Bright Soul: A Dark Academy Romance (Moongrove Academy: Wicked Spells Book 3)
Refresher
Hello reader! It’s been a while. While I did not mean to take over a year for Bright Soul to be published, life happened and this book ended up being the longest, most detailed one of the Wicked Spells trilogy. To help you enjoy the ride, here is a refresher of the events of the last two books. This covers mostly the main storyline.
To begin, our leading lady is Cress, a freshman college student training to be a librarian witch before the events of the books truly begin. Her men are Ben, a former blood witch assassin who spends most of the books trying to save his younger brother from dark forces; Geo, a gargoyle learning how to be a person rather than an unthinking tool; and Phaeron, a dimensional (hint: shadow demon) prince acclimating to a world that’s changed without him after being put in stasis for 200 years.
Librarian Witch
We meet Cressida Rollins, a young woman enrolling in Northern Supernatural University (NSU) and getting a blood test for what kind of witchcraft she is capable of. The test flickers for a moment, but tells Cress that she will be a librarian witch. She is with her roommate, Lanie Graygazer, an augury witch who ends up being a good friend to her.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Cross, a blood witch raised to be an assassin by an evil vampire named Garroway, listens in as politician Blaize Starsurge complains that the daughter of an old political rival has turned up alive. He’d hired one of Garroway’s men to kill the rival and the rest of her family. As a “gesture of goodwill,” Garroway sends Ben’s brother Lucas to go assassinate the young woman that Blaize is worried about, who turns out to be Cress.
Cress becomes a librarian witch and ends up on her own in Moongrove Library. Out of curiosity, she hits the button for the bottom floor. When the elevator arrives, she meets a shirtless dimensional man who introduces himself as Prince Phaeron Sudair. He seems a little out of sorts and follows her back into the elevator on a ride to the top floor. After he thanks her for his freedom, she starts to wonder if she’s made a mistake and released him when she shouldn’t have.
Lanie acts oddly one night and heads outside. Cress follows finds her murdered, with Phaeron crouching over her body. He says, “This isn’t what it looks like” which are famous last words for a one-way trip to assumption town. Cress tells him off for murdering her friend and he seems to flee when other witches arrive on the scene.
Cress mourns Lanie and her grief wakes up Geo, a gargoyle that’d gone dormant in his stone form for a long time. He goes to find her, following a strong sense of duty, and swears himself to her service as her protector after learning that she’s a librarian witch in distress.
We get a peek in Phaeron’s head and learn that he’s been experiencing unexplained blackouts. He had one the night of Lanie’s death and curses himself for being too late to save her from a mysterious, malevolent force.
When Lucas does not return from his mission to assassinate Cress, Ben sneaks out and begins meeting Cress under the guise of a fellow college student. They have an instant connection, but Geo distrusts Ben immediately.
One night, while Geo is guarding Cress’s dorm, Phaeron appears and attacks him (for reasons, it’s complicated). Geo notes that Phaeron has white fire in his eyes. They damage each other severely before Phaeron retreats into the shadows. Geo gets Cress’s attention by throwing a rock at her dorm window and transforms into human form for the first time to submit to her care. She notes that he is quite attractive when he is not a giant rock.
Cress coaxes Geo to take his human form more and starts teaching him about emotions and the Internet. Her relationships deepen with Geo and Ben, while her hatred of Phaeron grows when he reappears to talk to her at a Mabon celebration where another supernatural later turns up dead.
She and Ben have sex. After she sees him out of her dorm, she runs into Phaeron again and he tells her that Ben is lying to her and that his soul is stained with dark magic. They have a real conversation for the first time and she says the name of the supernatural baddie that’s been killing people, The Hungering Darkness. It is a spirit that possesses bodies, lying in wait to consume the souls of those around them. This whole time, most everyone thought The Hungering Darkness was Phaeron, but it appears separately from him and he protects her when it arrives.
Cress relates all this to Geo, who is furious that she’s been cavorting with Ben and Phaeron, two men who he sees as dangers to her. He helps her confront Ben, who is forced to reveal that he’s a blood witch.
After the confrontation, Garroway recalls Ben to his manor to torture him and reveals that Lucas has been just fine this whole time. Garroway murdered their mother when they were very young and in the process, learned that one of them was fated to be Cress’s anam cara. He allowed Ben to sneak out and see Cress as a test. He orders Ben to kill her and sets a deadline in his skin that will kill him if he does not do it by Samhain.
Meanwhile, Cress tries to put together what’s happening with incomplete information. She reasons that if Phaeron is not The Hungering Darkness, it must be Ben, as he showed up right after the murders started. She and her friends set a trap for him at an upcoming outdoor party.
Aided by Lucas, Ben shows up for the party intending to tell Cress that she needed to run. Lucas is revealed to be the one carrying The Hungering Darkness and is barely held off by Cress and her friends’ beginner magics. Phaeron shows up, learns that his blackouts have been related to The Hungering Darkness, and shakes one off with Cress’s help.
Phaeron and Geo put their differences aside and fight Lucas together, successfully chasing him off but sustaining serious injuries in the process. Phaeron reveals that he made sure Geo won’t die, because Cress still needs him. She acknowledges that he’s not nearly the monster she assumed he was.
Phaeron disables the dark magic that connects Ben to Garroway and Ben starts to talk about the secrets he’s been keeping from Cress. He gets interrupted by the arrival of the authorities, who take the whole group into custody.
Shadow Slayer
This book starts with a lot of truth telling, forced by the university president, who wants to get to the bottom of the murders occurring on her campus. Cress wants little to do with Ben, who lied to her quite severely about his identity in Librarian Witch. Ben talks first, saying as much about Garroway as he can, but he is weak, in pain, and hurting emotionally from Cress’s rejection.
