Metamorphosis—Day 36, hour 11
“You’re in my bed,” John said.
I grunted and rubbed morning grit from my eyes, confused why he was pointing out the obvious.
Humans really weren’t the brightest.
My ears were still sensitive, but the ringing sensation was mostly gone.
I cracked my neck back and forth as I stretched and took stock of my injuries.
On a pain scale of one to ten, I was at a nine, which was an improvement because when my back was cracking, I’d been at a one thousand.
We loved personal growth.
It took my tired brain a second to process that John was looming over the bed like a dark, angry god. His dimples were gone, and a menacing energy surrounded him.
Long moments of silence stretched as he glared down at me.
It hit me.
Mr. Hyde is back.
I’d been wondering when John would make his personality switch, and it looked like it had finally happened.
“Aran?” he asked with narrowed eyes.
They were the same dark eyes that had stared down at me as I’d sat on his lap with him throbbing inside me.
I squeezed my legs together. I still ached from where he’d taken me.
A wave of self-consciousness, confusion, and regret hit me like a brick, and I pulled the pillow over my head. “Yes, John?”
Silence.
I peeked behind the pillow, and John’s face was contorted into harsh angles by a deep scowl.
The air shimmered darkly around him.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, although I knew the answer.
He wasn’t. The crushing weight on my chest quadrupled until it felt like a spear pinned me to the mattress.
What we’d done had triggered some type of psychological breakdown inside him.
John said nothing.
He stood unnaturally still and kept glaring.
I wanted to cry because I knew we were both thinking about it.
From his expression, he was having a lot of regrets.
Mr. Hyde was always quiet and brooding, I reminded myself. Maybe it just seemed worse because he hadn’t switched personalities in a while? He’d seemed fine last night.
“Everyone, wake up. We leave for breakfast in thirty minutes,” Malum barked out from across the room.
He hung shirtless from the bathroom doorframe by his fingertips. “We’ll deal with Lothaire’s announcement when the problem arises.” Bronze arms glistened as he banged out pull-ups. “Everyone needs to focus on being strong.”
Malum stared at me, and his harsh expression softened. “Are you feeling better?”
Great, he was having an episode.
I looked away, pulled the covers over my head, and pretended to sleep. I literally couldn’t handle Malum acting like he was nice.
I also tried to ignore that John hadn’t moved away from the bed and was looming over me.
Sure, Mr. Hyde was normally silent and brooding, but this was a lot.
Even for him.
I was surrounded by certifiable men.
When I gathered the courage to leave my blanket fort and go to the bathroom, John narrowed his eyes at me with distrust.
His energy was off as we walked to breakfast with a couple feet between us.
The space felt painfully awkward.
In the great hall, students fell silent as I passed.
When I got to the dais where the legions sat, feathers clattered together as all the angels turned to glare at me. The ice weapons strapped across their backs chilled the air.
Their captain turned to me and wrinkled his nose. “Sinful blood,” he spat as his mismatched eyes flashed.
I pretended he was also obsessed with me.
It was hard being popular.
A few tables down, Sadie gave me a friendly wave while Jax smiled, and their small acts of kindness meant everything.
I felt a little better.
Behind Sadie, Jinx mouthed, “Snap out of it,” and Cobra made a shockingly vulgar hand gesture. Jax slapped him.
Never mind.
I felt like shit.
As I sat down in my usual chair, I winced as my knees gave out.
Next to me John looked around the hall with wide eyes, and his gaze hovered on the bloody leviathan competitor crucified to the sacred tree.
Did he wish that was me?
I picked mindlessly at my lip.
The fae palace had felt like a prison, but I’d always known that one day I’d escape Mother.
Now I was trapped by so much more than one woman: the slave brand, queendom, enchanted wounds, the legion I’d been forced to join, and what I’d done to my friend.
Breathing shallowly through my nose, I tried to count but forgot how.
I broke out in a cold sweat.
Edges pressed in around me.
My vision blurred, and the world went quiet.
