Mistakes Were Made

I ’ve never been so glad to huddle at the end of a table and pretend I’m invisible during a meal as I was when Salem and I finished cooking. The entire experience made me hot and nervous and unable to figure out what the hell to do. This damn school is full of shit that makes my emotions tilt off the scales, and I don’t know how to deal with any of it. I’ve never actually wished for therapy sessions before, but I’m kind of missing it now.

That’s never a good sign.

“Kit helped me save dinner, you know,” Salem says with a smug expression. “He’s a pretty good protégé.”

My eyes stay on the plate as I pretend not to choke on my meat. I was hoping everyone would leave me alone while they talked and ate. It would give me time to figure out my feelings about the moment Salem and I had in the kitchen, and maybe I’d know what to say if he brought it up.

But no…

“You never use that word and you swore you’d never take one.” Jasper’s words are tinged with venom and I duck my head again, unwilling to engage with the asshole while I’m so jumbled inside.

Unfortunately, the lazy panda laughs and says, “I know, right? But he’s doing so well, I might let him apprentice next semester. He’s joining the team, so it works out great.”

The room gets so silent I can hear the Prince’s teeth grinding—at least, I think I can. It’s probably my imagination, but given the searing glare I can feel on me, he’s definitely pissed. I stay quiet, stabbing my Hell veggie things with my fork and shoving some into my mouth to make sure I won’t provoke him. Dealing with his bullshit while I’m trying to figure out how Salem didn’t trigger every single one of my trauma buttons is asking too much for Friday dinner.

“We’ve only been here a week,” Zavida says softly, and I have to chomp the crunchy root veggie to make sure I don’t bitch him out, too.

Spineless little shit—making me think he was cool at first and then turning out to be a simpering sycophant.

“But what a fucking week, man,” X interjects gleefully. “Admit it, we haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”

“Fun?” Jasper sneers, the disdain in his tone practically dripping onto the table. “You’ve lost your mind, Xerxes.”

Oriel scoffs, and I look up, meeting his eyes briefly before I go back to staring at my dinner. “He’s right. I’ve enjoyed having things to do that are not simply plotting for our… future. We’ve been focused on it for so long that I’ve gotten bored with my own distractions.”

“You’re always bored,” Slash notes in a flat tone. “That’s nothing new, O.”

“True, true,” the crow demon says. “But I think fresh blood is invigorating us. There’s more… feeling than we’ve had in forever. And I don’t just mean the hate for the Big Bad.”

Must… be small and quiet… say nothing…

“Are you sure it’s not that you enjoy having a new toy to figure out?” The Prince drawls lazily. “You enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together again more than anyone I know.”

“Stop.”

I blink, raising my gaze to the huge shifter sitting next to the asshole taunting me. His dig hurt and definitely hit a trigger because I was immediately spiraling out. But now I’m looking at a person who I thought would never challenge the bullying dragon in public with shock on my features.

“Excuse me?” Jasper grinds out as he grips his fork like he’s going to stab someone with it. “What did you say?”

Slash crosses his enormous arms over his chest as he glares at the dragon. “Oriel is a sneaky motherfucker, but he does not manipulate people. His line is avaricious, not angry or desirous.”

Now I’m chastising myself for thinking the big guy is dumb, too. This day truly sucks.

“He’s right,” Anton says as he shares a look with X. “We certainly are capable and have done such things in the past to protect the caliphate, but Oriel’s curiosity for knowledge isn’t based on hurting people.”

Salem bumps my shoulder, but I stay quiet as I process this conversation. It feels like I’m missing clues because of my lack of knowledge about this world. I’ll need to study lineage more so I can figure out what the hell they’re talking about. I hate being in the dark, and even though there are bigger things going on here, it’s annoying the shit out of me. Of course, that’s probably just me compartmentalizing my fears about the sexy moment with Salem and the fact that Slash just hit his fourth action that makes me question my preconceived notions.

“Thank you for weighing in, but you aren’t here for your intellectual observations.”

Nope. That’s enough.

Slamming my hands on the table, I rise to my feet and look the dickhead right in the eyes. I hate how he keeps making me do this shit, especially when I’m not ready for it. “Fuck off, Jasper. Leave him alone.”

Every head in the room turns to look at me as I growl softly. I won’t let him be shitty to the rest of them because they feel sorry for me. Except for him and Zavida, the others have been decent to me when I needed it, and they don’t deserve to be paid back by him shoving pointy sticks in their own traumas. I can handle myself; I have been for a long time.

“I’m sorry. Did you think someone was talking to you? How embarrassing.”

I stab a mushy potato-like thing on my plate, pull my fork back, and fling it at the smug looking royal. It smacks him right in the face—thank fuck—splattering on his handsome visage in a way I couldn’t have predicted. My hand flies to my mouth, preventing the howl of laughter from escaping as I gape at my work.

He’s going to murder me.

Slash snorts, then leans back in his chair, tilting back as loud, deep laughs fill the room. Oriel is next, followed by Salem, and finally, Anton and X join in like a chorus of basses to tenors harmonizing in their humor. Zavida keeps rubbing his lips and I feel even he wants to snicker, but he can’t bring himself to defy the Prince.

“You’ll pay for that, Camponella.”

“What a cartoon villain thing to say,” I reply drily. “Very scary.”

Jasper picks up the cloth napkin on his lap, wiping his face off with an evil smirk. “Yes, you will. You’ve fucked up my caliphate—something I didn’t think possible—and I will make you sorry for that.”

Rolling his my eyes, I sigh heavily as I ask, “And how do you plan to do that, Prince Dickface?”

He stands, his face cleaned of the vegetable mess as he straightens. “By inducting you tonight, of course.”

