Lure of lightning, p.1
Lure of Lightning, page 1
Lure of Lightning
The Firestone Academy
Book 4
Hannah Haze
Copyright © 2025 by Hannah Haze
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.
Front cover designed by Covers by Christian
Edited by Buckley's Books
Formatted with Vellum
Contents
Foreword
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
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Also by Hannah Haze
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Foreword
This book is a 'why choose' paranormal romance with one female main character and more than one potential love interest. This story is based in a dystopian world where the powerful prey on the weak and where much inequality and unfairness exists. There is physical and verbal bullying of the female main character in this story (although not by the love interests), violence and danger, plus steamy scenes. For more detailed content warnings, please visit my website.
If you spot any typos in this book, please drop me a line so I can make it right: hannahhazewrites@gmail.com (Or just drop me an email anyway. I love to chat!).
Prologue
Fox
Time and space swirl around my ears, and then I’m out by the black lake, its waters flat and still like an ominous mirror reflecting the stormy sky above me. I peer across its merciless depths, wondering what horrors lie waiting in the waters, and it’s then that it strikes me – something about this isn’t right.
There’s nothing here.
No indication of a trial. No students. No spectators. Just an emptiness on the sandy shores of the lake and its menacing waters.
I take a step forward, scanning the skies thick with thunderclouds, scanning the landscape snarled with undergrowth, out in the direction of the academy, but it’s too far away. I see nothing but endless landscape and the gnarled forest right at the horizon.
I don’t understand. I don’t understand how this can be.
I scratch my fingers over my beard and then spin my father’s ring on my little finger, round and round, as the thoughts in my head churn just as quickly.
Veronica.
Did she know? Did she suspect? But why the lie, and what does it mean for Briony and the others?
I take a step closer to the water’s edge. I have to be sure. I have to be one hundred percent convinced that Veronica has misled me before I leave this place, because Briony needs me, and if the trial is here, I want to be here too – waiting for her, watching her, ready to step in if I have to.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s something I’ve missed in the waters. Maybe I’m just far earlier than I predicted.
Except I know, right down deep in the pit of my stomach, that I’m not wrong – that Veronica has once again fooled me.
I whip my cloak around my body, ready to displace immediately back to the academy to find Veronica, to find Briony, to find the others and decipher what the hell is going on.
But before I have the chance, there’s a strange disturbance in the air. A wind sweeps across the black lake and waves rise from nowhere, crashing against the shore and forcing me backward, the cold spray hitting my face.
And then she’s there, in front of me – Veronica.
“I knew this is where you’d be, Fox darling,” she says, the gloomy lake standing behind her. “I knew the girl meant too much to you and you wouldn’t part with that treasured information about her powers so easily, without a cause, without a reason. What was that reason, I wonder?”
She tilts her head to one side, waiting for my answer. I don’t give her one. I simply scowl back at her.
“Did you hope to trap me, darling?” She giggles like a schoolgirl.
“Once again, Veronica, you’re deranged and deluded,” I reply.
“Are you sure, Fox darling? Because I’ve been watching you. I’ve been watching your little girl. I’ve been watching all of them, and I suspect something is brewing – although stars know what it is.”
I ignore her once again. I need to understand why she fed me this false information and what it means for Briony.
“Why did you lie to me, Veronica? Why tell me the trial was at the lake? Where is it really?”
“And why are you here, Fox, may I ask? Do you have permission to be here? Why aren’t you with the other teachers back at the academy? You’re not meant to step in to help the students this time. You and I both know that. They’re on their own. There is no reasonable explanation for your presence.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I say, ignoring hers.
“No, I didn’t. And you haven’t answered mine – perhaps because we both already know the answers.” She smiles at me. “Never mind, darling. You know you’ll have to work much, much harder in order to fool me. And now…” She smirks. “Well, now I have the upper hand.”
I take a step toward her, raising my hand, ready to strike. “What do you mean, upper hand?” I demand.
“Oh,” she says, “well, whatever little plan this was that you were concocting – it’s backfired. Massively. Tremendously. Spectacularly. Because now, Fox, darling, I have her.”
“Have who?” I spit, something sour in my stomach already telling me the answer.
“Your little girl, of course. The one you seem to care so much about. The one you have cast me aside for.”
