Page 10 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)

The gash across his face makes me want to scream.

It runs from temple to jaw, deep enough to expose bone that gleams white through the red.

His shadows writhe around him, but they're weakened, corrupted by exposure to whatever I've become.

His clothes hang in tatters, revealing a canvas of wounds that map out a battle I don't remember fighting.

But he's not looking at me with hate. Not fear. Not even anger.

He's looking at me with concern.

As if he can see through this monstrous form to find the person he held this morning. The woman he made love to with such careful reverence. His Little Mouse, lost inside a guardian's rage.

Movement above draws my attention. Atticus descends like judgment, vampire grace married to killing intent. His blade manifests from crystallized blood—his own, shaped by will into an instrument of execution.

My eyes blaze crimson, power gathering to meet his attack. Some part of me— the Guardian, Gabriel called it —snarls at this challenge. How dare he raise weapon against?—

The blade connects.

I shriek as agony beyond description races through me. Not the clean pain of physical wounds but something worse—like being unraveled, each thread of my existence pulled apart to expose the void beneath. He cuts through my massive form as if it's nothing more than shadow and suggestion.

The realm itself trembles with my pain. Mountains crack. Lava reverses its flow. Reality hiccups, unsure how to process a guardian's agony.

Tears pool in my eyes, but they're not water.

Molten lava streams down my cheeks, each drop a small catastrophe where it falls. The part of me that remains Gwenivere—small, frightened, human —realizes the terrible truth:

I'm the root of this power.

Every tremor, every flame, every moment of destruction flows from my emotional state. If I can't contain myself, I'll kill them all.

"STOP, ATTICUS!" Cassius's voice cuts through everything—pain, rage, confusion. Command and plea tangled together. "Stop!"

Atticus pauses mid-descent, second strike arrested by the desperation in Cassius's tone. But I see the calculation in those crimson eyes. He's weighing options. Mercy versus necessity. Love versus survival.

I stumble backward, massive form surprisingly clumsy. Panic rises like bile. I'm the problem. The danger. The thing that needs to be stopped before?—

"No," I whisper, though it emerges as a rumble that shakes the air. "No, no, no."

I scurry further back, each movement sending fresh disasters through the landscape. My hands rise to ward off—what? Help? Attack? I don't know anymore. The claws slice through my own shadowy flesh, drawing lines of golden ichor that sizzle where they fall.

A whimper escapes—a pitiful sound from such a massive form. I drop to my knees, then curl inward, trying to make myself small.

Trying to disappear.

"Gwenivere!" Cassius calls, and he's walking toward me.

Walking. Across ground that should incinerate him. Through flames that should reduce him to ash. As if I haven't just devastated everything in reach. As if I'm not currently the most dangerous thing in any realm.

I shake my head frantically, hands raised to ward him off. But the gesture becomes self-harm, claws raking across my own form in unconscious echo of earlier pain.

"Stay back," I plead, though the words emerge as barely coherent rumbles. "I'll hurt you. I hurt everyone. I need to—need to?—"

Hide. Disappear. Cease.

My own shadows respond to the desperate need, rising around me in protective walls. Not Cassius's controlled darkness but wild, panicked things that build barriers between me and the world I'm destroying.

"GWENIVERE!" His voice carries new urgency. "DON'T RUN FROM US! IT'S OKAY!"

I don't believe him. Can't. The evidence surrounds us—friends broken and bleeding, realm twisted into a nightmare, everything I touch becoming weapon or wound.

I hurt him.

The thought loops with damning clarity.

Hurt those I love.

The shadows build faster, responding to the mantra. I need to hide. Need to contain this before it spreads further. I'm only a threat now. Only destruction wrapped in flesh that isn't even truly mine.

"You're a guardian to protect the most precious thing that was left for our rise."

Gabriel's voice echoes inside my skull, carrying truths I don't want to acknowledge.

"Our true birthright, threatened by those who dare wish to enter its glorious walls."

"I can't hurt them," I whimper to the voice, to myself, to anyone who might listen. "I need to protect them."

"They're not worthy of such." His response is immediate.

Certain.

"They are!" The declaration tears from me with enough force to crack my shadow cocoon. "They care! They ? —"

The world shifts.

One moment I'm surrounded by my own desperate barriers. The next, I'm back in the box—but changed. Larger. The shadows that were outside now line the interior, creating a space that exists between consciousness and dream.

Gabriel stands before me, no longer smirking.

His expression carries something I didn't expect: sympathy.

"Fine." He sighs like a parent indulging a child's tantrum. "If they love you, let them enter. Let them get a glimpse of our agony."

He claps once, the sound reverberating through our shared space.

The shadows reshape themselves, forming structures from nothing. Two thrones rise from the darkness—identical in design but opposite in nature. One burns with internal fire, the other swallows light.

He moves to the flame throne with casual grace, settling into it as if coming home. The fire doesn't burn him—it welcomes him, wreathing his form in coronation.

"Sit," he says, gesturing to its twin. Not a command but an invitation. "Unless you prefer to let your Guardian aspect rampage unchecked?"

I hesitate.

Every instinct screams warning. But what choice remains?

My friends are dying. The realm is breaking. And I'm the cause of it all.

The shadow throne feels cold as I approach. Not temperature but essence—a chill that goes deeper than flesh.

I lower myself carefully, half-expecting attack or trap.

Instead, the shadows recognize me. They rise like loyal pets, wrapping around my limbs with disturbing affection. Each tendril whispers secrets I don't want to hear, promises I never asked for.

"There," Gabriel says softly. "Now we can do this properly."

"Do what?" But even as I ask, I feel the change beginning. The shadows aren't just embracing me—they're integrating. Becoming part of me as I become part of them.

"Show them, of course." His smile is sad. Knowing. "Show them what their precious Gwenivere really is. What we were born to be before Elena's jealousy split us apart."

"I don't understand?—"

"You will."

My eyes roll back as the shadows complete their work. But it's not unconsciousness that takes me.

It's something worse.

Expansion.

I feel myself spreading outward, consciousness fracturing to accommodate impossible perspectives. I am in the throne but also the throne.

I am Gwenivere but also the Guardian.

I am singular but also split, viewing reality through eyes that exist in different dimensions.

And through it all, Gabriel's voice:

"Welcome home, sister. Now let's see if your friends can handle the truth of what loves them."

The last coherent thought before the shadows take complete control is a prayer:

Please. Let them survive what I've become.

Then there is only darkness, and the Guardian smiles with my lips.