Page 51 of Demon Reform Academy, Term 3

51

DEXTER

T he Demonic Archives were nestled within the thick, sandstone walls just like every other building on campus. Tall arched windows let in sunlight that showed the dust motes suspended in the air. It reeked of aged paper and leather-bound tomes that sat on the towering rock bookshelves.

Bram, Skel, and I sat at a large stone table in the center of the second floor as we waited on Pandora and Reed. I read through the group chat again.

Dexter Shadowheart

Ready for our study date, trouble?

Reed Nyx

She was taking a nap when I left for my counseling session with Hunter, but Nebula said he’d wake her up for it.

Bram

Another nap? Is she okay?

Reed Nyx

She’s fine. Just tired. I guess it’s all the stress.

Dexter Shadowheart

Or it’s because you kept her up fucking her in a storm last night.

Reed Nyx

I should’ve known you wouldn’t stay asleep.

Skel Grimshaw

You also should’ve known he’d follow after you.

Bram

…Reed. I didn’t expect you to be the one keeping her up.

Hunter Darkmore

It’s not just me who does.

Skel Grimshaw

I totally would’ve. If given the chance.

Dexter Shadowheart

I would’ve joined, but you two were fucking feral for each other.

Pandora Gravesend

Oh my Fates, guys, stop. Nebula just woke me up. I’m on my way now.

Dexter Shadowheart

Let me come get you, trouble.

Pandora Gravesend

No. It’s fine. I need to walk. I’ll be there in just a few minutes, okay? Thanks for the offer, though.

Dexter Shadowheart

Hunter Darkmore

Reed just left my office to head your way. Stop bothering us during our sessions.

Pandora, make sure you’re drinking enough water.

Skel Grimshaw

I grabbed you a banana muffin, princess.

Pandora Gravesend

Thanks. See you guys soon. Miss you, Hunter.

Hunter Darkmore

I miss you, starlight.

Skel Grimshaw

I miss you too, princess.

Dexter Shadowheart

I miss you, trouble.

Reed Nyx

I miss you as well, dream girl.

Bram

I also miss you.

Pandora Gravesend

I’ll see you four in a few minutes, but…I miss you all too.

Across from me, Skel stared down at his tablet, tonguing his lip ring. His black hair with white streaks fell to his shoulders and into his face. He kept running a hand through it to get it back. “I don’t think it’s the fucking keeping her up. She’s sleeping a lot more, right?”

Next to him, Bram fidgeted, his leg bouncing up and down. “Yeah, I think she is.” His tattoos pulsed with chaos magic. His red eyes flickered with restless energy as he absentmindedly played with his septum piercing.

“Agreed,” I muttered. “Can’t believe that she wouldn’t let me come get her. I shouldn’t have asked. Should’ve just done it. I know this, guys.”

My thoughts were purely on Pandora.

I fucking loathed the fact that I had no way of knowing if she was okay. My pulse quickened with the itch, the urge to find out. Bram and I were the only two left that hadn’t completed the bond with her, and not having that fucking killed me. It was sending me into a madness I didn’t know if I’d be able to escape.

“The bond with her feels different lately. Like, her emotions,” Skel murmured.

“Really?” I frowned. “She used to have all this negativity stemming from her, but once she started forgiving us it lessened. Now, I don’t feel anything negative at all from her.”

“Yeah.” Bram scowled. “I can’t get a read on her at all, honestly. I hate how much I don’t know about her.”

“I don’t know enough, either,” Skel murmured before he jumped to his feet, knocking the chair out from beneath him. Fear burned hot in his gaze. “Pandora’s… pissed ,” he croaked, holding his chest. “Dex, go to her. She’s in the dormitory, I think.” His jaw clenched tight. “Go to her now!”

My shadows enshrouded us immediately, and we stepped out into the lobby of Bound Dormitory the next second.

The sight before me wasn’t just rage-inducing—it ignited a supernova inside my skull, and my sanity frayed further.

Nightwind.

That fucking insect.

He had her pinned against the wall, his stupid, pathetic body leaning in too close, his hand crawling up her waist like the filthy roach that he was.

“Come on, Gravesend… no, Pandora …” His voice dripped with sleaze, his lips pulling into a cocky grin that made my fist itch to shatter it. “I won’t tell your mates. Or your dad.”

My vision flickered. Bloodlust clawed at the edges of my sanity, screaming for release. But then, I saw her face.

Pandora—my trouble.

She wasn’t afraid. If anything, she was annoyed.

“That’s not the problem, Nightwind,” she said, her raspy voice sounding like ice cracking across a frozen lake.

“Why is there a problem at all?” He pouted.

She placed her pretty hand on his chest and shoved. Hard . Her back came off the wall as she pushed him off her. Her movements were controlled, predatory .

Hot.

