Field training: Day 16, hour 1
“What the fuck were you doing back there, Egan?” Malum grabbed me by the neck of my shirt and flung me across the barracks.
My enchanted wound burned as I slammed against the metal wall.
Clearly, what I needed after fighting in a traumatic battle was more violence.
“Exceptional communication skills. Quite the leader,” I coughed out sarcastically, my breath short and painful in my mangled chest as I slumped on the ground.
Wounds peppered every inch of my skin.
It was a miracle my clothes were still on with how many rips they had from knives, swords, pincers, nails, and teeth.
I didn’t care.
I was empty inside.
Scorpius stalked forward and stood next to Malum.
At least the kings were predictable. After the awful battle, it was nice to have some structure.
“You dare criticize Corvus? He did his job! You were a fucking liability and an embarrassment.” Scorpius’s pale cheekbones were streaked with gore. The eye tattoo on his neck blinked as he swallowed thickly.
“I didn’t know it would be like that…” I trailed off, barely able to hear my voice.
The screaming was still loud.
Malum pushed Scorpius aside and once again slammed me into the metal wall. Blunt force trauma made my head spin, and I saw stars.
Either I was heavily concussed, or I was having a religious experience. I hoped it was the former. Praying seemed like a lot of work.
Malum’s voice was the deepest I’d heard it. “It doesn’t matter what the fuck it was like, or how the fuck it felt. When we fight, we fight as a unit. You didn’t fight, Aran. You gave up. I’ve never seen such a pathetic display. I could fight better at ten years old.”
Again he slammed me.
Yay, more stars.
The other recruits stood silent and watched. Even John looked pissed at me.
“They were innocent people,” I whispered.
“No, they were the ungodly!” Gray eyes splintered like broken glass, and Malum reeked of decay. Gore also covered him.
“But we could have helped them.” My voice cracked. “We should have done something.”
Scorpius leaned close to Malum and ran his fingers across my face as he felt my expression. Unlike when he gently touched the kings, he dug his fingernails lightly across my skin.
I shivered and my stomach pinched.
“You don’t look like a dumbass, pretty boy,” Scorpius snarled. “Yet you think you could have saved them?” His nails slowly scraped across my cheekbones and down my jaw.
Malum’s grip on my shirt tightened, and he pulled my collar so I struggled to breathe. “All we can do is kill them.” He inhaled harshly. “That is our mercy.”
I shook my head as I hyperventilated and refused to accept that. “We gave up on them.”
We failed them. I failed that young woman.
What was the point of big sisters if they didn’t fight to save you? If they didn’t save you when you couldn’t save yourself? It didn’t matter that it actually wasn’t Jinx. My twisted psyche could see all the implications.
Karma was real.
The young woman I’d struggled with had been the sister, daughter, and friends of someone else. But no one had saved her.
They never do.
I reared forward and banged my head back as hard as I could into the metal wall. Desolation blinded me.
I hit harder.
Malum asked with annoyance, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He was probably jealous he wasn’t getting to do it.
Again, I bludgeoned myself.
“Stop it!” Malum growled, and his grip tightened.
None of us saved any of the villagers from their fate. Just like no one saved me.
I did it again with more force.
And again.
Again.
John shouted. “Aran, stop it!”
Again.
“I said to stop hurting yourself, you fool! Pull yourself together!” Malum yanked me away from the wall so my flailing head met nothing but air.
His hand remained tangled in my shirt.
“You don’t understand,” I whispered as I clawed at myself with my nails. Scoured my skin.
“He’s losing it,” Scorpius observed coldly.
Malum used his arms to pin me so I couldn’t claw at myself. “Get it together, and be a man. This is war! This is what we do!”
I shook my head in disagreement. “You don’t understand.”
With me fully restrained against him, Malum took a deep breath and spoke calmly, “Get off your pampered high horse. We all understand because we were there.”
I whispered brokenly, “I abandoned them.”
Just like my father did to me. Just like my mother did every time she lit me on fire.
“I didn’t save them.”
I’d failed them all, and I was too intelligent to convince myself anything else had happened on that mountainside.
Pressure built behind my eyes. If I could cry, I’d be sobbing.
No tears fell.
My head hurt.
With my body limp, Malum’s punishing grip was the only thing that kept me upright. I was broken.
No one said anything because words couldn’t make anything better.
Suddenly, a light touch ghosted across my head.
“You’re allowed to grieve.” The words were so soft I barely heard them but they tinkled with a lyrical melody.
I looked up, and sad brown eyes hovered close.
Orion’s mouth moved, and no sound came out this time, but I could read his lips as if he’d spoken. “Don’t hurt yourself over the failures of your past.”
I whispered back, “What else am I supposed to do?”
Golden fingers gently tucked a wild curl behind my ear. “Move forward and keep fighting.”
