Fiery Little Thing: A Dark Academy Romance

I tuck the pen back behind my ear as I stick to the shadows, moving toward the other side of school. My backpack is only a fraction heavier than it was before my trip to the girls’ dorms. Stealing isn’t for me, yet I can’t count how many times I’ve had to do it because of Blaze.

She wasn’t at dinner, and Charlie claims the last time she saw Blaze was when she lost her shit at me. Am I really so bad that she’d rather be in solitary?

Word on the street is that solitary is Blaze’s second home. She’s the reigning champ for most stays in the shortest amount of time. Can’t say she doesn’t have any skills.

An access card gets me into the wing containing Dr. Van der Merwe’s office; from there, it isn’t hard to find the solitary rooms. They only have a skeleton crew of staff at this time of night, and the med wing never sees a soul except for the unfortunate ones locked in solitary.Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

The rooms are easy enough to find. They’re aptly hidden behind a set of doors where no one would be able to hear them screaming. Their usual trick is to lock people in their bedrooms as punishment, but solitary is reserved for the extra-problematic students—the ones who get into fights, hit the teachers, or were caught with drugs on them.

The students are still sent to class, but from what I hear, the issue is with the stillness of the room—and the fact that their only form of entertainment is schoolwork and writing lines.

There are six doors on either side of the hallway, and one down at the very end. All the lights are off, so I have to peer into the small glass to figure out which slice of hell she has all to herself. Once I spot the klepto in the only occupied room in the building, I hover the card over the reader.

She looks so peaceful like this, curled up on the bed, oblivious to the fact that I’m fixated on everything that she is. My eyes follow the harsh curve of her hips, to her waist, then over the rise of her shoulders.

Sometimes this is my favorite version of her. When she’s asleep like this, she can’t look at me with so much hatred or tell me all the reasons why I will never be enough for her. I can just look at her without waiting for her to point fingers at me or tell me to fuck off.

The latch beeps as it unlocks, and I help myself into the room. Shutting the door behind me, I catalog the single bed pushed against the wall, the toilet and basin in the other corner, and the table and stool that are fastened to the floor. The only source of light comes from the moonlight on the other side of the frosted windows, and I take the moment to appreciate the sight of her up close.

Her back is to me, and her entire body is concealed beneath the thin sheet, but I would recognize her anywhere. The fact she isn’t snoring like she’s trying to wake the dead is enough of a sign that mini-Satan is awake. I’m more shocked than I care to admit that she hasn’t started screaming at me to get out or continue with her demands from earlier today.

I drop the backpack full of food and water by the door. “A padded door? How fitting for you.”

“Leave me alone,” she croaks without turning to face me.

“So you do like the solitary aspect of confinement?” I bite my tongue to stop from saying something worse. Just once it would be nice to have her happy to see me—or at least sound it.

Something heavy settles in my gut. This isn’t her usual reaction. She’s more likely to throw things at me or attempt to rip my esophagus out. But to ask me to leave so… tiredly?

I shorten the distance and pull her onto her back by her shoulder, making her whimper in the process.

The sight that greets me is worse than any tone she’s used on me and all the colorful ways she’s told me to fuck off. What the fuck happened? Her eyes are sunken, and there’s a pinch between her brows like she’s staving off a headache. She wraps her arms around her middle with a curl of her lip.

“What’s wrong?” I place my palm against her forehead and then her neck, checking for a fever she doesn’t have. Her skin isn’t clammy. She isn’t tensing her jaw or gnawing it, has no shivers, no ticks, or nose twitching, and her breathing doesn’t sound harsh.

But she’s cold.

Too fucking cold.

It can’t be drugs because she couldn’t have gotten anything after they took her, and the haloperidol or benzodiazepine wouldn’t have done this to her unless she’s allergic—which, after almost three months in this place, I’m sure they would know which antipsychotic she’s allergic to. “What happened to you?”

I swear her bottom lip quivers. “You did.”

They’re only two words, but they hit me like a sucker punch to the gut. “You’re the one who was stupid enough to hit me in front of everyone.”

