new mate, and because of that I’ve formed a bond I never thought a demon like me would have.
Although am I really a demon now that I’ve been stripped of everything that made me Lucifer’s brother?
A better question… do I want to be Lucifer’s brother anymore?
Maybe now it’s time to become a new creature, someone that will one day be worthy of my mate.
Still, I’m not sure where to go from here, or how I can be useful to the Third Champion of Calamity when I don’t even know what I am anymore.
I lost my wings.
When I think of how Kaito phrases things, he would say I lost my identity, so now it’s time to forge a new one.
It’s not that easy.
My demonic power went with my wings. I gifted them to my mate to help her survive when Lucifer tore one of her angelic wings from her body.
Lilith thinks that I’ve changed since I lost my wings, but she began a change in my hellfire heart that started the moment I felt her hold on me.
That’s why I tested her in the way that I did.
That’s why I allowed her to die… so that she could be reborn and find her true potential.
And now I carried the burden of that sin, one that weighed heavily on me in these days.
I hadn’t always been this way.
In the dungeons of Fortune Academy before its fall, before Lilith’s death, and before her rebirth, I crawled out of the pits of Hell and ventured to such a dull place because my brother had promised me we would finally receive retribution.
Thriving in my rage was all I knew… all I ever wanted, until I met her.
Lucifer’s downfall affected me more than he knew. We’d lost Balthazar long before Sonya took his throne.
That’s when I began doubting him, and that’s when he started going down a dark path that would only lead to death and chaos.
No one knew his plans but me for a long time.
He’d used powerful magic to disguise his appearance and to make everyone in Hell believe he was just another powerful Demon Lord ironically named Luc. He ran the barracks and built a sizable army to overthrow Sonya without anyone being wiser until it was too late.
My job at Fortune Academy was to lie in wait for when our little savior returned after he had tested her as worthy of our cause, only I didn’t anticipate that she would be the Champion of Calamity… or that I would be called as one of her Virtues.
I’m a Demon of Rage and brother to Lucifer, a demon who was the undisputed King of Hell for thousands of years before Hell turned against us and chose Sonya as its ruler.
Lucifer had always ruled the Underworld through sheer force of will, knowing that one day Hell would reject him, but the impact still stung.
We’d built Hell up from the frozen rock that it was, gave it the heat of our rage and provided a molten core that had saved all of demonkind.
I’d been blind to the lengths my brother would go through to keep his throne.
Namely, Balthazar’s death, a demon that was like a brother to both of us.
And now, the loss of my wings and my status as a lower level demon, a sacrifice I willingly gave to my mate who deserved everything I had to give.
Lucifer had let it happen.
He would let me die if I chose to stand against him. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but after the changes Lilith had instilled in me… it did.
Still, I realize that she had tamed my molten heart long before my sacrifice and given me feelings I’d never experienced before.
Remorse.
Regret.
Patience.
… Love.
I’ve never prayed before, but if the angel twins are good for anything, it’s learning how to worship our mate.
So I will pray to her just like I do every night.
I will pray that one day I’ll prove myself worthy of her… and perhaps it’ll be enough to save her from a second death that would ruin us all.
I saw what happened to her mates when she died. While the demon part of me drank in their misery and rage, another part of me communed with their sorrow at her loss.
I felt the change in myself.
Heartbreak.
That was the test, to believe in Lilith even when all seemed lost.
If they never forgive me for testing them like Lucifer tested Lilith, then that’s a burden I will willing
ly bear.
But if I’m not worthy of Lilith… If I can’t save her… then I don’t deserve to live at all.
I must do something.
My sacrifice wasn’t enough. There is yet one more thing that only I can do with my knowledge of the Underworld. I can find a lost treasure that might save us all.
That is why I will leave and find the only thing that can save her, even if it costs me what little life I have left.
A Death Lotus might be a myth, but so was Ambrosia, and the angel twins can’t shut up about Lilith’s ability to create it during her time in Purgatory.
Which means if I can find the Death Lotus in the deepest pits of Hell, a forgotten location that Kaito might have unknowingly uncovered, then perhaps it’ll awaken the demon soul that’s trapped within her.
It’ll be enough to help her find the balance she needs to thrive as a Champion of Calamity and overcome this challenge.
It’ll be enough for her to survive… to thrive.
Even if it costs me my life to travel to the heart of Hell to find what she needs, so be it.
It’s worth it… for her.
My Lilith.
My queen.
My goddess… may she forgive me when I leave her in order to save us all.
- Cole
Chapter 1
Groaning, I shifted my weight on a firm mattress I didn’t remember lying down on. My mismatched wings spread lazily behind me, wide enough to drape over the wide edges of the double-king sized bed fit for a demon.
My newly acquired demon wing snagged the delicate silk with one of the taloned arches, tearing the fabric with a distinct rip.