“The problem,” she continued, “is that you’re disgusting. You have no right to lay your hands on me.”

“But—”

“No means no.” Her knee shot up, swift as a shadow guillotine. It connected with his groin with a satisfying crunch.

Nightwind crumpled like a broken puppet, wheezing as he hit the ground.

A laugh bubbled out of me.

“She’s a fucking masterpiece,” Bram muttered, his voice tinged with awe.

“Literally a walking Fates-damn work of art,” Skel agreed.

“And she’s ours,” I added in awe.

Pandora glanced our way, a cheeky wave breaking across her otherwise calm demeanor as she stepped over the groaning heap that was Nightwind. “How long have you been here?” she asked, her tone light. “I was just headed for you.”

“Thank the Fates you’re okay,” Skel murmured, reaching for her, his hands trembling as he cupped her face and kissed her.

But I wasn’t okay.

Not even close.

Nightwind was still breathing.

“He’s not getting away with that.” I let my shadows burst out and grab Nightwind in a tight hold.

“Does he not realize you could’ve just ate his soul without even blinking?” Bram shook his head, staring at her with concern as she stepped back from Skel.

“I guess he didn’t care,” Pandora said with a shrug, a faint, teasing smile tugging at her lips. Her beautiful red eyes met mine—unbidden, amused, so achingly full of trust that, for a moment, the endless roar in my mind softened.

The madness receded, and there was only her: only Pandora. My trouble. My fated.

“Now, let’s go?—”

The world slowed to a suffocating crawl.

Three shadow bullets screamed through the air as she went to reach for my hand.

Time fractured into jagged slips as I watched them fly through the air, their dark forms rippling with deadly intent.

My lungs locked; my legs refused to move. All I could do was fucking watch .

Crack.

The first bullet struck her forehead, just above her right brow. Her head snapped back violently, and a spray of crimson spurted into the air, droplets shimmering grotesquely in the flickering golden light.

I didn’t realize what it was until it hit my face— her blood. It streaked across my skin, hot, thick, and wrong . The feel of it knocked the breath out of me.

Pandora’s body jerked as the second bullet followed the first.

Splinter.

It tore into her skull, carving through flesh and bone with a sound I could never unhear. Blood and brain matter splattered against the stone wall behind her.

Her eyes widened, not in fear, but in shock.

Then, the third bullet.

Crunch.

It pierced her left eye socket, sinking deep with a sickening squelch. The force of it sent her head snapping back again , her knees buckling.

For an agonizing heartbeat, she stayed upright, swaying backward like some broken doll.

“NO!” My scream ripped through the air.

Pandora’s legs gave out completely.

Skel caught her mid-fall, his knees slamming into the stone with a sickening crack. His arms wrapped around her limp form, shaking as he cradled her against his chest.

Blood poured from the three ragged holes in her head, drenching him in dark, sticky streams.

Her blood.

Her blood soaking the floor.

Her blood pouring out of the gaping wounds in her head.

Her blood staining Skel’s trembling hands as he cradled her.

Her fucking blood was everywhere.

None of it registered with me.

Skel’s voice was a shattered whisper as he rocked back and forth with her in his arms. “ Princess … Pandora , please … No. Fuck! No!”

Her head lolled against his shoulder, her face slack, lifeless. Her left eye—her beautiful eye—was gone, replaced by a gruesome, gaping wound that oozed endlessly.

“Sh—she was shot in the head…” Bram choked on a wet, gasping sob. “Demons don’t survive this kind of brain damage, do they?”

“No,” Skel rasped, his voice raw, tears streaking his bloodstained face. Her blood soaked through his clothes, pooling beneath him. “No, we don’t.”

Reed and Hunter burst through the doors of the lobby, the doors echoing as they slammed against the walls.

Their broken cries echoed ours as they took in the scene. Rushing over, they fell beside Skel. I felt their grief, their rage, and their absolute fucking despair.

There was too much of it to even try to absorb with my powers—what was the fucking point anyway?

Reed’s hands shook as he reached for her but stopped short, like he couldn’t bear to touch her broken body. “No, no, no, no… Pandora…this isn’t real.”

But it was.

And I—I just stood there.

Frozen. Paralyzed. Fucking useless.

Hunter stared at her, his mouth opening and closing like he couldn’t form words.

“She was pinned against the wall by him ,” Bram explained, his voice breaking as he pointed toward Nightwind.

Chaos, his wolf, leapt from him and lowered his head as he stalked toward Nightwind, snarling.

Nightwind squeaked pathetically.

Chaos kept him backed in the corner so he couldn’t escape—but I didn’t care about Nightwind right now.

“She kneed him in the balls. It was fine. But then—then—” he continued through his sobs. “She was shot. Three times. In the fucking head .”

“In the head?” Reed sobbed.

I couldn’t look at them.