She even cried today. Blaze has done many things, but in all my years of knowing her, she’s never cried. Not when she broke her arm falling off the swing in second grade or when no one showed up to pick her up from her first day of middle school. And here she was today, in a room full of people, shedding a tear.

“No, you caused all of this,” she hisses. Another whimper passes her lips as she pulls herself onto her elbows, raises her chin, and ignores her shaking arms. “The whole reason I was sent to this place was because of what you did.”

Anger slices through me. I try to be nice to her, and this is what she does? “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead.”

She jolts, rolling onto her side to end up on her hands and knees, swaying as she does it. “Ding dong, your opinion is fucking wrong.” Her words are slightly slurred.

I frown as I take in the hospital gown and gripped socks they’ve dressed her in. Seriously, what the fuck happened? It doesn’t look right seeing her like this—and why is it so cold in here?

I cradle the back of her head, instinctively wrapping my arm around her waist, offering support as I silently hope that she might absorb even the slightest bit of warmth from me. As expected, she hits me weakly to get away. When will I do anything right in her eyes?

“I’m over listening to you talk about things you don’t understand. You want to take away everything that’s important to me, then fine. So be it. You have. The only two things I give a shit about are you and that ring you’ve been wearing on your finger.”

She’s irresistibly close, almost intoxicatingly so; a slight lean would be enough to taste those cherry lips again.

Blaze’s eyes search mine like she’s waiting for the punchline. I’ve seen her hungover more times than I can count, but I’ve never seen her as vulnerable as she is now, with her eyes glistening against the pale moonlight and the shadows circling her sockets. She looks like she’s been hit by the fucking plague.

Everything she said earlier was wrong. I’d kill myself before I’d kill her. Ever since we were kids, she always thought I hated her when I was just trying to get her to like me. After a while, I hated her for hating me and being so fucking dense, not understanding my intentions. By the time I was old enough to realize the fault in my logic, the damage was done.

It’s one of the many reasons why I hate Kiervan. Even as a kid, he understood how people work, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why Blaze didn’t like me. The harder I tried, the more she hated me.

Kiervan knew that girls don’t like when you burn their hair because you want to show them how pretty they are. He understood that they don’t like when you steal their things just because you want to bring a part of them home. Or break into their house to show her that you want to hang out and understand her better. Or give her a dead bird because you know how much she likes birds. Or chase her through the fucking woods with a bat.

So I got better, careful. Doing things that wouldn’t hurt her, and I almost killed her because of it. Blaze could have burnt my house into a cinder and leveled it to the ground, and she still wouldn’t have destroyed the one thing I actually care about.

Even now, I’m still pissed at her for not understanding. She’s so caught up in her own mess that she still has no idea what I’ve gone through for her. And she doesn’t even give a shit about me. In fact, she prefers everyone but me, when I was the one doing everything to keep her out of prison.

Does she think it was her grandfather’s decision to send her to reform school?

No.

I got her here.

I’ve taken on more of Kiervan’s coursework, and let our parents believe that I’m the reason some of their watches and jewelry were unaccounted for after Blaze’s rampage—not that Kiervan’s pawned it off. I agreed to everything he asked for, and in exchange, he’d convince our father not to press charges and exploit the Whitlock’s investment bank instead. I’m still doing Kiervan’s bidding because my father can think of a hundred ways to get her out of this school and into a federal prison.

Yet here Blaze is, actively trying to get herself kicked out.

Her lips thin into a straight line. “I stole the ring from you.”

I lower my head to hers, forcing the irritation out of my voice to make the words flow as smoothly as possible. “Do you think I spent over ten years keeping it safe from your sticky fingers just to leave it on my desk when you and a school full of wannabe criminals were all around me?”

This is it.

This is the moment she realizes that her place has always been by my side and that everything that came before this moment was always for her. She’ll finally open up to me and tear down the walls she’s put up around herself.

She pales in the darkness, then scrambles out of my hold as if I’ve burned her. “Then you can take it back. I don’t want anything from you when you’ve already done enough damage.”

The disappointment that clutches my chest is gut-wrenching. My fingers curl into a fist as I look down my nose at her. “You have no idea what I’ve done because you’re too blind to understand a fucking thing.”

