Page 2 of Hard As Cake (Chaos God Sugar and Spice Companion Shorts #1)

Chapter Two

FIADH

“B ring the familiar, she’d make a great snack for your new boyfriend,” Bram laughed. “In fact, why don’t we bring your friend too?”

He was looking at Anna.

Panic slashed through me. They were going to drag my friend along. I knew going into the Dungeon would be a death sentence, or worse, I could end up in the fish hatchery. I couldn’t subject Anna to that, not when I could save her.

Not when I could save them both.

I had to get these guys away from them. I had to use the lycan’s instincts against him.

“Stay here!” I hissed at my friend and my familiar as I yanked my arm free from Garrick’s grasp.

There was one thing I could do, one thing that would ensure they would leave my two best friends behind.

I bolted, running for the door.

I heard the small gasp of delight from behind me, and the thud of footsteps chasing after me. I slammed into the double doors, shoving through them to stumble out into the bright sunlight outside.

“Don’t run,” Uthred said, his deep voice rumbling over me as he caught up to me. “Makes me feel weird.”

What a strange thing for a lycan to say. Of course, it made him feel weird. Running triggered the instinct for him to chase. It was one of the safety tips passed down from the mundanes who managed to survive the first few years - don’t run from lycans, don’t steal from dragons, and never, ever sleep with an angel. Angels had dangerdicks.

Better to avoid the whole lot of them, but that wasn’t a choice mundanes could make.

“You’re a lycan,” I glared at him before I remembered I wasn’t supposed to do that. I dropped my gaze back down to the ground in front of me, slowing to a walk.

Something slammed into the back of me, and I stumbled forward off balance.

My arms pinwheeled as I stumbled, trying to keep my balance as my back radiated pain.

Then a greasy hand wrapped around the back of my neck and my collarbone, pinching against my skin as it yanked me backwards. My spine ached from the sudden change in direction, but I couldn’t focus on that as an arm wrapped around my neck and squeezed. I choked against the sudden pressure and the arm relaxed.

I looked up to see Garrick grinning down at me.

I smiled back at him, an instinctual panic reaction.

I’d learned that it was normal for me to smile when I was afraid, especially if the source of a fear was a man.

I reached up and pushed his arm off, trying to slide out of his grip, and his grin grew wider, more of a baring of teeth than anything resembling a friendly facial expression. He hooked his elbow around my neck to yank me close to him again.

Uthred reached out and grabbed Garrik’s wrist, twisting and pinching it to force his hand open and off of me. Garrick’s upper body bent with the motion, twisting with his arm to keep it from breaking in Uthred’s grasp.

“Ow! Uthred! Stop!” Garrik said.

“No one touches her!” Uthred snapped as the others caught up.

My heart pounded in my chest as my brain flip flopped around my intense confusion. I’d seen Uthred beat a mundane guy to death in my first year here. He was not, and had never been, the type to protect a mundane.

Uthred twisted a little harder, and a small pop echoed, the distinctive sound of a joint coming out of position. Garrick let out a scream, and Uthred let go of his hand. Garrick pulled it against his chest, holding it with his other hand as he backed away from Uthred.

Maybe he just had beef with the other shitheads and was using me as an excuse.

“Enough messing around,” Thorn said. “We made a big enough scene already. Let’s get to the dungeon.”

I kept quiet. I didn’t want any of them to focus on me. I’d seen that scenario play out enough times where one ‘Proper Student’ gets hurt by another, so they turn on the nearest mundane who can’t fight back. Just because Uthred was defending me now, didn’t mean he would defend me later. I needed to get away from Garrick before he cast a healing spell on his hand and then lashed out at me.

I turned and headed towards the Dungeon, my arms wrapping around me as I strode towards my doom.

“You don’t have to come with us,” Uthred said as he caught up with me.

“I like that,” a new voice said. “No one should be forced to do things they don’t want to do.”

