by Amo Jones
I gape at her. “Everyone wants me.”
Maya snorts. “I don’t. Anymore.”
“Ouch!” I grasp my chest. “I’m hurt, boo. I’m hurt.”
“No one can hurt you…” Maya says. Her expression falls before she quickly recollects herself and squares her shoulders. I feel bad, and that’s saying something. I don’t feel anything—for anyone. I can’t help it, it’s who I am, how I was raised. My mom and dad only cared about one thing, and that was The Brotherhood. My mom didn’t care to raise me with giving a fuck about something so mundane and human like feelings, and my dad gave too much of a fuck about other shit. Civilian shit. As a result from the confusing parenting, I got my dick wet—and I did it often—and I let them go. That’s how it was and how it always will be. But Maya, Maya was different. She and I have been inseparable since we were born. Our parents used to put us into the same crib to sleep beside each other when one didn’t settle, and we would go to sleep right away. I’m a couple years older than her, so Maya always said that I was probably low-key strangling her to sleep. She’s evil as fuck for thinking that low of me. Maya means more to me than my pride, or any of that.
“Maya…” I whisper sadly. The last fucking thing I ever wanted to do was hurt her, but it was never something I felt toward her. I’d die for Maya in a heartbeat and kill anyone that crosses her, but those feelings ran through the same veins that the feelings I had toward my brothers did.
She shakes her head, her unruly curls falling over her shoulder and her green eyes coming up to meet mine. “It’s fine, Kill. Stop making a deal out of it.” She disappears, jumping onto the stage as if we didn’t just talk about the one thing she and I have basically been avoiding since the big blow up on New Year’s Eve…
New Year’s Eve
Two months ago
When I was sixteen, I lost my virginity to my best friend. Now, there are many reasons why you should never do this, one being the dynamic between you and said best friend will never be the same, but my main reason as to why this was a bad idea, is that when you’re friends with someone, you already have harnessed feelings for them. There are already seeds of friendship that are sowed inside of you, inside of them. You’re supposed to water those seeds with laughs and platonic banter, not with cum and sweat.
Anyway, I think you get my point.
When I was sixteen, I fucked Maya Patrova. It was a mutual decision, a mess really. We sort of decided, “Well, fuck it. Let’s get this over with so we can move on.” Move on I did, move on she did not.
I love Maya, but at the risk of sounding like a complete fucking cliché, I was not in love with her.
I tipped back my whiskey, the fire burning angry enough to match the rage inside of me and the flames licking through the dark opaque sky like a weapon of mass destruction.
My eyes stay on Maya, hers on me.
I’ve known about this crush for a while. It was hard to not know when I knew all too well the puppy dog eyes she gave on a regular.
“What’s the matter, May?” I hissed, my lips spreading around my teeth.
“Nothing, Kill. Why?” she snapped, mocking my tone.
I drag my focus away from her. If I had led her on, I would feel bad. But I hadn’t. Sure, I always took her side in everything, and yeah, fuck, okay, so she was my fifth in the triple wheel, but as far as I was concerned, it was mutual and completely platonic.
Only deep down I knew it wasn’t.
A laugh cackled out from over the music, a head tilting back. Callan was laughing with Sass, only Sass wasn’t laughing, she was the one talking.
Fucking weird.
I hadn’t spoken any words to Sass, but she comes off as a complete fucking recluse. Is she funny? I couldn’t help but want to know what she had said to Callan to make her laugh. Though it wasn’t hard to make Callan laugh. Or moan. Or anything, really.
“Can we talk?” Maya cut into my thoughts, and I dragged my greedy eyes away from Sass and back to the girl of the moment—Maya.
“Fine.” I stood, snatching the bottle of whiskey on my way. The beach was loaded with people from all over, celebrating New Year’s Eve. Fucking twenty-twenty. This better be the year I get some answers.
I followed her until we hit a sand dune that was so high that I had to fight the urge to holler at Keats to go grab the boards to slide down it.
