And I hated my present existence in this reality, every second of it.
“You’re all grown up now,” Loki said, knowing my mood yet choosing to ignore it. Undeniable heat glimmered in his eyes, turning their color to bright green.
He raised a hand. For a second there, he seemed to want to graze his knuckles across my cheek to show his affection. I stared back at him blankly, my breath frosting the air.
He dropped his hand to his side, and the heat he’d displayed sank into the depths of his eyes, which returned to obsidian.
Good call.
I would bite his fingers off if he dared to touch me.
He gave my half-nakedness another casual glance.
“If you could ask me for anything, what would you ask, Celeste?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’ll ask nothing from you.”
A rough patch of the hot land burned into my feet.
“Whatever you ask me for, as long as it’s reasonable, I’ll give it to you,” he said. “I’m not your demigods, but I’m better. They left you to die, but I came for you.”
He could keep going with his illusions. In the end, they wouldn’t do him good.
A black wind swirled around me, caressing me. Before I wheeled to attack Loki, the wind had dressed me. In an instant, I wore a combat-ready outfit of red leather and thigh-high boots, with a sheathed dagger against my hip.
“From this day on, your life will be all about battle and survival, as befits a princess of war,” he said. “I won’t always be around, but I won’t leave you weaponless.”
His words were full of contradictions. He seemed about to throw me into the arena and then posed as my protector.
“Make up your mind, Loki,” I said. “What is it you want from me? You’re wasting your time playing games with me.”
“I’ve had a use for you since you were born,” he said as if he knew about my childhood, the one I didn’t have any memory of, “but I need you to survive first and grow into your powers. We aren’t a threat to each other. Soon, you’ll learn about your purpose.”
“I don’t give a shit about your purpose, mine, or anyone else’s.”
He only smiled. “You might not care now, but it’ll affect you every step of the way on your path to true awakening. You’ll take part in your first trial tomorrow at Hell’s Academy.”
My heart skipped a beat, and my cold heart pounded painfully.
It hadn’t been that long ago that I’d been forced to go through the trial of the Blood Rune in the Half-Blood Academy, though it’d felt like centuries passed while I’d headed up the marble stairs toward Axel in my robe. I’d held a grudge against the Demigod of War for tearing me away from my old hunter’s life and dragging me to the Academy for a brutal trial meant for the Olympian descendants.
I’d been burned, yet survived the trial. The gods’ blood runes had broken the seal that’d concealed and leashed my Titan power, thereby shattering my illusion that I’d been a human all along.
Now his fucking demon prince was informing me that this was just the beginning of my misery and I’d be forced to go through a trial again—but this time, in the fucking pits of Hell.
What would Hell’s trial turn me into?
I drew in a ragged breath and calmed myself the next instant.
I would survive.
I flexed my fingers, calling for my power, but it was a spark under ashes.
“Mimic the trial from the Half-Blood Academy?” I sneered. “I thought Hell would at least try to be original.”
“Hell’s trials have nothing in common with the blood ritual you went through, cousin,” Loki said.
My back stiffened.