Fern's Flight (Sisters of Hex: Fern Book 3)

  Contents

  Bea Paige’s Books

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Bea Paige’s Books

  The Sisters of Hex series

  (paranormal romance / reverse harem)

  Prequel to The Sisters of Hex series:

  Five Gold Rings: https://books2read.com/FiveGoldRings

  Sisters of Hex: Accacia

  OUT NOW:

  #1 Accacia’s Curse https://books2read.com/AccaciasCurse

  #2 Accacia’s Blood https://books2read.com/AccaciasBlood

  #3 Accacia’s Bite https://books2read.com/AccaciasBite

  Sisters of Hex: Fern

  Out Now:

  #1 Fern’s Decision https://books2read.com/FernsDecision

  #2 Fern’s Wings https://books2read.com/FernsWings

  #3 Fern’s Flight https://books2read.com/FernsFlight

  The Brothers Freed Series

  (contemporary romance / reverse harem)

  #1 Avalanche of Desire https://books2read.com/AvalancheOfDesire

  #2 Storm of Seduction https://books2read.com/StormSeduction

  #3 Dawn of Love https://books2read.com/DawnOfLove

  The Soul Guide series

  (Urban Fantasy)

  #1 Divided Souls https://books2read.com/DividedSouls

  #2 Soul Ascendance https://books2read.com/SoulAscendance

  Links to Bea Paige’s Social Media

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BeaPaige/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beapaigeauthor/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeaPaigeAuthor Web: https://www.beapaige.co.uk

  Prologue

  Queen Adrielle

  “Where is Abanthe?” I sneer, stalking closer to the demon.

  “My Queen, he’s…” the creature stutters, backing away from me. His red eyes widen in fear. The darkness within me moves restlessly, sensing weakness. If I don’t keep it at bay, it will attack before I’m ready to release it.

  “When I ask you a question, I expect you to answer immediately. SPEAK!”

  The creature before me falls to his knees. The weight of my magic pressing into him, making him tremble. Even the thickness of his blackened skin and metal wings are no match against my power. How can it be? I created him, I can destroy him just as easily.

  “Abanthe was defeated. He’s dead…” the creature responds, his voice quivering in fear.

  “Dead?! How is he dead? My magic can’t be defeated. You’re mistaken.” I snarl. My hands curl into fists as the darkness of my magic erupts from my fingertips. Black smoke curls around my wrists, a snake slithering upwards.

  The creature before me lifts his head and raises a trembling hand. It makes me sick.

  He is weak.

  Fear has no place in my presence. Fear has kept him alive… but not for much longer.

  I flick my wrist and his body rises off the floor. He’s weightless in front of me as though hanging by an invisible rope. With a twist of my hand his head turns to the side and his eyes bulge from their sockets. The creature’s hands fly to his throat trying to release the grip I have on him, but his fingers find no purchase against my magic.

  From his cracked and broken lips, a thick black tongue pokes free as he chokes from my hold. I could kill him now, it wouldn’t take much effort. But there are things I must know and he’s the only one left of the three demons I sent to assist Abanthe in destroying those bastard angels.

  A gurgling noise loosens from his mouth and I release my grip slightly. I do it only to find out what happened, after that he is useless. The creature, whose name I forget, draws in deep, gasping breaths.

  “Speak.” It is not a request, but a demand. My magic flows down his open mouth and pulls the words from him. He coughs and splutters at the forced entry as the words are stolen from him.

  “We were ambushed by the Dark Knights of Clan Lux…” he says quickly, the rasp in his voice coiled with my magic.

  “What?!” I interrupt. The rage boils inside my chest as this demon pays for their betrayal. He howls in pain as I snap one of his arms. The pathetic creature whimpers. He even has the gall to beg for his life.

  “My Queen, please,” he simpers.

  “SPEEAAAKKKK!” I roar, my magic flares out of me. The coiling snake turns into obsidian flames up my arm, exciting me even though I’m angry enough to rip my kingdom to shreds. I snap his fingers one by one as my magic reaches down his throat once more. He gags, his blackened tongue thickened by my magic.

  “Tell me about those bastards. Tell me what you saw.” I draw back my magic just enough for him to speak.

  “The whore they escaped with from the castle was fighting by their side,” he gasps, sucking in a breath.

  “The one they ran away with? Who is she? This woman they risk everything for?” It is not a question I expect him to answer. I’ve been going over and over the circumstances of that day. “I am Queen. I am powerful. I am beautiful. I hold their lives in my hands and yet they risk everything for this woman. They betray me for her. What possessed them to make such a choice, my most trusted Dark Knights, my most feared Angels of Death? My brother?”

  “Not just them, my Queen…” the demon rasps. He swallows hard.

  “Out with it!”

