by Everly Frost
“You’ve done whatever you liked for too long, Striker. You terrorize the other students, yet you undermine my authority with every move you make. It’s time for you to choose where your allegiances lie.”
My laughter dies. “My allegiances?”
“You’ve done more damage to Peyton Price than I ever could have achieved on my own,” she says. “You have the physical strength to subdue any student. You’re built to cause pain. You’re built as a predator.”
She tips her chin. “Join us.”
What?
“Become one of us. Help us. Help your sister. We can defend this academy from the attack that’s coming.”
For a second, I consider her offer. I could do a lot of damage from the inside if I were privy to all their conversations and plans, in a better position to manipulate their decisions. I’d have more power to affect my stepfather, too.
But at what cost? Would I have to stand by while they torture students like Lucinda, who is one of the most loyal people I know? Would I have to pretend I don’t care when they force students like sweet Ashley into the pit?
Osprey thinks I don’t care.
I didn’t. Not for a long time.
But fuck it. Sometime in the last five months, my heart started beating again. I vowed that Peyton wouldn’t get to me, but she did. She reached in and grabbed my heart and squeezed until I had no choice but to care again.
It is time to pick a side.
It’s time for me to be true to myself.
Taking my silence as willingness to consider her offer, Osprey prattles on. “In return, you can have whatever you want. Your father could be convinced to give you money. Your sister can visit whenever you want. We’ll make Peyton sleep in your room if you want. She can be all yours. No limits. Do whatever you want.”
Oh, lady.
Now she’s done it.
An intense growl starts at the bottom of my lungs. It escapes my lips so suddenly that Osprey lurches backward in alarm.
“I will never join you.” I snarl. “Lady Tirelli isn’t here to protect you anymore.” I can’t move to threaten them. All I have is my voice. “You’re all going to die.”
The blood drains from Osprey’s old face until she’s deathly pale. Her entire torso thrums as a scream roars up into her mouth. “Take him to the pit! If he won’t join us, he can die there.”
Her immobilization spell drops me back to my feet.
I consider fighting her and the compliance officers right now. I could bathe this corridor in blood, but there are too many officers still inside the classroom. I have to be smart. I need to catch them unawares, not when they’re prepared for a fight.
It’s better that I go to the pit first and kill whatever monster’s waiting.
Then I’m coming back for every one of these witches and wizards and I’m going to end them like I should have a year ago. I may have found my heart, but it’s filled with fury and revenge.
Osprey may be afraid of the assassins now that Lady Tirelli’s gone, but she should be afraid of me.
32. Striker Draven
None of the compliance officers is brave enough to come within a few feet of me, not even Collin and Colby. They know I’ll break their arms if they do. They use their magic to prod me along the corridor to the entry to the pit.
Osprey opens the hidden panel and I walk ahead of them as lamps come alive around me, lit by Osprey’s magic.
She’ll leave me in darkness soon, but I’m not afraid.
Osprey presses against the wall to avoid touching me when we reach the bottom. Her movements are suddenly furtive and quick. She peers cautiously into the dark corridor beyond the gate before she says to the compliance officers, “Be ready.”
She hurriedly unlocks the gate. They use their power to shove me inside so fast, I hit the cave wall on the other side of the gate before Osprey locks it again. The rope around me disintegrates, leaving me with bloody cuts around my arms and chest, my shirt in ruins.
As the lights die, and the compliance officers’ footsteps recede, Osprey whispers, “Don’t expect to survive this one, Striker.”
My torn shirt is a liability, something to catch my arms in, so I rip it off.
I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark, listening carefully. There’s no reason to hide my power here, so I let my senses expand to their full extent. I won’t call on the beast until I need him, but for now I’ll use everything at my disposal to prepare for the fight ahead.
