Aran was sprawled out under the covers, sucking on a foot-long glowing blue stick.
She blew out a cloud of electric-blue smoke that matched her hair and smiled lazily.
She waved.
“Hey, Sadie, why is your flame so bright? Everyone else’s is white, but yours is a gray purple. Good thing it’s not black. That would be baaaad. I can’t see mine, but I’m sure it’s black. I’m an awful person; it has to be.”
“She claims she can see colored flames in all our chests,” Jala whispered and grimaced.
“She’s not well.” Jess held Jala’s hand in hers tightly.
They looked at me desperately, united in their fear for Aran’s well-being.
“She’s clearly lost her mind.” Jinx rolled her eyes like everyone around her was being dumb again.
Noodle still had his fake eyelashes on, and he pointed and chittered at Aran like he was also worried.
I was so physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually exhausted that I could see Jinx’s point.
We weren’t the brightest group.
All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and have a pity party, but I searched deep into my soul and found the fortitude to do what was right.
Marching over to the bed, I ripped the long pipe out of Aran’s hands.
“Don’t you know drugs are bad and kill people? Who knows what this enchantment is doing to you? I’m so disappointed.”
Aran’s ethereal skin was sallower than I’d ever seen it, and dark circles stood stark against her fair complexion.
She was falling apart.
I whacked her across the head as hard as I could. “People who do drugs are embarrassing. Girls, please leave the room for the evening. I need to fix this.”
Four teenagers looked at me solemnly. Well, three did; Jinx just muttered something about how we were all dead.
I sighed heavily and whacked Aran again.
“Girls, I’m going to sort her out. Why don’t you go hang out with Jax? I’m sure he misses you, and Lucinda, you could probably get Xerxes to teach you some knife tricks. I know you said something about learning.”
They nodded hesitantly.
“You’ll fix her?” Jala asked, pink eyes wide as she stared at Aran. “At school, they said you could never walk in the valley of the sun god if you did drugs. Your soul would be corrupted.”
Aran laughed. “What a crock of shit.”
I hit her again.
“Ow. Freakin’ relax with the beating, woman.”
“I’ll make sure she stops. Don’t worry,” I said with conviction. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I know that drugs mess with your brain and can become so addicting you can’t function properly. I won’t let that happen to her.”
I turned to Aran, who had bloodshot eyes and a lazy expression on her lips as she itched at her back.
She somehow still looked smug in the elegant bed.
Even under the covers, disguised with short hair and a wider, stockier male build, she looked down her nose at the room.
A purebred princess.
“But that doesn’t mean I will put up with you wasting away and acting like a coward!” I yelled at her and beat her with a pillow for good measure.
“Don’t hurt her too bad, sis,” Lucinda said quietly as the other girls disappeared down the hall.
Lucinda lingered at the door. “I know you have a lot going on,” she said as she shifted back and forth awkwardly. “Just know that I can take care of myself. You don’t need to worry about me.”
My gut pinched. “Is there something you wanted to tell me?” I asked, feeling like something unspoken hung between us.
Lucinda shook her head. “No, just wanted to make sure you knew.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, but Lucinda had turned around and left.
The door slammed behind her, and I focused my attention on the problem in the room.
Aran and I stared at each other for a long, drawn-out moment.
My chest heaved, and I dejectedly dropped the pillow with shaking hands.
I studied the long, glowing pipe I’d confiscated from her.
“So, going to explain what horrible evil is in this?” I fingered the cold, hard shaft.
“If you break it in half, it will send a strong message to the girls,” Aran said lazily as she spread her arms out wide like she didn’t have a care in the world.
I lifted the pipe and inspected it. “That would be the right thing to do.”
“Should I do it?” Aran asked innocently.
I rolled my eyes at her and took a long drag from the end.
The enchanted smoke burned a trail down my esophagus, and it felt like a fire was lit in my lungs as I blew out the bright-blue smoke.
Aran modulated her tone, so it resembled my scratchy, broken voice. “Drugs are bad and kill people.”
I settled into bed beside her and took another long draw. “Oh please, we’re the only female role models they have. Might as well pretend to not be degenerates.”
“It makes you feel nothing, and the world more hazyyyyy.” Aran took the pipe from my hand and took a long drag. “The smoke.”