  “Your chambermaid Lissandra was with them too. They came through a portal, my Queen. Lissandra conjured it…”

  A scream of rage rips from my throat and several of his bones snap in quick succession from my fury. He whimpers, but the threat of more than another broken limb has him talking once more despite the agony he is in.

  “You are certain that it was Lissandra who opened the portal.”

  “There was no one else, my Queen.”

  My rage from her betrayal quickly falls away to one of excitement. Perhaps this wasn’t as disastrous as I first thought.

  “Well, this is very interesting indeed. My brother must have given in to his base desires and Entwined with Lissa. No doubt to see whether it would bring back his own magic. The fool.” I laugh freely and some of the rage falls away. “Nostra has done me a favour. Now, I shall have my revenge and it will be sweet. Oh, so sweet. I shall take something precious from him now.”

  “Your brother and your chambermaid are fated to one another?”

  “Fated? What do you know of our customs?” I ask, my eyes narrowing. My magic reaches outwards ready to pull the words from his throat. He holds his hands up.

  “Please, my Queen. I know only of the custom because my wife’s sister was a witch.”

  “She was?”

  “Yes, you took her life not long before you came into power.”

  “Is that so?”

  He nods his head. Regret lingers just behind the blood red of his eyes. This demon will die tonight. He knows too much, he is still too human.

  “So, your chambermaid is a witch?”

  “Indeed, I sensed her magic the moment I lay eyes on her as a small child. Lissandra’s parents knew she was gifted too. They tried to escape with her. Of course, I couldn’t let them leave, not when I could take her magic as my own the moment it revealed itself. She became my chambermaid not five minutes after her parents’ ashes were lifted in the wind. I have been waiting a long time for her magic to reveal itself. Now it’s here, I am going to claim it as my own.”

  “How will you do that, my Queen?”

  “Do you really need to ask that question? By killing her, of course,” I laugh delightedly. “I will take great pleasure stripping her of every last drop of magic. Then I shall force my brother to watch the sun strip her skin from her bones and turn her into ash.”

  The creature says nothing. Instead he regards me with his still too human eyes. The sooner he is dead, the better, but I still have a few questions.

  “Tell me, demon, the Angels of Death and those bastard Dark Knights, they arrived together?”

  “No, the angels were alone and would have lost the fight had the Dark Knights not arrived. Abanthe had slayed a human and damaged Ether beyond repair. I saw his life blood leaking from him, until…”

  “Until what?” I ask slowly, knowing immediately from the way the creature seems to curl into himself that I will not like the answer.

  “Until a female angel brought him back to life…”

  The moment the words leave his lips he knows that his life is about to end. The black flames licking up my body is proof enough of that. They flare about me, ripping up over my skin, uncontrollable now. All calmness from before gone.

  “How?!” I demand, barely able to see straight through the haze of darkness taking over me. The last time I was this angry I turned Abanthe into a demon just like the one standing before me now.

&nbs
p; “I… I don’t know, my Queen. She had her hands pressed against Ether and the human woman. Magic appeared, a darkness erupted from one hand, whilst the other produced a light so bright I had to turn away. When I looked back the human was dead and the Angel of Death… alive.”

  “Dark and light magic? What is this? An Angel of Death doesn’t have the ability to save life,” I snarl, voicing my thoughts out loud.

  “She wasn’t like the other angels. She was different,” the demon says as quietly as a voice made of stone can.

  “Different how?” I stalk forward as he’s lifted higher above the floor by my magic. He squirms, black snakelike smoke curling around his body now.

  “Her wings, they were not like the others. Hers were a strange shade of blue, almost as luminescent as the moon,” he chokes out.

  I try not to show my shock at this piece of information. Instead, I break his other arm in several places allowing the sounds of his screams to soothe my soul, to appease the darkness that is desperate for destruction. I’m not done with him quite yet.

  “They were fighting side-by-side?”

  “Yes.”

  This, more than Abanthe’s death, more than their betrayal, concerns me. Clan Lux and Clan Vitae have never seen eye-to-eye. They only tolerate each other because of my bidding. Then there’s the wolf-shifter, Blake. I haven’t forgotten about him. He escaped too. They helped him to escape.

  My magic darkens further, this is nothing but an uprising which I shall quash. It happened before. The last time the people dared challenge my power I lost my child… They took her from me. I remember her still, my baby born covered in blood, her lifeless eyes more beautiful than the darkest pits of my soul.

  “My Queen, you are sad…” the demon says holding up a broken arm towards me. There is something close to pity in his eyes and it enrages me further. I thought my magic had removed all empathy from him. Clearly not.

  “Don’t look at me like that, demon!”

  I push thoughts of my child away. Nostra was wrong, love doesn’t give you power, it makes you weak. Love is for the foolish.

  “Tell me how Abanthe died,” I ask, the oppressiveness of my magic making him quiver. I allow the darkness to take the memories of my daughter away. I allow it to fill me up, making me strong.

