Metamorphosis—Day 45, hour 10.
I touched my toes.
Palming the grass of the arena, I stretched and focused on releasing the tightness in my calves and thighs as I prepared for the third competition.
It had all started when I was born.
After that, everything had gone to absolute shit.
It had also started this morning at 5:00 a.m., when the bedroom door had slammed open.
Startled out of a pleasant dream where I was eating my mother’s heart, I’d sat up from the floor, disoriented in a cocoon of blankets.
Blinking bleary eyes, I’d barely been able to make out the vampyre’s figure in the darkness.
Lothaire had pointed his finger at me and barked, “Arabella, why have you been chosen to compete again? Vegar, Zenith, and Luka, you’ve also been selected.”
His single eye had glared at me accusingly like it was my fault the gods hated me.
I’d pulled the blankets back over my head and gone to sleep.
At some point, you stopped caring and accepted that life was not worth living.
I’d reached that point fifteen years ago.
Now, as I stretched on the field of the arena and waited for the competition to begin, there was a sharp pounding in the front of my skull.
I pressed delicately at the bruises on my face and winced.
Shockingly, pushing on the contusions while I prayed for death didn’t help with pain management.
I tilted my face up to the wind.
The party had been three days ago, and I still had a headache.
The fact that my drunk self had had the audacity to climb into a shower with the kings and then sleep in their bed was beyond my understanding.
My memories were foggy.
The only good thing was the kings hadn’t mentioned it, and the three of us just went on pretending I hadn’t gotten naked in front of them.
The hangover kept me distracted.
Turned out drinking three full bottles of demon brew in a few hours resulted in a feeling similar to an elephant stomping on your skull.
In the future, I’d stop at two bottles.
People always said that moderation was the key to a happy life. Although, who were these supposed happy people?
They sounded fake.
I stretched my legs as far as they could go without pulling open my stitches.
Good news was that the dozens of cuts covering my body were now healing over. Bad news was that I was now covered in inflamed, crusty scabs.
Physically, I was hideous.
Mentally, I was worse.
Spiritually, I was a slut.
So basically everything evened itself out and I was thriving.
I made a point not to look across the field at the spectators because sun god forbid I make eye contact with one of the kings. Every time I saw them, images of soapy skin, naked muscles, and gore flashed through my mind.
My memories from the party before the shower were like a twisted nightmare.
Bodies jumped in a big crush to the rhythm of the pounding music, and three devil kings stood still in the middle of it all.
They were covered in blood.
Tendrils of smoke rose off Malum.
Violence incarnate.
A broken man moaned pitifully on the ground.
Scorpius smiled, and his white teeth glowed in the darkness.
He lifted his powerful thigh and stomped on the carcass at his feet. Bones snapped. Corvus and Orion joined him.
And then I’d let them condition my hair and crawled into bed with them like it was fine?
Who did that?
As I thought about it, bile filled my throat.
They were soulless monsters that lacked empathy. I knew this. But every time they proved it, something inside me died a little more.
At the party, I’d watched in horror as my drunk mind could not comprehend the level of depravity that was unfolding before me. Luka had pulled me away until the devils were lost in the crowd.
Malum had acted like he didn’t want me to see what was happening, like he cared. But then he’d gone back to join his mates torturing a person.
I wasn’t a good person.
But there were lines that had to be drawn.
Things that shouldn’t be done.
The devils crossed all of them.
Right?
A part of me was sick to my stomach because I wasn’t sick to my stomach over what they’d done.
That was what was really making me feel nauseous.
It was a horrible cycle.
I needed to be terrified of them. Yet I cuddled them like they were warm little teddy bears?
The worst part was I’d slept like a babe. Hands down best sleep of my life.
I felt like I’d been taken care of. Pampered. Cared for.
Which made no sense.
Because I wasn’t.
Now, as the harsh scarlet light of the eclipse washed over me, dark memories prodded and poked at my psyche.
The haze was getting less linear and more circular.
Everything was jumbled.
The marble floor of the fae palace was icy beneath my sprawled limbs, and everything hurt.
