Chapter Fourteen
Charlotte
I trudged out of my room dressed in black pleather chaps, beaded shorts, and a jean corset.
Our eyes locked.
“Seriously? What are you here to do now?” I barked. “Stealing my clothes and giving me a box of severed heads obviously wasn’t enough, you must be here to deliver the noose you fashioned out of my shaved hair!”
“No, no,” he cried, throwing his hands up. “No more gifts and gestures. I’m clearly not good at it. I only came because— because I—” He scrubbed his face—that same annoyed and uncomfortable expression twisting his handsome looks.
But just as suddenly, the discomfort disappeared. Straightening, Ronin looked me in the eyes and said, “I came because I love you, Charlotte.”
I froze, the breath leaving my lungs.
“But the fact is I don’t know anything about love,” he admitted.
“I’ve never done it before. I’ve never even seen it before you.
I don’t know how to do it right, so I asked for advice.
I was told that gifts and grand gestures are what women want, and then I was told I gave you the wrong ones—but I didn’t. ”
My brows shot up. Excuse me? Didn’t? You absolutely went wide of the mark!
“This is who I am, Charlotte. I’m a demon. And if someone hurts you. If they even hold the thought in their head that they can, I will separate that head from their fucking shoulders.”
I shook, hands trembling.
“And even though I don’t understand your fashion taste.”
I flushed in spite of myself.
“If you want to dress like a freak, I’ll buy all the strange and clownish clothes that exist in the realm,” he whispered, taking a step closer. Then another. “There’s nothing about you that I want to change, because simply seeing you smile has changed everything about me.”
Step.
“So, I’m doing what I should’ve done in the first place, and asking you what you need.” Gentle fingers stroked my cheek as the tenderest light shone in Ronin’s eyes. “What can I do to make it up to you, Charlotte? All I want is to ease your pain. Tell me how.”
“Oh, Ronin,” I whispered. “Did you really mean all of that?”
“Every word.”
Reaching up, I curled my fingers around his—
—and twisted.
“Arrgh!”
I wrenched his arm over and down his shoulder, twisting it into a position it was never meant to go.
“Ahhhh!” Ronin bellowed, collapsing on one knee.
“Hmm,” I sounded off over his noise. “What do I want to let you back into my good graces? I want my sister back. Until you make that happen, don’t touch me.
Don’t follow me. And don’t waste my fucking time with your cheap love confessions and sleazy seduction routines.
Get it through your fucking head, Ronin.
I want you”—I punched him in the nose, breaking it under my fist—“to disappear from my life! Just die!”
Tossing him away, I spun around and slammed back into the room—locking it behind me just in time.
The backlash from the sub bond hit hot and fast, searing blistering punishment up my arm, through my neck and across my face.
I was out before I hit the floor.
Four Weeks Later
CHARLOTTE
“And they’re sure about this?”
“They’re sure.” Nik passed me his notebook.
The two of us were on the carpet before the fireplace, studying his notebooks. But that didn’t mean there were only two of us in the room.
Sauda, Raven, and the princesses all posted up in various spots—watching us like hawks.
“I left the academy and went all the way back home for this information,” Nik went on. “I wouldn’t have returned with it unless I was sure.”
I hummed, squinting at his tiny, squeezed-together writing. “So the fire hallow is a dragon?”
“The father of dragons,” Nik corrected. “The legend says that the very first dragon was born from the breath of the fire god, and whoever slays him will receive the same blessing the fire god bestowed on the dragon father.”
“The same blessing? Are we talking about breathing fire and sprouting scales?”
“I don’t know about scales, but the legend says you’ll become impervious to flames.”
I whistled. “So a creature that was born from a god and will grant you a gift from a god if you slay it? That definitely sounds like what we’re looking for.”
“More than that.” Nik tapped a paragraph toward the bottom of the page. “The spell says to light the pyre and burn the sire. Well, another word for sire is—”
“Father,” I finished. “Like a father of dragons.”
Nik bobbed his head, beaming away. Knowledge and research really got this guy going like nothing else. “The only thing my mothers didn’t know is how you’re supposed to burn a creature that can’t be harmed by fire.”
“That is the question.” I wrote down Father Dragon in my own notebook. “What about the sea hallow?”
