“I got it!” I yelled, not wanting to disturb Sadie and her men. The doorbell echoed.
My best friend deserved some peace, especially after everything. Her missing ring finger was a constant reminder that those fuckers had hurt her.
The darkness in my soul rattled against its cage.
Pausing with my forehead pressed to the wall, I breathed in smoke from my enchanted pipe.
You killed them. They’re gone.
I willed myself to remain blasé and to calm the monster that lived within me.
Down the grand mahogany staircase, inhaling smoke with each step, I fingered my sweatshirt pocket.
Caressed the smaller, finger-length pipe Ascher had gotten for me.
Again, the doorbell rang.
What rude fucker was calling at midnight?
I gritted my teeth as my monster snarled louder, banging against its steel cage. Another pause, another long, deep drag.
Any stimuli threatened the carefully desensitized state I’d work so hard to create.
The space between my shoulder blades itched.
Breathe in smoke for five seconds. Hold five seconds. Breathe out for five seconds. Pause five seconds.
Repeat.
A storm howled outside, and rain slammed against the brick structure.
Thunder cracked.
With a falsely constructed sense of ennui, I opened the door, and the night storm echoed throughout the dark foyer.
“What do you want?” I asked calmly.
Silhouetted in the dark was a massive figure. Taller than the door with layers of muscles that could only be used for one thing: war.
Sucking in smoke, I pushed the door shut in its face.
Step one to being cold and callous: you don’t engage in basic impulses like fear. You react to nothing.
Survival of the unfeeling.
Crack.
The massive thing slammed a hand against the door and stepped past me into the mansion.
“Are you Aran?” a baritone voice growled as he flung the door wide.
Wet shoes squeaked on polished marble. Pouring rain traveled on icy wind and slammed against the both of us.
I focused on my cage.
Fortified steel bars, until the slightest rattle of emotion was silenced by a prison. Assessed in a hazy inhale of smoke that if the creature was asking for me, it wasn’t a threat to the others.
I relaxed my shoulders. “Who’s asking?”
Lightning flashed.
Illuminated a towering male with a brutal scar slashed across his eye.
Long hair dragged in a wet braid against the marble floor, and a tailored suit stretched across an impossibly muscled figure.
Twin opal fangs protruded from red lips.
“I’m asking,” Lothaire growled, voice dripping with anger.
He wasn’t used to being questioned.
“Ah, Lothaire the vampyre. I’ve heard of you.” I nodded and sucked in smoke, presenting a lazy, uncaring figure.
It was all a facade.
Because I’d done more than hear of him. Since I was a little girl, he was a regular visitor in the palace. Always standing beside Mother and letting her touch him with her claws as he sparked with power.
He was the only person besides Mother that the elite fae were afraid of.
Mother had even graced him with the title of prince consort, and he was the only man in her centuries of life to hold the title.
We’d seen each other constantly, but we’d never spoken. He’d never bothered to talk to me because he probably thought I was beneath him. Just like Mother did.
I knew who he was—the fucker that crawled into bed with a monster.
And then Lothaire had bowed to my mother under the dual suns of the fae realm, attacked Sadie on the hot sand of a gladiator stadium, proclaimed Sadie unworthy as he attempted to drain her blood.
He’d stood witness to my atrocities.
Lothaire had said nothing, just observed, as I ripped out my mother’s beating heart and consumed it. Somehow, I’d known he could’ve stopped me if he really wanted to.
But for some reason, he didn’t.
Now my mental cage rattled.
My back burning, it took all my control not to scratch at the “WHORE” carved across my spine. It was an enchanted penance for a wrong I hadn’t even gotten to commit.
The fucker in front of me had not only bowed to the mad queen but had spent years at her side, smiling and touching her as she committed atrocities.
I breathed in for five seconds. Hold. Breathe out. Rest. Repeat.
Now Lothaire stood inches away from me in the grand foyer, radiating power and hatred. He’d invaded the familiar space that was the manor.
The monster from my past stood in my home.
