Page 159 of House of Lilith

And I see this thing,something, flash through her face at those words, but I’m already letting out a bitter little scoff, waving my arms around and saying, “But hey, now I know better, right?”

And she just stands there, staring at me with this indecipherable look in her eyes. Nothing, she gives menothing.

“And there’s a silver lining in it for you, too,” I say through gritted teeth, failing to resist the overwhelming urge to get a reaction. “At least you’ll no longer have somelowlifein your life,cupcake.”

Nothing. Just her breathing having become heavier.

It makes me fucking lose it. I march up to her, I get in her face and I snap, “I want you to lose my number, Romanov. I mean it. I don’teverwant to talk to you again.”

This time, I don’t wait for a reaction. I turn on my heel and I start marching away, straight for the camp.

And it’s so strange, this feeling that’s flooding me. Like something at the same time breaking and swelling to enormous proportions, like a tsunami crashing to the ground inside me.

And by the time I’m jumping onto the plateau, my actual vision is blurring with rage, and of course it’s then that I spot them, the little shits, sprawled on the chairs around one of the firepits, drinking champagne out of fancy glasses from their crappy makeshift bar.

Without giving it a second of thought, I inhale angrily and I walk up to them, their content chatter stopping as soon as their eyes land on me.

And they all throw me smiles, O’Malley saying, “Just in time, Boss. Fiona was about to—”

“Didn’t I say,” I start, slowly and in a low growl, making him immediately stop talking, “there’d be no more drinking during the day?”

Everyone’s smiles slide off their faces.

And I turn to Gleason, who’s standing next to the makeshift bar, and I pin him in place with my stare.

“Youdid, Boss,” he mutters, moving to set his glass down.

“So what the fuck isthis?” I demand in a low snarl, making him freeze as I tip my head at the bar. “Huh?”

And I let my eyes sweep over the rest of them, all motionless and watching my every move, and I bend and I lift the fucking bar off the ground and I slam it back down, with such needless force, it breaks into a million pieces, the sounds of breaking getting switched out for total fucking silence.

I let the silence drag on for a moment, shooting the tongue-tied scaredy cats another warning look, before I push past them and head straight for my tent.

But it doesn’t help. My anger doesn’t die down, not even a little, so when I find myself alone, in front of the mirror above the sink, I’m still practically panting.

And there, in my reflection, in my eyes, I see my fox’s. And they’re burning hot, like I always imagined them.

But then, the light flickers and goes out, and for a second, it makes me feel a kind of dread I’ve never felt in my life.

Before it all gets swept under some rug and I’m exhaling, letting out a scoff and turning away from the mirror as this strange, feverish numbness starts flooding my entire being.

Chapter 29 - Nyx

I’mrunning,breathlessandterrified, trees whizzing past me as I keep stumbling over corpses, men with blown skulls and horses with broken bodies. A battlefield, but I don’t know when the battle happened, what it was all for, or whether I’m running towards salvation or damnation. It seems to go on for an eternity, until I find myself barging out of the woods and coming to a stop at the edge of a boundless clearing, everything turning peaceful in an instant. It takes me a second, but then I realize it’s not grass I have before me, it’s water, and there’s this sound steadily drawing closer, making warmth spread through my chest and my heart throb in anticipation. Soft, playful whistling echoing off the lake. But it never does get closer and I turn around to see what’s taking so long, but what I find when I do is a pair of eyes like two burning coals and there’s a mouth with sharp teeth opening to swallow me and I’m stumbling back, falling into ice cold water as I hear a loud thud.

It makes me wake up, abruptly, a ball hitting my window from down below. I groan, peeling my cheek off the page of the book I fell asleep over. And I get up off my desk, every bone in my body aching, and there’s this moment of intense thrill as I come to stand next to my window, thinking the ball was thrown for the specific purpose of getting me to look out.

But all I see are a dozen or so of Grimm shifters playing a game of Shifter Balls, the matches only getting more unruly the closer we get to the close of the school year.

And right now, there’s only two weeks to go until June 21st — the last day of school, the Fifth Game, the Grand Ball…

And my heart sinks low into my stomach and a knife twists in my gut, as soon as the last remnants of the dream dissipate and it all comes back to me, in a merciless flood of memories, like every fucking morning for the past two weeks — the night in my room, my visit to a certain tent, fucking F12, the fox coming at me, and worst of all, deleting a certain someone’s number.

Swallowing the bitterness, I turn away from the window. And I don’t just swat all the memories away. Isquishthem and I move to return to my book, the one I spent the whole night reading in the hopes of solving the puzzle of Brogan trying to use the Box and failing miserably.

But before I do, my eye gets drawn to my bed, on top of which I find two presents.

It makes me frown. It’sNikolay’sbirthday today, not mine, and these past two weeks, Max has been sending me one present a day, never more.

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