Chapter 6 #2
“I’m not Viktor,” I snarled. “I’m nothing like him. I’d never do that to you. I’ve stood up for you. I’ve tried to help you. We’re fucking family, Theo.”
“I know, I know, all right?” Theo’s voice was pleading. “But, Blake, that’s the point. Aenia … She was family, too. I killed my own family.”
I stared at him trying to really understand.
Trying to absorb the cloud of guilt I now saw hanging over him.
He’d done his best to hide it from all of us these past few days as we’d all struggled to process that night, each of us in our own way.
Theo had waited patiently, grieving alone.
He hadn’t even told Vaughn he thought his cousin was going to eventually come for him.
No, he’d written Vaughn a letter. Because the words were too heavy, too terrifying to even say aloud.
“You seriously wrote your boyfriend a letter?” I shook my head. “So right now, Vaughn is what—reading it and thinking I’m murdering you here in this tower?”
Theo looked sheepish. “Maybe.”
I laughed out loud. Some heads turned towards us, then just as quickly whipped away.
“For fuck’s sake, Theo.” I stood up. Theo shrank back.
I held up my hands. “May I?” I sat down on the couch next to my cousin.
Then, shocking even myself, I slipped one hand around the back of his neck—not roughly but firmly—and pulled him towards me, tilting my forehead so it rested against his.
“Theo, you don’t get it. You just don’t fucking get it, do you? ” I whispered.
“Get what?” he whispered back, his voice trembling a little.
“You spared me. You fucking spared me.”
“Spared you? What do you mean?”
I let go of him and sat back, breathing hard. There was water in my eyes, but I blinked it the fuck away. This wasn’t the time, not when Regan and her posse could march back in at any moment.
“You did what I’d have had to do. What I knew I’d have to do.”
Theo’s face was still uncertain.
“There was no hope for Aenia. Don’t you think I knew that?” I shook my head. “She was turning feral. I fucked up the moment I saved her life. I ruined things, like I always do.” I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. Fuck no. Not in the common room.
Theo was staring at me in wonder. “Blake, is that what you think? You think you ruined Aenia?”
“Of course I did. You know exactly what I did. You’ve always known.” I’d turned her, made her into one of us. Or some would say something worse—a socalled foulblood.
Theo glanced around. “I know you … made her.” His voice was very low. “But you had to. You had to save her life.” He shook his head. “Blake, if anyone is to blame, it’s Marcus. It’s Viktor. It’s me. But it’s not you. You tried to save a little girl. You tried to give a child a better life.”
I snorted. “And look how well it turned out.”
“Don’t. Stop it. I am looking. You bought her time.
You gave her a new family. You loved her.
She lived, Blake. That’s all any of us get, the chance to live, the chance to make a few happy fucking memories.
No one knows how long they have to make them.
It’s fucked-up, and it’s unfair, yes, but it’s not your fault.
That’s how it all works. You gave her a longer life, a happier life than she would have had.
You tried. And you’re braver than me for doing it, better than me. ”
I stared at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Theo was the better one, the good one.
The Drakharrow who still had an actual heart and—Bloodmaiden help him—even a soul.
He’d stood up to Viktor. Chosen a blightborn boy and stuck by that choice, come hell or high water.
I was the fuckup. The prick. The asshole.
I was the scum. Theo? He didn’t even know half of what I was, what I’d become. What I was still becoming.
“You’re a good person,Theo,” I said stiffly.“I’m the one who …”
“You’re the one who Viktor has tried to make feel like shit ever since your father died,” Theo said bluntly. “And guess what? It’s worked, Blake. But you’re not like that. I see you, I know you. We’re not so different, despite what you may think.”
I forced a laugh. “Look at the time. The bell’s going to ring any second.”
“Fine. No more heart-to-heart,” Theo said, immediately getting the picture.
I glanced at him. “You thought I was going to murder you in the common room a few minutes ago. Now you’re trying to make me into, I dunno … some kind of a fucking martyr.”
“You are a fucking martyr, coz,” Theo said quietly. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about that. Never has been. You martyred yourself for your family. You’d do absolutely anything for the ones you love. It’s your greatest strength. Your greatest weakness.”
I stared at him.
“I never thought you were really going to kill me,” he admitted.
