I was so busy counting I almost missed it.
It took me a moment to register that he mumbled something else under his breath.
“If anyone looks at your naked body, I’ll kill them.”
“What?” I whispered. “What did you say?”
John flashed his dimples and patted my head. “Almost done, Aran. Just hang in there a little more.”
That wasn’t what he said.
When he tried to have me roll over to fix my back, I snarled and refused to budge.
“I’m fine, I can feel that there are no cuts on my back,” I lied through gritted teeth.
He made a face of disbelief and murmured something about an ungrateful, ridiculous woman but stopped fighting with me.
I was a master manipulator. Turns out I was my father’s daughter, after all.
Finally, a long, sweat-filled hour later, John threw the needle down and said, “You’re done. No more.”
His hands trembled, but he rubbed them together to stop the shaking.
My eyelids felt like they weighed a million pounds. “I guess I’ll sleep here.” The sheet was stiff around my legs, and I squirmed with discomfort, but tiredness outweighed my disgust.
I shivered with a sudden chill.
“No. You won’t.” Gentle hands tugged another shirt over my body, and I inhaled his sandalwood musk. John’s smell was more pleasant than the kings’ scent. Less aggressive. Warmer. It felt like home.
I tried to move my legs, but nothing cooperated.
“Stay still, let me do it,” John whispered against my ear as he lifted me.
Instead of laying me in a bed, he placed me gently onto cold tiles and ran warm water over me. I was still wearing his T-shirt and mine, but it didn’t matter.
A noise of enjoyment tumbled from my lips.
The warmth was everything.
My eyes were too heavy to open, so I just sat limply and gave grunts of approval as John gently dragged the soap over me.
I hated being grimy.
I needed this.
As he gently washed me, my will to live went from negative ten to five. It was an improvement, but the scale was out of one hundred.
When John gently pulled apart the tight braids lying against my scalp, my eyes rolled back with bliss. He scrubbed suds against my scalp, and I tipped my head back further.
“Ohmysungod yes,” I keened to encourage him to keep going.
His fingers were magic.
He massaged my temples and skull with an expert pressure that was so amazing I barely noticed the streaks of pain lighting up my spine.
John chuckled hoarsely, but said nothing.
“Time to stand up, killer.” Hands grabbed me under my armpits and easily pulled me to my feet. Then he wrapped my hair up in a towel, and I shuffled with him unsteadily.
“Hands up.” John’s voice was soft with a slight rasp. “Don’t worry, my eyes are closed. Let’s just get you into dry clothes.”
“My eyes are also closed,” I said helpfully, and he rewarded me with a laugh as I put my hands in the air.
“How big is your head?” He huffed as he struggled to pull his sweatshirt onto me.
I purposefully flailed around and made it more difficult.
My hands smacked at his face.
“Did you just hit me? After I massaged your head?” John asked with fake outrage, and he clicked his tongue. “Guess you really are the scary queen everyone talks about.”
I giggled.
He used my momentary stillness to pull the hoodie over me.
It must have been the oversize one he always wore, because it hit me midthigh.
“Good enough,” John said.
Next thing I knew, I was being carried while pressed against a muscular chest. Then I was placed on a fluffy mattress while the covers were tucked under my feet.
The bed creaked as John climbed in next to me.
He radiated heat like a furnace, and I snuggled against him.
“If you fart, I’ll kill you,” I mumbled.
John laid his arm over my shoulders softly as he struggled to position himself. The beds weren’t meant to accommodate two tall people. No wonder the demons and kings were always tangled together.
John’s voice trailed off like he was falling asleep. “Please, we both know which one of us has a farting problem.”
I buried my head under a pillow. “It was just that one night. Those tacos were killer.”
“Sure, Aran. The first step to getting help is admitting you have a problem.”
The last thought that drifted through my mind before sleep claimed me was, he doesn’t call me Arabella like the kings. I like the sound of my name on his lips.
Chapter 17
Aran
BLOODY EYES
The Legionnaire Games: Day 27, hour 11
“Fucking slut,” a demonic beast growled as it ripped the warm covers off me.
There was a loud smacking noise as the bed bounced. The furnace I’d been pressed against disappeared.
I shivered.
Another demonic beast sneered, “Whore.”
They definitely didn’t mean it in a coquette way. Embarrassing for them.
“Oh, look,” I said as I squinted open my crusty eyes. “Three bastards with mommy issues and the emotional maturity of dead fish.”
“We don’t have mothers,” Scorpius snapped.
The jokes really wrote themselves.
Grabbing at the covers, I pulled them over my head and said, “Exactly.” Again, they were ripped away, and goose bumps erupted across my partially healed legs.
Someone had opened the room’s curtains, and the red light from the eclipse was too bright.
I pulled my hoodie up over my head and told my attackers, “You’re a bunch of soulless, demonic men.”
“Hey, that’s offensive,” Vegar said across the room.
I winced.
“Sorry, let me rephrase.” I waved my hands. “The Devil Kings in this room are horrible pieces of shit. Everyone else is chill. I have no beef with the demon and pathetic human communities.”
John huffed. “Who are you calling pathetic, Princess? Because I know it’s not me.” His laughter was low and smooth. “If you knew what I was, you wouldn’t be saying that.”
I pulled the hoodie away from my eyes.
John was standing beside his bed in nothing but loose gray sweatpants.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked and pointedly looked away from his impressive naked torso.
John flashed a dimple and winked. “You don’t want to know.”
Keeping my eyes on the ceiling, I held my hands toward him. “Get back into bed. You’re like a giant heating pad, and I’m cold.”
I grinned as John immediately leaned forward to snuggle into my arms.
A flaming arm clotheslined him.
He choked and stumbled backward, then fell to his knees on the floor. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked Malum in between gasps for air.
The three kings stood in the middle of the room, and all their attention was on me.
“Take it off,” Orion mouthed and gestured at my sweatshirt.
I rubbed the blurriness out of my eyes and asked with confusion, “What?”
Orion was covered in bruises and stitches and didn’t look well. His golden skin was pallid, and he was panting loudly from the exertion of standing upright.
His lips were flat lines as he mouthed, “You’re ours. You don’t wear another man’s clothes.”