Shadowcraft Academy: Cursed: A Dark Academy Paranormal Romance, page 1
SHADOWCRAFT ACADEMY: CURSED
A DARK ACADEMY PARANORMAL ROMANCE
SHADOWCRAFT ACADEMY
BOOK THREE
YVE VALE
Published by Entraverse Publishing
Sedona, AZ 86339, USA
YveVale.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, actual events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 Yve Vale.
Cover Art & Interior Art Design © 2022 Yve Vale.
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.
CONTENTS
Author’s Note
1. A Bloody Mess
2. Regrets
3. Back at the Ranch
4. Academy
5. Hot Shower
6. Trap
7. Interrogations
8. Hiding Out
9. Fae Lines
10. Motherlode
11. Games We Play
12. Feral
13. Revelations
14. Shifting
15. Faerie Circles
16. Second Chances
17. On a Mission
18. Wrecked
19. Crumbling
20. Lock It Down
21. Regrouped
22. Experiment
23. The Troops
24. Heart Rending
25. Battles
26. There Be Dragons
27. Regrouped
28. Do Overs
29. Menage
30. Fall Out
31. Decisions
32. Exams
33. Epilogue
Books by Yve Vale
Acknowledgements
About the Author
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Shadowcraft Academy Series is a dark paranormal academy why choose romance.
Shadowcraft Academy contains several dark themes that some readers may be sensitive to. For more information, visit:
https://yvevale.com/triggerwarnings
1
A BLOODY MESS
SHAYLA
I lay awake in bed between two of my mates, worrying. With the magical light emanating from a small lantern beside Rourke’s bed, I stare at the smooth stone ceiling of his bedroom inside the mountain cave. Branden and Rourke press close to my sides, their naked heat keeping me warm.
The dragon’s lair doesn’t have a damp, mildew smell. Instead, it smells of summer nights and bonfires. The scent is Rourke’s scent—so maybe I should compare it to an out-of-control forest fire. I hope he will calm down once we decide what to do about our mate bond, whether we solidify it or we painfully sever it.
I roll onto my side, facing my vampire mate, Branden.
My fated dragon mate at my back seems to want to rescind his previous rejection of our bond. I want to believe him, but how can I trust the mind-blowing sexual experience earlier with Branden as the only sign of his commitment? Maybe he just needed to release some of the sexual tension we had accumulated in the last few months.
My hand skims the spot on my neck where Branden sank his teeth into my flesh—where he claimed me.
Mi Sangre Amor.
My Blood Love… the bond vampires give to each other.
But how can I give him that? I’m not a vamp.
Yet, I was able to give Landis, my beautiful, flirty incubus, a shadowmate bond. Something usually reserved only for two cubi mates.
Also, I’m my druid’s dyad. My bond with Arden is yet to be completed, but the threads and cosmic connection have been forming for a decade.
With the thoughts of both Landis and Arden, my heart pangs with heartache. I miss them already. I’m worried that they didn’t escape the Academy safely.
And what about my wolf shifter, Professor Quade Hollis? I can’t feel him at all.
I can’t sense the other three males who have captured my heart and soul. Just the two next to me in bed in this mountain lair.
My mind won’t shut down, but I need to rest so that Branden and Rourke won’t have an excuse to keep me here instead of meeting up with the others. I suspect Branden will want to enjoy this bit of seclusion and the intimate setting a bit longer. I don’t blame him really.
Goddess, what will Quade do when he finds out I’ve mated with Branden?
I have no flipping idea. I suppose Quade will want Rourke to finally claim me or sever the bond. Maybe Rourke truly wants that now that the love of his life is bonded to me.
In his sleep, Branden tenses and yanks me to him—chest to chest. He grunts and whimpers as if fighting off some monster in his dreams. If he holds me any tighter, I might bruise, or he could crack a rib.
I suck in a breath.
“Branden?” I call to wake him, before he mistakes me for his dream enemy and accidentally rips me in half with his vampiric strength.
“Shit,” Rourke curses and moves to sit up behind me. “Shayla?” he says urgently.
I crane my head back to look at the dragon shifter over my shoulder.
His stupidly gorgeous face is filled with worry. He’s running his hand nervously through his blond hair. “We need to get you away from Branden.”
“Duh…. but his grip is too tight,” I whisper, mostly because I can’t take in much of a breath. “What’s going on?”
This appears to be something Rourke is familiar with and worried about.
“Night terrors.” Rourke frowns as he stares at his lover, thinking. “He hasn’t had them in a while.” Then he looks at me with concern.
“Did I… bring his… terrors back?” I wheeze out.
Rourke strokes my face and moves a stray lock of hair from my face. “I think… his emotions are stirred up.” His hand hovers over where Branden has his arm around my waist. “I’ll pry open his embrace. You wiggle out.”
