Chapter Thirty-One
Haide
Darkness clings to me as the portal sucks me dry.
This one isn’t like the others. This one chews. My bones grind against one another. My skin peels back in strips. My blood boils in my veins before freezing solid. I can feel it—the magic isn’t just moving me. It’s tasting me. Savoring the way I scream.
Good, I think, bile burning my throat. Let it hurt. Let it all fucking hurt.
Because pain is better than the alternative. Pain means I’m still here. Still me. Not some broken, pathetic thing left sobbing on the floor while Legend Deveraux fucks his real mate in front of an entire court.
The image sears through me—his hands on her, his mouth on her, the way he looked at me like I was nothing. Like I was less than nothing. A stain. A mistake. A fucking witch.
My vision whites out and then I’m falling until my back slams into something hard. Stone. Cold. The impact knocks the breath from my lungs, but I don’t gasp.
Laughter rips from my throat, raw, as I cough, hand on my stomach. Motherfucker! Blood. My own. Slips down my throat.
Consciousness drags me up from the black, my face pressing against volcanic rock, and the familiar bite of Exile Island’s dust grinding between my teeth.
Home.
The word should bring comfort. Instead, it tastes like betrayal.
Boots come into view first. Leather, dusty and loosely tied to his feet. My eyes move up his body.
Smoke twists around him, thick and black, clinging like it’s part of him.
Rusted metal melts over his chest, dripping down his abs in uneven streaks, and I follow it all the way to where it covers his face, leaving his mouth and eyes visible.
Red fucking eyes peer at me from above, his mouth twitching in a way that draws my attention to how soft they look against everything else.
That’s when I notice them. I suck in a breath. Dark, jagged horns stab up to the sky on each side of his head.
Holy hell, that is fucked up. Who the hell is this?
My throat locks. I force a swallow—fuck, he’s huge. Good. Bigger targets are easier to hit.
His gaze burns like a brand pressed to my skin. My teeth grind, jaw screaming, but I don’t blink. Don’t flinch.
I push up. The ground tilts under me like I’m drunk. My vision swims; stomach lurches.
This fucking dress—the one that made me feel barely enough—hangs off me in rags. Sparkly bits litter the dirt around me, catching the light.
You were never my mate.
Witch.
His words echo in my skull, each syllable a fresh wound. The thing about wounds, though—they’re the main source of a pain that I have no problem turning into a fucking war.
For a moment, I believed him. Fucking believed him when he said I was his mate, his queen, his everything. Opened myself up like an idiot, let him see the soft parts I didn’t even know I carried. He dug that shit up and used it to fucking bury me.
I hate Legend Deveraux.
Laughter breaks through my spiraling thoughts. For a minute, I forget all about the horned beast. Too obsessed with my hatred.
I bare my teeth, straightening my shoulders as if it’s gonna do shit up against this giant. “Cute mask,” I spit. “Shame it won’t stop me from gutting you.”
He tilts his head, slow, deliberate, as if bored.
I fucking bore him?
It’s fine, every newcomer exiled to this place has to learn theirs at some point. Even demons. How long was I gone for anyway? And this motherfucker thinks he can walk in here and claim what’s mine?
No. Absolutely fucking not. Not after I just endured the royal assholes of Rathe.
I move toward him with purpose, blade ready, smirk widening. Every muscle screams in protest. My ribs burn with each breath, probably cracked from where Legend threw me like a discarded toy. The memory hits me harder than the pain—his face, cold and empty, calling me nothing.
Calling me exile.
Like it was poison on his tongue.
I hesitate.
“Cute dress.” His voice is low, yet in a tone I’ve never heard. Almost as though it echoes itself enough to vibrate through the air. “Would look better on the floor.” Those red eyes remain locked on mine.
He steps forward until he’s close enough that the curve of his horns nearly graze my hair. Close enough that his heat, or maybe the ocean’s, clings to my skin.