“It’s too hard,” I said, too tired to care that I sounded like the pampered wimp they always accused me of being.
Orion smiled, and it was breathtaking. He mouthed, “I know what it’s like to be broken. That’s why we’re a team.”
The dark shadows suddenly didn’t seem as suffocating.
“You promise,” I whispered to the man I barely knew. He didn’t owe me anything.
He twirled one of my curls and mouthed, “I promise.”
Warmth spread through my chest as Orion’s gentle presence smoothed my jagged edges.
“Let him down! What the fuck are you doing?” Demetre burst into the barracks, and his voice vibrated with the roar of a dragon. Shane and Noah trailed.
Suddenly I was hyperaware that I was pressed flush against Malum and he was holding me up as Orion leaned close. Scorpius stood nearby watching and saying nothing.
Why had they let Orion talk to me?
Why hadn’t Malum and Scorpius freaked out like usual?
My questions were forgotten as Shane rushed forward and pulled me out of Malum’s punishing grasp.
Knees giving out, the only thing that kept me from face-planting was that I didn’t like Shane’s hands on me.
I pushed away from the half warrior and found my balance.
“Sun god, Aran, you’re covered in wounds.” Shane turned to the kings angrily. “He needs to see Lyla, not be injured further by you.”
“What he needs is to man up,” Malum said.
“You’re blinded by your own issues with Aran. A true leader would never act this way,” Shane said with disgust.
Malum exploded into flames.
At least some things were consistent.
The kings shifted close together. Malum and Orion frowned down at where Shane’s hand was gripping my shoulder.
Shane was touching me—the man who smiled when he’d talked about killing me.
I tasted bile and pulled away.
Shane kept speaking. “He’s just a fae with no fighting experience. What did you think would happen? It was his first time in battle. Cut him some slack.”
He made me sound pathetic.
It hadn’t been my first battle; it was just the first one that felt personal.
The many cuts gushing blood across my body must have been affecting me more than I realized, because I opened my mouth to argue that I wasn’t a weak fae and I actually had a good amount of battle experience.
But John spoke before I could. “Let’s go, then. To Lyla.”
“Fine,” Demetre agreed, and everyone shuffled out of the barracks.
John didn’t smile—Mr. Hyde was back—but he leaned down and put his arm under my shoulder to support me.
Yet again, we limped together back to the fortress.
As the kings walked past us, Scorpius hung back. “Don’t question Malum’s leadership ever again. Oh, and Egan…” He paused.
“Yes?”
“Orion might be nice to you, but he’s ours. If you overstep, we will demolish you.” He didn’t sneer like usual, and the calm tone of his voice was slightly terrifying.
His warning wasn’t necessary.
If Orion even was attracted to me, it was to Aran, not Arabella.
I couldn’t even be intimate with anyone because of the slur on my back.
I’d never even had a chance.
Scorpius didn’t wait for a response; he just stalked away and joined his fellow kings. Malum and Scorpius flanked Orion on both sides like bodyguards from hell.
At least Orion was being taken care of like he deserved. His kind, gentle energy should be protected at all costs.
He was never mine to fight for.
I was startled out of my depressed thoughts when halfway up the steps, John said, “Never do that again.”
“Not you too.” I groaned and poked my friend.
“Me too?”
“I think the kings already made the point very clear. I got it. I fucked up.”
John stopped walking. In the red eclipse, he looked nothing like the carefree man with the boyish face and dimples. Hard lines wrapped around him like a cloak. He didn’t look human.
He opened and closed his mouth twice.
Finally he said, “It only gets worse.”
“What does?”
“The battles. The training. The ungodly. The war. It only gets worse. So much worse.”
I dug my trembling fingers into my somehow preserved pocket and pulled out my pipe. Eyes rolling back, I sucked in drugs like they were sanity.
What did someone say to that?
John took the pipe from my hand and put it into his mouth as we continued to limp forward.
He blew out smoke.
Before I lost my courage, I asked, “How have you survived this? How have you done this shit for years?”
John passed the pipe back. “Eventually you forget the time before you suffered, and it feels less like abuse and more like you’re normal. Sure, there will always be a voice inside you that knows you’re being tortured. But you learn to ignore that voice so you can function.”
I inhaled smoke. “And if you don’t ignore the voice?”
“You go mad.”
“Fuck,” I responded eloquently as we limped through the arching entrance doors and were greeted by a flash of lightning. The black-and-gold hall shimmered.
“Don’t worry. I have a feeling you’ll be just fine.”
I scoffed. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re like me.”
“How so?”
“You’ve already lost your mind.”
I looked up at him, confused how that was a good thing.
He answered my silent question, “It means you know how to survive.”
As we hobbled past, broken light streamed through the mosaic of the mother. In the shards of shattered glass, there was something new.
A red tear dripped down her cheek.
And I knew.
It was an omen.
