Life wasn’t fair.
“Where are your mates?” I asked as I threw myself out of bed and avoided thinking about warm brown eyes, long lashes, plush pink lips, and a sinful voice.
“They’re doing some important king business, don’t worry,” he said.
Malum’s words from last night came back to me. Orion had earned his cherry blossoms with openmouthed kisses and moans of pleasure. I closed my eyes and tried to rub away the feeling of warm lips devouring me.
Turning around, I walked into a wall of muscle and jumped. My mouth watered at the divine scent of chocolate raspberries.
Orion stared down at me with a strange intensity. He’d moved silently across the room with impossible speed.
His full lips gave him a perpetual pout.
The memory of how soft his lips had felt when he’d kissed me at Elite Academy played through my mind. He kissed differently from Malum. Less rough, but equally passionate.
I licked my lips and swayed closer to him.
A sharp bolt of pain slammed down my spine and brought me back to reality.
Wondrous, I was becoming a pervert like the men.
I staggered away.
“Seriously. Are you okay?” he asked at full volume as he reached for me.
I flinched and kept backing away from him.
“Obviously—I’m clearly thriving,” I said drolly instead of admitting I kept making out with my mortal enemy and I was beginning to suspect that I wanted to bone both him and Malum at the same time.
I grimaced as I made my bed just to give myself something to do.
One day, you were a woman with hopes and dreams, and the next, you were fantasizing about sitting on two men’s faces just to shut them up.
Awkwardness stretched between us.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
I swallowed manic laughter. “Hard no.”
His scent spiked sweeter as he moved closer to me, and I covered my mouth. Head spinning from too many hours of sleep, I staggered into the cramped bathroom and slammed the door shut, then locked it for good measure.
I turned on the water and collapsed into the tub.
Scalding-hot water burned my flesh, and I pretended not to notice that it reminded me of Malum’s kisses.
There was screwed, and then there was screwed. I was the latter.
Pink blotches covered my limbs.
Wet curls were plastered across my face.
I laid my head back.
Orion hadn’t told me where Malum and Scorpius were, but I pictured them walking hand in hand on a date while they gave each other kisses and talked shit about me.
Was I being rational? No. Did that matter at the moment because I was spiraling? Also no.
I lay in the tub under the shower spray like a frigid corpse who was not sexually attracted to her enemies.
Arms crossed over my chest.
Legs straight.
Mouth sewn shut.
The Necklace of Death hot against my chest.
Ice coated my fingers, then receded in the hot water.
For a second, I hallucinated there was snow in the shower. White flakes flurried down, then dissipated in the scalding steam.
A layer of thick cobalt ice coated my feet where they stuck out of the water.
What in the sun god is wrong with me?
When I’d discovered I was an angel, I’d pictured soaring over mountains and brandishing ice swords. I’d imagined poise and frosty control.
I had never pictured this.
The ice coating my feet traveled across the porcelain tub and welded us together.
“Are you all right in there?” Orion shouted through the door. His lyrical voice cracked, and he said softly, “Please tell me you’re doing okay.”
“Do you think I’m part angel, part Abominable Snowman?” I asked, slightly hysterical.
This was my final straw.
“What?” he asked with confusion through the door.
“I read about it in a book,” I said. “It’s this big beastly creature that lives in the ice and snow with thunder thighs and sharp teeth and claws and—uh, a freak,” I finished lamely.
There was a long pause.
“I know what it’s like to be a freak,” he said softly through the door.
My heart twisted at the pain in his voice.
“You aren’t one—don’t say that,” I said fiercely.
I yawned loudly. It seemed impossible that I could be so tired when I’d slept for so long. Panicking over becoming a snowman did that to a woman.
My eyes drifted closed.
“It’s okay,” Orion replied. “The first time I enchanted someone with my voice, I was four years old…” His voice was mellow as he told me stories about his childhood.