Page 14 of Love to Defy You (The Dark Love #2)
“Welcome to the Order of Apollo,” the leader calls out in a booming voice.
“Apollo was the most feared of the Greek gods, and he communicated the divine will of the heavens through the Oracle of Delphi. When you pass the trials and prove yourselves worthy, you will join an elite brotherhood that rules the globe from the shadows, executing our divine will upon the masses. You will become one of us. You will become a god.”
“In death, we become gods!” they repeat. “We are gods among men!”
I reach above my head to lift the lid open, but it won’t budge. Someone must have locked it from the outside.
“ Khuy! “ I kick the lid, but it accomplishes nothing. I push against the sides of the casket, searching for a loose board, but nothing gives. A worm has crawled its way up my pant leg and is writhing against my shin, and the coffin scratches against the cobblestone as I jostle inside.
“But to become gods,” the leader continues, “you must overcome your mortal failings and human flaws through the Seven Rituals of Ascension. These rituals will take place throughout the year, and by the end of the spring term, if you’ve survived, you will become one of us.
You will ascend to the most elite organization in the world, and you will be rewarded with wealth and influence, just like those who came before you. ”
I try to imagine my father trapped in a coffin with dirt and worms crawling all over him, but the picture is difficult to conjure. Grigor Kurochkin would never stoop this low—unless he was promised infinite wealth and power.
My grandfather was born a poor farmer, but his ambition allowed him to break out of poverty and ascend the ranks of Russia’s government. He reached the pinnacle of his political career when he became the president of Andarusia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The price of power is steep, but my grandfather was willing to do anything to get his hands on it. Did he sell his soul to the Order of Apollo to achieve it? Did he condemn his son and grandson to the same fate?
Deep down, I know the answer is yes.
The leader grows louder, his voice penetrating the wood to echo in the hollow space around my body.
“But should you fail these trials, or utter a word about the Order of Apollo outside of the brotherhood, you will be condemned to live out the rest of eternity here, in the Underworld. Your skull will be added to the Altar of the Dead as an offering to Hades, and you will carry the secrets of our sacred order into death. A necessary sacrifice in the pursuit of power.”
Doubt begins to crawl up my spine like the worms beneath me. Could they be real human skulls after all? Hundreds of them are embedded in the wall, but if that many students went missing over the years, wouldn’t the university catch on?
The brotherhood has ways to cover it up. You have no idea how powerful they are. Every father knows the risk when they send their son off to university. It’s the price they pay for becoming a god.
I keep my lips glued shut and breathe in and out of my nose, praying that a worm doesn’t crawl its way into my nostrils. The pungent odor of the fertilizer makes my eyes water, but I have to breathe and stay calm.
“The lyre is Apollo’s instrument,” the leader continues.
“A symbol of celestial harmony. The world needs us to control it to maintain order and balance. The circle around it symbolizes the sun and the power it wields over everything. And the arrow piercing through the sun and lyre represents our dual role as both protector and punisher of the earth. This is the symbol of the Order of Apollo. We use this mark to identify our brothers.”
The ammonia in the fertilizer is making me light-headed, and in the darkness, it’s hard to find my bearings. I press my palms against the floor of the casket to ground myself, but the worms wriggle against me.
Nausea builds up in the back of my throat, threatening to burst forth at any moment.
I cannot get sick in here. The moment I show any weakness, these bastards will seize upon it and pounce.
Just when I think I can’t take any more, and not a moment sooner, the lid flies open on its hinges.
Dim torchlight somehow burns as bright as sunlight, and I bring my hand up to shield my eyes, blinking furiously.
A hooded figure stands over me, offering a gloved hand to help me to my feet.
The first act of decency I’ve ever received in this chamber.
After a moment of hesitation, I place my hand in his and let him pull me to my feet. I brush the worms and dirt off my clothes, then look up at the hooded figure. The wolfish, gray eyes peering through the mask belong to Mikhail.
I glare daggers at him before stepping out of the coffin. The air is damp and musky, but it’s pure oxygen compared to the ammonia nitrate I just inhaled, and I take a deep breath to fill my lungs with it. The lightheadedness starts to dissipate as the nausea eases.
Is that the task? After Mikhail built it up, I thought we would endure much worse, so this is rather anticlimactic. We weren’t even in there for ten minutes.
“Candidates.” Everyone looks to the leader standing in front of us, who spreads his arms wide as he speaks. “Congratulations on completing the Trial of Mortality. Tonight, you are reborn as demigods. All except for one of you.”
Henri and I make brief eye contact, and his features are scrunched together in confusion. I glance down the rest of the row, but the other candidates seem to have completed the task as well—including the Korean twins and the redhead who was naked at the previous trial.
So, who failed?
The circle breaks open, and two hooded figures step forward, dragging a half-naked man by the arms across the cobblestone.
Their hostage has a bag over his head, and he’s kicking his legs to find purchase without success.
The hooded figures pull him to the center of the circle and release him, making him land on his ass and causing him to yelp.
The hooded figures rip the bag off his head before rejoining the circle.
“What the hell?” the hostage shouts.
“You didn’t heed the call.” The leader steps forward until he towers over the guy on the floor.
The hostage rubs his elbow. “Like I told them already, I don’t want anything to do with this.”
“You received our invitation, which means you received our warning, yes?”
I think back to the invitation, and the gold-foiled words printed on black paper: Failure to appear will result in the ultimate sacrifice.
“This is stupid,” the hostage says. “Just do whatever you’re going to do and let me go.”
The leader reaches into his cloak and produces a dagger, which glints silver in the flickering torchlight. Given this farce they call a ritual or a trial or whatever, I expect him to drag the blade across the defector’s palm, make him bleed a little, and pronounce the sacrifice complete.
