“Hey!” I reach for his arm, but he rears away from me. “What’s wrong?”
He looks right through me, but I notice it this time. The flash of pain that bares itself to me briefly. “I’m a fucking idiot.”
He turns, leaving me fucking speechless and with his cum dripping all over me.
My father leaned down. “Put your hand out, son.” I did. I always followed orders from him, even when I knew it was uncomfortable for him to give them to me. My father wasn’t like Kaius, he had too much heart to be a Father. I remember my grandfather scolding him for it.
“How could you be a Cornelii and not want to make people hurt. You’re an embarrassment.”
I felt bad for my dad for a while, but then I slowly realized that my pops was right.
This was what we were. The Brothers were savage, but we did the things that The Four Fathers didn’t need to do anymore. We were at their beck and call. Our hands would get dirty for their sins. We wore the blood of their enemies as a fucking Brioni Vanquish suit, and we wore it fucking well.
“What’s this?” I asked, shooting him with a look. I was fourteen. I fucking knew why he was giving me the Blood of the Blade. I knew he had failed the blade a lot. The blade that was carved from our ancestors’ bone and blessed by the Kiznitch witch. It’s all fucking dark magic that existed in our world, only you’d never see it. You’d just know that it fucking existed from the mere fact that this kind of evil didn’t exist in a normal world.
“The Blood of the Blade. It was your grandfather’s when he was a Brother, and then when he became a Father, he gave it to me when I became a Brother, and now it’s yours.”
I squeezed it in my hand, feeling the power seep into me. That’s when I knew for sure. I knew I was nothing like my father. I was everything like my grandfather.
I smirked. “I won’t let you down.”
Dad frowned slightly, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I wish you would.”
“Well, I won’t. I’m not a quitter.”
“You’re not,” Dad sighed, taking a seat in the kitchen. “Unfortunately.”
The day I was handed The Blood of the Blade was a defining moment for me. I knew that no matter what, I’d always do what I needed to do for my brothers. Always.
That is, until Saskia Dragavei walked her fucking ass back into my life.
I run my hands through my hair, tossing and turning in bed. How can something so fucking simple be so fucking difficult? If it wasn’t me or my old man that fucked with her, then who the fuck was it?
The lights were dim. I hadn’t spoken to Killian since last night, but I’ve come to the realization that this is probably our thing. We fuck, talk, and then it gets weird, but not right before it gets sweet.
Eh.
I slip into my leathers and quickly change my mindset for my first act. I want to start it off by blowing fire to start the staffs, so I need to be sure I’m wearing absolutely nothing flammable.
I make my way to the center of the stage as Delila introduces me on the other side. “The Bleeding” by Five Finger Death Punch starts playing as the curtain drops. I already have the liquid in my mouth, so I blow out until the flames ignite the end of the staff, before I light the other end with the remaining liquid in my mouth.
Thankfully, I didn’t catch on fire, so a surge of adrenaline spikes through me as I flip the staff around and the crowd erupts over the song.
I spin it around, moving my body around the stage to the music with the flame following me. When the song ends, I sink into the background as the curtain drops. I’m so hyped up from feeling the fire around me again in Midnight Mayhem that I don’t realize Delila is glaring at me from across the room. She yanks me back into my cubicle where Perse and Val are getting ready.
“You weren’t ready to blow. Why’d you do that?”
“I was ready!” I protested. “I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t.”
Delila sighs, massaging her temples. “I swear, all of you are going to kill me.”
The next act up was the rope. My favorite. Not because Killian is with me during it, but because I feel like it’s what I excel at and what comes most natural.
This time it opens differently. Delila doesn’t introduce us. I begin swinging the rope with the flame burning on the end. I slow the turn as Killian revs his bike loudly in the back of the audience.
I close my eyes and inhale, slowly breathing out as I allow the loud pulsing of his Harley to soothe my erratic heartbeat. “11 Minutes” from Halsey starts playing loudly as I swing to the beat, sliding the end to the bottom of the ground so the circle of gas that’s around me ignites. I start flicking it around my legs and doing my same routine as Killian rides up the stage. My eyes meet his, his Joker face makeup doing nothing to calm me. The audience is hyped, standing and clapping, as I swing the rope around my neck and kick it back out with the end of my foot. Killian rides his bike into the fire and revs the engine until his back tire is kicking up smoke and putting out the flame. He spins it in a complete circle until the whole flame is out and reaches for the rope, snatching it back and kicking up the stand on his bike. He makes his way toward me, gripping onto my hair and forcing me to the ground.