Page 72

72

Stranger Things

NYX

H ow could he fucking say that to me?

Jedidiah had hit many lows in the time that I’d known him. He’d been cruel and crass and downright heartless before. But what he just said to me crossed a line I didn’t even know existed. I thought I knew his dark side. I’d danced with it many times before. I’d enjoyed it. He’d grabbed my throat and held me at the edge of a fucking mountain and I slept with him after.

But the way he’d looked at me just now. With pure disgust swirling in his eyes. Did they fuck you?

Like I was some cheap whore. Like I’d just lay down and spread my legs for both of them at the first given opportunity.

I almost did, though, didn’t I?

“Ugh!” I cried furiously, pacing back and forth in my room. Ha! My room ? What a joke. This wasn’t my room. This was some evil lair of shadows in the remains of a vanquished academy.

My eyes had been burning and stinging with the threat of tears but now I was just numb. Numb and pushed to the limit. I couldn’t take any more of this.

Jed didn’t even bother coming after me. Fighting Solaris to the death was obviously more important to him. Well, they could have at’er! Maybe this time they’d succeed, and I’d finally be free.

I needed…I needed…

My sister.

A dry sob wrenched out of me. Nothing followed. No tears or weeping, just cold, empty pain.

Emilia had probably moved on. Why shouldn’t she? I was always so shitty to her. The Luna girls probably loved her. They’d probably made her queen. I could see it so clearly—her spending her days smiling and learning and growing her magic. I was sure the Luminary and Priestesses were fawning over her. The first benevolent Morningstar, in all her icy, wonderful glory.

I sniffed. Good for her. She deserved it. Mother would be so fucking proud.

A new heady scent wafted up to my nose as I paced back and forth. It stopped me dead in my tracks.

Food.

My neck snapped in the direction of the bed. Only now did I notice the bags placed beside it. Bags that hadn’t been there before. I went and inspected them at once. One of them was full of clothes. T-shirts, sweatpants, leggings. Even a cheeky little pair of sleep shorts. I rooted around to the bottom, finding a box of barred soaps and shampoo. I narrowed my eyes, moving to the next one. In this one, I found food. Cured meats, aged cheeses, crackers, jars of sweet peaches, cans of soup, and chili.

I yanked my hands away like I’d been zapped.

Tears threatened to spill now.

Jedidiah brought all this back. Of course he did. When he wasn’t being an impulsive rage-out, he was the most thoughtful person I knew. All of the clothes were for me. All of the food was my favorite.

He was so fucking confusing.

My stomach had an iron ball in it. A hunger so potent, it was overwhelming.

But the food hardly appealed to me. A wave of nausea rolled through me as I studied it.

Fuck him.

I stalked into the attached bathroom instead. How long had it been since I’d bathed? The girl in the mirror was fucking disgusting. I hadn’t washed since before that shit went down with Rashira. I had remnants of ash and blood all over me, my face pale and gaunt as if I’d just been summoned out of my coffin by a necromancer.

Sinking into the deep, porcelain claw-foot tub as it filled with piping-hot water had me sighing with something that could almost be called relief. Almost .

The bathroom was immaculate, I realized. I hadn’t spent much time in here at all, but now that I let my eyes wander, I realized it was as opulent as a five-star hotel. Just like the bedroom suite. How odd. The rest of the academy had been obliterated into apocalyptic ruin, but this room was—

Untouched? Like the war room…

A curious thought. If the layout of the bedroom suite was original, who lived in here before?

A San Gabriel staff member? I thought back on what little I knew about it. I vaguely remembered San Gabriel Academy being run by a Head Mistress, but couldn’t remember her name for the life of me...

Were we living in a dead woman’s chamber?

A chill rushed through me. I wouldn’t put it past Solaris.

Twenty minutes later, I was curled up on the floor next to the fire wearing an oversized Metallica t-shirt and the sleep shorts, stuffing my face with salami and Havarti stacked on rice crackers. I’d braided my hair down my back in one long, thick piece.

No one had come looking for me yet. What a joke. I had the mind to sneak off the terrace and—

Two glowing eyes watched me from in the fire.