Someone pulled my fingers away from my lip and held my hands in a vise grip.
“Concentrate on me,” a man ordered from far away. “Feel my skin and focus on the pressure. Don’t think about your breath. Squeeze my hands as hard as you can.”
I obeyed.
“Just keep squeezing,” he commanded.
The touch was an anchor back to reality, and sounds slowly intensified.
I blinked, and my vision returned to normal.
Scorpius was leaning forward across the table with his hands holding mine.
His neck was flushed magenta like he was agitated.
Without a sneer contorting his face, he was extremely good-looking. His dark hair contrasted with his pale skin and the colorful eye tattoo on his neck. He wasn’t pretty like Orion. He was dangerously handsome. A collection of harsh lines and shadows.
“Just keep focusing on my touch,” Scorpius said as he squeezed my fingers. “I’ve used this technique with Orion countless times.”
My lips parted in surprise.
I forced myself not to look over at the quiet king.
“Thanks,” I said awkwardly to Scorpius as I started to pull my hands away from his. I felt weak and clammy but marginally better.
I didn’t need his help.
Scorpius’s callused grip tightened.
He didn’t let go.
I tugged against him. “I’m all good now. You can release me.”
Scorpius narrowed his eyes. “You’re obviously not good, because you just had a panic attack over breakfast.” He didn’t let go. “You need to take care of yourself.”
John looked back and forth between us with his eyebrows raised.
“Why do you care?” I struggled against his grip aimlessly. Why were his fingers so damn strong?
Scorpius’s lips pursed into a thin line. He paused, then murmured, “Because I’m the reason you finished last. I’m the reason you and John were punished.”
I frowned.
“Yep.” I nodded as I thought about it. “It really was your fault.”
Silence.
Eye tattoo twitching, Scorpius snarled, “You’re supposed to disagree. It was your own inability to move quickly that made you lose.” He yanked my hands across the table closer to him. “I can’t believe you’d blame your unconscious teammate for your failures.”
I scoffed.
“Please,” I said. “You just admitted that you were the problem. Who takes a nap during a challenge that could cause death?”
I yanked back and knocked over a glass of ale.
Scorpius’s jaw dropped, but he didn’t release me. “Sorry that I’m blind and have extremely sensitive hearing.” He squeezed hard. “My ears still fucking hurt.”
“Does your face hurt?” I asked with concern.
He furrowed his brow. “No. Why?”
“Because it’s killing me,” I said snottily, grateful that Jinx used that comeback every time Sadie complained about something.
Silverware clattered.
Vegar sputtered water and choked while Zenith slapped his back.
Instead of defusing the tension like I’d planned, my joke had caused Scorpius to still like he was frozen.
Hurt flashed across his face.
Wait. Does he think he’s ugly?
He had to know he was disturbingly handsome. Right?
I slumped in my seat.
“I was joking,” I said with a sigh. It was hard work being such a good person. “I’m fully aware that it’s no one’s fault but my own. I took too long during the competition, and then I didn’t refuse the punishment like I should have.” My voice cracked. “I never should have…with John.”
I trailed off, unable to say it.
Any softness on Scorpius’s face melted away, and I was left with the cruel, blind king who bullied me.
His fingernails pressed harshly against my skin.
Malum burst into flames beside him.
Orion scowled.
John sat up straighter beside me.
Malum pointed over at the sacred tree. “You’re telling me you wish you were also strung up on the tree right now?”
I spoke without hesitation. “Absolutely. That would have been the right thing to do.”
Jinx’s statements about righteousness flashed through my mind.
She’d said I had to try to be a better person, then I’d gone and done the worst thing of my life.
Ever been the problem?
Same.
Malum growled like a feral animal, and Orion slammed his cup onto the table.
Scorpius squeezed my hands until my bones cracked. “You’re an idiot,” he sneered.
I couldn’t believe I’d wasted a second of my life feeling bad for him.
Struggling against his painful grip, I shook my head and said, “You couldn’t even pretend to be a decent person for five seconds without showing your true colors.”
