Feral Wolf by Caroline Peckham

The Daring Anacondas were in a dilemma.

“Flash bang! The Anacondas are in trouble. Flash bang! Better make it double. Flash bang! The angry Vampy’s gone mute. Flash bang! Doesn’t matter that he’s cute,”I sang our theme tune under my breath and Roary cut me a sideways look that said I was annoying him. But irritation was akin to sexiness on him. It made his dark brows dip low and his eyes go all grumpy brown. Brooding, that’s what it was, and I bet it looked good while he reared over someone and put them in their place with his danger dagger. Damn good. I’d let him brood all over me if that was what he wanted.

He’d been angry ever since we got back and I had to wonder if it was because he’d seen me fucking my wild girl and her mate on the CCTV feed. He’d mentioned that and he’d looked all kinds of pissed about it too, but I could also taste the lust on him which said if he’d been there we’d have had another cock in our cocktail. And I was down for that. Double down.

Ethan on the other hand, was in a far better mood and the lust that kept trickling from him told me exactly what he was thinking about. It gave me all the warm fuzzies because I knew I’d fulfilled the needs of my kind in pleasing him. But our problems didn’t have anything to do with Mr Moody O’Lion or Mr Dick Wasucked…no, it had a lot more to do with Mr Cain Myasshard and Miss Wolfup Mycock. Because the angry lust pouring from those two right now told me everything I needed to know about how well Rosalie’s interrogation was going.

She was crushing on fang boy so hard that I was half tempted to slip into that room, pull his pants down and force my girl’s pussy onto his cock just to break the sexual tension between them. Maybe then we could all have a friendly orgy and put our issues aside. I mean sure, I wasn’t a fan of Officer Cain, but I liked the look of his baton. Those guard’s pants did wonders for outlining big cocks and his always looked like a treat waiting to be unzippered. And the grey sweatpants he was currently wearing might as well have been Saran wrap. Mm. Damn. Rosalie really has good taste in men.

“Flash bang!” I sang louder to get the other guys’ attention. “There’s a roadblock in our fate. Flash bang! The angry Vampy’s full of hate. Flash b-”

“Stop,” Roary cut over me, pressing his fingers into his eyes. “For the love of the sun, stop.”

I jerked my thumb at him while pulling a face at Ethan. This guy, amiright?

“What’s up, Sin?” Ethan asked, frowning at me and I hurried forward to form a hug circle with the two of them as I cast a silencing bubble around us. Roary resisted it, but I locked my arm tighter around him as I pulled them closer.

“Listen, kittens,” I growled. “I can taste the lust on those two in that room so bad, my boner is gonna sprout legs and head off on a life of its own soon.”

“By the stars,” Roary muttered, trying to pull away again but I held on tight.

“Point being, Rosalie can’t do what needs to be done because of how her pussy pitter patters around him. So we need to deal with it for her. You catch my drift?” I wiggled my eyebrows. “Is my coconut bobbing your way? Is my raft sailing up your river? Is my cockerel crowing at your window? Is my spider crawling up your drainpi-”

“We get it,” Roary snarled. “But what do you expect us to do? She’s not going to let us interrogate him.”

“Thing about me is, Lion puff, no one lets me do anything. I’m Sin Wilder. Besides, she already gave me the go ahead,” I said knowingly.

“What do you mean?” Ethan frowned.

“She and I have a secret language,” I said smugly. “She wants this done, see? She told me in no uncertain terms that she needs that information from Cain, and that she needs a big strong boy or two to break into that melon balanced on his neck and spill out all its fruity insides.”

“She told you that?” Roary asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, in the secret language,” I confirmed.

“Bullshit,” Ethan said dismissively, pushing his fingers into his thick blonde hair.

“You can believe what you like, but the fact is we’ve got less than three days to crack our way out of Darkmore and even less time than that before the guards get access back to the prison from topside. So, my little devilish shrews, are we going to wait around for Cain to spill his beans, or are we going to spill them for him and save ourselves a lot of wasted time?”

Roary swallowed hard, glancing at Ethan who had worry written into his features.

“If we do nothing, Rosalie won’t get out of here. None of us will,” I said seriously, the thought of that more awful than dying in this place. My wild girl wanted out, and I wanted to follow her to the out. I wanted to taste good food again, I wanted to swim with tiger sharks and ride a killer whale. I wanted to visit that bird sanctuary set up by a Vega princess - before all the dooms and glooms fell on Solaria - and make friends with a talking crow. I had dreams, man, dreams. And Rosalie had dreams too, ones which I wanted to fulfil more than I wanted to fulfil my own.

