Chapter 16 Nyx #2
“Lyra, ladies, lovely to see you,” he grins, staving off her advances with one hand and slipping the bottle from her grasp with the other.
His eyes dart my way and before I can close my door to escape the swarm of groupies, he slips his free arm around my waist and pulls me into his side as his human shield.
Lyra and the other two finally notice me, their expressions turning sour, slipping into disdain when they register our closeness.
“I actually stopped by to bring Nyx a little house-warming gift now that she’s settled in.” He stares down at me in faux-adoration, but my scowl only emboldens him.
“Oh,” Lyra pauses, running her gaze down my body just like Killian did except this time, it feels like she’s searching for the best place to stab so I’ll die a slow and painful death.
“This is the girl Roth was talking about?” Dread crawls up my spine.
Nothing good could possibly come from being the topic of conversation with that psychopath.
He only grips my waist tighter when I try to edge away, keeping me firmly glued to his side.
“Yeah, you know—” he shrugs. “I figured with her being new here it was about time we welcomed her properly. Nothing like fae wine to help you loosen up after the last couple weeks. Ain’t that right baby?
” His hand drifts down my side until he’s cupping the side of my ass.
Lyra’s eyes narrow and seem to flash in the light, her smile turning brittle as the crack in her mask begins to spread.
“Have you met yet? Nyx—this is Lyra Aldrich, Legacy of Greed. Lyra—this is Nyx Byrke. And these are Stella and Daphne, her cousins.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say through clenched teeth, grabbing the hand on my ass and fighting to pull it off. Lyra regains her composure and a cruel, calculated calm descends over her features, her ensuing smile an unspoken threat.
“Now I remember. Weren’t you stalking Thane last week? And now Killian’s at your door? My, my, you don’t waste any time. Bit desperate, don’t you think?”
“Careful, you’ve got a little—” I say, motioning to the invisible drool dripping from her lips and smirk when she brushes her lips.
“I was just telling Killian how I’m actually going to bed, and not,” I emphasize with a pointed look towards the asshole in question, “inviting him in for a drink. Sounds like you’re game though—” I grunt, finally wrestling his hand off my ass only for it to drape across my shoulders.
“Oh come on Nyx, live a little.” He winks, eyes filled with the promise of regret.
“I’m good, actually. You kids have fun.” I shrug off his arm and dart into my room before he can trap me again. Ignoring them, he crowds my door frame, and when I glance over his shoulder I’m met with three matching sneering faces.
“And here I was hoping we could spend some quality time with our clothes on this time.”
Oh this absolute fucker.
There are at least three scathing insults I could come up with to wipe that satisfied smile off his face, but it’d only encourage his belief that my rejection is foreplay.
When I glance over his shoulder again, Lyra’s face is twisted in fury.
He brings his cheek to mine, blocking all three of them, and his hot breath teases the hairs on the back of my neck as he murmurs low in my ear.
“You’re making this so much harder than it has to be,” he taunts, sending shivers down my spine, a much needed reminder that yesterday’s act of kindness was just that—an act. I don’t know if I could have resisted him being genuinely nice to me.
“You have no idea how hard I can make it,” I whisper back, my lips scraping the stubble of his cheek.
When our eyes meet once more, my heartbeat stutters.
Gone are the captivating blues and greens that striate his iris.
They’ve been replaced by ravenous pools of obsidian that threaten to drown me in their depths.
I’m… not looking at Killian anymore.
I’m looking at the…thing hiding under his skin. One of the monsters I’ve only heard about since arriving here. And it looks like it wants to fucking eat me. I take a step back but still when a low rumble reverberates from his chest, reaching under my ribs and holding me prisoner.
Not-Killian closes his eyes, leaning forward until his lips are brushing my hair, inhaling deeply before exhaling with a groan. “I could gorge on your fear.”
Held hostage by whatever this dark, oppressive presence is, I can’t do anything but remember to breathe. Without breaking eye contact, he backs away from my door, and his eyes fade back to blue-green, but the leering smile remains fixed as the Killian I know and hate comes back.
“Goodnight, pretty rabbit,” he croons. I can hear him laughing through the door after slamming it in his face, and hold my breath until their voices fade down the hall.
I thought being the object of Killian’s newest fixation was bad.
