The Pixie Prince: An Affinities Novella (The Affinities) Read online

  Calder blinked as his eyes settled on the sprawling body of water—which Nero, apparently, intended to drown him in. The dread trickling through his blood was paralyzing.

  “She told me you’re afraid of the water, Mardurus,” Nero said, motioning toward Demira, as if he didn’t even know her name. “Funny, since your sister feels quite the opposite.”

  “I hate water, too,” Ruse piped up eagerly. “Can’t swim. So, it would probably be a good idea to just throw us in and walk away, let nature take its toll—”

  Nero yanked Ruse’s dull gray hair to shut him up. “You,” he prompted, his focus on Demira, “form some metal around these losers’ legs so they’ll sink.”

  Gawking, it took her a moment to find her voice and say, “I-I can’t form metal—”

  With a growl that almost loosed her supernatural grip on Calder’s necklace, Nero shoved Ruse away and stalked out into the basement corridor. The shapeshifter eyed Dave, determining whether he could flee from the room without being pelted with acid; before a plan could form, however, the sound of violent smashing erupted from the hallway, followed by Nero’s return with two long, metal chains—both much thicker than the one Calder wore around his throat.

  “Where in the hell—” Ruse began, but Nero cut him off.

  “Can you lock these around them?”

  Realizing he was addressing her, Demira spluttered, “I, um… You want me to chain them?”

  “I want you to wrap these chains around them so they won’t be able to get free. Can you do it, or do you actually have a crush on this wretched normie?”

  Demira attempted to swallow her bewilderment and failed. “You want…to drown them? I…I just thought—”

  “What? That I would throw Mardurus in the pool and let him swim to safety?” Nero challenged ruthlessly.

  Her hold on Calder’s chain faltered as her hands began to shake. “He’s—he’s Nixie’s brother—”

  “Yeah, and I’m sure she won’t miss him when she finds out he was too incompetent to save himself. Chain them.”

  Calder might have felt affronted or enraged by Nero’s words if they weren’t true. Nixie had said only minutes ago that if her boyfriend murdered him, she wouldn’t do anything about it. Would she say the same thing now, if she saw him threatening to drown her twin?

  The harrowing answer to that question plummeted him into a pit of despair so deep that he didn’t struggle when Demira, her grip still on his necklace, used her other hand to command one of the metal chains to wrap around his legs, arms, and torso.

  Nixie was the only human on Earth who had ever truly cared about Calder. He’d had friends and flirtations, but none of those people would have cared when he was hauled away to Periculand, and their parents—they were probably glad to be rid of them. He’d always thought Nixie’s sisterly love for him was rooted deep enough that she would go to any length to save him—or avenge him. But now she wasn’t even here.

  He knew it wasn’t her fault; she was in detention and likely had no idea of Nero’s plans to end him. That this barbaric teenager was actually following through with this insane scheme to murder him for his sass made him think that perhaps it was best Nixie didn’t avenge him once he was dead. Even if she didn’t care for him as much as he’d always assumed, he didn’t want her to die with him—or for him.

  Maybe he was holding Nixie back. She had a water Affinity, and though she’d conquered her fear of water, he hadn’t. If the Affinity that coursed through her was what he abhorred most, how could the two of them ever connect on the same level they once had? How could she not look upon him with the same level of pity Demira had? He was pathetic, and if there was a chance the DNA test had been faulty and Calder was a normie…

  Having an Affinity would have been useful, but he had never wanted one—he’d never wanted to come here. All he’d ever wanted was to be free. He hadn’t been free in Cleveland, living with his horrible parents and attending a school full of pointless classes, and even though Periculand was new and promising, he wasn’t free here, either. The government would never let him pass through those gates again, and he’d never be able to explore the world. Perhaps the only way he’d ever be free of this place—or anywhere—was to embrace this fate.

  This conclusion was the only reason that, once Demira finished binding him and Ruse in their respective chains, Calder didn’t scream, beg, or writhe when Nero crouched beside him and said, “I broke the cameras in here, normie, so Periculy can’t watch. If you’re lucky enough that someone comes down here to fix them before you die, be prepared for round two.” Then, with his raw strength, Nero picked Calder up like a doll and launched him into the depths of the pool.