  “The angel with the strange wings took his head off with her knife. I’ve never witnessed such power. She was formidable.”

  The demon’s eyes snap open in shock as my free hand shoots forward and punches a hole in his chest. With my fingers grasped around his black heart I squeeze tightly. Feeling his life beating in the palm of my hand settles the racing of my own fevered pulse.

  “Let me remind you, demon. I am the only one you should fear. My power far outweighs some deformed angel. You would be wise to remember that.”

  “My Queen, I meant no disrespect,” he coughs, thick globs of black blood leaking from his mouth.

  “What do you say?” I ask, giving him one opportunity to save his life.

  “Please…” he gurgles.

  “Wrong answer,” I seethe, before ripping out his heart.

  The demon falls to the floor with wide unseeing eyes. With a flick of my wrist his body is burning and as the fire of my magic consumes his body, I bite into his blackened heart reabsorbing the magic I used to create him.

  “I am the only person who can give and take life. I am ruler of Ever Vale and Queen to all the people within it. I am indestructible. I shall not be defeated,” I say to the now empty room. Those words ring in my ears as I step out onto the balcony to address my army below.

  Chapter One

  Fern

  Sitting at the table surrounded by strangers I feel woefully out of my depth. I may be the newly appointed leader of Clan Vitae but I’m still the same woman who, up until a few weeks ago, was a midwife. Now, that’s an impossibility.

  My mother’s broken and battered body still haunts me. Choosing to save Ether’s life over hers plagues my every waking moment. Not even the release of sleep helps. I dream about my mother, about the choice I made for the man I love over the woman who didn’t love me enough. It was the right choice, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.

  It would appear that my heritage as daughter of Celeste and Eos combined with the Harmonious bond has given me the gift to save life, but also the ability to end it. One cannot happen without the other. It’s both a curse, and a blessing. And the worse thing? I can only save a life if I end another’s at the exact same moment.

  How twisted is that?

  My mother’s lifeless eyes flash before me as a wave of nausea rises up my throat. Ether squeezes my hand under the table, his firm grip centring me. I concentrate on our connection and can feel his guilt intertwine with mine. Curling my fingers tighter around his, I reassure him that it was the only choice I could make. That it was my decision and the only person who should carry the weight of it, is me.

  A footprint appears, the words clearer now that we’ve sealed our bond.

  Never, we share every burden. Always.

  I turn to look at Ether.

  “Always, okay?” he mouths. I squeeze his hand tighter.

  “Fern, what do you think?” Lissandra asks me, pulling my attention back to the conversation. I’m still surprised that I’m able to hear her. Whether it’s her magic, or my own, I’ve no idea. Either way, like Ether, Mihr and Gabe, her voice is crystal clear to me even though I’m still deaf to everyone else.

  “At the very least, we need to call upon Clan Terra whilst we wait to hear word from Danika,” she muses, the lightness of her voice belies the seriousness of the conversation. She has a very lyrical tone. It’s soothing actually. There’s something very enticing about Lissandra. She has a beautiful aura. In some ways, I feel as connected to her as I do to Accacia even though she isn’t one of the five sisters mentioned in the prophecy. So far, there is me, Accacia, Clover and Dani. The fifth sister is yet to be found. Clan Aequalis are looking for her now, their mansion a temporary home for my new friends.

  My eyes flick to Nostra who sits beside Lissandra. He regards me closely, his lilac eyes as intense as his stare. This is the first time I’ve been able to have a proper discussion with him, given the last time we met I was covered head to foot in Abanthe’s blood and gore, and not in the mood to exchange pleasantries.

  “You’re feeling better, Fern?” he asks me.

  I watch his mouth closely as he enunciates every word. He isn’t doing it because he wants to make sure I understand him. No, he’s having trouble speaking. Nostra is unwell. The others may not be able to tell, but I can. Years of reading a person’s body language as much as their lips, means that I pick up on things others wouldn’t notice.

  “I was never unwell. I did what I had to do. Are you well?” I ask, feeling Lissandra’s eyes on me.

  “Just a little tired. None of us have rested since you left.”

  Rhain pulls at his top. “No time even to wash this shit off,” he says with a grimace. Dark stains mark his t-shirt. Then I remember, that even though two days have passed for Mihr, Ether, Gabe and I, only a couple of hours have passed for them. I almost laugh out loud at the absurdity of it.

  “Of course, I keep forgetting time passes differently…”

  “Yes, we’ve been busy making sure we’re prepared should Queen Adrielle attack. The moment you left to return to the Shadowlands, we’ve all been working on making this mansion safe. Nostra has been helping me to learn some new spells to protect us here, whilst Accacia, Rhain, Ezra and Devin have been securing the weak spots by boarding up windows and doors,” Lissa explains, glancing at her fingertips which are a strange shade of purple. She notices me looking and turns her hand palm upwards.