Magic unchained a supern.., p.1
Magic Unchained: A Supernatural Academy Romance, page 1
MAGIC UNCHAINED
OMENS AND CURSES SERIES
EMERY COLE
CONTENTS
Prologue
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
Afterword
Copyright © 2022 by Emery Cole
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.
PROLOGUE
Samara froze, waiting for it to pass by again.
She already knew what it was.
Please go away, she thought. Please leave me alone.
Afraid, she squeezed her eyes shut. The heat returned, this time right on the front of her face. It was right in front of her.
Don’t open your eyes. Don’t acknowledge it and it will go away.
But it didn’t go away. A minute later, she could still feel the heat licking at her skin, taunting her, begging her to act like it was real.
Finally, anger overtaking fear, she opened her eyes and looked at the thing that had appeared in her room without consent.
Standing in front of her couch and leaning down so he was eye-level, was her dead brother Philip. He looked just as he had before he died, still in his early twenties and with a handsome face and crooked nose. His eyebrows were still slanted, giving him the appearance of looking angry even if he wasn’t. Other than having masculine features, he looked similar to their mother, just like how Samara took after their father.
However, his skin wasn’t the same light color as hers was. His was black, charred, and covered in red lines of flames that were slowly eating away at his flesh. Where his green eyes should be were two black holes, his eyeballs cut out by either a knife or fire. His mouth was open too, another black hole that gave the impression that he was screaming forever, in agony and unable to end the torment he was put through in death.
The figure didn’t move. He never attacked her, or hadn’t yet, at least.
He also wasn’t real. Not yet. But he always came to torment Samara when she was at her worst, appearing in different forms because her parents never told her how he died. Sometimes he was burnt to a crisp, other times he was being hung or stabbed through the heart. The fire was the most common one, though, and it gave off this strange feeling that she’d been the one to kill him somehow, just like she did her pet hamster.
She took a deep breath and stayed rooted in place, knowing the figure would go away eventually. It was just a figment of her imagination. She sometimes wondered if her witch blood was what created it and that was why so many other witches went insane in the past. Maybe witches were just prone to hallucinations and insanity if they allowed themselves to get stressed. She wasn’t sure. All she could be sure of was that this figure following her wasn’t real. He was just a reminder of the one she’d lost and the guilt she felt that he’d died while she lived. They’d been close before Philip died and she never got over his absence. Even when she tried to forget him and move on, her parents’ overbearing protectiveness reminded her that he was gone.
Finally, after two more minutes, the figure vanished, turning into ash and flying out the window. Samara’s limbs cracked, stiff from being so tense and motionless for so long. She tried to play it cool, since the guard was still there and watching her, but her heart refused to calm down for the next five minutes.
One day, she expected the figure to strangle her in her sleep or light her body on fire. When the emotional torment dried up, it might change tactics, posing an actual threat.
This was another reason she wanted to escape this mansion and distract herself with new experiences. The longer she lived in isolation, being reminded of Philip, the more the figure appeared. She had to escape it before it made her accidentally jump out a window or fall down the stairs while trying to escape it. It might all be in her head, but that didn’t make it any less of a threat.
1
The council room was filled to the brim with all manner of creatures, ranging from the more human-looking mages and witches, to the beautiful light haired fae and dark-haired vampires, as well as the more feeble, ashen skinned shifters alongside red-eyed demons with their charred flesh.
Among all these different races and magic users, Samara didn’t stand out much. She was completely human in body and appearance, with pale skin from a life indoors and black hair she had inherited from her father. The tips of her hair were gold, as were her hazel eyes in certain lights. Some thought the gold came from her inherited fire magic but others assumed it was mere dye, used to give the appearance that she was more important and capable than she really was. Samara didn’t mind either judgement—it was to be expected that a princess and future council member would be judged and deemed worthy or unworthy of her future role.
As the council members continued discussing the future of their nation, debating which new magic laws should be introduced and how to tackle the current wars in neighboring countries that hadn’t yet affected them, Samara leaned back in her chair. She wasn’t an official member yet and was merely here to observe her parents. Once she was old enough, they expected her to take their place, so throughout most of her teen years, she’d been forced to accompany them. That number of expected attendances increased even more when she turned twenty last year. Soon, she’d be forced to attend every meeting each week, rather than once a month. Samara dreaded that time. There was only so much boring talk of legislature and politics she could take, at least without having any actual say in the matter, before she snapped.
Samara held back a sigh. She was the young heir to the fire witch throne, often considered the most dangerous but powerful of the four witch elements. Yet right now, she had to act docile and patient.
