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Athena
The party is, as usual, a complete blowout. Good, I think as I come downstairs, dressed strategically in the tiniest of leather mini skater skirts, a black ribbed cotton crop top with a holographic vest over top of it, and my thick black hair curled and wild around my face. I’m wearing those thigh-high socks that seem to drive all the guys nuts, and my Docs, and with all of that and my signature thick black eyeliner and red lipstick. I’m dressed for the occasion and ready to go. I plan to make a scene, and I’ve worn a scene-stealing outfit.
I’m not the only one, though. I catch a glimpse of Winter, poured into a pale pink latex minidress that looks like it’s better suited for a fetish club than a college party—although I guess it’s hard for me to talk since I look like I belong at Goth Anime R Us instead of, well, a college frat party. She stands out, too, with her Ariel-red hair flaming around her face. Between that and the pink dress, she looks like a slutty Little Mermaid on her first day in the palace.
If Ariel had worn that, she’d have gotten the prince right off the bat, I think dryly. No need for words when your tits and ass do all the talking.
I can tell Winter is looking for the guys—probably Dean specifically—from the way she’s scanning the crowd. She catches my eye, and I see her glossy lip curl, a pointed sneer thrown in my direction.
I just shrug and keep walking towards the kitchen where the liquor is. I don’t plan to get drunk, not even close, but a shot or two wouldn’t hurt, just for a tiny bit of liquid courage. And I’m not going to let Winter, of all people, get to me tonight. I’ll enjoy seeing the look on her face when she catches a glimpse of the show.
The nerves are starting to curdle in my stomach, though. The second I’m in the kitchen, I pour a slug of straight bourbon into the closest glass and toss it back, relishing the burn as a way to get my mind off of everything that’s about to happen. I might be bold and tough and loud and impulsive a lot of the time, but what I’ve got planned is so far out of my usual wheelhouse—leagues away from the girl I was when I came here.
But these boys have taught me well, and it’s time to turn their lessons back on them.
I toss back another shot of bourbon, sucking air between my teeth as I swallow it, and then turn back towards the door, looking out across the throng of people, trying to see if Cayde and Dean and Jaxon have appeared yet—and also trying to make sure that Mia listened, and didn’t show up. Not that I’d probably ever find her in this mess.
The irony of me in this kitchen shooting whiskey before going to find Cayde doesn’t escape me. After all, it was something very similar that set this all in motion back in high school, when I chugged a bottle of Laphroaig and then accidentally wandered into the library where he was, only for him to try to shove his dick in my mouth and wind up getting puked on. The catalyst for all this bullshit—and now I’m throwing back bourbon and getting ready to go fuck the man himself.
My, how times have changed.
How I’ve changed.
I didn’t want to. I wanted a totally different life than this. None of the choices I’ve made since then have really felt like my own, but this one does. As embarrassing and insane as this will be, it feels like taking back my power, truly, for the first time since I woke up in that strange bed upstairs.
I can’t help but reflect back on that girl, the one I was when I ran into the three boys on the steps of Blackmoor Academy. I’d thought my life was hard back then—and it was—but I’d had no idea what was coming for me. No clue that having my vomit-covered shirt taped to a locker and being talked down to by Cayde St. Vincent in front of most of the student body was far from the worst thing I’d have to endure.
I wish I could remember more of what happened to me the night before I ended up here—more of the ritual that they’d said happened, more of literally anything that had happened before I woke up in that bed upstairs. All I can get is foggy bits and pieces, flashbacks like trying to remember a dream that your mind wants to forget, and the truth is that if I felt like I could afford to forget it, I would. I’d just let it all fade into the background, slip away with time, becoming a footnote in my life with the passage of years like so many other bad things.
But I can’t. Because it’s not just a bad dream, it’s now. I’m still living the repercussions of it, still fighting to get out of everything that’s happened because of that. I can’t help but feel that maybe, just maybe, if I could remember it clearly, I’d be able to figure out how to get myself out of this fucking mess that I’m in.
