“Sun god,” she groaned. “You don’t need to be a bitch because you find me sexy. A lot of people do.”
She tried to wink, but both her eyes closed at the same time.
She blinked furiously.
“Clearly,” I said dryly, “that’s exactly what’s happening here.”
The music changed to a faster beat, and she suddenly grabbed my arms and spun us both around.
Unlike all the uncoordinated students and soldiers who kept slipping, Sadie didn’t hate the patch of ice that had spread beneath my feet; she tipped her head back and laughed as she spun us both faster on it.
A thought struck me. She’d grown up in the cold shifter realm and was at home with ice and snow.
Maybe that was why she was at home with me?
My heart swelled with emotions I couldn’t afford to feel, so I tipped my head back and lowered my shoulders, swung my arms back and forth as I smoked five pipes at once.
Five.
It had been five days since five people from the Legionnaire Games had been slaughtered in the battle. One angel and one assassin inside the building, two leviathans and one devil outside in the snow as they fought against the ungodly that tried to escape.
All their corpses were unidentifiable.
I didn’t even know the names of the angel and assassin, but I’d fought beside them as the ungodly ripped them apart.
I knew how they’d died.
“Okay, Aran, I see you. Go off.” Sadie rolled her body against me as I tipped my head backward further.
“Hit it. Hit it. Hit it,” she shouted encouragingly as I swung my arms and legs back and forth and squatted low.
I rocked faster.
Smoked harder.
Seventeen was the total number of soldiers we’d lost in the battle, because twelve foot soldiers had died securing the perimeter. There were five odd numbers between five and seventeen.
So many fives.
I grabbed a bottle of demon brew from a student’s hands and tipped it back. Drank until it was empty, then chucked it against the far wall.
It exploded, and students yelped.
Sadie cheered.
The number 5555 was an enchanted one that stood for change.
They’d changed all right. Living to dead.
I wheezed, and my chest tingled.
“Here, sweetie,” Sadie said as she pressed another pipe between my crammed lips. “Have another smoke. This will help.”
I inhaled the drugs until my lungs felt like they were disintegrating inside my sternum.
She was right.
It helped.
I loved her so much; she always knew what I needed.
She pulled me close and whispered into my ear, “We should pretend to have sex in the shower again sometime.”
Never mind—she knew nothing.
“What?” I stopped dancing.
She snickered. “Scorpius told me the other day that he would make you come harder than I ever could.”
I pulled back and gaped at her. “He did not.”
“Yep.” She popped the p loudly. “Then he told me my stroke game was weak.” She smirked as she shimmied her hips. “I told him I was better at giving head because I was a girl and knew what felt best.”
I choked on smoke. “You did not say that.”
She grinned. “Oh, I did. He was so pissed—you should have seen it. Poor guy stabbed himself in the thigh with a pen. Can we please do it again? I think your men would actually have aneurysms.”
“They’re not my men,” I said reflexively.
She rolled her hips and winked. “Suuuuure, whatever you say. And I don’t shift into a saber-toothed tiger and enslave people with my blood.”
I rolled my eyes, and we resumed dancing.
“Fine,” I said a few moments later and drawled seductively, “You can fake fuck me again.”
She squealed and pulled me close. “You will not regret this decision.”
I laughed because I definitely would, and we rocked together in the flailing mass of sweaty limbs and hormones.
Everything was a jumbled mess.
Students were on their knees.
Soldiers pressed against the walls with their heads tipped back.
Sounds of pleasure echoed.
Pincers scraped.
Exoskeletons crunched.
High-pitched chittering sounded.
Eighty-three was the number of soldiers left in our army, and you couldn’t divide it by five.
It was all disturbing.
Horse cawed with agitation as he flapped above the heads of the partygoers. His tail and wings were covered in long trailing feathers, and his neck was longer.
He stopped flying and perched on my shoulder, nuzzling his beak against the side of my head.
I leaned my head back to try to make the dark thoughts fall out.
I tipped backward, but they stayed inside my head.
Regrettable.
Sadie caught me before I crashed to the floor, then spun me around the room like we were at a fancy ball on a spacious dance floor.
Plot twist, we weren’t.
We crashed into bodies, and drinks sloshed everywhere as people swore.
I couldn’t help but laugh as Sadie grinned like a maniac and spun me faster in the crowd. She slammed me into a student like a battering ram, and he crashed to the floor.
It was the most fun I’d had in weeks.
My elbow cracked against someone’s nose, and blood sprayed like diamonds. Sadie’s cheeks were rosy, lips glossy, as she twirled with me.
We laughed uncontrollably.
This was the feminine experience.
We slammed into someone, and they hit the ground with a thud. Horse cawed in his face, then settled on Ghost’s shoulder.
They haunted the party together.
Goals.
“What the fuck are you two doing?” the student we’d just bowled over spat from the floor. “I’m a royal student, and I don’t recognize you, which means you’re filthy commoners.” He lumbered unsteadily to his feet.
What a delightful man.
“Spinning sexily,” Sadie said in a duh voice as she flipped her white hair over her shoulder and made an obscene gesture with her hands.
I put my hand over my mouth to hide my laughter.
Sadie grinned over at me, clearly proud that she was making me laugh, and gyrated her hips to the music.
The man said something else, but we ignored him as we danced.
In my peripheral vision, he lunged toward us. “You little commoners think you can—”
“Is this man bothering you?” Cobra appeared out of nowhere and blocked the man.
He stared down at Sadie with an intense expression as the jewels embedded in his skin glinted prettily in the dimly lit party.
She chuckled. “Nooooope.”
“Go away, snake man,” I slurred and chucked three of my pipes at him like daggers.
They bounced off his chest and fell to the floor.
Snake eyes glowed in the darkness as Cobra said, “I didn’t ask for your opinion.” Slit pupils flickered as he faced me, and he arched his brow. “I see you’re struggling like usual. How predictable.”
I studied my fingernails. “I’ve always thought it fascinating that snakes have brains the size of peanuts. It must be difficult being such a—” I wrinkled my nose. “—dimwit.”
Cobra smiled back meanly. “Interesting talk coming from the girl who was crying an hour ago while chugging demon brew.”
“How dare you,” I gasped. “I had something in my eye. Also, at least my pupils aren’t lobotomized.”
His eyes twinkled. “How is therapy going? Are you still sad?”