Dreadful scoffed, her demeanor changing quicker than usual. “I wasn’t joking, and what the Fates? That’s fucking weird.” Her polished, nice act slipped again as she gaped at my hair. “I guess I'm the only one with cool hair. What's your problem with Darkmore, anyway? You like…piss on him when I bring him up.”
I glanced down at my ring, watching as it shifted to an ominous black, signaling malice directed my way. “I never wanted the highlights, Dreadful, and Hunter deserves more than how you’re talking about him.”
She huffed, and I couldseejealousy and angerbubbling beneath her facade. “You’re already fucking him, aren’t you? Do you think just because you’ve rode on his cock that he’s off limits for me? I bet you thought you were just too fucking good for the hair dye, too, huh? I was even beingniceto you after you bitched me and my friends out in the cafeteria. What the Fates iswrongwith you?”
I quietly gathered my belongings with trembling hands. Shame and irritation bloomed through me as I safely tucked Nebula into my bag.
Why had I even gone along with her? Why did I think she could be nice?
I’d never been able to walk away from conflict before. I had been chained up, forced to take the brunt of all of the heat for so long.
Not this time.
“Gravesend,” she sighed, running her hand through her hair. “I’m sorry, wait! Come on!”
I ignored her, slipping past a couple of other girls who had just walked in and left the situation altogether.
Steppingout into the evening air, the campus sprawled before me in the form ofrolling dunes and a faraway paradise under the twilight sky. The setting sun painted the desert in hues of gold and crimson, casting long shadows that danced with the winds and reminded me eerily of shadow magic. But I ignored the skittering fear down my spine.
There weren’t very many students walking this evening and the ones that were kept to themselves.
After the drama with Dreadful and the failed hair dye, I just wanted to get some air and escape the suffocating confines of the dormitory. I couldn’t help but compare the way being trapped with Dreadful was like being trapped with Mother, only I had a way away from Dreadful.
As I wandered around campus, the soft sand yielded beneath my feet. It wasn’t that long ago that I had desperately craved a feeling of something other than the sandstone rock ground of the cellar. I found myself thinking about the difference of the familiarity of my own company and Nebula, and the newfound interactions with a select few demons that made me excited but nervous.
The realization struck me like a shadow tendril, and I paused my strides. I didn't like being alone anymore. The silence that once offered solace without Mother now felt stifling,suffocating.
My hand instinctively reached for the bag at my side, where Nebula rested. With him, I wasn’t alone anymore.
As I passed Occult Arch, the air crackled with tension as I recognized a figure reclined arrogantly beneath the arch, his form a stark contrast to the calming landscape around him.
It was Hemlock, and his scent of spicy bourbon hung heavy in the air, exuding an aura of chaos that both repelled and, reluctantly, I admit, drew me in.
His black tousled hair framed his sharp features, accentuating the rugged lines of his face. His tattoos were on display as he didn’t have a shirt on, and I did my best not to drool. I knew he had tattoos, but to see them all so clearly, I had to look.
The ink embedded in his skin depicted wild nature and, well…chaos. Across his broad chest was a pack of five wolves etched around a larger, more prominent wolf, and their eyes seemed to glint with a life of their own. The center wolf's gaze was piercing, almost like it guarded the heart beneath it. His right arm was a canvas for a flight of hawks, wings outstretched in different stages of ascent. They soared from his wrist to his shoulder. His left arm was the domain of a solitary wolf. This one was shown with its head thrown back in a howl. Climbing uphis neck, just visible above the line where his shirt collar usually sat, was the dark outline of a skull. Its hollow eyes and crooked grin added more chaos.
I visually traced each piece of art as if I were seeing a snippet of his soul displayed in black ink. For some reason, I had a feeling that even though the intensity of his inked skin was alluring, it was the man beneath the tattoos that drew me in.
Glossy red eyes, sharp and filled with malice, cut into me as I came closer. His sneer sliced through the moment of admiration I felt for him. “Oh, look, the noble slut graces me with her presence.” His words dripped with disdain as he took another swig from the bottle in his hand.
Each syllable was like an arrow that found its mark in the tender flesh of my heart. The accusation cut deeper than I’d like to admit, even though I knew it was a lie.
My fingers instinctively sought the feel of the bandage wrapped around my thigh, a shield against anything he could say. Nothing he could do would be worse than what my mother did.
“I'm not a slut. I'm just walking around. I’m not here to see you.” I forced my voice to get louder, but it was raspy.
“Oh?” he drawled, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees. “I think I know why you’re over here. I mean, your little friend already outedyou on wanting to fuck me. Not just me, but Dex, and Skel too. How quaint.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I bit out, hot tears of frustration gathering in my eyes. “If you were paying attention, you’d know that’snotsomething I want.”
His mirthless laughter echoed around us, a cruel symphony that reverberated in the stillness of the desert night. “I know enough. Dreadful's been having a field day with you, hasn't she? Youarefriends.”
"We'renotfriends," I forced out, my voice raw with pain and frustration. "She's mean."
“Mean?” His head fell back as he laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, and then a surge of chaos magic exploded.
Chaos magic manifested in the form of a spectral wolf, which leapt from the tattoo on Hemlock’s chest.
