Clothed in an oversize sweatshirt and soft leggings, I brushed out my long hair. Gray morning light barely illuminated the room, and the dull patter of rain was the only sound.
In the room’s massive antique mirror, the red highlights in my white hair were fading to pink. They reminded me of old bloodstains.
I shivered.
The skin around my eyes was still bruised.
My skull ached with the beginning of a headache as I shoved my recent memories back into the dark recess where I hid basically everything that happened in my life.
There were healthy coping mechanisms, and then there was trying to forget your entire existence.
At this rate, I didn’t know what it was like to not want to forget.
My joints ached from torture, and my head was splitting under the weight of compartmentalizing.
A knock sounded at the door, and Aran grumbled in her sleep. It had actually been great sleeping with her.
Sort of.
In the middle of the night, we’d both woken up from nightmares and comforted each other for an hour by complaining about how hard our lives were. Then, after bitching about everything and everyone, we’d passed back out.
Highly therapeutic.
The best part was since neither of us were built like mammoths (like the men), we’d spread out comfortably.
The only snafu had been a short time after we’d fallen back asleep, when Aran had sleepily wrapped her arms around me and tried to cuddle.
When I’d tried to push her away, there’d been a brief tussle where Aran, who’d still been dreaming, had locked me in a choke hold with one arm and used her other arm to smother me with a pillow.
I’d blindly punched her in the trachea until she’d released me and fallen backward, screaming.
At first, I’d panicked that I’d hurt her.
Then I’d realized she was writhing on the bed screaming about her back, not her throat.
I’d done what had always helped me.
Gently, I’d turned her over, so she lay sprawled on her stomach.
Immediately, her screams had stopped, and Aran had snored with a smile on her face, like she hadn’t just tried to murder me, then shrieked her head off.
A razor blade of fear pinched my stomach at her strange reaction.
It was eerily similar to how I’d acted when I’d accidentally rolled over onto my back after a night of whippings.
It can’t be.
With shaking fingers, I’d reached forward to pull up the bottom of her heavy sweatshirt. Just to check.
“Noodle, get back here!” Jinx screamed, bursting into our room and startling me out of my worried thoughts.
The clock on the wall flashed 4:00 am, but Jinx looked wide awake as she ran after Noodle, who was sporting underwear on his head like a hat.
Aran sleepily said, “Skin the ferret,” then continued snoring.
I tried to act nonchalant, like my bestie didn’t have more problems than I even realized, which was frankly impressive because I’d already assumed we needed heavy medication.
Jinx giggled like Aran had said something funny, as she chased after the ferret that now appeared to be eating the underwear. The girly sound was at odds with her usual scornful demeanor.
“It’s just underwear. Go back to sleep,” I mumbled at Jinx with more annoyance than usual.
It was only four a.m., and I’d already survived an attempt on my life.
A perverted ferret was the final straw.
“Oh, I don’t sleep,” Jinx said casually as she threw herself across the carpet.
I narrowed my sleep-crusted eyes. “Everyone sleeps.”
There was one universal truth: every type of animal slept. The most popular theory was it had to do with power replenishment.
“Not me.” Jinx dove again and just missed the ferret, who had paused to shove more of the underwear in his mouth.
“You mean you only sleep a few hours? Or like an insomniac?” I’d heard about people who couldn’t sleep and then crashed for days.
Jinx lunged at Noodle and squealed with triumph as she snatched his wriggling body with her hands.
She held him above her head like a trophy.
Noodle spat out the underwear and chittered like he’d enjoyed their game.
“No.” Jinx turned toward me, ferret still above her head, and smiled. Her dark eyes were too large on her pale face. “I’ve never slept a wink. Ever.”
With that comforting statement, she flounced out of the room.
Unsurprisingly, after that, I fell into a restless sleep.
I hated to be dramatic (not really; I totally would have thrived in the theater), but my life was shaping into one of those horror movies with the weird clowns that always played on the television at Dick’s bar.
Now, as the gray morning added a depressing vibe to the room, I stared down at Aran’s sleeping form and gently petted her blue hair.
It was nice having my best friend beside me.
Sure, she was homicidal, but who wasn’t these days?
My heart warmed as I stared down at her soft features. I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought she was a boy.
A loud knock on the door rattled through the room and reminded me someone was waiting outside.
Aran mumbled groggily and pressed a pillow over her eyes. “Fuck off before I disembowel you.”
I hurried over to open the door before she woke up and made good on her promise. You could never be too sure these days.
My breath hitched.
Xerxes scowled down at me.
His bruises were mostly healed, and his skin shone with health. He was dressed in an impeccably fitting suit that stretched across his bulging muscles.
With his long blond locks, he looked like a fairy-tale prince.
Twin knives were strapped across his thighs, and his features were harsh.
A dark fairy tale.
