Gift of the Gods (Magic Blessed Academy Book 1) Read online

  Gift of the Gods

  Magic Blessed Academy #1

  Eva Ashwood

  Copyright © 2019 by Eva Ashwood

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  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

  Thank You For Reading

  Books by Eva Ashwood

  Chapter One

  “Kick his ass, Aria!”

  “Fuck, yeah! I wanna see some blood!”

  “Oh, fuck you! She’s gonna get pummeled!”

  The crowd was loud and feisty tonight.

  Call me crazy, but I loved it.

  The sparsely constructed, rusted metal stands haphazardly shoved against the underground walls of the arena rattled and creaked, joining the cacophony of the loud yells and catcalls from hundreds of voices.

  Every few moments, a bottle or can would fly across the large warehouse-like space, adding to the general chaos of the atmosphere. This kind of shit was pretty much par for the course in this part of Boston, especially in the clandestine, underground MMA fighting rings.

  They weren’t necessarily known to be the safest and most pristine places.

  Like I said, I loved it.

  I was used to this, to the dredge and stank of the dirtiest and most back-alley people and places in Boston. After all, I’d spent most of my life running in these circles, doing what it took to survive in the city’s foster system. There weren’t a lot of options for an orphaned kid, and I’d had to work with what life had thrown at me.

  The bell rang out, and I glanced up as my opponent walked straight-faced down the aisle.

  He was a big motherfucker, his arms as thick as my thighs and his snarl missing several teeth from whatever street fights he’d lost—or maybe won—over the years. His skin was spotted with small scars, and his right eye twitched unnervingly. There were no rules in the underground, and even though I’d been pressured to stay in the female leagues, fighting people my own size, I’d gotten bored. It’d stopped being fun when I started winning matches within the first couple of rounds.

  So after a lot of pushing, my mentor, Vincent, had convinced the guy who ran the fight ring to let me go up against men.

  It definitely wasn’t boring.

  “Fucking hell, Aria. You sure you got this? Remember, if all else fails, stay low and go for the kidneys,” Vin reminded me, stepping close to the raised ring and squinting up at me through the ropes.

  “I got this. I’ve been fighting my whole life. And don’t worry, I won’t take him down too fast. I know this is a big draw for the crowd. They fucking love it when I beat up a guy.”

  He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “This dude is a legend. And you can’t count fist-fighting in the street when you were twelve as experience in fighting.”

  My dad had been a fighter too, and after he’d died when I was ten, it’d only felt natural to follow in his footsteps. Mom had passed away when I was just a baby, so there’d been no one left to talk me out of it.

  Vin had known my dad, back in the day. He was an older guy, an ex-fighter himself, and a lifelong Bostonian. He watched out for me even though, at nineteen, I didn’t need that much looking out for anymore.

  I shook out my shoulders and neck, loosening them up. “Yeah, but I have a reason to fight, one he doesn’t. Rent’s coming up, and I really don’t want to have to start taking odd jobs from the creepy as hell dark magic users again. One job from them was more than enough.”

  Vin’s dark brown eyes shifted back and forth. “Shit. Don’t say that too loud. There are quite a few magic users in the audience today. They’re watching you.”

  My gaze drifted toward the crowd. Shit. He’s right.

  There were at least four mages in the front row alone, and I spotted a few more scattered in the rows behind them.

  It was easy enough to spot the magic users, even though they all looked basically the same as everyone else. For one thing, everyone whose ancestors had been blessed with magic by the gods had a slight aura about them—almost a very faint, hazy glow.

  For another thing, they almost all wore expressions of smug superiority, as if having magic really made them better than the rest of us.

  Well, it made them more powerful anyway. Which did make them better in a lot of people’s eyes.

  Dragging my attention back to Vin, I waggled my eyebrows at him. “I’m not scared of them. They may be able to waggle their fingers and summon pretty lights, but I bet they all suck at hand-to-hand.”

  Never mind that some of those “pretty lights” have the power to kill a person.

  I gave Vin a little salute, then made my way out to the center of the ring, brushing a few strands of black hair out of my face as the announcer hyped up the crowd.

  “Annnnd in this corner, Aria Baaaaanks!”

  When my name echoed out into the arena, cheers and screams filled the hollow cement space. I put my hand up in the air and made a fist, keeping my attention on my opponent.

  His name was Travis Rotham, although if his parents had had any foresight at all, they would’ve named him Crusher or Bruiser or something.

  The announcer stood between us, making us shake hands before giving the signal. As his hand came down, the bell tolled—and I bounced backward quickly, knowing full well the big motherfucker was going to go for the first punch. Just like I’d thought, his arm swung wide but missed me. Using the opening he’d given me, I slid in underneath his arm, punched him in the stomach, and then swung around and gave him one good jab in the kidney.