His eye tattoo blinked lazily like it was seeing through me.
The jerk still hadn’t let me go.
“You think you’re so high and mighty because you’re a queen?” Scorpius tugged me forward across the table, and plates clattered. “You don’t get to judge me. You’re an indolent despot. A product of nepotism. Meanwhile I earned my title with nothing but pure power.”
I scoffed.
“You forget that my title was also earned,” I said haughtily. “I’ve suffered more to be queen than you can even imagine.” I trembled with rage.
Scorpius narrowed his eyes.
Blood dripped across my hand and down my forearm from where he was stabbing me with his nails.
“If that were true, then you wouldn’t act so fucking pathetic. Saying you’d rather be nailed to the tree and blaming me for your shortcomings. Weak. How can someone be so brave one moment and so uncaring about their own life the next?”
I saw red.
I was. Not. Weak.
A monster roared in my head and banged against its cage.
No. There was no monster.
It was just my anger.
Compartmentalizing and removing myself from my emotions was a crutch I’d promised myself I would stop using. It was a sign of insanity.
Was I perfect? No. Sometimes I dissociated for days and murdered people.
But did that make me a bad person? Yes. It definitely did.
But at least I wasn’t insane. Not yet.
It was all I had left.
I squeezed my hands as hard as I could and curled my fingernails so I gouged Scorpius back. “You don’t get to speak to me like you know me.”
“We’ve trained and lived together for months,” he snarled back. “We do know each other.”
Zenith banged his fist on the table. “Stop making a scene. The other legions are staring at us.”
Malum’s flames shot higher into the air. “Since Arabella wishes she’d chosen to be tortured, I think a scene is necessary.”
“Oh, please,” I spat, vision getting darker every second Scorpius didn’t release me. “Don’t act like you care.”
Malum leaned forward.
Flames trailed up the side of his neck as he said, “You don’t get to tell me what I feel. I’ve decided that someone needs to care about you, because you clearly aren’t doing it. I agree the whole slave thing has been a little harsh. I’m sorry if I got carried away with it. Even if my anger gets the best of me, I don’t want to see you suffer.”
I gaped at him. Unable to form a single coherent word.
Did he just talk about his feelings? Did he just apologize?
I knew Malum was not lecturing me about emotional maturity, because that would be ridiculous.
There were rocks that were more emotionally aware than him.
“I’m your captain,” Malum finished awkwardly as scarlet stained the tops of his cheeks, like somehow that explained everything. The blush seemed out of place amongst the harsh angles of his face.
The other men shifted at the table and gave him strange looks.
“Slave,” John mouthed as his eyes clouded. He always bristled when the kings called me that.
“You’re not going to call me ‘slave’ anymore?” I asked slowly.
A muscle in Malum’s jaw jumped. “No.” He grunted, and his bronze cheeks flushed redder. “I never meant it like that.”
My jaw hit the floor.
How many connotations of “slave” were there? One.
Was this man for real right now?
I blinked slowly.
He was really trying to gaslight me into thinking he hadn’t treated me like scum since I’d met him. Good thing I’d never lacked confidence in myself.
I knew I was right.
Was I depressed? Yes. Was I never wrong? Also yes. The two were not mutually exclusive.
“That’s exactly how you meant it,” I snarled at Malum. Annoyed that we were even having this stupid conversation.
Flames jumped off Malum’s skull. “Well, I don’t mean it like that anymore.”
“Good for you.” I laughed sarcastically.
I shoved myself backward with so much force that Scorpius had no choice but to release my hands or break my wrists. Cups clattered, and food spilled.
Now that my hands were free, I used them to clap at Malum mockingly.
“We’re trying to help after…” Scorpius hissed and tilted his head in John’s direction.
His insinuation was clear.
It hit me like a physical blow.
I stopped clapping.
Fingers shook.
I pulled out my pipe and shoved it between my lips, and it clattered against my teeth.
