When he realized I hadn’t set him on fire, his shoulders sagged with relief. Angry tears welled in my eyes, but I forced them back. It’s better this way. If he is afraid of me, he’ll be relieved when I leave him to join the god. This way, I won’t hurt him.
“Morning, Hazy.” Quinn turned on that megawatt smile of his, the one that melted all the hard things inside me. He ran a hand through his surfer hair. For an instant, the tension between us shifted from wariness to attraction. Quinn still cares. He’s afraid, but he’s trying to fight it. “I swear I wasn’t sleeping on the job. I just closed my eyes for a moment—”
“It’s fine. We’re all tired.” An awkward silence stretched between us. Beside me, Ayaz still slept, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. His head had bent toward me in the night. As I slid my legs out from under the blanket, his stubble tickled my leg, sending a delicious flare of heat right to my core.
Mmmmm. I’d missed Ayaz – so much it was a physical ache that dragged in my limbs. I’d missed his lips on mine, the way he stared at me so intently, unraveling my secrets with his eyes. I missed his scent on my clothes and the warmth of his fingers tracing my jaw – the artist becoming one with his muse.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about things that can’t be and feelings that won’t last. Focus on your task – freeing the Kings of Miskatonic Prep.
I tore my eyes from Ayaz’s sleeping figure, whirling around so I wouldn’t be confronted with more painful memories of what we had and could never be. Only instead, my eyes met Quinn’s again – amber orbs swimming with fear and confusion, torn between the desire to run and the desire to hold me close.
Another memory flashed in my mind. My back against a stone column in the garden, Quinn’s mouth pressed against mine while his cock slammed into me—
I turned my head to the wall so I didn’t have to confront his fear. “You don’t have to be in the same room as me if it freaks you out. You can leave. I’ve got Trey and Ayaz – I don’t need you if you’re not—”
“I want to be here.” Quinn’s voice sounded hard, determined.
I snorted. “No, you don’t. You’re afraid of me, even more so now you know I’m the key to whatever the fuck that pillar is. You think I’m gonna burn this place down at any moment.”
“Okay, yeah.” Quinn’s voice wavered. It took every ounce of self-control not to turn back to him and wrap him in my arms. I longed to kiss away his fears, but I couldn’t do that when I was the one who frightened him. “I am afraid. Not of you, Hazy. But of the fire. I just… I can’t go through that again. And I tell myself that you’d never hurt me, that you have control, that you love me. But I used to tell myself the same things about my father, and… and Ayaz is all burned up and the god stuck a giant black phallus in the middle of the school and I just don’t fucking know what’s real anymore. You don’t know how much I want to—”
His voice cracked. Oh, fuck. My resolve slipped. Heat sliced down my arms. I drummed my fingers against my arm so I didn’t reach for Quinn.
“Shut up.” I needed a distraction, something that would make me stop thinking about how much I needed the Kings, and how much I hated myself and this power that I never asked for and didn’t want. Responding to my ire, the fire flared within me – reminding me that Quinn would get his revenge on his father soon enough. But what would he do to me?
I swung myself down from the bed and padded around to the end, flipping back the covers. I gasped as I saw Ayaz’s legs.
He hadn’t completely healed, but they were better than last night. Fresh skin peeked out from patches of charred and blistered skin. The burns were still horrific, but they no longer looked as fatal.
This is incredible. The god truly has given them a gift.
I’d never witnessed the healing powers of the god’s spirit in person before. Quinn’s eyes had healed quickly after Trey threw the itching powder in them, but I hadn’t been close enough to Quinn back then to notice the change. I touched one of the patches of new skin, astounded at the speed to which Ayaz’s body repaired itself.
Ayaz jumped, curling the blankets to his chin. “It’s still tender,” he muttered.
“Tender like your bruised ego, from getting beat up by a girl,” Quinn said behind me. His words lacked their usual jovial tone, and the joke sailed over Ayaz’s head unacknowledged.
“I’m glad you’re awake. I had a little meeting with the god, and I have the best news.” I threw the infirmary door open, expecting to see Trey standing in the hall. He wasn’t there. I glanced both ways – nothing.