I looked back over my shoulder to see that a new guy had just jogged up. He was wearing the violet jacket that marked him as on the same level as the Kings. Since he wasn’t one of their team, that meant he had to be one of the nobles’ brats. He had white, crystalline skin, as if it should sparkle in the sunshine or instantly burst into flames, but it did neither. His eyes had jet black irises, but other than that, they were pretty normal-looking. He had the round ears of a human, black hair that was trimmed neatly with a French crop that was a little longer on top with shorter sides. He was shorter than Uthred, the top of his head coming just under Uthred’s chin, as if he would fit there perfectly in a snuggle.

I narrowed my eyes at the thought, glancing back and forth between them.

“Are you coming with us to the dungeon, Rian?” Uthred asked him.

“Oh yes, if that’s alright with you,” Rian smiled up at Uthred, all sunshine and innocence, as if Uthred was where the sun began and the darkness ended. “I’d love to see how this whole thing plays out. I believe your group has nefarious intent.”

I narrowed my eyes as I wrenched my gaze back in front of me. These guys were messing with me. I knew why they were taking me into the Dungeon. They knew I knew why they were taking me there. All the talk of not hurting me and nefarious intent was designed to mess with my head.

They were fucking with my head before they fucked with me.

“You won’t break me,” I said. “I know what you do, and you won’t break me.”

“Ah, okay,” Uthred said. “Sounds like a plan.”

I looked back over my shoulder to see him giving me a thumbs up. The gesture was so strange and yet not, it took me a minute to realize why it was so weird. The students who grew up in this world didn’t make that gesture. Putting your thumbs up was something that came from the mundane. A ‘Proper Student’ like Uthred would never mimic a lower-class mundane gesture.

The confusion of that observation faded as we approached the entrance to the dungeon. There was a huge new barricade, a giant wall placed between us and the opening, with a small gate at the bottom. It wasn’t surprising that they repaired the damage so quickly. They built things faster here, using magic that they wouldn’t teach to us lowly mundanes. The structures for the arena battles and the Blood Moons usually went up within the course of a day.

Soldiers were on top of the wall, holding crossbows, all looking down at the entrance.

“Going in again, Princes?” a tired-looking soldier asked as we approached the gate. His eyes fell on me and his chin dipped down towards his chest, his shoulders slumping with a minor expression of guilt. “Another one?”

Even the soldiers knew what was happening here.

“Is there a problem with that?” Bram asked.

The soldier looked from one to the other of them before shaking his head.

“No, go in,” he said. Then he raised his voice. “We have entry!”

They knew what was happening here, and they weren’t going to stop it. They hadn’t stopped what happened to the women who were brought before me. They weren’t going to save me. It wasn’t surprising. Mundanes learned quickly to avoid the Order Army encampment as well. They weren’t any better than the beasts that this place labeled ‘Proper Students’.

I clenched my fists down at my sides, my fingernails biting into my palms.

Soldiers boxed us in as we approached the gate, their spears all pointing at our backs. The gate clanked open, and we went through. We crossed the barren dirt ground from the wall to the jagged maw of the dungeon. It still looked a bit like an animal’s mouth. I glanced over at Uthred out of the corner of my eyes and then picked up the pace, walking faster as I strode into the dungeon.

The entrance was different from the drawings in my books. Most of the time, it was supposed to be dirt. Every so often, when the Dungeon wanted to draw more people in, it was a lush entryway filled with valuable herbs.

But it was neither of these.

The ground and walls were all made out of smooth marble slabs, interspersed by pristine columns.

Uthred rushed past me and down the hallway.

“Uthred!” someone shouted from behind me. “The traps! Duck!”

Uthred threw himself down to the ground. A large blade whooshed in the air above his head, embedding in the wall next to him. I pressed my lips together to hold back my disappointment and excitement.

Maybe I could survive this.

Maybe the Dungeon would kill them all before they tortured me.

“What are you doing?” Bram asked as we all caught up with him. “You know the Ordered section traps. They are always the same. They never change.”

