The breaking period: Day 2, hour 5
Two hours of sleep did nothing to refresh me.
Along with my head being heavy with exhaustion and stomach screaming with pain, my vision was blurry and the wound on my back sent jabs of agony down my spine. Sleeping on the ruined cot had exasperated my injury.
The worst part? I wasn’t the only one that had woken up.
The steel cage rattled in my mind as my monster screamed and bellowed for blood.
Lothaire had screamed at us to “wake the fuck up,” and there was a clattering of pushed-over cots and swear words as we hurried out into the cold wind.
Now I stood still on the rocky edge as the endless ocean churned before me like a frothing beast of malignant hate.
Salt sprayed as waves slammed and white caps exploded with a vengeance.
The lunar eclipse glowed an angry red.
I stood like the other recruits with my head down and legs parted wide. Arms behind my back. Like an obedient sheep.
Like a soldier.
Lothaire walked back and forth in front of us, and his scar was puckered and ugly as he narrowed his single eye.
Please don’t make us go into the ocean, I prayed to the sun god.
Without a warm shower to heat my bones, the tremors still shook through me periodically. I didn’t know if I would survive it.
Lothaire nodded as he paced like he had come to a decision. “Your second day of training begins now.”
Please no ocean. I dragged my fingernail across the back of my hand and made a small blood offering to the sun god.
It was a fae tradition that was typically done in exchange for a god’s intervention.
At the prick of my nail severing flesh, my monster stopped screaming. It quieted like my pain had weakened it. Or maybe it was just a distraction?
“Today, we will be running,” Lothaire said casually.
I took in a deep breath of relief.
Since I was a little girl, I’d loved to run through the endless fae flower fields. I’d push myself to run further and faster under the dual hot suns. I ran until my skin was slick with sweat and I couldn’t remember why I was miserable in the first place.
Lothaire continued speaking, “You will run on the shore, through the surf, and along the perimeter of this island. As you know, the island is three miles wide.”
I didn’t know.
My stomach plummeted at the mention of running along the shore where the white caps broke. Cold was inevitable.
Lothaire’s eyes glinted with malice, and his gaze lingered on me. “You will run until I tell you to stop running. I will stand here with my watch and clock your mile pace. Anyone who falls behind the pace will spend a night in the tank.”
Whatever, I can run. I’ll be fine.
“Am I clear?!” Lothaire suddenly screamed.
Dr. Palmer would have a field day with him. I’d have to give him her number.
“Yes, sir!” we chorused back.
“Begin.”
With that, we were off.
I settled into an easy pace, legs pumping forward, arms relaxed, as I regulated my breathing and jogged beside John.
We quickly settled into a pack.
The kings ran at the front. Malum led the group, and he grabbed Scorpius’s elbow every few minutes to guide his path. Orion ran close behind them both.
For such large men, they shouldn’t have been able to move with so much agility.
None of the recruits should have.
Behind the kings, Horace glided through the ocean with such graceful precision that the water didn’t kick up behind him.
He moved like a ghost, like he was flying with his feet not touching the ground.
On the vampyre’s heels, Zenith and Vegar ran side by side, steps synced as their feet pounded against rocks.
The demons weren’t agile like the kings or graceful like Horace. They were predators.
Water sprayed in every direction as they slammed their large bodies forward. Inky lines traveled down the backs of their necks, and they ran like they were hunting prey.
Beside me, John fell into an easy rhythm. He also ran on the tips of his bare toes like he was prancing.
His dimples were gone, and his face was a smooth mask of concentration.
Malum glanced back and shouted over the wind, “I’m surprised you can run, Egan!”
I didn’t reply.
His silver eyes sharpened. “Let’s see what you’re really made of.” He sped up and we followed his lead.
Malum set a brutal pace.
As a group, we navigated the shore as the chilly water soaked our clothes.
On the far side of the island, our hair whipped into a frenzy as the wind gusted against us.
Heads lowered. We fought against it.
If the front of the island was sloped and dangerous with stairs carved into the rocks leading up to the building’s entrance, then the backside of the island was uninhabitable and treacherous.
The land behind the fortress was spiky cliffs; sheer cliff walls cut parallel into the star-studded sky.
Loud cracks sounded. Rocks tumbled hundreds of feet down the walls and shattered into thousands of pieces.
Rocks pelted us.