I gulped and hurried out into the hall, shutting the door softly behind me as cinnamon sugar made my mouth water.
For the longest moment, neither of us said anything.
Tension hung heavy.
Xerxes dragged his hands over his face. “I’m sorry for…” He trailed off awkwardly.
I sighed. “I know.”
“No, you don’t know,” he snapped.
My hackles rose at his tone, and the tension between us spiked into something more sinister.
His purple eyes flashed. “Being back in this realm is not going to be easy for me, but it’s not an excuse. I was triggered by your choice of words, and it brought back bad memories. I’m devastated that I scared you like that, and I promise it will never happen again.”
Pretending I was a calm non-psycho girl who definitely hadn’t talked shit about him with Aran for an hour in the middle of the night, I nodded calmly. “I know that. It was just surprising.”
I paused as I tried to articulate what had hurt me the most. “I expected such high-handedness from the other men. Not you.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked.
Xerxes’s voice was a low growl. “What do you think I’m apologizing for?”
Did he have short-term memory loss?
“The whole slapping my pussy and acting like you could order me around. Duh.”
“Excuse me?”
Intensity rolled off Xerxes as he straightened his shoulders like he was getting ready for battle.
“Excuse you?” I pursed my lips.
Once again, it seemed like I was missing some imperative part of the conversation.
Xerxes’s honeyed accent was guttural. “I’m apologizing for punching the wall and scaring you. I meant everything else.”
I couldn’t stop the chuckle that escaped my lips.
At first, I’d been rattled by the aggression, but when I’d woken up at two a.m. and talked it over with Aran, I’d realized that wasn’t what was really bothering me.
The crux of the problem was another man had pinned me against the wall and told me he owned me.
Sure, a large part of me thought it was hot.
But as Aran had eloquently said, “You know what is hotter? Respect.”
T-shirt slogan material.
Xerxes rested his hand on the hilt of his knife. An obvious threat.
Hostility spiked.
Not to be outdone, I bit down on my lower lip until a drop of blood dripped down my chin. We were both ready to fight.
His fingers tightened around the hilt.
I was definitely not thinking about how those same fingers had been grinding against my clit a few hours earlier. Definitely didn’t notice the network of veins that popped against his hands and forearms.
I took a step forward until I crowded his space.
My voice was low and threatening. “Don’t get me wrong; you ever raise a violent hand near me again, and I’ll infect you with my blood and make you my fucking servant. But if you think I’m going to let you disrespect me by trying to overpower me sexually, then you’ve got another thing coming.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked again, and I couldn’t help but sarcastically ask, “You know what I mean?”
Xerxes sneered, “No. I don’t know what you mean.”
I rolled my eyes because I’d definitely been clear. “I don’t care that you got triggered and a little punchy. I care that you thought you could grab my—”
“Stop talking,” he cut me off.
“What did you just say to me?”
He enunciated his words slowly. “So you thought I was apologizing for saying I owned you? For grabbing your soaking cunt?”
“Yep.” I popped the P and cocked my hips like I was mad and not at all turned on by dirty words.
Abruptly, Xerxes lunged forward and wrapped his hand gently around my throat.
All softness was gone.
The assassin was back.
“What was it you were saying, alpha?” he whispered, exerting light pressure. My legs trembled, and I gasped as my groin cramped with need.
He smirked down at me.
Fucking omega knew exactly how to push my buttons.
His mocking glare sent me over the edge, and I shoved his hand away.
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
He went unnaturally still. “So you think that since I’m an omega, I was going to be your bitch? That I couldn’t own you like the other men ’cause I’m not an alpha?” His too-pretty eyelashes fluttered, and the pulse on his neck beat violently like it wanted to jump out of his skin.
For a second, I gaped.
The sheer audacity of men.
Fiery indignation coursed through me as I remembered just who the fuck I was. “You think the other men actually own me? You think I’m a prize that you get to claim?”
“It’s not like that,” Xerxes said, but the heat in his eyes told me it was exactly like that.
There was only one thing left to do.
“Suck my dick.” I slammed my knee into his crotch and marched down the hall. For good measure, I yelled, “The next person to say they own me is getting eaten by my tiger!”
Jax peeked his head out of his door and blinked tired eyes. “Are you okay, little alpha?”
Cobra grumbled something indistinguishable from inside the room. Jax turned around, and there was a brief tussle.
From the fact that Jax reappeared in the door and Cobra was nowhere to be seen, Jax had won.
“Do you need me to kill someone?” he asked seriously.
Why was Jax the only man in all the realms that wasn’t an actual garbage bag?
“No, and I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped and kept marching past.
“Of course.” Jax calmly followed beside me as I charged into the kitchen.
I was about to consume my body weight in food, and if any man said one more word to me, I was going to lose it.
Jax ate beside me in silence.
That was why he was my favorite.