I know every section of this pit well. The initial corridor opens up into a cavern supported by large rock pillars. The cavern itself stretches a hundred paces into the distance and splits into multiple tunnels, each long enough for a creature to hide in them. The safest place for me is inside the wide cavern directly ahead. It’s exposed, but there are places to run if things go bad.
The Orthrus’s bones lie farther ahead to the left as I edge out into the open. My eyesight adjusts quickly, my ability to see in dark places an innate part of my power. There’s a curious gap in the Orthrus’s large ribcage. One of its ribs is missing. I spy the bone lying next to a pillar in the center of the cavity. It would make a useful weapon if I need one. In fact… it makes me wonder if Peyton used it already. The dead harpy is long gone but that could be how she killed it.
Just as I take a step toward it, soft growls meet my ears coming from the tunnel farthest to the right. I carefully back up, keeping my distance without working myself into a corner. I need to know what I’m dealing with before I can make a game plan.
The beast slinks from the tunnel, its teeth already bared. I make out a short muzzle, a fierce mane, and four incredibly muscled legs with sharp claws at the end of each one. Its tail whips back and forth—solid and scaled with a stinger at the end. Saliva drips from multiple rows of sharp teeth—a shark’s mouth.
Oh, hell… it’s a manticore. A creature with the head and body of a lion, the tail of a scorpion, and teeth like a shark. A bad mix of predatorial strengths. Some also have wings, but it looks like this is the wingless variety—which makes it more volatile. Manticores are fiercer than an Orthrus and the scorpion tail can inject me with venom that will paralyze me. I’ve never tested my strength against one, so I have no idea if I’ll be immune to its poison.
Fear invades my mind as it prowls toward me, its snarls growing louder.
There’s no avoiding the fight ahead.
Within a heartbeat, my beast roars to the surface. I sense my body shift, my shoulders and fists expand, my height increase, and the bones along my spine break from the surface, protecting my back. I’ve never seen what I look like, but hellfire crackles to the surface of my skin, streaming visibly through the veins along my arms and legs.
The beast’s thoughts merge with my own.
I am the beast. I am more me like this than I am at any other time.
I snarl back at the manticore, baring my sharp teeth. If I get in close enough, I’ll be able to rip its throat out. But then, he could rip mine out too.
The manticore leaps. I run at it, curling my fist, ducking, and punching it hard in the side of its head. It flies off course, hits the ground, scrambles to turn around, and leaps again. Like a cat, its claws are bared to dig into me, to latch onto my limbs and maul me.
I dart and land a kick to its side. I hit it so hard that I should have broken its ribs.
But the manticore finds its feet again, turning and running back at me.
This time I bare my claws and when it leaps, I duck, scraping my claws along its underbelly.
I don’t make a mark.
Impossible.
A sickening fear grows inside my stomach for the first time since I got here. Manticores are difficult to kill, but I should have hurt it at least a little bit by now.
There are only a few possible reasons why I haven’t, the worst being that Osprey has placed a protection spell around it. If that’s the case, I’ll have to break the spell to even make a mark on this beast.
If I can�
��t, I’m a dead man.
The manticore whirls, rising up on its hind legs, its foreclaws slashing the air in front of my chest. I barely dance out of its reach in time. A single claw rakes across my shoulder, making me roar as it slices through my bicep. I convince myself it’s superficial, despite the splash of blood.
With a roar, I harness the fire inside my body and charge, taking the brunt of its claws across my chest and arms as I tackle the manticore to the ground. It gnashes at me with its teeth, latching one set of claws into my right shoulder as I aim for its throat, managing to wrap my fingers around it.
Power screams through my arm into my hand, burning through my fingertips. The creature’s fur glows, the protective spell fighting back, shielding it, but I don’t stop. I won’t stop until I burn through it.
Hellfire streams down my arm like blood, pooling across the manticore’s throat.
The protection spell sizzles… and pops.
The beast roars, finally vulnerable.
I’ve broken the spell, but I’ve made myself vulnerable. I roar in agony as its deeply embedded claw drags across my chest all the way from my right shoulder to my bottom left rib. The cut opens wide and my brain has trouble processing it.
