Lucifer's expression darkened, and he pressed his hand to my forehead. "Who made you think like that? Who caged your mind?"
"I...don't know... I'm wrong. I don't think that I've ever been right."
I'd never told anyone that before.
Lucifer pushed my hair back from my forehead. "Shocking truth: there's no such thing as right or wrong." Then he twisted to the rest of the FF. "Pop quiz time. Who scored the highest in the exam?"
When Scalds opened his mouth to answer, Lucifer flapped his wing against him to silence him.
"Midnight," my Midnight Gang chorused, even as they ducked to hide in the shadows at the back of the Crypt.
My eyes widened.
Lucifer glared at Scalds. "Well, that's a shocker, since I’m meant to be punishing him for failing to become an FF. Okay, question two, a toughie now. Who came top in the Trial?"
At my gang’s calls of Midnight, I stiffened again.
Was it true?
No one was denouncing it as a lie, even Scalds. My fists clenched. If I'd scored top, why’d I been rejected and humiliated?
"Dad...?" I questioned, softly.
Scalds barked with laughter that hurt worse than if he'd struck me. "Did you believe that you were ever going to be passed? No one in the FF wants someone like you in their ranks.” He raised his hand to his neck like he was going to choke himself, but instead, clutched the feathered tattoos. “These have a meaning, Cursed One. We all sacrificed in the Fall, and you don’t have the right to wear this emblem or become an elite member. You’re no knight. Perhaps, you could be transformed into a Seducer whore, mind. The army always need someone to serve their needs."
Lucifer snarled, backhanding Scalds. Yet even seeing dad land in a tumbled heap amongst the bones couldn't erase the words that he'd branded into my mind.
Everything had been lies.
I stared out at the regiment that I'd trained so hard to join. Their expressions were hard, amused, or leering. Now that Scalds had called me a Seducer, they'd never respect me.
He'd ruined me.
Even Lucifer's Lights couldn't offer me safety. Yet I'd never wanted to shelter under someone's protection. I yearned to be a knight who laid my life at a king's feet.
Lucifer cupped my cheek like he understood what I'd just lost. "You're cursed." I flinched. It'd been said so many times that I thought it could no longer hurt me. But on Lucifer's lips, it turned me to ash. "But only to be his son." His sneer at Scalds promised pain. "I've made my decision on your punishment."
I stiffened.
Lucifer's wings beat. "Midnight is sentenced to the Rebel Academy."
For the first time, the FF burst into wild outcry, while my gang dropped to their knees like begging had ever changed Lucifer’s sentence before. I barely noticed them, however, because everything had dimmed. My legs were shaky, and my knees would've buckled, but Lucifer held me caged against the column. He stroked along my sides as if calming me.
On my fangs, how would I survive in an academy run by witches? They held a truce with us, but since all other witches were at war with us, transforming the vampires that they caught into familiars, how cruelly would they treat me?
Did I truly deserve exile from the Under World?
When Lucifer danced his lights away from my neck and back into his horns, I whined. I was desperate not to lose his spark.
Lucifer leaned even closer, and his autumnal scent was all that I could breathe, "Don't you want to serve your king?"
"Always."
"Then you can do it safely in the Rebel Academy. Your daddy will be banned from visiting. I'll strike a deal with the bad witches and voila!"
I hated the triumphant gleam in Scalds' eyes like he'd won. Yet why did Lucifer look like he'd won?
I couldn't help the way that my wings trembled. "I'll suffer bravely for you, my king."
Luficer tutted, as he dragged me closer. His breath was hot against my ear. "Don't pout, beautiful. Some serve me on the battlefield or in bed. You'll serve me by escaping your past. If you try hard enough, you'll discover freedom within your prison. One of us at least can have that, hmm?" When he drew back, his expression was flat and distant like he was lost in his own painful past. With desperate daring, I wrapped my wings around him, and his gaze softened. "Oh, I wish that I could keep you. When you're in the light and away from..." He cast a dangerous glance at Scalds, "...the dark of the Under World, you'll learn that you were never anything but blessed."
It's been fifty years since Lucifer sentenced me to the Rebel Academy. Fifty years as a whipping boy to the Princes. Fifty years on my knees to different Masters.
Fifty years of serving, loyalty, and dedication to the spark.
Such a long, long time…
But on my fangs, I don’t feel any more blessed.
Lucifer, do you still think about me? Dream of me? Would you be angry that I’ve found someone new to love or did you send me away hoping that I’d find a new king and queen?
You’d admire the witch’s delicious wickedness and the mage’s courage because I do.
I don't deserve love. I was born to obey. I'm nothing but a curse.
Magenta and Fox, you give me the courage to believe that you want me. I'm no more than a whipping boy, but you accept me as your knight and that’s a fine thing.
Please, want me...
What's a knight without his king? A king without his queen or a queen without her king?
Love me...
Do you ever cry in your sleep and wake more exhausted than the day before? Is that normal or just...?
I cradle this...weariness...to myself. I've been trapped in the Rebel Academy for half a century. I'm proud that as a whipping boy I get to serve. It's what I'm trained to do. But you treat me like you can't see the curse weeping from me, and now I pretend that I'm simply another vampire who one day will be released…free.
Except, my sentence has no end, see, and I'm not the same.
I'll worship you silently in these letters, but you must never read them.
I can’t let you know that you're the blood in my veins, my heartbeat, and my Soul.
I'll share my darkest secrets with nothing but cold paper.
Bleed me out...ask me to die for you...and I'd open my own veins with my fangs.
Let me bleed for you.
Yet you don't want my blood. I wouldn’t like for you to know how warm that makes me feel. Instead, you demand that I hold on for you.
I swore that I wouldn't die, however, and I won't break an oath. I never dreamed that someone would desire me to be theirs. You touch me, until my skin prickles and my wings are aflame, and you kiss me like I'm something precious, the same as your other Immortals.
Sometimes, I even allow myself to believe that.
Kiss me again.
I hunger for it, more even than your magical blood that calls to me. Your lips were the first to ever press to mine. At least, when I wasn’t dreaming.
It’d be a fine thing if you kissed me again.
Help me lose myself. I never want to be found again.
I don't deserve love. I was born to obey. I'm nothing but a curse.
You haunt my every thought; I'm possessed by you. Bones and blood, don't wake me into reality's nightmare. These letters are my friends; they listen to my agony and joy. But they'll never tell.