Chapter Thirteen
Charlotte
The next morning, I dressed in a long, black A-line halter gown with black pearl earrings. As I got ready, I could hear pure soul Dora in my ear, telling me how pretty I looked.
My hands shook searching for my piercing. In the bathroom mirror, black blood stained my fingertips.
I spun away, gasping on air and head spinning.
The Dora cursed with the pure soul spell wasn’t the true Dora, but still, we had fun and started our own little routines since she became the new student at Abaddon Academy.
Right about then, she’d be running in with a cup of hot cocoa to cheer me up from whatever asshole thing Ronin had done.
But cocoa’s not fixing things this time.
Turning back, I ran a hand over my smooth scalp as I thought through the plan. Even though Ronin was the reason I cut my hair, it was fitting that I did this. After losing our parents, one of the things I despised the most was how outwardly everything else was the same.
The house was the same. The neighbors and their routines were the same.
I looked the same. Even Dora’s nurses wore the same scrubs and rubber clogs from week to week.
This horrible, life-imploding thing had happened to me and my sister, and the world just kept spinning like it wasn’t even a blip on the radar.
Not this time.
I rubbed soothing, scalp oil over the raw, cool skin. This time, I’d make everyone feel how dark and desolate the world had become without her in it.
That done, I walked out the door, and scowled. “What the hell do you want?”
Ronin leaned against the opposite wall, hands shoved in his pants, and staring at the ceiling. I hated that, even then, he was so gorgeous it made my head spin.
Another shower left his thick, wavy hair curling and clinging to his horns. Red kissed his cheeks from a hot shower, or from running all the way over here so he could post up looking all nonchalant by the time I came out. Since his chest was heaving pretty fast, I’d go with the latter.
“What are you doing here, Ronin?”
“I’m here for you.”
My traitorous heart thumped.
“I promised to protect you,” he went on. “More than a few braindead fucks are going to think you’re fair game now that you’re pissed at me, Radu’s dead, and you’re no longer hooked up with Lucifer’s daughter—”
“All three of those things were your fault!” I snapped. “And Dora wasn’t his daughter. The only thing that monster had to say about her death is that I better not use it as an excuse to deny his rightful power. A bastard like that doesn’t get to be called her father.”
Ronin dipped his head. “I understand.”
“You don’t understand anything,” I replied as I stomped off. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here.”
“I’m only here to protect you, Hunter.” Ronin trailed behind me. “To keep everyone else off your back.”
“Hmm. Didn’t you tell me before you tricked me into that bond that it would alert you whenever I was in danger, precisely so you wouldn’t have to follow me around all the time?” I glared at him over my shoulder. “Or was that yet another fucking lie?”
“You shouldn’t have to deal with any danger of any kind right now. One look at me next to you, and no one’s going to try.”
“Behind me, Ronin.” My voice was icy cold. “Never next to me. Never again.”
That seemed to shut him the fuck up, because he didn’t say any more as I wound through the halls, heading to the mess hall.
Inside was chaos as it usually was. Students fighting, flirting, texting, and screwing in the case of a few amorous couples in the corners. At the other end of the room on the platform, Sauda, Ursula, Kama, Raven, and Eris were in the middle of being served and picking at their meals.
There were two empty seats at the table once again, and I made straight for them. Ronin was still following me by the time my foot hit the first step.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, glaring at him. “That’s Dora’s seat, and there’s no room for you here.” I pointed to the table all the way at the front, where Nik sat alone. “Your table is over there.”
Everything ground to a halt.
The texting, the flirting, the fighting, even the fucking. Everyone stopped what they were doing, and stared at me and Ronin.
If they, or I, were waiting for a fight, they didn’t get one.
Ronin smiled at me. “Sure, Charlotte, if that’s what you want,” he replied, whooshing the wind out of my sails. “I’ll just get your breakfast first.”
You could hear a mouse fart on an ant, it was so quiet as Ronin went to the kitchen, returned with a cup of coffee and apple pie pancakes, and then set them both down in front of the seat that used to be his.
That done, he loped over to Nik’s table—and Nik’s bug eyes and hanging jaw—then plopped down and went to sleep, and damn him if he didn’t look like the coolest person in the room doing it.
