46. Dexter

Islithered through the fucking shadows for an hour before finding a couple of noble demons in their rooms, talking about what Annie Dreadful had orchestrated on Pandora Gravesend tonight during the storm. Their theories were split: Dreadful was going to get her soul sucked out, or Gravesend was weak and deserved it.

Either way, Dreadful planned the entire fucking thing, and I left the ones talking with bleeding wrists in their room.

Stepping out of the shadows and back into Bram’s room, I found both Skel and him passed the fuck out on his bed. Empty bottles littered around Bram, and Skel’s pipe was on his chest.

My shadows whipped out and smacked their faces with a loud whop.

Skel jolted up, rubbing the red mark forming on his cheek. “Dex, what the fuck?”

Bram groaned loudly, running his hand down his face. “What the hell was that for, Dex?”

“You’re passed out high and drunk when I found out what happened to our favorite little noble.” I crossed my arms and glared at them.

Bram sat up, eyes wide and bleary. “You found out?” He summoned his wolf, and Chaos materialized in front of him, his eyes glowing red. “You found out, too?”

“Who was it?” Skel ran both hands through his black and white streaked hair with a yawn.

“Annie Dreadful orchestrated the whole fucking thing, apparently,” I told them. “Did Chaos come to the same conclusion?”

Bram nodded, calling his wolf back into him. “Chaos caught the nobles’ scent at Odyssey Bluff in the sand. There was a lot of blood by the water, but most had been washed away. He said Dreadful’s scent was the one he noticed the most.”

“Well, then.” I tilted my head, shadows enshrouding the three of us. “Let’s go teach that bitch a lesson.”

They got to their feet, and I shadow-traveled us through the halls until we saw Dreadful outside of her dorm room with movers moving Pandora’s stuff out—thank fuck—but what I hadn’t expected to see was Pandora in Darkmore’s arms with Reed next to them.

“She…she’s a liar!” Dreadful sputtered the words.

Her usually kept blonde hair with pink streaks throughout it was oily and matted. There was blood splatter on her arms and on the fancy clothes she still wore, blood I knew was Pandora’s.

Rage poisoned my veins as the desire to make her fucking bleed swelled in me again. And the bitch had the fucking audacity to accuse Pandora of lying after she beat the hell out of her with her little noble friends?

Darkmore growled viciously, and his tail flicked back and forth. He was in full demon form, as was Nyx. They were past the point of being pissed off. “You don’t even know why she’s moving out. What exactly is she lying about, Dreadful?”

Her blue eyes widened, and her bottom lip wobbled as tears filled her eyes—but they were fake. “Um, I—well…” She turned toward Pandora.

“It’s still black,” Pandora mumbled against Darkmore’s chest, and I tilted my head.

“It’s her ring,” Skel murmured.

“My ring,” Pandora said. “It’s black, which means you still want to hurt me, Dreadful.”

“How the fuck did you know that?” Bram nudged Skel roughly.

“Hurt you?” Dreadful forced a giggle that made my ears want to bleed. “Oh, Pandora, that was our, um, initiation, if you will…so you can officially be part of our group! We all went through it, and now, we’re totally on a first-name basis!”

Wow. Only a fucking moron would believe that shit.

“When we got high together, she showed me her ring,” Skel whispered softly. “I even met Nebs—Nebula—her kitten skull. It talked to me.”

“Don’t call her by her first name,” Darkmore and Nyx snarled at the same time, but Nyx stepped up and glowered down at her. His tail whipped around him angrily. “You call her Gravesend with respect.”

Damn right, dream demon.

“You met the skull?” I murmured. I wondered if he realized it was dark magic oozing out of it, not a soul manifestation like Pandora had thought.

Dreadful tossed up her hands and backpedaled away from him. “Right, of course.”

“We’re not friends, Dreadful,” Pandora rasped, her words choppy and guttural. “Don’t put on a show. You’re a terrible actor.”

Dreadful gasped in surprise, like she really didn’t think Pandora would say such a thing.

“Don’t think you’re not going to get punished. You attempted an assassination on Death’s daughter.” Darkmore’s vengeance magic blasted outward and smacked into her.

Dreadful was hurled through the air and back into her room, crumpling on the ground with bruises and cuts all over her—almost the exact way we’d found Pandora. Every cut, bruise, and dent on Pandora’s body reflected on Dreadful’s, but unlike Pandora, Dreadful’s had healed within moments.

