Chapter 9
BLAKE
I slouched on one of the hard wooden benches in the lecture hall for Sanguine Rites.
Professor Vane was already hard at work at the blackboard, scratching away at the slate with a white piece of chalk.
I scowled at his back, the scritch-scratch of the chalk gnawing at my already limited patience.
At the top of the board the lecture topic was written neatly: Sanguine Rites: The Art and Ethics of Blood Invocation in Modern Sangratha.
Ethics? Now, that was a laugh.
That fucking bastard. Just how much information had Vane given Marcus? What had he told him? For all we knew, he’d been the oblivious key to everything that had happened, passing on to Marcus everything he and Catherine had needed to enthrall Lunaya and awaken Molindra.
I kept up my glare, clenching my fists, willing Vane to feel my hatred. Vane was one of the oldest professors at Bloodwing. Not as old as my dear old uncle Viktor, though. I shifted on the bench, barely suppressing a growl. My skin itched—didn’t take a lot of thought to know why.
It’d been happening more and more lately, the feeling of my blood boiling beneath my skin. Of a darkness stirring.
All vampires craved blood: It was our nature.
But this? This wasn’t the same kind of craving.
It was rage in its purest, most savage form.
The desire to kill simply for the sake of it.
To shred, to rip, to tear. It had nothing to do with feeding.
Everything to do with the desire for destruction.
And it fucking terrified me. Because the last time I’d been with Pendragon?
I’d felt … different. Everything had been incredible, of course.
She’d been incredible. But I’d been … rougher.
I’d felt myself come close to losing control.
I’d felt my dragon trying to reach towards the surface.
At one point, I’d touched her and even now …
I wasn’t sure if at that moment it had been me or my dragon.
It was as if there were two parts to me now, two selves that were irreconcilable in some fundamental way.
And the idea that one with scales could take over, even for a moment …
I flexed my hands, trying to release some of the tension.
Red scales shimmered across my forearms, crawling up from my wrists to my elbows like a disease.
A warning. I yanked my jacket off the back of the bench and shrugged it on quickly, pulling down the sleeves to hide the evidence.
I kept my head low but scanned the rows around me.
Students were still trickling into the hall.
No one seemed to have noticed. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone slide into the seat beside me. Visha.
I blinked. I hadn’t had a chance to speak to her since …
She didn’t look at me. She tossed a battered-looking notebook on the desk and flipped it open.
“Good to see you,” I said under my breath. “Missed you in class last week.”
She kept her eyes on the notebook but nodded briefly. “I’m still enrolled. Or so they tell me.”
I inhaled. “We should talk.” I leaned back, trying to relax, studying her. I wasn’t used to seeing Visha like this. She was usually fierce and full of life. Now there was something muted about her. Hollowed out. But I recognized one thing simmering beneath the sorrow: rage.
Stop being a fucking coward, I told myself. Get it done.
I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry about Lace. I’ve been wanting to say that to you … since it happened.”
She looked up at me, violet eyes narrowing. She’d razored the sides of her hair recently but was growing the top part out. The silver strands were getting longer. She’d tied them in intricate knots at the nape of her neck. “I see your eye is healing.”
I touched a hand to my face a little self-consciously.
“It’ll probably grow back,” she said, still staring at me. “Fucking highbloods. We lose an eye, we get it back again. But …” She stopped.
“It’s not fair,” I said softly, knowing what she was thinking. “Not fucking fair at all. I agree. And the fact that it was Aenia, my own sister, who did that to Lace.” I met her gaze. “The way I see it, and probably you do, too, is I owe you a debt of vengeance.”
“Vengeance?” she echoed. She laughed.
Professor Vane was still scribbling on the board. Around us, other students were starting to take down the notes.
Visha leaned towards me, purple eyes narrowing. “Are you saying you’re ready to duel, House Leader?”
I wasn’t intimidated. “If that’s what you demand. I owe you blood. My blood harmed you. As her maker, I was responsible for Aenia. You know that.”
Visha studied me. “Theo told me what you did in the Dragon Court. Offering yourself to Nyxaris.” She shook her head. “Always knew you were a bold motherfucker. Well-played, Blake. Well-played.”
