Page 45

Galomp let out a whimper that broke through the tension and I whirled toward him, realising he was still trapped in a vision of spiders. He slapped at his body, blind to how close we stood to him, but his whimpering stopped as Kaiser glanced his way.

The power inside me went back to sleep, leaving Kaiser to return to the cold recesses of his mind.

In a blink, he was as distant as always and he looked from Galomp to me before jerking his head in a command.

His possession tore through me in a wave and a gasp escaped me as he forced me to run down the corridor towards the pile of sleeping Fae.

My hand clasped my dagger, and Kaiser made me swing it down, carving a deep cut across Alina’s shoulder. She didn’t wake from her nightmare, the splash of blood wetting her cheek and peppering my hands.

“ Stop ,” I snarled in alarm, but Kaiser forced me to lay a strike on Lucas next, my pulse drumming as I sliced the blade up his forearm. I may not have held any warmth towards Ransom and his friends, but I felt sick being wielded unwillingly against them.

Next, I dragged the dagger across Maria’s knee and finally slashed a cut across Ransom’s ass.

The taint of blood hung in the air and I shuddered in the grip of Kaiser’s possession, hating that he was using me like this and not knowing what he would have me do next.

Kaiser forced me to turn, walking me back to him and Galomp.

My friend’s hands were threaded together, his body still held still by the Fury’s power.

At a glance from Kaiser, Galomp dropped down, picking up his teddy bear before marching straight back into his bedroom, the door snapping shut behind him.

“Why?” I asked Kaiser in a furious growl.

“Because if your friend goes to the Reapers to give me up, they will put him through Cyclops interrogation and they will see your attack upon your fellow Raincarvers. If he wishes to expose me, then he will expose you as well. It looks as though you now have a vested interest in ensuring he does not breathe a word of this.” Kaiser took the blade from my hand, wiping it on my silk nightdress to stain me with more evidence.

“You’re vile,” I said icily, and Calcifiend clicked his tongue at Kaiser as if scolding him too. I was shaken from how easily he had made me hurt people. It was sick. Entirely fucked up.

“I am competent in the ways of war. Loose ends will one day tie together to form a noose for your neck if you do not tie them first. Now come. We have work to do.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I growled.

“I will force you regardless, but I believe you will want to come where we are going.”

“Which is where?” I griped.

“We are going into the Reaper tunnels to seek answers about their dark dealings in this place. So I suggest you get dressed.”

My blood ran cold as he turned and walked back into my room, leaving me there to decide my fate.

It wasn’t his possession that drew me after him but a mixture of curiosity and necessity.

I had so many questions since my and the Sky Witch’s discoveries, and there wasn’t long until graduation now.

If I didn’t seek answers soon, then I might never get them.

Kaiser leaned against my bedpost as I stepped into the room and I ignored him, walking straight into my closet and stripping out of my nightdress.

I pulled on a black all-in-one fitted outfit I’d made that would blend into the shadows easier.

I had yet to test it, but the andil crystals I’d crushed and soaked into the fabric should offer concealment in the dark.

It was something I’d been working to master – especially since my concealment spells were about as good as they had been on day one of my instruction at Never Keep.

So I had to find an alternative. Just until I could master concealment magic, obviously.

Which would probably be any day now. There weren’t too many frills to the outfit yet, my sewing not yet done but so far I’d stitched dark blue silk into the fabric to mark the water constellations.

After I’d pulled on my boots, I stepped back into the room and Kaiser’s eyes weren’t drawn my way until I was standing right in front of him. He regarded my clothes, noting the magic in them, then seeming completely disinterested again.

“I suppose you’re wondering about how I snuck up on you so easily,” I said, a smug tone to my voice.

“I see no benefit in knowing.” He walked for the door, and I scowled at his back as I strode after him.

“Well, if you must know, I am adept in magical craftmanship.”

“I remain uninterested. This information is useless to me.”

“I even made up my own stitching method. It holds clothes together so well that not even two rhinos could pull the stitches apart if the material was tied between their asses and they ran in opposite directions.”

“Stitches do not serve a purpose in battle.”

“I whole-heartedly disagree. Did you know that the great Bellarus Cresticus fell from a five-hundred-foot cliff during battle and his armour snagged on a tree jutting from the cliffside? It broke before he could be saved. Now if that was my armour-”

“Do you plan on talking this entire time?” Kaiser cut in as we walked down the corridor past Galomp’s room. “Because if you do, I will likely cast a silencing shield around you to ensure I remain undistracted from the task at hand.”