“I haven’t cast you aside, Veronica. There’s been nothing between you and me for years and years.”
“Years mean nothing to me, Fox. Mere brief moments in time. You were always going to come back to me – that is until she arrived.”
“She’s got nothing to do with the reason we are no longer together, Veronica. Keep her out of this. Don’t take your sick fascination with me out on the girl.”
“Too late, Fox darling,” she chimes happily.
I search her face for more signs of duplicity. Is she lying?
“What do you mean, ‘too late’, Veronica?” I snap, the shadows already creeping from my fingertips, angry and frustrated.
“I have her, Fox, darling. I have your little girl. And I have her somewhere safe and secure – somewhere you can’t reach her.”
“You’re lying,” I hiss. “You’re lying to me again, Veronica.”
I know how strong Briony is. I know how strong the Princes are. There’s no way Veronica could have snatched her away. There’s no way Briony would have gone with her.
I shoot my shadows toward the woman standing in front of me, but I’m too slow. She jumps to one side, cackling with amusement, and the shadows shoot right past her and over the dark lake.
“Where have you taken her, Veronica?” I yell, my shadows swirling so fiercely inside me that I can barely contain them.
“Oh, Fox, you truly think I’m going to tell you? If you want to know, then you’re going to have to follow me.”
I shoot more shadows at her, quicker this time, but she skips over the sand, and then – before my very eyes – the fabric of the air tears in half. A great red gash opens in the atmosphere, and Veronica slips right through it, vanishing from sight.
“Come on, Fox,” she trills. “What are you waiting for? If you want your girl alive, you’re going to have to come with me.”
I swing my gaze around. This is another trap – another trap that Veronica has laid before me. But it’s a trap I’m going to have to walk straight into, because if there’s any chance, any chance at all, that she has Briony – that she’s holding her, torturing her, feeding on her–
Fuck. I can’t even think of that.
But if there’s any chance at all, then I have to find her. I have to get to her. I have to save her.
I yank my ring from my finger, discarding it in the soft sand, hoping that if I’m wrong about this – if it is a trap – then Briony will find it and she’ll understand.
And then I’m sprinting as fast as
Chapter One
Briony
We stand on the shores of the black lake, the perverse red line shimmering in the air before us and Fox’s ring warm in my clenched fist.
The three Princes stare back at me. Their faces are worn and tired and full of skepticism.
Fox wasn’t at the trial. He isn’t at the academy. And he isn’t here at the lake. He is nowhere to be found. All that is here is his ring and the strange shimmering line – the strange shimmering line that hung in the air after the Madame and the demons escaped from the grotto.
It seems there’s only one logical explanation for Fox’s disappearance – he’s stepped through that strange portal and into the demon wastelands.
But why?
The Princes want to believe the worst of Fox, assuming his loyalty has been to the Madame all along, that the two of them – both vampires – have been working together.
But I know the truth. Fox Tudor looked deep into my eyes and promised that he loved me. He placed a piece of his magic around my heart. He says I am his fated mate. He swore he’d never betray me. And I believe him.
The Princes are being led by their prejudices – the same old prejudices that run deep in this realm. Just because Fox is from Slate, just because he’s different from them, they believe he is capable of betrayal. I know what it feels like to be judged that way, and I refuse to be swept along in their poison.
I spin his ring in my fingers, the metal warm despite the bitter cold. It glints in the feeble light as if it’s winking at me. I trace the engraving with my fingertips and then I force the ring onto my thumb.
I can’t help thinking he dropped it deliberately.
But if he did, why?
I remember that time we spent in bed together when he offered me this ring – the ring that had belonged to his dad. He knew I wouldn’t forget that moment. It was special and intimate between us. If he dropped this ring for me to find, it was to let me know he was thinking of me, that he cares for me.
I’m even surer the others are wrong. Fox wouldn’t do anything to harm me. If he stepped through one of those rips in time and space, he had no choice. If he’s out there now in the demon wastelands, he was forced there.
By her!
I’ve seen the madness in her eyes. I’ve seen how much she wants him. I’ve felt the extent of her hate for me. She’s taken him from me.
Overwhelming panic soars up from my stomach and wraps itself around my throat. It tightens and strangles, restricting my windpipe.