“So, here’s the thing,” Maya interrupts my thoughts again, her hands on her hips. She’s wearing a neon green bikini with a little white skirt, a complete contrast against her beautiful brown skin.
Fuck, but she was beautiful.
I’ve always loved my girls a little fucking damaged, that way when I inflict more pain on them, they’d be used to it. They’re the only ones who can handle me. I was built for war, not for love. I don’t want to break people. I want them already broken. I don’t want to feel that way, but I can’t help it.
“I’m pretty sure you know how I feel about you, Kill…”
I flicked off the lid to my whiskey and brought it to my mouth. I take one hard gulp, relishing the smoothness of Teeling single malt whiskey, and how it slips down my throat easily. “I do, Maya.”
“Okay, and?” Maya asked, and even though the dead midnight was hiding her green eyes, I’d still know the exact way she’d be looking up at me right now. The same way she looked up at me when I said we couldn’t take a stray cat home when she was five years old.
I sighed, dropping down onto the sand. I gazed out to the ocean, momentarily fascinated, as I watched the angry waves crash against the sand. Florida was dope, but it wasn’t my vibe. “What do you want me to say?”
There was a long stretch of silence before she scoffed. “That said it all.” She started walking back to where the party was, the bonfire now in full blaze.
“Maya!” I reached for her slender arm. I didn’t want her to be mad at me. There was a reason why I didn’t bring this up with her before. Why I avoided it. I didn’t want to hurt her. Somewhere, between us being born and now, she and I had a bond. A fucking weird one that I wasn’t willing to bet on had I told her that I didn’t share those same feelings with her.
She pulled out of my grip. “Forget it, Kill. I get it.” Her shoulders sagged around her long curly hair. I could hear the shame in her tone. It wasn’t often that Maya bared a weakness, so the fact that she had right now made my heart, or my something, drop.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Maya. You know that.”
She sighed. “I know.” She sniffed, and I reached for her, tucking her beneath my arms and pressing my lips to her head. She continued. “I should have known that if you really wanted me, Killian Cornelii would have taken possession of me. Ever the starved wolf who is never satisfied.”
My body shook as I laughed into her hair, wrapping one of her curls around my finger. “I love you, you know that, right?”
She nodded, her face pressing against my chest. I could feel the dampness from her tears soaking into my Phillip Plein shirt. “I know, just, not the kind of love that I need.”
“Well.” She stepped out of my grip. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not capable of any other kind of love.”
“I know,” she whispers as if it made her feel just that much better. “Come on, let’s get a drink.”
I flashed her my bottle of whiskey, and she laughed, her head tipping back. “Okay, me a drink, since I don’t drink that nasty stuff.”
“No.” I rolled my eyes, pulling her under my arm as we made our way back to the bonfire. “You just drink cheap vodka.”
“Hey!” She elbowed me in the sides, laughing. “I mean it.” Her laughter dies out. “Are we okay?”
I nodded, giving her one more squeeze. “Yeah, May, we will always be okay.”
“Okay,” she answers, tying her hair up into a messy knot. “Just give me some time, okay? To somehow get over my shit.”
“You have all the time in the world.” Just as the words left my mouth, I find Saskia. She was study
ing me closely, as if fascinated, or just trying to work me out. The flames haunting the night do absolutely nothing to eradicate the fact that she is, by far, the sexiest girl I have ever seen. There’s sexy, beautiful, hot, banging, and then there’s Saskia, whose beauty trumps all the mundane adjectives that the Oxford Dictionary can generate.
“I’ll hold you to that.” Maya winked, hitting me with her hip and then turning for the ocean, where she was running in to catch some night waves, obviously skipping the drinks.
I laughed under my breath nervously, my eyes still on Sass’s and hers still on mine. Everything ceased to exist around us, as if all of the words that we had never vocalized were being spoken in the language of eye contact.
Finally, she broke away from me and looked down to the sand, wrapping her arms around herself. She always wore clothes that covered her body, as if she was trying to hide some crazy insecurity or using them as a defense mechanism to keep wolves like me at bay.
