Awakening: My Harem Academia, #2

By Xya Olsen

I got through my first term at the Wilderness Academy for Shifters, but will my luck run out in the Trials? 
  
Two weeks of training wasn't enough to harness my mysterious powers. Now Saber, Renard, Tiberius, and I must face the Trials. Two months of hell in the belly of the Forest of Endings.

 

Thrust into the unforgiving wilderness and pitted against our classmates, we must come out on top. If we fail... We'll meet a fate far worse than expulsion.

 

My mates vowed to protect me whatever the cost. But my waking power is unstable and deadly. While the Trials bring my mates and I closer together, the beast within threatens to tear us apart.

 

The Trails will reveal what kind of monster I truly am—and for better or for worse—the truth will change my new life forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xya Olsen
• Release date: Jun 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393746317

Xya Olsen

Xya Olsen is a MM author who writes wholesome paranormal harem romance. Her stories are filled to the brim with love and magic and features fated mates, harem, mpreg, and of course, lots of strong heroes yearning for their happily ever afters. To sign up for Xya Olsen’s newsletter for release updates, go to https://www.xyaolsen.com/newsletter

Book preview

LUCIAN’S PRELUDE

ICOULDN’T SHAKE THE FEELING THAT I WAS BEING WATCHED.

Seconds later, my suspicions were confirmed as a chilling laughter filled the air.

That’s no animal or mate of mine, I thought, horrified.

I stood up and courageously growled into the darkness, show yourself and make this a fair fight!

Three shadowy figures stepped out from the trees and into my line of sight.

My heart filled with dread. With my mates nowhere to be found, my unreliable powers, and the mist pressed to my back—I had no one to turn to and nowhere to run.

It’s three against one, I realized.

I didn’t like those odds one bit, but I still had to try.

Facing the team ahead, I took a deep breath and prepared to fight.

LUCIAN

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE TRIALS ARRIVED IN A FLASH—AND I, SADLY, WAS FAR FROM PREPARED.

Two weeks of training with Saber, Renard, and Tiberius only showcased my inexperience. With powers I couldn’t access, let alone control, I had begun to feel like dead weight. No matter how many times I imagined the outcome of the Trials—it was always the same.

In a world like Nitehelm, a human like me would only drag others down.

My heart knew that was true, but despite the odds being stacked against us, we had no choice but to take part.

Leading up to the Trials, an ominous feeling parked itself in my gut and refused to leave.

To make matters worse, dreams of a graveyard covered in mist, where shadows lurking in the darkness sought my life, hijacked my dreams. In these dreams, I would stumble upon the same tombstone with a giant snake curled around it—and every time, the snake would devour me whole.

The imagery was more than effective at keeping me up at night. With mere hours left before my meeting with destiny, my eyes stung, bloodshot. My muscles ached, crying out for rest. All I wanted to do was crawl under my bedsheets and sleep the rest of the semester away...

But as nice as that sounded, doing so was not possible.

Lulu? Ward called out to me, breaking my trance.

Mmm?

We sat together at the Arcane table. The long, wooden tables reserved for each House’s students were emptier than usual. An eerie cloud of anxiety and gloom hung over the mess hall. A quietness permeated the room, disrupted by occasional scrapes of silverware against plates.

Are you going to eat that?

A heaping pile of my mother’s Cincinnati chili sat untouched in front of me. Knowing I’d be thrown into the wilderness in such a brief time didn’t encourage an appetite. In fact, the thought of eating only made me want to vomit.

Probably not, I admitted.

May I?

Go for it.

"You are such a glutton," Blair commented, his nose scrunched.

You would be too if you had to feed a panther, Ward retorted, pulling my plate toward him.

I watched him dig in and slumped forward against the tabletop, my fist pressed into my cheek. "You know—I’ve been meaning to ask, but... Why are we even in school?"

What do you mean? Ward asked, shoveling a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth.

We’re thirty-years-old.

So? Blair said. What is so strange about that?

Well... I considered the best way to explain the differences between our worlds’ education systems. Most humans are already out of school by that age.

Really? Ward looked up as he slurped several noodles into his mouth. What do you do before then?

School, I said. Between elementary, junior high, and high school—that’s twelve years, give or take. A lot of us go on to higher education, too, which can last up to eight more depending on the subject...

Blair and Ward exchanged puzzled looks.

You mean your parents don’t take charge of that?

Like homeschooling?

You could say that, Ward hummed. Shifters don’t attend formal education until we turn twenty-seven. Until then, everything we learn rests on our parents’ shoulders.

"But how do you learn?" I asked, mortified.

"With money, Blair responded with a snort. Our parents hire the best tutors."

Not always, though, Ward added. My fathers reared me themselves. Had to, on account of the panther and all.

Huh?

Ward twirled his fork, spinning spaghetti around it, and sighed. It’s a long story, but my panther belonged to my father—

Damon Nightshade, Blair interrupted.

His body never adapted to having the panther, so he passed it on to me when I was born.

That’s... wild.

If I had come here before I learned how to control it, I could have destroyed the place, Ward mused.

But what’s the point of the academy then?

It’s our last big test before they send us out on our own, Blair said with a shrug.

Our kind lives on average hundreds of years. Compare that to yours. What did you say it was?

Seventy-nine years...

Right. Well, it is a given we have longer lifespans. The academy exists to judge how well our parents educated us—and fix any mishaps. So long as we know our language, history, and can fight with our beasts like they are second nature, we will graduate.

I never would have guessed.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I was in an unfamiliar world, after all. What would be the point in assuming everything was the same? According to Ward and Blair, royal families took more ownership of their children’s education. The contrast was unexpected, but not out of the realm of possibility. Even wealthy humans could hire tutors for their children and home school them if they wanted to...

Me neither. Blair cut into a meaty piece of steak and the juices oozed onto his plate. As he sliced it into smaller pieces, he continued talking. You spend a quarter of your life studying and then you die. How foolish.

I hated to admit it, but he was right. Tell that to the people in charge. We don’t have a say in how long we learn...

Ward sighed. After polishing off the Cincinnati chili, he summoned a plateful of barbecue ribs—another dish I introduced him to—and dug in. Several bites later, he licked the sauce from his fingers and said, "that’s one thing our worlds have in common. Still, I find it fascinating. Do humans take time to mate after they graduate?"

Most of us go straight to work, I answered, swallowing the lump in my throat.

Ward bit into a rib and tore the meat from the bone. But what about your fated mates?

I shrugged. "Not everyone believes in soul-mates... We don’t really have fated mates, either... At least, not in the way you do."

"Now, that’s odd, Ward gasped. I can’t imagine a world where they do not exist. Fated mates are wired into our very biology. Being without each other is like... a planet without oxygen."

You two better get a move on finding yours, then, I joked.

That’s rich, coming from the man with—

The speakers within the mess hall activated and the voice of the headmaster echoed through the building, cutting Blair off.

"Students