The breaking period: Day 5, hour 1
“Haul!” Demetre yelled as we hoisted the massive fucking slab of stone above our heads.
Lyla’s prophecy was coming true because if the dragon was Demetre, then I was mentally embracing him. In my head, I punched him in the dick and beat him to death with a stick.
“Haul higher!” Demetre bellowed over the wind.
Mentally, I hit him harder with my stick.
Prophecy fulfilled.
Arms trembling, shoulder blades screaming in agony, I whimpered as seconds dragged into minutes.
We’d been standing outside the barracks, hauling the fucking slab from hell for the last five hours. We’d been generously given a thirty-minute rest beforehand to prepare.
It had not prepared me.
Sleep deprivation made my head pound.
“Lower!” Noah shouted, orange mohawk gleaming red in the shadow of the eclipse.
Sulfur and salt filled my nose.
The wind howled.
“Fucking pathetic.” Lothaire slammed his baton against his hand with a loud crack. “It’s just a little stone, and you’re all trembling like weak bitches. How the fuck do you expect to the be the best when you’re weak as fuck?”
Little. Stone. My. Butt.
The granite rock was a foot thick and as long as a small boat. It weighed at least a ton.
The worst part was that since I was a little shorter than everyone (with all our arms raised above my head, the other men pushed the rock out of my reach), I was forced to stand at the very back with the slab tilted downward.
It was crushing me.
Bloody cuts covered my bare feet as the granite crushed me from above.
“Haul!” Shane shouted, and we pushed our arms up so our elbows were locked.
My arms shook.
The sun god had abandoned me in this hellscape of a realm.
Everything hurt.
Even though the wind was chilly and the salty air sharp, sweat dripped down my forehead and stung my eyes.
I blinked aggressively and internally screamed in agony.
If I released the stone, it would crush me with a splat and my arms could finally rest.
But it wouldn’t kill me.
So I didn’t bother.
“Aran, stop fucking trembling like a little bitch!” Lothaire slammed his baton against the wound on my back.
CRACK.
I saw white.
My knees knocking, the only thing that kept me standing was the promise of vengeance. I’d play the vampyre’s game, and then when he least expected it, I’d rip out his throat.
“Yes, sir!” I half yelled, half moaned.
“Boy, you better get that tone out of your voice.” Lothaire slammed the baton against my side.
CRACK.
When I inhaled, it was like a thousand knives were stabbed against my side. The bloodsucking fucker had broken ribs.
I shook like a leaf.
“Lower!” Demetre shouted, and my straining forearms wept with relief as I tilted my head to the side and transferred the crushing weight to my shoulder.
“I don’t know, Lothaire. Aran’s holding up better than some of the men our year,” Shane said with a chuckle as he grinned at Lothaire. “Remember Croxy. He gave up an hour in and decapitated himself.”
Shane winked at me like he was trying to make me laugh.
It wasn’t funny.
Lothaire nodded, and the corners of his mouth turned up like decapitation made him happy.
He reminded me of my monster.
The three half warriors all laughed with Lothaire, like this little horror show was hilarious.
I imagined Croxy’s decapitation. Gore splattering in an arc as he collapsed into nothingness.
Lucky bastard.
“Haul!” Shane yelled.
We hoisted the motherfucker above our heads.
Shoulder blades and biceps burning, my fingers cramped and slipped against the smooth stone.
Life couldn’t get any worse.
“All right, now we’re going to haul the rock while jogging around the perimeter of the island!” Lothaire yelled.
It got worse.
I whimpered, and I wasn’t the only one. Explicit words were grunted as the massive men in front of me struggled with the task.
Even the three kings were dripping in sweat, and their expressions were hard as they breathed raggedly.
“It wasn’t a question. Begin! Lazy fuckers.” Lothaire stalked toward us while cracking his baton like he was going to beat us senseless.
We began to move.
Slowly.
Knees aching, they almost buckled under the excessive weight I was balancing above my head, and pain streaked along my thighs.
The three half warriors jogged beside us.
“Lower!”
We lowered our arms.
“Haul!”
Muscles twitching, we heaved upward and navigated the impossible terrain as a unit.
