Metamorphosis—Day 42, hour 4
A few hours earlier
The party was boring.
I wanted to kill someone just to spice it up.
Females clung to my arms, and overly large breasts were squished against me. Lips trailed down my neck.
I felt nothing.
Next to me, gurgling noises let me know a woman was sucking on Corvus’s cock. She choked.
I’m sure his eyes were closed and his head tipped back.
To other partygoers, I bet it looked like he was enjoying himself.
Every few seconds, Corvus’s teeth clicked. He was grinding his jaw and breathing roughly through his nose.
He was trying not to lose control.
He was miserable.
Similarly, Orion was quiet on the other side of the chair. He didn’t moan with pleasure or make any sounds of enjoyment while women were breathily calling his name and touching him.
All three of us were screwed.
The pleasure we got from the academy students wasn’t a lot, but it had always been enough to take the edge off. It distracted us from the wanting we felt from one another.
Recently something had changed.
The willing students weren’t a distraction anymore. Touching other people was a chore.
I trailed my hands over the bodies worshipping me.
My fingers tangled in short hair, then explored a jaw covered in stubble. I was startled because a man was on his knees before me, and I hadn’t even noticed.
I should have been horrified.
A decade ago, when we’d realized we were missing our fourth, we’d made a pact to never touch another man. Only women. It had felt too much like I was cheating on my mates.
Now I felt nothing.
No guilt.
No disgust.
Just emptiness.
All three of us were bisexual, so we’d never found much of a difference between men and women. It was the fact that only devil males wielded flames that made us choose women over men.
Now I saw that our logic was flawed.
It didn’t matter what they were.
The students were all just pathetic substitutes.
They weren’t what I wanted.
I zipped up my pants and pushed the man off me roughly. His body slammed against the floor, and he moaned in pain.
I smiled.
A glimmer of enjoyment shuddered through me. It disappeared just as quickly as it arrived.
I dragged my nails against the back of my neck, and the pinpricks of pain helped me focus.
The floor shook beneath my feet, and vibrations pulsed all around. Students and competitors breathed heavily as they danced. Moaned as they fucked. Screamed along with the lyrics.
I missed the quiet.
Leaning against the chair, I put my hand on Corvus’s warm shoulder and rested my head against the wall.
My mate sighed with relief at my touch.
We both knew my fingers kneading his muscles was the most pleasure he’d feel tonight.
“I can’t do this,” Orion whispered, and there was a squelching noise as he pulled himself out of a woman and pushed her away.
She swore and yelped.
I smiled.
Orion walked over and leaned his broad back against my chest. I slung an arm over my Revered’s strong shoulder and kept my other hand massaging Corvus.
My shoulders slumped with relief.
We were together.
I was supporting my Revered. I was touching my Ignis.
As a Protector, this was the closest I’d ever get to perfection.
An ache burned my chest, and an intense longing—to possess what I couldn’t have—almost brought me to my knees.
Orion whimpered.
We rarely touched one another for this very reason. It was too perfect. It was nothing but a reminder of the ecstasy we couldn’t have.
A cruel joke.
My cock swelled beneath Orion until it was harder than it had ever been. I swallowed thickly and couldn’t stop myself from grinding against his perfect, firm ass.
We were tiptoeing across a line we swore we’d never cross.
Despair awaited us on the other side.
Orion moved his hips to the music, and I pressed my groin harder. We swayed together.
He was so warm.
So right against me.
From the fact that he didn’t move away, we’d arrived at the same conclusion: we needed this.
I clutched the most precious man in all the realms. As I breathed in deeply, his rich, sweet scent filled my senses.
Fuck.
Orion was perfect.
No Revered had ever been so intoxicating: formidable, affectionate, tenacious.
Corvus’s arms snaked between us, so he was wrapped around Orion with his head resting on his washboard abs.
The three of us clung to one another.
Hours passed.
The party raged.
It was the same as it had been when we were teens; all we had was one another. It was enough. It would always be enough.
Wrapped up in the pleasure of holding my mates, I almost didn’t hear it.
It took my brain a second to put the sounds together.
“Corvus, your captain’s services are needed to handle Aran,” Luka said, and the hair on my arms prickled.
I pulled away, and both my mates groaned.
Straightening my sweatshirt, I explained, “Luka said Arabella needs us.”
Before I’d finished speaking, Corvus was out of his chair, with flames trailing off his arms. Both my mates were shoving through the crowd, telling people to move.
I zeroed in on a familiar female voice in the room’s corner. It must have been a consequence of the slave brand, because I could always locate Arabella’s voice.
No matter how much outside noise distracted me.
I could always find her.
“You called for Corvus?” I asked as soon as I pushed through the crowd.
Her breath caught in the back of her throat, and men panted near her feet. I cocked my head to the side, unable to make sense of what I was hearing.
“Who are you?” Arabella asked, her words slurring together.
Rage broiled my blood as she made breathy chuckles. The little brat was insanely intoxicated.
Why could she never take care of herself? She needed keepers.