I raised one eyebrow. “So there was no letter?”
“No, there was.” He grinned and punched me lightly in the shoulder. “Come on. We’re going to be late. Let’s get to class.”
The stone courtyard that served as the Defensive Arts arena was open to the sky. I glanced up, remembering the time Nyxaris had appeared there, perching on one of the stone walls. That wall was looking a little worse for wear these days.
A cold breeze swept through the training yard, but at least it wasn’t snowing on us. Not that snow would make Sankara cancel a class. We’d have to soldier on no matter what the weather was. Just part of our training.
Theo and I were a few minutes late. The yard was already full of highbloods in leather training gear sparring on mats in practiced movements, in pairs or solo. Some had weapons, others were drilling hand to hand. But some were standing around in groups, chatting and doing absolutely nothing.
I glared at them. Sankara wasn’t there yet, which explained the lack of order. Then I cursed under my breath. “Oh, shit. I’m supposed to be supervising.”
Theo lifted a brow. “Better get started, then.”
I marched forward, barking commands and taking pleasure in the way the groups of chattering students immediately broke up.
Highbloods ran this way and that, forming pairs and grabbing weapons from the racks.
Doing what they were supposed to be doing.
Good. I scanned the training grounds as the shirkers got to work.
The students who had already formed pairs seemed evenly matched.
There were shouts of exertion but nothing unusual.
Until my gaze landed on a roped-off set of mats at the far end of the room.
A flash of red. My breath caught. Pendragon.
She was holding her own fighting a highblood girl, a Third Year who I immediately recognized: Larissa, one of Regan’s old lackey friends.
She was a little shorter than Pendragon but thicker, more muscular.
She should have been able to hold her own.
I’d have said they were evenly matched. Except, Larissa was struggling.
Pendragon moved like an unsheathed blade, sharp and relentless.
She was kicking the everloving shit out of Larissa, to put it bluntly.
Pendragon feinted left, then slammed an elbow into her opponent’s ribs, knocking her off-balance as her fist found Larissa’s nose.
Blood sprayed, and Larissa stumbled backwards, clearly dazed.
But Pendragon didn’t stop. She surged forward, tackling her opponent to the ground and throwing herself on top of her, driving her fist into her stomach, her ribs, her face, again and again.
Students nearby had stopped what they were doing. Whispers rippled through the yard. A few tried to sneak closer to get a better view.
“Get the fuck back to work,” I roared, my voice echoing off the stone walls.
Everyone jumped back into position, and the whispers immediately ceased.
The only pair my voice hadn’t seemed to reach was Pendragon and Larissa: They were still going at it. At least, Pendragon was. Larissa was quickly becoming a bloody meat sack.
I marched towards them, my mind racing back to Pendragon’s very first day at Bloodwing, when she lay in this same yard with Visha atop her, broken and bleeding, a laughingstock.
I’d stood by then, too. Watched her be humiliated and put in her place—on my orders.
But now things were completely reversed.
Pendragon was half-mortal, half-blightborn.
But she wasn’t a halfborn like Professor Wispwood.
No, her blood was even more unique. She had rider blood.
Fae blood, she’d told me. I was still trying to wrap my mind around that—her being from another world, one filled with beings called fae.
Regardless, from the look of things, she was using all of the advantages of her blood right now, without holding anything back.
I’d only seen her like this one before, on the island with the other consorts.
She’d had my blood to heighten her senses then, though.
Now she was showing me just what she was capable of on her own.
She shouldn’t have been able to even take on a highblood—not like this.
Sure, she’d held her own against Laurent when I’d set him on her in a moment of self-indulgent weakness that I was now ashamed of.
But there was a difference between holding her own and pummeling someone to a bloody pulp.
“Pendragon,” I yelled as I approached the mats. “Good fight. You’re done.”
She ignored me. Or maybe she didn’t even hear me at all.
All I knew was she kept throwing punches.
Larissa’s face was covered in blood, her cheeks swollen.
I didn’t like the girl much either, but this was gruesome, even for me.
Though, a part of me saw the blood and thrilled at the sight of it.
A part of me looked at it and screamed More, more, more!
I glanced down at my forearms, praying I wasn’t about to see red scales appear.
I rubbed at my wrists, trying to force the urge away.