Ascher stared down at Jinx with narrowed eyes. “Did you get a neck tattoo while you were at school?” he asked incredulously as he rubbed at the rose-and-flame ink that covered his throat.
Shit.
A small cursive word was tattooed vertically down the side of Jinx’s pale neck.
Sadie and I made panicked eye contact.
Jinx had mentioned tattooing her neck when she’d visited the academy a few weeks ago, but I’d assumed it was a joke.
“Hold me back before I kill her,” Jax growled, and Cobra tightened his pale arms, the jewels embedded in his skin twinkling.
He and Sadie struggled to restrain the angry alpha.
Jinx rolled her eyes at him and petted Warren’s head. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“Why is the pervert with you?” Sadie asked as she pointed at the ferret.
None of us liked that Warren had been disguised in his animal form for months, living with the girls. Plus, we’d caught him with underwear on his head. He claimed he did not know what it was and had thought it was a hat, but none of us believed him.
Jinx glowered at Sadie. “This is just a ferret.” She shook him back and forth like a rag doll. “Don’t bring it up again or he won’t be able to stay. He’s my backup.”
Oh, great.
A thirteen-year-old had secretly smuggled a grown man into Elite Academy.
Lothaire was going to love that.
“I didn’t think pets were allowed?” the angel with the two-colored eyes asked loudly as he leered at Jinx. His harsh feline features were pulled tight with disgust.
Sadie and her mates whipped their heads in his direction. Their eyes glowed as they moved out of line to surround her protectively.
“Are you threatening my sister?” Jax asked slowly as his chest vibrated with a low growl.
The angel faced forward and said nothing else.
Jax turned back to Jinx, and his eye twitched as he stared down at the ferret. Cobra looked even angrier, and his jewels began moving across his skin like they always did before they became his shadow snakes.
Jinx flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned away.
Since our line was standing next to the shifter line, it gave me the perfect chance to check out her tattoo. I leaned closer to read it. It started with a G and ended with an n, but I couldn’t make out the rest of it.
Does it say Garden?
Weird choice, but since I had “WHORE” carved into my back, I couldn’t judge.
“Why are you staring at me with mopey eyes? Buck up and get ready for the games, cannibal.” Jinx looked over at me with disdain.
I glanced around and was relieved to see that everyone had turned back around and was listening to Lothaire give instructions.
No one was paying us any attention.
Sun god. If everyone started calling me that, I’d lose it.
How had I ever missed Jinx? Guess it really was true: Stockholm syndrome was a silent killer.
I tried to assert my dominance and whispered back, “Big talk coming from someone who has the build of a malnourished garden gnome.”
Jinx scoffed.
Her body posture was casual like she wasn’t a small child standing in the middle of an arena built for war, surrounded by powerful warriors two times her size. She narrowed her eyes at me and said, “I almost didn’t recognize you. I forgot how pathetic and unintimidating you look as a woman. You’re barely stronger than Sadie. You need to train harder.”
I made a mocking face and pretended I wasn’t offended. She’d attack if she caught a sniff of insecurity.
I tried discreetly to lift my shirt and wipe my face to show off my six-pack abs.
Jinx gaped at me like I was an idiot.
I pushed my shirt down as I realized I was acting like a douchey male. Apparently, the enchanted disguise had really gotten to me.
Unsurprisingly, I’d become the problem. Again.
Scorpius chuckled behind me in line, and it took me a second to realize he was laughing at what Jinx had said about me looking pathetic as a woman.
Does he agree with her?
From what I’d seen, John and the kings were bisexual.
It was stupid, but I wondered if they all secretly wished I was a guy. In the hall, the kings had said they thought I was disgusting as a woman, but I’d assumed they were trying to get a rise out of me.
What if they meant it?
They had constantly called me pretty boy, but no one had called me pretty since I’d revealed I was a woman.
I grimaced at my ridiculous train of thought.
My vampyre father was standing in the middle of an arena designed to test people for war. I was about to compete against angels, devils, leviathans, assassins, and shifters for leadership positions in an inter-realm war.
Yet I worried about whether men I hated preferred what gender I was?
This was 100 percent why Jinx bullied me.
I rubbed my hands over my face and took a deep breath, determined to focus on what mattered. Surviving the next forty days.
“Where’s our substitute, sir?” Malum asked, and it pulled me out of my thoughts.
Lyla had only RJE’d with five people, and there were six teams.
I looked around the arena and realized there was no one else arriving.
We were missing our substitute.
Lothaire looked unconcerned and said, “Your substitute is making arrangements to be present, and it will take a few weeks. All of you have met him before and know him well.”
John made a choking noise behind me.
How could a human, an undercover fae queen, three devil kings, and two demons all know someone?
It made zero sense.
Except. Oh shit.
There were only four men in all the realms that all of us knew: Horace, Noah, Shane, and Demetre. All of them were dead, each death because of me.
My stomach cramped.
The gods were involved in these games, so it wasn’t impossible to think someone had been brought back from the dead. Maybe?
My thoughts became increasingly panicked. How did John dispose of Horace’s body? Did I not actually kill him?
I sucked on my pipe as Lothaire resumed talking about the games like everything had been cleared up.
“The Legionnaire Games are not a normal tournament by any means. They’re not a medieval killing spree like you’re probably expecting. This is not a pissing contest to see who can stab other people most effectively.”
Not what I’d expected.
Lothaire shouted over the ocean’s roar, “The gods already know about your legions’ physical prowesses.”
He paused.
“To lead a war, you all must be so much more than warriors.”
I exhaled a cloud of smoke.
Lothaire glared at each of us. “You will make gut-wrenching decisions under pressures that none of you can imagine. Repeatedly. And you’ll have to make the right ones or people will die. The fate of civilization as we know it will be in all your hands.”
I coughed as I sucked in smoke too quickly.
He did not just say that?
Sun god, had he ever heard of not jinxing people? The realms were 100 percent doomed.
RIP civilization. I made the sign of respect for the dead with my hand. It was good while it lasted; I was going to miss showers and freedom.
Although, technically, I had no free will.
Guess it was just showers.
Lothaire’s expression was flat as he said, “The games are the most demanding psychological test in all the realms.”