“Can I ask you a question before you do that?”

Kaiser led me into the stairwell to an open window, guiding me onto the rooftop while I awaited his answer.

“Well?” I pressed.

“Proceed.”

“You know the stuff I saw in your head?” I said carefully.

“Yes.”

“Is that why you’re like this? I mean…numb?”

Snow was falling, landing lightly on my cheeks as Kaiser glanced back at me.

“Yes. I do not entirely understand why, but I was altered by my grief. One day, I was in agony over the loss of my family, the next, nothing. I have felt nothing since. Until you.”

Reeling from that news, I paused in my pursuit of him, the wind tugging out my thick curls. “What is it about my power that changes you?”

“I cannot be sure,” Kaiser said, walking on, picking his way across the snow-covered rooftop. Our footprints wouldn’t be seen for long, and though I knew I could use my water magic to conceal them, the falling snow was doing a fine job of it.

“If you feel nothing, why do you have sex?” I asked, thinking of the women who had been excited to get ‘scorched’ by him, as they called it. Whatever the fuck that meant.

He said nothing, but I was down this line of questioning now and I tended to get stuck on a subject once I started. “If you don’t feel desire, how can you get hard?”

“It happens unexpectedly, I cannot predict who I will get hard for,” he answered plainly. “For example, my cock became hard when you touched me during our last Fearsire meeting.”

I stopped walking again. “What the fuck?”

He glanced back. “I can’t read your current emotion. Name it.”

“Disgust,” I growled.

“I see…but North tells me I am attractive to many Fae.”

“You’re my enemy. My mother’s killer,” I spat. “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last Fae on earth and I was doomed to die unless I rode your cock for ten seconds.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“No, not at all. But Mirelle tells me it is often best to show understanding instead of confusion. She taught me how.” He kept walking and I followed, needing to know more.

Learning about my enemy was probably the best way to learn how to kill him anyway.

“North gave me a list of rules to memorise and adhere to. Things I cannot grasp the meaning of, but I understand the logic of.”

“What kind of rules?”

“I must not have sex with the enemy. I must not kill children. I must wear clothes in public, even if it is a very hot day.”

“By the stars, what else? Does he have to remind you not to shit in public too?”

“Only once.”

I gaped at him as he carried on across the rooftop, leading me away from the Vault of Frost in the direction of the doming Galaseum.

“You really are dead inside,” I muttered, then another question burned in my mind.

It wasn’t like I had to be embarrassed of my curiosity anyway; Kaiser was less in tune with my emotions than a dead sea crab.

“So…why do the women you fuck talk about getting ‘scorched’ by you. What the hell does that mean?”

“Towards the end, I hold them down and burn them.”

“Why?” I whispered, unsure I wanted to know the answer anymore.

“If I time it right, I experience their fear at the point of climax and I am usually able to come. It is enough to create the illusion of feeling. I think.”

“Wow. That’s really something special.”

“Are you feeling awe?” he asked.

“No, I was being sarcastic. I wish I hadn’t asked.”

“Are you dissatisfied with my answer?”

“No, you’re just way too honest and detailed about that shit.”

“I do not feel shame. Have I offended you?” He looked back to study my expression.

“No,” I said honestly. “I’m just starting to see how pathetic you really are.”

“North says I would be pitiable if I wasn’t such an asshole. Is that how you feel about me?”

“I would never pity you,” I growled. “You’re dead inside.”

“I am,” he agreed.

“Well this has been a riveting conversation,” I said dryly.

“Is this the type of conversation that rivets you often?”

“I was being sarcastic again.”

“Sarcasm is a challenge for me.”

“No shit. Your hair is reallllllly cool by the way. I love what you’ve done with the whole ‘longer on the left side than the right’ thing. And that blood-red tint in the light? Wow. Really something.”

“Thank you.”

“Sarcasm again.”

“I see.”

“You remind me of my donkey. Not a thought behind the eyes.”

“I have thoughts, not emotions.”

“Yeah well, potato potarto.”

“They are acutely different actually. More like, potato….petunia.”

A laugh escaped me as the asshole caught me off-guard and Calcifiend chirruped happily from Kaiser’s shoulder.