My knives don’t waver in my grip—muscles screaming to drive steel straight through his ribs. But my fingers lock up.
That broken laugh scrapes out of him again. Like he’s the only one who gets the punchline of some cruel joke.
I shove the blade against his throat. Just a little pressure.
It just takes one quick jerk.
His head tilts back, baring his neck. Like he’s daring me. Like he wants it.
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache.
“You think I won’t?” My lip curls. “I wouldn’t question me today if I were you. I’ve had about enough of men to last an entire lifetime.”
He leans into the blade, bending it toward his own neck. “Do it,” he murmurs. Not a dare. An invitation. “Spill me open. See if I bleed for you.”
So, he’s poetic.
His massive hand clamps around my jaw, rough enough to bruise, and yanks my face toward his. A wet, searing tongue drags across my skin, sending a jolt through me I refuse to name. His breath burns against my ear as he murmurs, low and dark, “Follow me.”
Another pulse of pain through my chest, and I reach for it, as if I can pull it out myself. Fuck it. I can’t be bothered fighting this asshole right now. Not with possibly four cracked ribs, a sprained ankle, a possible broken finger, and a damaged ego.
I kick off my ragged shoes, the dust and rocks digging into the soles of my feet as I take in a deep inhale of home air. “Fine. But only because I know where I’m going.”
Despite the pain, I start following the large—demon?—since I need a minute to gather my thoughts.
Silence.
Goosebumps raise across my skin as my senses peak on high alert.
The island has never been silent. Everywhere you go on Exile you hear the cries of death, the screams for help, or the laughter from whoever is causing it.
I slow to a stop. Trees spill out in front of me, the obvious carve from the track that leads you right down to the main road.
From up here, you can see the sculpted ragged rocks that make Exile Island.
Thank God that hasn’t changed since I’ve been gone.
A bitterness I don’t expect sweeps over me, and I swallow past the sour feeling sinking in my gut.
Like the spine of a sleeping dragon, each peak of mountain looks like a vertebra carved from black stone and volcanic glass. The cliffs drop in jagged wings, folded against a sleeping dragon’s side as if it’s been slumbering here for centuries, waiting.
Of course that’s not true. Nothing of the sort is ever the size of this island, not even dragons, but that’s just how Exile looks.
Widow’s Peak is a perfect ridge of a long skull and eye sockets dark and hollow, watching over the restless sea with a mouth that opens for the entrance of the caverns where the dragons sleep.
The demon continues walking, his boots crunching against loose shale. Red eyes glance back at me, patient but expectant.
Rolling my eyes, I continue forward, squashing every thought of Legend and his bullshit family that I just discovered.
The forest swallows us whole.
One step past the tree line and the temperature drops. Shadows writhe between twisted trunks and branches reach like skeletal fingers. No birds. No insects. Just the whisper of leaves that shouldn’t move in windless air.
My feet crunch over something hard. Probably bone. I don’t look down, keeping my focus on the back of this horned beast, just in case he decides to—I don’t know—turn around and fucking eat me.
Wouldn’t matter, obviously, I’d just come back and return the favor.
I trail my fingers along rough bark as I pass, and the tree shudders. Not in fear—in recognition. Like greeting an old friend. The path opens before me, shadows peeling back to let me through.
You’re home, the Island seems to say, where you belong.
Unlike the War Room, with its polished floors and crystal chandeliers. Unlike Rathe University, with its marble halls and students who looked at me like I was dirt on their expensive boots.
Unlike anywhere he tried to make me fit.
The dress catches on a branch. I rip it free, relishing the sound of fabric tearing. Let it shred. Let every piece of that night fall away until there’s nothing left but me and this goddamn island that never pretends to be anything other than what it is.
Violent. Hungry. Real.
Trees thin ahead, darkness giving way to flickering torchlight.
We emerge onto Main Street, if you can call it that. More like a strip of cottages and caves, each one bleeding firelight from gaps in rotted wood. Music drifts from a lone tavern, all drums and screaming strings. Something’s wrong, though.
