I stood in the middle of the street, my heart beating out of my chest because Crane was Sin’s best friend. It would crush Sin if he knew I was with War when Crane was murdered. War must’ve sensed it.
“Crane, just leave!” I yelled at him, and War glared at me.
“The fuck did you just tell him?” he asked.
Crane chuckled as he weakly pushed himself up, almost falling back, but he leaned against the streetlight instead. “You fucked her, didn’t you? Hoax is going to kill you,” he told War.
“I would be a fool not to fuck the enemy’s pussy. Go ahead and return to Charmden. I’ll see you soon. I’d rather kill you on your own soil—it’s more disrespectful,” War told Crane.
“You’re going to end up like the last wizard,” Crane coughed out.
“I’m cool with that, as long as I can take as many of you with me before I go,” War replied, backing away.
Crane looked at me with saddened eyes. “I never liked you for Sin. You’ve always been nothing but trouble. Tainted goods with a poisoned snatch. You don’t deserve that wand!” Crane said, and it broke my heart.
He mounted his unicorn, blood dripping down his arm. The other unicorns closed in around him, following as he rode ahead. Crane gave me one last look, then snapped the reins. The unicorns galloped down the street, and as they reached the end, a blinding bubble of light opened in front of them. Without hesitation, Crane and his unicorns disappeared into the glowingportal. The bubble flickered and popped, and just like that, the street snapped back to normal—we were back in the real world, not the illusion.
“Goddamn, shorty, what happened to you?” a man asked as he walked past.
War hurriedly grabbed my arm and led me into the garage. We were leaving blood stains everywhere.
“I was caught off guard. I don’t like that shit at all, Eboenia. I know your enchanted pussy lured them here. You knew what you were doing, summoning those clowns up,” War argued.
He unlocked his truck, opened the passenger door, picked me up, and tossed me inside.
“Ouch!” I squealed, hitting my knee on the glove compartment.
He slammed the door so hard the window shattered, glass raining across the seat. The metal bent and groaned, as if the truck itself was afraid of him. War slid into the driver’s seat and pulled off. My stomach twisted—partly from the gnawing emptiness of not eating in almost a day, and mostly from the blood on my hands. I’d killed someone from Charmden. Crane would run back and tell everyone I fought with War—that I set it all up.
I pressed my forehead to the cold glass, desperate to open the door, to run. But the moment I even thought about escape, agony flared in my chest—like invisible chains yanking me back, the soul bind searing through my veins. I couldn’t leave him, not even if I wanted to. I was trapped, body and soul.
“My friends are going to hate me,” I whispered, voice trembling. “They’ll never forgive me.”
War glanced over, smirked—showcasing the gold swords on his teeth. That smirk was my weakness, the one thing that sometimes made me forget just how cruel he really was. “Hate is as strong as love, Eboenia. Either way, you’ll never leave their minds. You’ll haunt them.”
“Why are you so damn wicked and coldhearted?” I sobbed. “I hated my life in Charmden, but I love my sisters. They mean everything to me. You’re tearing my world apart. Do you want me to become like you?”
He didn’t look at me, but his smirk lingered, gold shining in the dim light. “No,” he said. “I want you to be worse than me.”
A sob rose in my throat. “I had to kill the minute you walked into my life. I’m a killer now.”
War’s eyes flicked to me, cold and emotionless. “I can’t be soul-bound to a weakling. This ain’t a fairytale, and I’m no savior. When we’re at war, you’ll fight too. I won’t have you slowing me down, or dying because you’re soft. Stop thinking about flowers that smell sweet, Eboenia. Start thinking about the ones that poison.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could vanish. But the bind pulsed inside me, a shitty reminder—I belonged to him now, whether I wanted to or not. I wondered what my friends were up to. Lune would be having her baby soon, tears poured when I thought about missing her child’s birth.
The minute we walked into War’s brownstone, the cuff appeared around my neck. “Can I step over the threshold first?” I asked him. He ignored me, shrugging off his overcoat and shirts. War had a deep, open wound on his side, the flesh turning green—you could almost see his rib. It was poison, and no matter how fast a healer someone is, poison takes longer. It seeps into your veins, slowing down rejuvenation.
War trudged up the stairs, blood still leaking from his wound. “I’ll order something,” he said, disappearing around the corner. My clothes peeled off me, falling onto the hardwood floor like dust particles.
Why do I feel so sorry for him? Ugh, the way he turned my life upside down in just two days! He does seem weaker—maybe he needs my help.
I tiptoed upstairs, following behind War. We climbed another flight of stairs to the fourth floor, where the empty halls slowly transformed into a secret room overlooking War’s realm. His brownstone was connected to his world. He sat in a chair that stripped the rest of his clothing away, golden-hued tentacles silhouetted by the projection of spinning gears on the walls. He froze, clutching the arms of the chair as the tentacles plunged into his wound, sucking out the poison. War’s pale complexionbegan to return to normal. He saw me standing off to the side, watching. I thought he’d tell me to leave, but he didn’t.
“I should make you get on your knees and suck it out another way. You do owe me that,” he said.
“I didn’t do that on purpose. You were showing that stripper too much attention. Were you trying to choose her to give your offspring to, birth a warrior?” I found myself asking. The cuff made me vulnerable; without it, I had some dignity.
After he was healed, he pushed himself up from the chair. He walked over to me, his gigantic, thick tentacle between his legs, veins pulsing. It wasn’t the time to be aroused, but I’d been craving it since the first time he entered me. War grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking me around so my face and breasts pressed against the wall. His hard abs pinned me, his dick throbbing against my ass.