Just like a Fae bomb dropping on my head and exploding my brain into a million pieces, it hit me that I loved her. I was in love with her. The L word I’d never had any use for was now stamped to the inside of my skull with her name scrawled beneath it beside a picture of a tiny dick with a smiley face and a wavey hand. It was my happy place. Rosalie now dominated it over the tiny dick smiler I usually turned to when I needed to raise my spirits. But I didn’t need that friendly dick anymore, I had something much, much better than him. I had love.

Stars on a ballsack, I’m getting shivers.

“We have to move. Now.” I shoved away from them, about to stalk into that room and cut Cain to shreds when Ethan caught my arm and dragged me back.

“No. We can’t hurt him. If what you said is true, she won’t forgive us for torturing him,” he said firmly, going all Alpha on me. I liked that, but this wasn’t the time for it. I took a quick dick peek at his crotch though because I was an Incubus after all.

Roary seemed to be struggling with the mental nugget that Rosalie was hot for yet another guy and I had to wonder if that was to do with the fact that he hadn’t stuck his rocket in her moon yet, or if it was just that it happened to be Officer Cain who held her attention right now. But we all knew how the phrase went, one is fun, two is bamboo, three woowee, four on the door.

And our girl wanted on the door. I wasn’t sure why the door was so great, but I wanted on the door too. It just made sense.

“Stop pouting.” I pointed at Roary and his broody sexiness. “You want her? Then lay your claim. Are you a Lion or a lampshade?” I demanded and his eyes widened at me calling him out like that. But I didn’t beat around bushes - well not unless you counted beating my cock in a bush while I fed on the lust of Rosalie fucking Ethan in the Order Yard that time. Then I supposed I did beat around bushes. But there was no time to jerk off in a bush right now. I had to focus.

Ethan released a low growl and Roary answered it with one of his own. There were pack dynamics here and Order instincts raging too. Lions and Wolves weren’t so different in their polyamorous ways, but Wolf mates didn’t usually do the sharing thing once they found each other, and Lions usually took on a pride of females not males. So it was all a bit complicated when it came to their fluffy Order ways. It was so much easier being me. My cock pointed due north (AKA to Rosalie) and swung south, west and east whenever she liked it to. I’d fuck all these guys for her pleasure and for mine too. It was pretty simple to me. We just needed to be her flock of horny geese.

“Let’s just make a plan, yeah?” Roary snipped, clearly not wanting to talk about this with us. But it seemed like we were the best people to talk to about it. My cock had been so deep inside the girl he wanted, I could give him pointers about where to strike her pussy for maximum results. But would he take my help? Nope. He was planning to navigate her pussy alone, or at least I guessed he was. Maybe he was a virgin. Or a eunuch.

“Is your dick…intact?” I asked and he lunged at me with a snarl.

Ethan got between us, pushing him back and I smirked. Oh Lion puff, you are gonna be so fun in the bedroom.

“This isn’t helping,” Ethan hissed. “If we’re going to do something, then we need to make a plan and do it now.”

“Fine,” Roary backed down and I stuck my tongue out at him which made him snarl at me again. “So how are we going to interrogate him without using force?”

“We need a Cyclops, duh,” I said, rubbing my jaw. “Maybe I could pop Gustard’s eye out of his head, shove it on a popsicle stick then we could use it to-”

“No. Gustard’s gone to ground and you can’t use a Cyclops eye once it’s out of their damn head,” Ethan said, folding his inked arms.

“Are you sure? Could be worth a shot?” I suggested.

“How about Quentin?” Roary suggested. “He’s probably holed up in Interrogation. And we can just feed him a memory eraser potion from his supplies once we’re done.”

“That dude gives me the heebies. And the jeebies,” I said with a shudder.

“He’s an easy target now we have magic,” Ethan said decisively and I nodded with a pout.

Dammit, I wanted to pop out Gustard’s eye and make it into a lollipop. Not for licking, obviously. Well…maybe just a little lick.

“Alright, you stay here, kitten,” I commanded Roary. “Cover for us if Rosalie comes out of that room.” I clapped him on the cheek then grabbed Ethan’s hand and towed him off down the corridor with a bounce in my step, not giving the Lion a chance to argue.