Flames pulled me apart.
Mother launched into one of her mad rambles. “They thought they could force me out, but look what I became. Me, powerless? Unworthy?” She cackled. “Can you even imagine?”
“Mercy,” I begged her.
Blue flames covered every inch of my skin. They never burned.
Mother spoke like she hadn’t heard me. “It’s so sad how weak you are. So much weaker than I was at your age. Twelve years old and all you do is whine and complain. You’ll never even get the chance to fail like I did.”
The memory was so vibrant and crystal clear that it felt more like reality than the grass beneath my bare feet.
I aggressively grabbed my calves and pressed my forehead to my shins as I stretched.
A stitch popped.
You’re in the arena. It’s the day of the third competition. Stay present.
It didn’t work.
The day after the party, Malum had watched me climb out of his bed with a worried expression.
Like he cared. Men were so audacious.
For the next three days, we’d trained like our lives depended on it. We’d run until our feet cramped and lifted boulders until our hands were blistered.
Malum had kept asking me if I wanted to rest. He’d even offered to let me sit out of the runs so I could heal. Orion kept holding doors open for me, and Scorpius had stopped sneering at me and started sneering at people who bumped into me in the halls.
So. Bizarre.
In response to Malum’s inane question about needing rest, I’d sprinted the fastest and set the pace. The kings had run beside me in companionable silence.
So strange.
Everything was getting all jumbled.
Each night since, I’d fallen asleep on the floor by the hearth as flames screamed expletives at me.
No one talked about the three men who were brutalized because I’d consented to their touch.
Yesterday, I’d seen one of the blue-haired men walking alone in the hallway. The other men were probably recovering somewhere.
His face was so swollen that I wouldn’t have been able to recognize him if not for his blue hair. He’d whimpered when he’d seen me and quickly limped away.
I’d tried to go after him and apologize.
Luka had blocked my path and said, “He got what was coming to him.” At his words, my limbs had gone numb.
Orion had nodded and whispered, “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
Before I could say no, Scorpius had sneered, “Those men were scum. Do not let it get to you.”
“Don’t waste your energy on them,” Malum had said gruffly.
I’d turned to him with surprise. Arched my brow at him.
Had he really been trying to console me?
The tops of his sculpted bronze cheekbones had flushed maroon. He’d pulled at the neck of his shirt, and he’d looked away.
I’d been so surprised by how the kings were treating me I’d forgotten all about the blue-haired men.
I hadn’t known what to say, so I’d put my head down and smoked my pipe.
Now, as air slapped against my cheeks, I noted dispassionately that it was windier than usual.
The ocean crashed against the shore and sprayed salty water. Droplets peppered my clammy flesh.
I inhaled enchanted smoke.
All the competitors stretched on the field and waited for Lyla.
Vegar said something to Zenith, and Luka nodded in agreement. The three of them stretched on the grass beside me.
Loud music played, and bones crunched. A femur snapped beneath Scorpius’s feet.
I blinked.
Rubbed at my eyes.
Wind whipped my unbraided curls into a frenzy.
Mother lit me on fire.
I lay back on the grass and stared up at the sky. Dark clouds drifted in front of the eclipse and cast the realm into darkness.
I closed my eyes and rolled them back in my head until my brain went fuzzy and it felt like I was spinning.
The planet rotated beneath me.
“Are you ready, Aran?”
I opened my eyes.
My three teammates stared above me and waited for a response. I wasn’t sure who had spoken.
“Yeah.” My voice cracked, dry and rough because I hadn’t spoken a word in three days.
I stood in the middle of a party.
Blue flames swallowed me.
John gripped my tattooed hip.
My back cracked and burned.
“Sinful blood,” an angel spat.
I shivered on the floor of the fae palace.
Malum, Scorpius, and Orion kissed one another.
Red flames burned my skin off.
I held a strangely shaped ice dagger.
A villager sobbed. I stabbed them.
I screamed as I tried to leave the kings.
Jinx’s eyes went black.
“WHORE” was written across my back.