Somehow, I don’t think the guys told me everything about this—the Prince looks far too gleeful.

Fuck.

“What the hell is going on?” I whisper to Oriel as he and Salem flank me on either side. They exchange a look and I elbow them in the ribs hard.

“Fuck, ow, Kit Kat,” Salem mutters as he rubs his side. “Jasper and the others are setting up the ritual shit for the induction ceremony. I thought you understood that when he made his whole ‘scary cult leader’ declaration.”

I lick my lips, chanting the five sense mantra in my head so I don’t freak out. “You realize that since I didn’t grow up in Hell, I haven’t caught up to your however fucking many centuries of knowledge, right? I don’t know what the fuck that means, except I know Jasper wouldn’t be happy about it if it wasn’t going to suck .”

Oriel cringes and scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, it’s rough and the adjustment period can vary, but…”

My eyes widen, and I grab his arm. “I’m going to need more than ‘a bit rough,’ Oriel. I do really badly in situations where I can’t control things and I get scared.”

“We won’t let you get hurt,” Salem says with a yawn. “I swear on a stack of Anarchist Cookbooks.”

Tilting my head, I squint at him in confusion. “Those are… for making bombs, not food, Salem. And how is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Because he knows the chaos demon who encouraged the human to write it and he’d never lie about his mom.” Oriel shrugs when I gape, his dark eyes watching the door the rest of them are behind. “Plus, he’s fantastic at making exploding food and I’m agreeing with him.”

Putting my face in my hands, I scrub my palms over it to quell the sparkling sensation under my skin. My anxiety is ramping up despite their reassurances, and it feels like the attack coming is going to be a doozy. “Even if I did trust you—which I don’t—I still need to know what is going to happen when they come out of there. If you don’t quit dancing around it, I may not be upright when they come to get me.”

I raise my eyes, waiting for the looks of pity that usually accompany this admission, but neither of them even blinks. “Stop that, you weird ass demons. Say something.”

“Kit Kat, we know you have anxiety. If you think admitting you need something is going to make us turn into Prince Prick in there, you have another thing coming.” Salem grins and I feel my cheeks heat at the softness in his expression. “I meant the apprentice thing and they’re right, I never say that.”

Frowning, I scrunch my hands in my short locks. “After I helped you twice? That’s nonsense.”

Oriel rolls his eyes. “Shit, fine. I never let anyone come to the Guild with me. They knew that when Jasper assigned it to you. He thought I’d kick you out and humiliate you in public just like he thought Salem would pelt you with food like he did his past roommate attempts.”

“What? When did… I mean, past attempts?” This information makes my gut clench in anticipation of something terrible. I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m hanging off the edge of a cliff by my fingertips.

Salem grins, shrugging as he grabs my hand. “Do you think this is the first time some fuckhead like Jas’ dad or Lucian have tried to infiltrate the caliphate by putting some loser on our floor? I mean, maybe not exactly this, but there have definitely been a bunch of hare-brained schemes to join us over the years.”

“Is that why Jasper hates me so much? Because he thinks I’m just another plant?” Somehow, that actually makes it worse and I don’t know why.

“Hell, no,” Oriel growls. “We mostly froze the others out until they gave up. But I knew you were different the minute our illustrious leader dropped you off to Salem and stormed all over the floor in fury. He sucks ass at hiding his emotions.”

Neither is making any sense, and my heart rate is escalating by the moment.

“What the fuck does that even mean?” I ask in frustration. “Jasper hates me for no reason and has since he picked me up from that frigid asshole in charge of this asylum.”

The panda demon gives me a look that mirrors my own, then shakes his head. “Obviously, the dude is determined to be obtuse. Let’s just tell him whatever you think we can get away with, O.”

“Thanks,” I grumble.

Oriel sighs, leaning back in his chair with his fingers steepled in front of him. “The ceremony isn’t the part you need to worry about. There’s chanting and weird languages and candles and shit. You know, everything your people stole so they could pretend to be worshippers.”

My brows furrow and I purse my lips. “I don’t think that’s at all accurate.”

“Whatever. The point is, that part is pretty normal, but once the chants gather our lines’ powers, that’s when the weird shit begins,” Salem adds as his fingers thread with mine. “There’s a light show and everything gets super intense, then normally the inductee’s powers would join to bind it all together.”

“I don’t have any powers,” I grind out as I glare at them one at a time. “What the hell will happen when I fail to ‘merge’ powers or whatever?”

“We don’t know,” they say in unison.

My jaw drops open, and the only sound that comes out is a high-pitched squeak.

“I went to get Dottie from our room when I said I was going to the bathroom,” Salem says before making a soft chitter sound. My kinkajou comes scampering in, climbing my leg to wrap around my neck immediately. “We really don’t have a fucking clue what will happen, but I know having her in the room can’t be a bad idea.”

It’s sweet, but I’m still stuck on the ‘we don’t know’ part.

“I appreciate that, but I don’t get why you’d push this if you didn’t know what would happen. It’s not doing wonders for my trusting you, either.”

The two demons look at me seriously, and I’m surprised when Oriel grabs my other hand. They’re both squeezing my shaking palms in theirs, but the warmth isn’t comforting. It just makes me worry that I’m being tricked. No one does shit like this unless they want something, and somehow, in the confusion of the relocation to Hell, I forgot that.

“X suggested it first, but we got on board because otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to withstand what’s coming, Kit Kat.”

Arching a brow at Salem, I snort. “Uh-huh. And what the hell is that?”

“War. Hell is headed for a war, and you were determined to stay here for school, so… You need to be ready for war.” The panda grimaces, but stops when the door opens and Anton pokes his head out.

“We’re ready.”

I’m sure as fuck not, but here we go.