Vincent spat blood into Trey’s face. “We don’t need Gloria. Not when we have the god in all his glory. Now!”
As one, the Eldritch Club members rose to their feet. From purses and suit pockets they whipped out small devices that looked like garage door openers. They held them up, staring at their children with triumph.
“We’ve planted explosives in our cars,” Vincent declared, his words gurgling with fresh blood. “A single move from any of you, and we’ll send this whole place up in smoke. I don’t think even an immortal being will survive being disintegrated into a thousand pieces. A mortal gutter whore certainly won’t.”
“I don’t believe you,” I shot back. “You love yourself too much to want to blow yourself up.”
“Is that so?” Vincent tapped his breast pocket. “Or is it that I know a sacrifice that large would free the god at last and that he would reward me with eternal life? Even as my body disintegrates, my soul will be complete, and that’s what’s important in the end. Hermia’s experiments proved that out.”
Double fuck.
I didn’t need to ask the god if that was true, because I knew he had no desire to reward his jailers. But it didn’t matter, because Vincent believed it. That arrogant ass actually thought the first thing the god would do when he was free was bring him back to life.
They are not truth-tellers, the god rumbled from his prison, his screams growing louder as his outrage grew.
Dude, you don’t have to tell me.
If they blew us all up, there would be no exchange. I couldn’t raise the pillar if I was scattered in a million pieces on the wind. The god’s children would eventually become whole again, but they would never be free. The god would not be able to go home. It would all be over.
Trey and Quinn moved closer to me, squeezing me behind them. Ayaz had Courtney in his arms. He’d torn off his shirt and jacket, wrapping them around her to staunch the bleeding.
“Get back, all of you.” Vincent snarled, staggering to his feet. “We don’t want any trouble. All you have to do is give us Hazel Waite, and we’ll let the rest of you live. For now.”
The fire inside me raged with triumph. I’d worked so long, so hard, to win this school over. To win over my bullies. When faced with standing beside me and winning their freedom, and going with Vincent and the parents who betrayed them, I knew what their choice would be.
Trey and Quinn exchanged one of their secret glances.
They stepped aside.
As one, the students around me hurried back, leaving a wide circle on the grass. The flames licked the inside of my skin as a cold breeze blew across the field, widening the gap between us.
They left me alone, facing Vincent.
They left me.
I glanced up at my Kings, at their faces turned hard and cold. “Trey? What’s going on?”
Trey shook his head, and in his ice eyes I read all the malice and arrogance of the bully who’d first greeted me at Derleth. A hint of sadness crept into his voice as he nodded to his father. “The gutter whore is all yours.”
What?
Vincent’s triumphant leer burned against my skin. “Son, get over here. You have done well. You’ve obeyed my plans perfectly. You’ve proven your loyalty and your leadership. I never doubted you.“
I never doubted you.
They’ve been… working together?
“Trey, please, tell me what’s going on.”
Trey’s features remained stoic, unmoved. He stepped forward and shoved me toward Vincent. “Take her,” he growled.
My legs turned to jelly as hands grabbed me, pressing a blade to my throat. What? How?
This can’t be real. It’s some trick, some part of the plan that he never told me about because… because…
But there was no reason for Trey to hide this from me. Unless he… unless they…
“Sorry, Hazy.” Quinn shrugged. “It’s been fun. We’ve let you plan and scheme for all these months, but we never intended to go through with this. You see, we don’t want to lose our power. We want to be the Children of the God.”
“Who wouldn’t want that?” Ayaz strode over on his long legs, his arm thrown around Courtney’s shoulders. “We will be the most powerful beings in this universe.”
“I may hate my dad, but we were never going to let you take away our immortality,” Trey said. “And thanks to you, we’re going to get the freedom we’ve craved. Our parents know all about what we are now, and they’ve decided it’s time we reveal ourselves to the world. Your life, for a permanent break of the seals. We each get something, don’t we, Dad?”
Vincent nodded, his wrinkled face gleaming with pride.
Courtney stepped forward, her feline eyes slitted with triumph. “I get to take over my mother’s clothing label.”
Amber joined Tillie’s side. “I’ll be reunited with my sisters, and my modeling contract.”
No… it can’t be.
“You really thought the three of us – the Kings – would share a gutter whore like you?” Trey spat. “You really thought this would be real?”
His words cut deeper than the knife pressed against my throat. Inside my head, the god screamed for vengeance – his cries a choir of desperate voices, of souls torn unfairly from bodies. And now, as I sank deeper into the blackness of their betrayal, I realized I was about to join them.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Take her into the gym, Vincent,” Ayaz said. “It has to be right over the sigil in the center of the court, where the first ceremony was performed. I’ve written the spell we need to transfer her fire-powers to the god.”
“Bind her hands.” Vincent tugged off his tie and tossed it to Tillie’s mother, who trussed my hands together and shoved me forward. I stumbled, digging the soles of my Docs into the grass. I tripped on the hem of my skirt and toppled forward.
No no no no no.
Vincent dragged me through the tunnel of lights and across the threshold. Flickers like fireflies, like stars, danced over my head as they dragged and spun me. Vincent gave me a shove toward the dance floor. My feet skidded on the polished court, and I stumbled again, this time catching myself before I face-planted.
