Chapter 9
ACHILLES
Knightsblood, like pretty much every American college in history, has a significant percentage of its population which is both interested in drinking alcohol and not yet twenty-one.
If you’re in need of a fake ID, you’d probably be able to score one at virtually any college campus in the country in less than a day.
At a mafia school, you can get a new fucking passport and social security number in a matter of hours.
So there's not much stopping the under-twenty-one population of Knightsblood from either getting a fake and heading to any of the bars in Hawthorne Hollow, or else just getting shitfaced in their dorm rooms like most college kids.
But here at Knightsblood, we’ve also got The Garrison.
It’s close to midnight as I approach the old ruins, already hearing the laughter of students and aggressively loud rap music and seeing the firelight flicker over the crumbling walls and surrounding trees.
The Garrison is the unofficial student-run bar slash social club on campus.
It’s pretty much BYOB, though it does have a bar-top with stools, a few decrepit chairs and couches and a couple of tables, all built into the ruins of Fort Hawthorne, which once stood on these cliffs in case the British invaded Connecticut.
Which, in the end, they did. It's why Fort Hawthorne is now talked about in the past tense.
The Garrison is technically neutral ground, even when the low-level rivalries between the clubs get a little “more”.
But to help avoid any petty bullshit, the four club presidents—myself, Damiano, Adrik Volkov, plus my cousin Noor who helms the Ouroboros Society—established a calendar this year whereby each club rotates which is “their” night.
Tonight belongs to Adrik and his crew of the utterly ungovernable.
Adrik is essentially me without a golden mask. I think that has more to do with our prickly relationship than I care to admit. But as much as I do enjoy starting some shit now and then, I’m not here tonight to poke the Adrik bear.
I'm here because I’d like some answers, and he might be the only person on campus who can give them to me.
The heavy, thudding bass of the music engulfs me as I step through the crumbling stone archway that was once the grand entrance to the fort.
Virtually the whole place is open-air at this point, since the roof caved in over a hundred years ago, so it’s not exactly a hot spot when there’s inclement weather.
But in early fall, when it's crisp outside, it’s the perfect place for a roaring bonfire and drunken debauchery. That's what I’m currently looking at.
Across the open space, on the other side of the enormous bonfire, two shirtless, muscled, tattooed guys circle each other, their taped fists raised.
I scowl when I immediately recognize Kirill Tsarenko, heir to the powerful Tsarenko Bratva, and remember that this motherfucker was apparently at our party the other day and somehow got my cousin half-naked into the hot tub with him, while he was completely naked.
Naked, and supposedly waving around his recently pierced dick.
Note to self: throw this fucker out the next time he tries to sneak into a Para Bellum party.
The guy he’s fighting is Bram Nikolayev, one of Yelena’s cousins from Japan. The two of them are sizing each other up like madmen as the crowd around them cheers and jeers. They both have wild glints in their eyes and blood on their lips as they circle slowly, looking for a way in for the kill.
“Well well well,” a feminine voice purrs from behind me. “Of all the gin joints.”
I turn, my brow cocked in amusement.
“Bella,” I grin as my cousin jumps down from the slightly raised stone platform she was just perched on. She gives me a quick hug before she pulls back and brings the beer bottle in her hand to her black-painted lips.
Bella is my uncle Hades and aunt Elsa’s only daughter. Not that I in any way fault them for stopping at one after this gothy little terror popped out. But Aunt Elsa also raised her little sister, Nora, by herself. That's another reason they were done after Bella.
Aunt Elsa is one of the top prosecutors in New York, if not the country, and my cousin's shrewd intelligence and laser focus clearly come from her mom. Everything else, she got from my insane-but-fun Uncle Hades.
The tenacity. The tempestuousness. The adrenaline junkie thrill-seeking.
The love of old cars and motorcycles. Her ability to hold her own without blinking, despite being all of five foot two and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet, because Hades taught her to bare-knuckle box and defend herself about a dozen other different ways before she was ten.
“What are you doing here, Achilles?”
I spread my arms. “What, can’t stop by to see my favorite little cousin?”
Bella rolls her eyes. “Little cousin. Dude, you’re only two years older than me.”
I grin and go to ruffle her hair, but she neatly dodges my fingers.
“Seriously. Captain of Team Para Bellum shows up at Reckless night at The Garrison? What’s up?”