Every few minutes, Shane would say something encouraging and clap his hands like he wanted us to succeed. He’d always been the nicer twin.
In contrast, Demetre and Noah glared at us like we were pathetic.
I didn’t give a single fuck.
Just wanted to survive the death march. I puffed in sulfur-stained air and breathed out misery.
The eclipse mocked me.
Minutes bled into hours, and every muscle in my body twitched.
One step forward. Don’t stop.
I shut down my thoughts until the only thing rattling through my brain was one step.
That was all it was.
One step in front of the other.
That was all I could process, because if I thought about how long we’d been suffering and how far we had to go, I’d collapse.
One step.
After three laps around the island, nine nauseating miles, Scorpius leaned over and whispered something in Malum’s ear. The silver-eyed prick turned around and glanced back at me over his shoulder.
I didn’t have the energy to sneer.
Sun god, they were obsessed with me. Get in line.
I squeezed my eyes shut every few seconds to try to relieve the salty sting. Sweat blinded me.
When Malum turned his head back around, I let loose the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
His flaming fist slamming into my stomach and the cruel expression on his face as he’d force-fed meat down my throat was going to play starring roles in my future nightmares.
I wished I could let my monster free like I had during the run. It would be too easy to let the mindless rage take over.
But it was dead silent and hadn’t let out a single snarl since the time in the tank.
There was no rage left inside me.
Only emptiness.
And pain.
John, who was holding the stone beside Malum, looked over his shoulder to see what the kings were whispering about.
His dark eyes were hard. There was no sign of the nice human. He glanced at the oversize sweatpants that hung loose on my hips.
I was built lean compared to him, and exercising for ungodly hours was not helping my figure.
At least my pants hadn’t fallen off, and I had on boxers in case it did happen so no one would know my secret. Even with my being exhausted, panic exploded in my chest at the thought of them finding out I was a girl.
Why was being a man so difficult?
“Haul!”
One. Two. Three.
One step at a time. I focused on the blistering ache in my lungs and the shooting pain in my arms rather than the anxiety crushing my chest.
“Lower!”
Somehow the anxiety was worse than the physical pain.
We completed another lap.
The more we ran, the more my vision blurred. The world twisted in ruby shadows around me as I climbed closer to my limit.
Giving up wasn’t going to be a choice.
My body would collapse beneath me.
Each step became shakier.
Sisyphus, an ancient earth fae, had rolled a boulder up a mountain because he’d pissed off the sun god. His punishment was now mine.
If he can do it, so can you.
Like Sisyphus, I kept going.
As if the sun god was rewarding my dedication, the crushing weight on my arms lessened slightly.
“I’ll help them out for the last lap,” Shane said to Lothaire as he positioned himself beside me at the back of the group.
Massive biceps straining, Shane smiled at me as he took a considerable weight off my shoulders.
“So you’re the new guy? Lothaire said you were from the fae realm, but I don’t remember you,” Shane asked casually as he fell into step beside me.
He wanted to talk.
I swallowed thickly, unable to make my dry throat work. “Cousin,” I huffed. “Of the—” I coughed. “—monarch.”
Shane’s good-natured expression dissipated like smoke, and his handsome face transformed into hard planes. The blood-orange mohawk was a stark warning against his dark skin—he radiated violence.
Shane dropped his arms, putting the brunt of the stone back onto my struggling arms.
Bones crushing, pain streaked across my spine like the white lightning in the halls.
Don’t pass out.
“I hate them.” I huffed. “Fae monarchy.” Gasp. “Loathe them.”
Shane’s hateful expression melted away, and he hoisted the rock back up and relieved me of the crushing agony. “Good. Good. We don’t tolerate fae monarch sympathizers. They’re all scum.”
I nodded shakily.
The irony was not lost on me.
I was the monarchy.
Hi, Shane, actually it’s Arabella. Remember when you used to be my friend and then decided you hated me because I obeyed my mother? Same.
I’d hoped that with my mother dead, the half warriors might have lost their grudge against me.
Maybe they’d seen when I killed her that I hated her as much as them. I hadn’t wanted to hurt them. I’d been practically still a child, and my mother had forced me.
