Page 30 of Dark Souls Academy: The Sacrifice

All eyes shifted to him.

Bones’ expression fell. His stone, still body almost looked like he was a part of the wall he leaned against. He had once truly loved her. When he moved, he balled his fist and tapped eachfinger of the opposite hand on his knuckles. It was a promise of pain like he was doingeenie meenie miney moeto see which knuckle got to hit her first.

“Well, might as well get it all out. What were your feelings?” His growl was in every syllable.

Flashes of Tila holding Bones while he cried flickered through the bond. I felt a pang of jealousy, but the sorrow emanating from Bones broke my heart. Still, I knew he needed to hear this.

She bit her lip before answering. “Lucifer was manipulating my mind from the very beginning. I did like you guys and maybe I thought it was love, but I think it was self-preservation. I knew you could keep me safe. For what it’s worth, I wish I did love you. It would have made my life easier.”

I rolled my eyes. Did she understand that wasn’t an apology? It was her being selfish.

Dex grabbed one of the blades Trigger had put down to point it at Tila while he spoke. “Well, I for one am glad you weren’t because now they’re my mate brothers. We’re a family, and no one like you can ever hurt them again,” Dex said, shocking me. It was how I felt as well.

Trigger punched his arm. When Dex yelled in pain, Trigger hugged him. “Stop making the rest of us look bad,” he said and let go. “I bet it got our mate all wet.”

I snorted. There was my crazy Trigger. He couldn’t be serious for too long. My smirk turned into a wince as my wrists healed again.

“Let’s finish this. I’m ready to get down.” My pleading tone was whiny, but I didn’t even care.

“When Tila remembered Lucifer talking about a curse, I went to the Headmaster, and he found it. It's something only the king of Hell could do. He learned how to manipulate the dark energy that changed Hell after demons lost the war to the angels. It’sthe reason why we are called Dark Souls. Lucifer found a way to manipulate it and make us all Dark Souls, and for some reason, it affects female demons a lot more than it does males.” Stanine finished his explanation and sat at Tila’s feet.

“Fuck.”

I didn’t know who said it, but I could tell there was more.

“He puts it in the fucking fruit cups.” Both Dex and I gasped. All the air got sucked out of the room. Those were Dex’s favorite thing to give me because people hoarded them, and they were always gone. That explained how the curse got to me so fast. The past week he had been drowning me in those blasted fruit cups to say sorry.

“That fucker tampered with my Queen’s fruit cups. That sick son of a bitch!” His red eyes met mine. “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.” He ran over to me, dropped to his knees, and wrapped his arms around my legs, but I couldn’t fucking move to comfort him.

“Shhh, you’re okay. I don’t blame you, Dex. You had no idea.” My reassurance was moot. I could feel his guilt rising in the bond. Shit. Incubi were protectors, and he would blame himself if they couldn’t fix me.

“Figures. I wondered why he gave us treats,” Kain scoffed. “Everything is probably laced with some type of curse. We’ll need to stay away from anything the soul building doesn’t prepare itself.” He turned back to Stanine. “Where’s the cure?”

Tila jerked forward. She twisted to fully face her mates. “Don’t tell them. We only have one batch, and it takes forever to make. I need it to start feeling normal again.” To my surprise, their harsh expressions were on her, not us.

“You drank Lucifer's blood. You will never be normal, period. That will always taint you. You willingly fucking accepted the darkness. She didn’t.” Bones’ words were like a whip to the face.He moved from the wall to plop on the bed. He was sick of this conversation.

I searched inside of him to see where that harsh outburst came from, though. He didn’t fight me. My third eye naturally turned on without me even trying. His red aura flared with his fury at Tila for being so selfish, but the sense of protectiveness inside of him overshadowed any of it. It took a few seconds, but I could feel that his protective flare had been for me, and that was all I needed to know.

She snapped her pointed finger at Bones. “You don’t know that. I could?—”

Bones cut her off to shake some sense into her with his words. “Stop being stupid. Lucifer’s blood is pure evil. It’s black, for fuck sakes, even though he isn’t a colorful demon.” When she didn’t respond, he explained further, but his tone had softened like he spoke to a child. “Demons with colorful skin have black blood. What did you think that meant?”

Before she could reply Stanine spoke. “Tila, she is our Master and protector.”

“But—”

“We can’t afford her to turn on us. That potion was always meant for Ivy. I thought you knew that.” He moved passed Stanine and knelt in front of her to cup her face. The pouty lips she gave him made me smirk. He was a Tila whisperer. Good.

He continued. “I knew I’d have to fork over a piece of my soul the moment you lost your other mates, but I was willing to pay the price because I’m not as powerful as the three of them put together. I love you guys too much to lose you. We’re not strong enough to take out your old faction. So, please stop fighting this.”

Tila slumped back on the couch, when Balthazar moved away to sit back down. She stared at the ceiling. Slowly, her legs spread, exposing her bare pussy.

Close your fucking legs!I roared, ready to strangle her. She jerked so hard upright, with her legs closed, the crack even hurt me.

“Ouch!” Her death glare didn’t faze me. Her mates moved with her, but their expressions said they were confused, but they stayed quiet.

“Then, don’t.” My growl rumbled my entire body. My demon had popped out of me, ready to kill her. My red eyes warned her that I wasn’t kidding.

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