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My skin is starting to buzz, my brain getting that heady, happy feeling brought on by the adrenaline of the night and the dose of Phantom Bliss running through my bloodstream. My cock is hard, throbbing against my thigh.

“This is…” I say, but I don’t finish it.

There’s no word for it. Not really.

Arianette turns back to me, pupils wide, lips parted like she’s breathing the place in through her mouth.

“Magical,” she says, spinning around. “Can you feel it?”

I can, and just like that, I’m not on the edge anymore. I’m in it. Stepping into the pulse of the underworld, where gods are drunk and sinners reign. This is the place of shadows, where debauchery doesn’t have to hide.

This is the place I don’t have to hide and finally feel at home.

The room shifts when they see us.

Cheers ripple through the crypt, rising up like smoke. Hands reach out, clap DK’s shoulders, offer him drinks, pills, smokes wrapped in black paper and dusted in shimmer. Someone drapes a garland of thorns and dark red dahlias over his neck like he’s some kind of king. Maybe he is, tonight.

He’s still breathing like the fight’s in his blood. His grin is crooked and wide, teeth glinting under firelight. People chant his name, toast to him with mouths full of smoke and wine and praise. Even with the Bliss, his shoulders tense, the experience is as unfamiliar to him as it is to me. We’ve been outsiders but with this one single act, kicking Sean Porterfield’s ass, he brought us into the circle with every hit, every dodge, every drop of blood.

“There he is!” Mateo shouts, bringing himself to an upright position. He crosses the room, arms wide. “You not only saved my ass but the frat’s reputation, too.”

“I’m just glad I didn’t fuck it up.”

“Nah, man,” Rob approaches, and they slap hands, “you took down a major DKS contender. There’s no victor in the tower tonight!”

He turns to me and laughs–a real one,not the cocky bravado I’ve seen before. His eyes are wild. Not just from the high, but from winning. From surviving.

Arianette sticks close to his side. She’s smiling, but I can see it in the way her fingers twitch:nervous. Excited, too. Drawn in, like the rest of us.

She looks at DK like he’s the fire, and she’s the moth that hasn’t decided if it wants to burn or dance. He catches her waist and leads her toward the thrones, and the crowd parts for him like the air does for thunder. DK drops onto the iron throne like he was born there. One leg slung wide and with the dahlias draped over his shoulders, he looks over the room like it’s his, like he fought for it and won.

He did.

Not just in the ring, but in the initiation, in the Hunt. Arianette hesitates at his side. She looks back at me, like she wants permission, or maybe just doesn’t want to fall into this alone.

I nod, slow, and say, “Celebrate him.”

She bites her lip, then crosses to the thrones and without pause, climbs onto his lap.

The room howls in approval.

“You know, there’s a seat for you, too,” Rob says, gesturing to the other throne.

“Let him have this one,” I say. “He earned it.”

It’s an excuse to continue to hang back, to observe. In validation of the ease of the group, or possibly the power I hold, no one questions my decision. Someone presses a cut glass filled with green liquid into my hand. I take a sip–sweet, sharp, like licorice. A warm fog starts to settle behind my eyes, softening theedges of everything. I stay standing, leaning against one of the stone pillars as DK’s hands begin to wander over her body.

Caught in the shadows, the front of my pants tightens even more than before as I watch the two of them explore one another. The stone at my back is cool, grounding me while the rest of the crypt hums like a live wire. The music has dipped into something darker, the strings low and dragging.

I only see them.

My brother and sister.

They’re half-lit by the sconce behind the throne, gold firelight turning her bare arms a warm shade of bronze. She’s perched sideways on his lap, legs over one of the velvet arms, her back arched just enough that he can rest his hand on her thigh.

He hasn’t kissed her yet. Hasn’t rushed. Always pushing her to the edge. Her chest rises and falls a little too fast, the thrill of being the center of everything.

His fingers trace the ties at the side of her shorts–little leather laces, snug against her hip. One by one, he pulls them loose. Slowly. Leisurely. Like it’s not clothing, but ribbon on a gift. She shivers when his raw, red, knuckles brush her brown skin. And then, without a word, he reaches to his boot and slides something out.