Blowing hair from her face, she looked across the long table at the other witch heirs, trying to tell if they were as bored as she was. It took a little while to find them among all the varied faces but she did eventually.
The long table, formed of wood and marble and draped with a crimson covering to protect it, held over a hundred people. Off to Samara’s right, past her stoic and attentive parents draped in their red and orange refinery, were the parents of the water heir. Their daughter Rhona wasn’t in attendance today. Lucky her. Their blue clothes, meant to represent the water just as much as Samara’s red and orange represented fire, made them stand out from all the fae around them, who were dressed in only white and silver.
Four seats down from the water witch council members were the parents of the air witch heir, Aamina. Just like Samara, the girl set to inherit the council seat representing all air witches was also slumped over in her chair. Her light grey eyes stood out against her grey clothes and dark skin. Her eyes were shifting back and forth, staring at something above the long table and near the tall, gold-lined windows. Curious, Samara looked up to see what it was and realized there was a small insect fluttering near the ceiling. It looked like a fairyfly—the little white creatures that were a cross between a moth and a wasp. Samara wasn’t a fan of theirs.
Satisfied that the air heir was just as unhappy and bored as she was, Samara returned her attention to her feet under the table, which were hidden by black boots with red laces. She had no plans to make eye contact with the earth witch heir, David, since he wasn’t exactly her favorite person in the world. He was the snobbiest of the four heirs, acting like his prestigious family was somehow better than the rest of theirs even though they were all parts of royal, wealthy bloodlines. Samara wasn’t the humblest person either, but at least she wasn’t as bad as him, so she avoided even the slightest chance of eye contact.
Twenty more minutes in, the council discussion had shifted toward the city sewer lines. It was slightly more interesting than discussing laws about blood consumption, something that was only relevant to the vampires at the table, but Samara still wasn’t invested.
Once the conversation around the table got heated, making her mother rise from her chair, Samara wondered what kind of mischief she could create under the table. She’d gotten quite good at making fire dragons recently. All she needed was a flame source to draw from and the rest came naturally. All witches had naturally born powers, much to the dismay and jealousy of the academic mages, so making a dragon could be as easy as snapping one’s fingers if you practiced enough.
There were a few candles scattered about the room, sitting dangerously close to the purple curtains hanging from the oversized windows, so drawing fire from those should be easy.
Samara raised an eyebrow and glanced at her parents to ensure they weren’t paying attention. Her mother, a beautiful woman with brown hair set in perfect curls and with bright green eyes Samara used to envy, was still standing and shaking a finger at one of the red-lipped vampires across the table.
Her father, meanwhile, who was nearly identical
to Samara except in height and gender, was letting his wife do all the talking. He was more than content to sit there with his hands and legs crossed, listening but offering nothing. Most of his talking happened outside the council room, only occurring during parties and in discussions with his wife. He was often the brains behind her parents’ operation but no one outside the family knew it, since Samara’s mother was the more vocal one, at least in public.
Neither of them were paying attention to her. Perfect. They had only spoken to her once in the last hour, warning her to stop taking bathroom breaks so frequently, so it was unlikely they’d look her way again.
Now was a better time than ever to make a little winged companion of flame and smoke. She could practice teaching it tricks while she waited this long meeting out.
Samara licked her lips, excitement overcoming her as the magic took hold and the tiniest trail of flame started slithering from the candles on the wall into her hands. It was so slight that no one would notice it. Well, her parents would if they were paying attention but, for the moment, they were both distracted.
She was gathering the teeniest ball of fire in between her palms, preparing to make a dragon the size of her thumb, when something one of the vampires said at the table made her look up in surprise.
“I think you witches have your own problems to worry about. Shouldn’t you be focusing on the attempt on Rhona’s life rather than monitoring a few blood transfusions?” the beautiful male vampire asked, pointing at the water witches and frowning.
The mention of Rhona, the water witch heir, was what caught Samara’s attention. She had no idea there had been an attempt on the heir’s life. That would explain why she wasn’t here today.
Samara noticed Aamina, the air witch, and David, the earth witch, had looked up too.
“What happened to Rhona?” Samara’s own mother asked, concern overtaking her agitated shouting from a moment before. She turned to the water family members, brow furrowing. “Is she safe?” Her mother glanced Samara’s way for a moment, worry flickering in her brown eyes.
“Yes, she is perfectly safe,” Rhona’s mother answered calmly, though the side of her mouth twitched from nerves. “But I’m glad it was brought up, as it was the next discussion point I was hoping we could address. If anyone has any leads on who would want to harm our daughter, please bring them forward.”
