Ignited: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 4) Read online

  Ignited

  A reverse harem bully romance

  Steffanie Holmes

  Copyright © 2020 by Steffanie Holmes

  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.

  ISBN:

  Cover design: Amanda Rose

  Need more dark, gothic, and delicious bully romance in your life? Find out what secrets lurk beyond the walls of the prestigious Manderley Academy in a brand new series by USA Today bestselling author Steffanie Holmes. Read book 1, Ghosted, in KU now.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  He may play like an angel, but this sinful musician is determined to make my life hell.

  Excerpt: Ghosted

  Agatha Christie meets Black Books

  Excerpt: A Dead and Stormy Night

  About the Author

  To James,

  Who didn’t just stand up for me,

  but taught me how to stand up for myself

  “Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men.”

  – HP Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

  “He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”

  – Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

  Chapter One

  Let them burn. Let them all burn.

  Ayaz jerked me back as flames poured from my fingers, dragging the fragments of my soul along with them. I clenched my teeth as heat burst from my body – a broken hydrant that couldn’t be turned off.

  The fire aimed at the Deadmistress went wide, but the other hit Vincent Bloomberg square in the chest. He staggered across the stage as flames enveloped his torso. His scream was like poetry, like music – high and ravenous and beautiful. I reveled in the joy of his song.

  Let him sing a whole fucking aria of pain.

  “Vincent!” Damon Delacorte vaulted over the last row of chairs and launched himself at the stage. As Damon reached out to his friend, the flames tore along his arm, ripping through the expensive fabric of his suit and sending him reeling, howling, bawling – another voice in the choir of horror I now conducted.

  “What have you done?” Ayaz tried to wrestle my arms behind my back, but I slammed my elbows down, breaking his grip. A little trick Dante taught me before I roasted him.

  I planted both palms on Ayaz’s chest and shoved, spinning away from him as he floundered on the edge. Through the haze of my fury, I knew that I didn’t want him anywhere near me, that just to touch me might kill him.

  “You’re only hurting those you care about, Hazel. Perhaps that is your destiny.” Ms. West stalked toward me. I whirled around and aimed both palms at her. From the well of hate inside me I drew up all the evil things she’d done, all the lives she destroyed in service to her god. I took the hate and twisted it until it burned molten hot, until it boiled in my veins and melted away my skin until it burst through my palms and flew straight at her.

  She slammed her body to the ground, flattening herself against the stage. The fire sailed past her and hit Ayaz’s legs.

  Fuck.

  No.

  The world stopped.

  Someone screamed. The god screamed too, as pain rippled through his consciousness – a pain that bubbled up from within, that attacked the parts of him that weren’t used to feeling. But the other scream drowned him out, the scream of a soul being torn from its mate.

  It took me a moment to realize the one screaming was me.

  Ayaz’s face twisted in surprise and agony as the flames circled his legs, devouring his clothing, stripping him bare to gorge themselves on his skin. I stared, hopeless and helpless, at what my rage had created – fingers of fire consuming my love.

  Why did this fire feel so different? I’d already burned two people I loved, and I’d gone numb to save myself from the pain – this time, I felt too much. Ayaz’s pain seared me as though it was my own.

  He crumpled to the stage, his mouth open in a wordless cry.

  His silence chilled the fire inside me more than any scream. A spasm shook my body, dredging up the last flickers of heat. Flames spewed from my fingers and rolled across the stage. My body pushed them out in a final splutter before the urge to maim, to kill, to destroy left me completely.

  I was nothing.

  I do not know, the god cried – a choir of merciless horror. He burns and I burn.

  “Ayaz.” Trey leaped across the stage, diving and ducking between the flames. He grabbed one of the heavy velvet curtains that made up the wings and tore it from its rail. Trey flung the curtain over Ayaz’s legs and rolled him inside it. Back and forth, back and forth, smothering the flames while Ayaz’s silence tore through me.

  I hurt him. I thought at the same time the god thought, because our minds were one.

  I can’t hurt him I love him I can’t lose another that I love I can’t I can’t…

  The god’s pain pushed me out of my own mind. My body pitched forward, the stage rushing up to meet me. I hit the ground hard, my fingers clawing at the wood. “Ayaz, Ayaz…” I cried.

  The stage buckled. The whole room trembled. I thought it was just my body crumbling under the strain of the god’s possession, under the guilt for the hurt I’d done to Ayaz, to Dante, to my own mother. But then Quinn slid across the stage in front of me, his arms wheeling in the air as he fought for balance.