I give him a nod. I’m starting to feel a bit lightheaded from not getting enough air.
Rourke pulls on Branden’s arm, straining his supernatural strength, but Branden doesn’t budge but an inch. I take in some air, but I can’t move more than that.
“Dammit.” Rourke scoots closer to get better leverage.
It occurs to me that I might be able to do something else—something to actually help Branden. “Wait,” I pant. “I’ll try shadowwalking.”
Rourke blinks at me, confused. Then shakes his head. “You can’t do that. Can you? Is it safe? No. I don’t think it’s a good idea. You could get stuck,” he says in rapid fire. “Shayla, don’t do it. We just need to get you away from him. He could bite you—really hurt you.”
I would shrug, but I can’t move. “I’m trying it.”
Closing my eyes, I focus on the feeling I have when I’m with Landis in the shadowscape. Usually, I’m asleep for all of this. Yet, if Landis can shadowwalk when he’s awake, and since I have some of his abilities for some crazy reason, then maybe I can do it too.
But I’ve never used my shadowform with anyone else. I swallow down my nerves about dying from a potentially deadly vampire squeeze.
Or getting stuck in Branden’s nightmare.
“Shayla, don’t,” Rourke pleads, his voice cracking with worry.
His newfound concern for me is disarming.
“I can do this,” I gasp, mostly to convince myself.
Branden clenches me tighter and growls.
I really am in danger. I can barely breathe now. I feel the shadows of the room surround me and crawl up my body, filling my vision. I hope that’s not just me blacking out from lack of oxygen.
Allowing the shadow to take me over completely, I see a red thread connecting me to Branden. My shadowform follows it until I’m in a huge empty space, still dark. But someone’s at the far end. Three someones.
I move closer, watching for signs of how bad this whole idea is, but so far, I don’t seem to be in danger.
Then I hear a voice slice through me. “You will do what I command, or you will pay the consequences,” a large male says as he towers over two children huddled on the ground.
This scene reminds me too much of my own horrific childhood, but I force myself to stay and see what is going on.
I recognize a younger version of Branden holding a girl. Both look to be in their early teen years.
“Don’t hurt her!” Branden shouts, holding the pretty blonde to his chest protectively.
Her blonde hair and fair complexion contrast with his dark hair and eyes and olive skin tone.
I’m surprised that no jealous tide rises within me, especially now that he’s my mate. Then I realize it’s probably his sister—both were adopted by this monstrous male abusing them. Likely, this is the sister he actually cares about—the one who is missing.
“You are the one who is hurting her,” the male says with a sneer. He holds his hands out and the two kids twist with pain, trying to hold back their cries from the torment their adoptive father inflicts upon them. “This could all be over if you just obey me.”
The scene shifts, and now we are in a dungeon. The trio is back, a few years older.
“I won’t make her do that!” Branden stands in front of his sister, blocking their father’s view of her. He must be just coming into his vampiric power.
“Please, Branden,” she says. “Don’t make me…”
I see a knife in her shaking hands.
What the hell is going on?
“Fine. I’ll do it myself,” his father threatens. Then he compels her, “Gut your brother.”
With only a moment of his sister resisting their father’s command, she cries out as she reaches around and slices across Branden’s stomach from behind.
Branden grabs his low abdomen, holding in his guts, and collapses to the floor.
His father chuckles and pours iron powder over his wound.
Then I remember… Branden’s scar.
This is how he was so grievously injured that it marked him for life.
His sister screams and frantically tries to remove the powder, but it only makes the mess of the damage that much worse.
Their father pulls her up by the hair and drags her from the room, leaving Branden to bleed out on the dirty dungeon floor. A metal gate slams shut. “If you survive, then you’re worthy of my name.”
Branden’s alone. We’re alone.
This is my chance to break through into his subconscious.
I drop to the floor next to him, taking in the sight of this beautiful yet tortured soul. It’s a wonder he isn’t completely ruined from his childhood. He really is like me… like the rest of us. All with such dark and tragic pasts.
“Branden?” I call cautiously. I will myself to become visible to his mind. “It’s me… Shayla. I’m here to help you. Get you out of this nightmare.”
“Shayla?” he asks, appearing as if he is struggling to remember where he’s heard my name before.
“Tu Sangre Amor,” I risk saying. “Your mate.”
“I don’t have anyone. I’m alone.”
So this must have happened right before he got together with Rourke.
“In this moment in the past? Yes, you are alone, but you will find your love. A friend, a lover, someone who will help you get through all this…”
I pause, truly appreciating that Rourke and Branden must have helped each other through so much. And I almost can’t believe Branden would risk his relationship with Rourke to be with me. But perhaps he’s an optimist, believing we will work it out now that the dragon and I are bonded even more through our connection with him.
