Order of Scorpions

by Ivy Asher

It’s as though someone hastily erased all the vital details of who I am, leaving only streaks of chalk and murky clouds of dust in their wake.

I want to make anyone who would dare to hurt me again...pay.

The only thing I ever want to be to anyone is the last thing they see before they die.

We’re all soulless, morally corrupt dealers of death. It’s best not to get too lost in the glitz and glamour of this occasion and remember the reality of what’s all around us. Tilleo built his empire on the back of fae slaves, and we’ve built ours in the shroud of murder.

“You’re my brother and I don’t want to hurt you, but she’s my mate. If you don’t move, I will fuck you up,” I warn.

I don’t want to get a taste of this life and love it, only to find out that it’s poison.

Step one of the new plan is find a dagger. Step two, do whatever I need to do to get away and survive on my own two feet. Step three, vengeance. I’m free, and no matter what, I’m going to make sure I stay that way, and then I’ll make anyone who’s ever hurt me, pay.

“What doesn’t kill us fortifies us,” I offer gently, my strokes through her hair slowing as we stare at one another. I feel as though a part of her is reaching out to me, and something in me takes a hold of it and vows to never let it go. “We can take those things…” I continue, my voice growing deeper as purpose and regard settle like a tether between us. “Melt them down, mold them, and reshape them until they work for us instead of against us. Then, when we have weapons instead of wounds, we make the fuckers pay for what they did to us.”

What would be left in the wake of the detonation that’s building between us?

Now look at me being fitted like the princess of death, all because three Scorpions decided I was worthy.

They should really consider a name change from Order of Scorpions to Order of Confounding Cunt Teasers.

If the three of them are the bargain for my soul, they can have it.

“You should know better than anyone that when you let a wolf into the paddock, the sheep always lose.” “Good thing we’re not sheep,” Kiffin counters. “True, but even a fox isn’t a match for a wolf,”

“You can bathe in the blood and tears of anyone who’s ever hurt you, including us, all you have to do is say the word and it’s done,”

“You’re not her anymore,” Skull mumbles quietly in my ear, his hand pressed to the small of my back. “You are not defenseless. You are not at their mercy. You are the dangerous one now. You are their reckoning.”

They’re mine, and we’ll possess and protect each other long past our last breaths, because even death will know it has no claim here.

“If I die today, it will be the freest and happiest I’ve ever been in my life. What you and your brothers have given me is so much more than I ever dared to dream. I will take my last breath with no regrets in my heart, needing nothing more than what the three of you have already given me.”

“I was already a monster; you just showed me how to embrace it.”

We are the dealers of death that creep from the shadows. We are the owners of each other’s destinies. We are the Order of Scorpions, and our reign begins now.