Lothaire’s singular eye flashed like the storm that raged against us, and he spoke as if he read my mind, “A power anomaly was detected in this realm on the equinox, and rumors are that a man named Aran was responsible.”
The ancient vampyre took another menacing step forward. “Are you Aran? I won’t ask again.” His voice dripped with warning.
Rain slammed against the mansion.
Thunder boomed.
The foyer shook.
I took a long drag of my pipe and focused on feeling nothing and expressing nothing. Being nothing. My body language was a blank canvas as I refused to give a reaction.
After all, Lothaire had planned this visit for that very purpose, to unnerve me.
But the one class I’d succeeded in above all else, beyond what I should have, was battle analysis.
Lothaire had come at midnight, in the height of a storm. Entered without invitation. Stepped into my personal space. Said nothing of why he was here, just cryptically demanded my name. Demanded I answer him.
I sighed heavily.
Somehow, everything was war: small skirmishes, allies, foes, all with changing allegiances, and every player possessed an agenda uniquely their own.
Game theory at its finest.
But how could I respond and best him when I didn’t know his motive?
The facts I knew—he called me Aran, referred to me only as a man, was referencing the event three weeks ago when I killed Sadie’s attackers, and came at night with the purpose of unsettling me.
Plausible deduction: he wasn’t here for the fae queen, and he wanted something of me I wouldn’t want to give.
I shrugged. “I’m not the person you seek. Don’t know anything about a power anomaly. Why are you here?”
First rule of game theory: you don’t give away information. Only rule of game theory: you don’t give away information.
A threatening rumble filled the foyer.
He stalked forward.
Fuck.
I’d miscalculated because game theory assumed all actors were rational. Lothaire slammed his fangs into my neck.
The fucker bit me.
The enchanted wound on my back burned like I’d been set on fire, but there was no pain where he’d bitten me.
Which was strange.
Everyone knew that a vampyre’s bite was extremely painful.
It was why they were largely feared even though they could technically reproduce with other species. Vampyres didn’t like to procreate this way because only two pureblood vampyres could create a vampyre.
It was rumored that centuries ago, a fae king had forced a vampyre to have his offspring. However, when they’d grown up, the children only possessed part of the fae power of the king and had received no abilities from their mother.
As a result, they were half-fae and weak.
Rumor was that the king slaughtered them for not being strong enough to carry his legacy.
Ever since then, it was taboo in the fae realm to procreate with a vampyre. The punishment for such a transgression was death…of every mother, father, and child involved.
His fangs ripped through my flesh, but I barely felt it.
Lothaire stumbled away from me, wiping blood off his mouth, and his voice was raspy with surprise. “Who are you? What are you? Why are you so powerful?”
Shit. I’m a few wrong moves from him figuring out I’m not even Aran, that I’m Arabella.
I rolled out my shoulders slowly, like I was stretching, and pretended I wasn’t seconds away from having a mental breakdown.
With no expression, I calmly said, “Water fae. I’m a cousin of the monarchy. Aran Egan.”
In a battle, the best lies are those closest to the truth.
Lightning cracked and highlighted Lothaire’s harsh features, and his lips pulled into a smile, the scar puckered tight across his missing eye.
Lothaire stared down at me with unnatural stillness as he crowded my personal space. “Are you sure you’re fae, Aran Egan? You have quite the power in your blood.”
My face was a blank mask, eyes dead, muscles permanently relaxed with boredom.
With haughty male arrogance, I rolled my eyes. “Obviously I know who I am. I’m Aran, cousin of the royal family, and water fae.”
My body language screamed that his question was preposterous.
Lothaire smiled like he’d won the war.
“Perfect. Congratulations, Aran Egan, water fae, you’ve officially been enrolled at Elite Academy.”
My mask fell. “Excuse me?”
“This is a highly coveted institution, and you will be expected to perform rigorously.” Lothaire didn’t bother to hide his scorn.
Thunder boomed.
“Classes start tomorrow.”
Before I could protest, reanalyze the situation, and decide the best path forward, Lothaire grabbed my arm. “We leave now.”
Flames exploded.
We disappeared.