There was a whooshing noise as Corvus exploded into flames.
Intense heat poured off him.
The last time he’d burned so hot, we’d been battling in the wastelands before the sun god. He was seconds away from losing control, and I moved closer to try to calm him.
Arabella made a breathy sound of pleasure.
What the fuck?
I turned back to her slowly.
Orion’s lips moved against the shell of my ear as he whispered, “The two pathetic blue-haired men are on their knees at Arabella’s feet, groping her ass.”
I thought I’d known rage.
I hadn’t.
Not until this moment.
My hearing went silent as the sound of rushing blood filled my ears.
Then the other sounds came back with a roar.
This was ten times worse than the time we’d caught her with a nymph at the party. Now we knew that she’d just lost her virginity to John in the middle of the arena.
She was basically untouched.
She was innocent when it came to the ways of men.
Yet these fuckers thought they could touch her when she was intoxicated?
Any way you looked at it, it was clear they were taking advantage of her.
They’d waited until she was emotionally vulnerable.
Drunk.
They knew if they approached her in the daylight, she’d turn them down. They were fucking disgusting.
They would die.
“Get your hands off our girl,” Corvus snarled. My mate had come to the same conclusion.
Lately he’d been acting weird around Arabella. He’s stopped calling her slave and Orion said he’d started blushing when she spoke to him.
My Revered also said that he’d never seen our Ignis blush before.
I rubbed at my chest as a pang throbbed because I understood exactly where he was coming from.
Orion and I didn’t have to speak. We were always on the same page.
We lunged forward at the same time.
I zeroed in on the breathing of one of the dead fuckers, grabbed his neck, and chucked him across the room as Orion threw the other man.
They both yelped in pain.
It wasn’t enough.
Not even close.
It took me a second to realize that there was a fourth man breathing heavily beside my mates.
Luka was standing next to our slave.
No wonder he’d fooled everyone, even the inflection of his breaths was the same as his brother’s.
The only difference was that the tenor of his voice was slightly deeper. But he barely spoke, so I’d never noticed.
When I’d first discovered his deception, I’d been enraged like Corvus. However, unlike my hotheaded mate who needed to control every situation, I’d recognized that he must have his own reasons for secrecy.
He was a good soldier, and that was all that mattered.
I also liked him more than John because he wasn’t hanging all over our slave and touching her constantly like she belonged to him.
I tipped my head in his direction.
Thank the sun god he’d alerted us.
Bile filled my throat at the thought of what would have happened if he’d never said anything.
Would Arabella have fucked them in the dark while we sat across the room, oblivious?
I would have heard her eventually, but it could have been too late. Would the men have been inside her?
Caressing her while she was mindless?
Grinding my teeth together, I clenched my hands into the tightest fists possible.
Arabella said something, but I couldn’t hear her over the whooshing sensation intensifying in my ears.
“Keep her from debasing herself further,” I ordered Luka.
He made a noise of agreement and said, “The third commoner, lying on the floor in the middle of the crowd, was kissing her lips and grinding against her. He was touching her ass.”
Orion made a strangled sound in the back of his throat.
I nodded at him and turned.
Falling into step beside my mates, I cracked my neck back and forth. Years of training, living, and fighting together coalesced into this moment.
The three of us moved as a unit.
There was a fluttering sensation across my throat as my tattooed eye opened wide. I clenched my jaw, and it took every ounce of strength I possessed not to tip my head back and open all my eyes wide.
“They’re dead,” Orion said loudly.
Corvus burned hotter.
The music raged as bodies danced around us.
Three commoners moaned pitifully as they tried to stand up.
“Which one of you kissed her lips?” Corvus asked softly.
Listening to the man shift at my feet, I reached down and picked him up. I tightened my fingers until he choked and gurgled.
It wasn’t enough.
The man Orion had picked up pleaded, “Please, we didn’t mean to.” He moaned in pain as Orion crushed his balls.
“Answer or all three of you die,” Corvus ordered.
I loosened my choke hold.
“It wasn’t me,” the man in my hands said at the same time Orion’s commoner denied kissing her.
I smiled.
Orion and I moved in tandem.
I slammed my knee into my man’s crotch and let him collapse to his knees. He whimpered in pain. A whoosh blew against me harmlessly. “An air nymph, how pathetic,” I taunted.
I grabbed the sides of his head with both hands.
Twisted.
Snapped his head 360 degrees.
Bone crunched as Orion did the same.
There was a thud as two bodies dropped to the floor.
The music switched to a fast-paced song, and the students jumped in tandem.
The floor shook.
The man in Corvus’s hands whimpered, “If you let me go, I promise that when my friends heal, we won’t tell Lothaire what you did.”
The corner of my lips lifted.
Orion laughed loudly.
Students bumped into my back and sides as they jumped up and down and screamed lyrics.
Corvus snapped his fingers.
Heat exploded.
The commoner screamed as his two friends were incinerated into ashes in a matter of seconds.
Immortality.
Over.
“No, no, no,” he repeated pathetically.
