Page 67 of Elemental Fae Academy: Book Three

I spun again, my eyes opening and closing wildly, my heart practically bursting in my chest. Exos! Cyrus!

Why had they left me?

Where was I?

How was I supposed to get out of here?

This was still the spirit plane. I felt it in every fiber of my being.

But I was standing in the middle… of the source? Maybe?

My feet sprinted on my behalf, taking me this way and that as I fought to find a way out, any path I recognized. Yet everything looked the same. Just white. No souls. No mates. No life.

I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound escaped me.

Just soundless inexistence.

Think, Claire, I demanded. There has to be a way out of this. A way home.

To my mates.

Yes.

I just needed to think about them. They would come. My loves. My life. My circle.

My breath evened as I envisioned them, demanding they respond, that they find me and free me from this pristine cavern.

“Claire?”

Not the voice I expected to hear.

I turned toward my mother. She stood in a translucent state several feet away, her blue eyes wide with surprise.

“How did you bring me here?” she asked, glancing around as if in a hypnotic state. “How did you break her spell?” And then her expression morphed into one of horror, her eyebrows lifting in astute alarm. “You didn’t. Oh, darling, no. Dark magic is not for our kind. Promise me you’ll stop. Promise me you won’t do it again!”

“I didn’t,” I replied, my voice strained. “I haven’t touched dark magic.”

“Then how did you break the binds?”

“I didn’t,” I repeated. “Exos… He called you to the spirit plane.”

“Oh no,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Oh, no, no, no. She’ll know, Claire. She’ll have felt the interference! You must run before she finds you. Run, Claire! Run now!”

“Who will find me?” I demanded. “You’re not making any sense.”

But my mother seemed to be fading, her expression one of absolute terror. “She’s coming. Oh, she’s coming. Run, darling. Don’t let her find you. Ru—”

The ground roared to life, swallowing me into a hole of sound and sensation and eliciting a scream from deep within as I was forcefully sucked into a vortex of swirling color. Life. Death. Water. Pink. Fluttering wings. It all wavered around me in a blanket of confusion, swathing me in the sea of reality and spitting me back out onto Cyrus’s bedroom floor.

I came alive with a gasp, my lungs on fire, my heart racing against my ribs.

Cyrus and Exos let out a cry of relief, their hands running over me in protective strokes.

“Holy fuck,” I breathed, my voice raspy and harsh. “What a trip.” Because wow, that was intense. It was as if I’d seen a millennium of life in that tunnel, all whipping around me in a whirlwind of activity too fast for my brain to comprehend.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Exos demanded.

“What?” I gaped at him. “What do you mean?”

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