It was her they hated, after all.
But that didn’t seem to be the case. Apparently they had more of a problem with the entire royal institution.
Not good.
Shane grinned over at me, like we were bonding over our hatred of the monarchy.
I grimaced back.
“Haul!”
We lifted.
We jogged forward, arms straining, with ragged lungs.
“Lower!”
We lowered.
One step at a time.
Shane looked over at me, and his proximity made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “I’ve only known one person with blue hair like yours, but theirs was straight.”
My stomach plummeted.
Thank the sun god for mother’s enchantment that had given me fae ears and straight hair.
Now my natural hair was a curly, unrecognizable mess. But the shade was still the same unique, vibrant turquoise.
It was unmistakable.
“Runs.” I breathed shakily. “In family.”
Shane nodded.
I held my breath. Waited for him to point out that the fae rarely procreated. If I was a cousin of the queen, then I would’ve been known in the realm.
Shane just nodded. “I like the color. It’s pretty sick. Reminds me of mine.”
His blood-orange mohawk was pin straight and stuck about three inches off the rest of his shaved head.
The color was just as vibrant.
I smiled back, or at least tried to, but I’d lost feeling in my face hours ago.
Thank the sun god he was buying my excuse and not prying further into my shitty cover story. The only good thing was the fae realm was insanely large, so technically there were faraway lands I could have lived in.
We ran past Lothaire, and the vampyre said, “Done. Drop the stone.”
There was a sun god.
“Yes, sir!” we said.
The heavy granite fell to the side with a massive bam. Rocks vibrated beneath my feet as the slab cracked into smaller pieces.
I collapsed onto my back and breathed roughly.
My eyes closed as I soared on a cloud of aching agony.
Every muscle and bone creaked within me.
I opened my eyes to see a large palm hovering in the air above me. John stared down at me with his harsh demeanor.
He’d held my face as the kings shoved food down my mouth. I might have forgiven him, but I didn’t want to touch him.
John kept his arm extended and stared at me with an unreadable expression. Sweat dripped down his cheeks.
Oh, what the fuck.
I was too tired to care.
Torture did that to a person.
I let him haul me to my feet, and we didn’t say anything because we didn’t need to.
Besides us, the kings were the only three also standing. But Malum was holding up Orion, and Scorpius was rubbing his back while whispering something.
It was an intimate scene.
Beside them, Vegar was on his knees, vomiting a thick, clear mucus, and Zenith knelt, holding his hair. Horace had his hands on his knees and was coughing aggressively.
No one was well.
“I see you’ve met my twin brother,” Noah said as he walked over and held out his palm.
I shook it and pretended the shaking motion hadn’t made pinpricks of light explode across my vision. There was no muscle left in my arm.
“We’re also part fae, and we’ve been working on a new mission in the fae realm. It’s great to see a fae in the assassin program.” Noah stared down at me with a blank expression, and he didn’t smile like his twin, Shane.
I nodded, unsure of what to say.
Since you were enslaved and fighting in the fae gladiator games for my mother, how was that a mission? Also, aren’t the three kings also fae?
Demetre walked over to stand beside Noah, pink eyes hard. “We haven’t had a new recruit last more than a few hours in years. Interesting.”
I tried not to think about the prophecy as he talked to me.
Shane grinned and clapped me on my back, directly across my enchanted wound.
I bit down on my tongue and swallowed a scream.
The world spun.
It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to not stagger to the side and face-plant into rocks.
Why do men always hit each other on the backs?
It was heinous.
Lothaire smacked his baton against his hands. “All right, you lazy fuckers get a break in the bathhouse because I’m so generous. Follow me.”
He was the queen of gaslighting.
Knees knocking together, I was too tired to even care about being clean.
My teeth had been chattering for so long that I’d forgotten what it was like to be warm. Also, I was 99 percent sure this was a trick and Lothaire was about to drown us in cold water.
I didn’t get my hopes up.
John joined me, and we silently dragged our aching carcasses up the endless stairs. He grabbed my shoulder a couple of times to steady me when I tripped and almost fell backward.
I returned the favor.
The cliffside was jagged and deadly.
