When it comes to tapping into our strongest selves, we’re just like the rest of our kind.
Fucked until fate catches up.
The Mage smirks in satisfaction. Smug and assuming that she chose the right words and knocked me off my feet. As if I’ve never thought about it.
Too bad for her, I’m not the fool she’s making me out to be, so it’s a communal sight when a dark chuckle rolls past my lips, the sound sparking uncertainty and drawing wrinkles to the edges of her eyes.
I lean forward in my seat, placing my forearms on the table as I cock my head at her. “There are many ways to get what you want in this world, Mage, and in Stygian, we do what we must to ensure we get it.”
She holds my eyes for a long moment before pushing to her feet. “Well then, it’s a good thing you will be spending the next four years in the human world among both Argents and Stygians then, isn’t it? Perhaps you’ll learn a thing or two about…restraint, or at the very least, diplomacy.”
My monster digs its claws into the crux of my mind, my eyes flashing her favorite shade like a playful prick. “Don’t count on it.”
“What I’m counting on…” The Mage floats to a door that appears from nothing, turning to face me with her body hovering halfway through it. A smirk covers her face and she lifts her chin. “…is your prompt arrival on orientation day. See you then, Knight Deveraux. I look forward to…opening your eyes.”
With that one last threat, the bitch disappears.
I look to my mother, who frowns at the space where the Argent was, facing me when she realizes I’m staring at her.
“Yes.” She dips her chin, answering before I have a chance to ask the question. “The bitch is right. You must attend Rathe U. If you have to play dirty to pave your way there, so be it. You’re a Deveraux, strong. Stygian pureblood. There is nothing that town or school could throw at you that you can’t handle. You know this.”
I jerk my head in response, accepting the fate I knew I would be forced to face even before this pointless little mandatory meeting.
My brothers and I push from the table at the same time and our parents give a small nod, excusing us. We turn toward the wall, and a door materializes, the three of us stepping through, the other side leading to our mansion.
Legend and Sin pop off with jokes about the Mage, slapping my back as they curve left, knowing I need a fucking minute.
I curve down the long, winding hall, passing the cursed trophies from battles won encased in the walls, and pausing at the room you have to pass on your way out when I find it pushed open.
This door is never open.
It hasn’t been in over a decade.
I step up to the threshold, but something stops me, refusing to allow my feet to carry me inside. A gust of wind whirls this way, sweeping through the hall and slamming it shut in my face.
Of course, there’s a protection spell to keep you out.
If only there was one back then.
Shaking my head, I turn, and I don’t stop walking until I’m in the Phantom Gardens at the back of the estate. Why I come here when I need to feel grounded? I don’t know.
I’m not much for flowers or plants if I’m not swallowing or snorting them for the after-effect, but these aren’t just any gardens.
They’re grown with the blood and ash of my ancestors. Every Deveraux that’s come to pass lives on in the soils beneath my feet.
The weeds whistle in the wind, urging me forward, and I bend as the Phantom Rose sprouts from the dirt, growing from nothing but dirt to a fully bloomed flower before my eyes. I reach out, cocking my head as I tug the deep, midnight purple petal free, watching as it turns from its deep eggplant color, to black, and then a small puddle of blood sits in the palm of my hand. Drawing it to my nose, I seek the warning of the unknown Deveraux, look to speak and scent a lighter one than I expected. Closing my eyes, I call on my senses, seeking its name. It comes almost instantly.
Lavender with a pinch of spice.
My nostrils twitch, and I frown, the scent not what I’d have expected.
It’s too soft. Too…ordinary.
I suck air through my teeth when a sharp prick digs into my shin. My head snaps down as the crimson vine tethers itself around my leg. Wrapping it with my free hand, I tear it from its roots, tossing it to the side, and watching as it turns to ash, seeping down into the ground on contact, a new, fresh vine growing in its place.
As I look at my palm, the small puddle of blood begins to quake, tiny shards of glass biting from its edges, and I pull it even closer.
It’s not glass, I realize. It’s…frost. Ice.
Footsteps carry behind me, and I cut a quick glance over my shoulder, but no one is there. Slowly, I return my gaze to my palm, but all that’s left is ash.
Pursing my lips, I blow it from my skin, but unlike the vine, the small gray and black flecks rise, disappearing into the night like the shadow of a reaper.
Sighing, I climb to my feet, looking up at the rotating galaxies above with a glare.
I will go to Rathe U without a fight, do what my mother says, because she’s right.
There is not a damn thing in this realm or the next that could bring me to my knees.
Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.
Eleven
London
“Tell me again why we agreed to play a part in Justice’s little kink fantasy?” I grip the ends of the satin sash, flipping it over from one side to the next to inspect it for any sign of prior use. I’m not about to put a blindfold over my eyes that’s crisp from someone’s messy fuck-fest.
Thankfully, the blindfold looks brand spanking new, or at the very least, well washed.
“Do not put me, Justice, and kink in the same sentence. I swear, sometimes that dude is whispering shit in my ear, but acts like nothing happened when I turn and look at him, and don’t say we.” Ben glares at the black sash in his hand as if it personally offended him. “This shit is all you.”
I shrug nonchalantly, tossing the gift we found outside our dorm door with instructions back into the bag, and drop on the couch, the two shots I took while bitching Ben out for stealing back my favorite night shirt, that he’s lying and saying he didn’t take , already having loosened my muscles. “Fuck it then, let’s watch reruns of Forensic Files.”
I reach for the remote, but Ben is quick, snatching and raising it in the air, so I jump up, throwing myself onto his back when he tries to escape.
He laughs, flopping backward and knocking the air from my lungs when his big ass athletic body falls on top of mine. I wrap my legs around his frame, locking my ankles against his stomach and pulling him into a playful chokehold.
“That’s what I thought, Benjamin. You want to go to this party more than I do ’cause you think you’re getting laid by this mystery girl tonight.”
“There’s no thinking about it, babe. This girl is riding my jock hard. I’m definitely sliding in tonight.”
I pretend to gag in his ear and his laughter continues, but a knock at the door ends our fun.
Together we stand, staring down at the sashes, our frowns matching this time around.
“ We really about to put these on and let him lead us out of the dorms for all to see us like that?”
Sighing, we pick up the fucking sashes and tie them on our heads.