“Where’s Trey?” Quinn shrugged. A noise hit my ears – a commotion. Voices shouting from somewhere in the school. What the fuck is going on now?
“Wait here,” I ordered Quinn, and took off at a run. The noise echoed down the empty corridors. It was coming from the dormitory wing. I crossed the sky bridge, shoved open the doors, and strode into the wide hallway. Students gasped as they saw me, flattening their bodies against the walls to escape my touch. Their fear gave me a clear view of what transpired at the foot of the grand staircase.
Trey stood at the foot of the stairs, holding a pile of his folded clothes in his arms. He faced off against Courtney, Amber, John, Derek, and a couple of others, who’d linked arms human-chain style to block the staircase that led to the second floor.
“You can’t come up here. That’s not your room anymore,” Courtney flipped her hair over her shoulder. “You think just because your little girlfriend summoned fire and a chunk of stone you get your old room back?”
“I don’t think that. I know it.” Trey’s ice-blue eyes sized her up, finding her wanting.
I strode down the hall, inserting myself between Trey and Courtney. “There a problem here?” I cocked an eyebrow.
“Your toy-boy seems to believe he’s entitled to his old room.” Courtney’s voice dripped with saccharine sweetness.
“That’s because he is.” I waved my hand. “Scoot aside. You’re blocking the stairs. That’s a fire risk.”
At the word fire, an audible gasp rippled through the students. Courtney couldn’t win this game because there was one person they feared more than her now – me.
I gazed down the hall, meeting the eyes of those gathered, taking stock of the terror that lurked there. Yup, they were all afraid. Which felt good but could backfire on my ass in a big way if I wasn’t careful. As much as I wanted to push the Kings away now, before I got even more attached to them and our goodbye was too painful to articulate, I needed them.
I slid closer to Courtney. She blinked but didn’t move. Beside her, Amber and John broke the chain and scooted away. It was just me and her, nose to nose.
“You don’t have power here any longer.” I held up my palm, pointing it to her chest.
A muscle in Courtney’s eye twitched. “You wouldn’t dare, gutter whore.”
“Wouldn’t I?” I grinned, although the smile probably looked more like a wolf baring its teeth. “If I were to burn you to ashes right now, would anyone try to stop me? Would your death matter to anyone?”
Courtney glared at me, but she darted out of my path. She knew she’d given us more than just a staircase. Trey smiled. “Thank you kindly.”
He marched up the stairs and flung open the door to his old room. He must’ve taken the keys from Ayaz. He dropped his clothes onto a chair and went to open a window.
“It smells like a Turkish bathhouse in here.”
I thought it smelled amazing. Touches of Ayaz were everywhere – the stack of art and architecture books piled up beside the TV, the boxes of weird spices and strong coffee scent in the kitchen, the heavy metal playlist flicking across the sound system. I picked up a black hoodie draped over the back of a chair and pulled it over my shoulders, breathing in Ayaz’s rich opium scent.
He’s back. My heart did a little dance. He might not remember everything that happened between us, but he remembers how I made him feel.
That’s enough. That will
always be enough.
Trey sank down into his expensive sofa and pulled Parris’ skin book across the table toward him. Already, his mind worked over the next phase of our plan. I knew him well enough to see that the showdown with Courtney in the hallway was for the benefit of the whole school. Trey had already started to take back control.
My King. My mirror.
I shoved my hands into my pockets. My eye sockets ached with tiredness, but I needed to get this out. “The god spoke to me while I was asleep.”
BANG. The book slammed on Trey’s knees. He whipped his head around, fixing me with that ice stare. “What’s he got to say for himself?”
“The usual nonsensical gibberish. I asked him what the pillar was and he said, ‘it is a piece.’ A piece of what? He wouldn’t elaborate. He didn’t explain how I was the key or what it unlocked. But he did give me some good news about you guys.” I relayed what the god had told me about taking away his gifts to give to a new brood of children, leaving out the bargain I had struck. If Trey knew what I was planning, he’d try to stop me, and that wasn’t happening.
