Field training: Day 48, hour 7
Music swelled, and the floorboards vibrated from the force of pounding feet and the beat of the enchanted song.
Head falling off the end of my bed, feet perched up against the wall, I hung upside down as the room bustled with chaos.
My pipe dangled from my lips, and teal smoke curled around me like a lover’s caress. Literally, the tendrils were wrapping around me in a hug because I told them to.
Horse was perched on my shoulder and pecked at my hair like he was grooming me. Or maybe he was looking for seeds?
I wasn’t 100 percent caught up on bird behavior.
Inhale smoke. Hold. Exhale slowly. Hold. Repeat.
Swirling my pipe in the air, I was a conductor in one of the great fae orchestras.
With my eyes crossed, everything was a blur or dancing shapes and muted colors. Red haze blanketed the world like I was living in a fucked-up memory.
A violent paradise.
John’s long legs blocked my view of the room.
Inhale. You’re in control. Exhale.
“Are you okay?” John’s voice had a hard edge to it, and if I squinted just right, I could make out the shadows that glittered around him. He was still pissed that Sadie was my best friend and not him.
“No.” I blew out a large, satisfying cloud of smoke and watched the blue disappear like John’s darkness had swallowed it whole.
At this point, it would be easier to list all the reasons I was fine.
My recent descent into madness had come out of the blue and was completely unexpected.
Just kidding.
I’d been free-falling off a cliff for weeks, but I thought I’d finally found the bottom.
After the battle against the vampyre ungodly, I’d been fine.
Then. I wasn’t.
It didn’t hit me when the rain had soaked me to the bone as we RJE’d back to the academy.
It didn’t hit me when we sat in the dark classroom and watched the battle for hours as Lothaire critiqued us.
It didn’t hit me when we went directly to class and discussed the best way to torture our opponents. My hand didn’t falter as I wrote our essay. I’d barely noticed Malum glowering beside me.
Walking down the halls beside John and Horace, I hadn’t blinked as lightning streaked around us and the air sizzled.
“Wait up!” Sari had called as she caught up with us. “Aran, can you help me with the torture essay? I didn’t finish it in class, so I have to do it for homework. Can we go over it at dinner?”
“Sure.” I’d nodded.
Her pretty eyes wide, Sari’s face had fallen as she took in the bruises and cuts on my exposed skin and the dried gore the rain hadn’t washed away.
“Are you okay?” she’d said quietly, brow furrowed with worry.
And just like that—it hit me.
My shoulders had slumped as the weight of everything crushed me into the ground. Now that my monster had gone to sleep, there was nothing holding me up anymore.
There was a pit in my chest where my heart should have been.
Hand shaking, ears ringing, I’d swallowed down my ragged breath and calmly told Sari, “No.”
I didn’t remember walking back to the room. Didn’t remember John placing his arm under mine to support me. Didn’t remember Horace speaking words of encouragement.
John dug my backup pipe out from underneath my mattress and pushed it between my lips. “Breathe it in. Slowly. You can do it, Aran.”
I whimpered and covered my ears with my hands.
The fireplace shrieked.
Children screamed.
Ungodly trembled as they died.
“What the fuck is wrong with Egan?” Malum snarled. “He was fine in class. What did you do to him?”
Orion’s golden face filled my vision, and his warm fingers traced over my cheek gently. His chocolate eyes were unfocused as he bit his lower lip like he was concentrating.
His touch was so tender that it made me pause, and I looked up at him with confusion.
Slap.
I yanked my head away from his fingers as he reached forward again after slapping me.
“He’s fine,” Orion mouthed.
What the fuck? Isn’t he supposed to be the kind, gentle one?
I responded automatically, “No, I’m not.”
“It’s just the battle lust draining away. It was like this for all of us in the beginning. Leave him alone,” Zenith said from across the room.
These days, the demons rarely spoke, so the room fell into a stunned silence.
In the quiet, the screams in my head became a roar.
Voices shouted.
Shrieked.
Scoured the inside of my mind.
“Just breathe,” Orion mouthed with concern, his words not matching the fact that he’d just slapped me.
I grunted and scrambled away, but he followed me across the room. “Please,” I mouthed to no one in particular. I didn’t even know what I was asking for.
Orion raked his hands through his white-blond hair, but he stopped moving closer.
Horace sighed heavily. “I need a fucking drink.”
“He needs to shower,” John said as he grabbed my shoulder and dragged me into the bathroom before Orion could slap me again.
Running water. Cold tile beneath my feet. John’s boyish features were tight with tension. The screams wouldn’t stop.
“Strip,” John ordered.
I stared up at him blankly as I sucked on my pipe. There was definitely darkness glittering around him.
Long fingers tugged off my gore-crusted shirt.
He reached for my waistband.
“What the fuck?” I bellowed as I yanked away from him and stumbled under the cold spray.
The icy water distracted me from my own thoughts and pulled me back to reality.
“I was helping you.” John’s features hardened, and he fisted his knuckles like he was battling rage.
“Thanks,” I said as I pulled the curtain closed and shut him out. Mr. Hyde had been in a fucking mood for a while.
His voice was quiet but filled with menace. “Fuck you, Aran.”