“Just came to ask when the fuck you’re going to stop playing games with these psychos and move to Para Bellum where you belong.”
I’m mostly just giving her a hard time. I know this gets under her skin.
Bella glares at me.
Mission: accomplished.
“You don’t switch clubs, Achilles,” she says coldly. “Nobody does.”
I shrug. “You do if you want to, and your cousin is the president of that club.”
She gives me a look. “Who says I want to change?”
“You realize you’re a Drakos, right?” I sigh. “And I, like everyone, am curious what the fuck a Drakos is doing in The Reckless.”
Bella rolls her eyes. “Living my best life, Achilles,” she grins. “Plus not worrying about what a last name dictates.” She clears her throat and folds her arms over her chest. “And besides,” she smirks, “I heard a rumor about you.”
“Which rumor would that be?”
“That you were split between pledging Para Bellum and The Reckless during the Initiation Trials in your own freshman year.”
I smile and shake my head. “Lies and slander, dear cousin.”
It's more like buried truths. That scene in Harry Potter, where he’s got the sorting hat on and he’s hoping to God for Gryffindor over Slytherin? That’s…not a totally inaccurate comparison to how I came to Para Bellum.
It’s rare, but sometimes a pledge finds themselves conditionally accepted to two clubs. That was the case with me, and it could have gone either way until the part of me that needs to keep that golden mask on won.
“Look, if you want to grab a beer or something, I’m always down to have a drink with you. But…” She frowns. “Seriously. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for your boss.”
Bella groans and rolls her eyes. “He's not my boss, dude. Are you the boss of people in Para Bellum?”
I smirk. “Well, no. But I’m also not Adrik Volkov.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You’re right. You just hide under that pretty, shiny mask you love so much.”
Yeah, she’s sharp, my cousin. Not everyone completely buys the “perfect heir” image I’ve spent my life cultivating.
My dad, for example, sees the facade at least partially for what it is, though he doesn’t give me shit for it.
I suspect that the great Ares Drakos—model father and husband, fair but iron-fisted ruler of the Drakos Empire—once wore a similar one, though he doesn’t have to these days.
Bella, too, is able to peek under the edges of my mask more than most. It’s been like that our whole lives.
That’s because she wears one, too. I don’t know exactly what it’s hiding, just like she probably doesn’t quite know what's beneath mine. But it’s there, and I see it.
Call it game recognizing game.
“If you’re lost, Achilles,” a deep, stony baritone calls from behind me, “I can arrange a campus tour.”
Adrik Volkov is sitting on the other side of the bonfire perched on a stone platform, sprawled in a pile of stone and metal rubble that’s been bent and hammered into the shape of a grim-looking throne.
Despite the fall chill to the air, Adrik is just in black jeans and t-shirt.
His twin sleeves of Bratva tattoos snake and coil down both arms to his knuckles, and more ink pokes up from the collar of his t-shirt to swirl up his neck to his chiseled jawline.
He doesn’t smile as he cocks his head to the side and brings the bottle of vodka in his hand to his lips.
Bonfire flames flicker over his carved features and glint in his icy blue eyes.
It’d be a stretch to call Adrik and I “enemies”. But it’s only a few notches above that, even on a good day.
Our freshman year, Adrik and I were both put on the varsity football team, because of our size and the fact that we’d both played a lot in high school.
The Reckless/Para Bellum rivalry was running a little hot those days, and when it came out that I’d been tapped for both but picked Para Bellum…
well, it got a little tense for a while.
Then one day at a team practice, I was running quarterback while our starter was doing some weight training. Adrik came out of nowhere on my left during a play and went in low for a brutal tackle.
I clocked his angle at the last minute, dipped my shoulder and helmet, and flipped him…hard.
I walked away with a neck sprain and a wrenched back. Adrik got carried off with a broken collarbone and dislocated shoulder, and that was the end of his season.
…It also ended up being the end of his college football career.
Shit happens, and we both know he had that coming when he went in for the low hit. But still.
We’re not in danger of becoming besties anytime soon.
“His majesty, Lord of Castle Para Bellum, has come down to mingle with the peasants,” Adrik says with a sneer as I walk around the bonfire and come to a stop in front of his throne. He raises the bottle of vodka in his fist. “Thirsty?”
“I’m good,” I growl. “I’m only here because I wanted to talk to you.”