Malum conditioned my hair.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Vegar asked as he stared down at me with a frown.
It felt like I lifted a million pounds as I forced my lips up into a smile. The wind whipped around us.
“Of course.” I forced out a chuckle and asked, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Three sets of eyes narrowed.
I laughed louder. “Seriously, I’m good.”
The demons shrugged and walked away, but Luka kept staring at me.
My smile dropped.
I contorted my body forward, grabbed both my feet, and pressed my nose against my knees as I stretched my hamstrings.
A manic chuckle escaped my lips, and I pressed them into my knees to silence the noise.
Is this how my mother went mad?
Had the haze warped her time and cut her reality into pieces?
Had chunks of her life passed without her noticing, while the worst moments stretched painfully long?
When she was fourteen years old, had she also woken up one day to find that the world was a colder place?
Had everyone watched her with nervous expressions as she’d lied to their faces?
I would ask her, but alas, I’d ripped out her heart and eaten it. So that wasn’t an option.
“Stay focused.” Luka squatted and clapped his hand across my back encouragingly.
I swallowed a scream.
Pain lanced my spine like I’d been stabbed with a hot poker.
Lothaire’s enchanted voice boomed around the stadium, “This challenge is very specific. Daggers, swords, and talons are the only weapons that competitors can use. These weapons must also be manifestations of a competitor’s power. No outside weapons are allowed. You cannot share your weapons with a teammate. Everyone must use their own.”
The student section murmured with excitement.
Lothaire continued, “The goal is to draw a competitor’s blood. When blood is drawn, an enchanted black X will hover in the air above the injured person’s head. The first team whose members are all injured will be the losers. They will be punished.”
I stood up.
His words washed over me, and reality clicked into harsh focus.
Everything was crisp.
The individual strands of vibrant green grass swayed in the wind.
I pulled the fractured pieces of my psyche together. Pushed my shoulders back and flexed my butt for stability.
Adrenaline pounded through my veins, and my heart pumped frantically in my chest.
I looked around the arena and studied who we’d be competing against.
The angels and leviathans also had four competitors each. The assassins, shifters, and devils had two competitors each.
More competitors means we have more chances to draw blood but also means it will be harder to protect one another from attacks. It will be easy to separate us. We’ll have to stick together in a formation and focus on offense. Attacking first will be our best strategy.
“Present your weapons now,” Lothaire ordered. “Daggers, swords, and talons only. If you do not present it for inspection, you cannot use it.”
I tucked my pipe away in my pocket and concentrated on the well of rage inside me.
It was disturbingly easy.
There was a twinge across my back, and two familiar ice daggers shimmered into existence in my hands.
I flipped the irregularly shaped weapons into the air. They were light and sharp. I felt safer and more competent holding them.
Beside me, Vegar made a grunting noise as inky black lines expanded down his face and the side of his neck. Ink poured off his black fingertips and defied gravity.
The tendrils swarmed together and formed into an impressive broadsword.
Zenith smirked as he brandished the same black weapon.
The lower halves of both their faces were covered in ink like they were wearing creepy masks.
Note to self: don’t piss off the demons.
Across the field, angels smirked as they brandished ice swords, while devils bared their teeth and brandished swords of fire.
Meter-long talons erupted from the hands of the leviathans.
Beside them the assassins punched at their forearms with blank expressions. My jaw dropped as they gouged their skin, then pulled out pieces of cracked bone. The bone shards expanded and shaped into daggers.
They tossed bone weapons back and forth in their hands like their forearms weren’t gaping open, pouring blood.
Did they not feel pain?
Highly unsettling.
On the other side of the field, Jax let out a low growl as he partially shifted and flashed bear claws. Sadie furrowed her brow and hovered a sphere of blood before her eyes. She smiled as the plasma took the shape of a dagger.
Wow.
That was new.
Vegar and Zenith swore violently. I turned back to my teammates to see what the commotion was.
Both demons stared at Luka with frowns.
It took me a second to realize the problem.
Fuck.
The air around Luka glimmered black, but he didn’t have a weapon.
