Possession ＆ Shadows – The Accalia Series Book 1 & 2

Samael Pov

“Jasmine and I have been searching every realm, top to bottom. It’s like she just completely disappeared,” I tell Rynyxon. It had been a few hours since Ava and Adam were taken. Due to Jasmine turning me into a demon, I could sense when other demons were around, and a huge wave hit both Jasmine and me the second that demon and Brandon walked through the portal. One look at Brandon, and I knew he was no longer himself. From my study of demons, only high-level demons were able to control those already dead. Brandon was now a changeling. Nasty monsters feed off the flesh and blood of live or dead victims to stay alive.

There was only one way to reverse the changeling process, and that was to find his spirit and blast it back into his body. I would find a way to save him for my sister, but Ava was a priority. Atlas has been keeping his cool about the situation, but from one king to another, I know the pain of having the fear of not knowing whether your mate is alive or dead. We were all looking for help wherever we could find it. This was the second high-level demon we have faced in the past two months. Everything in me was telling me something was coming.

“I can feel it too,” my wolf, Damon, linked me.

“I’ve been feeling like something is coming too. Something strong. Powerful. It even shakes me.” Lunar, Jasmine’s wolf, links to me.

We were all crowded around a table, pooling our resources in Atlas’s library. His library was full of knowledge and books dealing with all realms of the galaxy. He may not remember this, but he and I were playmates as children. Rynyxon would leave me with him and his family during the time he spent here courting Ava’s mother, Amber. After Amber’s death, Rynyxon couldn’t bear to bring himself back to the Shadow Realm, with everything reminding him about her. Being here also reminded me of Atlas’s mother, Rose. Hearing that she had gone missing and was presumed dead made me think. Is it possible this is all somehow connected?

“You may be on to something,” Jasmine said. Of course, she would have been reading my thoughts, not that I minded.

“Dad, that demon girl that took Ava, did you feel it too?” Jasmine asked Rynyxon.

“I did. She felt like both you and Ava felt for me. A direct family connection, almost like a daughter, but that’s impossible,” he said, looking at Jessica.

“I don’t have any other children,” Jessica said.

“Amber died shortly after giving birth to Ava. She didn’t have any other children. I was there,” he said, starting to zone out.

“What reason would she have had for taking Adam, though? None of this makes any sense,” Atlas says.

“I have no idea. They don’t correlate. We have no way of finding either of them either. There is no connection between Ava and Adam that would link them in any kind of locating spell or anything.” I told them.

“Actually, there is,” Jessica states. We all looked at her.

Atlas Pov

“It’s you, Atlas. You are the direct connection between both Adam and Ava. They are both directly tied to you. One by blood. One by one, bond. He could try to reach her in his bond, since her magic…” Jessica said, trailing off while looking at Rynyxon. He seemed to be thinking to himself. He looked directly at me, and an understanding dawned on me. He was hiding something.

“What is it you’re not telling everyone?” I asked him. Kai sensed it as well. Everyone looked at Rynyxon, who seemed to be hesitant. Jessica took his hands.

“Ava is coming up on her 19th birthday in 2 weeks,” he said. I already knew, due to Ava telling me, but what did that have to do with the situation?

“Do you know what Expression Magic is?” he asked me. I shook my head. I never heard of it.

“It is an old magic practiced long ago. It is the strongest magic. The wielder of it does not need spells or books to create anything. Fully mastered, and the wielder of that magic could build a whole city out of thin air. They could also destroy an entire realm with the snap of their fingers if they wished. The wielder of it uses their will, or emotions, and channels them into power. It corrupts because wielders have a hard time controlling it. Expression was used by some of the strongest witches of all time, until it fell into the wrong hands.

“What does this have to do with Ava?” I asked him. Is he saying Ava has this forbidden magic?

“I’m getting it. To understand the gravity of all this, you have to understand the extent of this magic,” he said. I nodded for him to continue.

“Ava’s ancestor, a witch named Sarah Myra Good, on her 19th birthday, was the first witch of her time to use expression to bring her lover back from the dead and was successful, but she ended her life due to her expression getting out of control. This was during the 17th century in Salem, back when witches were burned at the stake for their practice. The people of that time executed her on the 19th day of July., but what they didn’t know was that she had a child.

Her entire witch line bred witches, all born with the potential to control expression, yet none of them had it. Not until Amber. Amber came to me one day, telling me our child would have expression magic released on her 19th birthday. She created a charm that would keep the magic under control until our child was ready, which is the necklace you all see I have made Ava keep wearing,” he explained. It started to make sense. I remember Ava fighting the demons on the blood moon. I had never felt power like it before.

“Her magic has untapped potential, and it burns her out quickly because she is not yet in control. The necklace her mother gave her will slowly ease her into her power. It is known that the users of expression, on their 19th birthday, will have a choice to make. Her heart will decide if her magic will be used for good or for evil. In the wrong hands, she will learn to become a dangerous weapon, and expression will claim the lives of many more victims. In the right hands, she could be the strongest witch of our time, with a lifespan of centuries.

These last few weeks, I have been studying the realms after Xavier’s attack, scouring for anything that would point to the sudden silence of the demon activity. I had heard of strange occurrences-floods and earthquakes-happening throughout the realms, but they all seemed normal. I had thought nothing of it. Not until I came across this book,” he says, tossing out a book from my library. There were so many books here that I have not read yet, and this book looked familiar to me, but I could not place where I had seen it.

“The End Times?” Samael read, looking at the cover of the book. I flipped through the book. It held many prophecies in it, and I had no idea what I was looking for.

“Shit,” I said, accidentally cutting myself on the pages. The page seemed to soak up my blood. Suddenly, the pages started turning until they landed on one page, titled Queen of the End Times. I read the page out loud.

And behold, twin queens

One destined to destroy

One destined to save

Both will trigger the end of days.

Fear the land of death, where the shadows lie.

The war is coming. The war is coming.

Upon their 19th birthday

Evil shall roam.

Rising from the darkness

From his home

In the land of death, where the shadows lie

She is coming. She is coming.

The angel hybrid will rise to her peak.

Her magic will make its choice.

To end the world, or to raze it

Made by the sound of her voice

Should her heart choose light, then rejoice. Sing

If her heart chooses the dark,

Beware the Angel Witch Queen.

The past will reveal the truth.

I looked up to see a panicked look on everyone’s faces.

“You don’t all believe in this prophecy nonsense, do you?” I asked them, but one look at their faces, and I knew they did. I was never a believer in prophecies, but my mother was. In fact, now that I remember correctly, this is exactly the book she used to carry with her all the time before she was taken.

“You may not believe, Atlas,” Jessica said, but believe me when I say these prophecies have a way of coming true before you know it.

Samael Pov

“The prophecy said, Beware the kingdom of hell. From my studies, it is the darkest realm, where all the lowest of the low demons are created. Its ruler is the demon lord. Destruction follows him wherever he goes. The defiler. The snake. Once known as the light bringer, before the archangel, Michael cast him into a realm made for the darkest soul, such as his, for defiling the creation of humans. His punishment was to rule over all that was damned, and he somehow made it his own paradise.” I explained.

“Do you think this is where they are?” Atlas asked. Everyone looked at each other.

“It’s possible. That realm is guarded heavily with sigils that no one has ever been able to break, which would explain why I couldn’t sense her in other realms. It would not be guaranteed that they would be there,” I said.

“We have to try. We need to find a way to reach Harmon,” Jasmine said to Samael. Just then, the ring on my finger started blinking red. I pushed it, and it showed Harmon being snatched by Brandon. Its location was right outside my home. Harmon was in danger.

” Fuck. We need a plan. NOW.”