Phaeron talks next, explaining that The Hungering Darkness was the corrupted remnants of his brother Endaeron’s soul. They were both placed in a stasis room together with unclear directions left behind and were left there sleeping for 200 years.
We learn that Lucas opened their stasis room at Garroway’s command and had The Hungering Darkness attach to his soul. Cress was the first person to discover Phaeron wandering under the lingering effects of a disorientation spell after that happened. She admits that she thought her actions were responsible for the murders on campus. Phaeron confirms that that is not true and they agree to put their misunderstanding behind them.
The cast agrees that they’re all on the same side. They have to kill Garroway, save Lucas, and destroy The Hungering Darkness. But they still don’t get along. The three leading men all acknowledge attraction to Cress, but see each other as competition…especially Geo, who struggles with sharing her the most out of the three of them.
Some time passes and relationships are forged and mended. Cress forgives Ben for lying under his circumstances and trains her magic harder so she can go on the upcoming raid of Garroway’s manor. The rest of her friends join her in learning from Phaeron, who has taken a minor role in Moongrove Library to remain close to the powercore (an unmoving font of magic that speaks to Cress and Phaeron occasionally), who we learn is named Braza.
One night, Phaeron walks Cress to her dorm after realizing she is his True Light, AKA his next fated mate. He struggles with a new hunger to take a bite of her soul, which he notes is quite beautiful and light-filled. Soul hunger is seen as corruption from the home world he was forced to abandon to come to Earth and this is a serious problem that stops him from doing much with Cress.
Geo struggles with the idea that is duty is Cress, which requires him to meet her needs as a person. He sees himself as less charming than the other two men courting her, but he is also clearly the one with her best interests in mind. He continues growing emotionally.
They go on the raid together to get a metal shard infused with black magic, the only thing that can stop the deadline that will kill Ben. They successfully get a hold of the shard for a moment and Ben stops the deadline, but then it gets lost and the manor burns down around them. Garroway, The Hungering Darkness, and the rest of the assassins Ben used to live with are now on the run.
Cress, her coven, and her men celebrate Lanie with a Dumb Supper on Samhain evening. Afterward, she sneaks away with her men to a graveyard and Phaeron uses his soul magic to call a few of the dead back to life to speak with them. Cress and Lanie say a proper goodbye. Phaeron gets closure for being put into stasis.
While calling Cress’s birth mother, Eris Darkmore, back from the other side, The Hungering Darkness senses the magic and attacks them. Cress is badly injured. Phaeron takes her to the powercore and stays by her side while she recovers in an inner chamber. She wakes up and meets Braza, who turns out to be a teenaged-sized dimensional soul preserved with unknown magic as the powercore. Eris is also there, now content to haunt Cress trying to help her.
After Cress returns to regular life, she takes Geo to her dorm room for some loving. They reaffirm their feelings.
Cress and her friends struggle to name their coven, as it has to have a unique name and there are thousands of covens out there. They settle on “A Little Wicked Coven.” This is important because they want to appear before the Crown Coven to accuse the politician from book one, Blaize Starsurge, of murdering her family, and have to be an official coven to do so. He is one of the witches appointed to the Crown Coven, so it is a bold decision.
She learns that her friend Roe is from a fae court called the Crystal Court, where the cast heads for Thanksgiving Break. Roe’s mother, Madigan, is well respected in the witch community and gets them an audience with the Crown Coven.
During this part of the book, Cress tells her adopted mother and sister that she’s dating three men. Mom naturally dislikes it, but sister Carly is delighted after meeting them. Cress also changes her name to Cressida Rollins Darkmore to gain the clout of her witch heritage, while still honoring Mom, a hardworking nurse who is implied to have left an abusive relationship to protect her girls.
Cress and her men go for “a walk” after Thanksgiving dinner, if you know what I mean. Phaeron keeps watch, but Ben and Geo learn to share for the first time.
Ben gets in touch with his aunt and accepts his witch name too, becoming Benjamin Evenstar. He ends up opening a locked box containing his father’s staff, a valuable piece of magical equipment named Evening Guidance.
A bit of time passes and the cast heads to Cerris City, a pocket dimension parallel to Washington D.C., for the audience with the Crown Coven. Cress thinks the adults around her are preparing for something they haven’t told her about, as in attendance is a big group of guardian witches and Crystal fae who work for Madigan’s company, Ashbough Protective Services.
The truth is revealed when Blaize Starsurge interrupts her accusation of murder to reveal that he is allied with Garroway. Using teleport charms, Garroway, his assassins, The Hungering Darkness, and an assortment of witches kidnapped and forced to fight by Garroway’s shard of dark magic all arrive and clash with Ashbough Protective Services. Most of the Crown Coven members die from the initial surprise attack, including Starsurge himself.
In the resulting battle, Cress picks up the staff Evening Guidance and blasts Lucas with a beam of concentrated sunlight, knocking The Hungering Darkness out of him. It immediately attaches to Garroway, who reveals that he tattooed himself with a series of runes to attempt to control its magic. The Hungering Darkness rakes its claws over the tattoo and takes control of Garroway’s body. It crushes the shard of dark magic, which kills all who are directly afflicted by its effects, and uses their souls in a summoning ritual.
The book ends on a cliffhanger when Myuna, an evil cosmic deity, arrives. Myuna is the goddess that consumed most of Soiluire, Phaeron’s home planet. Her magic is what twisted his brother into The Hungering Darkness, and out of loyalty he has summoned her to Earth to start a new feast.
Now the survivors are stuck in Cerris City, as access in and out of the pocket dimension has been closed. The only way out is by defeating Myuna…and she has Phaeron.