Page 24 of Wild Hunt
“You mean your precious Triad?”
“Someone like you would never understand,” I said, walking toward her.
She stood her ground, eyes blazing. “Understand what?”
“You have your mother,” I answered. “Your friends and family back home. People you belong to.”
“And you three don’t?” she challenged. “You run the school, and as soon as you get out, the world of the gods will be waiting to grovel at your feet. You’re just mad because I’m the only person who won’t.”
I shook my head. “There’s a difference between authority and acceptance. Hades, Loki and I…wehave one thing in common.”
“And what’s that?”
“Before we were born, before any of us had a say in it, this world chose to cast us as villains,” I said, shrugging. “So we play the part. And yeah, we enjoy it for the most part, but at the end of the day, that’s what people want. That’s what they expect. We stick together because we’re alike. We’re of the same kind. Something you could learn from.”
She’d grown quiet as I spoke, and from the pensive look on her face, I almost thought I was getting through to her. At that last bit, she frowned. “I’m nothing like you.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, walking a circle around her. Her gaze followed me, and I could feel the forest shifting around her, as if readying to come to her defense. The energy was electrifying and my wolf responded to it in kind. Beast and nature, we were one and the same. Two sides of the same coin.
It was a shame we were destined to be enemies.
“You’re more like us than you think, but you surround yourself with people who mirror what you want to be—but not what you are.”
“And is that supposed to mean something to me?”
I moved swiftly, coming up behind her, just close enough to startle her. “Does it?” I asked as she spun around on me. “You want to know what I think?”
“Not really,” she said boredly.
I smiled. “You may be the goddess of spring, but every rose has its thorns. And I think, Persephone, there’s more darkness and chaos inside your heart than anyone could imagine.” I lowered my voice to a reverent whisper, brushing my fingertips across the curve of her jawline. Her breath hitched, and her eyes went wide as she gazed up at me. “Even you.”
“And what makes you say that?” she asked, having greater difficulty maintaining her careless tone. Her voice quivered just slightly, but I knew better than to mistake it for weakness. There wasn’t a single weak bone in her body.
“Like recognizes like,” I answered, letting my hand fall away. I walked away to leave her with her thoughts and smirked at the fact that I could still feel her watching me. She might’ve belonged to Hades, but I knew from that one interaction that our kiss was still the forefront of her mind.
At least I wasn’t the only one.
Chapter 14
Kore
In the weeks following the preliminaries, the Wild Hunt went from being a nuisance to a nightmare. I could scarcely get to class without some bullshit flying up at my face. If it wasn’t the students snickering about me whenever I passed or spreading rumors, it was them shoving past me in the hall. One day, I opened my locker to find it filled with cockroaches. The fact that they vanished as soon as a professor rounded the corner made it clear someone was putting their uber creepy abilities to good use.
I tried not to react visibly, knowing that would only give them what they wanted and make it worse, but it was admittedly wearing me down.
I’d gained a new nickname, too. Crazy Kore. Not exactly the most inventive, and I’d had worse in kindergarten, but the next person who said it was really going to test my resolve not to slap anyone else before graduation.
Honestly, with the amount of homework the professors gave us and the high probability that any given class would result in a pop quiz, it was a wonder any of them had the time.
No wonder the Triad always pulled straight A’s. They got other people to do the dirty work for them.
Well, most of it…
My interaction with Fenrir in the forest was still fresh in my mind. For a moment there, I’d thought he was going to kiss me again. The really fucked up part was, I wasn’t sure how I would’ve responded. It was pretty much a fifty-fifty shot between decking him and returning it.
His words stayed with me even more than that original kiss.Like recognizes like…What was that even supposed to mean?
One possible answer was particularly troubling. Could he know the truth about my father? Hades thought it was Poseidon, which turned out to be well off the mark, but Fenrir’s golden eyes seemed capable looking right into my soul.