“Then tell me. Or don’t tell me.” She shakes her head and pulls the white sheet over her legs. “Either way, there’s not a single fucking thing you’ve ever done that could make me hate you more than I hate you right now. You’re a monster, a demon worse than the man who spawned me. Worse than the men you share your blood with.”

I shake my head, breathing hard through my nose. “No, stop. Stop talking.”

“Keep your head shoved up your ass, Osman. If you think I’m blind, you don’t know a damn thing. So, I’m saying it again. This?” She waves at herself, and suddenly all I can see is the Band-Aid at the juncture of her elbow. “This is all your fault.”

“What did they do to you?” I grab her arm and rip the tape off, ignoring her fight. Sure enough, a bloody, deep purple dot is right on top of her vein. “What the fuck did they inject you with?”

She snatches her arm back and rises to her knees on the bed in a pathetic attempt to equalize our height. “Your parents were right to pick your brother over you. I’d wake up every day and make the same decision.”

My hand snaps out to wrap around her neck, and she’s on her back against the bed before she can even blink. My body trembles as I remember all the times Kiervan wore a smug grin when he took his place above me. How my parents would ask me to stay in my room on Christmas mornings so I wouldn’t see all the things he’d get. Or when people are told an Osman is coming, and the smile would fall from their face when I walk in.

Blaze’s hate has no regard for status. She argued with Kiervan at school just as fiercely as with any other kid. She never chose him over me. Never asked for his presence instead of mine.

Then she goes and moans his fucking name.

And she says that.

I won’t fight for someone who puts me in last place, just like everyone else does.

She wraps her fingers around my wrist, pushing it down against her throat.

I can’t feel her pulse like this, only the movement of her Adam’s apple and the vibrations of her vocal cords as she says, “Do it. Finish off what you started. Kill me.”

Blaze’s sterling-blue eyes watching me are colder than her old house during the winter months. The same fucking house I’d visit in the night just to make sure her parents hadn’t taken another layer from her.

All that, and she still prefers Kiervan?

“There’s no version of this where I won’t spend my entire life making you feel even an ounce of what I feel, so you better kill me now, Kohen,” she rasps against my hand, never once breaking eye contact. “Or are you too stupid to?”

I jump off her and run my fingers through my hair.

Fuck.

Fuck!

“I’m in this place because of you. You! Why don’t you get that? Why don’t you ever get that? I’ve told you over and over again that it’s all been you. For you. Because of you. Always you. I failed all my classes last year just so I wouldn’t get separated from you.”

Her jaw drops dramatically with fake shock. It looks so wrong with the gauntness of her eyes. “Wow. So you’d fuck your own life up just to make mine hell?” Blaze scowls. “You’re worse than I thought.”

“Wrong again.” I step forward to touch her again, but she jerks her head away before I can. “I did it because you’re mine in every sense of the word, Blaze. You always were, and you always will be.”

The sound of her scoffing sends my blood rushing through my body faster than I can handle. “Call Dr. Van der Merwe in again; the shit he did to me would be nothing in comparison.” A sinister smile creeps across her lips that doesn’t match her tired eyes. “Or maybe ask your brother to tell me the same thing, and I’ll suck his dick so good he’ll be addicted to me.” She laughs to herself. “Or maybe I’ll fuck your dad instead.”

She doesn’t get away fast enough to stop me from gripping the back of her neck. They aren’t getting anywhere near her, and I’ve spent over half my life making sure of it. “They’d kill you.”

Slowly, so slowly, she says with deadly quiet, “I’d rather be dead than be yours.”

Everything stops.

My heart, my lungs, my blood. It all stops as I stare at her, the words repeating in my head over and over again.

My hand releases her before the rest of me does. I hold her stare as I back out of the room, not breaking it until I slam the door behind me, then red bursts in front of my vision. She’d rather be dead than be with me. She’d rather fuck my own father than me.

Fuck her.

