by Callie Rose
Fury exploded inside me.
“Hey! Back the fuck off!” I shouted as I ran over to her.
Breathing hard, she turned to me with wild eyes, one hand still pressing the kid into the wall. “You back off,” she snarled. “This kid’s turning evil, just like Wyatt!”
I grabbed her arm and yanked it away from Taylor, who crumpled to the floor and held his head as he hyperventilated.
“Jesus! Look at him. He’s not evil, he’s just stressed out!” I gestured toward him, glaring at her as I stepped in front of him. “He’s having a hard time being stuck down here, just like the rest of us.”
“Bullshit! He’s flipped sides, you saw how he went after the cafeteria staff!”
She made a move to dart around me, but I shifted quickly to one side, blocking her with my body again.
“I saw a young boy get frustrated,” I said stubbornly. “What are you, the emotional stability watchdog?”
She turned her nose up at me, breathing hard. “Excuse me, but as an advanced student, it is my responsibility to ensure the safety of the school. Including culling the herd of traitors like him!”
“Traitor?” I scoffed. “Are you kidding me? If bad moods make someone a traitor, then the admins should haul you down to the dungeon.”
Strictly speaking, I wasn’t sure if FU actually had a dungeon. But the building looked and felt like a magical medieval castle, and they definitely had holding cells of some kind here. So as far as I was concerned, it was a potato-potahto situation.
Sonja’s emerald eyes widened, and her hands balled up into fists. She gasped dramatically. “You want him to turn evil! You’re rooting for this place to become infested with evil little Gavriel loving cockroaches!”
“Oh my God, are you hearing yourself? The fastest way to turn someone evil is to treat them like shit, so who’s the real bad guy here?”
I took a step forward, getting right in her face. As I did, it suddenly dawned on me that she and I had each collected our own crowds. The students standing behind her all moved forward as she did. The group behind me moved forward as well, and Xero put his hand on the small of my back.
Ah, fuck.
If we didn’t diffuse this, there was going to be an all-out brawl.
Why do I always have to be the bigger person, huh? Can’t I just fight this bitch for once without worrying about the consequences?
The answer, unfortunately, appeared to be “no”.
I held myself in check as Sonja took another step nearer to me, bringing us almost nose-to-nose, and narrowed her eyes.
“I’m watching you, Piper. I can see the change coming for you, just like it came for Wyatt and this waste of space.” She gestured at the kid who was still curled up on the floor. “You’re primed and ready to jump on Gavriel’s cock, aren’t you?”
“Go fuck yourself, red.”
She smirked, then pointed an accusatory finger at Xero. “And you. I still have my eye on you. You happy to be back home? Does the sulfur in the air just warm your wicked little heart? I’m watching you both, and I’ll do whatever it takes to stop you. Just know that.”
She turned on her heel, tossing her hair over her shoulder in true drama queen fashion. The crowd dispersed, suddenly remembering that they were supposed to be in class.
I knelt beside Taylor, who was finally starting to get his breathing under control, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re a good kid.” I ducked my head to meet his gaze. “You’re going to get through this.”
Or none of us are.
Chapter Thirteen
My altercation with Sonja stayed on my mind all through the weekend, and I was still thinking about it the following Monday.
What bothered me the most about the whole thing was that the redheaded bitch was partially right. I had been changing. Just not in the way she thought. I wasn’t turning evil—though the lack of coffee might just put me over the edge—but I was growing weaker. Much weaker. I should’ve been able to take control of that situation in the hallway using persuasion alone, but I hadn’t been able to. When I’d reached for the skill, all I’d found was an aching Kai-shaped chasm. His absence, his refusal to even acknowledge me half the time, sapped my strength. It was an echo of the horrible, crippling exhaustion I had felt before I’d bonded with the guys; a slow, starving death.
Going through my days without him around was bad enough, but sharing my first class with him when he wouldn’t even look at me—that was pure hell. I was crawling through a vast desert, and he was an oasis guarded by razor wire. If I couldn’t get over the wire, I needed to find a way under it.
There was only one person I could think of to turn to for advice, and I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. Still, as I dragged my way through the day, I knew it had to be done. After falling asleep in my last class, too exhausted to keep my eyes open, I made my way to the infirmary.
“Piper! It’s nice to see you. You aren’t hurt, are you?” Cassandra’s dreamy voice softened in confusion as she gave me a quick once-over.
“Not physically,” I said through a yawn, trying to will away the pounding headache that had been growing in my skull all day. “Not yet anyway.”
She cocked her head at me in confusion, then gestured behind her toward one of the curtained-off sections. “Come. Tell me.”
I followed her, then sat down on the small exam table and looked over at her. Shame wasn’t an emotion I usually allowed myself—life was too damn short to waste it feeling guilty about stupid shit—but it was clawing its way to the surface now.
I knew I’d made a mistake with Kai. I knew I shouldn’t have taunted him with my blood like that. I’d pushed him too hard, made him snap, and in response, he’d pulled away from me almost entirely.
It had been my fuck-up, and it was up to me to try to fix it. But, God, I hated to admit that I was wrong.
Not just because I was a stubborn bitch, but because of what being wrong meant.