Hands dragged me across the court, grabbing my neck and forcing my head down. I collapsed to my knees. I was right in the center of the gym, in the circle where I’d first met the god’s shadows. Before my eyes, a faint trail of blue fire arced across the paint. One of Rebecca’s sigils overlaid on top.
I remembered that I’d seen it the first time I’d tried to shortcut through the gym. If any of the other women saw it now, they didn’t say anything. They were too busy betraying me, baying for my blood.
I know you’re here inside me, Rebecca. Your power runs in my veins. I don’t care about my own life but please, please, I have to stop the god from being unleashed. Please show me what to do.
Vincent loomed over me, his features glowing with triumph. “I’m going to enjoy slitting your throat, gutter whore.”
Spittle flew from Vincent’s mouth, dotting my shoulders. A knife glinted in his raised hand. “Your death will be the final piece of our greatest sacrifice. Of course, we’d never blow up ourselves or our place of power, but we had to make you believe it. You really would do anything for my son. In the end, your love was your weakness. It was all for nothing.”
I gazed up at the face of my enemy, and all the evil and rage in the world coalesced into his icicle eyes.
I smiled.
Snapped my fingers.
I had one more trick up my sleeve. One last, desperate attempt. The guys knew about it, so they might’ve warned him, but…
The scritching started from the rafters, almost imperceptive, tiny feet scrabbling over wood. As Vincent staggered toward me, holding his hand out to his son, the rat army spilled down the fake vines and trees and dropped onto the surprised parents.
Tillie’s mother screamed as rats swarmed up her fishtail skirt, tearing off beads and sending them skittering across
the floor. Elena rushed past screaming, trying to tear a rat from her hair. Vincent lashed out, kicking one rat that had grabbed hold of his shoe.
Tearing, gnawing, slashing with claws that had been sharpened for exactly this purpose, the rats worked together, piling one on top of each other to reach the tables where the parents huddled. They tore the switches from feeble fingers and brought them to the students, just in case they weren’t actually fake.
The rats created a barrier between two sides of the gym. Them on one side with the sigil of the five-pointed star. Us on the other side with an exit in easy reach, only I didn’t want to be on that side with them any longer.
“Hazy, now!”
Trey leaped across the gym, crashing into me. I pummeled his chest with my fists until I realized he wasn’t trying to hold me down, but pull me to my feet.
“It was a trick,” he whispered. “I had to make you believe we betrayed you, because I knew you need anger to be powerful. Anger, and love.”
And he pressed his lips to mine.
Chapter Forty
Trey’s kiss was the spark that started all life in the universe. It reached deep inside me, deep inside the earth, and latched on to a primordial force that was bigger and darker and more mysterious than anything. As he cupped my face and poured himself into me, my fire ignited for a final time, the heat stretching down my legs, deep within the earth, drawing up the cold shadows into the light at last.
The world shook.
Plaster and decorations and debris cascaded from the ceiling. Tables jerked across the gym. Glasses toppled from the bar and smashed against the floor. People might’ve been screaming, but I couldn’t hear them over the roar of the god.
Two more bodies leaped into the circle, even as blue flame danced around them. Quinn and Ayaz. They pressed their bodies against me, stoking my fire with the warmth of their love.
The three of us ignited a flame that had burned inside the earth since its creation, since life first began. We drew it up and fed it on all the goodness we saved from a world of hell, until it rushed toward the surface, ready to gorge itself anew.
Ready to wake from slumber.
Trey tore his mouth from mine and grabbed my hand. “Now. Run!”
The four of us led the way to the doors. Students crowded around us, pumping their arms and waving the switches like they were on a victory parade.
As soon as every student and faculty member was outside, we slammed the door behind us, collapsing on the ground with giddy laughter. Quinn clutched me as I chortled and gasped. Trey and Ayaz slammed a heavy steel pole through the handles, locking the Eldritch Club inside with the rats that weren’t rats.
The rats that carried pieces of the souls of Salem witches. The victims that had haunted Parris now worked as one hivemind. And they wanted this cycle of horror and violence to end.
A tremor rocked the earth, knocking my feet from under me. The gym groaned, and more brick and debris rained down. Students ran for the cover of the stage, but I sat, transfixed on the sight before me.
Flames licked through the gaps beneath the doors of the gym. With a final explosion of debris, a black obelisk smashed through the gym roof, shooting a pillar of flame into the sky.
The earth beneath me rumbled. The stage tilted, and students and teachers cried and ran toward the center of the field. Ayaz grabbed me under the arms and hauled me to my feet. “We have to go.”
He wasn’t wrong. We had to get outside of the triangle formed by the three pillars. Somehow I found the strength to churn my legs, running as fast as I could over the rolling ground, flanked by my Kings who refused to leave my side.
Behind us, the building crashed and the earth rumbled as the other two pillars drew up to their full height – thirty, fifty, a hundred feet above the school. Masonry rained down on the lawn as we dived and rolled out of the way. From the top of each pillar shot a flame of pure light – light of a color I couldn’t identify – bending toward each other to create an arch of flame. Tendrils of light shot from the center, beaming across the field to stab at every Miskatonic student and teacher.