I continue, “And I’m here, now… This is just a horrible memory. But I’m in your arms right now in Rourke’s lair. We’re mate bonded.”
The obsidian orbs of his eyes open, and I know they lock onto me even though they are completely black.
“I love you?” he asks, sounding unsure of such a claim.
“Uh, I guess we really haven’t said it in words. But yes… I love you.”
I swallow down my confusion that we mate bonded without saying how deeply we care about each other first. But I felt his love when our mate bond tied our souls together. I suppose the whole crazy thing about my life right now is that I’m in love with more than one guy… And I’ve only known one of them for longer than a few months.
“You love me… we are mate bonded,” I say.
Branden’s blood-covered hand clasps around my throat. “I don’t know what you are, but you look delicious. Sparkling darkness. I need it… I want it… all of it.”
Shit. Is he going to bite me and drain me? And if he does, will he do it in real life?
“Branden, please. You need to wake up. You’re hurting me.”
“I hurt everyone, even when I don’t want to.” He slowly pulls my neck to his mouth, his fangs descending.
I feel his breath on my skin… I believe it’s in the waking life. I hear shouts…
Rourke?
I didn’t want to use my chaotic magic since I still don’t know how to use it properly. Fuck, I don’t even know what I can do. I might hurt Branden. I might hurt Rourke. I might hurt myself, breaking us out of Branden’s mind and waking him from this nightmare.
The familiar swirling magic stirs in my soul. I grab Branden’s throat like he’s doing to me. Surprising Branden, I turn my head, push forward, and give him a kiss on the mouth.
But instead of him remembering me, he twists my head back and sinks his teeth into my jugular.
A euphoric orgasm hits me out of nowhere due to his bite in the physical world.
As I blast out of his dreamscape, I grab our bond’s red cord to take him with me. I shout, with all my energy, “Wake up!”
2
REGRETS
BRANDEN
I wake to find Shayla underneath me, eyes closed, pale, and fang punctures on her neck. Blood dribbles down her ashen skin, creating a strange tableau of mesmerizing vampiric beauty. Her head is twisted at an unnatural angle.
Rourke is yelling and pulling on my shoulder.
Fuck. Did I just kill my love? My mate?
Did I drain her in my sleep?
Without my resistance now, Rourke flings me off her body.
I land on the ground several feet away from the bed. His attention is all on her though. But I can’t bear to look at her—at what I’ve done.
I remember my dream… my nightmare terrors—my father torturing my sister and me, making us hurt each other. And then a dark angel appeared, shimmering darkness—claiming me. Telling me that she loved me… telling me it would be okay.
I only desired to consume all her beauty.
Rourke leans in, listens for a breath, and then to her chest for a heartbeat. “No!” he howls, throwing his head back like the shifters of old when they lost a fated.
“Is she…?” I overcome my fear of facing the consequence of my actions and hurry to her side.
Rourke looks at me, eyes flaming. “You killed my mate.”
“I killed our mate,” I say softly, wishing I were wrong… that I was still in my nightmare, but now I’m in a new one.
Fortunately, Rourke doesn’t shove me away but allows me to see Shayla’s condition for myself. I kiss her forehead, and a tear… actual tear falls from me onto her face. I can’t remember the last time I cried. This beautiful soul has destroyed my carefully constructed walls and now she’s gone.
Goddess, I don’t know how I will survive this. And my relationship with Rourke won’t survive this. He will blame me. I will blame myself.
Maybe I should just start killing all the fucking assholes on my list and see how far I get before I join Shayla beyond the veil.
As I pull away, I brush my thumb over her lush lips—one last time, taking my tear with me.
But quick as lightning… or as a vamp, Shayla’s teeth snap down on my hand. She has fucking fangs, and she instantly draws blood.
I almost yank my hand from her bite out of sheer instinct. Instead, I let her suck down my blood… taking back what I had stolen from her moments ago.
Rourke gasps and falls backward on the bed, eyes and mouth wide from shock. “Is she…? How is she? What the fuck is she?”
Shayla opens her eyes halfway and blinks lazily, looking drugged. My toxin… it’s fully within her now. “I need you, Mi Sangre Amor,” she says, finally replenished with my blood.
Still naked from our mating, Shayla’s body undulates. Her hand slides over her ample breasts. Her nipples are already pebbling with arousal. Then her tiny hand slips between her legs, and she moans.
“She returns from death… horny?” Rourke asks in complete disbelief.
“My blood is in her system… it’s making her react this way.” I shake my head, trying to understand what’s happening. “Which means she isn’t really a vampire.” But she has little fangs.