“The Ordered section?” Uthred asked. “There is an Ordered section?”

Something was seriously wrong with Uthred. He had done hundreds of Dungeon dives. He would have had to become a minor expert on how to survive in this place for his group to reach the rank of Prince. His not recognizing one of the sections of the Dungeon was unthinkable.

Not that I knew what an Ordered section was. I’d never heard of it before.

“You really must have fried your brain with…” Rorik’s eyes slid over to me before he continued. “Whatever you were doing last night. Come on, I’ll lead the way.”

Uthred got to his feet. Rorik edged to the opposite side of the wall, walking along it with his back pressed against it. Then he ducked and crawled forward. After that, he made a sharp diagonal across the floor and jumped over a section.

We all followed after him, copying his movements.

He eventually stopped in an area that was solid rock, a nice brown granite rather than the smooth white marble of the hallway behind us. Uthred stopped and put his hand on the wall, so I walked past him after the group.

“Are you there?” Uthred whispered from behind me.

“Who are you talking to?” Rorik asked.

“The Dungeon,” he said.

My skin crawled, like spiders were running along my flesh under the fabric of my school jacket. Rule forty-two: don’t attract the Dungeon’s attention. This place was a shifting malevolent sentience, a behemoth made up of shifting rooms and manifested monsters.

Rorik’s eyes widened, and he took a step back from Uthred.

“Are you suicidal? Don’t get its attention!” he hissed. “This only works because it doesn’t pay attention to us. It’s too busy with the Goddess spreading her Order within it.”

“Sure, I’ll just take a minute to get myself together,” Uthred said. Then he closed his eyes.

I didn’t realize how fascinated I’d been with him until fingers closed around my arm, squeezing hard to layer new bruises over the old. Garrick yanked me backwards, dragging me away from Uthred. He threw me, and my back slammed into the wall, knocking my breath out of me as my skull cracked against the marble, sending a sharp pain through my skull. His hand went around my throat, one of his dirty fingernails scraping against my jaw.

“You’ll be a good girl,” he sneered.

This time I didn’t smile in response, as my anger overwhelmed my fear. He didn’t get to say that to me. He didn’t get to take an expression of love and twist it into one of hate.

They were going to torture me anyway. My friends were safe.

I might as well end this quicker by fighting back.

“Fuck you,” I gasped out.

I swung one of my clenched fists at his face.

Garrick raised his forearm, blocking the blow with a laugh. Then he slapped me across the face and squeezed so hard that black spots floated in my vision. I writhed in his grip, my own fingernails clawing at his forearm before he suddenly relaxed his grip, letting the air flow back into me.

Panic and fear rushed over my anger, drawing it out, and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I knew this was going to happen. I knew this was what they did to the women they brought in here.

Garrick’s free hand dove down and lifted up the bottom edge of my skirt. His filthy fingernails scraped the inside of my thigh as he grabbed my underwear.

“That isn’t in Proper Order,” Rian said, his voice soft as he put a hand on Garrick’s shoulder.

My relief at the interruption faded just as quickly as it arrived, vanishing as Garrick’s fingernails dug into the skin over my pubic bone.

“You can have a turn next,” Garrick sneered at him before he yanked hard, and I heard the tear of fabric as he ripped away the last of my meager protections, yanking out several of my hairs with it.

Rian’s fingers dug into Garrick’s shoulder, and he jerked him back. Garrick let go of my throat as his eyes widened in surprise, and he staggered backwards. I sucked in air, staying where I was pressed against the wall, eyeing the two men.

What was Rian’s game?

“I said that isn’t in Proper Order,” Rian said, his voice harsher.

“Proper Order is that the strong take what they want and the weak do what they must to survive,” Garrick snapped at him as he tried to shrug off the other man’s grip.

“What are you doing?” Thorn demanded from behind Garrick.

Beyond the two men, I could see Uthred open his eyes.

“He’s talking to the dungeon,” Rian offered as he walked back towards the other men, dragging Garrick with him.

