Reckless Royals Of Nocturne

The blue powder burned going up my nose, but I needed it. The high hit me immediately, that familiar rush that made everything sharper and duller at the same time. I wiped my nostril with the back of my hand and looked down at the pathetic boy kneeling on my dorm room floor.

“What did you tell him?” I demanded.

His shoulders tensed, but he didn’t look up. “Luca is my friend. He asked for my opinion and I was honest with him.”

The words hit me like ice water. I felt my jaw clench. “Honest about what?”

“You two aren’t good for each other.”

Something inside me snapped. I shot up from my chair, crossed the room in three quick steps, and slapped him hard across the face. The sound echoed in the small space. My palm stung, but it felt good.

“I am good for everybody, you f*ck*ng faggot.” The words came out sharp and mean. I wanted them to hurt. “Even you.”

He touched his cheek where I’d hit him, but still didn’t meet my eyes. That p*ss*d me off more.

“And you think Luca f*ck*ng Ashborne is your friend?” I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Wait till he knows what you are. Will he still see you the same?”

That got his attention. His head snapped up, and I saw fear flash across his face. Good. Fear was what I needed from him.

He stood up slowly, adjusting his uniform with shaking hands. “I have gotten everything you asked of me. You cannot keep threatening to expose me.”

I stepped forward and brought my heel down hard on his hands. He cried out, and I felt the satisfying crunch of small bones. Blood welled up between his fingers.

“I can and I will.” I ground my heel down harder, enjoying the way he winced. “You took something from me and it’s only fair I do the same.”

I pulled my foot back and walked to the veranda doors, throwing them open. The night air rushed in, cool against my flushed skin. The moonshine was making everything feel electric, like my nerves were on fire in the best way.

“Tomorrow, I sing like a f*ck*ng canary!” I called over my shoulder.

He stood up behind me, wiping blood on his uniform. There was something different about his posture now. Something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

"Saraphina, do you know why moonshine is such a potent drug for shifters?” he asked.

I turned around, annoyed. “You’re the drug dealer. You tell me.”

His smile was different now. Cold. It didn’t reach his eyes at all. “It makes you almost human. Regeneration pauses to heighten the euphoria. The purer the drugs, the better the euphoria.”

I stared at him, trying to process what he was saying. The moonshine was making my thoughts fuzzy around the edges. “What do I do with that information?”

That’s when he moved.

I’d seen him scared and submissive for months. I’d gotten used to him being weak, pathetic, easy to control. But the person who charged at me wasn’t that boy at all. He was fast, faster than I expected, and before I could react, his hands were on my shoulders.

The veranda railing hit the back of my legs. I tried to grab him, to get my balance, but he was already pulling his hands away. My fingers scraped against his uniform, finding nothing to hold onto.

Then I was falling.

The ground rushed up to meet me. I had maybe three seconds to understand what was happening, to feel the wind whipping past my face, to see his silhouette framed against the light from my room. He was looking down at me with an expression I couldn’t read. Horror and thrill mixed together in a way that made my stomach lurch.

I hit the concrete with a sound I felt more than heard. My body folded in ways it wasn’t meant to fold. Pain exploded through every part of me at once, white-hot and overwhelming.

I tried to move, to push myself up, but nothing worked right. My arms felt like they were full of broken glass. When I looked down, I could see bone sticking out of my forearm, white and slick with blood.

The blood was everywhere. It pooled around my head, warm and sticky. I could taste copper in my mouth. When I tried to touch my skull, my fingers came away wet and red. Something was wrong with the shape of my head. Really wrong.

This should have been healing already. My body should have been knitting itself back together, bones sliding back into place, cuts sealing themselves. That’s what being a shifter meant. We didn’t stay broken.

But I wasn’t healing.

The moonshine. His words came back to me, clearer now than they’d been in my fuzzy, drug-addled brain. Regeneration pauses to heighten the euphoria. The purer the drugs, the better the euphoria.

He’d been giving me the pure stuff. The really pure stuff. And I’d been taking it for weeks, building it up in my system, chasing that perfect high.

I tried to shift, to force my body into its other form where maybe the healing would work better. Nothing happened. I was stuck in this broken, bleeding human shape.

My vision started to blur at the edges. The pain was fading, which should have been good, but I knew it wasn’t. It meant I was dying. Really dying.

“Please,” I whispered to the darkness above me. “Goddess, please help me.”

I’d never prayed before, not really. My family wasn’t religious. We believed in strength, in power, in taking what we wanted. But lying there on the cold concrete with my life leaking out of me, I found myself begging any deity that might be listening.

The stars looked down at me, distant and cold. No divine intervention was coming. No miraculous healing. No last-minute rescue.

Just me, alone in the dark, with the taste of blood in my mouth and the slow, steady weakening of my heartbeat.

I thought about Luca. About the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching. About how he’d been pulling away lately, asking questions I didn’t want to answer. About the boy upstairs who’d finally found his spine and used it to push me off a balcony.

I thought about my father. About the disappointment that would cross his face when he heard what happened. About how I’d always been the problem child, the one who couldn’t quite live up to the family name. About how this would be just one more way I’d let him down.

The darkness was creeping in from all sides now. My heartbeat was getting slower, weaker. Each breath was harder than the last.

I was going to die here, broken and alone. Because I’d pushed too hard, threatened too much. Because I’d thought I was untouchable.

The last thing I saw was the light from my dorm room window, warm and golden against the black sky. The last thing I thought was that Dad was going to be so disappointed.

Then there was nothing at all.

RAE

The slap came so fast I barely saw Celeste's hand move. My cheek burned where her palm connected, and I tasted blood where my teeth cut into my lip.

"You brought the wrong wine," she hissed, her perfect blonde hair catching the light from the crystal chandelier. "I specifically asked for the 1987 Bordeaux, not this cheap garbage."

I kept my eyes down, staring at the polished marble floor. "I'm sorry, Luna Celeste. I thought you said—"

"Don't you dare contradict me." Her voice could have frozen water. "Go to the cellar and bring back what I actually ordered. My guest is waiting."

I nodded and turned to leave, but her voice stopped me cold.

"And Rae? If you embarrass me again tonight, you'll regret it."

I walked through the ballroom, my face still stinging. The Vale estate was in full swing tonight, filled with the most important shifters in the territory. Crystal glasses clinked. Expensive perfume hung heavy in the