Page 4 of This Blood That Breaks Us

“All hope abandon ye who enter here.”

I’m sure it was nice for people who grew up here—or some pretentious college students on a backpacking trip—but for me, it was one thing: hell.

I expected to see a dungeon or motes. Instead, all I saw was a wash of gray in the sky with thick clouds that matched the shit mood I was in. I nudged Luke and he smiled. It wasn’t genuine, but it was just for me, so I’d take it.

“I repeat, what are we doing here?”

The roar of the crowd and the neighing of horses greeted us as we neared. We looked ridiculous as a mob of men dressed to the nines in all black trudging through the mud.

I waited for Luke to speak. He usually talked his way through these types of situations, but he said nothing and stared off into space, not sharing what he was thinking.

I was used to the dull ache of Luke’s pain sitting on my chest. As if I’d broken a rib that never fully healed. After I drank the queen’s blood, I felt it. Sometimes, it was faint, and other times, it was so agonizing it put me on my ass. Usually, I’d drink.

This new feeling wasn’t that. It was more of a drawing toward something. A tug in my chest. A slight tingling in my fingers and buzzing that reverberated in my body. We were close to Her again. It was something undetectable when you’re used to being close to Her, but now that we’d had the distance, the longing was overwhelming.

Still, we weren’t there yet. We were at a horse track.

“This is a minor stop before we head home. Close to the harbor. I’ll want you to get there the proper way the first time,” Ezra said.

“What about Will and Thane?” Luke’s voice sounded rough and far away.

“They’re alive till we get there. Don’t worry.”

Luke and I shared a look. We didn’t like that answer. I had used some of my silence on the plane to try to think of something to save them, and I’d come up with absolutely nothing, but I wasn’t the plan maker. Just the one who carried out the plans.

Luke didn’t argue, which I hoped meant he had an idea.

When we reached the edge of the grass, a young man kneeled in front of me and started cleaning my shoes. I tried to kick him off, but he kept going.

Ezra circled to stop in front of us. “This is your first bit of training. We have a client to meet. Introductions are important, so I’m hoping you’ll both make a good impression.”

His freaky blue eyes bore into mine on the last words.

“A client for?” I pushed my hands through my hair. Fuck them for cutting it short. It was too cold for that shit.

“We’ve got clients we attend to all around the world. Due to your stunt with the Legion, we had to move Her, and in doingso, we had to delegate our business in America. Now we’re rekindling our business here. We have business partners that have held down things for us while we were away.”

“Care to elaborate on what that means?”

“We facilitate things. We make things possible for others as a middleman. Which keeps us with enough money to do what we need to do and gives us enough influence to keep Her safe.”

“Ezra, you do realize you’re looking at two people who know nothing about that, right? For fuck’s sake, a month ago I was taking Jell-O shots off a girl’s stomach.”

The Jell-O made me gag, but it was worth it because she was hot.

I remembered when that little lightbulb in Luke’s head went off and he decided being in a fraternity was a good idea.

We were walking to the dean’s office at Black Forest, and there they were. One of the bigger fraternities on campus preying on freshman and coaxing them to join. Luke had gotten this twinkling in his eye when he saw them.

I knew what he was thinking. Like, actually. I could guess what he was thinking nine times out of ten. We’d even tested that theory when we were kids.

Luke studied them with their chants and their brotherhood and wanted Aaron and Presley to have that. He was probably thinking it would help mend the giant hole when we left them on their own. Or that giving them experiences they’d remember forever would put them on the right foot and they’d have better things to remember us by.

Luke only admitted it would be “Safer to be in the same house.”

I’d convinced him we didn’t need to join thebiggestfraternity, and we settled on OBA.

Now, I saw it for what it was. A desperate attempt to hold on. To stay. To live. I didn’t think either of us expected that dreamto get its hooks in us so deep. Our time in Blackheart was the closest thing Luke and I would ever get to peace. Pretending we were normal and going to college with our brothers, felt too right. And for a minute I believed it. As usual, the joke was on me.