My lips twisted in irony.Only child.It was how I was referred to by my parents, and it was a fucking joke.
I stepped under Occult Arch from the shadows, finding Bram and Skel already there.
“Dex, what the fuck?” Skel cursed at me as I swiped his pipe and inhaled all of the fae drugs I could from it.
“I need it more than you right now, dude.” I exhaled the magic into the air and managed another drawl before Skel stole it back and popped me on the back of my head.
“No, you literally fucking don’t,” he growled, anger simmering off of him and filling my reserves more. “You have no idea how much I need this shit to calm my Fates-damned magic. After theprincesshad such a fearful reaction to you, she filled me up. You know how dangerous that used to be? Well, it’s more fucking dangerous now.”
Skel had always had very powerful fear magic. So powerful that it literally instilled fear into all the demons he’d come across. What could he had done to make it worse?
I let the fae magic work through my system before blowing out the last of the smoke, feeling numbness in my limbs.
A part of me, a very small part, recoiled in horror at what I had done to Pandora. She had given me her first name so innocently, and I had hurt her more than just physically for the exercise. I couldn't understand why I had even done it. She’d already fed my reserves with the immense wealth of negativity stemming from her. I didn’thaveto hurt her to feed, but I did.
Her pain was the best I’d ever had. It filled my reserves completely—overfilled them.
Why was I even thinking this way? Why did I even care?
“How can a noble be so fucking weak?” Bram chuckled, stumbling as his back smacked against the rock arch for support. The throbbing pain from his back seeped into me.
I reached for his bottle of fae rum I’d gotten him and downed a quarter of it, feeling the burn in the back of my throat before tossing it back. “I asked the same question.”
Pandora was becoming my fixation. How had her mere fucking presence ignited such a strong desire within me? The red-eyed soul eater occupied every corner of my consciousness since Bram and Skel had bitched about her. After seeingher, though? Her image was seared into my brain like a beautiful brand.
And Fates be damned, she was beautiful.
Rum sloshed in the bottle as Bram caught it sloppily and glowered at me through bleary eyes. “Fuck you, man.”
“I got you the rum,” I mumbled with a pout. “Sharing is caring, ya know?”
Bram scowled, but he didn’t say anything else about the rum, so that meant I won. I mean, of course it did. How else would he get the rum?
Iwas the one with the fae market connections.
I’d been told more than once that I was incapable of forming genuine emotional connections with others. That had been true, except for with Bram and Skel. I wouldn’t say they were my friends, but they were tolerable. I didn’t hate them, and I seemed to have actually missed their presence throughout the years. Maybe theyweremy friends?
Whatever. It didn’t matter. The problem was that I hadn’t been able to shake the overwhelming need to possess Pandora, body and soul, since I first met her.
My thoughts twisted and turned like a labyrinth of madness as the fae drugs and rum ran through my body. On the one hand, I craved her with a hunger that bordered on obsession; the mere thought of her pain and negative emotionssent shivers of gluttony down my spine. Fates, they tastedso good. But on the other hand, I knew I would never truly be able to form an emotional bond with her.
Especially after my decapitations. The scar around my neck did more than give me character. It marred my psyche and dangled me above the brink of madness. Madness that felt so fucking good when I let it take over. It whispered to me in the darkest corners of my mind, taunting me with visions of violence and chaos that I never bothered to control.
Oh, Kalista, I wanted toruinher.
“She’s just a pampered little princess,” Skel blurted, coughing on a fucked up inhale of the pipe.
“I’m sure Daddy has never let her get hurt, so you may have been the first to hurt her,” Bram slurred before chuckling. “How’s that feel, Dex?”
“There’s something more to her.” I tapped my nose before smirking. Maybe it was fucked up, but Ilikedseeing her tears drip down her rosy cheeks. The color of her blood was close to the color of her lips, and I wondered if they tasted like her pain. “And I can’t wait to find out.”
Skel sucked in another draw from the pipe and blew out a harsh breath as his eyes rolled back. “It’s her fucking fault that I have to get higher. My magic is itching to escape.”
“Already escaping, dude.” Bram’s eyes were shut tight, and his fear slipped out of him. Bet it was a spider he was seeing. He’d been afraid of them ever since one crawled into his pants leg on the first day of high school.
Skel gave a self-deprecating laugh before smoking more. “Fuck.”
“Oh, shit, I got you, dude.” I pointed a finger gun toward him and shot a couple of bullets into his chest. They ripped through, and sharp, white-hot pain exploded from the sight of entry. I ate his pain as his magic reserves healed him.
