He looked enraged.
No. No. No. This can’t be happening. Is he mad at me? Pissed that I was a virgin?
I smacked him on the arm casually and forced myself to laugh. “Don’t make it weird, dude.”
It’s weird. I could feel him dripping out of me.
“I’m going to kill the gods,” John muttered, then took a deep breath and tucked a stray curl behind my ear.
“These things happen.” I shrugged with a casualness I didn’t feel.
John’s expression was intense. “No. They don’t. Not like this. They never should have made you do this.”
I grimaced and stared at the ground.
Great, now he definitely thought I’d been a virgin loser saving myself for marriage or something embarrassing like that.
“Seriously, it’s not a big deal.” I cleared my throat awkwardly. “I would have done it with tons of other men, but things got in the way. So, seriously, don’t make it weird.”
“Things” equaled an enchanted knife. “The way” equaled my back.
John stiffened. “Tons of other men, you say?” he asked with feigned casualness.
I grimaced. Maybe I’d laid it on a little too thick. Still, there was nothing to do but double down. “Oh, please, you don’t know what kind of seduction skills I have.”
John raised one eyebrow. “I hate to point out the obvious, but clearly not great ones, seeing as you were…” He waved at his lower half.
I smacked his chest as John grabbed my shoulders and started shaking me back and forth.
Great. John was having an episode.
He said dramatically, “I’m quaking at the sight of these seduction skills.”
Something warm and gooey exploded in my chest because he was treating me like he always did.
I laughed as he shook me and said, “Big talk coming from a guy who came in two minutes.”
“Hey, you told me to.” John’s olive cheeks flushed pink as he stopped shaking me and mumbled under his breath, “You felt insane. You have no idea how hard it was.”
“That’s what she said.”
A long moment passed as we both processed the fact that I’d repeated a ridiculous, childish joke. I blamed Sadie. There’d been a span of three weeks where that was the only joke she told.
“Really.” John shook his head like he was disappointed in me. “I thought you were more mature than that.”
We stared into each other’s eyes.
I cracked first.
Giggling like a maniac, I smacked him on the arm, and he smacked me back harder.
After a light spat of hitting each other, I wiped red-and-black streaks off John’s face and said, “Seriously, thank you so much for doing that. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me.” I paused. “Bestie.”
John smirked lasciviously. “So you agree I’m your best friend.”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t say that—”
Lyla’s voice echoed loudly through the arena. “The punishment is complete.” She sounded annoyed, like she couldn’t believe she was having to make an announcement.
John and I grimaced at each other and pulled our clothes back into place.
I’d forgotten we weren’t alone in the middle of a random field, just having fun together.
He was the only person who could make me so comfortable.
Sun god, I’d forgotten I was experiencing the most embarrassing moment of my life. Who did that?
We sat together and waited, but the wall of fire shielding us didn’t go away.
John stood up with me in his arms （I was impressed with his core strength）， and he yelled, “Corvus, cut the flames!”
There was a long pause.
“I can’t,” our captain shouted back, and he sounded embarrassed.
John swore under his breath.
The next thing I knew, John was sprinting forward with me in his arms. He leaped through the wall of fire and tilted his body in midair so he protected me from the heat.
Somehow, we landed on the other side mostly unscorched.
I patted out a small flame kindling in John’s hair.
He turned so his back was to everyone and they couldn’t see me.
Servants ran past us, toward the fire, with buckets of water.
Over John’s shoulder, the academy students, legions, and judges stared at us.
“Fuck them,” John said under his breath.
I gripped his shirt and nodded. “Fuck them.”
We didn’t say another word as we rejoined our legion, and I didn’t look anyone in the eyes.
Even the kings had nothing to say.
And it felt…
Like everything had changed.
Chapter 24
Scorpius
HELL
The Legionnaire Games: Day 33, hour 12
My head throbbed as I opened my eyes.
For a second, the world was disturbingly silent, then sounds rushed back louder and sharper than they’d ever been.
Everything had a high-pitched quality.
“Thank fuck,” Corvus said shakily as warm fingers traced over my face. Orion smoothed hair off my forehead and massaged my temples.
I lay still and let my mates fuss over me.
Slowly I became aware of the rocks poking into my back and the overwhelming number of small noises that let me know I was near a crowd of people.
“What happened?” I croaked out as I licked my uncomfortably dry lips.
The last thing I remembered was standing on the edge of the field, waiting for the competition to begin.
Then everything had gone dark.
A long moment passed, and neither of my mates said anything.
Orion swallowed thickly, and there was the scraping sound of Corvus dragging a hand over his buzzed head.
“Tell me,” I demanded, panic rising in my throat as I thought about everything that could have happened while I was out. Was Arabella hurt? The thought made it hard to breathe.
I’d told her to stand behind me, but she’d charged straight ahead.
She was so bold.
She was too brave for her own good.
Who was protecting her from herself?
A tight, uncomfortable sensation pinched my gut.
Corvus exhaled with a loud whoosh. “They used an illegal enchantment that broke the sound barrier in the arena. You passed out immediately. Arabella and John dragged you across the field, and you all made it in time. One of the angel competitors was left on the field, and he was killed.”
Arabella saved me?
It was no secret that there was no love lost between us.
A warm feeling unfurled in my gut.
No one but my mates had ever stood up for me and saved me from my tormentors when they’d beat me for being blind.
No one else had ever cared about me.
The warmth spread.
Orion shifted back and forth like he did when he was nervous, and I narrowed my eyes. If that was all that had happened, then why were they both acting guilty? “What aren’t you telling me?”
I needed her to be all right.
Corvus didn’t respond.
My irritation grew, and right when I was about to snap at them, Orion whispered, “Arabella was the last to finish, so she has to perform a punishment.”
I dug my nails into my palm as something foreign welled up inside me.
Nothing could have prepared me for his next words. “The gods ordered her to have sex with John. They’re in the middle of the arena right now, hugging each other and talking.”