  All around me, kids and adults dropped like flies, fragile against this new onslaught. What’s happening? Why is the room shaking? Is it an earthquake—

  Cracks opened in the walls. The wooden planks of the stage bent and buckled, nails pinging from their places and flying about the room. Quinn dragged himself forward on his elbows and reached out to me. As his fingers brushed mine, his face twisted with indecision, as if he couldn’t decide whether to embrace me or fling me away.

  From between the boards of the stage, a black tendril shot out, wrapping around my wrist. Its touch was pure ice – so cold it burned my skin. Quinn cried out and jerked his hand back, rolling away
as another inky tendril reached for him.

  My servants are yours to command, the god roared in my head. Of course, I’d forgotten that he gave me his shadows. It appeared they’d come to my aid.

  More tendrils shot through the stage, wrapping around limbs and trapping students and parents in place. Dark creatures pulled themselves from the cracks in the walls and stalked over the seats, their growls as deep and dark as fear itself, the kind of sound that made your teeth sting and your knees buckle in terror.

  The shadows stalked and circled, snarling and snapping jaws of midnight, driving the students back toward the center of the room. I scanned frightened faces until I saw Andre and Loretta huddled together, hemmed in on all sides by other students. I had no way to get to them.

  Pull out Andre and Loretta. I gave the thought as a command. They don’t belong here.

  Two of the shadow creatures leaped into the crowd, their teeth closing around Andre’s leg and Loretta’s arm. Students dived out of the way as the shadows dragged my friends to the exit and dropped them over the threshold. Andre bundled Loretta away, and the creatures sat down, guarding against anyone else who tried to escape. Behind me, I sensed shadows moving to block the stage door – as if the wall of fire wasn’t deterrent enough.

  Quinn’s wide eyes bore into mine. His fingers froze in midair. He knew without knowing that I was in control here. “Hazel, what are you doing?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him to run, to take Ayaz and Trey and get out. But I was distracted by what was going on in the auditorium.

  Are the seats… warping?

  I assumed my ruined mind was playing tricks on me. But no… the seats sloped inward, disappearing into the floor, where a cold wind blew from someplace far below. Dust and debris rained from the ceiling, and the cracks widened. The earth rolled and rumbled. My nails clawed for purchase on the pitching stage.

  Inside my head, the god cried. Together, we crack open the ebony gates of oblivion.

  Something shot from the center of the room, spewing mangled chairs and stone and plaster in all directions. Tremors coursed through my body, shaking me with such force and ferocity I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. My eyes glued shut. Whatever was coming for us from below, I couldn’t face it. I didn’t have the strength.

  Quinn flattened his body over mine as debris rained down on us. I felt rather than heard him yell as the stage cracked and jerked, sending us sliding. We slammed into another body. The world spun out of control.

  The god screamed in triumph.

  The tremors stopped.

  Silence reigned.

  White, hollow, deathly silence – even the god didn’t trouble my mind. He had gone somewhere. He had no more need of his conduit.

  I opened my eyes.

  What.

  The.

  Actual.

  Fuck?

  Chapter Two

  In the center of the room stood a square pillar with four sides, its pointed tip nearly touching the collapsing auditorium roof. It reminded me of the obelisks of Ancient Egypt, only the geometry didn’t seem correct. If I stared at a single point for too long, the angles appeared to recede into and overlap each other, revealing layers beneath that my human eyes could not fathom.

  The smooth sides caught the light of the intact chandelier and the scattered fires, illuminating pulsing veins against its sleek black surface. About halfway up one side, I noticed a sigil ringed in fire. A coldness not unlike the chill of the god’s void emanated from the stone.

  What fresh horror is this?

  I staggered to my feet. Quinn clung to my arm, but I shoved him off. I stepped over a squirming Vincent Bloomberg, still pinned down by the shadows and by the pain of his wounds. He hissed at me, the sound of air rushing from a tire. I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t remember how.

  I kicked Vincent in the head. It felt good.

  Around the room, others lifted their heads and noticed the pillar. Some wept, others cried or whimpered or screamed. I could no longer distinguish student from parent or faculty. My ears buzzed, and the rising noise around me receded into the background. I transcended the pain in my body until it became a siren call, urging me forward. The pillar called me, begged me to come closer.

  “Hazel, what are you doing?” Trey cried.