Only this wolf will huff, and he’ll puff, and he’ll blow her house down…
I shake myself out of the memory from a couple months ago. Okay, sure, two months isn’t all the time in the world like I promised Maya, but to be fair, these were the first words Sass and I had said to each other, and let’s be real, they weren’t exactly a declaration of fucking love. It’s no secret that I have lowkey pined after her a couple of times, and it’s no secret that she has shut me down every single one of those times. By not so much as saying a word. She just ignores me.
Later that night, we were all on the top deck of the ship. A few people were in the pool, but Keaton, Ky, and I were in the hot tub.
“Where the fuck are the lovebirds?” Keaton brings the rim of his beer to his mouth.
“Don’t know,” I answer, resting my head back against the top of the spa and gazing up at the sky. “Nonstop” by Drake is thumping around us loudly. “Pretty sure King is trying to get her pregnant.”
Keaton splashes me and I rear forward, laughing. “Not funny, asshole. I’m not ready to be an uncle.”
“Well, to be fair.” I swipe the water off my face. “I’m pretty sure her having a baby would make us all an uncle, not just you.”
Keaton pushes up from the edge of the spa and climbs out, flipping me off. “Fuck you.” He reaches for his phone that’s on the ground and reads through it.
“Who you texting and how do you have service way the fuck out here?”
He flips me off again and walks away, just as Callan, Sass, and Kenan start walking toward us, drinks in hand.
For a second, I’m almost certain Sass won’t get into the hot tub, but she does, her body sliding beneath the water. Damn shame to hide that body.
Callan slides over to me. “Hey.”
I cringe, and I must show it because I can hear Ky chuckling in the background. Motherfucker.
“’Sup.” I purposely pull away from her. I don’t fucking know why. Can’t really pinpoint the exact reason why I don’t want her touching me right now, and I’m not willing to say it’s because of another girl’s presence.
Callan notices, but rests back against the spa. “I’m excited about Australia, I’ve never been.”
“It’s beautiful,” Kenan says, shaking his head. “When you get past all the things that can kill you.”
Kenan is someone I can’t quite put my finger on. With his boyish features and charming wit, I almost feel bad that he’s in Midnight Mayhem and surprised that he hasn’t been eaten alive yet. Early days.
Callan laughs. “I once watched a documentary—” and I drift off. I wonder if she purposely came into this spa just to piss me off.
My eyes go to Sass, only she’s already watching me. Music is playing in the background with people screaming and yelling in their drunken stupor, and then there’s just her and I, and this complicated web of tales that our eyes continue to tell.
I slightly raise my eyebrows in question, seeing if she’ll take the bait.
She diverts her gaze away from me and takes a sip of her drink. Ky bumps me beneath the water with his foot, throwing me a questioning look.
I don’t fucking know. I answer back with a shrug.
Saskia Royal is complicated as fuck, but the hurdles that she is throwing out at me is only training my stamina, and when I finally reach that finish line, she better fucking run.
Kenan lifts Callan over his big shoulders and takes her out of the spa. I watch as he tosses her into the swimming pool as he yells in whatever the fuck it is and smashes his chest with his fist King-fucking-Kong style. The kid is funny, I’ll give him that.
He has juice and balls. Maybe I underestimated him.
Ky climbs out of the spa next. “I’m all for threesomes, but this is one I’m not touching.”
Once he’s out of earshot, I whisper out playfully. “What’d I do?”
She doesn’t answer, only rests her head against the spa, her eyes up at the sky. “You think you’ve done something wrong when a girl doesn’t bat her lashes at you.”
“Quit the fucking games, Sass. I couldn’t care less about that. I don’t care if I’m not your type—though you’d be fucking wrong—but I do want to know why you hate me.”
She chuckles, her head tilting until she’s glaring right at me. “Mascara” by Niykee Heaton starts playing in the background. “It doesn’t matter.”
Fuck it. I push off the edge and walk closer to her, moving my arms through the water. The red neon lights beneath us generate shadows against her sharp features.