I gasped.

The rest of his body materialized lazily. The dragon lay curled up in the fire, his long tail wrapped around his body, the end flicking like a cat’s.

“You’re back,” I rasped.

He stared at me with those bright, endless eyes.

“I won’t bother throwing a parade or anything.”

He huffed. Smoke curled from his nostrils.

I rested my chin on my knees. We stared at each other. There was something soft about him right now. The way he looked at me had a wave of calmness washing over me. I let out a deep sigh, sinking into it.

Then guilt reared its ugly head from the depths of my soul, chasing away the serenity.

I didn’t deserve him.

I swallowed, hard. “You shouldn’t bother with me. My magic hatched you, I know, but I’m worthless now. You’re better off bonding with someone else. My…Emilia. You should find Emilia.”

The dragon made a soft sound. Not quite a purr, but affectionate like one.

Suddenly a vision of a girl, sitting next to the Reflection Pool at Luna Academy swam before my eyes. Her short, blunt black hair swayed in the light breeze. Her icy eyes were misty with sorrow. She peered into the water, and she—

Emilia.

A gasp tore out of me.

The vision faded, leaving me breathless. “No way.”

The dragon chortled.

She … she looked so … Different. Powerful.

I flinched a little as he started moving out of the fire. Flames and coals shuttered under him and some spewed onto the floor. His thin, serpentine body slithered toward me. I stayed frozen, watching. His eyes stayed locked with mine as he climbed onto my lap like a cat. A massive, scaly cat with a body as hot as fire itself. He was much heavier than he looked.

I laughed breathlessly as he toppled me over.

He really was purring now, a soft, rumbling melodic sound from deep in his chest. Smoke seeped from his nostrils as he positioned himself on top of me. I lay on the rug, giggling, stroking the metallic scales on his shoulders.

We were mostly strangers and yet I felt as if I’d known him my entire life. In every life.

He nuzzled into my chin, rubbing against me just like cats do. His wings splayed out to balance himself, and finally, he settled, lying on me with his face in the crook of my neck. He tucked his wings in and wound his long tail around my arm.

I did not know dragons liked to snuggle.

“Oh, you’re just a big suck, aren’t you?” I cooed, scratching his spiky chin.

With every breath I drew, stress, worry, and pain left my body. He weighed me down perfectly. Not too heavy, but heavy enough to cancel out my thoughts. He was practically my size, perhaps even bigger if you included his wings and tail.

I stroked his scales absently, my eyes falling shut. With the dragon purring on my chest, I drifted to sleep.

I woke up in the bed. The absence of the dragon’s heat and weight jarred me to shoot up straight, my eyes darting around the room.

He was gone.

My mind whirled. Had I imagined it all? I glanced at the fireplace. The fire roared normally, with no mysterious dragon lying atop the flames. I swallowed deeply and tucked my hair behind my ears. I didn’t trust my memories. I was probably losing my mind. A dragon crawling out of the fire to snuggle on top of me? Yeah right.

But I was sure that I’d fallen asleep on the rug beside the fire. Meaning that either Solaris or Jed had moved me into the bed.

The mountain was quiet. Too quiet.

Had they finally killed each other after all?

The sky outside the window was still dark. Either I’d slept the entire day away or only a couple of hours. I guessed the latter. I didn’t feel fully rested, not even close. But my mind was wired, and I tossed my legs over the side of the bed.

My muscles ached as my bare feet padded silently down the shadowy hallways.

I slunk through the dark, empty room that Jed had claimed was Solaris’s. At first, I was met with nothing but silence. But as I moved closer to the stone door to the war room that remained open a crack, I began to hear muffled voices spilling out with the warm candlelight.

I tip-toed closer, wondering if I was in a fucking dream. Their voices—they were soft. Conversational. I even heard one of them laugh.

What the fuck?

I paused outside the door, listening.

“You should have seen their faces.” Solaris’s voice. “When they realized their creations were turning against them. I’ve never seen panic so delicious. It almost made everything up until that point worth it.”