That didn’t stop the pain, though.

She let out a bloodcurdling scream, and tears poured down her face. This time, they weren’t fake.

I resisted feeding on her pain. I wanted her to feel all of it.

“Must be nice to be able to scream like that when it hurts,” Pandora murmured softly like she didn’t expect anyone to hear, but Darkmore and Nyx did.

And so did we.

What the hell did she mean by that? Had the group not let her scream?

Darkmore led them away, and we entered the room’s shadows, watching the bitch sob on the floor with the door wide open.

“Why had she told them but not us?” Bram huffed, crossing his arms.

“She doesn’t trust us,” Skel whispered harshly, smoking his pipe and blowing out the colorful smoke. “Why should she? We’ve been assholes. You two especially.”

I gasped, whirling on him. “I have not been mean to her! I just like her pain. It feels so good.”

“That’s fucking creepy,” Bram mumbled viciously. “Yeah, okay, I’ve been the biggest asshole to her. I know. But she—she’s a fucking noble.”

“Yeah, a fucking noble that got the shit beat out of her by other nobles!” Skel got in Bram’s face, and fear magic started to leak.

Bram flinched and squeezed his eyes shut. “Your fucking magic, Skel!”

“Shit.” Skel sucked on his pipe harder, getting higher and higher until he stumbled back, and the magic stopped.

“Skel’s got a point, Bram.” I shrugged, slipping my hand into the dark and coming out with a bottle of fae bourbon before tossing it at him. “Pandora being on the ass end of the other nobles should tell you she isn’t like them.”

Bram caught it easily by the neck and popped the lid off with his thumb. “Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

“Anything for you two.” I grinned cheekily, flicking my gaze to Dreadful. She had gotten back to her feet and locked the door. “Can we make her bleed now?”

“Be our guest.” Bram tossed back the bottle, gulping it like the greedy dick he was.

I stepped out of the shadows, letting my shadow tendrils whip around the room, destroying all of her fucking shit. “Boo!”

Her scream pierced the air, and she hugged herself tightly. “What are you doing in here? Get the fuck out!”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Skel chuckled darkly as he stepped next to me.

“We’re here to make you pay for what you did to Gravesend,” Bram slurred his words as he stumbled next to me.

“Gravesend?” She tossed her head back and laughed. “You three hate that bitch as much as I do. Why would you be here for her?”

“We don’t fucking hate her!” I shouted, my magic quaking with rage, flying every which way.

The air grew hot and thick with my power, a manifestation of my demonic essence.

Dreadful’s gaze widened in fear.

Skel tossed his head back in a maniacal laugh. “Fates, you’re terrified of the three lowly demons you like to talk shit about around campus?”

“You went too far!” Bram shouted, pointing a finger in her direction.

She tilted her head, a smirk playing on her lips as she masked her fear. “How so?”

“Don’t play dumb!” My shadows writhed like serpents as they closed the distance to her. “You beat her,” I spat the words, each one laden with a venom that could rival the most lethal of poisons. Any basilisks would be proud of it.

Dreadful laughed, and her pheromones seeped through the air, choking me as disgust rippled through me. “And what does that matter to you, Shadowheart?”

“I want her!” I shouted, my shadows writhing around me, outstretching toward her. “And I want her unbroken.”

She flicked her gaze to Bram, directing her pheromones his way, and he visibly recoiled. “Since when does Hemlock care about a noble?”

“Since she found herself opposing nobility,” he sneered. “She can’t be as bad as you if you bitches hate her enough to jump her.”

She took a hesitant step back, glancing at Skel and pushing her pheromones at him. “And you?”

“Pandora’s different. I like it.” He shrugged off her magic like it literally didn’t bother him one way or another. “And you’ve hurt her, which means Dex is going to play with you.”

Her eyes flicked to mine, and her pheromones rolled over me thickly. “Play?”

“Oh, not that kind of play.” I let out a harsh laugh, and with a swift motion, I lashed out with a scorching sharp tendril and encircled her wrist. Yanking upwards, I dangled her in the air a few inches.

She kicked her feet and used her other hand to tug at the shadows. “Stop!”

“Stop?” I let out another dark chuckle and twisted my lips into a scowl. “Did you stop when you were hurting Pandora?”

She didn’t respond, but her pheromones had stopped completely.

“Her fear is filling the fucking room,” Skel murmured around his pipe.