  Water pushed in from all angles, the pressure so intense that Calder was certain his skull would explode even before his body sunk to the concrete bottom. He’d convinced himself he would keep his eyes squeezed shut and accept this death; it was fitting his worst nightmare was his demise. But submerged in that water, realizing there was no escape—panic threw his eyes and mouth open. The bluish liquid invaded his vision and his throat simultaneously, slithering through his lungs and threatening to suffocate him in that familiar way he’d experienced so many years ago. Somehow, this time was worse.

  Though he was older now—stronger and more capable—there was no way to kick or flail or attempt to swim to the surface. Whatever Demira had done to this chain, it felt indestructible. She could have given him a way to wiggle out of this, but she hadn’t. Maybe she hoped the guilt she harbored for putting him in this position would die along with him.

  The water churned around him, sending him floating across the floor of the pool toward the wall. When the bubbles and waves stilled, he was looking at Ruse, chained just as thoroughly and thrashing with much more determination. His feet finally hit the bottom, but when he attempted to spring to the surface, his head didn’t find air before he sunk back into the depths. Without the use of his legs or arms, he flailed like a dying eel.

  Calder had ceased motion. The water seemed to be stabbing his brain as it threatened to burst his chest. In a matter of seconds, he would meet his end and so would Ruse—not that he cared about the boy who had gotten them both into this dire situation. As Calder watched him, however, eyes squeezed shut and brow furrowed in concentration, he felt an irrefutable urge to stop the water from entering the other boy’s lungs. Maybe it was the loss of oxygen—the water swelling in his own lungs—but he almost swore he saw the water above the boy disappearing—evaporating—while the rest of the pool remained untouched.

  The strange sensation continued until the water above Ruse had been completely displaced, his body still beneath, but his head exposed to the air. Still submerged, Calder couldn’t hear his coughs and cheers of relief, but he could feel that lack of water around Ruse’s head, just like he could feel every molecule of the water in this pool and in the atmosphere above.

  It wasn’t the water that gave him this headache, he realized; it was his own antipathy toward the water—his rejection of it. Because the water sang to him. It had been singing to him for years, and he’d convinced himself the lyrics were foul and the notes unharmonious. When he focused now, though—when he closed his eyes and concentrated on the water filling his lungs—it bent to his will. Without struggle, Calder guided that water out of his body, leashing it, commanding it, until every droplet in his vicinity bowed to him.

  And then, as the water serenaded him with worship, he decimated the pool mercilessly. The water erupted, spraying every wall and drenching the benches. As Ruse collapsed to the floor of the pool, he gaped in awe as the water trickled to the ground, flooding over the edges of the pool and filling it once more. The waterline didn’t rise again, though; now, every drop of water that seeped into the pool flocked to Calder, chained but standing, unfazed by the way his body absorbed the gallons of water that had previously filled the pool.

  When there wasn’t an ounce of liquid left in the room, Calder’s gaze locked onto the s
haggy tendrils of hair hanging over his eyes. In the span of seconds, his hair had morphed from black to ocean blue, and although he’d almost just drowned, he was utterly dry. Even Nixie, who had been demonstrating her Affinity for the past month, would not have been able to do what Calder had just done.

  So, when he ordered, “Your turn,” Ruse did not question him. Instead, he did what he’d been trying to do underwater: shift into a smaller version of himself. On the verge of death, it had been impossible, but now that he was sitting and breathing, he had little trouble decreasing his girth and shimmying out of the chains. The trickier part was removing Calder’s, but once the shapeshifter had acquired bolt cutters from a nearby storage closet and snapped through the metal, they were both free—relatively.

  Calder didn’t thank Ruse even after the boy expressed his gratitude and awe, nor did he speak after they had jumped up to one of the ladders and heaved themselves out of the empty pool. Instead, he pulled back the bluish hair that veiled his eyes and twined it with a black band he’d always kept around his wrist in case Nixie needed it. It was his now, he decided, as he contained his hair in a knot at the apex of his skull—just like the water was his now—just like Nero would be his.

