I wanted to scream with grief over the war, and I would have, but…
I couldn’t feel my face.
I also couldn’t feel my back or my limbs.
Or the crushing existential despair that was squeezing my—wait, never mind, that was still present.
I danced as the party raged around me.
My hands waved in the air, diamond bracelet glittering for all to see, as my hips rolled against the masses of sweaty flesh. The floor beneath my feet was covered in black ice and sent some partygoers falling to the ground.
I bared my teeth with satisfaction as another student fell.
We were all just carnal beasts looking for our next fix.
A few feet away, Ghost kissed a burley male student, who liked to make homophobic and misogynistic comments, on the lips, and he fell to the ground, convulsing and foaming at the mouth.
I gave Ghost a high five as he floated past. His incorporeal hand went through me, and I shivered.
We loved an ally.
Apparently, he was not constrained to the library, because he glided around the party, sending students into comas.
Tears filled my eyes.
I’d missed Ghost so much, and things just weren’t the same without him around because no one traumatized people like he did.
He had a rare gift.
Demon brew coursed through my veins as bodies gyrated around me, and instead of crying, I did what I did best in life.
Drugs.
Sun god bless the demon culture; they were the true silent heroes of the realm for helping us all get so gloriously wasted.
I saluted Zenith, who was across the room, grinding on Vegar.
Zenith scowled back at me, and I blew him a kiss.
He rolled his eyes, but I could tell from his acerbic expression that he secretly loved the attention.
Bodies shifted in the packed room and blocked my view of the demons.
I tipped my head back and smoked.
Rolling my body to the beat, I held up my hand, and five fingers waved in and out of focus. Five. It had been five days since we’d slaughtered an entire compound full of people.
Now the party （funeral） raged in our old bedroom with enchanted music, soldiers, naked students, drugs, sex, and alcohol.
The PTSD wasn’t included.
I brought my own.
“Fuck you,” I snarled at no one in particular as faces blurred around me. The singer crooned on the speakers, and I exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“You tell them,” Sadie shouted over the music. “You get ’em, girl.”
She moved against me, gyrating her hips and swinging her arms in what most parts of the realm called “having an episode.”
I chuckled to myself as I remember how thinking about her dancing had saved me from my attraction to Malum.
In the present, in what was supposed to be a seductive move, she spread her arms wide and jumped into a split.
Shockingly her legs locked a few feet from the floor.
She screamed in pain and fell over.
“I think I pulled my crotch,” she moaned pitifully.
Between gasps of laughter, I said, “You know, I picture you dancing when I’m trying not to be turned on.”
She smacked at my hands as I tried to help her up. “Please, we both know it’s the opposite.”
“I’m not joking,” I said, laughing uncontrollably as she struggled to stand.
She lowered her voice and leaned close to me as she half shimmied, half twitched. “Whatever you say, sweet stuff.”
I pushed her away. “That is exactly what I was talking about. It’s just weird.”
“Sun god,” she groaned. “You don’t need to be a bitch because you find me sexy. A lot of people do.”
She tried to wink, but both her eyes closed at the same time.
She blinked furiously.
“Clearly,” I said dryly, “that’s exactly what’s happening here.”
The music changed to a faster beat, and she suddenly grabbed my arms and spun us both around.
Unlike all the uncoordinated students and soldiers who kept slipping, Sadie didn’t hate the patch of ice that had spread beneath my feet; she tipped her head back and laughed as she spun us both faster on it.
A thought struck me. She’d grown up in the cold shifter realm and was at home with ice and snow.
Maybe that was why she was at home with me?
My heart swelled with emotions I couldn’t afford to feel, so I tipped my head back and lowered my shoulders, swung my arms back and forth as I smoked five pipes at once.
Five.
It had been five days since five people from the Legionnaire Games had been slaughtered in the battle. One angel and one assassin inside the building, two leviathans and one devil outside in the snow as they fought against the ungodly that tried to escape.