Compounding Traumas (Artemis University Book 6) Read online

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  About the Author

  Other Titles by Erin R Flynn

  A Supernatural Script Inc. Book

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  My name is Tamsin Vale and I’m the last known fairy, fighting to find out what happened to all fairies and our world.

  But I’m running out of hope, and it has a lot to do with the four pieces of my soul I no longer have with me. Going through one breakup is terrible, but four in rapid succession is… More than one person can handle.

  I spent all summer fighting for fair folk, and fighting the councils, and fighting for the supes who need it, instead of taking a break. And I’m tired, mostly because I have so much trouble sleeping, missing the men I loved and didn’t want to admit I cared for.

  Still, I can’t quit, so I keep pushing on. That’s what it means to be an adult and have responsibilities. I’m not alone, and I have help pushing me to keep going, teaching me what I need, so we can win the fights we need to.

  I can… I really don’t think I can do this.

  Artemis University is an ongoing hot burning reverse harem, university-age paranormal academy series with darker elements, strong language, violence, and a heroine who follows her own moral compass of what is right… And who she ends up giving her heart to.

  1

  After I finished my run in Faerie with Chief and his pack, I went through my new cooldown routine and made sure to hydrate. Then I flipped the playlists and instantly felt lighter when Derek Hough’s “The Ones” came on. I wasn’t sure if he was a supe, but I would bet money he had fairy blood in him to sing and dance as he did.

  Then again, I’d heard from my friends that several of my guesses of being supes were human. Maybe everyone had a bit of fairy blood in them? Like what the Irish said around St. Patrick’s Day that everyone was Irish then.

  That sounded nice to me. Inclusivity, instead of division and pain.

  And I was currently in a lot of pain which was why I’d put together a playlist of songs helped lighten my heart. I smiled at the dogs as they watched me dance to the music. I’d been spending a lot more time in Faerie after the blowup at my end of the year party. I realized Faerie didn’t simply need me… I needed it just as much.

  When I’d come back through the portal, I was shocked to find out many things—but one of the main ones? Natalie and our friends had opted to have the memory of learning I was a fairy taken away to protect me. That was crazy to me and healed a lot of my hurt. I did have true friends and they meant to the world to me.

  But when Mel had told me Craftsman had lost his temper and almost killed Collins for taking advantage of me, that was a harder pill to swallow. I didn’t think he would have cared enough, but then again, I was the last fairy, and a professor traumatizing me to simply—and selfishly—get my blood was pretty damn horrible.

  Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who wanted a piece of Collins. According to Mel, Collins had better get his affairs in order if he so much as looked at me funny again. Even White had threatened to burn him to ash.

  I really should have called her first, but in my panic, I couldn’t think straight. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  The mess got cleaned up though. Collins and White made everyone who crashed the party think they were sent to a different address about twenty minutes south of where we were. And just for good measure, that Holly was an idiot because she’d only had one shot to locate my phone, and I’d probably been on the move shopping or something.

  So everyone was pissed at Holly for wasting their time and pissing me off to not even be able to find out where I lived.

  Geiger was on a warpath. He’d not only made sure the guy who broke the rules and worked in that office lost his job, but he was fighting to get my number taken off the registry. People were losing their minds over me and as such, couldn’t be trusted. He petitioned for his office to be the guardian of mine and the numbers of anyone working for me, and tracking me should be their responsibility in an emergency.

  Until then, we were bouncing our phones all over to keep from being tracked because it wasn’t only me they could pull this on. Next, it would be Ray or Zack… And were they ever furious. It was like a sacred emergency only thing of trust among supes to keep us safe and it was abused that way.

  Which was why we made sure other councils and a ton of people found out. Holly was going to have some serious explaining to do with her family, and maybe even her council, as she was a vampire, and the vampire council were the ones in charge of handling all of this. And dayumn did this make them look bad.

  My heart was bleeding for the corrupt fuckers for sure.

  I wasn’t worried. Geiger would handle it, or we could just keep fucking with our signals and fuck them. I had a hard time not saying “I told you so” to the others as it had been a huge red flag for me that I’d brought up a few times.

  The house in Spain was being worked on and was ready for us to stay there a few days after the party. It didn’t have a portal to Faerie though, so I still had to come back to the Townsend estate for that. The dogs were happy with that. I might bring at least half of them to Spain to switch out once the renovations were over. They were on edge with all the threats against me.

  As was I, so I didn’t blame them.