  He would conquer everything that had ever haunted him, he vowed with one last glance at the hollow pool. And he would not be a merciful master.

  The place Calder had been desperate to escape, even with half-naked Demira tempting him, was ironically the place he spent all of his free time over the next month.

  No one had come to fix those broken cameras—at least not until after Calder had refilled the pool with water he’d conjured out of what others would perceive as nothing. To him, water was everywhere—it lingered as vapor in the air, which he morphed into liquid and expanded at rapid rates. Where the water he’d absorbed had gone, he wasn’t entirely sure; perhaps it was a part of him now.

  Nixie had noticed a change in him immediately, but he’d shrugged off his altered hair color and the fact that he now wore it in a bun instead of loose around his face. She said he looked older this way, and he, indeed, felt older—ages older, as if he’d lived a whole lifetime and had been born into a second.

  Since he was acting normal—sleeping through classes and pretending to fear Nero’s authority—Nixie didn’t question his new appearance and simply accepted that maybe he was getting closer to discovering his Affinity. She assumed he spent his afternoons with Colton in the library, Colton assumed he spent his afternoons sleeping with Demira, and Demira…well, she was too busy avoiding him to wonder what he might be up to. None of them expected he spent every day in the Naturals Building basement, practicing his water Affinity.

  Nero still wasn’t quite sure how Calder was alive—or Ruse, for that matter. He’d questioned every living soul in Periculand, trying to discover who had freed them, but he hadn’t followed through with his threat for round two. Perhaps it was because of Nixie—because he feared she would find out about his death wish against her brother—or perhaps it was because he feared Calder had somehow freed himself and was powerful enough to conquer death.

  This prospect was the reason Calder hadn’t lost his swagger. He remained calm when Nero glared at him from afar and ventured to shoot him a smug smirk a few times, just to keep the bully on edge—just to keep him waiting for his secret to be revealed.

  There were plenty of moments he could have exposed his Affinity to Nero and the rest of his peers—and to Nixie, who he hated lying to—but he was waiting for the moment Nero got cocky enough to harass Ruse again. Or more accurately, the moment Ruse got ballsy enough to tantalize Nero again.

  Calder knew it was the right moment, not because he heard Nero stomping up the spiral staircase of the tower to hunt Ruse down, but because, while he and Colton sat in their dorm one evening, his roommate unexpectedly said, “Ruse Dispus posed as a male with actual attractive value and hooked up with Orla Belven. Nero Corvis is not pleased.”

  Seated at his desk, Calder whipped around and abandoned the chart of water displacement measurements and swimming distances he’d been logging. “What?”

  “Ruse did it to enrage Nero and it worked. Nero Corvis was once in love with Orla, and though he is now infatuated with Nixie Mardurus, he still strives to destroy any male or female sexually entangled with his ex-girlfriend—”

  “Okay, okay, that’s enough, thank you,” Calder interjected as he sprung out of his chair. His roommate didn’t object when he stalked out of the room, ascending the steps to the fifth floor, where the door to Nero’s room was wide open.

  Lips curling deviously, Calder sauntered right into room 502 without any intention of stopping before he found the bully—until he saw two figures tangled on the bed. Demira jumped off Dave as if she’d been electrocuted. To Calder’s relief, the two were clothed—but they’d been on the verge of undressing.

  “Having fun?” he quipped as Dave rose from the bed, his neon-green hair glowing in the dim light from his bedside lamp.

  Overcoming her embarrassment, Demira clucked her tongue and met his gaze levelly. “Mardurus, I think you know what Nero will do if he finds you in here.”

  “What Nero will make you do, you mean?” he prompted, reveling in her discomfort. “Or have you graduated from slave to faithful servant?” Acid began to form on Dave’s hands, so Calder swiftly added, “I think Nero’s too busy in the bathroom to care about me.” He nodded toward the bathroom door, beyond which grunting and smashing sounded. “Today’s dinner didn’t sit well with me, either—”

  “He’s punishing Dispus,” Demira snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. She wore her grease-smeared overalls today—the same ones she’d worn when Fraco and Aethelred had picked her up over two months ago. They reminded her of her father, she’d once told Calder. He felt no sympathy for her now, though. Everyone had been through hell, just a different kind.

