Chapter 34

One would think that after a lifetime of perfecting the art of bottling up my emotions, I'd be an expert at it, but as I walked Arya to her room, acting calm and rational was one of the most difficult things I'd ever done.

I wanted to hunt down the three sea witches and burn them to a crisp. I wanted to go back to the Simulation Room and use my dragon fury to destroy it so that it could never threaten Arya again. I wanted to encase Arya in a bulletproof straight jacket so that no harm could ever come to her again.

But I didn't do any of those things.

I somehow maintained my composure until Arya was safely inside her room, assuring her that I would see her tomorrow night for our date.

I hadn't actually meant to ask her out. Honestly, when I did, I wasn't even thinking about Arthur's damned ultimatum. I was only thinking about her, how grateful I was that she hadn't gotten hurt, how much she clearly needed my protection. That the more I could be around her, the safer she'd be.

And now that she had finally closed the door, I needed to find a way to vent my overwhelming emotions before they burned their way out of me and took the entire school with them.

I strode back to the gym, shoved my earbuds into my ears, and blared the angriest heavy metal I could find while I turned my murderous rage on a punching bag.

Tonight had made me aware of three very big problems, and I didn't yet have a clue what to do about any of them.

Problem number one: Arya had no idea how to defend herself.

My knuckles cracked against the leather as I threw an uppercut, and my blood began to pepper the bag as I continued to punch it.

I'd seen dozens of mers beat that sim before on their first try. Granted, most students weren't assigned to the Simulation Room until several months into their defensive training, and every mer that had ever gone in had been an expert at their shifter skills since birth.

Arya had a few handicaps, being that she only just found out about her true nature a week ago and she hadn't figured out how to control her shift, which was its own problem.

But I watched Arya on the screen for those seconds before I managed to shut the damn thing off. That vampire had snatched her so quickly. Just in that short burst of time, I'd considered half a dozen ways she could've evaded his attack. But she didn't know those techniques. She was nowhere near prepared for that scenario.

Which brought me to problem number two: if Arya was the siren from the prophecy, she was more vulnerable than I realized.

My fist hit the bag, sending bits of charred leather and stuffing flying around it. I paused to look at my hand. Tendrils of steam and smoke were wafting upward from it. I scowled in frustration.

Caesar wasn't going to be happy that I'd ruined one of the punching bags, and now that I'd scorched a hole into it, I couldn't exactly keep abusing it. I didn't want to make a bigger mess for myself to clean up.

So I trudged over to one of the treadmills and started running, the pent-up energy still threatening to incinerate me from the inside out.

The fact that vampires had attacked Arya's house and killed her mother couldn't have been a coincidence. Vampires don't just kill people in their homes. Usually, their attacks are random, and always in the open, in secluded areas like alleys, tunnels, and under bridges.

They could still be hunting for her. She didn't know how to shift, didn't know how to control her powers. And if that weren't bad enough, she couldn't physically defend herself against a low-level vampire. One that technically wasn't really trying to kill her.

And if she really was the siren from the prophecy, she'd have to stand up against Hadrian and the entire vampire army.

I smelled the smoke before I saw it. I slowed my run to a jog so I could look down. My uniform shirt was burning from the heat of my skin, holes forming in random spots and eating away at it as the material turned to ash.

Growling, I tore the shreds of my shirt the rest of the way off and discarded the charred bits to the floor beside the treadmill before kicking into a sprint.

Maybe she wasn't the prophesied siren. Maybe the vampire attack on her mother had nothing to do with Arya but her mother instead.

It would be better if she wasn't, if she turned out to be just a lost mermaid. Then I wouldn't have to worry about vampires hunting her down. I wouldn't have to worry about what my father would do with her if she was. He would turn her into a weapon. He'd take all of her goodness and squash it and mold it until she was the perfect soldier. Just like he'd done to me.

A hand suddenly waved in a wide arc in front of me, making me jump so hard that I almost tripped face-first onto the speeding belt beneath my feet.

I hopped off the device and pulled the blaring buds from my ears.

Brett and Niko were standing on the other side of the treadmill, looking at me with playful smirks on their faces.

"What are you doing? And why are you shirtless?" Brett asked, eyeing my bare chest up and down.

I stuffed my buds into my pocket. "My shirt burned off."

I watched as both their eyes found the crispy remains of my shirt on the floor next to my feet.

"And I saw that you burned a hole in one of the punching bags." Niko pointed his thumb behind him at said bag. "Are you okay, man?"

I bent to pick up my shirt and sauntered over to the nearest bench, sagging onto the edge of it. "How did you know I'd be here?"

They followed me, standing in front of me as I chugged a bottle of water.

"Well, you weren't in the dining hall, or your room, or the Avian common room, and really, this is the only other place you hang out," Niko said.

"Which is really pretty sad," Brett commented. "You need to get out more."

I arched a brow at him as I gave him a sideways glance.

"So, spill. What's got you burning shit?" Niko prodded.

I let out a heavy sigh, realizing that they weren't going to drop it…and that maybe I didn't want to bottle it all up inside anymore.

"Cora, Adina, and Letti locked Arya in the Simulation Room earlier tonight," I explained. "I barely showed up in time to stop it before she—" I broke off, unable to say the last word.

The goofy looks on their faces slid right off, their mouths popping open.

"Oh shit," Brett said.

I nodded, my lips in a flat line.

"Did you tell Caesar?" Niko asked.

"Fuck no," Brett barked, slapping Niko's chest with the back of his hand. "The mers already hate her. If she ratted them out, they'd make her life a living hell."

Niko's resulting frown mimicked my own.

"My thoughts exactly," I said gravely, although I wanted to do everything possible to hurt those girls for what they'd done.

A silence fell over us for a moment, until I finally decided to break it.

"That's not the only thing," I began, then I told them everything. I told them about the prophecy Celeste had about a siren who would destroy Hadrian. I told them that Arthur was certain Arya was that siren, that he'd ordered me to befriend her, and that if I didn't make her my girlfriend, he'd ship me off to the military prematurely.

"So tonight, after I saved her from the sim, I asked her out officially," I said. "We have a dinner date tomorrow night."

They both gawked at me with more serious expressions than I'd ever seen either of them wear, Brett especially.

"Wow, man, that's pretty heavy," Brett said finally, rubbing the back of his neck. "I knew your dad was a first-class asshole, but damn, that's fucked up."

"How do you feel about Arya?" Niko's eyes held a knowing glint. He usually saw through my masks. "You like her."

Brett snapped his fingers and pointed at me. "Yeah. You totally like her. Why not date her? I mean, there are definitely worse things the General could order you to do."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek and looked away from them. They didn't know about the curse on my bloodline, that if I fell in love with her, she'd never love me back, and vice versa. Which brought me to problem number three, and I wasn't ready to say those words out loud. I was barely able to admit them to myself.

I bounced off the bench and walked toward the garbage can to toss my ruined shirt. "Let's just go back to the dorms. I'm exhausted after my workout."

We headed out of the gym, passing the destroyed punching bag I'd have to reimburse Caesar for. But that was the least of my worries.

Because as I followed my friends across the lawn toward the main building, I couldn't stop thinking about my biggest problem of all.

I had imprinted on Arya.

And one way or another, we were both going to get burned.

~The End~

Are you dying to know what happens next? Continue this thrilling series with Dark Embers, Dark Shifter Academy Book 2!