At the same time, pain pierces my side.
Oh… hell… no.
The creature’s tail jabs deep into my waist, poisonous venom shrieking through me in a torturous rush. With one hand still on its throat, I grab its tail with my other, digging in with my claws and ripping off its stinger.
Deep fury rushes through me. I have only minutes before I’ll be paralyzed completely.
Claws bared, I rip at its throat, ramming the claws of my other hand deep into its chest, dragging at its body, tearing as hard as I can. Its bottom jaw rips off in my hand at the same time I pierce its heart.
The light in its eyes dies.
Its claws fall to the side.
But the blood gushing across my chest is not the manticore’s. I struggle to stand, struggle to comprehend the damage to my body. Patches of white tell me its claws ripped to the bone.
My legs buckle, but I need to put pressure on the wound. I need to stop the bleeding. If I don’t, I’ll bleed out.
I’ll lose my life in this place.
I try to hobble to my shirt, determined to use it as a compress, my knees wobbling as I lose feeling in my feet, then my calves. I thud onto my hands and knees, dragging myself through the dirt, screaming as my hips and stomach lose feeling. The creeping paralysis spreads through my shoulders and down my arms.
I drag and drag, reaching for my shirt, my fingertips an inch away from it when the paralysis reaches my neck, and my body becomes nothing more than a dead weight. I can’t feel, can only see the blood pooling beneath me, a growing puddle, my life leaving my body.
I can’t stop it. Can’t shout. Can’t move. Can’t heal myself.
My beast rages inside my mind, fighting the poison, the fire in my body trying to consume the venom—burn it up—but it’s taking too long.
For the first time since I came to Bloodwing, I consider the possibility that I’m going to die here.
There isn’t time to do the things I need to do. I need to make my stepfather pay for my mother’s death. I need to free Zara from the shackles she’s chained with. More than anything, I need to see Peyton one last time. I need to tell her I’m sorry and make sure she knows it’s true. That it was true the first time I said it. I can’t leave this world knowing that she thinks I betrayed her, that she believes she’s not worthy of love. She deserves so much more than me.
As the minutes pass, my beast grows weak. The fire inside me slowly consumes the poison, but my strength is also failing. By the time feeling returns to my arms and legs, I’m numb for a different reason.
I’ve lost too much blood.
Trying to breathe, I force myself up on my hands and knees, crawling through the dirt, passing my ruined shirt—too late to be of any use—to reach the gate. One last surge of power heats up my palms enough to bend the bars apart. I wedge myself through the gap, falling onto the rocky ground on the other side.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
I tell myself to get up. I have to see her.
That’s all that matters.
I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t think my time would be up today, but I guess fate’s as monstrous as I am.
It’s time to accept that I’m going to die.
33. Peyton Price
“The time has come.”
I wake to Osprey’s voice, but when I ease open my eyes, she’s nowhere near me. Confused, I try not to make any sudden movements. I’m in my room, lying on my bed. My stomach turns as the poultice on the ceiling drags at me, but I force myself to lie still. It’s not the only pain I feel. My shoulder aches as if it’s been thumped and my legs feel bruised.
The changed sunlight tells me it’s late morning, maybe even early afternoon. I try to remember what happened as my empty room stares back at me.
Lucinda’s scream echoes in my memory. Lucinda! Raptor was hurting her and then Striker grabbed me, his fingertips stroking my neck…
He knocked me out before I could help her.
I can’t even begin to understand his motive for silencing me. Trying to fathom Striker’s thoughts makes my emotions go haywire. I believed his apology and then he went and hurt me again. Worse, he endangered Lucinda. I fight my panic, wondering what happened to her, hoping she wasn’t harmed. Lying here isn’t doing me any good. I have to get up and find her.
Just as I begin to move, Osprey speaks again, and this time I locate her voice, floating in from the corridor outside.
