Page 15 of Wild Fury (Fallen Royals 6)

4

Theo

Lucille Page will be the death of me.

Her giggles have subsided, and now she stares out the window at the passing landscape. She asked me why I did it. Why, after leaving her house, I went back home for accelerant and then crept through the woods behind the DeSantis house, searching for ages for the man who hurt her. Why I took my time soaking his shirt and pants in gasoline before I lit the match.

Instinct guided me—and hate.

It lives in my chest now. Sometimes I picture it as a beast that takes over. I just see red and go fucking mental. Other times, it emerges in a more insidious way. Like tonight, with the gasoline. Watching him burn soothed some of the palpable anger.

Remembering the bruise on her neck brought it back out, even as flames licked his skin.

No one touches what’s mine.

I met Lux in middle school, but it wasn’t until high school that she made me pay attention to her. We both ended up at a party together. My sophomore year, her freshman. The Lion’s Head girls had snuck in after a football game, but it was the guys who tagged along that were the issue. They started a fight.

I finished it.

And Lux—then just Lucy—wore an expression that I hadn’t seen before.

Something like admiration and understanding, all balled up together. I paid attention then. Noticed how she gravitated toward me in any room.

Like the bastard I was quickly becoming, I tested it.

Pulled her in, pushed her away.

I just didn’t expect her to have an equal reaction on me. To infect me with this sick sense of possession—and obsession. I recognized it in her eyes but couldn’t feel it in my own until it was too late. Until she was talking to another boy and I strode across the football field to threaten him. Until boys began to pay attention to her, and I was furious at the world for no apparent reason.

Until the pranks started.

“I almost lost it,” she says to the window.

I crack my neck and drag my mind back to the present. “Lost what?”

“My virginity.” She sighs. “It shouldn’t matter, but it does.”

“I—” I can’t speak.

Instead, I focus on recalling the smell of burning flesh.

“I don’t feel sad,” she continues. “That I shoved him off me and he cracked his head open. That’s the sort of thing normal people feel, right? Sadness? Guilt?”

“What do you feel?”

She pauses for a moment. “Rage.”

I find myself nodding. “Normal.”

“For us.” She scoffs. “Not normal normal.”

“Fine.” We don’t talk about what makes us not normal. The things we’ve seen—or done—to open our souls to demons. Never have. Maybe we will eventually, but that would suck us in.

We’ve been in orbit too long. The magnetism that drags us toward each other also repels if we get too close. It’s why we both shy away from liking each other.

Hating is better.

Anger is better.

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