But here at Knightsblood, we’ve also got The Garrison.
It’s close to midnight as I approach the old ruins, already hearing the laughter of students and aggressively loud rap music and seeing the firelight flicker over the crumbling walls and surrounding trees.
The Garrison is the unofficial student-run bar slash social club on campus. It’s pretty much BYOB, though it does have a bar-top with stools, a few decrepit chairs and couches and a couple of tables, all built into the ruins of Fort Hawthorne, which once stood on these cliffs in case the British invaded Connecticut.
Which, in the end,they did. It's why Fort Hawthorne is now talked about in the past tense.
The Garrison is technically neutral ground, even when the low-level rivalries between the clubs get a little “more”. But to help avoid any petty bullshit, the four club presidents—myself, Damiano, Adrik Volkov, plus my cousin Noor who helms the Ouroboros Society—established a calendar this year whereby each club rotates which is “their” night. Tonight belongs to Adrik and his crew of the utterly ungovernable.
Adrik is essentiallymewithout a golden mask. I think that has more to do with our prickly relationship than I care to admit. But as much as I do enjoy starting some shit now and then, I’m not here tonight to poke the Adrik bear.
I'm here because I’d like some answers, and he might be the only person on campus who can give them to me.
The heavy, thudding bass of the music engulfs me as I step through the crumbling stone archway that was once the grand entrance to the fort. Virtually the whole place is open-air at this point, since the roof caved in over a hundred years ago, so it’s not exactly a hot spot when there’s inclement weather. But in early fall, when it's crisp outside, it’s the perfect place for a roaring bonfire and drunken debauchery. That's what I’m currently looking at.
Across the open space, on the other side of the enormous bonfire, two shirtless, muscled, tattooed guys circle each other, their taped fists raised.
I scowl when I immediately recognize Kirill Tsarenko, heir to the powerful Tsarenko Bratva, and remember that this motherfucker was apparently at our party the other day and somehow gotmy cousinhalf-naked into the hot tub with him, while he wascompletelynaked.
Naked, and supposedly waving around his recently pierced dick.
Note to self: throw this fucker out the next time he tries to sneak into a Para Bellum party.
The guy he’s fighting is Bram Nikolayev, one of Yelena’s cousins from Japan. The two of them are sizing each other up like madmen as the crowd around them cheers and jeers. They both have wild glints in their eyes and blood on their lips as they circle slowly, looking for a way in for the kill.
“Well well well,” a feminine voice purrs from behind me. “Of all the gin joints.”
I turn, my brow cocked in amusement.
“Bella,” I grin as my cousin jumps down from the slightly raised stone platform she was just perched on. She gives me a quick hug before she pulls back and brings the beer bottle in her hand to her black-painted lips.
Bella is my uncle Hades and aunt Elsa’s only daughter. Not that I in any way fault them for stopping at one afterthisgothy little terror popped out. But Aunt Elsa also raised her little sister, Nora, by herself. That's another reason they were done after Bella.
Aunt Elsa is one of the top prosecutors in New York, if not the country, and my cousin's shrewd intelligence and laser focus clearly come from her mom. Everything else, she got from my insane-but-fun Uncle Hades.
The tenacity. The tempestuousness. The adrenaline junkie thrill-seeking. The love of old cars and motorcycles. Her ability to hold her own without blinking, despite being all of five foot two and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet, because Hades taught her to bare-knuckle box and defend herself about a dozen other different ways before she wasten.
“What are you doing here, Achilles?”
I spread my arms. “What, can’t stop by to see my favorite little cousin?”
Bella rolls her eyes. “Littlecousin. Dude, you’re only two years older than me.”
I grin and go to ruffle her hair, but she neatly dodges my fingers.
“Seriously. Captain of Team Para Bellum shows up at Reckless night at The Garrison? What’s up?”
“Just came to ask when the fuck you’re going to stop playing games with these psychos and move to Para Bellum where you belong.”
I’mmostlyjust giving her a hard time. I know this gets under her skin.
Bella glares at me.
Mission: accomplished.
“You don’tswitch clubs, Achilles,” she says coldly. “Nobody does.”
I shrug. “You do if you want to, and your cousin is thepresidentof that club.”