“What’s wrong with you? Why would you bring that up?” Orion whispered as he shoved at Scorpius.
At least Orion cared.
Just not enough.
“I’m trying to help!” Scorpius threw his hands in the air.
Malum looked at me with pity and said something, but the whooshing sensation had returned to my ears, and everything became garbled.
I didn’t want his remorse.
I wanted his blood.
A crushing sensation expanded from my chest into my stomach. Digging my fingernails into my palm, I tried to stay present. Tried to fight off the fugue.
Oblivion swallowed me whole.
The haze returned.
I was barely aware of the meal ending, of moving down the hall and going outside to run.
A student jostled against me in the hall, and he said something. I stared back blankly. He recoiled. Tripped in his haste to get away.
Could he see the darkness in my eyes?
I blinked.
I was twenty miles deep into a run, jogging beside John.
Sulfur stung my nose, and the bitter wind was a relief against clammy skin.
It felt like I was living in a dream within a dream.
A nightmare within a nightmare.
The tribulations continued.
Clashes echoed like thunder. High above the island, angels slammed their ice swords together. They thrust and parried, wings clattering as they flapped.
Wind howled, and tendrils of hair slapped my face as curls pulled out of my braids.
I was covered in a thick sheen of sweat. My bare feet were numb from pounding against rocks, lungs burning from exertion.
John loped silently beside me with a scowl on his face.
We ran at the back of our legion, with the other five men a few yards ahead of us.
“You back?” John asked in a clipped voice.
I nodded.
He turned forward.
We ran five more miles in comfortable silence. Mr. Hyde was never a big talker.
I cleared my throat.
John glanced down at me.
I gathered my courage and said, “Sorry about all that at breakfast. Do you need anything from me after…” I trailed off awkwardly. “Can I help make it better?”
I glanced up and wished I hadn’t.
John’s scowl deepened, and shadows hovered around him.
He opened and closed his mouth, then asked slowly, “What are you apologizing for doing to me?”
His phrasing was weird, and my stomach twisted in knots.
Did he want me to beg for forgiveness?
Mr. Hyde always had an intensity that put me on edge.
I took a deep breath. Stop being a baby. You’ve wronged him. The kings are right, you’re making this all about yourself.
“I’m-sorry-for-raping-you,” I said as fast as I could.
John’s eyes widened.
He stopped running, and the shadows around him expanded until the air shimmered with a black void.
“What are you doing?” Malum called as he looked back at John, who stood on the shore, getting left further and further behind.
I turned and ran back to where John was unmoving. “Hey, what are you—”
John lunged forward and picked me off the ground by my shoulders. He squeezed, and it felt like I was suffocating.
I stared into his dark eyes.
John barked with anger, “Did you say ‘rape’?”
I nodded and winced as he squeezed tighter.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
John screamed like a broken man.
Then I was airborne.
Slam.
I crashed against a wave.
It felt like I’d hit solid rock.
He threw me into the sea.
Water filled my lungs, and I choked as the rough surf pulled me under.
John wanted me dead.
Just like Sari.
To know me was to hate me. How was a person supposed to live with that?
Waves slammed my limp form against rocks, then sucked me out to sea.
Edges.
Everywhere.
I would have cried if I’d had anything left to feel.
Numbness swallowed me.
Maybe it was the haze. Maybe I passed out. Maybe I died but my heart wasn’t consumed so my queendom revived me. Or maybe my heart was eaten and the slave brand brought me back to life.
More tribulations.
Either way, the next thing I knew, I was lying on the shore while Orion slammed his hands against my chest in compressions.
His white-blond hair and clothes were soaking wet.
Stunning almond-shaped brown eyes were manic. Wide with terror. His pupils dilated.
Above him Scorpius loomed. He slapped my cheek and yelled, “Wake up!”
A few feet away, Malum was trying to slam his flaming fists into John.
The darkness around John shimmered like a tangible force, and he moved so quickly that Malum never landed a blow.
Salty water flooded my throat.