  “Ah, well, then he won’t mind being interrupted,” Calder concluded, pacing toward the bathroom door before they could stop him. When the door was open, he found Nero and Ruse both crammed in their small, shared bathroom, the bully repeatedly shoving the shapeshifter’s head in the toilet.

  Nero was too involved in his task—too blinded by his rage—to notice when Calder appeared in the doorway and lifted a finger to withdraw the water from the toilet, leaving it barren. The moment the bully comprehended what had occurred, he released his grip on Ruse and whirled on Calder, ready to punch. Before he could initiate the blow, however, his gray eyes locked onto the orb of water suspended above the toilet.

  “Smart,” Calder remarked, inclining his head toward Nero’s frozen fist while he slowly moved the water through the air, closer and closer to the brute’s face. “I think you know this ends the same way it started last month, only now, the roles are reversed, aren’t they?”

  Nero swallowed, eyeing the floating water with unease. “Demira, leash him.”

  Calder hadn’t noticed Demira and Dave step up behind him. But when the turquoise-haired girl lifted her hand in his direction, searching for the metal chain, he watched with impassive eyes. It wasn’t until the shock morphed her expression that he resumed his sly smirk.

  “I don’t appreciate being leashed,” he said, pulling at the crew neck of his t-shirt with his free hand and revealing bare skin. “Nice try, though, Nero. I will say, I’m impressed you actually learned her name. Oh, and Dave, don’t even try with the acid—I can shove this water up your nose before you can focus that small brain of yours enough to blink.”

  Ruse, sitting on the floor and leaning against the vanity, barked out a laugh that filled the small bathroom with giddiness. Neither Calder nor Nero acknowledged him; their glowers were fixated solely on each other.

  “What do you want?” Nero ground out, enunciating each word.

  Calder’s eyebrows jumped as the suspended water crept closer to Nero’s airways. “Your girlfriend won’t always be here to save you, Corvis—she does get quite a few detentions. You don’t want m
e as an enemy—you don’t want me teaming up with Dispus, Stromer, and Mensen against you. You need me as your ally. I’m not disposable.”

  Ruse’s enthusiasm fizzled with that. For once, graveness overtook his features, and he didn’t make a snarky remark. He could only observe with growing wariness as Nero carefully weighed the pros and cons of Calder’s alliance.

  “Being my ally doesn’t mean being my equal,” he finally said, ignoring the water that lingered near his nose. “I’m in charge here, Mardurus. If you’re on my side, you’re under my authority without objection.”

  “As long as you respect Nixie,” he began, twirling the water through the air, “I’ll do whatever the hell you want.”

  “Good. You’ll deal with Dispus, then,” Nero concluded as he stalked past Calder into his room. “I know you saved him last time; now I want you to give him a taste of what could have been.”

  “Gladly,” was Calder’s unhesitant response. When Nero didn’t stick around to watch and Demira and Dave didn’t protest as he slammed the bathroom door, he almost let out a sigh. “Get up,” he commanded Ruse, who tentatively rose to his feet. “If Nero asks, I drowned you for a few minutes but let you off on the condition that you don’t bother him. Make it sound like I tortured you enough that you wouldn’t want it to happen again—that way, he makes sure it does happen again, rather than give you his own personal beating. If you do something ridiculously stupid, though, I think I might actually drown you. Are we clear?”

  Ruse nodded once before licking his lips and eyeing Calder with those muted silver eyes—his true form, Calder realized. “Should I make some gurgling noises, so those two think you actually did it?”

  “If it pleases you,” he answered with an indifferent shrug.

  He found it difficult, though, not to snort when the other boy began choking and gagging at an absurdly dramatic volume, and he actually did snicker when Ruse strolled out of the bathroom and witnessed Demira’s and Dave’s undiluted expression of horror. He felt no remorse when he drenched them and the bed they’d been making out on before exiting the room.