“Fuck you, John,” I quipped back and held my hand over the curtain to flip him off.
He growled like an animal and snarled, “See if I ever help your sorry ass ever again.”
“Good,” I snapped, silently begging him to leave the bathroom so I could pull off my disgusting pants and take a proper shower.
“Good.”
The door slammed shut and signaled his exit.
I wasn’t worried about our friendship. When he was in one of his moods, he was always a miserable bastard. But then the lightness came back, and it was like it had never happened.
I barely tugged off the disgusting garments and turned the shower to the coldest setting before I collapsed onto my hands and knees.
Back in agony.
Ears burdened with phantom shouts.
My thoughts were killing me.
How can a person live like this? How could anyone survive?
So many pain signals were overwhelming me that my stomach cramped, and I vomited bile onto the tile floor.
But I kept my pipe clenched between my teeth. The last lifeline I had to any sort of normalcy.
Horse stood on the top edge of the stall and looked down at me with concern.
The tile floor reminded me of Sadie, and crushing sadness washed over me. I just wanted to hold my best friend and cry.
Instead, I was gagging on all fours.
I stayed under the chilled spray, limbs locked in paralysis, unable to do anything other than feel.
Hours later, I crawled out.
With blue lips, chattering teeth, and shaking hands, I toweled off and pulled on the clean clothes I always kept in the bathroom.
When I walked into the room, music was playing from an enchanted stone, and the men were dancing around while drinking from crystal liquor bottles.
“Feel better, man?” Horace asked and threw his arm over my shoulder. He pushed a bottle against my lips and tipped it back before I could protest.
The foreign liquid tasted like salt and death.
“Demon brew,” Horace explained as he tipped it back so I was forced to swallow more. “Lothaire got us the good stuff.”
“Why?” I asked as I wiped the offending substance off my lips.
Horace tsked like he was disappointed. “Don’t tell me you forgot? It’s the visitors’ ball this weekend. So we get to dance all night and get fucked up.”
I pulled the pretty bottle out of his hands and chugged it.
“You should slow down,” John said as he appeared to materialize from nowhere.
I finished half the bottle with a loud burp. “When’s Dr. Jekyll coming back? I miss him. He was nice.”
If John was mad at me for shoving him away in the shower now, he was furious. He was violence incarnate.
“Never if you act so ungrateful.”
“Well, that sucks,” I said honestly as I took another swig.
He flipped me off and resumed partying.
The demon brew tasted like pain and suffering but was flooding me with a heady warmth.
Everything spun, and my limbs were weightless.
Horace and I lounged back and watched as the three kings danced together in the corner.
Well, Orion was dancing.
Malum stood still as a statue and drank the demon brew, while Scorpius leaned against the wall and laughed at something Orion was whispering to him.
I took a long drag of my pipe and positioned myself so I was upside down on my bed. My favorite position.
I tried to take another big sip and choked aggressively.
Horace laughed as I sputtered all over myself, and he took another drink from his crystal bottle.
“I didn’t know you could drink anything other than blood,” I said conversationally as I waved my pipe around in a pretty pattern.
Why was I so good at small talk?
Sun god, I was amazing.
I chose not to question where the random burst of self-confidence came from. I loved that for me.
“Demon brew is the exception. That’s why Lothaire got it for us. Uncle didn’t want me to feel left out.” Horace grunted as he drank.
The room spun delightfully.
“You’ve got a fucked-up family.”
“You have no idea. How about you? Any nice momma and papa coming to visit for visitors’ weekend?”
I let my head fall lower until I was half-dangling off the bed and the room shifted, and it felt like I was walking on the ceiling.
“Let’s just say, if my mother’s ghost made an appearance, I’d be more afraid of it than an ungodly.”
Horace’s voice darkened until it had a razor’s edge. “Women suck.”
I paused with my pipe dangling from my fingers in front of my lips, and I whispered, “Not all women.”
“All fucking women. No exceptions.” Horace’s words were slightly lisped, like his fangs had descended.
I shivered.
Suddenly, the world didn’t spin with euphoria. It tilted and shuddered, darkness overwhelming everything and sucking me dry.
Pulling me under.
Heart rate increasing, I gasped desperately and clawed at my throat. There wasn’t enough air in this blasted fucking realm.
I was drowning.
Long legs blocked my view of the room. “You’ve been smoking nonstop for hours.” Malum’s voice was barely discernible over the thumping music.
“Amazing observation skills.” I arched my brow patronizingly and continued to lie upside down as I pretended I wasn’t asphyxiating on nothing but my thoughts.
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you.”
Like I said, I was a master at small talk.
“Let’s finish getting ready!” Horace shouted suddenly and pulled us both off the bed.
A few minutes later, I found myself lining Orion’s stunning eyes with kohl. All the men were putting on makeup, but they were impressed with my steady hand, so I was now applying it for everyone.
“How are you doing?” I whispered to the fae who’d seemed more stressed than usual.
Music thumped loudly.
He mouthed, “Not well.”
“Why?”
“Because you have a girlfriend.”
I chuckled and responded without thinking. “No, I don’t. That was a joke.”
Abruptly, chocolate eyes smoldered. I burned alive.
