Chapter 7
SEVEN
athena
Sinner’s scream was a sound that would haunt me for a very, very long time. It would be impossible to scrub the memory from my mind—to relive the heart-breaking tightness in my chest.
“What are you doing to him?” I asked, my eyes locked on him on the other side of the one-way mirror.
Every time he thrashed against a force I couldn’t see, a sharp pain bloomed inside me.
It must’ve been the serum. Whatever it was, it was inflicting a kind of anguish I never wanted even my worst damn enemy to endure.
Simon crossed his arms. “Like I said,” he replied. “This is his punishment. Every cadet must learn to fight against their instincts when necessary.”
Sinner screamed again, his voice breaking. “Stop it!” he yelled. “That’s enough!”
“Tell me what’s going on in there!” I shouted. Fuck. The urge to run in there and help him was strong, but I was stuck in this room, forced to watch him suffer instead.
“It’s best if you don’t know,” Simon replied. “Besides, we don’t have one hundred percent control of what the sight serum will show him. I can’t know with certainty what your claimed is experiencing.”
My throat tightened. Tears stung my eyes.
Sinner clutched his thighs with so much strength that drops of blood beaded through his pants. He screamed and yelled—muttering and fighting an invisible force. An imaginary force.
“It’s not real!” I yelled through the glass. “Just fight through it!”
“He can’t hear you.” Simon’s voice remained flat. Like he’d done this hundreds of times. Like he’d killed the small part of his soul where empathy lived. “It’s best if you preserve your energy.”
He was right, there was nothing I could do to help. But I pressed my palm against the glass anyway, silently willing Sinner to realize that what he was seeing wasn’t real.
His chest and neck grew damp with sweat. Then he uttered my name in the most agonizing of voices. The pain there was like a dagger to my gut.
“Athena,” he muttered, breathless. “Athena, please…”
His eyes rolled back, and then he went limp.
The air rushed from my lungs. “End this!” I yelled at Simon. “Whatever punishment you’re inflicting is over. We get it!”
Simon’s jaw tightened, though he kept his focus on Sinner. After several long seconds, he finally said, “Fine. The door is through there. Get him out of here. Your first session of magic training starts in twenty minutes. I expect you to be on time.”
He left without another word.
I ran to the door he pointed out and flung it open. In two long strides, I was kneeling in front of Sinner, picking his head up. “Wake up.” Desperation clawed at my throat, nearly suffocating me. “Sinner!”
It was a relief, really, that he was unconscious. Because witnessing the agony he had been in had been pure torture for me. But it was all over. It had to be over.
We had to get the hell out of here.
I held his head, threading my fingers through the damp hair at his nape. It had grown since I met him, the golden locks shining and flowing in a perfect set of waves no matter how disheveled he was. He would have killed me for even thinking it, but his hair was prettier than any woman’s I’d seen.
A strange flutter erupted in my stomach. He was handsome. No—he was striking.
My mom always told me not to trust attractive men; she really would’ve hated him.
I ran a thumb up and down his jawline. He’d kept his facial hair short in the dungeons, but it had grown these last few days, the scruff making him look older. Stronger, even.
His pouty, full lips parted as he sucked in a breath.
Heart stopping, I dropped my hands and scooted back, suddenly feeling like I’d done something wrong.
“Sinner,” I whispered.
He twitched and awkwardly rolled his neck around before blinking his eyes open.
Intense golden eyes met mine, nearly knocking me back.
“Athena.”
Only our breathing filled the room.
“Are you okay?” Even my whisper felt too loud.
His chest rose and fell heavily, a shadow crossing his face, darkening his irises two whole shades.
My chest constricted. What was he thinking? What was going on in that mind of his?
He’d let me in once. Barely.
But that was before. Back when we thought we could escape. Hell—we were escaping.
Yet we were right back to where we started—playing games for survival and nothing more.
He leaned forward and rubbed his temples, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s a bit difficult to answer that question right now. I’m still piecing it together.”
“It wasn’t real,” I murmured, hoping that would ease his concerns. “Whatever happened to you just now—it was from the serum.”
He blinked slowly. “It wasn’t real.”
“No.” I shook my head. “What happened to you? It looked like you were in a lot of pain.”
His eyes finally met mine again, that shadow gone. The air between us electrified and a chill ran down my arms.
“It wasn’t real,” he repeated, more firmly this time.
I reached out to—to do what? Comfort him? Caress him? Feel that thick, wavy hair one more time?
No. That was ridiculous. He’d set a firm boundary, and whatever the fuck was happening here wouldn’t change that.
He didn’t need me. He sure as hell didn’t want me.
So I cleared my throat, searching for the tiniest grip on reality. “It was the serum. That was your punishment. What was it? Some weird form of torture? Are you injured?”
“Athena.” He stood quickly, the metal chair almost toppling over, and towered over me.
Breath catching, I scrambled to stay upright. “What?” I stammered. “What’s wrong?”
He studied me with an intensity that stripped me down to my very core. As if he could see much more than I wanted to show him. He had a way of doing that, of making me feel bare in front of him. He scanned my body with an earnest energy, his nostrils flaring, his jaw tightening.
Had I pissed him off? What was this?
“Don’t ever,” he started, voice raspy, “go near Alexander again. Do you understand me?”