  When it was time, I met Professor White at the portal. She was going to work with me on how to let out my already stored power in the reservoirs and crystals in a better way that didn’t hurt me like last time. Today was our first lesson and I was excited for it. Anything to learn more control and do things better was time well spent to me.

  The look she gave me when she saw the electric scooters was some of the best entertainment I’d had since the blowup and something I truly needed.

  “I got you one with a seat to be nice
,” I told her honestly. “Would you prefer to jog? It’s a distance.”

  She sighed heavily. “I suppose I should be happy that’s the truth.”

  I nodded. “It makes me happy. I just don’t know if I keep pumping energy into the same spots, if it keeps fanning out and I won’t be wasting energy. I’m hoping you might be able to tell me more working together so we don’t have to do this.”

  “Wise.” She let me show her how to use the scooter and then I led us through the portal. She turned her face up to the sun and smiled. “How I’ve missed coming here. Wonderful to see you again, Faerie. It is my honor to help you heal.”

  I blinked at her. “You talk to the world like it’s sentient.”

  She was quiet a moment. “Think of the difference between normal animals and fae dogs. They’re more than animals and know a lot more. That’s how you should think of Earth versus Faerie. It’s magic down to its core and with that comes… More. It’s not simply dirt and grass and water. It’s more. You’ll see when it’s healed.”

  I honestly didn’t have trouble believing that now.

  She greeted Chief and the pack before we headed out, the dogs running with us. When we reached near the edge, I let her study the magic and filled her in on what I knew and had experienced, answering her questions. She’d already spoken with Geiger and they’d put their heads together, but not come up with anything yet. That was the problem with doing this all cautiously.

  It wasn’t as if we could put all our time into finding answers or ask people who might know more. We couldn’t take the risk.

  “Let’s start with showing me your setup from last time,” she said when she was done.

  I nodded, pulling out the reservoirs and high-tiered crystals I’d grabbed as well. I set them up with the reservoirs in the middle around me and the crystals around them.

  “And what happened? What went wrong?” she asked gently. “You set them up correctly, as magic ripples out, so your logic was perfect.”

  “I couldn’t control it,” I admitted. “I pushed out the power like I normally do with the reservoirs, but it was exponentially so much more when it came out and doing it here, that it took off and was like trying to hold onto the back of a flying jet instead of me doing it.”

  She nodded. “As I said, Faerie isn’t Earth and it’s desperate to heal.”

  That made so much sense that I felt worlds better I wasn’t a failure or a horrible fairy. “How do I fix it? I mean, how do I get better at this?”

  “You change your focus. Tell me your visual.”

  I thought about it a few moments and realized I’d kept it simple. “Opening a door. I push my magic into the reservoirs and open the doors of them so the power comes out and can be released into Faerie.”

  She nodded as I spoke. “You hit the gas too hard on that much power. Understandable, given how you like to drive.” She smirked when I snorted. “You need calmer. Have you ever worked with dough or seen the hobgoblins doing it?” She waited until I nodded. “You need to think of rolling out dough, that calm, controlled push out with the rolling pin.”

  “Like controlling my breathing during training or workouts?” I checked.

  “Yes, exactly like that. Let out your breath and push that much, but then inhale and keep control. If you equate it to cleansing your body of negativity, as in yoga, you’ll understand the principle better, except it’s not negative, but power.”

  I thought I could handle that. In theory. I had only one worry then. “What if I don’t get the same bang for my buck?”

  “You might not, but if you hurt yourself as you did before, it will be longer in between times you can do this, and the damage could be permanent. That’s not worth the risk. As in training, do it the right way and get stronger to do more, not kill yourself for one fight.”

  Fair enough. I centered myself and focused how she said. I closed my eyes and took in a slow, steady breath before letting it out and letting my magic push out the power in the storage vessels. I pulled back when I inhaled again, and just in time too, because I’d felt the stirrings of it about to overwhelm and tidal wave me.

  “Good, very good, but a shorter breath this time. You almost lost control,” she said quietly as to not startle me.

  I nodded that I heard her and did it again. The third and fourth times, I felt more comfortable and confident; by the fifth time, I knew I could have let out a longer breath. The less power left in the vessels, the more I could push out. My instincts told me that, but I wasn’t going to risk it when we were working on control.

  When I finished up, I realized I was completely wrong. Power pulsed from White, and it hit me that she had been magically guiding me with training wheels.