I couldn’t look at Skel, holding her lifeless body.

I couldn’t look at Bram, sobbing.

I couldn’t look at Reed or Hunter, shattered in a way that mirrored the pain in my shattered soul.

No.

I didn’t even—we hadn’t bonded yet.

Pandora’s blood coated the floor, spreading in slow, gleaming rivulets that seemed to reach for me. It crept toward my boots, taunting me. The coppery tang of it filled the air, thick and suffocating, clawing its way into my throat.

Her blood.

Her life.

Gone.

No.

Not gone. She couldn’t be gone. She was my mate. My fated mate. She was mine .

She was everything .

The static in my head grew louder, drowning out Skel’s sobs, Bram’s frantic whispers, the horrified cries of Hunter and Reed.

My chest heaved, and my vision blurred—not with tears, but with something darker, hotter . The shadows around me writhed, feeding off the overwhelming amount of pain in this room.

Nightwind squirmed. I barely noticed.

But then— movement .

A flicker in the corner of the room: the one who fucking did this to my mate.

My shadows surged, seething and screaming, until they found the figure lurking in the corner.

A shadow demon. Not just any shadow demon. A demon I’d fucking warned before.

Shadeberry.

Wrong move, bitch.

“You!” My voice was a demonic, a guttural snarl that tore through my throat. My shadows obeyed my fury, lashing out like sharp chains. They wrapped around her, tightening with a force that made her bones crack under the pressure.

She tried to resist, but it was fucking pointless. I dragged her out of the shadows and slammed her onto the blood-soaked floor, forcing her to her knees before me.

Her brown hair was greasy, and her gray eyes were filled with fear. “I—I—it wasn’t me.”

Her poison berry scent disagreed with her.

“IT WAS YOU!” I roared again, my vision blurring red as insanity crept into my brain. Shadow magic swirled, clawing at my soul, begging to be let loose. I didn’t hold them back.

I didn’t care to.

What was the point of sanity if she wasn’t here with me?

Shadeberry’s face twisted in terror, but I barely saw her.

All I saw was Pandora. Her lifeless body in Skel’s arms. Her blood soaking the floor. The emptiness in her once-bright red eyes.

I stepped closer, my shadows tightening around Shadeberry’s throat until her gasps turned to choking gurgles. My sanity frayed, unraveling thread by thread, until all that remained was a single, blinding need:

Making this bitch suffer.

“I’ll rip you apart for what you’ve fucking done,” I hissed, my voice trembling with the weight of my unraveling control. “Flesh by flesh. Bone by bone. I’ll make you beg for death before I’m done.”

The room spun, consumed by the storm of my vengeance for my mate.

I didn’t care who saw.

Nobody could stop me.

“Pandora’s blood screams for vengeance—and so does ours,” Hunter croaked from beside our mate, tears streaking his face. “Claim it.”

I would.

For all of us—for Pandora.

My eyes locked on the bitch that almost just killed my fucking mate.

Almost because I wouldn’t accept anything else. There was no fucking way she was dead.

“I wasn’t the one who killed her!” she cried out her denial, but I could sense the deception stemming from her.

My chest heaved, and a snarl built in my throat. My vision burned red as I gave into the madness tugging at my psyche.

“You think she’s dead?” I whispered, my voice dangerously low. “You think you’ve fucking won?” My shadows tightened around Shadeberry’s throat, dragging her closer. “There is no way she’s gone. No. Fucking. Way. ”

She struggled to breathe, horror filling her expression.

“I’ll make you wish you’d never crawled out of whatever fucking abyss spawned you.” My demonic form was in full force, and my voice boomed. “You’re going to beg for death before I’m done with you!”

The madness consumed me, a wildfire raging through my veins. There would be no mercy. There would be no escape. Not for this bitch. Not for anyone who dared to harm my fated.

I was nice before—warning them.

I wouldn’t ever give mercy again.

And then— then —Pandora would thank me.

Because she wasn’t gone.

She couldn’t be.

And if the Fates disagreed?

I’d burn the entire fucking world to ash to prove them wrong.

I slid a sharp shadow tendril over the top of Shadeberry’s stupid fucking head, scalping her in one swift move.

Her screams echoed through the lobby, and tears were already soaking her face. Blood streaked down her face from her head, and I avoided feeding off the immense pain pouring off her.

She deserved to feel every bit of pain I inflicted on her.

“Stop! Please! Okay, I did it! Vane told us about Gravesend killing Dreadful! A life for a life!” she screamed out.

“Vane?” Reed’s voice was nothing but a rumble doused in pure anger.

“Sure, Pandora killed Dreadful. But Pandora was much more swift taking her life than I will be when taking yours,” I snarled, summoning a swarm of shadow tendrils that sliced every bit of skin from her body, ripping her clothes and leaving her nothing but muscle on her skeleton.