“My mothers say it’s the siren, and with that being the case, you need to steal a siren’s voice.”
I sat back, considering that. “That does make sense. A siren does freely sing to her victims, which could be seen as giving her voice, so taking it would be stealing what she has given thee.”
I wrote down Siren too.
“And the hallow of the wood?”
“Elves,” Nik said confidently. Santino was right about him being the one to ask.
Oh, how I wish he was here for me to thank him.
“Elves are in the same family as fae, except they don’t fly.
Elves are the guardians of the wood. No one else could be the wood hallow except them, but before you ask, my mothers have no idea what it means to shackle yourself to an elf’s manhood.
” He winced. “Except for the literal meaning.”
I winced right back. “I’m really hoping that’s not where the spell was going with that,” I said. “And as for the air hallow? Was I right about them being an angel and an angel feather?”
“You were right. A powerful item from a powerful being. Not to mention a true angel feather is blessed with divine magic. The kind of thing you want when you’re trying to become a god.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “That’s—”
“Good. Are we done?” A hand flashed and snatched my notebook from my grip.
Raven marched it and herself to the door. “I’ll be back with the dragon ash, feather, voice, and severed elf balls,” she announced. “You be ready to make me a goddess when I do.”
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing, Raven?” Ursula charged off after her. “Make me a copy!”
“Make five!” Eris shouted.
With that, they were gone and out of my room. They didn’t need me anymore.
I traded looks with Nik. “Thanks for taking time off just to go all the way back home and ask your moms about this.”
“No need to thank me. The break from this place was welcome.” Nik did that cute little face-scrubbing thing with his cupped hands. “It’s gone to shit since you made your announcement.”
I wished I could say that wasn’t true, but Nik was actually putting it lightly.
I wasn’t going to pretend that Abaddon Academy was ever the pinnacle of organization and education, but ever since I told all of hell that I was a dark messenger sent to raise a god who’d unleash hell on earth and bring about the dominion of the witches, everyone stopped pretending like they cared about anything else.
Classes ground to a halt because everyone from the students in my class, to the students in other classes, to the professors pelted me with questions every minute of every hour—demanding to know more about the hallows, the final completion of the All Hallows, and more clues to figure out the spell.
And that was just the people who wanted the power to be found.
From the many potential assassins who had to be carried off and pecked by carrion crows, to the ones in school who charged me and were exploded in a shower of blood and guts—it was clear some people did not want the power of the All Hallows to be found.
I couldn’t be sure who sent them, but I knew what they were after.
About a week after my announcement, an anonymous message hit DeadDrop saying that since I was a blood witch, the power to bind the hallows into the All Hallows was in my blood. So all anyone who wanted to ensure their victory had to do was drain it from me.
I immediately refuted that, of course! I said that witch magic must be wielded by a witch, not a psychopath with a jar of blood.
The psychopath then replied, If blood’s not enough. I’m sure a soul will do.
I shuddered, a chill went down my spine remembering the first time I read that sentence.
The majority—the princesses most of all—knew enough about magic to know you couldn’t play fast and loose with the requirements of a spell.
If I told them a living Avos witch was needed to take the power into herself, then share it with those she chose, then they’d believe it until they had facts stating otherwise.
But that didn’t stop them watching my every move. And it didn’t stop chancers and sneaks from convincing themselves I was better off dead.
One of them being Connard.
For days after the start of the Hallow Hunt, which I had officially dubbed it, Connard used every minute of class time to berate and shout at me.
He ordered me to hit up DeadDrop and announce that I made an “error.” Werewolves, vampires, leeches, fae, and the rest of the Others were not eligible to share in the power of the All Hallows, and if and when any of the hallows were found, they were to be turned over to him until he determined which demon among us was worthy of them.
I just goggled at him like the nutcase he was, but no one else did. The princesses and their Sins gang girls shouted right back at him, telling him he was looking right at the demons who were most worthy, so he’d better get the fuck out of their business.
It all devolved so fast and hot, that on the seventh day of my worst week in Great Invasion class, Connard bellowed over all the shouting that I was to get on my knee right then and swear a binding oath to never give the All Hallows power to an inferior.
I said no before the lunatic even finished his sentence, and he attacked me.
That same eerie ball of green light shot from his fingers as he bellowed—hate twisting his mean mug into something unrecognizable.