We were weak.
All the bad blood was behind us.
It was hard to hold grudges over inconsequential things like forced feedings when you’d both just hauled a stone for hours. We didn’t need to speak to understand that all was forgiven.
Shared trauma did that.
Side by side, we followed Lothaire down the lightning-streaked halls.
The stained-glass mosaic of the bloody woman holding the baby seemed to stare at me with disappointment. Chandeliers threw sparkles across black and gold.
Her eyes were large and sad, as tears streaked down her face. In their shimmery depths, she accused me of abandoning all women.
We’re all just surviving, I snarled back in my mind. Who was she to judge me?
I stumbled when Malum placed Orion’s arm around Scorpius. He slowed down to walk beside me.
He leaned down and overwhelmed my personal space with his seven-feet-tall size. Silence and aggression swirled between us.
Even though Malum was a sweaty mess, the decadent scents of tobacco and whiskey wafted off him.
I inhaled discreetly.
What did it mean when your tormentor smelled divine?
John moved closer to me as we waited for Malum to speak.
Silver eyes flashed, and his deep voice rumbled, “Stop playing games with our instructors.”
For a second, the combination of his rough voice and smoky scent made my toes curl.
I decided my fictional man would have a similar voice and scent. It obviously couldn’t be Malum, but he provided a nice template.
“Did you hear me?” Malum snapped, and I realized he was waiting for me to speak.
What were you supposed to say to a deranged lunatic?
“I’m not playing games,” I croaked from my dry throat. The act of speaking was too much effort and left me breathless.
Scorpius and Orion slowed down so they joined our little gossip group. Being blind didn’t stop the pale bastard from elbowing John out of the way.
He and Malum loomed on either side of me and pinned me between their warm bodies.
The eye tattooed on his neck blinked as it stared at me. Creepy.
Scorpius sneered, “Don’t fuck around with the instructors. It never ends well.”
What?
“At best, they’ll stick their dicks in your mouth and call you handsome. At worst, it’s a test and they’ll slit your throat as you come.”
My jaw dropped at their explicit language.
“I’m not into the instructors. At all!” I said with outrage. Why were they so unnecessarily vulgar?
Malum’s deep voice dripped with disgust. “Plus, Orion is more attractive than you’ll ever be. The half warriors tried to fuck him a few years ago, and they’re still pining over him. Don’t waste your breath.”
I glanced over at the stunning fae who now had pink splotches across his high cheekbones. He was hanging onto Scorpius’s arm and walking with a limp.
White-blond hair slicked back with sweat and red lips pouty from gnawing on them.
Orion looked like a cover model.
Ladies always obsessed over Sadie’s mate Cobra. He had strong features and precious jewels embedded in his skin. They’d die if they ever saw Orion.
Because the fae man was a jewel.
The half warriors have good taste.
“You’re just embarrassing yourself.” Scorpius’s voice dripped with scorn as he slammed his shoulder against me.
I swallowed down vomit, and John’s hands against my back kept me upright.
Why did they think I was competing with Orion?
He was 100 percent more attractive than me.
“Got it?” Malum asked with a growl.
“I’m thinking…” I held my fist up and pretended to wind up a child’s toy.
My middle finger popped up. “Go fuck yourselves.”
Malum exploded into flames, and Scorpius lunged forward, but Orion weakly wrapped his arms around his shoulders and whispered in his ear.
The kings stalked off without another word.
Pussies.
“What was that about?” John asked. “I’ve never seen the kings so worked up.”
I shrugged. I had that effect on people.
In front of us, Malum and Scorpius transferred Orion so the two of them held him up. Malum tenderly ran his fingers through Orion’s hair, and Scorpius placed a kiss on his forehead.
They looked back at me with death in their eyes.
Lightning streaked across the walls.
Electricity crackled.
I’d been so concerned with the kings that I didn’t realize the half warriors were walking near me. They were the biggest danger to my disguise.
I needed to worry about them, not the kings.
Everywhere I turned, enemies surrounded me.
“Follow me,” Lothaire said as he shoved open a black door I’d never seen before. As I walked into the room, I forgot to breathe.
Holy shit.
