Page 43 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)

The Vampire's Trial

~ATTICUS~

S he stands before me in the darkness, and every cell in my ancient body screams with recognition that something has fundamentally changed.

Dragon.

The scent clings to her like a second skin—smoke and metal and power that doesn't belong to her, couldn't belong to her, because she's mine . The luminescence of her flesh carries new undertones, blood that runs hotter, magic that tastes of scales and centuries and scholarly patience .

Mortimer.

The name burns through my consciousness like acid, jealousy igniting in ways I haven't felt since my first decades as a vampire, when control was suggestion rather than practice. My blood boils—literally, the vampire vitae in my veins heating to temperatures that should be impossible for my kind.

She let him touch her. Mark her. Change her.

"You smell different," I tell her, and my voice comes from everywhere in this space that exists between nightmare and desire. "Like you've been claimed by someone else."

The dozens of versions of myself that exist in this trial—each one representing different century, different hunger, different failure to maintain control—all turn their red eyes toward her.

We see it simultaneously: the way she stands straighter, the confidence that comes from being recently fed, recently satisfied by someone who isn't us.

The betrayal of it makes my fangs extend fully, cutting into my own lips until copper fills my mouth.

My insecurities scream their truths into the darkness:

Too weak. Too kind. Too willing to share when you should have claimed.

I've been foolish, letting her maintain connections with others, pretending that modern sensibilities matter more than vampire law. She's my Queen—not metaphorically but literally, the one I've chosen to serve, to worship, to possess and be possessed by.

But worship and possession are two sides of the same blade, and I've been cutting myself on the wrong edge.

"You're mine," I tell her, and all my voices harmonize into something that makes the darkness itself shiver. "My possession. My territory. My domain."

She takes a defensive stance, and even that makes me rage—that she would need defense against me, that she doesn't simply submit to the truth we both know.

"Atticus," she says carefully, "this isn't you. This is the trial?—"

"The trial shows truth," I interrupt, moving closer through dimensions that fold around my will. "And the truth is, I've watched you die."

The illusion shifts, showing her what I've been experiencing in this personalized hell:

Gwenievere falling in the water trials, my hands not fast enough to catch her.

Gwenievere burning in dragon fire, Mortimer's power consuming her from within.

Gwenievere choosing Cassius's shadows over my blood.

Gwenievere aging while I remain eternal, her human lifetime a blink I'll have to survive without.

Gwenievere torn apart by Academy trials I couldn't protect her from.

Gwenievere, Gwenievere, Gwenievere—dead, gone, lost in every possible future.

"Again and again," I tell her, surrounding her with versions of myself that have each witnessed different ending. "Every instance, every possibility, I lose you. I'm left alone with no purpose except the memory of what I failed to keep."

The weight of centuries spent alone before her, the certainty of centuries alone after her—it crushes rational thought into powder.

"So now that you're here," I continue, and my voice drops to something beyond predatory, "I can't possibly let you leave."

I raise my wrists to my own fangs, tearing through skin with practiced precision. Blood doesn't just flow—it erupts , responding to my will rather than gravity. The crimson shapes itself into threads, thousands of them, each one stronger than steel despite being liquid.

"Atticus, don't?—"

Too late.

The blood-threads shoot toward her, a web designed not to hurt but to hold. To keep. To ensure she can never leave this space where losing her remains possibility rather than certainty.

She moves faster than I expect—dragon blood has enhanced her speed. Fire erupts from her hands, burning through my blood-threads with heat that makes the air scream. The scent of burning blood fills the space, copper and carbon and something sweeter that might be dragon magic responding to threat.

The smell only encourages me.

"Burn them all," I tell her, producing more threads faster than she can destroy them. "I have centuries of blood to spend, and forever to replenish it."

But that's a lie. Already, the blood loss is affecting me—vision blurring at edges, movements becoming less precise. Vampire regeneration is fast but not infinite. I'm spending myself faster than I can heal.

I don't care.

Better to die keeping her than live watching her leave.

She seems to realize this, her expression shifting from defensive to desperate. Her next move isn't fire or magic but purely physical—she tackles me with force that sends us both sprawling across floor that might or might not exist.

"Stop!" She pins my wrists, her own magic manifesting as bonds that burn against my skin. "You're going to kill yourself wasting blood like that!"

"Death is no different from losing you," I snarl, struggling against her hold with strength that's diminishing too quickly. "I'd rather be lifeless than let you escape."

We wrestle across the non-space, vampire strength against whatever she's become. I summon darkness—not Cassius's controlled shadows but the hungry void that vampires can call when desperate. She counters with light that burns like small suns, dragon fire mixed with something uniquely hers.

Each attack nullifies the other. Darkness swallows light. Fire consumes void. We're too evenly matched, or perhaps too perfectly opposed.

Then she does something I don't expect.

She stops fighting.

In one deliberate motion, she draws her own wrist across my fangs, deep enough that blood immediately wells—hot, rich, carrying that intoxicating mix of her original scent and new dragon undertones.

The smell hits my vampire senses like physical force.

I've been starving myself in this trial, feeding on my own blood in endless loops of loss. The hunger I've been suppressing through will alone comes roaring to the surface, transforming me from predator to something more primal.

Need.

Pure, desperate need.

"Drink," she commands, pressing her bleeding wrist toward my mouth.

I recoil, some last vestige of control warning this could be trap, could be joke, could be cruelty designed to break what remains of my sanity.

