Page 141 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Two
My fingers find the bond mark at my neck, the connection to Nikolai pulsing with an urgency that suggests he's aware of these attacks. More than aware—he's experiencing them in a way that goes beyond the physical.
What have they done to you?
The thought is both a prayer and a promise. Whatever game the Fae royals think they're playing, they've made a critical error. They've attacked not just an individual, but a bond group that has survived impossible odds, that has carved its own path through a system designed to break us.
And we do not break easily.
"We need to find him," I state, the words emerging with a clarity that brooks no argument. "Now.”
We don’t need to seek far to find exactly who we’re looking for.
The moment I see her, the world stops.
Not metaphorically. Literally. Every sound, every breath, every heartbeat freezes in a moment of collective horror that feels like a physical blow. Nikolai—no,Nikki—is stripped completely bare, her body transformed into a canvas of calculated cruelty. The posters aren't just images. They're weapons. Deliberate, meticulously crafted instruments of destruction designed to eviscerate not just her physical dignity, but her very essence.
She's tied to a makeshift throne, a perversion of the royal imagery we'd discussed earlier. But this is no ceremonial seat of power.
This is a stage of humiliation, every inch of her body covered in substances that make my vampire stomach—normally impervious to physical revulsion—threaten to expel what little contents remain inside me.
Pee. Shit. Dirt. Blood.
The smell is beyond atrocious. It's a physical assault that triggers an immediate gag reflex, cutting through even my supernatural tolerance. Worse than the physical filth is the lingering atmosphere—an echo of cruelty so intense it seems to have been absorbed into the very walls. I can still hear phantomsounds of laughter, of mockery as if the space itself remembers the degradation inflicted here.
This isn't just an attack on Nikki.
This is a systematic destruction of everything sacred.
I'm moving before I can think before Atticus or Cassius can stop me. My legs are weak — a remnant of my recent...death, I suppose— but something primal and furious drives me forward. Each step is a battle against my own trembling muscles, but nothing could keep me from reaching her.
When Nikki sees me, her eyes are a landscape of defeat.
Tears have carved clean trails through the filth smeared across her cheeks, creating a grotesque map of her suffering. Her gaze is fixed downward, focused on a pile of crumpled posters at her feet. The words leap out at me—"bitch, fake, banned royalty"—each label a surgical strike designed to destroy her most vulnerable points.
I've been there.
The cafeteria incident with Damien's "prank" feels like a distant, almost gentle precursor to this level of calculated destruction. This isn't mere bullying.
This is psychological assassination.
"Come to add to the burning flame?" she tries to joke, but it emerges as a broken sob that shatters what little composure I've managed to maintain.
Her forced smile is a knife twisting in my chest—so obviously manufactured, so painfully brave in the face of complete devastation. I want to scream, to rage, to destroy whatever system could allow this to happen. But all I can do is stand here, bearing witness to a level of cruelty that defies comprehension.
Something catches my eye.
A handkerchief. Familiar.
The embroidered initials confirm what my nose has already told me.
Damien.
"Damien did this?" The question emerges as a statement, laden with a horror that goes beyond simple betrayal. "He loves you... yet he didthis?"
Nikki's laugh is a sound I'll never forget — glass breaking, hope shattering, something fundamental being destroyed beyond any possibility of repair.
"Only a matter of time," she states, that broken laugh rising again. "It was bound to happen, but you know what? I'm glad he fell for the trap...even if it hurts."
Trap.