I can’t breathe.
My heart beats furiously in my chest and white noise rings in my ears.
She has him. Madame Bardin has Fox, and who knows what the hell she’s going to do to him.
I think of my sister, ripped from my grasp by that bitch. My sister – beautiful, brave, unique – sucked dry by that monster. I think of her coffin, plain and dull and nailed shut.
I’ll be damned if I let the Madame do it again. She won’t steal another person from me.
My breath rasps in my throat. My lungs burn. The world swims in and out of focus.
I won’t let her.
I won’t!
My body shakes. I gasp for air. My nails pierce my palms.
I have to find him. I have to help him. I have to follow him out to the demon wastelands.
Because I will not let her hurt him. I won’t give her the chance. Which means I have to go; I have to go now.
The question is how? How can I get there?
As that question forms in my mind, the magic in my veins tingles, and I have a feeling …
I peer towards the dull horizon, where heavy thunderclouds are gathering, and, yes, I’m right.
“Kitten,” Dray says, eyeing me with concern as the first bolt of lightning streaks across the sky, illuminating our anguished faces in a stark momentary brightness.
“No,” I gasp, as thunder rumbles menacingly away in the distance, “Fox wouldn’t betray me and I’m going to prove it. I’m going to find him.”
“Find him?” Beaufort says with confusion. “He’s out in the demon wastelands – beyond the safety of our realm’s boundaries! There’s no way to reach him.”
“Yes, there is,” I say, watching as a faint silhouette in the sky swoops closer.
Blaze.
The beat of his wings catches the others’ attention, and they swing their gazes up to the sky, watching as the dragon – my dragon – sails our way, fat droplets of rain beginning to fall down onto our faces. A few at first, barely noticeable, and then suddenly many streaking from the sky in a stream of heavy water as the thunder roars above our heads.
I don’t care what they say. I don’t care if they try and stop me. I have to go. I have to find him. I can’t let her take him from me. They have to understand.
“Briony, no!” Beaufort says, standing to block my path with his large frame, his shoulders already wet, water running down his face. “That’s suicide. You’re not thinking straight.”
“I am! Don’t you see? I have to help him!” I rant desperately. “I have to go now before it’s too late!”
“You wouldn’t make it one meter outside the boundary of our realm before they ripped you to pieces.”
“I’m stronger than I was, Beaufort.” I shake the rain from my eyes as panic engulfs my body. “I defeated a handful of demons in that trial today. I’m not afraid.”
“You should be,” he says sternly. “The demon realm is far more dangerous than you could possibly imagine. It would be suicide. I won’t let you do this.”
He reaches for me, but I shake off his grip.
“That’s not your decision to make,” I cry as Blaze circles above, casting dark shadows over the four of us, the lightning that streaks across the sky reflecting off his golden scales. It makes him seem even more magnificent, otherworldly.
“Briony,” Thorne says more softly than his bond brother. “He’s right. This is too dangerous. The professor wouldn’t want you to do this. He wouldn’t want to put you in any danger at all. You need to calm down, take a breath, and think about this rationally.”
I shake my head wildly. This isn’t their decision to make. It’s mine. And I don’t have a choice.
My world has turned completely upside down over the last few weeks. I’ve gone from a girl suspicious of everyone and everything, sure that the tables were turned against me, to a woman with magical abilities of her own. To a woman raising a dragon. To a woman who believes in fate. And fate has tied me to four men. And I won’t be losing any of them.
Because I know what it’s like to lose someone you love, to watch them lowered into the indifferent embrace of the stone-cold earth, to never see them again, to never touch them again, to never hear their voice.
“I can’t lose him!” I shake my head violently. “There’s no way I can go through that again.” I can’t willingly walk into the deadening pit of grief. I survived that once – just about – clawing my way out, finding I was half the person I once was. I doubt I’d survive it a second time.
“You’re hyperventilating for stars’ sake,” Beaufort snaps. “You’re not thinking rationally.”
“If it were me out there beyond the realm boundaries, if it was me who had been taken, nothing would stop you,” I cry to the three shadow weavers standing before me, the rain pounding down onto their heads. “You’d go. You’d try everything to save me, wouldn’t you?”