The sound that followed made no sense. Jedidiah…chuckling. “And Aries, was he there?”

“No, of course not. He was never there, not physically. He watched through crystals and mirrors from somewhere safe and far away. He always feared us, deep down.”

“How many of you were there?”

Solaris blew out a thoughtful breath. “Too many to count over the years. Though most of them didn’t survive. In the end, it was just me and Ra’ah.”

I didn’t need to see Jed’s face to know it turned sour at the mention of her.

He cleared his throat. “Right.”

“Vampirism changed her. She wasn’t always like that. When they first inflicted the transformation on her, she was still…herself. In the beginning, she could still wield her element. Water. But the blood lust took over, rather quickly, and her Celestial nature faded away. At the time, it was a good thing. If it weren’t for her, we’d have never broken free.”

“But you didn’t exactly break free,” Jed pointed out. “You were imprisoned in the shadows.”

For a moment, Solaris was quiet. Then, “I did that to myself.”

I had to bite my lip to hold in a gasp. What?

Jed mirrored my reaction. “What? Why?”

“I didn’t mean to. They were coming for me and I panicked. But that’s a story for another day, I fear.”

“Shit,” was Jed’s eventual response.

“Firefly,” Solaris called, making my heart drop. “You can come out now.”

Goddess damn me .

I sucked in a lungful of air and steeled myself. Pushed through the heavy stone door and gawped at the sight of them. Sitting at the table together, a half-gone bottle of bourbon between them. Neither of them was roughed up.

Someone pinch me.

Jed stood up. The look in his deep blue eyes had my stomach sinking. They were softer now, of course. Glazed and reddened from the liquor. No traces of the hostile disgust from before. Instead, they shone with guilt and remorse.

“Nyx…” He stepped toward me but stopped when I stepped back.

I glared at him, hating the way my throat tightened.

“I was way the fuck out of line. You didn’t do anything wrong. You saved us, and I’m a fucking idiot. A disgusting, impulsive, ignorant idiot who needs to get control of my fire. I’m sorry, Nyx. You’ll never know how sorry I am. What they did—I can’t even— I’m going to kill them . Slowly, painfully, I—”

I tossed my hand up to silence him. “I get it, Jed. You have deep-seated anger issues and a drug problem.” I shrugged, pretending I wasn’t mortally wounded by his careless words. “It’s fine. Sounds like a you problem.”

Solaris watched our interaction silently. I couldn’t read his expression.

I stalked toward them and hopped up onto the tabletop, grabbing the bottle of bourbon and taking a slam. I couldn’t help the way my face crumpled as it burned down my throat. Brown liquor was not my favorite.

I crossed my legs and looked between them. They were both watching me like I’d grown a second head.

Yeah, because I was the weird one here.

“So. You guys are thick as thieves now, huh? Forgive me if that gives me a wee bit of whiplash.”

Jed scoffed. “No, we’re not.” He sat back down in his chair, his hand instinctively wrapping around his short glass.

“Well, I was just eavesdropping and you sounded like chums.”

“Jedidiah has come around,” Solaris said, making sure his tone came out flat and not smug.

“Why?”

They glanced at each other, exchanging something without words, then back at me.

If I said stranger things had happened, I’d be lying.

“There’s no point in going to war against each other anymore.” Jed sounded pained as he admitted that. “As much as I don’t like it, the three of us are on the same side.”

I tried not to blanch at the fact that those were almost the exact same words the vampire had said when he was shadow-glamoured as Jedidiah. I swallowed, looking down at my fingers. “Oh.”

Jed sipped his drink. Solaris stared at me.

My skin was hot all over. “Well, what’s the plan, then? I’m getting tired of hiding out. If we’re all on the same page now, what is our next move?”

“Before we can do anything substantial, we need to get his manacles off,” Jed insisted. “He’s useless as he is.”

Solaris made a face. “Useless? Can you fly?”