I throw back another shot, feeling the pleasant warmth worm its way through my veins, dulling the nerves about what’s coming next.
“Drinking away your sorrows?”
I turn around to see Winter standing there, pale and perfect, poured into that pink latex dress like someone’s wet dream come to life. Her red hair shines under the kitchen lights, her lips painted a perfect Barbie pink to match the dress. I bite back the retort forming on my lips, just looking at her. She really does look like a slutty Disney princess come to life, up close.
“I can’t blame you, really,” she continues with a smirk. “Look at you. I suppose you’ve come up in the world, really, from the daughter of biker trash to the personal pet of one of the Blackmoor heirs. You shouldn’t fight Dean so much, really. It’s the best you’re ever going to get. You’re lucky he even wants you. He would never have touched someone like you if you weren’t his key to the kingdom.” She smiles prettily at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, which are narrowed and angry. They remind me of Cayde’s, in a way, sea-green and seething. “But just wait, Athena, until I’m his wife. I’ll make your life a living hell if you don’t keep to your place. You so much as let him lay a finger on you, and you’ll wish you’d died in that fucking fire where you and your mother should have both burned up in the first place.”
I can hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I was going to say something smart-assed about how she doesn’t want to marry Dean, about how if she knew what he liked, the kinds of filthy things he’d want her to do, she’d run so far and fast in the other direction she’d break one of her thousand-dollar heels. But I can’t make the words come out, because first of all, who knows? Maybe Winter has the same dark desires I do deep down. Perhaps she’d get wet too at the feeling of Dean’s hand on her throat, his cum painting her lips. Maybe she craves the same things and just can’t admit it, the way I never knew I could be so turned on by the humiliation and use of my body that I’d get wet just thinking about it, that I’d hate and long for it in equal measure.
And second, because the biker trash comment was bad enough, but it’s nothing I haven’t heard before. But hearing her say my mother should have burned up in that fire knocks something loose in me, some thread of anger that has been fraying all this time, and seeing her smirking at me, with her perfect makeup and her perfect face and her perfect fucking body, makes me want to break the nearest bottle and drag it across her slender pale throat. The thought of the red line of blood dripping down, the color of her hair, marring that pink latex, makes my mouth go dry.
God, these boys are really fucking me up. I never used to be quite this violent. But I feel like I’m on the edge of snapping.
So instead, I just lunge for her, not caring about everyone gathered in the kitchen fixing drinks and watching our exchange with bugged-out eyes, my hand wrapping around her throat instead as I shove her back towards the nearest wall and squeeze.
Winter’s eyes go wide, her hands coming up to grab my wrist, but she’s frail as fuck, your typical Pilates princess, no match for the kind of workouts I’ve been doing with Jaxon.
“You like this?” I hiss. “This is what you’ve got waiting for you with Dean. Do you want to feel him choking you while he shoves his dick in you? Because he loves that shit. He likes it so rough he’d probably break you. But it hasn’t broken me. I fucking love it. He makes me come so fucking hard.”
Winter chokes, wriggling in my grasp, her eyes terrified as I move closer to her, pressing her up against the wall. “So you think about that while you’re dreaming about diamond rings and wedding gowns and being the lady of the manor. Think about his cum on my face and his finger in my ass while he pounds inside of me. Think about all the humiliating things he’s made me do, and think about if you want to take my place.”
I let go of her then, and Winter sags against the wall, coughing. There are finger marks on her throat, and I’m sure that I’m going to pay for this later. I hear someone in the crowd of people behind me saying that someone should find Cayde or Dean, and footsteps, but I don’t care. I’m still glaring at Winter, enjoying the fear rolling off of her in waves, the way she’s staring at me like she’s never seen me before.
“Maybe think about what I just did before you threaten me with hell.” I grin at her, knowing I look deranged, but not caring even a little bit. “Bitch, I’m already in it.”
“You don’t want any of this,” Winter chokes. “You don’t want Dean. You don’t want to be his pet when there are girls all over this campus who would kill to take your place. Probably literally. So why are you fighting so hard to keep something you don’t even want? Talking like that?”