I’d already agreed – the price of my Kings’ freedom was my own servitude.
It was a price I’d happily pay a hundred times over to give the Kings a second chance at life. What did my life matter? I wasn’t giving up much of value – as soon as the police caught up with me, I’d be going to jail anyway.
I just wish…
Trey’s face remained as impassive as stone. “All this time, the god had a solution, and he was willing to help. I guess no one ever thought to ask him.”
“I don’t think he’s as evil as everyone makes him out to be.” I shuddered as I heard the faintest shadow of the god’s voice screaming between my ears. “I’m mean, he is, but only because his rules of right and wrong are completely different than ours. I guess it’s kind of rude to hold him to our ideals. But at the heart of it, there’s something universal that connects us – otherwise, the god wouldn’t be drawn to me. He’s lonely and he feels guilty about the death of the cosmic deity he loved. And maybe he couldn’t articulate that until the Eldritch Club stuffed him full of human souls, but that doesn’t change the fact he feels.”
“Mmmm.” Trey patted the cushion next to him. “Sit with me.”
The command in his voice stoked the fire inside me. No one else but Trey could order me around and make me love it so much, make my body bend toward him and my core throb for more.
I plopped down on the couch next to him. Trey wrapped his arms around me. I sank against him, breathing in his scent, so different from Ayaz’s, so utterly not what I’d expect. It always made me smile that a guy who was supposed to a King of the undead smelled of all things fresh and living – of spring herbs and wild-blossoms and cypress wood coated with dew.
“You’re something else, you know that?” Trey murmured against my throat, his lips grazing my skin. “Only you could find something relatable about that ball of malevolent shadow. But that’s why you’re the first person who I ever truly believed could lift this curse. You’re one-of-a-kind, out-of-this-world…”
A moan escaped me as Trey used his lips on mine to continue his thoughts. My exhaustion fell away under his touch. I tangled my hands in his hair, bringing his cruel lips to mine. Trey pulled me against him. His hard body pressed against mine, all our angles and corners fitting together, smoothing out and softening. I arched toward him, desperate to claim more of him.
“Shouldn’t we…” I nudged the skin book with my foot.
“Not now.” Trey shoved Parris’ book off the couch and pulled me onto his lap. I straddled him, grinding my hips against his hardness as I plunged my tongue inside his mouth, claiming my first taste of him in far, far too long. Trey brushed his hand over my thigh and shuddered with want. “Right now I need you.”
This is a bad idea.
Being close to Trey was like falling over a waterfall – once you jumped, you’d committed yourself to drowning. Sure, the fall was exhilarating, but under the water lurked all the things that would wreck your life forever.
To him, I was the same – a current dragging him under, knocking his carefully-curated world off-balance. But as much as we knew the pain we could cause to each other, we couldn’t help ourselves. The thrill of the fall and the lure of those dark, unexplored waters was too strong.
I pulled back, struggling to catch my breath, to give myself a moment. Trey thought I was changing positions, so he scooped me in his arms, lifting me off the couch and heading for his room.
“Trey… mmmm…” His mouth crushed mine, driving away my protests. My body succumbed to his. I wrapped my legs around his back, grinding myself harder against him, feeling the rush of heat as his hard cock brushed my clit.
Trey threw me down on the bed and climbed up next to me, his hands skimming my body, stoking my nerve endings to life. Fire tore through me – flames to turn the waterfall to steam, to burn away my doubts. I succumbed to it, letting the heat soak me, igniting my body into a torch that burned bright beneath Trey’s fiery kiss.
He tore at my clothes, shedding his own as though they were poison to him. Hot skin met skin, stoking the fire inside me into a raging inferno. Trey cupped a breast, roughly tonguing my nipple until I gasped. My nails raked down his back hard enough to draw blood.
I still wore the tattered dress from last night’s performance. He pushed up the hem and dived between my legs, his tongue flicking over me with relentless speed. I bent my hips toward him, needing, wanting, hoping. A flame darted from my palm to lick the pillow, and I snuffed it out before Trey noticed.
