Page 44 of The Blood Rites

Kael grunts in pain, and when I meet his eyes again, they are smoking, like ink dropped in milk. The whites threaten to run from the darkness, and my adrenaline spikes.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” I plead, “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Stop. Fucking. Talking,” Kael grits out, his teeth clamped together painfully as his broken nose snaps back into place courtesy of the Mother Shard’s magic.

“Are you going to hurt me? Your eyes are turning black.” Fear sharpens every word despite my desperate attempt to stop talking.

“Luceris.”

His jaw tightens.

“You’re making this difficult.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and releases my wrists. As he sits back, I catch an embarrassing glimpse of warm skin disappearing beneath the waistband of his trousers.

I immediately hate myself for noticing.

The watching crowd disperses quickly after that.

I don’t think before touching him. I press my hand against his chest and Kael stills instantly beneath it.

My fingers begin to glow, and gold light spills across his skin. Panic rips through me, and I try to pull away, but I can’t.

The light holds for only a second more before vanishing, sinking beneath his skin. A shred of my power, gone.

A moment later, he opens his eyes—obsidian in iris only, the whites crisp and calm. He rolls off me fully, letting me up.

“What was that?” he asks quietly.

I do not answer. I just scramble to my feet and run.

Eight

I run with only isolation in mind. The world has shrunk to the corridor ahead, stone and silence suffocating me. I expect pursuit—Marissa calling after me, or worse, the sound of Kael’s footsteps stalking after me. But there is only the hum of the Embrace and the sharp echo of my own breathing.

I make it to my room, staggering across the threshold before slamming the door. It rattles in its frame, and I’m suddenly homesick for a home I don’t have. Everything here feels wrong. The bed is too tidy, the desk too uniform. The books line the shelves like perfect soldiers, their empty pages a mockery of their bindings. All that remains are the golden cracks—scars of my own making that refuse to go away.

I drag a blanket around my shoulders and sag to the floor, knees tucked, my arms locked tightly around them. My skin is soaked, my hands ice-cold despite the fire beneath my ribs. Heat floods my cheeks as my heart fights to slow down, and for a moment, I’m convinced it will give out. How humiliating to die of embarrassment before the Rites even begin.

I don’t remember standing up, but at some point I’m upright again, my head against the cold wall.

Just breathe. In and out.

My stomach knots tighter and there is a knock at the door. A hesitant rap of knuckles, but it may as well have been a thunderclap.

I ignore it.

The knock comes again, this time more insistent. I hear her small, trembling voice. “Luceris?” Marissa calls out, her voice cracking.

She deserves better than this.

“I’m fine,” I call out, but the words come out too loud, the syllables jagged.

“I just need a minute.”

My own voice startles me. Too sharp. Too dismissive. Like a Guardian at the barracks. I hate it.

“Okay,” she responds, but it’s muffled. “Just—don’t let anyone break you, Luceris. Please.”