“It wasn’t about self-preservation. Not at that moment.” I took a deep breath. “It was about protecting Florence Shen.”
“Right.” She gave me a dubious look. “Pendragon’s blightborn friend. You actually cared if she lived or died, huh?”
“Yes,” I said bluntly. “I did. I still do. Does that shock you?”
She looked at me for a moment, then shook her head. “You’ve always thought yourself worse than you were. But be careful, Blake. Don’t want to see you going soft.”
“Soft?” I growled. “I haven’t gone soft.”
“I need your edge,” she continued, ignoring me. “At a time like this, when everything is going to finally blow up in their faces—”
“In whose faces?” I interrupted.
Visha gave me a look as if she thought I was an idiot. “C’mon, Blake. Read the room. Regan as headmistress? Gangs of asshole alumni patrolling the halls? The entire school is a powder keg. Don’t you feel it?” She leaned towards me and lowered her voice. “And Lace? Lace was it for me.”
“It?”
“I ended my triad.”
I stared. “You … what? So Lucian and Evander, they’re …” I swallowed. “I mean, I support you even if …”
She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. They’re not dead. At least, not yet.”
I glanced around. Behind us, a boy from House Drakharrow stared back at me, wide-eyed.
I growled low, in the back of my throat.
He quickly got the idea, rose, and moved to a row farther back.
“Keep your fucking voice down, Visha,” I warned after he’d left.
“If we’re going to conspire to kill your archon and fellow consort, could we at least be a little discreet about it? ”
“Lucian isn’t my archon anymore. I’m out, Blake. I’m fucking out.” She gave me a funny look. “Didn’t Pendragon tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Apparently Evander and Lucian thought it would be fantastic to team up with Quinn Riley and her friends. They were bullying a blightborn girl in the halls when Medra found them and put a stop to it. Theo told me all about it.”
I thought back to the first day of school when Pendragon punched me in the face. “Now that you mention it, she did seem a little on edge that day.”
“Right. On edge.” Visha snorted. “On edge is what Evander is now. You should see him, scurrying around the halls like a rat with a hound chasing him.”
“I assume you’re the hound in that analogy.”
She tossed her head. “Good guess. As for Evander, the lowlying scum.”
“It was a powerful match. Your family worked hard to arrange it. I thought you were happy except for—”
“Except for the fact that my mates would both have been narrow-minded bigots?” she hissed. “Do you think I’ve heard a Sorry pass their mouths since Lace died?”
I stared at her. “They haven’t said anything?”
“Oh, if you can consider laughter something. Evander looked a little sheepish.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “It’s like they didn’t even expect me to care that she was dead. They thought she was just … something to fuck.” Her cheeks grew redder. “They thought I’d enthralled her.”
I felt horrified. Even while I knew that, for a highblood, the behavior was sadly normal. “I’m sorry, Vish. I know Lace meant a lot to you. And I know she cared for you—of her own free will.”
I wouldn’t accuse Visha of falling in love. No, I wouldn’t go that far. But she’d been … well, she’d been in something. She’d felt something more than she usually did, that had been easy enough to see. She’d been happier, too.
Abruptly, I tried to turn the tables. Imagined it was Pendragon who I’d lost. Hard no. I did not want to go there, not even in my imagination. It wasn’t going to happen. I was not going to lose Pendragon. I couldn’t allow myself to think about it even for a moment. I tried to focus on Visha again.
“So no, I don’t want your debt of vengeance.
I want your blade. I want blood. But not from you.
And not from Aenia—even if she were still alive to give it.
She was just a product, Blake. A product of this fucked-up, shitty world that we’ve been brought up to think of as normal.
We’re not gods, and they shouldn’t have to worship us as if we are.
” Her eyes blazed purple. I’d never seen her like this before.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped.
“Like what?”
“With your eyes bulging out of their sockets. Like you think I might explode.”
“Well, isn’t that what you’re suggesting?
Look, I agree with you, all right? You know I do.
We’re not gods. But thinking that way? We’re the minority.
So you need to, you know … tone it down.
” I took a deep breath. “We have to play by the rules for now. We need to lie low and blend in. Yes, it’s a powder keg, point taken.
But don’t do something stupid and get yourself killed trying to blow things up, all right? ”