But that is not what happens.
With masterful agility, the hooded figure slices the dagger forward in a swift arc. The room takes a collective breath and holds it as one, and for a moment, time is suspended.
Then the hostage topples sideways to the floor.
It doesn’t register immediately—not until the hooded figure rolls the body over with his boot so that it’s facing us.
Blood spurts from a gash across his neck, arching into the air before splattering on the cobblestone. Shouts erupt on either side of me as the candidates stumble back, some even tripping on their coffins. I take a step back but bump into a hard wall behind me.
Mikhail’s voice whispers at my ear, “Stay calm.”
My skin prickles as my limbs go numb, and the room starts to tilt around me.
Mikhail places a hand on my shoulder to steady me as I stare at the body on the floor.
As he gurgles and chokes on his own blood, his wide, terrified eyes meet mine.
He reaches out toward me with a weak, trembling hand, mouthing, Help me .
In seconds, the light fades from his eyes, and he goes still.
“This is what happens when you fail.” The leader of the group holds his dagger in the air, and crimson blood drips from the blade.
“You had your chance to walk away if you failed the Trial of Strength, but that was your one and only chance. Instead, you rose to the challenge and proved yourselves worthy.” The figure wipes the blade on his coat to clean it off.
“Your destiny was chosen by the gods who walked before you. You cannot turn back now.”
Holy shit. Mikhail was right after all.
A murder just happened in front of dozens of witnesses, and not one of the hooded figures reacted.
But the other candidates panic. Their frenzied voices create a discordant string of curses and horrified cries. But when they try to scramble away, the hooded figures keep them in place, forcing them to witness the consequences of going against the Order.
It dawns on us how real this is, how real the danger is that we’re now enmeshed in—with no way to escape it.
“In death, we become gods!” Mikhail’s voice rings in my ears above the other hooded figures shouting in chorus. “We are gods among men!”
I’m in such a daze I don’t remember walking home, but I find myself standing in front of my apartment door. My hands shake so hard I struggle to fit the keycard into the reader, so it takes a few tries to insert it. When the lock clicks, I push the door open and stumble inside.
Before the door has a chance to shut behind me, Willow rushes around the corner, but when she sees me, she stops short.
Her gaze drops to my shirt. “Why are you covered in dirt?” She sniffs the air. “Ew, is that fertilizer?”
“Yeah.” I pull off my shirt and ball it up to avoid making a mess on the rug. Hopefully, there aren’t any earthworms stuck to my clothes. My neck prickles at the repulsive thought.
“So?” She leans against the wall. “What happened?”
What do I tell her? That a secret underground society on campus slit a student’s throat tonight in front of dozens of witnesses? Saying it aloud would sound ludicrous.
Instead, I say nothing as I slip off my shoes and strip down to my boxers.
Willow scans my body, lingering a moment longer on my groin. One salacious look from Willow always gets me hard, but I doubt I could even get it up tonight after what I witnessed.
She purses her lips together. “Well, at least you don’t appear injured. But why are you covered in fertilizer?”
I push past Willow and head toward the kitchen. Instead of washing my clothes, I throw them in the trash. If I don’t, I’d think of graves and worms every time I put them on again, and even if I got the stench of ammonia out of the fabric, the phantom scent would endure in my mind.
I veer down the hall toward our bedroom. As expected, Willow follows me like a curious kitten. But you know what they say about curiosity and cats, and in this case, it’s the truth.
“Alek?” Willow follows me down the hall. “Hey, talk to me.”
I make a beeline for the bathroom and turn on the shower faucet to let the water heat up. When I slip off my boxers, I feel her presence in the doorway staring at the scar on my ass.
I never told Willow the vile, lecherous things Grigor Kurochkin said about her the night he inflicted it on me with his belt. Not because I enjoy keeping secrets from her, but because I wanted to protect her.
“We made a deal, remember?” she says, and I don’t miss the hurt in her voice. “You promised me you’d let me in on what you’re going through. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what that frat is doing to you.”
The only time I’ve broken a promise to Willow was to protect her, and I’m about to do it again. If the Order of Apollo kills people for not showing up when summoned, what will they do to those who discover their secrets?
I know Willow, and if she finds out that a cult is murdering people beneath the school, she’ll never let it go. The less she knows about the Order, the safer she’ll be.
I’m starting to understand why Mikhail is afraid to tell me anything.
Was my father also afraid of the Order of Apollo?
It’s hard to imagine Grigor Kurochkin being afraid of anyone, but I’m learning a lot of new things about my father these days.
Every interaction I’ve had with him takes on new meaning when I look at it through the lens of the Order.
Without looking at Willow, I step into the shower. “All they did was haze us initiates a little. It’s nothing to get upset about.”
My back is stiff from lying in that coffin, and as the water rolls over my skin, I sigh. The lie tastes bitter, so instead, I focus my energy on scrubbing the dirt from my arms.
Willow shifts on the other side of the glass in my peripheral, but I don’t meet her eye.
She’s quiet for a long stretch, and I wonder whether or not she’ll buy my story.
“Are you coming to bed when you’re done?” she asks.
“No. I have work to do. I’ll be in my office.” I double down on scrubbing until my skin turns raw. “Don’t wait up for me.”
She doesn’t move, and her intense gaze is making me agitated.
“Go to bed, Willow.” My tone is harsher this time. She doesn’t like it when I call her by her name, so I only use it sparingly to shut down the conversation.
It has the intended effect, and she turns her back on me to storm out of the bathroom. She slams the door shut behind her, leaving me alone at last with the dark images plaguing my mind.