New Chapters Every Wednesday
NEXXUM is my FIRST COMPLETELY ORIGINAL and NEW Standalone Novel in the Divinaxy Universe. That means that yes, you will hear the names of some familiar and unfamiliar gods, encounter magic you may have seen before, and fly into a world set with rules you remember from elsewhere.
But what is THIS one about? I like to think of it as Zodiac Academy meets K-Pop Demon Hunters. Yes, you read that right. We’ve got a trio of badass women newly expelled from Thornwood Academy and sent to serve out their sentence at The Resonant, a fort in a cold and distant mountain range maintained by two countries who don’t necessarily get along. Their mission? To slay the monsters of the mountains before they can enter the realm. Easy enough, right? Unfortunately, the girls didn’t account for three incredibly attractive but ultimately infuriating warriors from their opposing (or allied?) country who have their own mission. A mission that doesn’t seem all that concerned with the monsters scaling their walls.
Tropes of enemies to lovers, dark academia, forced proximity, morally gray, hidden powers, slow burn, and found family.
Trigger warning for violence, language, sexually explicit content, terrorism/war violence, and kidnapping.
If all of that sounds good to you, read on at your own risk.
Prologue
Lev
Bullets popped in the distance. Everything was burning. Lev Karamazov dragged himself up the front steps of his family’s estate, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.
Shrapnel was embedded in his right thigh, cutting into an artery. He knew that from the way it spurted every time he moved. He was running out of time. Flames licked up the walls and ceiling above him as he pulled himself into the foyer. His mother’s priceless Ignatova painting fluttered ablaze, torn free of its charred frame, disintegrating above him.
It didn’t matter. None of it fucking mattered.
“Maksim!” he shouted raggedly, his voice hoarse. He wasn’t sure anyone could hear him over the roaring flames or whether he’d even raised his voice loud enough to be heard. He fell into a coughing fit due to smoke inhalation but choked it down and tried again. “Maksim, I know you’re in here! Come out and face me, fucker!”
The butt of Lev’s gun slammed against the finest Obrish tile and he screamed as he pulled himself another foot forward. Above him, the structure cracked. His home was collapsing. He was always running out of time, always too late.
“Maksim!” he screamed again, falling into a coughing fit once more. “Maks–”
“You made it.”
The callous tone grated against Lev’s nerves the way it always did. He raised his gaze to find Maksim standing at the top of the stairs, curtains aflame around him, smiling. He was pristine, entirely untouched, in a lavender buttoned shirt and pressed black pants. His shoes actually shone as he took the steps down toward Lev.
Lev growled, turning the gun, placing his finger on the trigger.
“I’ll kill you,” Lev promised. “I’ll–”
Maksim reached him and kicked the gun away. Lev watched it go spinning toward the flames, anger surging through him in waves stronger than any he’d ever known. Maksim crouched down in front of him, looking him over with a shake of his head.
“This is the mighty Phantom?” he asked, tsking as if with disapproval. “The assassin who’s been taking out my highest ranking commanders, advisors, and contacts for the last two years? How old are you, eighteen? You were a child when this war started.”
“So were you,” Lev growled, pulling himself up onto his elbows. If he could just get his bearings, if he could just focus long enough to reach out to him–
“Incredibile, isn’t it? The things that war will do to a man.”
He shifted and Lev froze. It was there, just beneath his collar, only feet away. The soft blue glow of the amulet resting against Maksim’s skin was a beacon and a warning. He could end this here, now. Even if it appeared as though they’d lost the war, this could change everything. He just had to reach out and take it.
But he couldn’t move. He’d lost too much blood. The carpet around him was soaked through with it and his leg was still spurting. His vision was fading at the edges. He wouldn’t last long.
“You could live,” Maksim said almost absentmindedly, examining Lev’s injury, the bullet that had torn through tendon and bone, leaving its remnants behind to kill him slowly. “You’re young and already the best at what you do. I had my finest men on your trail and they never could find you, not even a hint of who you were. If your girlfriend hadn’t let your name slip to save herself, you might have gotten out. You might have found your father and crossed the border or holed up somewhere to hunt me again. It was too late for your mother, of course, and your sister…”
He trailed off, his grin turning wicked, feral.
“Nasiv,” he barked.
A man entered the estate from behind Lev, long rifle slung over his shoulder. He didn’t even glance down at the dying Phantom as he yanked a woman into the room with him. She was screaming through the cloth tied around her face and stuffed into her mouth. Her dark hair was a frenzy and her blouse was torn open. Around her hands were iron manacles. Lev could hear their humming before she even drew near. She was pulling as hard as she could, fighting to wrench free of her captor. Her eyes were crazed and her hair obscured half of her face but Lev would recognize his sister anywhere.
“Vasylia,” he whispered, energy drained, the fight leaving his body at the knowledge that he’d failed.
They’d killed his mother and his father had been foolish enough to go after her so they’d gotten him too. Lev had gone as fast as he could to save the only family he had left in the world, to get to Vasylia, but he’d been too late. Always too late. Always running out of time. He had arrived to find his house engulfed in flames and a bullet in his thigh.
“Serve me,” Maksim offered, tone cold again to match his eyes. Eyes of fathomless dark, eyes of evil. “Become my Phantom and I will save you.”
“Free her,” Lev gasped. He could hardly speak anymore. Maksim and Vasylia swam in his vision, blurred. His breathing was shallow, slower.
“No. She will come with me to ensure your loyalty.”
This wasn’t happening. Gods, this couldn’t be happening.
Two years of watching this war slowly eat away at his family, devouring his mother from the inside out, weathering his father far beyond his years, destroying his sister who’d set her own identity aside for the Queen. Two years of a carefully crafted persona, of sneaking into manors and castles and taverns in the dead of night to slit throats and take notes, of viciously interrogating his own captives for any information that would advance their position in the war, doing whatever he had to, whatever no one else would do. All for nothing.
They’d lost.
The only choice left to Lev was this: die here on the front steps of his burning family home, likely dooming his sister to the same fate, or serve a monster and see her enslaved.
“Tick tock, Phantom,” Maksim leered above him. “You’re running out of time.”
“Fine,” Lev ground out, choosing life for her, choosing a chance for them both.
“Say it. Say you’re mine.”
Lev wanted to scream. He wanted to rip his sister out of that brute’s arms and take her somewhere this evil prince, this abomination, would never find her. He wanted to revive his mother, find his father, and start somewhere new where the only thing that mattered was that they were together. Fuck this war. He’d never wanted it in the first place.
“I’m yours, Maksim,” he growled instead. “I’m yours.”
The last sound Lev heard before unconsciousness took him was his sister’s horrible, keening wail.
Lev dreamt of a phantom alone with his shadows in a world entirely dark. The only light at all came from the glow of a mansion in flames, from a fire not orange but brilliant blue, so cold it burned.
