VEILED BY SMOKE

  NATURE HUNTER ACADEMY SERIES

  BOOK FIVE

  QUINN LOFTIS

  Copyright © 2025 by Quinn Loftis

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For all those who feel they’ve been forgotten. You are not alone.

  CONTENTS

  ARC Readers

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  ARC READERS

  Hello, wonderful pack mates who are joining me on this journey. Thank you so very much for taking your time to read Veiled By Smoke. I truly hope you enjoy the ride! Please watch for grammar errors, continuity errors, and consistency. Y’all know I’m bad to forget how to spell someones name, or what color hair they had in the last book. It’s sad, but it’s true. I am what I am and I own that crap. I am so thankful for each and every one of you! God bless and happy reading!

  Ally my love,

  Quinn

  PROLOGUE

  “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest.

  There was a time when Nasima believed in the predictability of chaos. Air, after all, was everywhere—ever-moving, never still–but at least it followed rules. Circulation, pressure, current, cycle. But as she stood on the hill, beside the notorious Hollywood sign, high above the city, and watched the world unravel, she realized that whatever rules she’d once trusted had shattered.

  The wind carried more than mere scents these days; it whistled with the shrieks of sirens, the crackle of flames, the distant thud of collapsing buildings. Below, the city pulsed with frantic energy. Normally, she would have found it invigorating. Now it made her skin crawl.

  Two weeks—just two weeks—since the gate to hell was torn open, only briefly, and the world was already bruised and battered. She could feel it in her bones, in the way the air thickened with fear and desperation. It was everywhere: in the headlines screaming about mass riots, in the newsfeeds cluttered with security camera footage of people turning on each other over gas, bread, or simply a look. Crime had always been a shadow, but now it was a beast, bold and ravenous. There were no more shadows—only darkness.

  Earthquakes rippled from the earth’s core, as if the planet itself was trying to shake off the crawling, skittering evil. Nasima had felt the first one in her sleep, a low, rolling tremor that pressed her heart into her throat. Then came the tsunamis, the volcanic eruptions, floods, tornadoes where there should have been none. Balance was gone. The world was a seesaw, and evil was winning. Lucifer was awake, and his laughter—she was certain—rumbled in the aftershocks.

  Below, the air shimmered with pollution and something else—something not of this world. The elementals could feel it. The humans, too, though they called it other names: panic, rage, despair. She wondered if they would ever know the truth. Would it matter? Would it help, or only make them more afraid?

  A messenger wind, brisk and sharp, whispered across her cheek. News from the other royals: another city burning, another rift opening, another reminder that their world was teetering.

  For all her power, Nasima felt small. All she could do was gather her people, teach them to shield, to calm, to find hope in the middle of the storm. But every day, hope was harder to conjure. Every day, the wind carried more screams.

  She glanced up at the roiling, bruised sky. “Mother Gaia, are you watching?” she whispered. “Because we need you now more than ever.”

  A gust of wind answered, carrying with it the scent of burning, and something cold—like the memory of snow on a battlefield. Nasima squared her shoulders and turned to face the council. There was work to do. The world was unraveling, and if she couldn’t stitch it back together, she would at least make sure her people didn’t fall through the cracks.

  Crescious had always thought hell was as bad as it could get. He’d spent centuries dodging the boots and flames of bigger demons, fetching and carrying for lords who never bothered to learn his name. He’d gotten used to the wailing, the heat, the unending, sticky sense of dread. He’d even gotten used to Osiris—his temper, his orders, his odd moments of almost-kindness. But this? This was new.

  Hell was . . . empty. Or, at least, emptier than it should have been. Crescious scuttled along the black stone corridor, claws clicking, peering into cells and torture chambers that had once been packed to bursting. Now the doors hung open, swinging gently on their hinges. The souls were gone. Some had fled. Others had been . . . claimed.

  He didn’t want to think about what was happening above. The howls and shrieks that once echoed through the caverns were muted, as if hell itself was holding its breath. The air was cold—cold in hell, which was just wrong on too many levels to count.

  A tremor ran through the walls, and dust rained down from the ceiling. Crescious flinched, pressing himself flat against the floor. He heard footsteps—measured, regal. Not a demon. Not anymore.

  Ramses, the pharaoh, strode by, his eyes glowing with an inner fire. He barely glanced at Crescious, but the little demon bowed anyway–out of habit or fear, he wasn’t sure.

  “They’re all gone,” Crescious croaked, his voice echoing in the vast, empty corridor. “The souls, the others . . . They say Lucifer is awake.”

  Ramses paused, his gaze sweeping the shadows. “That is true. And it is only the beginning.”

  Crescious shivered. The ground groaned beneath his feet, and the temperature dropped another degree. He missed Osiris. Osiris had rules. Osiris had order. This new regime—this anticipation—was worse than torture.

