BLUE BLOOD

9 | for the lion?

x

"Father!" I screamed, gripping the handle of the locked door. "Let us out!"

Silas Jontas, my older half-brother, stood under the single swaying light bulb in this dark room. He watched me with those eyes. "He won't let us out. Don't you understand? This is a game."

I shook my head, terror shooting up to me as the chained beast in the corner growled. "This isn't a game, Silas. Alexander would have said-"

"But he can't because he's dead," Silas snapped with cold eyes. "Isn't he?"

I stared at him, then the knife in his hands. "Don't. Silas, don't. That's a lion."

He only smiled. "Do you know how to win the game?"

"Please, Silas," I begged, knowing what he was about to do, "Please-"

"Understand how it works."

x

"Would they really let me in if they knew I was a Du Sang?" I questioned Avery as we took a seat on his roof.

We were watching the sea of stars up above because it turned out we were both insomniacs.

"Yes," Avery replied, his shirt rippling as he tensed. "You know that."

I managed a soft laugh. "So why aren't you asking why I'm still here with you?"

He smirked a little. "Why wouldn't you stay with me?"

There was no point answering his question and he knew it. I wasn't going to give up my last name as leverage unless I absolutely needed to.

I couldn't stop wondering why he was here with me instead of celebrating his birthday with his friends. Drunk, high, or with a girl who would make him forget.

Avery Dragomir was not the person I expected him to be.

Instead, he was quiet. Thoughtful. Witty. Curious. Intelligent yet boyish, with his lopsided grin.

"Tell me about them," I said, after flashing him a smile that made his eyes flicker to my lips briefly. "The blue bloods."

"What do you want to know?" His dark hair gleamed under the moonlight, shadowing the angles of his face.

Avery watched me, quietly gauging and dissecting me, trying to understand me and my motives. Suddenly, I could understand why every girl craved for his presence. He was carved like a Greek statue but had the intelligenceo of their philosophers.

"Anything."

"We hold traditions," he began and I found myself drawing into his words, his story. "Every year, we'll have some days we're always gone from the academy. They're highly private but not secret. Everyone knows of them but only blue bloods know the exact details."

"What do you do?" I asked, tentatively.

"Games," Avery said, after a moment, looking hard out to the sky. "We've played them since we were children. It used to be a harmless Truth or Dare. Now they're much more dangerous.l with real stakes. We've done this for so long that we've created our own games too."

There was something about these games that brought a chill up my spine. "You hate them. The blue bloods. Even though you pretend to be friends with them." Why? What was his motive?