It was low tide, so there were ten feet of exposed black rock between the water’s edge and the sheer face of the cliff.
At high tide, it would be perilous. No separation between the water and the ridge.
We’d be trapped.
Chest pinching with worry, I pounded my legs faster as I cracked my neck back and forth and tried to loosen the tension from my arms.
The key to running well was staying relaxed.
I dropped my shoulders and slowed my breathing as I lost myself in the rhythm of a good run.
After five laps, sweat dotted my brow, and I noticed the stars twinkled oddly in the sky.
They spun in circles.
Like they danced.
I tipped my head back and inhaled the pungent, salt-soaked air.
There was something magical about being in another realm. Something darkly sinister about a churning ocean, ominous moon, and the endless cover of a red night.
A beautiful cruelty.
Calm flowed through me.
Running always mellowed my edges.
The world took on a nightmare-like haze in the best possible way. Nothing had consequence.
It didn’t matter if I was a man or a woman. A queen. A monster. They were all just useless labels constructed by society’s need to exert control over people.
Everything horrible in life was about order.
But freedom was ragged lungs and losing yourself in a mindless motion. Chaos was freedom.
My monster stopped bellowing. The constant pressure in my chest lifted away.
Endorphins exploded like stars.
My beast was so quiet that it ceased to exist.
All my woes were small.
Because they were.
I was nothing.
Just pounding legs, splashing surf, and burning lungs.
Scorpius whispered something to Malum, and the leader of the kings kept sneaking glances over his shoulder at me.
He narrowed his silver eyes like he was surprised that I was still with them and muttered under his breath.
They were talking about me. They wanted me to fail.
Too bad for them the one thing I’d always been good at was running away.
There was peace in the violence of a long run, and I pitied anyone who’d never felt such bliss.
Comfort in the agony.
At least, that was how I felt for the first ten laps around the three-mile island. Thirty miles flew by in a blur of exertion as my mind wandered far away.
John and I matched pace, and neither of us jockeyed to surpass the other.
The human moved in tandem beside me as he lost himself in his own world. We cut across the coast in companionable silence.
A couple of times, I glanced over to find John’s dark eyes studying me like he was trying to figure me out.
I studied him back.
My instincts screamed at me that the human was more than he seemed. My new friend was a duality.
“Just give up if you’re getting tired, Egan!” Malum yelled over his shoulder back at me.
Our feet splashed across the surf.
“Suck my dick, Malum!” I yelled back, and John chuckled beside me. It wasn’t my finest come back.
“I’m not into pretty boys,” Malum called back. “Why would I need you when I have Orion for that?”
I stumbled over a rock with surprise as my stomach pinched. Everyone laughed at his statement, and Orion just smirked. Apparently, the kings were lovers. Good to know.
In the beast realm, the don had said something about shifters going feral. These men might not be shifters, but my gut told me the term already applied to them with the way they talked about sex constantly.
Since I didn’t actually possess a dick, I really needed to stop talking about it. But for some reason, I couldn’t stop.
The men were infuriating.
Still, a small kernel of respect expanded the longer we trudged around the island. There weren’t many people in the realms who could run like we were running.
Hard. Fast. Dirty.
Malum set a brutal pace that demanded nothing but excellence and full concentration.
I tipped my head back, lost myself in the savagery of it all, and pretended I was running on the surface of the blood moon. With the world sparkling around me.
Things changed on the eleventh lap.
Thirty-three miles hit hard.
My arches cramping from pounding against jagged rocks, I became hyperaware of the trail of blood behind me.
The salty air was hard to breathe. My arms tingled from exhaustion as blood was pumped to my organs and away from my limbs.
I’d never run so far.
In the fae realm, the trail around the royal palace was twenty miles total.
In the shifter realm, the longest I’d run was probably about fifteen miles during battle.
Sweat poured down my face and stung my eyes. It reminded me of how Sadie had complained after a few miles. How she’d break down like her body physically couldn’t go on any further.
One night, she’d explained that it was like hitting a wall, and I’d laughed at her, thinking she was being dramatic.
Now I understood what she meant.
I was fine.
Then?
I wasn’t.
The problem was that the other recruits didn’t show any signs of exhaustion. Malum easily held the pace, and the smallest shimmer of sweat on the men’s foreheads was the only sign they were exerting themselves.
