I never leave a debt unpaid.
Lisa’s eyes became misty. “Thank you, Ice Dagger.”
“Icy Dagger,” I corrected her.
With the witch’s touch, my new quarters smelled of jasmine and roses and peppermint. To my satisfaction, there wasn’t a trace of the two incubi who had once taken up residence here.
~
Ididn’t meet my demigodsin the Dreaming after I fell asleep. Angel guarded the door. It was convenient, him having two heads. While one slept, the other kept watch.
Every night, I tried to reach my mates and failed. I couldn’t even fabricate a dream in this damned place. Our mating bond had gone mute once again.
I went to classes every day and returned to my secret quarters covered in gore and blood. In every class, students were divided into two camps. All the half-bloods gathered around me. Somehow under Lisa’s influence, the mages and witches had also thrown their lot in with me.
I was kind of their alpha now. When I’d been in the Half-Blood Academy, I’d never needed to carry the burden of leadership. I’d been an initiate, whose life was all about training, hanging out with my friends, riding my mates wildly, eating a lot of crème brûlée, and looking forward to a grand party.
The red-horned archdemon, who had been an instructor, had made himself scarce after our encounter in my first class. No matter, I’d eventually hunt him down.
I tried to escape this place a few times, only to have the binding spell cast by Lucifer activate and toast my every cell until I retreated to the grounds of Hell’s Academy. Loki hadn’t lied to me. Satan’s school was indeed warded. The only way out of here was on graduation day or when Ares and Lucifer came to collect me.
Left to rot here—not even Loki and his dukes had visited me once—my memory started fading at a fast speed. I bet that was one of Ares’s and Lucifer’s strategies: to isolate me and surround me with violence. When I had absolutely nothing left and no one to cling to, I’d eventually become their pawn.
Every night I still tried hard to reach the Dreaming, hoping to catch a glimpse of my mates. And every morning when I opened my eyes, I had a harder time remembering them. Gradually, even the colors of their eyes faded from my memory bank.
One day, I realized I’d lost track of how long I’d survived Hell.
Every moment I was alone, I practiced and pushed my magic, trying to break Lucifer’s and Ares’s spells and regain my Titan powers, especially the Flame of Rainbows. But it remained an ember in the ash.
My immortal enemies would never release me until I swore fealty to them, and without the Living Flame, I could never defeat them.
As time passed and dulled my spirits, I’d abandoned hope once again that my mates would come for me or that I’d be able to return to them.
I lived in a loop of nightmares as time stretched forever. Without my mates, I was nothing but a hard, cold shell. Yet I vowed to keep on until the day I dragged the god and the devil down to the Hell I’d designed for them.
Even they didn’t show up in Hell’s Academy.
I sank deeper into endless despair until I turned into a creature from the inferno who knew nothing but bloodlust.
I’d sworn not to bend or break.
I kept my promises, but I was turning into something worse than a broken thing.
And one day, my mates became vast, shifting shadows that I could no longer hold onto in my memories.
In my darkest, bleakest hour, I dreamed again.