Orion pushed me onto my left side, and water gurgled out of my mouth.
Nose burning, eyes hurting from the pressure, I could do nothing but gag and choke.
“Sweetheart?” Orion whispered as his face hovered inches from mine. Wetness clung to his long lashes and dripped onto me.
I pushed away from him and got to my feet.
I stumbled across the rocks to where Malum was trying to hurt my friend.
When I saw an opening, I threw my aching body between them and blocked Malum.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Malum snarled, silver eyes hard as steel as flames danced off his shaved head in a creepy-looking crown.
“Do not hurt John.” I coughed up salty water.
“Really?” Scorpius yelled as he and Orion stalked toward us. “You’re going to side with the fucker who just threw you into the sea to die?”
The demons sat casually on a boulder and watched everything play out with bored expressions.
“Yes,” I said forcefully. “I will always defend him from you three.”
“He tried to kill you!” Malum bellowed to the sky.
Thankfully the angels were flying on the other side of the island and no one was around to see our legion falling to pieces.
“I deserved it,” I said through gritted teeth. “We all process trauma differently. John is allowed to hate me.”
John said something behind me, but I couldn’t hear it over the howling wind.
“What did you say?” I asked as I turned to him.
His voice was menacing as he said, “I’m not John.”
The ocean crashed across the rocks as if to punctuate his statement.
“What?” I said as I stared at my friend dumbly.
“I’m not John.”
Everyone turned to him.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I’m Luka, his twin.”
Time paused.
Jaws dropped.
Everything clicked into place with disturbing clarity.
John’s two dramatically distinct personalities. How he’d switch from being talkative and friendly to silent and brooding. He’d spend days saying nothing. Lothaire had told us we already knew our substitute. Last night, John had whispered to me he was sorry after he’d heard there would be a substitution.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were two separate men.
Mr. Hyde is Luka.
John had an angry twin.
And he was standing in front of me, seething because I’d hurt his brother.
“What?” Vegar asked from the rocks. “There’s been two of you for years and none of us noticed?”
John—no, Luka—gave a curt nod.
“Holy fuck,” Zenith said.
If that didn’t sum it all up.
I leaned forward and vomited water all over Luka’s bare feet.
He glared down at me with disgust.
“Nice to meet you,” I croaked.
Luka said nothing.
I remembered the hours I’d clung to Mr. Hyde in the black sea.
The hours he’d fought beside me in battles.
How he’d hauled my pathetic ass across these rocks.
He’d spent long days sitting next to me silently in class.
We’d shared a bed.
Trained until we couldn’t stand without leaning against each other.
Held each other up as we bled.
Shared meals.
All that time together and I didn’t even know who he really was.
Luka cleared his throat. “You’re Aran. And you hurt John,” he stated matter-of-factly.
Air whistled through my lips as I sighed heavily.
I nodded as I realized his voice was slightly deeper than John’s. Was that why he never talked?
His eyebrows furrowed with confusion.
Oh, he meant I was Aran. I rubbed at my bruised face. “Yeah, I was disguised as a man.”
Luka turned around slowly.
Grabbed a boulder and chucked it as far as he could while he let out a war scream.
The hair on the backs of my arms stood up.
My knees gave out, and I sat back on the nearest rock, which put me right next to the demons.
“Well, I didn’t see this coming,” I said to Zenith.
He didn’t turn to look at me and said in a deadpan voice, “Don’t speak to me.”
I nodded in agreement and lay back. He liked to rib on me. That was how our friendship went.
I sucked on my pipe and blew out Horse.
Luka threw another boulder hundreds of feet across the shore.
Crash.
Rocks exploded on a gloomy beach.
Horse flapped his wings lazily as he flew higher into the sky, backlit by the eldritch eclipse. Celestial bodies consumed the sky.
I inhaled drugs, smoke pouring from my lips.
Malum ranted. He screamed something about being team captain and everyone keeping secrets from him. He said a lot of words.
I watched Horse longingly, wishing I could also fly away.
