Discarded by our captains and thrown into the storm to suffer.
Lothaire spoke from somewhere inside the building, and his enchanted voice echoed across the field. “All competitors must stay within the arena bounds until five a.m. tomorrow. There are no other rules for this challenge. You can use any powers you might need. The competition begins now.”
Doesn’t sound too bad. Although, that is a lot of hours.
Thunder boomed.
The grass shook, and I pressed my hand to my chest as my fingers trembled from the rumble vibrating through me.
Black clouds rolled angrily above me.
For the first time since I’d been at the academy, the realm wasn’t scarlet. It was black like night had fallen.
Visibility was shit.
I couldn’t see the ocean at all, even though I knew it was only a hundred feet away. But I could hear it. Waves bellowed as they slammed against the rocky shore.
Sometimes darkness was peaceful.
This wasn’t.
Malevolent noises seemed to multiply in the shadows, and they screamed at me from all directions.
I was hyperaware of how out in the open the arena was. We were sitting ducks with no protection.
Five a.m. tomorrow was hours away.
One, three, five. I counted upward in odd numbers and tried desperately to clear my mind.
The panic remained.
A frigid gust of wind pushed my feet backward, and I dug my heels in as I slid across the grass. Falling to my knees, I scraped my fingernails against the soil to keep myself from being blown away.
I shivered.
Breathed out a puff of frost.
When I’d first stepped outside ten minutes ago, my breath hadn’t condensed.
The temperature of the realm was plummeting.
Rapidly.
“We just have to survive a few hours out here. It shouldn’t be too bad!” someone bellowed to my right, and their voice was swallowed by the wind.
I pushed my whipping hair out of my face and squinted.
Long blond hair billowed around a muscled figure. The man looked up. Glowing purple eyes met mine.
Sadie’s mate Xerxes was hunched over on all fours a few feet away.
I shuffled toward him.
Tensed my abs and dug my numb toes deeper into the soil for purchase. It was excruciating.
By the time I was by his side, my leg muscles were cramping with exhaustion like I’d run thirty miles.
Xerxes’s eyes flickered over my abused skin with pity.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I didn’t know what to say. Out of all four of Sadie’s mates, Xerxes was the one I was the least comfortable with.
He’d been my mother’s assassin.
He’d been the one who’d betrayed us and brought us to the fae realm.
He was the reason “WHORE” was carved into my back. Not that he knew it.
Ascher had at least apologized to me for the part he’d played in kidnapping us into the fae realm. Xerxes had never said anything.
The man hunched over in the wind beside me was the one who’d walked beside my tormentor.
Served her faithfully.
For years.
Xerxes was inches away, but he screamed to be heard. “How could he make you do this when you look like…” He gestured to the bruises and stitches on my face.
For a second, I felt an irrational urge to defend Malum.
I shrugged and yelled back, “It was between me and one of the devils. They’re mates. I never had a chance.”
It didn’t hurt to say the truth aloud.
I felt nothing.
Blank.
Emptiness.
Purple eyes narrowed, and Xerxes scoffed like he disagreed.
“How about you?” I asked.
Xerxes watched me fight with my hair warily, then said, “It was between me and Ascher. I didn’t let Sadie choose. I decided.”
My eyebrows rose with surprise. “Really, but isn’t Sadie usually the one you protect?” Xerxes lay down until his stomach was flat on the grass, and I followed his lead as I yelled over the wind, “I’m sure Ascher could handle himself fine.”
Xerxes jerked his head to the side at my words.
His face pinched as he shouted, “He’s my mate. It doesn’t matter what he can or can’t handle. What matters is that I can suffer so he doesn’t have to.”
Sun god. That was romantic.
Thunder boomed, and the grass shook.
“Must be nice,” I whispered, then closed my eyes and started counting.
There was nothing to do but wait.
Two hours later, the wind and thunder stopped.
I blinked open frozen eyelids.
The lawn was covered in a layer of frost.
Visibility was slightly better. The sky was a light shade of gray, and the realm was no longer shrouded in complete darkness.
Xerxes sat up beside me.
I tried to join him but convulsed with chills. My limbs refused to cooperate, and I manually repositioned my legs beneath me.
Xerxes sighed out a cloud of frost.
My teeth chattered with so much force that my jaw ached.
I knew the signs from my time in the shifter realm.
Hypothermia was setting in.
My clothes were a light material that was stretchy for fighting. It offered no protection from the cold.
Rubbing my hands over my arms, I asked Xerxes, “D-D-Do you think-k-k the s-s-storm is over?”
He offered his hand and helped me up.
“I don’t know,” he said with a grimace.
The four other competitors were spread out across the field. Everyone was looking around warily as they stood up.
I dusted frost off my clothes.
BOOM. SHHHHK.
I went still.
It had sounded like thunder, but there’d been a strange crashing noise at the end.
BOOOOOOOOOM. SHHHHHHHHKKKK.
That was the only warning we got.
Snow fell from the sky in flakes so small they were barely perceivable.
I dusted it off me, water pooling beneath my fingers as it melted.
I turned my hand over.
Stared.
Bright red streaked across pale skin.
My brain glitched.
I gasped as I realized what it was.
Holy mother of the sun god.
I stumbled backward and hyperventilated as I ducked my head low and shielded my eyes.
Xerxes studied my hands and asked, “How did you hurt yourself?” Tiny streaks of crimson trailed down his face.
“I-I-I-It’s-s-s-s.” My teeth chattered from both cold and fear.
“Take a deep breath.” Xerxes coached like I was a weak woman that needed his protection.
Red trailed down his hands.
“Glass,” I whispered as I looked up at him.
Wetness poured down my face.
Xerxes stopped.
Purple eyes widened.
He looked at my blood-covered face in silence as he touched his own crimson-streaked cheek.
“W-W-We need a p-plan.” I took a step toward him and winced as particles of glass lodged in the bottom of my feet.
The visibility was getting worse.
Glass was falling like snow and piling onto the field.
If we left the arena, we failed.
A humorless laugh bubbled up my throat, and my shoulders shook from the cruelty of it all. It was hopeless.
We had to stay out here until morning.
It was freezing.
It was raining glass.
We had no shelter.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
Xerxes and I startled as the loudest rumble yet burned my eardrums.
We stared at each other.
A shiver racked my frame, and I doubled forward with my arms wrapped around my body.