Ethan pulled his hand free of mine as we started running downstairs and I gave him a sideways grin.

“So I can suck your cock but not hold your hand?” I asked.

“Shut up,” he bit at me.

“Hey now, don’t be touchy. I just need to figure out your boundaries. No hand holding, but cock sucking is a go. Noted.”

He huffed but didn’t disagree.

“Shall we do a quick green light list just so I’m fully prepared the next time we’re hard?” I asked casually, but he didn’t answer so I went on. “Alright, I’ll start with my green light list. You can fuck me any way you like but if you’re gonna knock on my back door, then sometimes I can get a bit aggro. As in, you might have to beat me down to do it. It’s my Alpha instincts. I like it once I’m down though. But I don’t go down easy. I kinda turn into a savage animal. One guy lost a leg. Actually…I don’t remember the last time someone got me down. I think it was that Bear Shifter who had me shift into a four titted leprechaun. Or it might have been the Cerberus who had me shift all my orifices into vaginas. All of them, shadow man. All of them.” I pointed at my ear as Ethan’s upper lip peeled back.

“And you liked that?”

“Well…it wasn’t really about me liking it. It was about them. I had to fuck for cash sometimes because my pockets were full of broke dust bunnies and sometimes it was the only way to get a roof over my head for the night too, so…” I shrugged and Ethan’s brows lowered.

“That’s awful, man,” he said and I shrugged again.

“There are worse things for an Incubus to be doing.”

“Not if you didn’t wanna fuck those Fae,” he pointed out and my face twisted in a frown.

I supposed he was right about that. But that was the thing about my body, it was a sex toy ready to shift into anyone’s wildest wet dream so I could feed on their lust and recharge my magic. It was how I was built. And maybe they’d been using me, but I’d been using them right back. So did it really matter?

We reached level nine and I stuck my head around the corner to check for enemies. The corridor was clear, so I led the way along it towards the interrogation room and slowed as I reached the door. I brushed my fingers over the handle, sensing the magical locks in place on it from the other side. But I was Sin Wilder. A street rat turned handsomely paid handsome assassin. I knew how to break through any lock, sneak into any house, and my targets never faired well once I was inside.

The thrill of using my magic for one of my old favourite games sent a buzz of energy into my limbs as I flicked my fingers and worked on the locks holding it closed. With a bit of magical skill and plenty of finger wiggling, they dissolved under the intensity of my power and I glanced back at Ethan with a smirk before turning the handle and swinging the door wide.

I leapt into the room without a second’s hesitation, hands raised and air magic already catapulting from my body in a storm that flipped the tiny little cretin of a torturer upside down so his white lab coat fell over his face and he screamed as I started spinning him in a furious tornado.

“Yes, yes, yes!” I cried excitedly as his shoes went flying in opposite directions and he made a noise like a dolphin with a blocked blowhole.

“Flipper’s not coming to save you, creepy man,” I laughed.

“Enough,” Ethan barked, shoving my hand down which was raised for casting.

I dropped Quentin on his head and he tried to scramble past us towards the door, his hand raised to cast magic back at us, but his dizziness made him clumsy.

Ethan froze his hands solid and we closed ranks around him, penning him in between us. We were violent monsters in that moment, the kind that fed on weaker prey, and this evil little weasel of a man had spent far too long above us in the food chain when he had no right to be there. With our magic intact, he was nothing. The pecking order was finally restored and I personally was in the mood to peck his eyes out.

“Ca-cor!” I cried like an eagle, karate chopping his neck.

“Ow,” he snapped and I pouted when he didn’t immediately pass out like people did in the movies.

His sharpened teeth and red eyes were nothing but some freaky magical attempt to try and make himself more intimidating. But what had really scared me anytime I’d ended up at his mercy in here was him crawling through my mind like a scarab beetle looking for a feast on my brain.

I’d been pretty good at hiding what needed to be hidden from him, but he always got his grubby mitts on a juicy memory or two from my past. Like me lying in a gutter as a kid after a couple of Minotaur teenagers had robbed me and stabbed me with their horns.

