I held on to that feeling of being lucky with bloody nails.
You are blessed.
The demons writhed under their sheets, and each king had a woman beneath him. Grunts, slaps, and moans echoed.
The men fornicating was nothing new, but something felt different, and it wasn’t that I was no longer disguised as a dude.
I tried to look away.
Tried to not stare.
I failed.
I watched with morbid fascination.
Everyone was naked but John. He still wore his T-shirt, but his sweatpants were pushed down his muscular thighs.
A black-haired woman with curly hair knelt in front of him, and her impressive boobs were pushed up in a lacy bra.
She was small and curvy. Excessively pretty as she gagged with half his dick down her throat while John’s hands fisted her curls.
His face was barren of dimples.
His jaw clenched, his dark eyes hooded, and the muscular lines of his neck strained. He didn’t look like my happy-go-lucky friend.
John pulled the woman back and forth on his dick.
He looked intense.
His pace was slow, almost torturous, and it was a stark contrast to the kings’， who pistoned their hips like it was a race.
John leisurely wrung out his pleasure with smooth, hypnotizing movements.
Look away. You’re staring at your friend like a creep. What are you doing?
John’s tongue snaked out and licked his surprisingly full lower lip. He groaned softly as he dragged his hips back and forth.
Fireworks of pain exploded down my spine.
I meant to look away, I meant to study my cuticles or stare at Horse, I meant to do anything but watch my friend have sex.
But I didn’t.
Minutes stretched.
Now that I was staring at them, men were kinda ugly.
I couldn’t look away.
Goose bumps erupted across my skin, and I shivered. My flesh chilled. The blinds were still open, but the room twisted in shades of grayish red.
I picked my lip and tugged at the fine layer of skin.
Pulled it off. For a long moment, I debated selling it for money to my fae worshippers. Then I remembered I was rich and stopped wondering how much I could charge for my skin.
I forced myself to focus on the room.
Such a stupid thing—sex—just two bodies wringing pleasure from each other. Not a big deal, just a natural bodily response.
One I could never do without pain.
My head throbbed with the beginning of a tension migraine. The weight of an imaginary fae crown was heavy on my skull.
The word whore crushed my spine.
In my mind, I took the place of the leviathan competitor, and I was crucified to the sacred tree. Bleeding out slowly, I whimpered as people talked and chatted around me.
Sun god, he was being tortured a foot away from me as I’d laughed while feeling lucky.
Sari’s expression of disgust flashed through my mind.
I shivered harder.
She wasn’t wrong.
John glanced up, and his dark eyes pinned me as his mouth opened in ecstasy.
He held the woman’s face still as he found his release. Cum spilled out of the corner of her lips.
John tucked himself back into his pants, and he looked around the room. His expression went from pleasured to concerned as he gave me a questioning smile.
I tried to return it, but I couldn’t.
My facial muscles didn’t work.
The haze was back.
“You okay, Aran?” John asked as he climbed onto the bed beside me.
He smelled like sweat and sex.
Sick burned my throat as I rasped, “Sure.”
He pried the pipe from my icy fingers. “Here, let’s play a game. I’ve been wanting to do this.” He blew out a smoke eagle. “Now we’ll see who wins.”
His dimple flashed.
“Sounds fun.” My voice was far away, like I was speaking down a long, dark tunnel.
John pitted different animals against my crow, but each one lost the fight. Of course they did. Horse was named Horse for a reason. He was a majestic beast.
After a few rounds, John randomly blurted out, “I’m sorry.” He dragged his hands roughly through his messy brown hair.
“For what?” My voice had no inflection. “Everything’s fine.”
“Aran, I—”
I held my hand up. “Give me the pipe. I want to see Horse take on a dragon.”
John narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth like he was going to say something else.
With every ounce of strength I possessed, I forced my lips to curl upward and laughed. “Seriously, don’t be weird. I’m fine. Just tired.”
A long moment passed, then John grinned. “Okay, dude. All my money’s on the dragon.”
He draped his arm across my shoulder.
“You’re on.” I kept smiling until my cheeks ached.
Hours later, Malum’s silver eyes speared me as he bellowed his release. Because who didn’t love coming while staring into the eyes of their enemy? Normal people.
If John was smooth, then the fiery king was savage.
Brutal.
Wild.
He smiled at me, flashed white teeth-stained pink from where he’d bitten the woman beneath him. Scarlet flames trailed across his shoulders like a cape.
I studied my palm like I found something interesting, then flipped him off.
His head tipped back, bronze muscles tensed as he laughed.
Creep.
I shivered but didn’t let my cheeks pull downward as I matched his expression.
Two monsters. Acknowledging each other.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I pulled my hood lower.
I sank deeper into a state of fugue.
And my smile didn’t fall as I slept. It didn’t fall when we went for a fifteen-mile morning jog. It held as we stretched and did a circuit of push-ups, sit-ups, and burpees. It stayed in place for every. Single. Meal.
Even when I searched the great hall and found Sari glaring at me like I was repulsive.
I smiled wider.
Her lips curled with disgust, and she looked away as my heart cracked in my chest.
The grin was plastered on my face as Sadie and Jax rebraided my hair while we talked to the girls on the phone.
I spent days in a trancelike haze with a fake grin on my lips, thinking I’d fooled everyone.
I was wrong.
After my hair was sorted into two perfect French braids, I excused myself to use Sadie’s bathroom.
With the lights turned off, I splashed water on my face and hyperventilated at the sink. Let the darkness comfort me.
The door squealed, and I looked up.
Jinx’s midnight-black eyes hovered inches from my face, and since I was hunched over, we were the same height.
“Pull yourself together,” she ordered.
“Why are you in here?” I forced out a carefree chuckle. “Also, what are you talking about? I’m fine.”
Crack. A palm smacked my face.
“Ow, what the fuck?” I clutched my already bruised jaw as it throbbed in time with my heartbeat.
Jinx rolled her eyes. “You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. At least pretend you have a shred of emotional maturity.”
“Hmm.” I tapped my lip like I was considering it. “Get away from me before I murder you.”
Crack. She smacked me again.
“Horse, attack the small, malnourished bitch,” I snarled.
My crow didn’t budge from where he was perched on my shoulder. In fact, I was 99 percent certain he rolled his eyes at me. He’d never refused to obey me before.