“I…” The words stuck in my throat, and I forced them past what felt like a total blockage, speaking in a rush. “I need to know how to break this bond.”
“Your succubus bond,” she said in her dreamy way, cocking her head at me. “With the four men.”
I shook my head. “It’s worse than that. I—I bonded with Kai. Specifically. In his specific way.”
Her eyes widened, and her irises reflected something that wasn’t in the room, as if a memory was being projected on them from the inside.
“Oh.” She sighed. “During the fight with Owen, right? When he drank from you. Not to worry, dear. A vampire bond after one feeding, especially since he was unconscious for most of it, won’t last for long. It will be a little uncomfortable, of course, but the nearer he stays to you while it wears off, the better you’ll feel.”
My throat had tightened even more as she was talking. Shame must’ve been positively radiating from me, but she didn’t seem to feel it. Maybe my succubus powers were so drained that all of my emotional projections had weakened. Even my natural human ones.
“Uh—that was the first time,” I mumbled.
“I’m sorry?”
“Ah—that was the first time,” I said a little more clearly. “It, um…it happened again.”
“I see.”
The healer spoke softly, and I believed she really did see—that she understood the complexity of my situation. She perched on the exam table beside me, barely making a dent on the stiff padding. She held my gaze and my hand, and watched my expression somberly.
Looking away, I chewed on my bottom lip. “He wouldn’t talk to me about what happened when we fought Owen. And I lost my temper.” I shook my head, desperate to distance myself from my past decisions. “I teased him. I cut myself, then held out my wrist an inch from his damn face. I—I practically forced him to do it. He didn’t want to. He kept telling me how terrible it would be. I didn’t believe him.”
I dared a glance at her face, but her expression hadn’t cha
nged. She was quiet and somber, but not judgmental. I guess if you spend a lot of your time drawing out people’s deepest, darkest secrets, you can’t really afford to be judgmental.
“Was there a sexual or emotional element to the second occurrence?” she asked, her voice soft. “Was he conscious?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, yes, and yes. He was fully—erm—engaged.” Rock hard didn’t seem like the appropriate thing to say at this particular moment.
“I see,” she breathed. “Hm. Well, there is good news and bad news.”
“Bad news first.”
“There is no way to break the bond.”
I winced. “Okay, good news?”
“The good news is that since you have already bonded with him as a succubus, you can each get your needs fulfilled. It’s a little codependent, but it can be made healthy. It shouldn’t cause you any more trouble than the initial bond did.”
I groaned, dropping my face into my hands. When I peered over at her through my fingers, she looked startled.
“That’s the problem,” I explained, my voice muffled by my palms. “He’s never accepted the succubus bond. He and I have never consummated it. We’ve kissed a few times, but that’s all. So now I’m twice bonded to a man who has no interest in me whatsoever, and I really feel like I’m going to die.”
My voice started to waver and I bit my lip hard. No crying in front of the siren. No crying in front of the siren.
She’d already made me weep when she’d used her song on me in the interrogation room, and I was determined for that to be the last time she saw me cry.
Pulling myself together, I cleared my throat. “So if I can’t break the vampire bond, I have to break the succubus bond. Right?”
Her big, sympathetic eyes told me everything I needed to know.
Fucking fucking fuck.
Panic and fury battled for dominance inside of me as she shook her head sadly.
“I’m afraid the only way you will ever feel whole is to develop a physical bond to complement the ethereal one. It simply isn’t possible to break it.” Then she hesitated, her lips pursing slightly. “Well—no.”
“What?” My eyebrows shot up.
“I shouldn’t.”
“Please.”
She sighed. “Till death do you part, Piper.”
I gaped. She shrugged.
“Well, that’s abso-fucking-lutely fan-damn-tastic. I’m not going to kill him!”
She smiled kindly. “Then there’s really only one other option, isn’t there?”
Yeah, but I’m not taking that one either.
Although, in the end, it really wouldn’t matter. I wouldn’t kill myself to break the bond, but if Kai continued to stay far away from me, refusing to acknowledge the bond between us, I’d die eventually anyway.
“Damn it, Kai.” I wiped hot tears off of my face as I stormed down the hall. After Cassandra’s grim proclamation, I’d gotten out of there as quickly as possible, barely escaping the room before the tears burst forth. “Leaving me weak and vulnerable in the fucking underworld. And why? Because you’re still in love with someone you’ll never, ever see again. How am I supposed to compete with that? Why won’t you even give me a chance? I’m right fucking here.”
People shot worried looks in my direction as I passed, but I didn’t care. Let the admins try to put me in isolation. Let Sonja try to push me around. I was in no mood for their thought crime bullshittery.
I pinged Kai on my internal radar, weak as it was. He was in his room, probably hiding out from me as usual. I raced up the stairs, drying my face as I went. I didn’t want to beg, but if that’s what it came down to, I didn’t want to be ugly-crying while I did it.
Let a girl keep a little dignity, huh?
As soon as I reached his door, I skidded to a stop and pounded on it. No answer.
“Please, Kai,” I sobbed. Fuck. So much for not ugly-crying. “Please let me in.”