Jerome had found me and taken me back to the foster home to be healed. It had been a close call. I still remembered the cold pavement against my back and the garbage can next to me, wondering if that can looked like the one my mother had dumped me in as a baby. I’d thought about whether she was out there somewhere, anywhere, sparing a single thought for the child she’d tossed away like an old cabbage. Quentin had replayed that memory to me, the thoughts I’d had then too, the ones that had haunted me for years. That I was trash, disposable and unwanted. That my own mother had taken one look at me and seen nothing worth keeping.

I felt those old memories creeping in and snarled, bitching slapping Quentin and gripping the collar of his lab coat. “Let’s go play with our new toy,” I hissed at Ethan.

“What’s gotten into you?” he muttered, but I didn’t answer, my muscles bunching as I hauled Quentin towards the exit and did a mental dance with my fury, back and forth, back and forth, trying to dance it to its doom. But it wouldn’t quit jigging.

“What do you want!?” Quentin shrieked and I bashed his head against the doorway as I guided him through it.

“Oh sorry little fella, did I hit your noggin?” I asked sweetly as Ethan chuckled.

“Get your hands off of me,” he demanded as I swung him to the other side of the doorway so he hit that too.

“Oopsie daisy,” I cooed.

“Come on.” Ethan jogged ahead of us and I scooped up our little angry man and tossed him over my shoulder. His sharp teeth immediately sliced into my ass and I roared in anger, letting go of his ankles so he hit the floor on his head.

“You bite my ass, you’d better be prepared to get yours bitten back.” I strode after him as he started scrambling away, struggling to get up as the ice over his hands made him slip and slide.

His ass was raised in the air and I lunged forward with a snarl, sinking my teeth in deep and making him yelp like a wounded animal.

“Remember the time you broke my back in three places?” I asked him coolly, standing up and spitting to get the taste of him out of my mouth. Ergh, he was like a cockroach flavoured dildo.

“It’s just my job!” he wailed as I scooped him up again and stole the air from his lungs so he couldn’t talk anymore. Ethan sealed his lips with some ice and I threw him over my shoulder once more, quickening my pace.

Ethan’s hand dropped to my ass as I reached his side and I arched a brow at him as my lips hooked up at the corner. “Hey honey pie, you getting hot for me again?”

Ethan rolled his eyes as a flash of his healing magic worked wonders on the bite mark on my butt cheek. “You wish, man.”

We hurried back to the stairwell and Ethan’s head snapped around at the sound of a distant howl. “Hurry up,” Ethan urged and we started running downstairs.

Unfortunately, I had to let Quentin breathe again before he passed out on me.

We made it back to the CCTV surveillance room and Roary jogged over to us, looking so impressed with me that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was about to offer up a winner’s BJ. I could tell that from his single raised brow, but sadly I didn’t have time for a broody blowy and he seemed to have realised that too as he went on. “You need to hide him before she comes out, idiot. And one of us needs to cause a distraction.”

Ethan acted faster than me, yanking Quentin from my shoulders, throwing him to the ground and casting a throne of ice over him. He sat on it with a cocky smile on his lips and I grinned, grabbing hold of Roary and throwing my fist into his face.

“What the fuck?” he stumbled back a step and I gripped his jumpsuit, tearing it down the chest to reveal his fuck hot abs. “You need to look like you were attacked.”

“Why?” he growled.

“Because you’re our distraction.” I threw him down the corridor with a huge gust of air and he cursed me with every bounce of his body on the floor.

I trussed him up good with my air magic and shut off his grumblings by stealing the air away from his throat, sending him flying along ahead of me on a furious breeze. He thrashed like a wild thing and I chuckled as I ran after him, checking the security cameras and making sure we were moving along in the blind spots.

I found the next level up empty and I wondered if it would stay like that as I ripped some vines off of the wall which must have been cast there by some earth Elemental and started tying up my little Lion puff as I placed him on his feet.

I let him breathe as I yanked his arms behind his back and my cock jerked to attention as I dragged him firmly against me, biting his ear.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snarled.

“Just testing the waters, sugar. Are you ramrod straight or is there a little bend in you?”

“What are you talking about?” He dropped his head to pull his ear away from me and I laughed.

“You’ll figure it out, kitten.” I hooked a vine off the wall that was still attached to the ceiling and tethered it to his hands before shoving him forward to where the camera could see him.

“See you later, baked potata.” I ran away with a manic laugh, sprinting downstairs and getting back just as Rosalie stepped out of the surveillance room with worry in her eyes.

“Someone caught Roary,” I panted dramatically and Rosalie growled ferociously.