In the blinding red fire, the world shifted.
I went from standing in a foyer in the beast realm to kneeling on a massive island of black rocks.
An inky fortress, wide and stocky with four imposing turrets, sat atop black boulders.
A dark ocean surrounded the island.
Waves crashed across the rocks in an endless shriek. As far as the eye could see, water churned and slapped.
Wind whipped, and salt burned my eyes as cold rocks dug into my bare feet. A salty, pungent, sulfurous odor overwhelmed my senses as I breathed in deeply.
Above us, in the dark night, a glowing ring of red surrounded a shadowy sphere, and it was an ominous outline.
A magnified lunar eclipse. Breathtaking and horrible because the solar phenomenon took up a quarter of the sky.
The moon was so large that the nape of my neck prickled.
Unknown instincts screamed at me to flee and to get away from this realm because a collision was surely imminent. The moon was so close to the planet that it defied physics.
The sky smoldered.
The fortress creaked.
The ocean screamed.
“Follow me,” Lothaire ordered and stalked forward up steep stairs that were carved into the rocks.
Disoriented and eager to get away from the sky, I followed the deadly vampyre into the fortress.
Inside was empty of people and was just as shocking as the solar phenomena.
My jaw dropped as I followed Lothaire.
I’d expected dark and dreary, but it was anything but.
I walked into an architectural structure the likes of which were only painted in the pictures of ancient Renaissance books.
Gleaming gold trim lined the inky black walls. Endless black marble flooring was chilly beneath my toes.
The brilliant gold traveled along the ceiling and walls like a web of tree branches, or lightning strikes. Every single crack on the black ceiling, wall, and floors was filled with gold.
And as if that was not gorgeous enough, every couple of feet, the black and gold was interrupted by stunning stained-glass windows.
Thousands of flecks of warm-colored glass came together in mosaics that were more art than functional.
It was almost impossible to walk forward because the stained glass deserved to be stared at. I fought the urge to lie on the floor and stare up at each window.
The warm-hued mosaics threw flecks of colored light against grand crystal chandeliers.
Light danced across gold and black.
As I walked forward, it sparkled across my skin, and it was like traversing through an artist’s mind.
Each stained-glass window depicted a different scene, but all were done in the same Renaissance style of soft lines and vibrant colors.
Men and women with wings falling from the sky.
Babies screaming in their mothers’ arms.
Thousands of men tangled in battle.
Naked women kneeling in a garden paradise.
Beasts with strange horns dancing.
Monarchs ascending to their thrones.
Scholars writing in ancient languages.
There was nothing simple about the fortress’s bones; it was crafted with a painstaking artisanship that was awe-inspiring and breathtaking.
SWOOSH. CRACKLE.
I blinked away white spots and tried to process that white lightning had just streaked across the walls.
There was a storm inside the halls.
I stumbled backward.
Sadie had said Xerxes’s room in the mansion was enchanted to project different weather, but she’d described it as a mirage.
There was another loud crack, and I reached my hand out. My fingers traced across sharp stone.
Lightning flashed, but this time, there was a sizzle, and my teeth ached as the world trembled. My nerve endings screamed.
I jumped back and stared down in silence at the tips of my fingers blackened with scorch marks.
Lothaire said nothing, just stalked forward, while another crack sounded and lightning slammed down across the walls.
It was real.
There was lightning in the halls.
On shaky legs, I hurried to keep up with the long, trailing braid of my mother’s consort. The beast from my past had no idea the boy he led down otherworldly halls was the princess he’d scorned.
Lothaire had said I was enrolled in Elite Academy, and here I was. This terrifying realm was the home of a glittering school, an academy, known realm-wide for its cruelty.
Everyone knew Elite Academy took the most powerful individuals in all the realms between the ages of nineteen and twenty-eight. Its harsh methods were rivaled only by its prestigious reputation.
It was impossible to be chosen.
There were rumored to be hundreds of realms with sentient life and quadrillions of people.
Those chosen for the academy were more godlike than human.
The school was a check on the most powerful. A way to collar monsters and make them obey the High Court before they brought genocide and war to all the realms.