  That one’s for you, Vin.

  As Rotham doubled over, I bounced around the ring, waving at the crowd and getting them pumped up. Hundreds of crisp green bills were changing hands all throughout the stands. As I looped back around toward my opponent, he grabbed my arm and flung me into the side of the ring. I hit the fencing hard, cutting my cheek on the metal. Grunting softly, I ran my fingers across the blood and narrowed my eyes.

  Planting my feet and pivoting, I narrowed my eyes at him. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you it’s not nice to hit a girl?”

  He grinned, showing his gums and a line of uneven teeth. “I only hit girls dumb enough to climb into a ring with me. You don’t wanna get hit, don’t ask to play with the big boys.”

  I grimaced and lunged toward him, faking right before hitting him under the chin with an uppercut. Before he could recover, I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down, kneeing him hard in the groin. His eyes bugged out of his head, and he made a low, drawn
out gurgling noise. Then he dropped to his knees like a felled tree, shaking the entire ring.

  I put my arms up, encouraging the cheers of the crowd—and the dickbag swung low, knocking me off my feet. I hit the ground hard, mentally cursing myself for not keeping my guard up.

  Fuck! That’s what I get for getting cocky.

  Before I could bounce back, Rotham climbed on top of me, pushing his knee into my side. I reached up and grabbed him by the throat, trying to push him off of me.

  My head fell to the side as Rotham and I grappled, and I caught flashes of the audience.

  When he aimed a punch at my face, I whipped my head to the other side, the audience blurring in my vision before coming back into focus. As it did, my gaze fell on a broad-shouldered guy standing in the second row with his arms crossed.

  Oh, shit.

  He was fucking stunning. His red-brown hair was slightly shaggy, and he had strong, blunt features. He looked like the kind of guy who might club you over the head and bring you back to his cave to fuck you till you couldn’t walk—all alpha-male hotness and rugged good looks.

  Rotham was still on top of me, still trying to beat the shit out of me, but it was hard to let even that imminent danger drag my focus away from the guy in the crowd.

  As if he could sense my thoughts, the roguish man grinned at me. He stared at me with heat in his eyes, and it was like a shot of instant adrenaline.

  I grinned savagely and turned my attention back to Rotham, hooking his leg and bucking my hips to throw him off balance. I scrambled to my feet, and before he could recover, I threw out a hard elbow to his face. It caught him on the temple, and the next one got him on the chin. The third hit his nose, and there was a satisfying crack before blood sprayed.

  Okay, enough playing around.

  My snarl tilted upward into a taunting grin as I pulled back my clenched fist. “Sorry about your balls. And your face.”

  With that, I followed through, punching him as hard as I could.

  His eyes rolled back in his head, and he was out like a light. The announcer came over, checked his pulse, slapped him on the cheeks a couple times, and stood up, grabbing me by the wrist and raising my hand in the air. The crowd was going wild, but all I could think about was finally getting another paycheck.

  There were a few more fights scheduled for the night, but I’d beaten the biggest guy in the warehouse, so I was pretty much done for the evening.

  After receiving my praise of victory, I headed into the back to get cleaned up and collect my payment, then slipped out into the alley behind the large building. Outside in the damp and dark, I nodded at a couple of bouncers taking a cigarette break. They nodded back, knowing exactly who I was, and followed me with their stares until I reached the other end of the alley.

  They were welcome to look as long as they didn’t try to touch. I knew a lot of those macho, alpha types of guys had a fetish about hooking up with a female fighter, but I was very particular about who I invited into my bed.

  Like that redheaded guy. He’d definitely been my type.

  Damn. I should’ve found him after my match and taken him back to my place.

  My footsteps slowed for a second as I debated going back inside to look for him. But that felt a little desperate for my tastes, and it was probably smarter not to.

  I used to hook up with guys after fights all the time, almost like a post-fight ritual. An enjoyable way to work out the remaining adrenaline in my system. But it’d been pretty long since I had done that—and I could thank one specific guy for ruining it for me.

  Merrick Van Warren was supposed to have been a one-night stand just like all the rest. But something about him had kept pulling me in. It had started out as one night, then another, and then it’d become almost a regular thing. I made it a point to never get attached to guys I met at the arena, but for some reason, with this guy, everything had gotten really intense, really fast. Despite my normal aversion to commitment, I had found myself wanting more with him.

  But life was fast and hard, and so far, the people I loved had all left me behind—the easiest way to avoid that was to avoid loving people at all. Hell, I couldn’t even adopt a dog because it was too much emotional commitment. So I’d fucked Merrick one last time and then bolted. I’d felt a little shitty about it, but I was convinced it’d been the right call. I was a loner, and I was a loner on purpose.