I thought being Luther’s punching bag was worse.
I thought being on Roth’s radar was disastrous.
Turns out, I really shouldn’t have underestimated the Legacies.
When I walk into the Great Hall to get breakfast the next morning, the chatter dies down as dozens of eyes track my every step.
I try to ignore it, and maybe I could have if it wasn’t for the server behind the buffet counter pulling the chafer of bacon from the warmer the moment I reach for it.
“We’re all out.” She shrugs. We both stare at the full chafer, and my eyes dart to the one next to it full of sausage links.
Before I can move a muscle, she pulls it out of my reach with a blank look as I glare at her, and my stomach growls as the decadent food taunts me.
Or maybe it’s way Lyra sidles up on my right side and another girl I’ve seen around the Heirs blocks me in on the left.
“Cynthia, have you met Nyx yet? She’s the one Roth was telling us all about last week.”
“Can’t say I have. Cynthia Denholm, Legacy of Envy.” When she offers her hand for me to shake, I recognize the threat for what it is: a test. Offer myself up for slaughter or fuel the fire by snubbing her? After a beat, I steel my spine and hold her gaze.
“Nice to meet you,” I say stiffly, noting the flash of…something in her eyes when I snub her empty gesture.
“Who do you think you are, Nyx Byrke? From where we sit,” she asks with a cruel smile, gesturing behind her to a table in the distance where several men and women are avidly watching.
“You’re nothing remarkable. No family to watch over you, nothing but a scholarship handout to your name, no epiphaneia.
Supposedly you’re a witch, but all I see is a human weakling.
So why would anyone allow you into Dreadhurst, hmm? ”
“Those are great questions.”
Her anger mounts when I don’t take the bait. “Oh this is cute.” She smiles, reaching for a strand of my hair and rubbing it between her fingers. My body tenses, and I wrench out of her grasp.
“Don’t touch me,” I bristle, but her smile only grows when Lyra stands next to her with a matching malicious grin.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding here, Nyx,” Lyra says.
“You see—we’re the Legacies of Sin. Do you know what that means?
No of course not, how could I forget,” she giggles, “you don’t know anything.
Well no matter. You see, the Legacies are direct descendants of the Princes of Hell, carved from the Devil’s own flesh and blood.
Cynthia here is the Legacy of Envy, and of course I’m the Legacy of Greed.
And our friends over there—” she nods towards the table in the distance, “—are the Legacies of Lust, Sloth, and Pride. You already know Roth is the Legacy of Wrath.” I’m immediately grateful neither he nor the other Heirs are here to witness this shitshow.
“As Legacies,” Cynthia takes over, “we take our responsibility to educate and guide those who might be confused about their place on the hierarchy seriously. So let us make something perfectly clear here: powerless peasants who forget their place don’t have the right to eat in the Great Hall.
They don’t have the right to locked doors.
They don’t have the right to speak unless spoken to.
” She ticks off each point with a finger, and Lyra cuts in.
“And they most certainly don’t have the right to disrespect their betters without consequence. So, Nyx Byrke, what do you think the consequences should be for a worthless, base-born whore who thinks the rules don’t apply to her?”
My hands are trembling by the time she finishes her mean-girl monologue. Not in fear—which would be the appropriate response—but unmitigated rage.
“I think it’s embarrassing for two grown-ass women to act like they’re still in middle school.”
Cynthia responds with perverse glee. “I was hoping you’d make this fun.” Lyra wiggles her fingers at me before looping her arm through Cynthia’s and dragging her back to their table, but not before throwing me one last cruel smirk over her shoulder.
I don’t sleep well that night. The one reprieve I get the entire weekend is when I wake up at dawn and jog the dewy, deserted paths around campus to stave off the growing restlessness. Otherwise, I stay in my room, reading up on Legacies past and present.
Curiosity turns to dread. Dread turns to horror the more I learn how they’ve altered the course of history: kingdoms reduced to ash in the name of Wrath.
Soldiers sacrificed as fodder for nothing more than lines on a map to sate the endless appetites of Greed.
Women exploited for the Pride and Gluttony of men, over and over and over again.
Millennia of suffering, etched into memory with each generation at the hands of weak men with wicked hearts, tempted by whispered promises of power and glory.
Legacies built of bones and consecrated in blood.