20. Bram

The night sky was filled with bright, blurry stars.

I sprawled across the rough sand underneath Occult Arch with a bottle of fae whiskey clutched in my hand. It promised a reprieve from my fucked up mind. Thank the Fates that Dex had connections to the fae market because supernatural liquor did little to quell the roaring shit bouncing around in my head.

My gaze was fuzzy with fatigue and alcohol as I ripped my attention from the sky and to the amber liquid that glowed beautifully in the moonlight. Fancy alcohol was a bitter reminder of the life I could have led if my parents weren’t pieces of shit—a life of nobility, of power. But that life was never mine to claim, not with the blood of a castaway coursing through my veins.

Thanks, Dad.

Growing up in the toxic household of the Hemlocks, where chaos and pain were the only two things I could count on, I grew accustomed to the bitter taste of disappointment and failure.

With every gulp of the liquid magic, my bleary eyes grew heavier. The tattoos that covered my skin—a pack of wolves on my chest, hawks on my right arm, a lone wolf on the other, and a skull on my neck—shifted under the night sky, etching tales of my chaotic bloodline.

The tablet tossed recklessly beside me buzzed for the fifth time in a row. The vibration against the grains was a nagging reminder of my parents’ demands, demands they’d been spouting since Slater had stormed into my shitshow of a life and fucked shit up again for me.

I reached up with numb fingers to adjust my septum piercing and sniffed. As much as I didn’t want to, I sucked it up and dropped my hand against the screen, pressing the stupid green button to stop it.

My father’s voice was laden with the same old contempt and bitterness he’d had for me since the moment I was born. My existence solidified his exile, after all. ”You’re drunk, again.”

“Always,” I gloated, feeling the comforting burn down my throat.

“Have you even tried to talk to Slater?”

”I never wanted to talk to him in the first place,” I retorted, words slurred by the fae magic. ”Why would I start now?”

My father never cared about what I wanted. Only what he wanted, and he only started bugging me about this shit since Slater showed up and wanted to get to know me.

Slater saw worth in me that didn’t exist.

“Use Slater to get our family back into nobility’s good graces, or you’ll never amount to anything,” he told me.

“I already amount to nothing.” I blew out a stream of air, unsure what had him changing his methods. “What more could I want?”

“You”re such a fucking disgrace,” my father hissed. ”What kind of demon gets drunk under a rock before the night even peaks?”

“A chaos one, obviously,” I slurred again before ending the conversation with my heavy thumb pressing the red button.

Fuck him.

And fuck Slater.

I tossed the device aside as the unread messages from Slater lit up the screen like unwanted fae orbs. Those messages were filled with words I wouldn’t bring myself to trust. The constant back and forth with my brother was not something I wished to entertain further. He was the one who sent me to this fucking place. What a way to show his brotherly love, but then, it made sense of a noble. He was probably afraid someone would figure out that a loser like me shared a bloodline with him.

With another swig of the whiskey, I planned to drown the sting of my father”s words again. Instead, a surge of resentment flared within me.

The chaos wolf I’d summoned earlier lounged beside me, and a snicker seemed to release from its snout. Its eyes glowed faintly like the stars did.

I’d forgotten to put my magic to rest, but the wolf always kept me company when I was alone.

“Fucking Fates.” Dex stumbled out of the shadows and dropped down on his knees next to me. “Pandora and the Demon Council, they”re thick as thieves now. Fucking weird, isn”t it?”

“Yeah, strange,” I echoed, tone hollow. “Even though her father’s on the council.” I rolled my eyes at the realization. “It’s not as weird as you getting off on her pain, dude.”

The whiskey no longer burned as it slid down my throat. Instead, it was a numbing balm to the chaos of my thoughts.

Dex sprawled out next to me, ignoring Chaos, the wolf form of my magic. “Don’t worry. My parents still suck, too.”

I hummed. I was drunk, but I wasn’t stupid. His parents were the source of all of his scars. “Yours are worse, I admit. Now, tell me…” I gulped a breath. “What is it about the soul eater?”

Dex”s eyes lit up with an obsessive gleam. ”I like it when she hurts. It feels so good. Makes her more...real to me.”

A chill ran down my spine. “That’s fucked up, even for you,” I muttered, taking another gulp.

Dex’s laugh was harsh, slicing through the night before he rolled into the shadows, his departure as abrupt as the silence he left behind.

Chaos whined, pawing at the sand as if to tell me to call it a night.

“Come,” I groaned, feeling my wolf recede back into my magic as I pushed myself to my feet.

The academy spun as I stumbled back to my dorm.

It felt like hours before I kicked the door to the dorm shut and landed on top of my bed haphazardly.

“Pandora,” Nyx mumbled in his sleep, and a white-hot flush of heat washed over me.

Reed Nyx was the son of a human mother, but he was also an idiot. That woman might’ve been hot, but she was a noble. She’d eat him up and spit him out before he even realized she was a threat.

”Not my problem, though,” I muttered to myself.

My thoughts drifted to Gravesend, to the way she reacted to my chaos magic. A wicked grin played on my lips at the thought of her. The chaos I could stir within her was immeasurable, a dance of fire and shadow that rivaled the burn of this fucking drink. It would be incredible.

For a moment, the weight of my past, the disdain of my father, and the complicated mess with my brother faded into the background. I’d never been in control of anything in my life.

In that split second, there was power—the power to provoke, to unsettle, to revel in the pandemonium I was born to inflict.

I took another heavy gulp of fae whiskey, knowing that alcohol was always supposed to be a temporary balm for my wounded pride, but it turned into a permanent companion in the solitude of my life.

For the first time since I took that first drink, I felt myself drawn. I was drawn to the prospect of feeding off of Gravesend’s chaos.

I raised the bottle to my lips once more and drank deeply, letting the fire consume me if only to forget—for now.