Chapter 16
Percy
I woke up with my cock hard and my hand already halfway down my boxers, sweat cold on my skin. I’d been in the middle of a dream. No—dream was too gentle a word. It was a vision. Every detail had that hyperreal, sickly quality of the bond being forced on me.
I saw Jupiter, naked, sweat gleaming on her skin, her dark hair wild around her face, being fucked hard.
Her hands gripped his shoulders. Her breasts bounced with every thrust. But I couldn’t see his face very well.
Her eyes were closed most of the time, lips parted in a moan that started low and ended in a scream.
I heard her voice through the bond, the way I used to, before the whole world got fucked.
I wanted to put my fist through a wall, but to my dismay, my hand was still wrapped around my cock.
I tried to let go, I did, but the vision wouldn’t let up.
Every time I blinked, I saw her again, her body arching as she came, her voice echoing in my skull.
‘Yes, harder, fuck, Theo—I want all of it.’ That name slipped through, and it was a knife to the gut.
The thing was, my body didn’t care. My cock was throbbing so hard it hurt.
I bit down on my own forearm to keep from moaning like an animal as I stroked myself, jerking harder with every memory that surfaced.
How she tasted, how she’d look at me right before she’d say my name and come apart in my arms. It wasn’t me in the vision—maybe it would never be me again—but the part of me that ached for her didn’t give a shit.
I could hear her voice and see her sweat-soaked skin and feel her body clench around—
I came so hard I saw stars. It ripped through me like fire, and when it ended I lay there with my heart racing and every cell in my body vibrating with a twisted mix of pleasure and absolute fucking misery. My hand was sticky, my abs messier, and I felt nothing but deep, hollow emptiness.
I crawled out of bed, wiped myself off with half a box of tissues, and sat on the edge of the mattress with my head in my hands.
The bond was still there. It was like a phantom limb, the ache always lurking just beneath the surface.
When she’d first left, I told myself I’d get used to the pain.
I’d learn to drown it, forget her. Instead, every day I missed her more.
Every day the ache grew more unbearable.
I pulled on sweats and a shirt, then stormed out to the common area.
The lights were dimmed, but I could see the other three already there, each in his own private ring of hell.
Aiden was hunched over the kitchen counter, chain-smoking and drinking straight out of a handle of bourbon.
Draco had the look of a man who hadn’t slept for a week, staring into the distance with his hands clenched so tight the veins stood out blue under his pale skin.
Eris was sprawled on the couch, eyes so bloodshot he looked like he’d been maced, a half-eaten granola bar sitting on his chest.
Nobody said anything at first. We just sat there, four assholes hanging on by a thread.
“Anyone else…” Eris started, then trailed off, staring at the ceiling. “Never mind.”
Aiden flicked his cigarette into the sink. “Yeah.”
Draco’s lip curled in a sneer. “She’s not even trying to block us now. She wants us to know.”
“That wasn’t an accident,” I said. “She wanted us to feel it.” I tried to sound disgusted, but I wasn’t. I was desperate for any scrap of her, even if it was just the echo of her pleasure from someone else’s hands.
The silence went on until Draco stood up so quickly his chair scraped the floor. “I’m going to the training arena. Anyone coming?”
Eris shot up off the couch like he’d been poked with a cattle prod. “Fucking right.”
Aiden just grabbed the pack of cigarettes and followed, not bothering with shoes.
I threw on a hoodie and went last, locking the door behind us.
Nobody said another word as we stalked down the hall.
We passed some first-years in the corridor, and they shrank away, giving us a wide berth.
Good. I didn’t want to see anyone else. I didn’t want to see anything that wasn’t the inside of a combat ring.
The next three hours were a blur. We fought with each other.
We fought training dummies. We fought anyone who looked at us wrong.
I took a punch to the jaw from Aiden that made my ears ring and knocked a molar loose, and I barely noticed.
Draco broke Eris’s nose and set it himself with a savage twist. None of us cared.
The pain was a welcome reminder that we could still feel something.
Afterwards, we sat on the arena steps, sweating, bleeding, and breathing hard.
“You know what’s worse?” Eris finally said, voice muffled by the blood-soaked towel he held to his face. “It was how fucking happy she sounded.”
“She wants us to hurt,” Aiden said, and he was right. But we deserved to hurt. “She should be happy. I want her to be happy.”
Nobody argued. It was the first time in months we all agreed on something.
So we walked back to the dorms, showered, and went our separate ways for the day.
I had a lit survey at noon. I sat in the back and didn’t listen to a single word, spending the whole time rolling a joint under the table and thinking about what it would be like to see her again.
I skipped lunch. I skipped everything. I smoked, I drank, I messed up an elemental magic quiz so bad the TA asked if I’d had a traumatic brain injury.
My father must have called me at least twenty times in the last week, asking if I’d managed to convince our axis to get a grip and come back to Dominion.
He didn’t get it. He’d never understand just how badly I’d fucked things up.
I was about to head back to the room and drink until I blacked out, when the lights flickered and the air around me in the dark, empty corridor grew charged. Something was wrong. A rolling sensation shot through my stomach, and a stinging pain lanced through my head as I staggered.
Then, in the center of the empty corridor, a jagged seam opened up, crackling with silver light until it made a perfect circle. Jupiter Black stumbled out of it.
She looked like hell. Her hair was out of its braid, her face pale. She was gripping the straps of her school bag so tight her knuckles were white. As soon as her feet hit the ground, the seam snapped shut behind her, leaving only the faintest shimmer in the air.
Our eyes locked, and for a second neither of us moved. I couldn’t even breathe.