No one is killing each other. There’s no blood splatter being sprayed across my face.
You were never my mate.
I bare my teeth at the memory. Fuck. I’m going to cut him from my brain if it’s the last thing I do.
Exiled move across the pathway, between the thick bush that hides the ocean and the dusted path. But they don’t act with the careless violence I grew up on. They act with purpose. Together. Lashing timbers into frames, tying handmade ropes, and shaping driftwood…into walls?
They’re…building.
“What the fuck?” I whisper out loud, forgetting all about the beast ahead of me.
They’re building a house. Not just some thrown-together shelter. It’s got real structure—actual walls, lifted off the ground like it’s meant for something. Or someone.
Exiles—the same bastards who’ve spent my whole damn life trying to gut one another before breakfast—are working side by side. No screaming. No blood. Just the steady thunk of stone meeting wood. Their movements so in sync it’s like they’ve been doing this for years.
What the hell is going on?
Every single head turns at once, and my breath sticks in my throat.
Masks. Smooth, rust gold masks covering every face, identical down to the way they catch the light. Just like the beasts’, only theirs have no mouths. Just eyes. Blank staring back at me.
“What the fuck…” I repeat.
And then they move.
As one, they rise to their feet in perfect sync, their bodies rippling like a single creature with a hundred limbs. They make a single step forward, and then another.
“Is there a fucking problem?” I snap, fingers tightening around my knife. “And what the fuck are you guys doing?”
The quiet stretches, thick enough to choke on. My pulse hammers against my ribs, each beat screaming at me to move, but I don’t. Not yet. The Exiles stand there—dozens of them—shoulder to shoulder, their masked faces tilted toward me like they’re waiting for something. For me.
No snarls. No knives flashing. No one lunging for my throat.
Just silence.
And then—movement.
They split apart, a clean divide straight down the middle, forming a path so precise it’s like they rehearsed it. My grip tightens on the knife. This isn’t right. Exiles don’t coordinate. They don’t share. They don’t do anything but stab first and ask questions while you’re bleeding out.
My muscles lock, every instinct screaming trap. If they want me on the ground, they’ll have to carve me into it.
I drag a second blade free. My knees bend, weight shifting forward, ready to spring. The stones bite into my bare feet, but I don’t flinch. Pain’s just proof I’m still alive.
“Come and fucking get me,” I growl, voice raw. I know how I look—half-naked in this ruined dress, hair wild, and skin streaked with dirt and old blood. Pathetic. But they know me. Every single one of them has seen what I can do with a blade and a bad mood.
The horned figure—thing—lifts his hand.
The Exiles freeze.
My lungs burn. I didn’t even realize I’d stopped breathing.
The masked figures drop like stones.
All of them. Every single Exile on this street falls to their knees in perfect unison, heads bowed toward the beast beside me. The sound of bodies hitting dirt echoes through the silence—dozens of thuds that make my skin crawl.
My breath hitches. I step back, blade still raised, but my hand shakes. Not from fear. From something else. Something that tastes like copper and feels like falling.
This isn’t possible. Exiles don’t bow. We don’t kneel. We fight and fuck and die. But we don’t submit. Not to anyone. Not to anything.
The horned figure turns toward me, slow as honey, deliberate as death. Those red eyes burn through me. I swear I can feel them peeling back layers of skin, muscle, bone—searching for something buried deep inside.
My feet want to carry me backward, but the stones dig into my heels, trapping me in place.
“I’m so glad you finally made it home, Hellpet.”
My knife clatters to the ground.
Hellpet.
The name hits like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs.
“Sorry about being theatrical with my messages, but you see…”
He moves closer, and I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t process what’s happening.
My legs give out, but he catches me before I can fall, one massive hand wrapping around my waist. His touch burns through the ruined fabric, searing into my skin like a brand.
“I’m a little fucking possessive of my mate.”