His cheeks tinged pink as the darkness disappeared. He looked down at his hands with defeat, unable to make eye contact with any of us.
My heart pounded harder in my chest.
New plan.
We had three competitors and one liability, so we needed to focus on protecting Luka. Instead of offense, we needed to prioritize defense.
Luka rubbed at the back of his neck.
“It’s fine,” I said and pulled my teammates into a huddle. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
I explained my plan, and the demons nodded in agreement.
Luka frowned. “No,” he spat.
“It’s the only realistic thing we can do to ensure we don’t lose,” I explained slowly.
Luka rubbed at his face. “I don’t—”
He was cut off by a loud horn and Lothaire shouting, “The brandished weapons are accepted. Begin.”
The arena erupted in violence.
Competitors threw themselves at one another.
A few Xs popped up above the heads of people who weren’t quick enough to avoid the attacks.
The demons and I fell back into a protective circle around Luka. He hunched low and made himself small behind us like we’d planned, swearing loudly to make it clear he disagreed.
We shuffled backward as a group.
I held my dagger out in front of me, and the demons pointed their swords forward. We moved swiftly across the field until Luka’s back was pressed against a pillar.
The three of us formed a wall in front of our weaponless teammate.
Salty air stung my wide eyes.
We waited.
It didn’t take long for the conflict to find us.
Across the field, two angels pointed their mammoth ice swords at us. I was grateful the demons also had oversized weapons or we’d be fucked.
Seconds later there was a crash as flaming ice slammed against ink.
Blue locked against black.
With their swords intertwined, I darted forward and slashed my daggers across the angels’ exposed biceps. Unlike when I’d stabbed the shifters in the beast realm, they didn’t disintegrate into dust. Sad.
Blood welled and dripped from the normal-looking wounds, but two black Xs appeared over their heads.
I grinned and darted back in front of Luka protectively.
The angels snarled with frustration, and their eyes darkened. They both disengaged their swords and locked onto a new target. Me.
They had nothing left to lose.
It was pure retribution.
Everything played out in slow motion—I couldn’t move because I had to protect the human behind me.
I stayed in place.
Zenith and Vegar lunged on either side of me and tried to parry the attack, but the angle was awkward. Their swords slowed the descent but didn’t stop it completely.
One ice sword slammed into my stomach, and the other stabbed my thigh.
I bit down on my tongue, and copper flooded my mouth.
A black X appeared over my head.
They shoved forward with all their might to try to get past me.
I didn’t move.
Dug my toes into the dirt and widened my stance.
Luka grabbed my shoulder and started to try to pull me behind him.
I shoved forward out of his grip.
“No!” I shouted. “Stick to the plan. This is the plan.”
Luka released me but let out a trail of creative expletives that would make the most hardened soldiers blush, something about Zeus, a firebolt, and a man’s ass.
Vegar and Zenith slammed their swords at the angels and took a step forward out of position.
I shook my head and yelled, “The plan!”
The demons fell back.
For what felt like forever, the angels tried and failed to draw blood from Vegar and Zenith. Sweat poured off the angels’ faces as they growled with frustration.
The demons grinned through their black ink masks.
They were completely unfazed and fought like their swords were extensions of themselves. It was wicked.
Finally, the angels realized they were wasting their time fighting against men they wouldn’t beat. They swore and ran off.
“The plan is working,” I croaked as I pressed my palm against the wound on my thigh.
My fingers were drenched in blood.
“The plan is idiotic,” Luka growled.
Something rustled behind me. Then he was gripping my thigh with both his hands and wrapping his sock around my wound. I grunted as he tied it tightly and created a tourniquet.
It felt like the air had dropped ten degrees, and I shivered. “Th-Th-Thanks.”
“Shut up,” Luka snarled.
How had I ever thought he was John?
Across the field, a lone leviathan was jogging while scanning competitors, looking for people without Xs.
He locked eyes with Luka and the demons.
He sprinted forward with his wicked talons, which looked more like knives, pointed at us.
The demons and I widened our stances and palmed our weapons.
Sweat dripped into my eye.