“You’re all fucking her,” she whispered as if figuring something out.

“Answer the question, Dreadful,” Bram barked.

She cried out, tears slipping from her eyes as she shook her head.

I tightened the tendril, cutting into her flesh until I hit the tendon. “Did you stop when she was hurting, you fucking bitch?”

“No!” she sobbed, looking oddly like a cat trying to swim as she clawed at my tendrils to no avail. “No, I didn’t stop!”

My shadow tendril sliced through everything holding her hand to her arm with a sickening crack, and she dropped to her dorm floor—her hand landing just a foot away from her.

Her screams of agony echoed as her pain flooded my reserves and then some, but then her screams became more hysterical. “No! No! Don’t make me do it!”

“What is it?” Bram asked Skel, taking another swig of his bourbon.

“She’s seeing you force-feed her her own hand,” Skel replied, scrunching his nose up.

“Oh, is that all?” I felt a sardonic grin split my face, using my shadows to cut up her hand until it was in cubes of bone and flesh. “I can make your fear come true, little miss Annie Dreadful.”

“Fuck you guys!” she shouted, tears pouring down her face as her entire body shook. Blood sprayed from her wrist, and she moved her arms to cover her face as she lay in a fetal position. “Fucking stop, you psychopaths!”

“But you didn’t stop,” Skel mocked, stepping on her good arm to keep it from her face.

“And now, we won’t, either.” Bram walked over and stomped down on her arm, pinning the one spewing blood onto the floor.

She kicked helplessly, screaming until her screams turned hoarse.

But I didn’t care if she was scared. Pandora must’ve been fucking scared.

I grabbed a piece of her cubed-up hand and squatted down next to her with a smirk. “Say ahh.”

She spat at me, and her spit hit my shoe. “Go to Blezen!”

“Aw, she spit on my shoe, guys,” I chuckled.

Skel rolled his eyes. “More of a reason to teach her a lesson then.”

“I got you those,” Bram mumbled in a huff. “They were nice. Now we have to burn them.”

“Aw, that just means you can get me another pair,” I assured him before squeezing her cheeks together to pry her mouth open.

She shook her head back and forth, trying to shake me off, but that wasn’t about to happen. Not after what she pulled with Pandora.

Bite by bite, I forced the entirety of her cut-up hand into her mouth and down her throat with my shadows as she gagged and cried.

The last chunk slid down her throat with my shadow tendril aiding it down.

“That’ll do it.” I pushed her face away as I let go and stood up, brushing my palms together. “That went well, right?”

Skel stepped harder on her arm until he heard the bone crack, then he moved his foot with a shrug. “I guess.”

“Fuck. That’s so gross.” Bram stumbled off her, looking queasy as he burped and turned to walk to the corner and breathe.

Dreadful heaved on the ground, gagging and sobbing, but she didn’t spout nonsense at us this time.

“I’m sure this is a given, but if you don’t want to eat your other hand, stay the fuck away from Pandora, ‘kay?” I smiled as she puked up a couple of chunks of her hand.

“Answer him,” Bram barked.

She flinched between gags but nodded.

“That’s probably the best we’ll get for now,” Skel mumbled before smoking his pipe again. “I’m hungry.”

“Dude, seriously?” Bram gave him a disgusted look.

“He’s got the munchies,” I explained, waving my hand back and forth as my shadows moved over us. “Give him a break.”

“Yeah, give me a break,” Skel whined before high-fiving me. “Good job on slicing her hand up, by the way.”

“I knew you appreciated my creativity,” I gloated, borrowing his pipe for a hit as we moved out of my shadows and into Skel’s and my room.

Skel made a bee-line for his bag of chips.

Bram faceplanted on my bed with a loud groan. “Skel gave you the idea.”

“It was teamwork,” I defended with a scoff, landing on my bed with a bounce. “Besides, the bitch got what she deserved.”

“Yeah, she did,” Bram mumbled, his breaths slowing down.

“Just wish we could’ve killed her,” Skel said with his mouth full.

“That would’ve been too easy for her. She hurt Death’s daughter. I’m sure her consequences are still coming.” I yawned, crawling into bed and shoving Bram over a bit so I could lie down, too.

“Pandora didn’t deserve that,” Skel stated with finality.

“No, she didn’t,” I agreed.

I thought her pain was delicious, but the pain she gave off tonight had been nauseating. I’d hurt anyone who even thought about hurting her again.