  “What do we do? He whispered to the pharaoh, not expecting an answer.

  Ramses’s eyes narrowed. “We wait. We prepare. And we pray the world above remembers there is still hope, before hope is devoured.”

  Crescious nodded, not understanding, but grateful for words—any words—in the growing silence. Hell was changing. The world was changing. And for the first time in his existence, Crescious realized he was afraid.

  He scuttled away, claws scraping the stone, as the cold grew deeper and the darkness pressed in. Above, the world trembled. Below, hell waited.

  And somewhere in between, the balance tipped.

  Ramses moved through the corridors of hell with the heavy gait of a man who has carried regret for far too many lifetimes. He barely noticed the cold, the way the air itself seemed to shudder with anticipation—like the realm was holding its breath, waiting for the next blow. He remembered when hell was a furnace, a place of fire and punishment, but now it felt brittle and hollow, as if the flames themselves were afraid.

  He descended, deeper and deeper, until he reached the level that always called to him—the level reserved for his people, the Egyptians, who had once been the pride of the world, and now were its cautionary tale.

  It began, as always, with a sunrise over the Nile. For a brief, agonizing moment, Ramses remembered sunlight, the way it warmed the skin, the way it promised something better. But then the scene shifted, and the city burned. Over and over, the city burned—stone to ash, flesh to smoke, hope to dust. Screams echoed, first in Egyptian, then in every tongue that had ever been spoken on earth. The walls crumbled, the sky roared, and Ramses’s people fell—again, and again, and again.

  He watched as a woman clutched her child, as priests raised their arms in futile prayers, as soldiers tried to hold a line against the impossible. His people. His responsibility. Their torture was his, and his alone.

  The worst part was not the pain. It was the memory of what they had once been.

  There had been a time when his people were the gatekeepers of the underworld—when soul-bonded elementals held the boundaries between life and death, light and darkness. The soul elementals, Osiris and Kimba, had been the axis on which it all turned. The balance was sacred, and Ramses’s people had been proud to serve, proud to keep order among the dead.

  But pride had been their undoing. The balance faltered. The soul-bonded grew scarce, their lines thinning as darkness crept in. Osiris, desperate to restore what had been lost, had descended into the underworld alone, leaving Kimba behind. He had faced Lucifer, chained him, and tried to force the balance back into place. It had worked—for a time. But hell is not so easily tamed.

  Ramses pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the echo of those choices. They had all believed Osiris could withstand the darkness. None of them had foreseen how the underworld would twist even the greatest among them. Osiris had become ruler, but not king. He had become corrupted, and that corruption had seeped into Ramses and his people. They had become monsters—demons—consumed by endless cycles of death and rebirth, puni
shment without purpose, pain without end.

  He watched as the city burned again, and the sky turned red with the memory of his failure.

  Now Osiris was gone, stripped of his throne, and Lucifer was waking, stretching ancient power through every crack in the world. The balance was not restored—it was shattered. Lucifer did not rule only the dark. He ruled it all. There was no division, no line, no hope for even a sliver of light to wedge itself between the cracks. The chains Osiris had forged were broken, and the consequences were echoing through every realm.

  Ramses felt the weight of his people’s suffering, the agony of watching the same mistakes play out, over and over. He wanted to believe redemption was possible. He wanted to believe that his people could be more than the sum of their failures. But hope was a dangerous thing in a place like this. It could lift you, only to drop you harder when the cycle began again.

  He stared at the burning city, at the faces of his friends and family, their pain painted in firelight. He remembered what they had been—what they could have been, if not for pride and fear.

  If he let himself believe in hope, it was only the smallest ember. A fragile thing, trembling at the edge of darkness. He wanted to believe Osiris could be restored, that Kimba and the soul-bonded could heal what was broken. He wanted to believe his people could be forgiven.

  But hope here was a double-edged sword. It could sustain, or it could destroy.

  He closed his eyes as the city burned once more, and the screams rose like a tide. “Mother Gaia,” he whispered, “if there is still balance in this universe, let us find it. Let our suffering mean something. Let there be a way back.”

  He was tired of cycles. Tired of burning. Tired of being a lesson.

  But he would endure it again, and again, and again, if it meant there was even a chance that, one day, the cycle would end—and his people would finally be free.

  A tremor shook the level, and Ramses knew it was not just the city falling to ash. It was the world above, quaking with the weight of a darkness that had finally broken free. He lifted his chin, watched as the city crumbled, and vowed—silently, fiercely—that if hope was a lie, he would still hold it. Because someone had to.

  And in the depths of hell, as the cycle began anew, the ancient pharaoh waited—for redemption, for balance, for the chance to make things right.

  Even if it cost him everything.