I’m slipping through the halls of the girls’ dormitory and into Blaze’s room without any plan or regard for what I’ll do once I arrive. I want to burn this entire school to the ground just to see a decent fucking fire. I’m starved for the slightest flicker of a flame, but there’s another soul-deep need that must be sated. Reaching into my backpack, I ignore all the snacks and drop the pair of school shoes I stole for her onto the ground next to the pile of boots and slippers.

I’ve done nothing for her? Nothing? Then what the fuck did I risk getting caught for? Why did I sort through Sarah’s room looking for shoes Blaze can wear so she can stop wearing the tattered pair she’s had for years.

Why did I raid the kitchen to bring her food in case they starved her?

But she wants my brother instead? My father?

The second my eyes fall onto the bed, I see her long legs tangled within the sheets and her perky nipples poking through the thin fabric. The thought has my cock hardening and pressing against my zipper.

My pants still feel soaked through from the way she rode my thigh; it’s like the shape of her has been imprinted in my hand, and if I concentrate enough, I can still feel her warmth and hear the needy moans she made for me.

She can be sickened by me all she wants, hate every part of me that has turned me into who I am, but this isn’t over. Whatever reality she’s concocted where she ends up with anyone but me doesn’t matter.

Unbuckling my pants, I take my cock in my hand as I stand over her unmade bed. The first stroke has me grunting with primal need. I want to mark every inch of Blaze’s space while imagining it’s her on her knees and wrapping her slender fingers around my girth.

Her pussy would be dripping as she takes me in her hands, wishing I was abusing it and making her come like she knows only I can. I bet she’d love what I’d feel like down her throat.

Blaze can tell me she hates me and wants nothing to do with me; the reality is that her body knows what it wants, and it wants me.

How often do her pupils have to blow out every time I stand close before she realizes that she’s been dreaming of getting my dick in her? The little minx was the one who pushed herself against my length when she was humping me. She’s the one who bites her lip when she stares at my arms or looks at my hips for a beat too long.

My breathing comes out hard as I fist my cock, imagining her splayed out on the bed whimpering for me to fuck her. If she’s been with Kiervan, I’ll kill him then lock her up. I’ll tie her to the damn bed if that’s what it takes. I don’t care. There’s no hesitation about that. If she can’t hate me more than she already does, I can’t go any lower, right?

Does she think that I don’t fucking hate her too? If I could get over this, I would have years ago. None of the shit I’ve gone through would have even happened if not for her.

She’s lucky I’ve been as nice as I have after the stunt she pulled. Moaning my brother’s name? Admitting that she’d happily give herself over to him? I could have gotten her on my lap or finally felt what she’s so willing to give to anyone with drugs.

My grip tightens, and my movements become jerkier as I try to shove the image of her with someone else out of my head. The things I could do to that girl would make a nun have a heart attack. I’m not into exhibitionism, but maybe the next time Elijah thinks he can go near her, I’ll fuck her brains out right in front of him. Or perhaps I’ll keep her to myself, get her bent over a table and punish her for all the shit she’s done.

I can picture it; the way she’d scream when I slide into her and how she’d claw at the table and arch her back to take more, even though she’s at her limit. She’d scrape her long nails into the wood as her skirt bunches around her waist. I’d wind her long copper hair between my fingers and pull it back so I can feel her pulse hammer against my skin.

I pump my fist faster, delving into the fantasy as my balls tighten. Blaze would cry out her hatred for me at the same time she comes, and she’d do it all over again. Except she’d be up against a wall wishing I were dead as she kisses me with her legs around me.

Then she’d be curled on her side, taking every inch because she’ll love how it hits her just right, and then she’d come all over again, and the name that comes out of her mouth will be mine. There won’t be a single thought about any man in existence but me.

A feral, guttural sound slips from my throat as hot, white ropes of come shoot out, sending lightning zapping through my veins. The ribbons fall onto her sheets, drops spraying over her blankets and cheap cotton pillowcase.

I breathe heavily as I grab a pair of her panties from the top drawer. Using it to wipe my hands clean, I stare at the mess I’ve made over the place where she’ll be sleeping in twenty-four hours.

What’s that saying? She made her bed; she can lie in it.