"This is trick?—"

"This is me saving you from yourself," she interrupts, and her free hand tangles in my hair, gentle but insistent. "Drink, Atticus. Please."

The please breaks me.

My fangs sink into her wrist with no more thought than drowning man accepts air. The first pull of her blood is ecstasy—not sexual but existential, like remembering how to exist after forgetting I was real.

She tastes of flame and shadow, copper and starlight, dragon power and something essentially her that no enhancement could change. My hands clutch at her arm, pulling her closer, needing more contact than just fangs in flesh.

"That's it," she murmurs, and her voice is soft, soothing. "Take what you need."

What I need is more than blood.

I pull her fully against me, abandoning her wrist to seek the more intimate connection of throat. She doesn't resist, tilting her head with trust that makes my chest tight with emotions I can't name.

My fangs pierce the delicate skin where neck meets shoulder, and the sound she makes—part pain, part something else—vibrates through me like struck bell.

I drink deeply, bodies pressed together with desperate intimacy. Every swallow brings clarity, like veils being lifted from my consciousness. The trial's hold weakens with each pull of blood, illusions fracturing as our bond reasserts itself against false narrative.

My body responds to more than blood—to her proximity, her acceptance, the way she holds me instead of fighting. The grinding is instinctive, seeking connection beyond what fangs and blood provide. I need her touch, her presence, her confirmation that this is real and not another cruel loop of loss.

"I'm here," she whispers against my hair. "I'm real. You haven't lost me."

The words combined with her blood— freely given, flavored with concern rather than fear —shatter something in me.

The darkness explodes outward, but instead of consuming, it dissipates. The dozens of my versions collapse into one—just me, just Atticus, held by woman who came into my trial to save me from myself.

Clarity returns like ice water to the face.

"Oh gods," I gasp, pulling back with horror at what I've done, what I've become. "Gwenievere, I'm so sorry, I?—"

She doesn't let me pull away completely, arms keeping me close even as my fangs retract.

"It's okay," she says, though I can see the marks on her throat, the evidence of my desperate feeding. "The trial was designed to break you using your own insecurities."

"I attacked you." The words taste like ash. "I tried to trap you, I?—"

"You were puppet by your own fears," she interrupts firmly. "The Academy, this realm, it used you. Used the parts of you that feel left out, overlooked, forgotten."

The accuracy of it makes me flinch.

"I've missed you," I admit, the words small but necessary. "I know you're close with the others, know you have obligations, connections, but... I feel left out. Like I'm least important, most disposable."

Her expression shifts to something I don't expect—guilt.

"That's my fault," she says simply. "Your feelings are completely valid, Atticus. I haven't been balancing things properly."

She shifts to look me directly in the eyes, her hands framing my face with gentle insistence.

"Despite how busy we've been, it's no excuse. I should have tried to ease your concerns before they reached this point. Should have made sure you knew how valuable you are, how much you matter."

The honesty in her voice makes my throat tight with emotions that have nothing to do with hunger.

"I never meant to make you feel disposable or ignored," she continues. "You were my first real choice, remember? Not forced by trial or accident but chosen because I wanted you with me."

I cling to her then, arms wrapping around her with desperate strength that she doesn't resist. My face buries in her neck—not to feed but to hide the tears that vampires aren't supposed to shed.

"I won't lose you again," I whisper against her skin. "Can't lose you again."

"You never lost me," she assures, her own arms tightening around me. "But I'm going to make sure you know that. That you feel validated and loved and never have to wonder about your place with me."

We stay like that—vampire and this newfound being she's becoming, wrapped around each other in space that's stabilizing now that the trial's been broken.

The room materializes around us, similar to hers but decorated in darker tones, more iron and less leather.

"The others," I finally say, though I don't release her. "We need to find them."

"We will," she promises. "But first, you need to recover. That blood loss wasn't sustainable."

She's right.

Even with her blood reinforcing me, I can feel the weakness from spending so much of my own vitae. But having her here, having her blood warming my veins, having her promise that I matter—it's already healing more than physical damage.

"Mortimer," I say suddenly, the name bringing back that jealous burn. "You bonded with him."

It's not accusation— not anymore.

Just observation, tinged with residual hurt.

"I did," she confirms without defensiveness. "But not to replace anyone. To add to what we're building. You're not in competition, Atticus. There's no ranking system where someone has to lose for someone else to win."

The concept is foreign to vampire nature where hierarchy is everything, where there's always an alpha and everyone else falls in line. But looking at her, feeling our bond pulse with renewed strength, I want to believe it's possible.

"It's going to take time," I warn. "Centuries of vampire instinct don't just disappear."

"Then we take time," she says simply. "We work through it together. Every jealousy, every insecurity, every fear—we face them before they can be used against us again."

The promise makes something in my chest unclench that I didn't realize was twisted.

"I love you, Queen of Spades," I tell her, the words escaping before I can consider their wisdom. "Not just as Queen or bond-mate but as you. Impossibly you who’s one of a kind."

Her smile transforms her face from beautiful to radiant.

"I love you too," she says, and means it. "Possessive, dramatic, ancient you."

We'll have to leave soon. Have to find the others, complete their trials, escape this labyrinth. But for now, we hold each other in space that's ours, bond strengthened by confrontation with its own shadows.

The trial meant to break us has only clarified what we mean to each other.

And that's worth every drop of blood spent reaching this understanding.