  CHAPTER 1

  “Honestly, I got nothing. For the first time, well, maybe the second, in my life, I am speechless.” ~ Shelly

  “The murder rate in the U.S. alone has skyrocketed by a staggering twenty percent in just two weeks,” the news reporter said with a tremble in his voice. His eyes darted nervously as he, no doubt, read the teleprompter that fed him this terrifying information to share with the world. “But it's not just major cities experiencing an increase in violent crimes. In smaller towns and rural areas, law enforcement and locals are reporting record-breaking numbers of thefts, vandalism, and brutal assaults.”

  Shelly felt her stomach churn as the gravity of the situation sank in.

  The female reporter's voice quivered as she turned to her co-host. "What is happening, Tom?"

  "It's not just our nation, Pam," Tom replied with a heavy sigh. "Government officials have confirmed that this is a global phenomenon. We are living in a time of unprecedented violence and crime. Not to mention the natural disasters taking place all over the world. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornados, hurricanes. The list goes on. It’s as if Armageddon has finally come."

  Pam shook her head in disbelief. "Just when you think things can't get any worse."

  “That’s all for now, folks,” Tom said, as he collected the papers that had been sitting in front of him. “Thank you for tuning in. We will be back at ten p.m. for the final nightly update and weather. Remember to stay alert and stay safe.”

  Ra slid his hand across his phone, closing out the news app. Shelly met his black eyes briefly, and though to others it might creep them out, she simply saw the man she loved.

  The cave was silent, save for the soft, omnipresent crackle of the fire in the stone hearth built into the wall of the cave. Outside, the wind howled, swirling snow in patterns that might have been beautiful if the world wasn’t falling apart. Inside, it was just the eight of them, plus a dragon king currently crammed into a corner looking like a very judgmental house cat. Shelly might have said something about the ambiance, but she was still trying to process the news segment Ra had shown them.

  Apparently, the world had decided to go full-on apocalypse. Murder was up, and it wasn’t just big cities. Small towns, rural communities, places where people used to leave keys in their cars and doors unlocked were now locking up tight, unless the doors had already been kicked in by someone desperate. There were earthquakes in Kansas, for crying out loud. Tornadoes where there should only be sunshine. Hurricanes in November. It was as if reality had gone off the rails and no one remembered how to steer.

  Shelly squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her fingers into her temples. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be under this blanket, pretending the world isn’t ending.”

  Ra slid an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to his warmth. He didn’t say anything, but she felt his steady heartbeat through their bond, a comfort against the chill that had nothing to do with the snow outside.

  “Seriously, that wasn’t depressing,” Rory said, her voice dry as sandpaper. She flopped back onto a pile of furs, her dark hair spilling around her like a cloak. Aston, ever the dutiful soul bonded, sat by where her head lay, absently braiding a strand of her hair with so much focus Shelly wondered if he was hoping to braid away his own anxiety.

  Aston looked up, glasses slipping down his nose. “On the bright side, at least we’re not in Kansas.”

  Gabby groaned. “I think we’ve endured enough natural disasters for the moment. Considering the freaking volcano incident.”

  “That’s one for the history books, Babe,” Liam supplied, his arm slung around her like he was her favorite hoodie.

  Elias cleared his throat, ever the stoic, serious one, even in the face of an apocalypse where humor would at least make dying a little less scary. “We need to focus. The world’s unraveling, yes. But we’re not helpless. That’s why we’re here to learn, to train, to figure out what the soul element actually is and how we keep the rest of the world from completely imploding.”

  Tara perched on the arm of his chair, somehow provided by the magic of the dragons, and nodded, her expression fierce. “The dragons are on our side. We have each other. And we have Kimba who is a bonafide badass dragon, and maybe Osiris, once he stops acting like a moody teenager, with amnesia.”

  Shelly snorted. “That’s generous. He’s more like a moody toddler with a god complex and the inability to accept the word ‘no’. But sure. Teamwork.”

  A rumbling chuckle rolled through the cave. Sepheron watched them with golden eyes that missed nothing. “You are not wrong, little one. The soul element was once the balance point for all the elements. When it was lost, the world began to tip. Now, with the king and queen reunited, there is a chance to restore what was broken.”

  “Okay, pause,” Rory sat up, her eyes narrowed on the dragon king. “You said king and queen. Last I checked, the only royal of this forgotten element was Osiris. What haven’t you told us?”

  Sepheron’s large, gold eyes looked at Rory, unblinking as he answered. “That revelation will be coming sooner rather than later. You might want to brace yourself, dragonrider.”

  Rory rolled her eyes. “A dragon that talks in circles. Shocker. You’re as bad as Kimba about saying nothing and acting like you’re saying everything.” She flopped back on the furs with a dramatic sigh.