I opened my mouth to question him.
Luka glanced down at me, and his eyes crinkled as he frowned.
I closed my lips.
There was no point. He wouldn’t respond anyway.
I tried to remember what my usual interactions with Mr. Hyde were like. I was pretty sure he’d always been quiet. I was the one who talked and teased him.
But I thought I’d been cheering up John.
Now that Luka was a different person, it felt pointless to speak. Sun god, he probably thought I was annoying as hell.
As I trudged up the steep walkway, I couldn’t help but think about how John would have his arm thrown over my shoulder. He thought it was funny to touch me when we were both gross and sweaty, because I always freaked out.
No one touched me now.
My heart throbbed in my chest.
We entered the academy, and the hall buzzed with energy as students poured out of classrooms and headed to lunch. Malum sauntered forward, and people fell over themselves bowing and making a path for our legion.
Lightning streaked. The stench of ozone burned my nose. A gruesome battle raged in one of the stained-glass windows.
The black marble floors were polished like glass and chilled my aching feet.
As I walked down the hall with my legion, I pretended not to notice that most people were focused on me.
The energy in the academy had changed.
Men leered like pigs. Women made comments about my appearance as their high heels clacked against the marble.
If they’d always known I was a woman, I had a feeling they wouldn’t be so focused on me, but since I’d deceived them, I’d become enemy number one.
The other.
Society either vilified women for their faults or worshipped them for being different. The decision was usually made based on how attractive the woman was.
Mother had been cruel and insane, but she’d also been flawlessly stunning and elegant. She’d had silky blue hair, she’d been lean with no muscle definition, and her pale skin had never been blemished. Her clothes were always extravagant.
They’d worshipped her for her perfection.
Where she’d been polished, I was jagged.
My skin was covered in bruises, dark circles surrounded my bloodshot eyes, and unruly blue curls hung in a tangled mess down to my butt. The gash under my left eye throbbed.
The girl who’d fucked her friend as punishment.
A woman’s upper lip curled.
A man whispered something derogatory.
My worst sin of all—I’d lived and fought beside the men that every woman and man at the academy would kill to have associated with their name.
Everyone who attended the academy was powerful. Most had been sent with specific instructions to make allegiances that increased their families’ standing. An assassin recruit was the ultimate prize.
The kings were the crème de la crème of the academy.
I hadn’t realized how important they were until I’d started paying attention to the student gossip. How I’d managed to miss the millions of conversations about the “most powerful devils in all the realms” was a mystery to me.
It was probably the depression.
It always was.
I missed the days where I thought they were just fae men.
Ignorance was bliss; knowledge was suffering.
People sighed and fluttered their lashes at the kings, then turned to glare at me. Their stares had gotten noticeably colder after the punishment with John.
Just another slut.
Competition.
They didn’t know about my plans to die alone.
Students stuck their noses up at my shitty appearance. In their business casual wardrobes, breasts were pushed high and shirts were worn a size too small so they stretched tightly across male chests.
The students oozed sexuality.
My teammates oozed strength and power.
I oozed blood because I accidentally ripped the scab off my lips again.
They wanted the power, and my roommates wanted to fuck; it was a perfect symbiotic relationship.
And I wanted inner peace, hard drugs, and a ten-day vacation on a fae beach.
Yet I was in the middle of it all.
The students thought I was interfering with their prizes.
A royal woman in a stunning wrap dress bumped into me and staggered back with disgust, brow arched and nose wrinkled.
I grinned at her and flashed all my teeth.
She recoiled with horror.
A lifetime ago, shopping and dressing up had filled me with joy, but now I could barely remember what it was like to feel polished and proud of how I looked.
I wiped sticky curls off my forehead and shivered in my sweat-soaked skin. My fingers were covered in dirt from where I’d collapsed onto all fours after the run.
My nails were black with grime.
They matched my soul.
Pushing my pipe between my lips, I kept my eyes downcast and inhaled with all my might.
Smoke filled my lungs.
The drugs took effect.
I stopped caring.
A man spoke loudly to my right. “Ms. Gola confirmed in class that a storm is coming. She said this one is going to be a bad one.”
“Oh crap,” someone responded. “That’s not good.”
“Weather is a pseudo-science,” I mumbled under my breath.
The man glared at me.
I sighed.
Sure the air was chillier and the cloud cover darker, but there wasn’t that much of a change. For some reason, the weather was all anyone ever wanted to talk about. The rumor mill was convinced that something big was coming.
I hoped it killed us all. Violently.
It would be sensational.
Thrilling.
Pulling my hoodie up over my head, I tied the knots around my chin so I looked like a gnome. I lowered my shoulders while I rubbed at my arms to get warm.
Lately it felt like I was constantly cold.
Nothing I did alleviated the chill that had settled into my bones. Maybe it was because I was an ice fae? I was probably haunted.
In the dining hall, Sadie frowned when she saw me.
I shrugged back at her.
Blood gurgled out of the mangled face of the man who was still crucified to the sacred tree. Sari sat at the royal table, glaring at me as she clutched a steak knife. Students openly gawked at me.
Ever have an impact on people around you? Same.
I collapsed tiredly into my seat.
Blinked.
A pig’s head was the centerpiece of the table, and its body was spread out on various plates. The mouth was gaping and stuffed full of vegetables, and its dead eyes were wide open.
They looked directly at me.
I stared back.
Until it was my head on the plate and vegetables overflowed from my mouth. My limbs were scattered in pieces. Men leered at me and dug into my flesh, smacking their lips as they gnawed on my—
Fingers snapped in front of my face.
“Eat,” Luka ordered.
I slowly turned toward the man who had ignored my many attempts to converse for the last forty-eight hours.
He pointed at my empty plate.
Around me, the men dug into the pig, their jaws crunching through bone as they slurped on marrow.
A wave of nauseousness hit me.
I plugged my nose.
“Thank you! Finally, I’m not the only one saying it,” Scorpius said to Luka, eager to have someone else to talk shit about me with. “She needs to eat more and—” Blah, blah, blah.
Why did men talk so much?
I put my elbow on the table and leaned my cheek against my fist.
Scorpius’s upper lip was slightly crooked.