  I lived on the other side of town, back in the slums in Southie. My neighborhood was a mishmash of old homes, most of them boarded up, and I rented a one-bedroom basement apartment that’d seen much better days. It worked for me though. The area was crap, but I didn’t really have any desire to get to know my neighbors anyway.

  Reaching the end of another alley, I climbed up the chain-link fence and hopped over, taking a shortcut back home.

  As I reached the middle of the dark alleyway, my footsteps slowed. Four men stood in the shadows, talking in low voices and chuckling about something. Two leaned against one wall and two against the other, and they all looked sketchy as fuck. I pulled my hood up and shoved my hands in my pockets, picking up the pace to walk right through them.

  But as I approached, the largest guy reached out and slapped his palm against the front of my shoulder, stopping me in my tracks. I slowly raised my head, looking him in the eyes.

  He smirked mischievously and glanced at the other guys. “Well, well, well. Look what we have here.”

  One of his buddies pressed away from the opposite wall and stepped forward, cocking his head at me. His voice was pack-a-day raspy, and one of his eyelids didn’t seem to want to open all the way. “I saw you fight tonight, didn’t I? You’re Aria Banks. The chick who beat up Rotham.”

  “Yeah, she is,” a third man agreed. He stepped forward too. “It’s not fuckin’ right. Women fighting like that?” He spat on the ground. “But I bet you won some money for that freak show.”

  The fourth man rolled his skinny neck with a loud crack. “Time to pay the toll, little girl.”

  Chapter Two

  “Little girl? Do you have any fucking idea how offensive that is?” I growled, clenching my jaw.

  They all laughed. The skinniest one slapped his friend, Droopy-Eye, in the chest and nodded toward me. “You know this chick?”

  The man smiled and walked in a circle around me. “Oh, yeah. She did some fighting when she was little, and then when her daddy died, she decided to go all crazy with it. She thinks she’s hot stuff. So, what was the purse tonight?”

  I backed up two steps, keeping my shoulders squared. “Why don’t you ask the guy I dropped in the first round? You know, the one three times my size.”

  They all laughed again. The big guy who’d stopped me let his smile drop as the other three circled around me like vultures.

  I could feel a tingle surging down both my arms as anger built up inside me. I didn’t like being cornered. Avoiding shit like this was the whole reason I’d learned to fight in the first place, and while I fought for fun in the ring, out on the street, it was a game of damn survival—one I didn’t plan on losing.

  The big man moved with bulk, flexing his hands open and closed, the tattoos on his arms rippling with the stretching of skin over his muscles. He reached out and slapped my hand out of my pocket, knocking the envelope of money to the ground.

  “Hot damn. There we go. First fuckin’ try.” He let out a low whistle and smirked.

  Oh, no, you fucking don’t.

  As he leaned over to pick it up, I grabbed the back of his head and rammed my knee into his nose.

  I felt bone break against my kneecap, and instantly, hot blood began to trickle down my knee. He dropped onto all fours, groaning and clutching his face. I crouched quickly, grabbed the envelope, and stuck it back in my pocket. Then I whirled to face the other men. I was ready to fight all of them and was honestly a little surprised they hadn’t already attacked.

  But none of them moved toward me. Their eyes were wide, and as I watched, two of them s
huffled back a couple of paces.

  I chuckled and flipped my hood up. “Really? That’s all it took?”

  As I pulled my hand back down from my hood, I noticed strings of swirling light, colorful and vibrant, circulating over my wrist and down over my fingers.

  What the fuck?

  My eyes went wide, and I flicked my hand as if I could throw them off. Of course, it wasn’t that easy. The wisps of light drifted away from my hand before bouncing back toward me, like they were attached to me somehow.

  Oh, shit.

  I backed away, flicking my hands down toward the ground over and over, as if I was trying to shake water off of them. My foot caught on the asshole I’d dropped to the ground, and I tripped backward, landing hard on my ass. Breathing hard, I brought both hands up in front of my face, blinking in shock and disbelief.

  Moving my hands back and forth, I watched as the streams of magic moved with me. It was as if they were extensions of my body.

  They seemed to be responding to my emotions too, because the more panicked and freaked out I got, the brighter the streams of light became, growing longer and more opaque.

  Shit. Shit. Get it off me, get it off me!

  It was hardly a rational response, but you try suddenly developing magic when you’ve spent nineteen years without it and then tell me how rational your response is.

  The big guy scrambled up from the ground, blood streaming down the front of his face. There was a crook in his nose, and the whites of his wide eyes stood out starkly in the dim alley.

 
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