“I know, I just saw him on the camera feed. Stay here and guard Mason,” she commanded in a fierce tone and me and Ethan nodded as she ran down the corridor.

That was easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Speaking of which, I tugged a lemon from my pocket and gave it a little squeeze. Nice.

We didn’t have long, so we needed to get a skip on.

Ethan melted the ice throne and pulled a shivering Quentin to his feet as we hurried into the room.

Cain looked up from his chair, his eyes sharpening on Quentin and his upper lip peeling back to expose his fangs as he realised what we were going to do. And we were going to do all the things. The stuff too. The bad kind of all the things and all the stuff. Oh-ho yes.

“I need to get in his head, Quentin. If you show me everything he knows about the security in Darkmore, especially the elevator shaft, then you’ll live. If not, I’ll feed you to the Belorian,” I said simply and he nodded, a murmur of terror escaping him.

I guided him over to Cain as Quentin’s two eyes slid into one big bug eye that was creepalicious, revealing his Cyclops Order as he prepared to do my bidding.

Cain gritted his jaw, glaring at me with unwavering nerve in his gaze. He was one tough nut to crack, but I’d crack him alright. Because I was going to wrap his nut in my fist and squeeze – not his literal nut, but come to think of it, I wouldn’t have minded having a little squeeze of those. But if I did that, he’d definitely get an angry boner. And I bet he was the kind of guy who took hate fucking to a whole new level. A level I wouldn’t have minded Mario Karting my way to and parking up to let him put his Luigi in my Peach. So long as my Rosalie was there to watch.

“Pretty, pretty fang boy. If only you’d made this easy on yourself,” I sighed as I took hold of Quentin’s arm so I could go with him on this adventure into Cain’s brain.

Honestly, I was kinda excited to get a glimpse into the inner workings of this angry Vampy’s head. I had a semi over it already.

Cain’s muscles bunched against his restraints, but it did no good as Quentin laid a hand on his forehead and the pull of his Cyclops power dragged me away into his mind. I felt Ethan’s presence too as he joined the brain party and I let out a light giggle that seemed to echo around us.

The first thing I felt was a solid wall, like dark, impenetrable bricks had been built in our way to stop us from going further. Cain’s mental barriers were strong and that was annoying as hell because we were already losing valuable seconds.

Quentin worked to break through the wall and I forced my own mental power against them too to try and help him. Ever so slowly, light started cracking through the wall and I was yanked towards some of it, sliding through the gap like I was water until a memory washed over me in a wave, seeing it through Cain’s eyes like it was my own.

“Fight or die!” the middle-aged blonde man boomed in my face so loudly that I stumbled back a step. “Only the strong deserve a place in my family.”

The other young boys and girls were gathered around in a circle with the eldest boy in the middle of them. Ian Belor was sixteen, his Harpy Order already Emerged and his dark brown wings were out, flexing as blood glinted on them. Decon was on the concrete floor beneath him, groans of pain leaving his lips as he was left to suffer there with his arm twisted at an awkward angle.

I needed this. Benjamin had taken me in last week, given me food when I was on the verge of starvation from living on the streets. He’d been kind, or at least kinder than anyone else I’d known. I couldn’t survive alone anymore. Not without magic or even my Order. But I thought all I’d had to do to deserve my place here was pickpocket the odd rich guy to keep Benjamin happy.

The other boys had spoken about the fight nights, I just hadn’t thought it would be like this. No one had stepped in when Ian had brought Decon to the floor, Benjamin hadn’t called time on the fight even when Ian had kicked and beat him well beyond what was necessary. I’d watched as blood spilled from Decon’s lips and I’d just stood there, watching him suffer and hating myself for not trying to help. But this was a Fae on Fae fight. I knew better than to get between two of my kind. That wasn’t how things worked. And yet…it felt so wrong.

Benjamin’s hand slid around the back of my neck, drawing me closer, his touch cold. He was huge, a Dragon Shifter with a streak of wildness in him that made him unpredictable.

“Are you too afraid, Mason?” he asked, smoke pluming from his nostrils as his eyes turned to reptilian slits. “Because fear doesn’t belong in my house.”

I was afraid. Terrified. But I didn’t want to die. And there was something about Benjamin that made me want to prove myself worthy of being here.

“No,” I forced out, saying it loud and clear for the whole room to hear. It was a lie, but the least I could do was try and sell it.