Confusion hit me like a physical blow. What the—
“Alexander?”
He stepped closer, pinning me against the wall, his right arm caging me in. When his face was a breath from mine, he said, “Don’t say his fucking name around me. Don’t look at him. Don’t talk to him. Don’t even acknowledge his existence.”
Words escaped me. That was what he was worried about? After everything?
Alexander had saved my ass in the water this morning, yet he was suddenly Sinner’s enemy?
I wanted to argue. He had clearly lost the means to logic. But the flexing of his bicep beside my head stopped me.
So I just nodded, sighing. “Fine. Whatever.”
“No, Athena.” He got even closer, yet he still wasn’t touching me. Voice wavering a little, he said, “I need to hear you say it.”
My throat constricted. “Say what?”
He swallowed. God, he seemed unhinged. This was not the Sinner I knew. Whatever he’d seen while under the influence of that serum had really shaken him.
Clearly, because a second later, he gripped my chin and forced me to meet his eye. “Tell me you’re mine,” he growled. “We may hate each other, but that doesn’t change reality. You. Are. Mine. Not his. Not anyone else’s.”
My legs wobbled, but by god’s wicked grace, I remained standing.
He was delusional. Was he still under the influence of the serum?
It was the only explanation. Sinner—the man who wanted me to stay far, far away from him—was now declaring that I was his.
He radiated a primal, dangerous intensity. He needed this. He needed me to say those words.
And hell! We had a damn magic training to get to!
“Okay, okay,” I said.
His grip on my jaw, sizzling and strong, held firm.
“I’m yours, Sinner,” I forced out. “Nothing’s going to change that. Nobody will change that.”
I didn’t dare say Alexander’s name. I didn’t dare even think of another man.
“Good,” he whispered. His eyes were hazy now as if he was suddenly exhausted.
I told myself that was the reason he slowly drew a thumb across my bottom lip before he let me go. That had to be the reason—my own sanity depended on it.
“Then let’s get the fuck out of here.” He stormed out of the room—somehow gathering himself well enough to pretend like he hadn’t been screaming in pain a few seconds ago.
Without another word, we made our way to the field for our first session of magic training.
The day couldn’t have been any damn longer.
My clothes were still wet—I hadn’t had the time to change like everyone else who’d been in the water. Sinner and I hadn’t even eaten. There was no time, and there was no way in hell we were risking another punishment from Simon.
Part of me couldn’t blame Simon. He’d been kind to us when we arrived. If anything, I assumed he’d been brainwashed into believing the Ministry had the best interests of all of us mystics at heart. At least that’s what I told myself—because any other truth would piss me off.
The whole group of us waited in the grassy, empty field for about ten minutes.
The whole time, I kept my gaze averted, hoping like hell I wouldn’t draw attention.
But nobody seemed to care. No one asked about our punishment or gave us curious looks.
Which told me they either knew what had happened to Sinner, or they were too afraid to ask.
The wind blew again, and I shivered. My shirt had been tattered in the harsh waves of the sea, exposing a small sliver of my midriff and clinging to my upper half.
I hardly gave a shit about my wardrobe—we were training our magic, anyway—but I would have preferred the option of being dry and fully covered.
“Let’s get started.” Simon clapped once.
“New cadets, listen up. See these mystics?” He pointed to the edge of the field a few feet away, where five mystics I’d never seen before stood, spread out.
“They’re shields. They’re currently working to suppress your power in shifts—they work around the clock to keep you safe here in camp.
But they’ll lift their hold on you when—and only when—I command it.
You’ll use your magic only when I’m supervising, and only when told to do so. Understood?”
Murmurs of assent went up around us.
Simon meandered through the crowd, making his way closer to Sinner and me.
“Understood?” he repeated.
“Yes,” I lied, to him and to myself. Because I didn’t understand any of this. But if I admitted that, if I let myself spiral into how messed up this all was, I would never recover.
Sinner mumbled in agreement behind me, and Simon walked away, continuing his speech. “Great. We’ll work on one claimed pair at a time. Only once you’ve proven that you can control your gift will you learn combat skills. So it’s in your best interest to master them before the war games.”
My stomach twisted at the mention of the ominous war games.
I should have known what would happen next.
I should have known that under no circumstance would I be allowed to catch a damn break on my first day at the barracks.
“Athena and Sinner, since you’re new here, you’re first up.”
“What?” Sinner argued from behind me. “You can’t be serious. We’re exhausted.”
“Even more reason to work on control. You’ll be exhausted out there in battle. Learning to wield your power in a safe environment will benefit you.”
With his direction, the rest of the cadets formed a circle around us, giving us plenty of space. I didn’t blame them. We were unhinged, uncontrolled, and untrained.
Honestly? It had been a relief knowing the shields were suppressing my magic. It meant I couldn’t accidentally hurt anyone. It meant I wouldn’t have to live with even more blood on my hands.
It also meant that the strange, unexplainable link to Sinner’s magic I possessed had been blurred, like our intertwined magic had been untangled and kept apart.
But now that would all disappear.
I was so, so tired. My bones ached. My mouth throbbed with the need for water.
But none of that mattered.
Simon took a stance in front of us.
“Shields, drop your hold,” he commanded. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”