  I jumped off the stage, crashing my way through the smoldering orchestra pit. Smoke and shadow curled around me as I vaulted the broken chairs, kicking Damon Delacorte’s hand from around my ankle.

  The pillar towered over me, ice and malevolence rolling off it in waves that shook my bones. I pressed my palms against the stone. A hum that was more than sound pulsed through my fingers – the heartbeat of the universe coursing through the monument.

  Come home.

  Come home, a voice that was not a voice called to me, in a language that wasn’t words.

  The ice collided with the flame inside me, dragging up all the rage I thought had been spent. All that horror and pain and fury soared through my veins… it had to go somewhere. It had to be unleashed.

  I am the conduit.

  Above my head, the sigil glowed with a blue flame. And although I had no idea what any of this meant, I understood what I had to do. I curled my fingers against the stone, letting the hum pulse through me. I piled up everything inside me – my regrets, my righteous anger, my hopelessness, my love – into kindling. A scream escaped my throat as I ignited that fuel. As the fire roared through me, soaking my veins in crippling emotion, I pushed with my mind.

  My power, my fire, my essence, flowed into the pillar.

  My fingers shuddered as the fire raced along my arms and poured through my fingers, like magma bubbling from an active volcano. That was what I felt like – a mountain that had suddenly been blown apart.

  My entire body convulsed with light and pain and desire, all of it pouring into the stone.

  Chapter Three

  Fire crackled along the stone, latticing in all directions – forks of lightning earthing themselves to whatever was in reach. Chairs crashed against the walls, and the room trembled from a violent quake. People might’ve been screaming, but I couldn’t hear them. The hum shook me inside and out until I didn’t know myself anymore.

  Beneath me, the obelisk rumbled to life once more. The stone rose higher, cracking the floor beneath it. The tip punched through the roof, sending a fresh avalanche of plaster down on the room.

  Behold, for I have waited and dreamed in the deep, that what has sunk may rise again, the god screamed in my ears.

  My bones cracked. My veins boiled. I longed to release myself from the hell that captured me, but my fingers remained glued to that stone. I felt my own mind slipping away, my organs turning to rocks, my body becoming one with the god.

  “Hazy!”

  A voice broke through the hum.

  Three faces flashed in my mind – three broken Kings who needed me.

  Trey. Quinn. Ayaz.

  I drew up every last ounce of self I had left, every semblance of human emotion, every memory of safety and kindness and love.

  I yanked my hands from the pillar.

  The shaking stopped.

  The shadows retreated.

  Silence fell on the room, punctuated only by the steady crackle of fires not yet contained and the subtle sob of a student. Smoke and plaster dust clung so thick I could barely see a foot in front of me.

  “Hazy?” From the smoke emerged figures, hands outstretched toward me. One had a body flung over its shoulder.

  My Kings.

  Quinn stopped just short of touching me. Tension crackled between us, rutting deep lines across his handsome face. “Hazy, you… you tried to burn them.”

  I had no response to that.

  “And where did the pillar come from? What possessed you to touch that thing?”

  That, either.

  “What the fuck is it?” Trey glared up at the pillar. Ayaz’s head flopped against his bicep, dropping my heart to my knees. Is Ayaz okay? He�
�s not dead. He can’t be dead.

  Trey’s words broke the spell that held the room entranced. As the shadows retreated, parents and teachers and students leaped to their feet and fled to the exits, crawling over themselves in a mad frenzy to escape the alien monstrosity. I watched them through the haze with an odd detachment. I knew I didn’t want them to leave, but I couldn’t remember why.

  “Trey, don’t you dare leave with that girl.” From the stage, Vincent’s glacier eyes met mine. He staggered to his feet, his hands clenched in fists at his sides as he fought against the horrific pain that must’ve been attacking his body right now. His smartly-tailored suit was now a mess of charred fabric and ruined skin. He roared as he shuffled forward, every step a fresh agony.

  That’s right. Vincent is here. That’s why they can’t leave.

  “What are you going to do, Vinnie boy?” I yelled back, stepping close to the pillar. My fingers itched to touch it again, to pull from it enough power to raise the shadows and send them to torment him. “It looks like the god isn’t under your thrall any longer.”

  Hands shoved me toward the exit. “Don’t worry about him now. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Trey and Quinn closed in behind me, blocking me from returning to the pillar. I reached out, but Quinn knocked my arm away. He shoved me toward the exit.