“Thank fuck,” I mumbled and noted that the pressure on my chest and pain in my stomach were lessoning with each fiery inhale. “Where did you get it?”
“Walter.”
“I’m gonna free that amazing man from servitude,” I promised as I snuggled against Aran.
Aran turned to me with a critical expression, taking in my haggard appearance. “How are you doing?”
I sighed dejectedly. “Not good. This Mafia training will probably kill me.” I thought about the millions of things I had to complain about, but tried to be positive. “At least I have the numb. Or the song of the hunt. Still can’t believe all half warriors are hearing voices inside their heads.”
“What? No, they aren’t.” Aran said with confusion as she puffed out smoke.
I looked at her. “Demetre said that he also heard the song of the hunt, aka the numb. So he’s hearing voices.”
Aran shook her head. “I remember talking to him about it when I was younger. He said it was bloodlust, a compulsion to kill. He never said it was a voice.”
I took a long hit of the drugs. “Well, fuck.”
Now that I thought about it, he hadn’t said explicitly that he heard a voice; I’d just assumed it was the same.
A sinking sensation weighed me down.
Terror for all the things I still didn’t understand.
“Did you get some type of bodily enchantment done today?” Aran asked, sensing my despondency.
“No, why?” I asked as the drug kicked in and the headache that had started when the don announced I couldn’t form a pack with the men blessedly stopped pounding.
Was she still going on about the flames?
“Your muscles are very large, oh impressive Mafia one.” She grabbed my bicep and squeezed while wiggling her eyebrows. “Very firm. If you know what I mean.”
With a cloud of smoke burning my lungs, I made a mental note to marry Molly.
“And they told me I was crazy. Bastards.”
“Protect your face!” Molly yelled as she slammed her knuckles into my nose.
Inspirationally, I did not protect my face in time.
“Protect your stomach!” Molly yelled and slammed her knuckles again into my now-very-broken nose.
“What the fuck?” I sputtered in indignation.
Molly just smiled like she was having a grand time and hadn’t been grinding my bones to dust for the last three days.
She’d taken one look at my sparring and announced that since I was physically built so much smaller than my opponents, my best odds of survival were through defensive maneuvers.
Therefore, for the last three days, I was only allowed to dodge Molly’s attacks.
She’d said, “No one is going to announce where they punch. Each morning, you start out decently, but you get tired and become sloppy as shit.”
Molly’s fist flew with exacting precision.
It was a beatdown.
A beatdown I desperately needed because in the fighting ring a few feet over, Clarissa was running her hands over the men.
Touching their arms, giggling, leaning into their personal space.
Every day, she grew more familiar with them.
Every day, the men allowed it to happen and did nothing to dissuade her. They seemed to welcome the attention.
Sometimes, when I’d glance over at their fighting ring, I’d catch the men staring at me.
They were rubbing their new woman in my face.
I fucking hated them.
“Protect your face!” Molly yelled.
I hunched low with my forearms protecting my innards just in time to block a roundhouse kick that would have 100 percent made me infertile.
Although, I wasn’t even sure if an alpha female could have kids.
“Good. See, sugar, you’re learning.”
“I don’t get it,” I gasped and awkwardly spat out saliva and blood around the mouthguard that Molly had said all alphas were required to wear.
Apparently, teeth regrew very slowly, and enchantments to help were ridiculously expensive.
Therefore, fight club rules: Everyone wore a mouthguard.
However, as far as I could tell, that was the only safety precaution anyone took. No one even bothered to wrap their hands in this realm.
Since Molly still had a gun tucked into her shorts, the mouthguard rule seemed like a bad joke.
When I’d pointed out to Molly that you broke your knuckles if you didn’t wrap your hands, she’d asked, confused, “Why does it matter if you break your knuckles? They heal in two days. What’s the problem?”
They were all masochists.
“Get what?” Molly asked.
She peppered me with a three-punch combo that somehow left my arm, stomach, and face burning before I even realized it had happened.
I tried to bounce back and forth on my toes like she’d taught me and gasped out, “Why tell me to protect my face, then punch low?”
Molly didn’t respond, just said, “Protect your face.”
