A pang of discomfort twisted in my chest as I flicked my gaze at him and took a hit of the pipe, filling my veins with fae magic. “What do you want, Rod?”
My father was a dark, imposing chaos demon with piercing black eyes and a sneer permanently etched on his dirty face. Unlike my birth-giver, my sperm-donor radiated malice through the screen.
“What I want is for my son to be competent for once.” His sneer deepened. “But we might as well make use of you while you’re at the academy. We’ve been…promoted,as it turns out, and we’ve been tasked with something big.”
I snorted, blowing out the fae magic. “Wow, what a great fucking job to be promoted for the dark marriage or whatever. Congrats.”
“Focus, Dexter,” Father snapped. “What the Veil is wrong with you?”
I blinked lazily back at him. Madness sought to take hold at the back of my mind. “You made me this way,father of mine.”
“Would you like to see what would happen if you were headless a fifth time?” Mother’s features were impassive, her gaze distant, as if she were merely going through the motions of being here to discipline me as a parent. She wasn’t a Fates-damned parent, though. Neither was the piece of shit next to her. The both of them grated on my nerves.
I chuckled, hitting the pipe again.Damn, that’s good shit. No wonder Skel’s always smoking on it.“I doubt my head would reattach this time,honestly. But ya know, do what you will and all that.”
My grip on reality was…tenuousat best, and the allure of the soul eater here was a guilty pleasure I wanted to fall into. She was a siren's call that threatened to pull me under, and I’d gladly let her.
What else was I living for, anyway?
“We’ll test that theory if you don’t succeed in placing this painting within Reform Hall.” Father snapped his fingers at Mother.
She sighed and uncurled her fingers. A painting entered the shadows behind her before being extended in front of me from her shadow tendril.
I grabbed the ominous painting with clammy palms and set it down next to my desk. I could feel the fucking dark magic swirling within it, and something deep in my soul squirmed in a feeble attempt to reach it. “That’s it?”
“This is for the greater good of the demon species, you classless ingrate,” Father snapped.
Mother’s shadow tendril struck, slicing me across my face, cutting into my cornea, and busting my lip open before disappearing and slinking back to my mother.
He’d ended the call before I could gripe at him.
My head dropped down, and I watched the redblood drip like raindrops from my face onto the floor. “Oh, shit. What the fuck?”
The pain from the hit sent my brain spiraling, and I glanced up and tossed the pipe back onto Skel’s chest with a maniacal laugh. The warmth of my magic healing the wound took effect.
Skel didn’t even fucking budge. The asshole was so high, I bet I could slice into him, and he wouldn’t wake.
A volatile mix of anger, hurt, and a growing madness fueled by the same dark magic that now plagued the academy taunted me. My shadows writhed and twisted around me, whispering dark secrets and tempting me with thoughts of the pretty soul eater that caused so much trouble with her mere presence here.
Maybe I was driven by a reckless impulse, or maybe it was just curiosity, but I didn’t give a fuck about the reason. I found myself skulking within the shadows of the dormitory Pandora and Dreadful shared.
I could immediately gauge the difference between the two of them from their room alone.
Pandora’s side didn’t strike me as a typical noble’s room. Shades of gray, black, and ivory filled Pandora’s space, and it reminded me of a girly version of Skel’s and my taste.How quaint.
A four-poster bed loomed in the middle of the room with black curtains. Black candlesticks seton her gray desk, casting flickering shadows against the walls I peered out of. She had black shelves with a collection of books on them, and there was a black rising stand on the end table next to an enchanted water bottle.
Dreadful’s side reeked of nobility. Creams and whites were on her side, with lace decorated throughout. Pale-colored cushions were piled in a chair on the corner of her room with fae orbs floating above it. And Dreadful, that fucking bitch, was asleep on her bed that had flowing drapes opened up, with her back facing Pandora’s side of the room.
Pandora was sitting with her legs tucked under her cute ass, and she cupped a small skull in her palms and held it up to her face.
I felt a strange pull toward the skull, a connection that I would never be able to explain, but it resonated deep within my soul. I moved to the shadow above her bed to get a better look, and my gaze widened.
What the actual fucking Fates?
Dark black goo oozed out of the eye holes of the skull.
“She made me read them from cover to cover for a reason, Nebula,” she whispered, her red lips plump as she spoke with vulnerability to it. “I think she was involved in dark magic.”