I didn’t blink.
A few moments later, Vegar, Zenith, and the leviathan had Xs floating above their heads. The demons and I were bleeding from a dozen scratches.
My cheek stung from where the side of a claw had clipped my face.
When the leviathan’s talons had raked over the sword wound on my thigh, I’d had enough. He’d skirted too far backward for me to hit him with my dagger and protect Luka. I’d snapped my arm in his direction and flung the ice dagger like a throwing star.
The leviathan had staggered backward with an O of surprise on his lips and a crystal dagger in his gut. His tan skin had paled, and his lips had faded to a ghastly shade of blue.
He’d scampered away across the field like a wounded animal and taken my dagger with him.
Vegar high-fived me.
All three of us slumped forward with relief.
“What the fuck!” Luka bellowed in my ear, and he gnashed his teeth. “You. Needed. That. Dagger.”
I shrugged. “He was pissing me off. I still have one.”
As I held my remaining dagger up to the light, my sleeve fell off. Gashes covered every inch of my right arm.
Damn.
I’d been hit a lot.
“Fucking Hades,” Luka growled.
I missed when he’d refused to speak.
“Swearing is the sign of a weak mind,” I repeated Jinx’s statement. In my defense, she was the scariest person I knew and had good sayings.
Luka snarled, “Fuck yourself.”
Someone was clearly not open to self-improvement.
Sad.
In a move no one was expecting, Luka reached down and pulled off his shirt.
I opened my mouth to tell him that now was not the time to act like a pervert, but he pressed the fabric down on my arm to stanch the bleeding.
A lot of smooth olive skin was on display.
Luka no longer looked identical to John.
I stared at the silver chain of skulls dangling between his pierced nipples. It attached to another skull chain that hung low and wrapped around his lean, tattooed abs.
I gawked.
Black wings spread across his chest, and a serpent trailed down his abs. A key, a skull, a pomegranate, a chariot, a mint plant, the moon, and a three-headed dog were scattered across his torso.
Oh.
Familiar pain streaked down my spine.
I’d seen John shirtless, and he definitely didn’t have tattoos or piercings. Now that I thought about it, when I’d thought John was Mr. Hyde, he’d always gone into the bathroom to change.
I’d assumed it was because he was in a bad mood and needed space. It was really because his body would have given him away.
Objectively, it was a nice body.
Subjectively, immediate smash.
“Concentrate, you dumbass. Pay attention to the other competitors,” Jinx’s voice sounded in my head and startled me out of my trance.
Great, I’d accidentally summoned the demon child.
“Are you even listening to me?” Luka snarled as he wiped my arm.
I grimaced as he pressed against a particularly deep lesion. “Not really.”
He made a rough sound that was somewhere between an animal snarl and a human growl.
“Nice piercings, bruh.” I slapped him on the shoulder with my limp arm.
The demons glanced over at me like I’d lost my mind.
Luka pressed harder on my wound and leaned forward. Where John’s natural scent was smooth and rich, his was dark and spicy. I shivered.
His stubble grazed my jaw as he whispered, “Keep staring at me like that and I’ll let you feel the rest of my piercings.”
It took a second, then his meaning sank in.
I cleared my throat.
My cheeks burned, but I didn’t look down at his boxers to see if he meant what I thought he did.
I kept my eyes forward.
Ever since I’d revealed I was a woman, I’d been getting a lot of disturbing comments thrown my way. I was 99 percent sure that my teammates were sexually harassing me.
There was only one thing left to do.
I cleared my throat. “Keep talking like that and you’ll get fucked.” Sexually harass them back.
I studied my cuticles like I was picking out a polish. Since I was missing three fingernails and my pinky was jutting out at a disturbing angle, it was going to take a lot more than a clear coat.
Luka choked.
I turned my back to him and surveyed the field. Most competitors were locked in combat with Xs floating above their heads.
Bodies moved quickly across the arena, and it was hard to tell who was left.
Luka wrapped his arms around his shirt and knotted it quickly to my arm like he was afraid to touch me too long.