My breath rattled louder.
No matter how many times I shook out my arms and focused on driving with my glutes, my pace slowed.
We passed Lothaire, and he yelled, “Four-minute, ten-second mile pace. You’re slowing down. Unacceptable!”
Malum nodded and started running faster. Everyone adjusted to match pace.
It was the worst timing possible for an increase in speed. I could barely keep up with the prior pace.
Thighs burning, chest heaving, I fought desperately to stay with the group.
But for every step the men took, I took two.
It wore me down.
The tide was creeping higher on the far side of the island, but I was too tired to notice. Too tired to care.
My vision blurred.
John glanced down at me as he continued to run faster and his steps creeped further and further away from me.
The distance grew.
I might have been hallucinating but disappointment flashed on his face as he looked back at my retreating form.
He turned away.
The next time I ran past Lothaire, I was a good ways behind the other recruits, who were still running as a unit.
The vampyre’s face was mottled and purple as he screamed down at me, “Aran, what the fuck?! Do you think this is a joke? You’re running a five-minute mile. Hurry the fuck up and catch up to the group right now or you will be in the tank!”
Did Lothaire have a monster in his mind? Because he sure as shit acted like it.
A tank sounded like water, and my tongue was uncomfortably dry and heavy. The salty ocean mocked me.
I tried to increase my speed, but sleep deprivation and hunger had taken their toll. Toe jamming into a rock, I stumbled and barely caught myself from face-planting into the surf.
Lothaire screamed something else, but I was too far away to hear. Or maybe I just didn’t want to listen.
The next three miles passed much slower than the last ones as each step grew more painful, the trail of blood increasing behind me.
When I completed mile thirty-nine, I couldn’t hear what Lothaire was screaming at me over the buzzing in my ears.
He heaved with anger.
He definitely has a monster inside.
Lothaire didn’t let my failure go unpunished. As I ran past the raging vampyre, he flicked his wrist and sent his baton careening in my direction like a boomerang.
CRACK.
Jolting with surprise, I fell over as a burning fire spread across my arm.
I face-planted into the frigid water, and the surf slammed atop me and dragged me forward.
For an endless moment, something close to infinity, I floated face-first in the black sea. The waves dragged me back and forth.
Peaceful.
Calm.
The moment ended with a stab of agony, and I screamed as Lothaire wrenched me out of the ocean by the arm he’d just snapped.
Then Lothaire tangled his hand in my short hair and dragged me out of the ocean like a caught fish.
He screamed in my face.
We were inches apart.
He kind of reminds me of someone? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but his features were familiar.
I could barely hear what he said.
“You will finish the last lap of this run! You will do it in under a five-minute pace or I will personally throw you into the ocean to drown. Either you’re an assassin or you’re nothing. There is no other option!”
Steel rattled.
This was the same man who crawled willingly into my mother’s bed and stood by her as she tortured me. How dare he speak to me like that? He should be bowing at my feet.
My monster bellowed.
It screamed at me to slit his throat.
Lothaire threw me down onto the hard rocks and walked away. He didn’t care if I lived or died.
Like I was expendable.
Garbage.
Just a powerless fae princess on fire and writhing on the palace floor.
I stumbled to my feet and set off down the path. Tried to relax my shoulders and drive with my legs, but each jostling of my arm sent agony shooting along my collarbone.
Broken arm clenched across my chest to steady it, I forced myself to run with everything I had.
But I stumbled from the awkwardness, and my legs barely propelled me forward. There was no way I was making the time.
Resignation washed over me as exhaustion made my head fuzzy.
This was it.
The end.
Mother’s consort would win.
My vision turned partially black as my monster bellowed and bent the steel bars of its cage. It ripped itself out of its prison, desperate to take over.
Suddenly, my head was tipped back, and I was laughing with manic abandon.
Body shaking, chest rattling with horrible glee.
Fuck it. I giggled with delirium, and as the salty wind whipped my short hair, I did the unthinkable.
I let my monster free.
Lothaire will not win.
Black fully overtook my vision, and the bloodlust that exploded through my veins burned like lava.
My laughter morphed into a roar.
And I disappeared on the rocky shore of a faraway realm.
For the first time in twenty-four years of suffering, I let my monster control me. My consciousness flicked off like a piece of my soul had disappeared.
Never to be seen again.