“Then get in the ring and show me how Fae you are.” He shoved me forward and the crowd of kids parted to let me through.

Ian flexed his bloody fingers, a smirk pulling at his mouth. He was four years older than me and a lot bigger, but standing before him made him seem as large as a mountain.

A couple of boys dragged Decon out of the ring and his wails called back to me as he was carried into the sleeping room. It was just an old lounge piled with blankets and rickety chairs where we all slept, but it beat curling up in a cold doorway at night.

Ian flexed his wings, peacocking as he puffed up his chest and pushed his damp fingers through his ruddy hair, wetting it with the blood of the boy he’d just destroyed.

Benjamin moved to sit on his large wooden chair up on a couple of pallets so he could watch, sipping some vile orange liquor before he called out for the fight to start.

Ian’s first punch shattered something in my jaw, his next floored me and as hard as I tried to get up and fight, I couldn’t win against his superior strength. I was a mouse crushed beneath the foot of an elephant and no matter what I did, I simply wasn’t strong enough to save myself.

My head spun as I was forced out of the vision, hitting the dark wall again and I heard Cain roaring in my head. “No!”

Quentin tugged me towards another crack of light in the wall while others closed up as Cain worked to keep us out. But we slipped into it before he could stop us while my gut twisted over what I’d just seen.

I stood tall over my latest victim, the boy bloody at my feet as my breaths came in furious rags.

“Good boy,” Benjamin called from his seat. “My fine, fine warrior. Your strength shines brighter every day.”

I raised my chin as the boy I’d beaten was dragged away and my chest heaved and fell. I’d spent years working to achieve this position, to never be beaten in a fight again. Benjamin promised glory to the strongest and when they were old enough for their magic to Awaken, he took them away in the night to somewhere they didn’t return from. It was a secret. Bliss he called it. But the rumour was that he used the money we brought him to set up homes for his best fighters. And I only had a couple of years left until my eighteenth birthday then I could follow in Ian’s footsteps. If I could get set up somewhere with some money once I was Awakened, I could buy my way into one of the magic academies and learn how to hone my power, really make something of myself.

My eyes found my friend Merrick among the crowd watching me as he grinned. He wasn’t as big as me, but I helped him train for the fights so he got by. He’d been half my size when he’d arrived here last year, but he’d put on a decent amount of muscle since. He was the only one of the others I’d found a real bond with despite him being younger than me.

Merrick wanted more from life than I’d ever had the imagination to think up. He dreamed of faraway places, foreign foods, and mysterious kingdoms. He was just an orphan like me, but he had the mind of a king, someone who could own the whole world if only he could grasp it. I listened to him talk about all the adventures he planned for hours at night, laying side by side on the old couch cushions we’d pushed together in one corner of the lounge. He was the reason I fought every day to gain Benjamin’s favour, the reason I pushed him to catch his eye too. Because one day we’d be chosen by him and sent to Bliss. We’d get riches and glory and we’d get to go on every adventure he could think up.

I helped my latest victim to his feet, but he shoved me away, a sneer on his lips. Being the favourite meant I was hated by most of the other kids in this place. But I could bear their hatred so long as I had Merrick and our dreams of a future. I didn’t need anyone but him.

I moved to step out of the ring, but Benjamin called out, “Wait.”

There was a heavy aura about him today, it made my skin prickle with fear. Sometimes he got in such a rage that he’d drag kids into the ring himself and beat them, using his earth magic to hold them down while he got them good and bloody. I’d been at the receiving end of his fists plenty of times, but I knew now that it made me stronger. That Benjamin was just trying to forge us into the Fae we needed to be to face the world beyond these walls. And one day he’d reward us for that strength. But if we were weak, we were out.

Kids went missing from this house in the night all the time and Benjamin would gather us all the next morning and tell us how he kicked them back onto the streets for letting our family down. I didn’t plan on being one of them. There couldn’t be anything worse than returning to the life I’d come from, where no one cared whether you lived or died.

“Merrick,” Benjamin barked, pointing him into the ring. “You against Mason.”

My throat tightened as I looked to my friend. We’d fought before so it wasn’t like we couldn’t manage this. That was the way of this place, though I didn’t enjoy making him bleed.

Benjamin smiled cruelly as Merrick moved to face me. I’d win this fight. I always did. We’d rehearsed it a hundred times. He’d end up on the ground with a bloody nose, but nothing worse than that.

