“But—” the blond wolf started to say.
“Class begin,” Erlik sliced him off. “Cross the field to the finish line. The winner is done for the day. The losers run five hundred laps around the manor. Cowards die. Everyone, run on my mark, except for you, boy.” Erlik flicked the side of my head.
“Ow!”
“Hang back after I give the go-ahead,” he ordered me. “As for the rest of you— Go!” Erlik bellowed, blowing sharply on his fingers.
It wasn’t just me who didn’t move after he gave the go-ahead.
No one did.
“Hold on, what?” Snake Demon spoke up. “You just want us to race? There’s no way it’s that easy.”
Undoubtedly. The finish line was a good distance away, so it’d be quite the sprint, but Erlik was the original douchenozzle. No, that was putting it lightly. In the worlds of douchenozzles, he reigned supreme. There was absolutely no way that it’d be that easy.
“It is that easy,” Erlik said, smirking so evilly my skin crawled. “All you have to do is get from here to there.” He cocked his large head, his hoof feet stomping the hardened earth. “Or are all of you too chickenshit? That’s it, isn’t it? Hell sent its wimpiest and whiniest to Abaddon this year. Forget saving you all from being pussies.
“You shitheelsaspireto be pussies one day. Better than what you are now. The likes of you are trash,” he barked. “You’re a slug’s slime, and a rodent’s piss. You’re quivering naked scrotums worth no more than my morning dumps. You’re—”
“Fuck you!” half the guys shouted before taking off—sprinting across the field.
Just like that, the real whistle sounded and the race began. The fae took to the air, buffeting a gush of wind that blew my wart hairs back. The vampires disappeared in a superhuman blink of an eye, and Tristan was gone.
His strong muscled legs rippled—carrying him across the expanse. How was it I still found him beautiful even as he partially shifted, covering his form in fur and bending those perfect legs into a wolf’s.
Not only do scars do it for me, but apparently I wouldn’t say no to fur either.Ronin’s heavy eyes shadowed by temptingly long, wet lashes shoved their way into my head.And Hera, help me, but those ruby red eyes are too damn sexy too.
“Uh, sir?” I asked, tearing my eyes off of Tristan. “Why did you ask me to stay back?”
Erlik cocked a brow at me, frowning at me like the answer was obvious. “So that you’d lose.”
“You—!” Fury flared up in my chest and propelled me on.High Lord Douchenozzle!
Bringing up the rear, I took off across the dead, burning expanse. My fellow classmates were way ahead of me—pretty much ensuring my destiny to run five hundred laps around the school—but that didn’t matter. As Erlik said, anyone who refused to run would simply be killed.
But with our deal, if Erlik tried to kill me, Lucifer would be forced to intervene. That intervention might result in Erlik getting killed, and I didn’t want anyone dying because of me.
No matter how pleasant they are.
My lungs huffed and puffed, but I was nowhere near winded. Even though I’d never get used to the constant smoke in the air, I still felt so good, I almost felt like I could run those five hundred laps without breaking a sweat.
I really hope that after I find Dora and we go back, I get to keep this new and improved body. It’d be nice to stop getting winded after walking up one flight of stairs.
“Teehee.”
Something fluttered out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head and our eyes met. Mine fake and glamoured ones... and her bright and shiny purple ones.
Her?
I gaped at her. Stumbling over my feet, I almost pitched over onto the dirt and at her bare feet.
She giggled at my clumsiness, her impossible eyes dancing. The whipping, burning air tugged at her white, gauzy dress—making the hem shimmy around her ankles. Long, red hair flowed down her back and around her shoulders, drawing my eye to the smattering of freckles covering her neck and disappearing under her neckline.
There’s another woman here...my sluggish mind supplied.But how? And why doesn’t she have horns, claws, scales, or fur?Why doesn’t she have the scars of a battle-worn werewolf? The lamp eyes of a vampire? Or the wings of a fae? Why doesn’t she have that dark tinge to her skin from veins full of black blood? Why does she look like a human mortal woman?
Which is everything a witch must be.
No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than a jagged, shining dagger appeared in her hand. Giggling like a maniac, she pierced my gaze, and raised the dagger high.
