AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When I saw all of them staring at me with various degrees of shock, I instinctively took a step back. “What?” Did I say any of that outloud? Their faces make me feel uneasy. “Come on.” I gave a humorless laugh. “Don't tell me that you all haven't gotten hurt while training? Like you haven’t had to purposely go through painful scenarios for hours, if not days, to build up your tolerance?” I looked around, smiling, because these assholes were trying to make me look like a chump, and that's one thing I refused to do in front of them.
When they still hadn't said anything, just giving each other glances, my heart skipped a beat, feelings of dread and shameflooding my body. I needed to calm down. They were just fucking with me like they always do.
Swiveling to Cosmo, looking for a life line from the one who disliked me the most. “Come on, man. There’s no way that you and Rayla didn't have some crazy bloody fights while training with Ternin, right?!” My voice cracked, the desperation for his answer bled through my voice, and I hated it.
I blinked, and he was suddenly in front of my face, no malice, no jokes, not even a grin as he softly said, “While our fightswouldbe bloody, pain tolerance was never the goal. We trained to be better fighters and ruthless killers, so, of course, we ended up with bumps and bruises, but pain was never purposely elongated.”
I looked over his shoulder at Ax, hoping that his pain-loving ass was in the same boat with me. As soon as our eyes met, he stared into mine like he was trying to tell me something telepathically before he looked down and shook his shaggy head.
Craning my neck to the side, meeting Falcon’s steely blue gaze, and for the first time since I knew him, they held a hint of remorse. He shook his head as he looked me dead in the eyes. I didn't even need to look at Avery, who calmly spoke up. “My father might be eccentric, but pain training? Naw. That isn't his style.”
With each sideways glance, each flicker of their eyelashes and stiffening of their postures, my stomach sank. A sickening, dizzy feeling rose up. I tried to push through, to put on that mask of a smile and force myself to feel better like I always had. Witheach passing second, I felt my smile start to crack as a memory worked its way forward, flashing before my eyes.
My uncle stomped up to me, his face pinched in disappointment as his eyes narrowed at my prone form on the floor. I just got my ass kicked because I wasn't paying attention. Instead, I was daydreaming about my pale-haired obsession.
She looked really good today. She was in her bewitching feral form as she came home from school bloody and smiling. It made me wish I was there, wish I was by her side to get a glimpse of her in her element. I bet she runs that school with her gorgeous pinky finger.
“Obviously, this training is too easy for you. So easy that your mind has been allowed to drift so much that you don't pick up SIMPLE PATTERNS!” The back of his hand smacking into my cheek, chattered my teeth so hard it was difficult to think straight. The side of my face feeling so raw I knew it was immediately bruising, but I deserved it. I wasn't paying attention, but I wasn't about to admit to that.
I crawled to face him on my hands and knees, bowing my head like I knew he wanted. “I’m sorry, Uncle. I will make sure to keep my mind sharp next time.”
The next thing I knew, he grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head up. The pain in my scalp radiating down the back of my head, and I bit the inside of my lip, making sure I didn't make a peep. If I did, it would be worse later.
“There’s not going to be a next time.” Shock splashed across my face as I remembered what he did to the last demon he said that to . . . but he wouldn't do that to me, right? I was his nephew, his brother's son. All of this was him trying to help me . . . right?
His frown creeped up, turned into one of his scary you're-going-to-regret-this grins. I braced myself, muscles seized up as I made an effort not to curl up to protect myself. He let go of my hair, standing straight as he crossed his arms. “It's about time I adjusted your training, anyways, taking off the kid gloves.” He motioned behind me, and I noticed Kevin, his pet mage, make his way next to my uncle.
I didn’t like Kevin very much, with his beady eyes that looked at everything and everyone with disdain, and yet, there was a hunger in those eyes that seemed insatiable.
“Do what we discussed.”
That was all my uncle said when I felt the ground around me shake as stone rose, melted around my arms and legs to keep me in place. Even though I knew it was futile, my instincts were to fight it. That something bad was going to happen. Kevin’s lips moved as he mumbled a rune spell around me.
“Now, Lex, you need to trust your uncle. Do you think those other heirs are not getting trained in a similar way? I know those men of the Syndicate, and they are ensuring that their children are strong, unbreakable, and fierce. What kind of uncle would I be to not make sure you are at the same level . . . no,” his eyes gleamed with malice and revenge, “No. I want you to be better than they are.”
The last words of Kevin's spell had been spoken, and the stone melted away from me, going back into the floor. I looked down at my hands, feeling like something was missing, something was locked up in my core but no longer ran through even the cells of my body like it usually was.
“Kevin has locked up your regenerative ability. It's been hindering you. Making you cocky and weak. Now, you will feel everything." His words stilled me as the room got darker, the shadows around me closing in. The feeling of violence and pain reverberated in the air.
My uncle and Kevin backed away as the darkness closed in on me. My heart was beating at my chest as my instincts told me to run, to get out of there as fast as I could . . . but I had nowhere to go. Nowhere to run to. My uncle was all I had.
A pair of golden-pink eyes flashed before me, and a sense of longing filled deep in my soul. So deep, so powerful that I didn't really understand it, but I knew one thing. I needed to be able to stand next to her. Be strong enough for her.
Just as I saw a circle of demons surrounding me, eyes gleaming with ravenous thirst for blood and pain, I heard my uncle's voice before his face was fully engulfed by the darkness. A wicked gleam in his eye as he commanded.
"Begin."
A shiver ran down my spine as my muscles twitched, remembering that first beating in the dark. He said that all theSyndicate heirs would also have this kind of training, that he was helping me to be at their level. Even with all his lies coming to light recently, I still thought that this wasn't one.
I slapped a smile on my face as I swung toward Cosmo, gave out a broken laugh, one that had an unhinged sound as it spilled from my lips, and I stalked forward. “You have to be lying, right? I saw Rayla coming back from training. I saw her bloody and bruised up. I’m her stalker, remember?”
Cosmo’s lips pinched, his back straightening as he prepared his usual verbal attack on me and my psycho ways, but instead, he took a breath and turned those soul-crushing violet orbs at me in earnest. “That’s because of Rayla. She never knew when to quit. Always had a higher blood lust than anyone we trained with. There were countless times while training that Rick and I had to pull her off of someone, making sure she didn't take it too far. That wasn't because of Ternin or her training. She’s a Desmond, and they are a vicious lot, constantly testing the boundaries.”
I felt something inside me start to unravel as I realized everything, every single aspect of my life my uncle was a part of was all a lie. Not a single sliver of my life with him was true. I could feel smoke tendrils slithering around me, the need to fill this room with darkness rose in my body. The injustice of what I went through in the name of keeping up with the others was turning my mind down a dark path, one threatening to consume me.
My teeth clenched. Just like always, I was the one on the outside looking in. The different one. The one with no parents. The outcast.The one that didn't belong.
“Whoa, what's he doing?” Someone whispered in the room, but I was trying to keep a lid on my powers that were reacting to my emotions. I tightened my fists, cutting into my palms, as I locked down on my powers.
