He frowned. “Why?”
“Because I need to cut off this rat’s nest.” I grabbed at my curls and pulled them forward to show how tangled they’d gotten. Trying to brush it had made it ten times worse.
Whenever I cut my hair it grew back immediately, but maybe it would grow back untangled.
Work smarter not harder.
I focused on my annoyance with my hair instead of the swollen state of Orion’s lips.
Mine throbbed.
I wanted to push him back onto the floor and impale myself on him. What was the worst that could happen? Death.
Maybe you should do it.
Orion’s features hardened, and he said, “No, you aren’t.” It was the loudest I’d heard him speak, and the lyrical sound sent a shiver down my spine. He looked angry.
It wrenched me out of my thoughts.
What was he freaking out about?
Bedding rustled behind Orion, and I prayed to the sun god that it wasn’t what I thought it was.
“What’s going on?” Malum asked as he rubbed at his face and sat up, his naked torso on glorious display.
I barely noticed that his dark-bronze skin gave him the appearance of one of the ancient statues that guarded the famed Library of Alexandria.
“Arabella’s trying to cut her hair off,” Orion whispered.
Malum shook his head and said, “No, she’s not.” Scarlet flames danced across his buzz cut in an imitation of his crown.
“I’ll do whatever I want with it, since it’s my hair,” I whispered loudly while glancing over at John to make sure he was still asleep. My friend needed his rest before the competition tomorrow.
I opened my mouth to explain that my hair would just grow back but smacked it shut. It was too fun riling them up.
If I was honest with myself, it was all I had to live for lately.
Hatred gave me energy.
When John didn’t move, I whispered louder at Malum, “Maybe I’ll get a buzz cut like you. I’d definitely pull it off better.”
“Touch a strand on your head and I’ll let Scorpius punish you,” Malum snarled. “You’re our slave, which means it’s not your hair; it’s our hair. We own you.”
Scorpius sat up in the bed and smirked, and the expression was pure evil.
Glad everyone was awake.
Not.
Orion’s posture was nonthreatening compared to his mates’， but he didn’t open his mouth to dispute Malum.
I was overwhelmed with relief that I’d stopped whatever was happening between us.
Orion didn’t stand up for me to his mates.
He wasn’t on my side.
Without thinking, I chucked my hairbrush across the room, and it smacked satisfyingly against Malum’s hard chest and fell to the bed.
A red welt immediately appeared on his large pectoral muscle. He had bigger tits than I did.
There was a long moment where I debated the merits of buying him a bra and gifting it to him.
He must have read my mind.
Malum was across the room so quickly that I didn’t see him move.
My head was wrenched backward as fingers tangled in my hair and held my neck to the side at a painful angle. He snarled, “You better watch yourself. Bitch.”
I spat in his face, and a big goop of saliva slid down his cheek.
I smiled. “You’ve got something on your face.”
The flames leaped higher on Malum’s skull as he yanked my head downward with such force that I fell to my knees.
He towered above me, an amalgamation of harsh features, tattoos, bulging muscles, and rage. A dark god above his subject. Orion stood next to him and watched with a strange expression.
Goose bumps pebbled my skin.
Malum smiled, and it was the meanest face I’d ever seen a person make.
I held his gaze with mine. “Let me go, or I’ll destroy you.”
Malum slowly wiped the spit off his face and leaned forward.
Rich scents overwhelmed my senses as he pressed his face beside mine. He turned his head, and his stubble scratched harshly against my sensitive neck.
Unlike his mate, he didn’t smell sweet. He reeked of tobacco and whiskey.
Pain scoured my back.
Orion ran his fingers across my forehead.
White streaks blurred my vision.
Malum’s breath was hot against the shell of my ear. “Try to hurt me and I’ll ruin you so thoroughly that you won’t remember your own name.” His rough voice rasped through me like lava.
Pleasure and pain streaked across my senses with such fervor that I could only do one thing.
I stood up and raised my knee.
Slammed it into his balls.
Then I slammed it again.
And again.
Malum grunted in pain, and I used the distraction to rip away from him.
I scoffed down at him. “You’re an ass.” Then I hacked another loogie onto his face and flipped my hair.
Dominance asserted. Check.
Straightening my sweatshirt, I shoved my pipe between my lips, took a long drag, and blew out Horse. The incorporeal crow landed on my shoulder.
Together we stared down at the pathetic devil moaning at our feet.
“What’s going on?” John asked sleepily from across the room as he rubbed at his eyes.
“I’m just asserting that I’m the alpha over Malum,” I said calmly.
Devils and fae weren’t separated into alphas, betas, and omegas like shifters, but we all knew I’d be an alpha if I were a shifter.
“Go back to sleep,” I said to John.
He gave me a sleepy thumbs-up. “Good for you.” He pressed the pillow over his head and resumed snoring.
Malum mumbled something about a “motherfucking brat who needed to learn her place,” but the effect was ruined because he remained in the fetal position, cupping his balls like a common degenerate.
I stared down at him and whispered, “Mitch.”
His expression darkened and I held myself back from clapping.
Orion arched his brow as he stared at me, but he didn’t move to help his mate. He licked his lip as he looked between the two of us like he was imagining something sordid.
More goose bumps broke out across my arms.
What do you really know about these men?
Scorpius untangled himself from the bed and stalked across the room like a panther, his seven-foot frame moving with a lazy grace.
“You think you can just act without consequences?” he sneered softly. “Such an idiot.”
I ducked as he grabbed at me, but somehow the blind king anticipated my movement, and his long arm wrapped around my throat.
I tried futilely to break his hold. His long fingers were like steel.
“Do you have a neck fetish or something?” I asked through gritted teeth because lately it seemed like the blind devil’s hands were always around my throat.
“You want to find out?” Scorpius asked darkly as his nails dug into my sensitive skin.
The pain that streaked down my spine answered the question for me.
A part of me did.
I needed immediate professional help.
Chapter 14
Aran
FAMILY
The Legionnaire Games: Day 22, hour 19
Scorpius’s callused thumb stroked slowly down the sensitive slope where my skin met my clavicle, where my enchanted Adam’s apple used to be.
Did he wish I still had one?
I hadn’t forgotten that he’d called me ugly earlier.
Scorpius’s fingers tightened, and he leaned closer. The rich scents of bergamot and musk wrapped around me like a snake suffocating its prey.