The room, which had been so loud and heated a moment ago, became silent. It was so quiet that Samara almost heard the slight flickering of the candle flames being released from her palm.
“I can assure you,” one of the fair-skinned, blonde fae women said, pressing her palm on the table, “none of the fae family would seek to ever bring harm to your daughter or the other heirs.”
The other groups rushed to say the same—the vampires, shifters, and mages. The mages were the most likely candidates for an attack, since they never quite got along with the witches, due to them being born with abilities that the mages had to spend years studying and mastering through hard work to achieve. However, as Samara scanned the faces of all twenty mages, she didn’t detect any deception or animosity toward the witches in their expressions.
“We are doing everything in our power to find the culprits and bring them to justice,” one of the fae men who was in charge of security assured everyone, though it did nothing to lessen the tension in the room.
“Then if no one has any new information to offer,” Samara’s mother cut in, “we should discuss this further amongst ourselves.” This time, she looked pointedly at Samara. Samara sat up slightly, knowing exactly what this meant.
If one of the heirs was attacked, it meant Samara’s security, which was already overbearing and suffocating, would be increased. All her life, she’d been cooped up in a castle and watched constantly by guards at every hour of every day. She could never go outside unattended, lest someone try to kidnap her and attempt to use her powers.
The magic academy she had been preparing to attend in a few days, Eternal Light, was supposed to be Samara’s first chance to live without people constantly following her around or telling her what to do. It was to be her first taste of freedom and possibly a chance to make friends without her family name bearing down on her.
Now, if the fear of kidnapping or assassination returned, her chance to do that might be gone. As the only child and heir to the fire witch seat, her life was valuable. Those seeking to use the witches as blackmail or manipulate them might come after her, David, or Aamina next. Control of the heirs meant control of every witch of their element.
Samara wished her peaceful academy life goodbye and said hello to more isolation and bodyguards. Farewell independence and freedom. Hello cages and monitors.
Unless the conversation she had with her parents after this meeting went well, which was unlikely since her parents cared more about protecting her than listening to her opinions, then she would be losing her enrollment in Eternal Light Academy. She had been okay with her lack of personal choices as a teenager, since she was still technically a child and underage, but now that she was twenty-one, she felt like she should have more say in her own life.
Of course, her father would probably bring up how her own fate was now linked to every fire witch in the world, and Samara understood that perfectly, but there was a limit to risk avoidance. She couldn’t stay cooped up in a birdcage—or, to be more specific, a castle—forever.
Besides, Rhona hadn’t actually been harmed. It was just an attempt on her life. Sure, that was awful, but it shouldn’t affect Samara’s well being too.
Samara understood her parents’ worries—heck, they were totally justified after what happened in the past—but it was time for Samara to draw a line before she became a prisoner for eternity.
2
Samara kept her head down as she exited the council room, leaving the opulent red carpets and curtains of the huge meeting room and entering the simpler hall, passing more tall windows and paintings of former council members and royal leaders. She could sense the red, white, blue, and brown eyes of paintings and real people alike follow her as she trailed after her parents, heading down the hall and out into the city streets. Now that everyone knew the future witch leaders were in danger, everyone was focusing on her and the other two heirs in attendance. The only ones not looking at her were her own parents, though that just meant they were mentally preparing themselves for whatever lecture they planned to give her about safety and being locked in a cage like a rare bird.
As the soft carpet under her feet gave way to hard stone and she felt the natural sunlight beat down on her face again, she took a moment to breathe some fresh air. Fae, vampires, and shifters brushed past her as she looked up at the sky, then she studied the rest of the city below the hill their council building currently rested on. Most of them lived in the center of the city, close to the council area where the security was highest. They weren’t afraid of normal humans entering the supernatural city, but their own kind were enough of a threat to make them crowd together.
There were tall walls around the exterior of this massive city, as well as an invisible barrier that kept the city secret and unknown to all the non-magical humans residing on the rest of Earth.
The buildings lining the stone and concrete streets were a mix of cultures and ages. Some buildings looked like they belonged in gothic times, others in medieval France, some in ancient Rome, while others looked like they came straight out of Mayan and Egyptian historical sites. It was rare to find a modern building like a skyscraper, though there were occasional ones among the more traditional architecture.
Each section of the city sported its own colors, meant to demonstrate the differences between each supernatural race and magic system rather than the human race or culture. The fae buildings sported more white, silver, and gold, whereas the vampires and demons were more accustomed to reds, oranges, and various shades of black. Mages and witches were more prone to a variety of colors, while shifters tended to keep their colors and designs as inconspicuous as possible, just like their physical bodies.