I shot him a glance, my brow furrowing.

“What he said?” Uthred lifted an eyebrow at Rian, his forehead wrinkling.

“You are so weird today,” Garrick muttered.

“Come on, let’s get through the Goblin chief so we can get to a safe room,” Thorn said.

“How do you know that is up ahead?” Uthred asked.

“Because the Ordered sections are anchoring parts of the Dungeon so it can’t move around,” Thorn replied, frowning at Uthred. “Everyone knows this. You know this.”

Everyone was just ignoring me. I sidled to the side, eying back the way we came. Maybe I could run. I glanced back over at Uthred. If I ran, he would chase me. If I got away, these guys would hunt me down, and if they did, they might find me with my friends again and take them too. My entire body stiffened as I warred with my desire to run, to survive.

If I ran, more people would get hurt.

If I fought, they would hurt me worse than they already planned.

I swallowed against the taste of bile in my own mouth.

“I know nothing,” Uthred replied. “And I do a lot with it.”

“You know what, just watch the girl,” Thorn said. “Keep her alive during the fight.”

“I can do that,” Uthred said.

Thorn took a few steps over to me, and I shrank back. He reached out and grabbed me by the back of the neck and shoved me. I stumbled towards, crashing into Uthred as he reached out to grab my elbows to steady me.

“What did I say about touching her?” Uthred growled.

“For Order’s sake, Uthred, what is wrong with you?” Thorn shook his head and then turned and walked off down the dungeon. The others followed after him. Uthred let go of my elbows and stepped back.

I wanted the answer to that question, too. Uthred had been at this school for years. He had a clear reputation for being an active participant in the types of ‘activities’ groups of guys at this school participated in. This whole savior act he was pulling had to have another purpose. There was no way I was going to believe he actually wanted to protect me.

“You can just go,” Uthred said.

Those words had to be a trick, some sort of trap.

Was this his game? To act all kind and protective so he could mock me for trusting him later?

“I’m not stupid,” I said. “I’m not going to run off so that you can use that as an excuse. There is no pretending this is anything but what it is. You don’t get to lie to yourself about this.”

“Lying to oneself is not Proper Order,” Rian said. “It is my main guideline.”

I frowned at him, not understanding him at all, then turned and headed after the others.

“I’m not trying to lie to myself,” Uthred said behind me. “I don’t really know what is going on. You want to enlighten me?”

“The rest of your group intends to harm that woman,” Rian said. “I think you know that, but you are lying to yourself about it because it is easier to believe that you would be wrong than that they would be that evil.”

I snorted in disgust and picked up my pace so I didn’t have to listen to the two of them talk. I had heard first-hand from Becky that Uthred was one of the bad ones. I knew all about the mundanes he had killed. I knew what he and his friends did to Abigale.

We walked into a cavern.

I immediately sidled to the side, pressing myself up against the wall to stay out of the fight. I might not be running from these guys and my fate, but that didn’t mean I was going to help them fight the monsters in here.

The other four were already in a fight with the biggest goblin I’d ever seen. He was about twenty feet tall, and his legs looked like their only purpose was to move him from one seated position to another. He did just that, standing up and toddling forward before sitting back down with a heavy thump that shook the room, causing Thorn to stumble.

Uthred came over to join me.

“You’re so sick,” I said.

“How am I sick, Fiadh?” he asked.

Disgust welled in me. I knew I should keep my mouth shut to avoid triggering whatever mental illness these guys had. I should be meek, submissive, and non-confrontational. I couldn’t make them face themselves because they would just take it out on me.

But I couldn’t stay silent.

“You five keep bringing mundane women in here so that you can feed them to the fish hatchery,” I said, not looking at him. “Not everyone comes out of here after going in with you. The ones that do say that they just did everything you asked of them. I know what you are going to do to me. Please don’t make me say it.”

“Oh shit,” Uthred said, stepping back as his eyebrows raised in surprise.

“What is the fish hatchery?” Rian asked.