  Well damn. It seemed not everything was going to be so easy for me or come fast. Oh well. I could live with that.

  “Thanks. That wasn’t scary this time,” I confessed.

  “And that’s the biggest part of control when it comes to magic.” She smiled when I gave her a confused look. “Confidence. You need confidence in what you’re doing when it comes to magic or casting. You’ve seen it with working runes. The confidence and visuals are half the work in making it happen the way you want.”

  I definitely couldn’t deny that, nodding as I packed everything up.

  “How do you feel?” she checked as I stood.

  I snorted. “Glad to have the scooter.” I shrugged. “Tired, but not like before. I could eat the entire kitchen probably, but still good.”

  “Your aura’s not in distress. I’m glad it went better this time. We’ll keep working on it, and soon you won’t need me and will be able to do more.”

  “Awesome, thanks.”

  We hopped on our scooters—well, I did. Professor White elegantly slid onto the seat and made it look as if she was a proper lady riding a champion horse, even if it was something tinier than most Vespas.

  I opened the portal and let the dogs through before White, and then myself with my scooter. I plugged them in and my stomach growled loudly.

  Of course it did.

  “Once you have the control you need and can handle this on your own, I think we can start seeing if you have to drive out to the edge or if you simply need to pump energy into Faerie,” she said as we left the room with the portal. “It might make this easier on you if you didn’t have to travel as the distance will become longer.”

  “And yet I haven’t hit anyone yet,” I grumbled. “Not even animals.”

  “Faerie isn’t a small world,” she told me. “I do not believe it is as expansive as Earth, but it isn’t small or one continent. It might be some time until you find people. Animals might be sooner. Hopefully. But I think you made big progress clearing the muck enough to allow the sun to come back. That’s huge. Focus on your achievements right now, Ms. Vale.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “It’s the summer. At least call me Tamsin if we’re going to be working together on this super secret project over summer.”

  She sighed, which surprised me. She winced when I stopped and looked at her. “The last student I became close enough with to call by their first name didn’t stay with our society and become an upstanding member. I would never think that of you, but as you have old wounds, so do the rest of us.”

  I put the pieces together and my eyes went wide. “Wow, someone from Artemis became Underground?”

  “Yes, she did, and when she realized the truly horrid mistake she’d made, she did her best to get us information on them. She succeeded, but they killed her for it. The council still labeled her a traitor even as they acted on the information and captured several Underground agents. So to me, the system failed her twice.”

  “Once, to make her think the Underground might be better, and again to not let her be forgiven when she tried to help.” I shook my head. “I doubt a man would have been treated that way in this sexist society.”

  She did a double take as we walked along. “I didn’t consider that, but you are right. I was too lost i
n my own head and hurt, but I think you are right on that.” She cleared her throat. “Tamsin.”

  I smiled. Yeah, we all had our demons. “Sorry you lost one. It’s hard.”

  “You speak from experience.”

  I nodded. “I helped get some out of bad stuff, and they tried to do better and have a real life, but then changed their minds. They went back into prostitution with shit pimps beating them or drugs or whatever else because… I don’t know. Maybe it was easier to be told what to do in life? Maybe the drugs held them too tightly? But we lost them after getting them out. Not my fault, but it hurts.”

  “It does, and I do bear responsibility as a teacher, advisor, and dean.”

  I snorted. “You weren’t her parent, White. She was a fucking college kid. That’s adult enough to make her own choices, right or wrong. You lost one. Horrible, but it was going to happen, and it will probably happen again. To me as well. It’s not us, but free will. We can only lead them to water, but not force them to drink or however that goes.”

  She was quiet until we reached the kitchen. “Yes, I supposed you might lose some from your havens as well. I didn’t think of that.”

  I shrugged. “Leaving everything and forging out on your own is too much for some. It took me a while to understand that it wasn’t me, but I’m not the gods. I can’t control that and I wouldn’t want to. They make their choices.”

  She nodded, seeming to think about that, but I could tell she wanted to move past the conversation. She came up with the topic change before I even could. “How is your eating out fun? Where did you decide instead of London?”

  I winced. “Actually, Izzy had way more than London mapped out, including a lot of England. We might do that next summer, but we’re starting with Tokyo instead and working out from there if we have time. She says we will, but the list of what she keeps adding and adding seems crazy. I know a lot of summer festivals since we’re not doing the outings with the dragon royals anymore.”

  “I would think not,” she sighed as I went for the fridge. “I assume they will still keep up their end of the deal?”