Orion didn’t move.
The entire time his mates worked, he kept his fingers pulling my lips apart. His breath fanning the sensitive flesh.
I wiggled my hips to try to get him to do something, and he whispered, “Stop it.” He kept me parted wide with his face below me but didn’t move. “Let me just look at this pretty pussy while they take care of you.”
Time became a blur of hazy pleasure as two kings washed my hair with painstaking care while the other king knelt before me and stared at my most private region.
It should have been weird.
It was the most erotic moment of my life.
Or maybe I was just drunk?
Either way, when Orion wrapped my T-shirt-clad body in a fluffy towel and Malum dried off my hair, I didn’t fight them.
It felt nice to be doted on.
Strange. Different. But nice.
I giggled as Scorpius pulled his sweatshirt over my wet shirt and his sweatpants up my hips. Since he had about a foot on me, his clothes hung off and looked ridiculous.
“You’re built like a mountain troll,” I pointed out.
Malum chuckled, and I was jostled as someone was slapped. I’d never heard him laugh before.
“Thanks,” I slurred when Orion rubbed enchanted moisturizer gently on my face.
I didn’t have any products of my own.
Malum tipped a glass of cold water to my lips. “Drink, or you’re going to be hungover.”
I gulped greedily.
When the three of them pulled me into their bed, I chuckled because I ended up lying on top of Orion with Malum and Scorpius half-piled on top of me. There was no room for me in the bed.
I tried to crawl away.
Arms tightened around me so I couldn’t move.
“For once in your life, just listen to instructions. Go to sleep,” Malum ordered gruffly.
And that was all it took.
I passed out.
Chapter 33
Aran
THE THIRD CHALLENGE
Metamorphosis—Day 45, hour 10.
I touched my toes.
Palming the grass of the arena, I stretched and focused on releasing the tightness in my calves and thighs as I prepared for the third competition.
It had all started when I was born.
After that, everything had gone to absolute shit.
It had also started this morning at 5:00 a.m., when the bedroom door had slammed open.
Startled out of a pleasant dream where I was eating my mother’s heart, I’d sat up from the floor, disoriented in a cocoon of blankets.
Blinking bleary eyes, I’d barely been able to make out the vampyre’s figure in the darkness.
Lothaire had pointed his finger at me and barked, “Arabella, why have you been chosen to compete again? Vegar, Zenith, and Luka, you’ve also been selected.”
His single eye had glared at me accusingly like it was my fault the gods hated me.
I’d pulled the blankets back over my head and gone to sleep.
At some point, you stopped caring and accepted that life was not worth living.
I’d reached that point fifteen years ago.
Now, as I stretched on the field of the arena and waited for the competition to begin, there was a sharp pounding in the front of my skull.
I pressed delicately at the bruises on my face and winced.
Shockingly, pushing on the contusions while I prayed for death didn’t help with pain management.
I tilted my face up to the wind.
The party had been three days ago, and I still had a headache.
The fact that my drunk self had had the audacity to climb into a shower with the kings and then sleep in their bed was beyond my understanding.
My memories were foggy.
The only good thing was the kings hadn’t mentioned it, and the three of us just went on pretending I hadn’t gotten naked in front of them.
The hangover kept me distracted.
Turned out drinking three full bottles of demon brew in a few hours resulted in a feeling similar to an elephant stomping on your skull.
In the future, I’d stop at two bottles.
People always said that moderation was the key to a happy life. Although, who were these supposed happy people?
They sounded fake.
I stretched my legs as far as they could go without pulling open my stitches.
Good news was that the dozens of cuts covering my body were now healing over. Bad news was that I was now covered in inflamed, crusty scabs.
Physically, I was hideous.
Mentally, I was worse.
Spiritually, I was a slut.
So basically everything evened itself out and I was thriving.
I made a point not to look across the field at the spectators because sun god forbid I make eye contact with one of the kings. Every time I saw them, images of soapy skin, naked muscles, and gore flashed through my mind.
My memories from the party before the shower were like a twisted nightmare.
Bodies jumped in a big crush to the rhythm of the pounding music, and three devil kings stood still in the middle of it all.
They were covered in blood.
Tendrils of smoke rose off Malum.
Violence incarnate.
A broken man moaned pitifully on the ground.
Scorpius smiled, and his white teeth glowed in the darkness.
He lifted his powerful thigh and stomped on the carcass at his feet. Bones snapped. Corvus and Orion joined him.
And then I’d let them condition my hair and crawled into bed with them like it was fine?
Who did that?
As I thought about it, bile filled my throat.
They were soulless monsters that lacked empathy. I knew this. But every time they proved it, something inside me died a little more.
At the party, I’d watched in horror as my drunk mind could not comprehend the level of depravity that was unfolding before me. Luka had pulled me away until the devils were lost in the crowd.
Malum had acted like he didn’t want me to see what was happening, like he cared. But then he’d gone back to join his mates torturing a person.
I wasn’t a good person.
But there were lines that had to be drawn.
Things that shouldn’t be done.
The devils crossed all of them.
Right?
A part of me was sick to my stomach because I wasn’t sick to my stomach over what they’d done.
That was what was really making me feel nauseous.
It was a horrible cycle.
I needed to be terrified of them. Yet I cuddled them like they were warm little teddy bears?
The worst part was I’d slept like a babe. Hands down best sleep of my life.
I felt like I’d been taken care of. Pampered. Cared for.
Which made no sense.
Because I wasn’t.
Now, as the harsh scarlet light of the eclipse washed over me, dark memories prodded and poked at my psyche.
The haze was getting less linear and more circular.
Everything was jumbled.
The marble floor of the fae palace was icy beneath my sprawled limbs, and everything hurt.
Flames pulled me apart.
Mother launched into one of her mad rambles. “They thought they could force me out, but look what I became. Me, powerless? Unworthy?” She cackled. “Can you even imagine?”
“Mercy,” I begged her.
Blue flames covered every inch of my skin. They never burned.
Mother spoke like she hadn’t heard me. “It’s so sad how weak you are. So much weaker than I was at your age. Twelve years old and all you do is whine and complain. You’ll never even get the chance to fail like I did.”
The memory was so vibrant and crystal clear that it felt more like reality than the grass beneath my bare feet.