I stop very still, listening as she says, “Lady Tirelli’s gone. We know that now. It’s time to take action and protect ourselves. The students are a liability we don’t need.”
Ms. Sparrow responds, “They’re all in the dining room on lockdown. We could send them to the pit one at a time.”
“That will take too long.”
“A death spell, then?”
Osprey’s response is coldly clinical. “No, it can’t appear premeditated. If we survive the assassins, we still have to answer to the Magnate. They tolerate flicker deaths—even one or two mortalities in the pit—but they won’t be able to overlook a mass murder.”
My stomach turns again and this time it’s not the poultice.
I try to breathe, try to comprehend what they’re saying. They’re talking about… killing everyone.
What the hell?
I smother my mouth with my hand before I scream.
Ms. Sparrow sounds annoyed now. “What then?”
“We should turn them out into the forest. The creature in the trees will finish them off before they make it half a mile.”
Ms. Sparrow gives a delighted laugh. “Excellent. If anyone asks, we can say they tried to escape.”
“First, we need to decide which students are useful to us. Peyton should be kept alive because she can tell us things we need to know. Lucinda, of course, is completely useless and will need to die. Along with Bree, although Ashley shows signs of useful power. Joseph, Lachlan, and Ryan have proven themselves to be good fighters. We should offer them a deal—”
“Because that worked so well with Striker.” Ms. Sparrow’s tone is more derisive than I’ve ever heard it.
“He was a fool to refuse to join us.”
My heartbeat suddenly jumps. Striker turned them down. I picture the way he would have done it. Probably with a fist. That would have made Osprey furious.
Then Ms. Sparrow speaks again. “What will you do with him once he gets out of the pit?”
“Oh, he’s not coming out,” Osprey says. “That beast is like nothing before it. The pit is no longer a place of torture. Nobody’s coming out of it ever again.”
Fear strikes through me. I turn my head into the bare mattress, reminding myself that I don’t care what happens to Striker. Can’t care. Too scared to care. I want to thump my fist against the be
d and wail.
I can’t care!
Sudden tears burn the backs of my eyes.
I do care. I’m terrified that I won’t see his brutal smile again, sense his gaze on me like a naked flame burning my skin. Terrified that I won’t get to fight with him again.
Out in the corridor, Ms. Sparrow clears her throat. “We’ll have to handle his sister carefully.”
“Don’t worry. I cleared it with his stepfather. He’s more than happy to see the end of Striker. Oliver Draven will finally have complete control of the Draven fortune. He’s promised to deal with Zara so there isn’t any fallout.”
Stepfather. That would explain why they don’t look alike. Zara must be Striker’s stepsister.
“What about Peyton right now?” Sparrow asks.
“There’s nothing we can do until she wakes up. I’ll send the compliance officers up here to watch over her.”
“Okay, then,” Ms. Sparrow says. “When will we order the students into the forest?”
“Tonight. The dark will make it harder for them to defend themselves. Your job now is to get Vulture to agree—that old witch thinks all the students are worth saving.” Osprey’s sarcastic laugh fades and their voices recede along the corridor as they walk away, their heels tapping the floor.
I’m left cold and shaking. But not with fear.
Striker stopped me when I was about to tell Raptor about the assassins. I was going to tell him that the female assassin has silver rings around her eyes. That she could… possibly… be a monster too.
A monster like me.
Striker stopped me speaking in his Striker way—with brutality.
Then he told Osprey that he wouldn’t join her.
Now he’s in the pit, and he might not make it out.
Suddenly, all I can think about is the way he hugged me and apologized. He has claws. He must be a monster too. But when he hugged me… he was just Striker.
I may very well hate him until the end of my days, but I need him and want him too. He uses violence to work within the unbreakable lines that have been drawn around him. Lines that cage every student in this academy. He’s learned how to survive and make sure others survive, and now I need to do the same.