It was also a way to amass power.
And for the strongest to find one another and form friendships, partnerships, and even marriages. To build alliances stronger than the militaries of multiple realms.
Elite Academy was the whispered tale of a bogeyman.
A dream for the powerful and depraved.
A warning for everyone else—a reminder that the realms were full of monsters and their might would eventually crush you.
Lothaire didn’t bother to explain any of this to me as he stalked through the architectural paradise.
Even if the academy was more myth than reality, it was still common knowledge.
He didn’t need to explain.
We both knew how powerless I was.
Lothaire turned around abruptly. “You’ll sleep here. Academy starts tomorrow morning. Thunder will signal wake-up.”
He shoved me into the room, then stalked away down the hall. Long braid dragging.
Bang.
A heavy door slammed shut behind me.
The room was small with the same black walls and gold trim, with no windows. A golden fireplace crackled warmly and threw shadows dancing across the four-poster bed. A small marble bathroom was stocked with toiletries.
There was a single black sweat suit hanging in the closet.
After trailing my hands along the soft emerald sheets, I lay back on the luxurious bed.
I gasped.
On the high ceiling, thousands of stars twinkled in constellations I didn’t recognize.
But it wasn’t pretty.
In the middle of the ceiling, a black vortex swirled around, swallowing the stars and destroying them in sparks of angry red.
It consumed.
The vortex burned orange in its center like a forge making the world anew as it lazily sucked the cosmos into oblivion.
A few years ago, I would have been amazed that I was at Elite Academy.
That it was a real place.
I would have been giddy with energy, studying the mosaic walls, trying to figure out where the lightning came from and if there really was a black hole on the ceiling.
I would have marveled at the stars, since naming constellations had been one of my favorite activities as a child.
Another hobby I’d lost with time.
I’d kept the dark ones.
For example, I’d always been enamored with being clean. Scrubbing myself, tidying my room, and basking in the euphoria of a polished and organized life.
Now permanent filth lived in a grimy cage that smudged my soul.
The urge to wash myself was still present.
But there was no aftermath of euphoria—no moment where I basked in anything that remotely resembled happiness.
No respite.
Your mother’s consort just kidnapped you to a foreign realm. You may never see your best friend and the girls again.
Dragging myself into the room’s small shower, I turned on the cold water and crumpled to the floor.
Puffed on my pipe and tried to forget who I was, where I was, and everything it entailed.
Academy starts tomorrow.
One rumor was always the same about Elite Academy: it was highly competitive, and anyone who attended had to give it their all if they were going to survive.
I had nothing left to give, and school hadn’t even begun.
Breathe in. Hold. Release. Rest. Repeat.
It didn’t work, and my monster bellowed to be released from its cage.
The cage in my mind was a constant reminder that—even though I was the technical ruler of the fae realm—my mother had lied to me about my birthright.
Now I knew why Mother had never spoken about my dad.
As a child, I’d just assumed it was because Mother had killed him in one of her fits of rage. But that wasn’t it.
Mother must have kept my sire’s identity a secret because he wasn’t a fae; it wasn’t possible.
Because I had power, but I wasn’t a fae.
Still, with bright-turquoise eyes and shocking blue hair, I was the spitting image of Mother. As much as I wished it weren’t so, the bitch had birthed me.
Only my mother could subject a child to such a tortuous existence.
My monster screamed louder in my head, emphasizing that I was twenty-four years old and still didn’t know what the fuck I was.
Despair crushed me.
How dare the vampyre who dirtied himself with my mother try to dictate my life?
My vision bled black with rage.
I would stalk Lothaire down the hall, slice his throat with ice daggers, and rip off his head.
It would be satisfying to kill him and bask in the spray of his warm blood.
A worthy prey.
My fingernails broke as I crawled, desperate to get back to the hall where my kill had ordered me to follow him.
I cracked my face into the tile as hard as I could.
As everything faded to darkness, my beast screamed and rattled against its steel cage. Yet another hunt foiled.
I’d trapped it.
For now.