Damn, I mentally cursed, even though it wouldn’t be the first time I’d had to replace damaged sheets when it came to my demon’s nest.
He preferred expensive silk, and most of all, me in his bed.
Although, hadn’t I been sitting beside Cole’s oversized bed attempting to heal him? That would have been before I’d nodded off, anyway.
I didn’t recall lying down with him, although my body seemed to have a mind of its own lately.
It had been a long three months after the stalemate with Lucifer. He was up there on Earth, somewhere, growing more powerful by the day while he built his army of humans that Calamity unnaturally changed into fresh supernaturals.
Supernaturals that called Lucifer a god.
I was so tired. I couldn’t leave Hell, not until I found my mother or else the whole realm would freeze over without royal blood like mine keeping things warm.
Of course it was an option just to let Hell freeze over. But then what? I’d have nothing to fight Lucifer with, not even my mates because the majority of them were still in a coma.
And when he eventually returned, he had the ancient knowledge to thaw the place and then he’d reclaim his throne with ease.
No, I couldn’t let that happen.
And I couldn’t survive much longer without my mates, either.
Hendrik, Dante, Logan, and Orion were all counting on me. They fought against Calamity’s corruption, but it was a losing battle based on what Raze was telling me.
Then there were the few mates I had left. Two demons and two angels.
Talk about opposites, although, I was coming to realize that my mates weren’t so different as they liked to think they were.
The angel twins, Samael and Azrael, were both immortals who would do anything for me.
Albeit they’d gone slightly insane after being trapped in Purgatory for gods knew how long. They put on a good front even though I still couldn’t properly bond with them.
Giving in to my desire for them would be disastrous right now, something Lucifer had been counting on to happen so that he could finally win.
If I slept with them, it would upset the balance and I’d never fully unlock my full potential. I couldn’t handle that level of heavenly power, not without the balance of all my other mates to even things out.
Until I found that balance, bonding with my angels would tip the scales too sharply. The bond with my darker mates would break.
And then I’d break with them.
Something I would never allow to happen.
I was going to find a way around this.
First, I would listen to Kaito while he continued to find solutions, and I would help Cole heal from his injuries.
He’d lost his wings… his power… all of it a sacrifice to save me.
With my eyes still closed, my hands swept out over the smooth sheets looking for the demon, attempting to find what had woken me up. My fingers snagged the edges of the sheet my wing had torn and I sighed.
Ugh, I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep.
In my defense, I had been at it for a few days without food or rest. Ever since Cole had lost his wings he’d slipped into a dangerous coma now and again, slipping into an unresponsive state that worried me to death.
Except now he seemed fine… more than fine, because I realized his head was between my legs.
His forked tongue ran over the inside of my naked thigh, his claws pushing up my skirt.
I had been wearing underwear, hadn’t I?
By the effect of his hot breath on my skin, I realized that my underwear had either been burned off or torn away, because my eyes flung open when his tongue swept over sensitive folds, awakening me in an instant.
Somehow I was splayed out on his bed looking down at him as he gave me a merciless grin, his features made all the more devious by the wicked curl of his horns and the ruby gleam of his irises, the lasting features of the creature he’d always been.
Lucifer’s brother, a powerful low-level demon of rage.
And now… my mate.
“Good morning, little angel,” he purred, his tone smug as he pressed his lips against my flesh, sending his words vibrating through my core.
“You’re… supposed to be resting,” I managed to say. My next attempt at speech cut off with a hiss when his tail wrapped around my ankle, pulling my leg aside so that he could have better access to my core.
He hummed with delight as he tasted me, rolling the unique shape of his pronged tongue in a wrapping motion around my swollen nub. “Mmm, I think I taste the Ambrosia that the twins are always going on about.” He laved his tongue over me again, his expression contemplative as if he was testing a fine wine. “Sweet… and addictive.” He licked me again just to prove the point, making me bow off the bed.
“Cole!” I cried, his talk about the twins driving me over the edge along with his precise attentions.
Because ever since he’d lost his wings, he’d changed.
And he got off on talking about me with my other Virtues… or watching me with them.
I couldn’t engage in penetrative intercourse with my angels, but they insisted on worshipping me nonetheless.
Which, for my heavenly Virtues, consisted on giving me orgasms.
Lots… of orgasms.
It drove me insane because I couldn’t fully reciprocate without finalizing our bond, but I allowed their form of worship because it gave them their magic.
My angels needed a heavenly sort of power that worshipping me gave them, to my surprise.
Kaito had his theories, something about a blessing my angel mother must have given me.
Regardless of the why, worshipping me rejuvenated them and allowed them to fly, allowed them to summon their blades, to create Light, and to grow in strength. They needed to be able to fend for themselves if another attack came—when another attack came.
So, for now, this was how we lived, my needs fully sated by my demon mates while my angels would later torment me with their worship, playing a sensual game that seemed to only intrigue Cole.