I hunched to protect my organs, and she slammed her bare knuckles into my cheek.
The crack echoed loudly, and I barely kept myself on my feet.
“That!” I spat out more blood and ignored the bloody saliva dribbling down my chin.
After three days of being beaten on by Molly, any confidence in my abilities had been completely eviscerated.
A tiny part of me enjoyed the beatdown.
All I had was a terrifying shifted form and a creepy ability to enslave people with my blood.
I didn’t have any in-between capability.
Like if someone stole my purse on the street, what was I going to do, enslave them? Shift into a saber-toothed tiger and maul them?
That would be overdramatic and embarrassing.
As far as I’d come since the day I’d discovered I was an alpha in the shifter realm, I still had a ways to go before I achieved any sort of physical mastery over myself.
Training with Molly, I could taste the control within reach.
Plus, if half-breeds were wanted, then my powers were more of a curse than any blessing.
If I relied on them to protect me, I was signing my death warrant.
Molly casually threw another three-punch combo, which I barely dodged.
She said wisely, “You don’t solve a problem by causing another one.”
I mulled her words over in my head.
“You need to protect yourself.”
Molly swung a roundhouse kick, and I dropped to the mat to avoid her powerful thigh.
She stalked after me, and I rolled away across the mat of the fighting ring.
I flipped onto my feet, a move I’d learned in the fae gladiator ring, and dodged another powerful fist.
Molly smirked as she shook out her impressive biceps.
She was shirtless in only a sports bra and sweatpants, and her six-pack of muscles rippled as she floated gracefully back and forth.
Body goals.
Molly threw a lightning-fast punch that clipped my stomach.
As I keeled over, choking, she said, “To be an alpha in the Mafia is an honor you can’t even begin to understand as an outsider. But with anything that is an honor, you have to work to deserve it.”
Molly’s leg shot out impossibly fast, and I sprang into the air, easily jumping over it.
She paused for a moment, clearly surprised by my athleticism.
If I hadn’t known what my body could do while numb, I would have been surprised.
Impossibly fast. She slammed a fist into my arm and used her momentum to kick me into the rope along the side of the ring.
Molly spoke casually, like she hadn’t just almost killed me, “Every alpha in this room is the best of the best. In Serpentine City, either alphas are unstoppably strong, or they die in these trials. There is no in-between. That means your foes in the ring will do everything to break you. Mind games and cunning are commonplace, so you need to be prepared.”
I nodded shakily as I bounced more quickly back and forth on my toes.
Molly’s one-two punches moved in a blur around my body as I focused on regulating my breathing and dodging the avalanche of attacks.
The quicker I avoided her blows, the faster Molly punched.
Air vibrated around us with the screaming angst of the music, rattling the ring and shaking my toes.
I dodged faster.
Soon my mind blanked as the sensation of displaced air tickled my flesh in the spaces where I moved away from her fists.
Dodge, jump, move, shift right, shift left, flinch down, roll, step back, step back, duck right, duck left, stomach punch, jump back.
The conversation was over.
My heart rate slowed, and the more relaxed I became, the quicker I moved.
I dodged faster than I could while numb.
Empty static fizzled in my brain.
As I sank deeper into my defense, Molly clicked her attacks into higher and higher gears.
I distantly noted that her face was split in a massive grin, her eyes slightly unfocused, as she lost herself.
It didn’t matter that she moved unnaturally fast, as fast as Cobra and Jax when they sparred, if not faster.
She couldn’t touch me.
The song pounding through the gym switched to a faster beat, something more fevered and uncontrolled. A male screeched in cadence to slashing noises and screams.
Static in my brain pounded to the rhythm.
As my breath and heart rate slowed, my muscles twitched nimbly until I wasn’t reacting to punches.
I knew what Molly would do before she did it.
Future, present, and past melded into one.
A sensation of flying rushed through my veins, and euphoria burst across my brain.
Lightning in a bottle.
But some heights weren’t meant to be reached by mortals.
I screamed as the euphoria twisted into pain, and it shocked my cells, immobilizing my muscles.
Molly’s unrestrained blows were blasts of dynamite that cracked across my flesh and brought the agony to a fever pitch.
Her mouth formed an o of shock as I crumpled.
The world went dark.