The engine of a spaceship.
“Argh!” Trey cried as the light touched his chest. He went to his knees, gasping.
“Shitfuckcunt.” Quinn rolled on his back, clutching his hands to his chest. The look of terror on his face froze me in my tracks.
All around me, students fell, alive still, but in searing pain. And that light… it shimmered with an ethereal beauty that held my eyes even as I knew we had to get to safety.
I knew what I was looking at.
The god’s voice rang in my ears. I have kept my promise. I am taking from them what is mine.
Thank you. Another voice rang in my ears. It wasn’t the god, but it had a strange accent. Old-fashioned, almost… Puritan. You have freed us.
My rats. Their bodies were being emptied of their broken souls, ready to receive the god’s new children.
Thank you, the god screamed inside my head as the ground shook and the lights retreated, focusing their beam on the gym to draw up his new children. Their souls are black with the stain of their crimes. I will gorge myself upon this feast for all my journey, and in their new bodies they will become the most beautiful children.
I bent down to help Trey to his feet. He clutched his chest and gasped for air, but he moved, he breathed. I didn’t have time to ask him how he felt. I grabbed for Quinn and Ayaz, holding them, feeling the blood still pumping in their veins.
The world stopped.
For a moment, there was silence. The earth stopped shaking. The hum and hiss of the engine stalled. A stillness that spoke volumes hung around us.
Then the ground rumbled.
The god spoke.
Chapter Forty-One
His voice rumbled across the earth, made of the screams of devoured souls, but also something else, something deeper and darker – a clap of thunder at the heart of a dying star.
And I knew this time, I wasn’t the only one who heard his words.
I have slept beneath your planet since its forming. I have supped of you and taken in your essence, your feelingsss. As I have shaped your race, so too have you shaped me. But you are many, and I am one. I have hungered, but not for food. I have hungered for that which you made me understand. For love.
With a roar, the ground tore asunder. A giant crack split the lawn. Tendrils of inky darkness crept across the grass, snatching at limbs, raking claws of ice through warm, human skin, wanting, searching.
For me.
Go home, I screamed into the void. You are not alone. Out there you will find your family again.
The ground bucked and swayed. Three men held me upright. My three pillars, mirroring the pillars of light that now beamed high above Miskatonic.
I must have my light. Otherwise, I am all in darkness.
The god’s eyes turned over all of us. And he saw me. I was a beacon of light in his eternal void.
For so long he’d been in a power exchange with humans. Just as he’d taken from us, so had we drained him. He’d seen the earth born, known the rise and fall of millions of species before he grew to know humans. He’d been alone before Parris, so terribly alone, and now he had found someone who understood him as no one ever could, as even his children would never understand.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I faced down the darkness, and the promise I knew I would keep.
He needed someone to be his star-twin, a fire to pilot his ship through the darkness.
He needed me.
Chapter Forty-Two
The tendrils snaked around me, caressing my skin. They wrapped around my ankles and wrists and pulled me toward the crack.
Hands wrapped around me, holding on tight.
“We’re coming with you.” Trey’s voice echoed through the void. My three Kings pressed tighter against me, melding their bodies to mine, trying to slip into the god’s embrace alongside me.
No.
No.
“Get back,” I yelled, although whether it was my voice or the god’s that screamed in their ears, I could not know.
“Not happening,” Ayaz shouted.
“You didn’t think we’d leave you to explore space all by your lonesome?” There was a smile in Quinn’s voice, even as he trembled against me.
Trey’s cheek pressed against mine. “Hazy, you’ve been pulling away from us all quarter. Don’t think we didn’t notice. We’re not stupid, we figured out what you did. You promised yourself to the god, trading your life for ours. But what you can’t seem to get through that stubborn, beautiful skull of yours is that our lives are nothing without you. We’re not leaving you, and if that means we go to the stars together, then so be it.”
The three of them tugged against me, holding me suspended between them. The two sides of me locked in bitter battle – the human side that loved and lingered, the monster who longed to burn his engines and set off with his star-lover.
“No!” I cried. “You need to live. This isn’t for me – it’s for me alone. It’s what I deserve.”
The god’s thoughts probed my mind. You and I are the same, he whispered, his thoughts not screams this time but spoken in my own voice, one with me. You have love for them, but they are not of you as I am. They will never feel what you and I feel. They are not the light in the darkness.
They are not the murderers.
I had to let them go.
Trey, Quinn, and Ayaz had already lived a thousand punishments for their crimes. I had yet to pay for mine.
They would have the chance to start over afresh. We’d made sure of that, with new identities for each student. But Hazel Waite still had a scar on her name. The police would close in. And Trey and Quinn and Ayaz – they swore they’d never leave me. If I stayed with them, their future would be tainted by my crimes.
I bent my neck to the heavens, to the stars. It wouldn’t be so bad… I would be queen of a race of gods. I would uncover the vastness of the universe and its secrets. I would love them from afar, gorging myself of the memories we’d made.
Ignited: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 4) Page 27