We shared a secret smirk before the fight began and started landing punches on each other, hard enough to satisfy Benjamin, but not enough to do any real damage. By the time we’d played out the fight, Merrick was on his back, cupping his nose and groaning as he rocked from side to side.

I glanced over at Benjamin, finding him watching Merrick closely as he ran his fingers through the stubble on his square jaw. His eyes were demonic, full of hellfire and my heart stammered as I found myself stepping firmly in front of Merrick as if to shield him from the venom pouring from our Dragon ruler.

Benjamin said nothing, but as I helped Merrick to his feet and drew him away through the crowd of kids, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I couldn’t shake the feeling that Benjamin was angry.

We slid out of the memory and fell straight into another one that seemed to run on from the last.

It was one of the colder nights, the fire in the grate not nearly enough to warm us through as I shivered beside Merrick on the couch cushions, the thin blanket covering me not doing anything to keep out the icy air.

Every time my eyes cracked open, they instinctively went to the dark shadow of Benjamin in his chair in prime position by the fire. I always preferred to know where he was, because when I didn’t it usually meant something bad was happening. Like he was teaching one of the kids a lesson for stealing from the rations. I’d heard the screams coming from downstairs before and I knew I’d hear them again. But at least tonight he seemed to be staying put.

Merrick rolled towards me with a low groan.

“F-fucking freezing,” he said through chattering teeth. “I h-hate the cold. We should move to the south and try to get into one of the academies there when our magic is Awakened.”

“Good plan,” I agreed, bringing my fingers to my mouth and blowing air on them to try and warm them up.

“I heard there’s a nudist beach there that’s ten miles long and full of the hottest chicks in Solaria,” he said with a chuckle.

“What are you gonna do when you get there? Whip out your micro dick to impress them?” I taunted, my breath causing a puff of vapour to rise between us.

He laughed. “Shut it, you’ve seen my mega dick. I’m gonna Emerge as something big for sure.”

“Nah, you’re a Sphinx if ever I saw one. All you ever do is read those shitty old travel books in the den. They’re so old those places are probably in ruins by now,” I teased and he snorted.

“Where should we go first?” he asked, though we’d had this conversation hundreds of times before.

“I like the sound of the Polar Capital,” I said.

“The one place that’s colder than this room?” he scoffed and I smirked.

“It just sounds…I dunno… quiet.”

“Is this place too loud for you?” Merrick asked.

“Everywhere’s too loud for me,” I admitted.

I liked way less company than I was forced to keep at Benjamin’s house. I had to carve out spaces for me to breathe. Merrick was the only one I liked the constant companionship of and I was pretty sure that was because he was my Nebula Ally – my friend chosen for me by the stars. Before him, there hadn’t been anyone I’d cared to spend much time with. And I couldn’t really imagine there being anyone but him either. He was the opposite of me, speaking to fill the silence when I didn’t feel like talking, always making friends with the other kids. I never envied the way everyone loved him. That was just who he was, and I didn’t like the spotlight being on me. He drew the light away and I needed that as much as he needed the attention on him.

“Alright, as soon as we get sent to Bliss, we’ll go to the Polar Capital, ride a polar bear and eat a snow cone. At least you’re an Aries, when your fire magic Awakens you’ll be able to keep us toastie all the time.”

I grinned. “Deal.”

We both reached out, locking hands like we were making a star vow, even though we couldn’t make a real one without magic. Somehow, I felt warmer as my eyes closed again and I dreamed of the snow falling against my cheeks as I rode a giant polar bear, chasing Merrick on his own up ahead of me. The white was endless in every direction, the silence perfect, the dream so happy I didn’t want to wake from it.

But a thump made me jolt out of it. It was still dark, the cold clinging to me, drilling bone deep into my body. My eyes flashed to the chair beside the dying fire and my heart flinched as I found the seat empty.

“Merrick,” I hissed, reaching out to the dark lump in front of me. My fingers clamped around his scrunched up blanket, but no warm body. I pushed upright, squinting against the dark and finding his bed empty.

Another thump sounded from somewhere downstairs and I pushed to my feet, my pulse hitting an uneven beat. I padded across the room, stepping over sleeping bodies as I made it to the door and slipped into the stairway.