“It’s not just the fact that you can’t wield any magic. You’re losing yourself. The shadows are trying to get back into you, but they can’t, so all they do is possess you.” Jed pointed at Solaris’s hands. They had wisps of dark smoke curling around them. He instinctively pulled them back and hid them under the table. “One of these times they’re going to be successful and take over. Then what? You’ll turn against us—you’ll turn against everything.”

“Jedidiah is right,” I piped up. “When you were dead—” The word made me wince. It made all three of us wince. “The shadows were trying to get inside you. Remember that night on the beach? When you…all those people…” I swallowed, wishing I hadn’t brought it up. The imagery harassed my mind. The tendrils of darkness hunting people, circling their limbs and shooting into their mouths, their eyes… “That’s what the shadows were doing to you.”

Solaris tried to conceal his reaction, but I saw his eyes flash with horror.

He looked between me and Jed. “So, what do you propose we do? The manacles are fused into my being with black magic. The only magic I can think of that could release me, I have been cut from.”

“Shadows?” Jed asked.

Solaris nodded.

I straightened up. “We need to get your ring from Rashira.”

Solaris’s mouth turned down. “I don’t think the ring would change anything.”

“Isn’t it infused with your shadows?” I said.

“Well, technically, yes. But it cannot be used to wield shadows. Its purpose is to amplify, as it amplified your fire on Hallows Eve.”

“What about Nyx’s fire?” Jed’s voice was hard. His eyes flicked to me. “Your fire can burn through anything.”

“Solaris is immune to it,” I stated dryly.

Jed paled. “Seriously?”

Solaris and I both nodded.

“You burned his body, though.”

I shrugged. “Well, he was dead, so I guess that was different.”

Jed shook his head incredulously. “Have you ever tried to burn off his manacles? Like, focused your fire directly at them?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Try it.”

Solaris and I shared a glance. I couldn’t read his expression. I felt uneasy about the idea, honestly.

“It couldn’t hurt,” Jed pushed. “Just try. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll figure something else out.”

I narrowed my eyes, irked. “Hey, Tony Montana! Why don’t you stop trying to order me around, m’kay? You’re in no position to be making demands.”

Solaris held back a scoff, his lips dying to stretch into a grin.

I shot him a glare next. “Something funny?”

He shrugged innocently. “You two are very alike, that’s all.”

Jed and I both rolled our eyes, definitely not proving his point.

“Whatever,” I snapped. “Let’s try it then. Solaris, do you oppose?”

He thought about it. “I don’t think it will work, but you can try.”

The fact that he didn’t have faith in me ignited a furious need to prove myself. He didn’t think my fire could burn through a couple of measly manacles? Jerk.

I slid forward and hopped down from the table. Both of them rose from their seats in unison. On either side of me. I tried to ignore the shiver that ran down my spine at being between them like this. I cleared my throat, forcing myself to focus.

“You can channel me,” Jedidiah offered.

I nodded without looking back at him.

Solaris looked … Well, I couldn’t think of a word for the look on his face. He was apprehensive, yes, but there was something else gleaming in his eyes. Something raw and emotional that I decided to ignore.

I held out my hands, silently commanding him to do the same.

He hesitated for a beat. Then his hands rose, the sleeves of his cloak falling back to his elbows.

I winced at the sight of the manacles biting into his flesh. Had they sunk deeper into his skin?

“This might hurt,” I said, though it sounded more like a question.

“They always hurt,” he whispered.

Jed placed his big, warm hands on my shoulders from behind. I gasped at the sensation of his power trying to merge with mine. I opened myself, accepting him. My mind swam, his earth and fire entering my system like a shot of heroin. I blinked rapidly as I adjusted.

Then I clasped my fingers over Solaris’s manacles and shot as much power into them as physically possible.

The surge of magic was bright, loud, and fucking electric. Solaris’s hair blew back, my luminous fire burning into the manacles until they were white-hot. His teeth clenched, his lips pulled back. In pain? Jed gripped my shoulders harder, pouring more of his power into me. I put everything into it. The cracks in the manacles glowed. I grunted, shooting more energy into them, trying to get them to break all the way through.

“Come on!” I growled.

And then something punched me in the chest and I was flying back on a gust of hot, furious wind.