He lifted my hips, bringing me closer to him. His eyes flicked up, meeting mine, arresting me there. Fire and ice locked together – each needing the other to survive.
A hard lump formed in my throat. In all the times we’d slept together, it had never felt like this before. It felt… like having the god inside my head during my dreams – invasive and raw and too, too real.
He’d become the air I breathed.
I can’t do this. I can’t let him go.
I opened my mouth to tell Trey to stop, but the words wouldn’t come. There was no word for what I was feeling, because I desperately didn’t want him to stop. The orgasm built inside me as the heat thrashed against my palms, desperate to escape. I needed him, like water or sunlight, but my need could risk everything we’d fought for.
I need to be strong.
My hand flopped over the edge of the bed, searching for something to break the moment.
As Trey’s tongue beat a furious path across my clit, my fingers closed around the spine of a thin volume. I gripped it and swung. The flimsy pages fanned across Trey’s face.
“What the fuck—”
The book flopped onto my stomach. Trey tore himself from me, his hands slack at his sides. I’d hoped to surprise him, but the look of horror on his face told me I’d done worse than that.
I glanced down at the book I’d flung at him. It wasn’t a book really, more of a pamphlet, and it had fallen open on a familiar scene. Bright faces stared out from computer labs and walked amongst leafy grounds. Scrawled across the page – the pen pressed so hard it broke through the page – were the words:
NO FUTURE. NO HOPE. NO TOMORROW.
The college prospectus. The one Trey defaced because he was the smartest guy at Miskatonic Prep and he would never be able to go to college.
Mood officially killed.
Trey’s mouth froze in a hard line as he stared down at the page. I caught the slightest tremble in his shoulders – the only sign that he’d been affected by it at all. But I was his mirror and I knew what would hurt him, and this sliced him open and tore out his heart.
I slammed the prospectus shut and tossed it into the corner of the room. It hit the shelf, knocking over Ayaz’s paint bottles.
I’m sorry, the words danced on the tip of my tongue. But I wouldn’t apologize. I needed to keep him distant, for both our sakes. He’d understand one day.
Trey shook his head. “Why did you do that?”
“I needed you to stop.”
“You could have said that.” Cruelty edged into Trey’s voice – my old bully putting his defenses up. How I wanted to take it back, but I wouldn’t. It brought me the distance I needed. “You didn’t need to hit me over the head with my own shattered dreams.”
“Don’t be like that. You are going to college.” I grabbed his shoulder and shook him. His head rocked, his eyes staring dead ahead but not focused on me. Trey had gone somewhere inside his head, somewhere I couldn’t follow. “And you’re going to be an engineer and work in renewable energy and fuck your father and his evil plans. Not just you, but every student is getting out of this hell.”
“No, we’re not.”
“You’re not afraid, are you? The god says—”
Trey’s eyes flicked to the discarded prospectus. He shook his head. “We can’t, Hazel. Seeing that page confirms it. I’ve spent my whole life inflicting misery on others because I thought that was what I had to do. Because I didn’t know there was another way to be. Now I know. I want to be different. I can’t doom another person to this fate. If I save the students of Miskatonic Prep, then other innocent people will become the god’s children. They’ll be tainted by his power. They’ll do more evil things. We can’t do it.”
I smiled. “What if those children were locked away where they couldn’t do harm? What if those children were your parents?”
Trey reeled, touching his hand to his cheek as if I’d slapped him. He froze, his eyes glazing over, going deeper into that place inside himself where he kept all the evil things his father did to him. His legacy of blood and violence and greed – the legacy he was strong enough to overcome, even if that meant a little more blood had to be spilled.
Two orbs of pure ice searched my face, different in color to mine but shining with the same defiance. Trey lowered his hand, placing his fingers over mine. Fire sizzled beneath my skin.
When Trey spoke again, his voice was made of flint. “If my father is so desperate to obtain the god’s power, then this is merely granting his wish. Yes… you’re right. As long as there’s a way to stop them using their powers in the world, our parents are the perfect choice for the god’s children.”
Ignited: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 4) Page 8