Another thump made me pause, but I forced myself on, wanting to find Merrick. He’d probably just gone for a piss. It was no big deal. But as Benjamin was missing too, I just needed to check. I needed to be sure.

Another thump sent my heart into overdrive as I made it downstairs and moved through the kitchen toward the wooden door that led to the alley where the trash was dumped. I pushed it open, tripping on a pair of Benjamin’s boots by the door and stepping out into the frigid air. Snowflakes were dancing in the breeze and my gaze locked on Benjamin standing up in the bed of his truck, the low glow of the brake lights illuminating the space in red.

He had something in his arms and with a sickening twist of my gut, I realised it was a small boy, one of the new kids. His mouth was agape, his throat slit and blood still oozing from the wound as Benjamin tossed him onto a few other bodies laying in the truck bed with a thump that made me still. Fear coiled like a snake in my stomach and I couldn’t make my legs move as I watched.

Benjamin didn’t spot me as he climbed down from the truck, his clothes gleaming wetly. And as he moved around the vehicle, he paused in front of a dark mound on the concrete at his feet.

Benjamin pressed a foot to the side of the body and as it rolled, all I could see was blood for a second before my eyes sharpened on the pale face of my best friend.

My lungs ceased to work and my mind rejected the truth before me. But I couldn’t deny it. The truth was right there, glaring me in the eye and demanding I accept it.

Merrick was dead, stone cold dead in this dingy alley with a gaping wound in his chest and vines coiling out of his gaping mouth. He hadn’t just been killed, he’d been butchered, tormented before he was ripped from this world and as Benjamin heaved him into his arms and tossed into the truck bed with the other dead kids, some crucial part of me snapped.

The stars started whispering in my head, hissing and spitting like they felt the rage and hurt that I felt over this. I heard words I didn’t understand, in a language I couldn’t speak. Then some fiery beast awoke within my chest, spilling heat into every piece of my veins. And with the roar of that fire spilling through my body, I somehow found magic rising in me like a tide. In the next second, my canines extended and a hunger unlike anything I’d ever experienced reared up inside me and begged to be sated. Somehow, I’d Awakened. The stars had gifted me my magic and with it my Order had Emerged too. I was a Vampire. A predator. And I was starving for revenge as keenly as I starved for blood.

I ran with a burst of speed that rattled my brain, moving so fast I seemed to become one with the wind. I collided with Benjamin with a roar of anger, my fangs finding his throat instinctually and latching onto a vein. He bellowed in surprise, but the moment I had my teeth in him, his magic locked down and started flowing into me in huge waves of power that made my head spin.

“No – no!” he threw his fists at me, fighting, battling with all he had to try and stop me. But with my teeth in his neck, he was no stronger than a mortal, and I seemed to possess the strength of ten gods.

I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t. I didn’t know why he’d done this, but I needed his death in payment for it. I needed this pain in my heart to stop. But most of all, I needed Merrick to get up. To offer me one of his playful smiles and tell me about the life we were going to lead one day.

“ENOUGH!” Cain’s voice split through my head and I found myself falling, hitting the floor on my ass as Quentin and Ethan fell down too.

I stared up at Cain as I blinked back into my own reality, his memories still swimming in my mind with so many questions on my tongue, I didn’t know where to begin. Cain’s teeth were bared and pain was flashing hot and furiously in his eyes as he glared at me, his horror clear at what we’d all stolen from him. And for the first time in my life, I was sorry for hating him. Because all I could see now was the broken boy who’d lost the only person he’d ever loved to a monster. And I had known the desperation of poverty too, I’d known what it was like to have one person in the world who I could rely on. And losing Jerome back then would have destroyed me. Like losing Merrick had clearly destroyed Cain.

Quentin shoved past me, making a run for the door and I snarled, throwing out a hand and sending a blast of flames over him in my rage at what I’d experienced. I knew it wasn’t Quentin’s fault, but he was to blame for plenty of other atrocities and my angries were out in full force, unable to be caged.

He screamed as he died, my fire consuming him before he hit the floor and I extinguished the flames. Ethan stared at me in surprise, then looked to Cain with something akin to sympathy in his gaze, at a loss for what to say.

I panted as the power of the Cyclops interrogation continued to ebb away from my body and stared at the Vampire who I now knew better than I imagined most people really knew him.

“No wonder you hate the world, kitten,” I breathed. “The world’s been a big, bad beastie to you.”