I whipped my head to the side as something flashed in my periphery.
Either I was hallucinating or an assassin without an X over her head was headed toward us. “Straight ahead,” I warned the demons.
We backed up until we were pressed against Luka.
Since all three of us had marks, if someone drew his blood, we’d lose.
I crouched so I was protecting his legs. The demons shuffled close to protect his front and sides.
We formed a shield.
The assassin was disappearing into the wide shadows cast by the poles that surrounded the field.
She approached as a blur.
Closer.
I raised my arm back, but I only had one dagger, and she was zigzagging so fast that it would be almost impossible to get a good hit.
The demons pointed their ink swords forward, but their arms trembled slightly from fatigue and blood loss.
In her hand, a sharp bone sword gleamed white.
I prepared for a world of hurt.
Out of nowhere, an object slammed against the bony assassin, and she fell to her knees with an object protruding from her chest.
Sadie marched across the field with a blank expression. She’d flicked on the numb, the homicidal voice in her head that made her into a killing machine. My best friend was completely uninjured and didn’t have an X above her head.
“Stand up,” Sadie ordered in a monotone voice.
The assassin complied like a zombie, a blood dagger sticking out of her sternum and infecting her.
Sadie’s ruby eyes glowed against her golden skin. She looked like she was born from the eclipse.
Since they’d approved her blood dagger, she technically wasn’t breaking any rules. I think.
It seemed like it was kind of a gray area.
Sadie’s raspy voice cracked like a whip. “Hunt down your fellow teammates and stab them. Now.”
The assassin turned and sprinted across the arena with impressive speed.
Sadie watched dispassionately.
Behind her a devil sprinted across the field with his flame sword raised above his head.
“Behind you!” I shouted and pulled back my throwing arm.
Before I could act, Jax slammed into the devil like a truck. Braids flew around his head and impressive muscles rippled as in midair he hammered his fist into the devil’s face.
He tackled him to the ground and flung the flame sword to the side, then Jax tore at the man with his claws.
A menacing roar erupted from his chest.
Jax shredded his skin with a vengeance.
“Kill him!” Cobra screamed from the spectator section, and Ascher and Xerxes whistled and yelled in agreement.
“Pay attention!” Luka shouted in my ear, and I jumped with surprise.
Rolling my eyes, I crouched lower to protect his feet.
“The game is over,” Lothaire’s voice boomed. “The assassin legion lost.”
I made a sign of worship and thanked the sun god that my best friend had the power to turn people into mindless zombies.
A true blessing to us all.
I tried to stand up, but my knees gave out. Luka grabbed me as I stumbled, and my finger brushed against his nipple piercing.
Pain streaked across my back.
I pulled away roughly and turned my attention to the demons.
“Nice work,” Vegar grinned as he gave me a high-five.
“We make a good team.” I smiled back.
Zenith frowned, and the black lines retreated off his weapons and crawled back under his eyes. “I told you not to talk to me.” He looked angry, but the corner of his mouth twitched like he wanted to smile.
Vegar winked behind his back and gave me a thumbs-up.
“Whatever you say, buddy.” I tipped my imaginary hat at him.
It was obvious that he was suffering from low testosterone and didn’t know how to express his emotions properly.
He just needed to be handled with care.
“What the hell were you three doing out there?” Malum’s angry voice interrupted my musings. He looked furious.
Bronze muscles rippled, and his shaved head was on fire as he stalked across the grass toward us with Scorpius and Orion following behind.
“We were executing a winning plan,” I said with a grin, and Vegar gave me another high-five.
Luka mumbled under his breath, “The dumbest plan in history.”
Malum grabbed the demons by the shirt fronts and started yelling in their faces. Scorpius looked pissed beside him, and Orion stared at me with wide eyes.
I rolled my eyes and limped away from my teammates to where four powerful men were embracing Sadie.
She pushed out of their arms and grabbed me just as I collapsed.
“You’re the prettiest, most impressive woman in all the realms,” I whispered as I lost consciousness from blood loss.
Sadie held me tightly and said, “I know.”
Then everything went black.