I didn’t listen to Uthred’s answer. I couldn’t stand to hear the horror of what I already knew.

“That isn’t in proper order,” Rian frowned. “That place must be destroyed.”

“Already did that,” Uthred gave him a thumbs up.

Again with that mundane gesture. Everyone knew that the fish hatchery had been destroyed. It was how Becky died. Everyone knew who was responsible, and it sure as heck wasn’t Uthred.

“You didn’t do that at all,” I snapped, anger rushing through me that this shithead would take credit for the work of someone else. “The God of Chaos did.”

Bram rushed around the back of the massive goblin and darted to cut its hamstrings. It let out a huge bellow and swung its arm backwards, catching him and sending him flying across the room.

“Get it together, Bram!” Rorik yelled. “This is a starter boss!”

“Do they do this a lot?” Uthred asked. “Attack women as a group?”

“You took my friend Abigale the first week she was here. She was in the fish hatchery when it…” I sucked in a sharp breath as I fought against my rising hatred. She had been there for a few months. “I don’t know where she is now.”

“I’m pretty sure she is in the dungeon then,” Uthred said. “I got them out before I smited that place.”

Uthred was insane.

“The God of Chaos did the smiting,” I frowned. “That is what everyone is saying.”

Uthred let out a sigh.

“Hey, Fiadh,” he said. “I just want to let you know that I’m going to kill all of them.”

“What?” I asked.

“Not your friend Abigale. Sorry, I really need to be more specific sometimes. Hey, nice to meet you again, I’m not Uthred,” Uthred said. “I’m… let's just say I’m not Uthred.”

“What?” I repeated.

“I mean, I know that is like crazy to hear, but why fight it at this point?” Uthred shrugged. “I’m not really good at making things better through kindness, I might as well destroy the things that deserve to be destroyed.”

“Are you actually… you’re messing with me?” I asked.

Of course, he was messing with me.

The Goblin boss let out a scream as Rorik burned off his ear with a blast of fire.

“I can confirm that there is no Uthred here,” Rian said.

I just stared at him, and he smiled back at me with that warm, friendly expression.

The Goblin boss screamed again, this time the tone was filled with existential terror.

“You know what, it doesn’t matter. I need to get Fiadh out of here. Fiadh, you need to go have fun,” Uthred said. “That's apparently what my journey is about right now, so why don’t you do that?”

“This isn’t fun for me,” I crossed my arms. “What you guys plan to do will hurt me. It is severe torture to do what you’re planning on doing.”

Rape was torture. It wasn’t love, it wasn’t sexual aggression, it wasn’t a lack of control or any bullshit like that. It was pain and humiliation inflicted on another person for the sake of the torturer’s amusement and personal gratification. It was hate.

I heard Bram laugh, and there was a huge thud.

I turned and saw the Goblin boss lying on its back.

“We’re out of time,” Uthred said. “If you could go anywhere in the dungeon and be safe, where would you go? What does fun look like to you?”

I didn’t understand his questions. I didn’t understand any of this. There wasn’t anywhere to go. This school was a prison, this Dungeon was a trap, and these men were monsters.

“Fun?” I sneered at him. “I’d rather fuck a naga than have fun with you.”

“Well, alright, Dungeon, don’t hurt her even if she says dumb shit but give her what she wants otherwise,” Uthred said. “Fiadh, make sure you express your desires out loud, the Dungeon doesn’t know what you want if you don’t tell it.”

“I don’t understand anything you’re saying,” I said.

“Let’s go, Uthred!” Thorn called out. “It’s time to celebrate in the safe room.”

“Have fun!” Uthred said with a smile. “Know that they are already dead.”

Then he reached out with one hand and pushed me.

I stumbled backwards, but the floor wasn’t there to steady me. My feet flailed as I tipped backwards into nothing. The last sight I saw was Uthred’s maniacal smile as he stared down at me from the opening of a hole, an opening that grew farther and farther away as I fell into darkness.