Minutes ticked by, her screams piercing the air with agony as I skinned her alive.

“Did she suffer?” Bram asked between sobs, glaring at the bloody, fleshy mess of Shadeberry lying on the ground.

Her heart just barely beat.

“Of course. I wouldn’t feed off any of her pain. Let her die in agony for what she’s done to our mate,” I growled viciously, shoving a flat, scorching and sharp tendril down her throat and bursting into her chest cavity.

I yanked her lungs out through her mouth and plopped them onto her lap.

Her eyes widened as she gurgled on her blood, but her screaming ceased.

Then, I ripped out her heart.

“What the fuck is happening!” Skel’s voice pierced through the murderous haze clouding my mind.

I blinked, panting, my hands trembling as my magic loosened its grip on Shadeberry’s ruined corpse. Her heart fell to the floor. My shadows writhed around me, still aching to destroy more. They screamed in my ears for more blood, but something else was cutting through the noise.

“It’s black goo,” Reed whispered, his voice barely audible. “She’s…regenerating?”

What?

I turned.

My eyes landed on Pandora, and the air stalled in my lungs.

She lay cradled in Skel’s arms, her body limp and soaked in blood.

The bullet holes in her skull—they weren’t just gaping anymore. Black, viscous goo oozed out of them, thick as tar and glistening under the flickering lobby lights. It writhed and pulsed, slicking over the wounds.

My breath hitched as I watched, unable to tear my eyes away.

“How? What? This shouldn’t be,” Bram stammered, but there was hope in his eyes. “It’s…not possible.”

Her fingers twitched.

Once.

Twice.

The ragged, gory wounds in her forehead, her temple—they started to close, the tar stitching them together like a magic thread.

Her ruined eye socket, the one that had been shot through, began to swell and bubble. The sound it made was wet, squelching, and unnatural .

“Fates,” Hunter breathed. His voice cracked, raw with disbelief. “Her…her eye?—”

Her eye socket filled with the black tar first, and then, with an audible squelch, the blackness twisted into the shape of an eyeball. It shimmered, a pristine duplicate of her other eye, its red iris forming back into existence.

Her eyelid formed next.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

She regenerated .

Right there.

Before our eyes.

Something demons weren’t capable of…not unless they were infected with dark magic.

“Skel,” I rasped. “Is she—? Tell me she’s?—”

“She’s breathing,” Skel uttered, his voice strangled. He clutched her to his chest so tightly I worried he might crush her. His hands were slick with her blood, shaking uncontrollably.

Pandora stirred, groaning softly.

Relief, raw and overwhelming, surged through my chest. My knees almost buckled as I stumbled forward.

She opened her eyes. Both of them. The eye that had been destroyed was now whole, glinting like it had never been touched.

I’d watched them heal right in front of me, and I’d seen that happen more times than I wanted to admit.

“Princess?” Skel choked out roughly.

She blinked a few times and lifted her hand to her face. Her fingertips brushed over the slick blood still smeared across her skin.

“Dream girl?” Reed sniffled.

She stared at the crimson streaks on her hand in confusion.

“Starlight?” Hunter rasped.

She dragged her hand across her cheek, wiping the mess of blood away like it was nothing more than a nuisance, but she really just smeared it in more.

“Trouble?” I rubbed my eyes to make sure this was actually happening—that she was actually alive.

Her lips twitched into a faint, broken smile, weak but undeniably her. “That…was an interesting killing method, Dex,” she murmured, her voice hoarse. Her eyes—Fates, both of them—found mine. “ Effective .”

The sound of her voice shattered me.

The room was silent.

No one moved, no one breathed.

Disbelief. Relief. Horror. It was all etched onto every face around her.

The only way a demon could be absolutely invincible was when they were infected by dark magic, and I’d recognize the dark tar substance that came out of my mate anywhere.

“Fates, Pandora,” Bram breathed out, sagging against the floor. “Don’t fucking scare us like that ever again.”

“Trouble,” I croaked, dropping to my knees beside Skel. My hands cupped her bloody face as I tilted her head to look at me. “You’re—you’re not?—”

“I’m alive,” she promised softly. Lifting a hand weakly, she rested it against my cheek. Her touch was warm, as if she hadn’t just about died on us. “I’m still here, Dex.”

“Are you okay?”

“I can feel it,” she admitted. Her voice cracked, and her hand fell limply back to her side. Her eyelids fluttered, her strength fading. “I can feel it crawling inside me. I’m definitely infected…”

Her words faded as her eyes rolled back, and her body went slack in Skel’s arms.

The insanity that had been clawing at me since the first bullet hit her—since I’d thought I lost her—began to shift.

It wasn’t the wild, uncontrolled chaos of before. No, it was something colder. Sharper.

She was alive. But now she was infected.

And I would take down all of Dark Veil to save her.