Once upon a time, I would’ve just flung the door open. I’d broken these locks before. But I was so tired, dead tired, and it was all his fault. Or my fault. I honestly wasn’t sure which one of us deserved the most blame anymore, and I hated it. Everything between us was fucked up beyond belief.
When he opened the door, he had headphones in, and his black hair was slightly mussed, as if he’d been lying on the bed listening to music. His eyes widened when he saw me, and my cheeks burned. I felt like an absolute fool.
I wasn’t going to let that stop me though. He smelled like life and I was dying.
“Uh—come in.” His brows drew together as he stepped back, pulling the headphones out. “What happened?”
I hurried inside before he could change his mind. I knew he’d only allowed me inside because I had taken him by surprise, startling him with my disheveled, strung out appearance. He probably thought the school was under attack or something.
Shutting the door behind me, I dragged in several long, deep breaths. When I had myself back under control, I looked at him.
“I will literally do anything. Whatever you want. Just please help me.” God, I hated asking for help almost as much as I hated needing a man.
His expression flattened, his dark eyes turning hard. “You want me to drink from you again.”
“No! I don’t care how you touch me, just touch me! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” I grabbed handfuls of my hair in fury and frustration, the sting in my scalp a sharp contrast to the dull throbbing at my temples. “I have died a little bit more every single day since we first bonded. Having this connection, needing you, and not being able to touch you—it’s killing me. It’s making me weak. I can’t be weak down here, Kai. Don’t you understand that? We’re in the fucking underworld! What if we get attacked?”
He was watching me with wide eyes, but I couldn’t read him. I had no goddamn idea what he was thinking. In all honesty, there were other reasons for the pain that seemed to live in my chest all the time these days. Other pleas I could’ve made besides just the practicality of not wanting to be weakened while we were stuck in the underworld.
But I didn’t dare say them out loud to Kai. I could barely acknowledge my feelings to myself, and I knew if he got even a hint of the fact that I needed him beyond the succubus bond, beyond the blood bond, I’d find myself alone in the room with a Kai-shaped hole in the door.
He didn’t need to know about the mess of confusing emotions ricocheting around in my chest.
He just needed to know one thing.
I let my hands fall to my sides and calmed myself again, straightening my spine and lifting my chin to meet his gaze.
“I’ll do whatever you want. I know you hate me, but I… I can be whoever you want me to be,” I whispered.
Then I closed my eyes and focused on the face of the Asian woman who worked behind the bar at the little pub on Mönkh Saridag. Groups of students had snuck off school grounds often to go drink there, and Kai had spent hours just nursing a beer and watching her with nostalgia and pain floating in his eyes.
I wanted to give him what he missed so terribly, if only to make it easier for him to give me what I desperately needed. I felt my face and body shift, and when it was done, I opened my eyes.
“Is this what you want, Kai?”
His entire body jerked as his eyes widened. I braced myself for his expression to change as he took in my false features, for longing and desire to steal across his face—and for the inevitable pain I would feel when they did.
Instead, he scowled at me.
“What are you doing?”
“I know you still love her, Kai, whoever she is or was. I never meant for this bond to happen, but I thought maybe if I—”
“No.” He blinked, his face going oddly still. “That’s not… that’s not right.”
I swallowed, my stomach churning as I forced words I didn’t want to say past numb lips. Goddamn it, why does this hurt so much?
“I was just doing my best. If you show me a picture of her, I c
an—”
“No!” His voice was more forceful, and he took a step closer, staring at me intently as if he was trying to see through my shifted features to the truth underneath. “It’s not right. That’s not what I want. Change back.”
“Kai, please—”
“I said change back!”
“Fine!” I started to shift back to myself, wild with fury. “Have it your way then. Just stand there and let me fucking die. I’m sorry about the goddamn bond, all right? I don’t know how many more times I can say it. But I need you, and I’m trying to make it easier on you. Fuck. I thought your heart had been broken, but now I’m wondering—”
I cut myself off before I could finish telling him he was heartless, because what I saw on his face as my features returned to normal was something almost exactly like… relief.
It was so unexpected that it stopped me cold.
He stepped toward me with some kind of fierce energy I couldn’t define, and for a moment, I didn’t know whether he was going to kiss me or kill me. I stood rooted to the spot until he grabbed me around the waist and cupped the back of my head in his hand.
His fingers trailed over my neck and down the line of my jaw, brushing over my cheekbone and lips as if he was mapping my features. Memorizing them.
“That’s better,” he murmured.
Then he kissed me.
Holding me tightly but tenderly, he poured himself into me. I drank him in, every taste, every sensation. Clinging to him like my life depended on it, I relaxed in his arms, freezing every thought and outside feeling so I could focus solely on the man pressed against me. He tasted vaguely like ginger and felt like velvet and power. I trembled under his touch as my energy skyrocketed past anything it had ever been before.
We had kissed before, but never like this.
Because this was so much more than a kiss.
After several long moments, when my lips were swollen and pink, he released my mouth slowly, gently. He brushed my hair back behind my ears and swept the dampness from my face. As his gaze burned into mine, I felt something radiating from him that was stronger and sweeter than lust, more powerful than anything I could think of.