The only person who could fall from grace and look like a hot, biker pinup model on the way down, was Ronin Belphe.
My breakfast was cooling behind me, but I didn’t go near it. I climbed the platform and faced the mess hall, clearing my throat. “I’ve already got your attention, so that’ll make this easy. I’ve got an announcement, and you’re all going to want to hear it.”
Taking a deep breath, I said the words that sealed my fate. “I’m not just a mortal woman. I’m a witch—”
“Booooo!” they sounded off, the blowback immediate.
I raised my voice to be heard. “The youngest living witch of the Avos coven, and I was sent here, not to hurt you, but with a purpose and a mission!” I was shouting by this point. “I’m here because it’s time to open the gates of hell.”
“Boo—!” The noise sliced off and died so abruptly, I thought my ears popped.
A leopard demon pulled out of the woman he was copulating with, and yanked up his pants. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“Three hundred years ago, my ancestors banished all supernatural creatures from earth and trapped them in hell,” I began, “and it was all to prepare for this day. The day that hardship and ruthlessness fashioned you all into the potential leaders of the new era. Into potential gods.”
Narrowed eyes and hissed whispers spread through the mess hall.
“When my foremothers banished the werewolves, the fae, the vampires, and the Others from earth, they used the power of the All Hallows to do so.”
In the back, Ronin’s eyes snapped open.
I tore away from him. “What is the power of the All Hallows, you ask? Simple—it’s the power of a god.”
“Power of a god?”
“What the hell is this bitch talking about?”
“She’s a witch,” someone growled. “Shouldn’t we be taking her out?”
“Take me out, and you’ll remain as you are,” I said directly to the wolf she-demon who couldn’t be bothered to lower her voice. “Nothing.”
She reddened beneath her fur.
“The All Hallows is a grand and legendary power whose might has already been demonstrated to you. It was this power that was used to close the gates of hell, and make it so even the grand lords of hell can’t set foot in the mortal realm unless summoned.
“And that power can be yours.”
“Ours?” someone spoke up. “How?”
I smiled mirthlessly. “This is why I was sent. I am looking for someone strong, someone worthy, someone willing to do whatever it takes to achieve greatness. Listen, demons, and listen close:
The hallow of the air gives an aigrette light and fair.
From the hallow of the sea, steal what he has given thee.
For the hallow of the fire, light the pyre—burn the sire.
Among the hallow of the wood, join thy shackles to his manhood.”
“Shackle thyself to what?” blurted a feathered demon. “What the fuck kind of sex play is this?”
My smile held. “It’s not a sex play, it’s a challenge.
A challenge I won’t just be putting to you, but to every creature in hell.
Werewolves, vampires, fae, dryads, ghouls, shades, sirens, succubi, and so on.
Anyone who finds the hallows of the wood, air, sea, and flames; collects the items of the spell; and then brings those items back to me will be granted the final key to becoming the All Hallows.
“And when you do, you can blow open the gates of hell and return all beings to where they truly belong, or,” I stressed, “you can rise up to where you truly belong.”
“Truly belong?” repeated that same she-wolf demon. “Say more.”
“With the power of the All Hallows brimming at your fingertips, the lords of hell might as well be mice before giants. You can overthrow them with”—I laughed lightly—“a snap of your fingers.”
Stunned silence rippled through the crowd.
“Whoa, hold up.” I couldn’t see who was speaking.
“What is this? You just show up here, bald as a damn egg, announce you’re a witch, and then tell us if we hunt down some crap for you, you’ll give us the power of a god in exchange?
Why would you do that?” she demanded. “And why would you want us to overthrow the lords?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want you to do anything.
It makes no difference to me whether you overthrow the people who ripped your souls from you after you crossed the gates and turned you into half men, half beasts.
Or if you do nothing and keep being their kicked-around bootlickers.
” My tone was the music of unbothered. “My task was to share this fate with you, it’s not to force you to accept it. ”
“How do we know this is real! How do we know you’re really a witch?”
I scoffed, rolling my eyes again. “The day you psychopaths tried to burn me at the stake, I stopped time and skipped right out of your clutches.”
Okay, that was my mother, but they didn’t need to know all that.
“How much more proof do you need?”
Again more whispers and titters. Again more suspicious looks. And even so, I could sense a shift.