She freezes. “What are you doing?”
I bring my fingers to her chin and tilt her face up to mine. Only I didn’t consider how she would look gazing up at me all helpless-like. Her eyes are fucking hypnotic, and fuck me, I don’t even think my mind tricks could help anyone who comes toe-to-toe with this woman.
“What’d I do?” I repeat, pressing my thumb against her bottom lip.
She pulls away from my grasp as if I’ve stung her. “Leave it alone, Killian.” The way my name sounds leaving her lips, makes me want to do the fucking opposite.
Damn. What the fuck?
She pushes herself out of the water. “Leave it alone.”
The Collection
When I was eight years old, my mother died.
When I was eight years old, my father was murdered.
I don’t know why or how this pattern came about. I don’t know why unlike most children my age who had a loving and caring family, I didn’t. Most people don’t know much about Kiznitch, and the old tales that come with this sacred land. Most humans walk this earth thinking that what you see, is what you get. That’s not the case if you have Kiznitch blood. Sometimes I wish I died with Papa that day. I wish that the same man who emptied that cartridge into Papa also emptied one into me.
I wasn’t so lucky.
“Saski?” my godmother, Hope, called out from down the hall. Hope took me in once everything went down. The first day I met her was when I was eight years old and the circumstances around that day are still a little hazy,
Our life was going fine, until it wasn’t. Until today. But I was somewhat prepared. I knew. Kiznitch was powerful. I learned that at a young age. Eight, to be exact.
“Coming!” I called out, tightening the belt around my waist. I had been attending Florida State University and driving home whenever needed since I graduated Siesta High. But recently, I’ve been coming home less often, especially since Hope has found a husband.
I enter through to the sitting room, tucking my hair behind my ear with a smile on my face, when I freeze. There’s a woman and another man sitting in the lounge, and I don’t need them to address me to know who they are. People from Kiznitch have a way of commanding the room without speaking a single word.
“Hello, Saskia, I’m Delila Patrova…”
My eyes flew around the room, falling to the other man who is with her. “Yes?”
“Do you know who I am?” she asked, tilting her head. Her razor sharp hair skimmed her
slim shoulder when she tilted it.
“No,” I lied. “I don’t know who you are.”
She paused, her focus flicking up to the man who was with her before coming back to me. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I need you to come with me. Did your father tell you much about Kiznitch?”
Instantly, I looked to Hope. She nodded at me, her eyes falling somber. We knew this day would come. I only wished that I had finished college before it happened. I look back to Delila. “Yes. He did.”
She smiled. “Good, I don’t have to kidnap you.” She wasn’t kidding. “Pack a bag, only your essentials, and be ready in one hour.”
My heart sank, though I should have been better prepared. I guessed over the years I had become somewhat numb to the fact that they would be here, ready to collect me.
Ready for me to take on what my parents had failed.
“Okay.” I simply spun around and made my way back to my bedroom, pulling out a small suitcase and dumping it on my bed. As I was pulling down clothes from my closet, Hope walked into my room, taking a seat on my bed. “You can still run, Sass.”
My hand froze briefly before I unhooked some jeans off the hanger. “No.” I shook my head, sucking in a deep breath. “I won’t run like Papa did. I don’t mind paying their dues.”
Hope seemed to shuffle uncomfortably as I continued to toss items into my suitcase. “I don’t think that’s why they’re taking you, Sass. I think it’s for something else.” I never asked what Hope was to Kiznitch or how she knew so much. It was very strange for a civilian to know so much about Kiznitch and live to tell about it. I never asked, though.
“What do you mean?” I zipped up my bag.
Hope’s hand came to mine, pausing the movement. There was something in her fist, and when I opened my hand, a heavy ancient style pendant fell in it.
I lifted it up by the string to inspect it. “What’s this?”
She pushed my hand down and unzipped my bag. “Please don’t show anyone that, but Saskia, it is imperative that you hold on to this now, do you understand? You must guard it with your life.”