Orion laughed cruelly. “No, no, no,” he mocked.
I bared my teeth.
Adrenaline and satisfaction coursed through me in an intoxicating rush. They’d touched what wasn’t theirs to touch, and they’d died.
I didn’t need to use my powers to know that justice had been served.
“You can’t just do that,” the man whimpered in Corvus’s grip and kicked out desperately.
“Here’s the thing,” Corvus growled. “You messed with her when she was clearly drunk. You knew she’d experienced trauma and was in a delicate state.” His voice got deeper as he shook with rage. “You don’t get to take advantage of her. She’s our teammate. She’s ours.”
He said “teammate” like it meant something else to him.
I understood exactly what he was saying, and I agreed.
Orion and I moved closer.
The three of us surrounded the remaining commoner so our much larger bodies blocked him from view of the rest of the party.
People danced against our backs.
The floor shook as students jumped to the pounding beat.
The man kicked out desperately and said, “Queen Aran wanted it.”
Corvus laughed cruelly.
Orion and I smiled.
“No, she didn’t,” Corvus scoffed.
He sobbed brokenly, “This isn’t fair.” The air whirled as he kicked and punched aimlessly. He was also an air nymph. “She’s our queen. We worship her. It’s different.”
Corvus’s flames crackled louder in the wind.
“Wrong,” I sneered as I reached out, wrapped my fingers around his throat, and squeezed.
“She’s not yours,” Orion said.
Corvus said darkly, “She’s so much better than you that you’re not fit to lick her boots.”
The man went limp beneath my hands as he passed out from lack of oxygen.
Students yelled lyrics and laughed as bodies pressed together. If anyone noticed the kings were surrounding a student, they ignored it.
We ran this academy for a reason.
We were kings of the deadliest race in the realms.
A god had chosen us to be his killers.
We’d earned every title we had with blood and sheer power.
Muscles twitched beneath my fingers as the fae regained consciousness. He begged pitifully, “Please stop, I won’t touch her again.”
“You’re right.” Corvus slammed his fist into the commoner’s stomach.
Organs exploded.
I tightened my grip on his neck so he couldn’t move.
He gurgled in pain.
Orion punched him in his back, and bones cracked. My fingers squeezed so he couldn’t scream. Corvus punched him in the nose, and blood sprayed against my face.
I smiled at the savagery.
It was ecstasy.
Finally, it felt like I was doing something right.
The constant need that plagued me, the itchiness that made my skin feel too tight, disappeared.
For the first time in years, I was at peace.
We didn’t have any weapons to dole out our punishment, and we couldn’t use our powers. All we had were our fists, and it made it so much sweeter.
Orion and Corvus didn’t pull their punches like we had with Aran when we were playing with him.
No.
This wasn’t about asserting dominance.
This was about punishing.
Sending a message.
Blood sprayed, bones cracked, and cartilage snapped as Orion and Corvus whaled on the man with everything they had.
I held him in place.
Choked him so he couldn’t say a word.
“What are they doing?” Arabella’s voice slurred somewhere in the crowd behind us.
Luka said something, but I didn’t catch it.
Arabella made an annoyed noise. “No, I want to see.” Her voice was closer.
“She’s nearby,” I warned my mates.
Corvus and Orion didn’t stop punching, their fists slamming against flesh with a frenzied speed.
A lesser species of immortal would have been long dead.
Corvus said, “Don’t let her see.”
I stepped to the side and dropped the commoner so his abused body thudded down at our feet, but Arabella moved quicker.
The surrounding students stopped dancing and made noises of surprise.
“Look away,” Corvus ordered them.
Footsteps pounded as the students resumed dancing and singing like they hadn’t seen a thing.
Arabella made a harsh noise and said, “Let him go.” She’d pushed past me and from the sound of her ragged gasps, she was staring down at the man at our feet.
“No, sweetheart,” Orion whispered. Crunch. He slammed his foot into the bloody body to punctuate his point. “He touched you, and you’re drunk.” He stomped viciously.
Blood splattered.
Corvus swore and yanked Orion off the body. “Not with her watching.”
“But he didn’t do anything wrong?” Arabella asked, her intoxicated voice filled with confusion.
“He took advantage of you,” I said darkly.
Arabella whimpered, “It wasn’t like that.”
Corvus swore and tugged her away from us. “Don’t think about it,” he said as I heard him shuffle to shield her view with his body. “They deserved it.”
I nodded in agreement.
We didn’t like what had happened with John during the punishment, but we understood the circumstances had demanded it. Also, none of us would ever admit it, but we recognized that John helped her.
What he did for her.
It was different, and we all knew it.
Meanwhile the piece of shit at our feet was nothing. A random man who thought he could touch what wasn’t his because she was famous. He thought he could put his dick near a queen.
My hands shook with rage.
The fool thought he could go above his station and touch his betters. I stomped down on his crotch.
Arabella made a pained noise as she tried to tug away from Corvus.
“Go with Luka.” He gently transferred her into the other man’s arms.
Corvus walked back to us, and I asked, “We’re not going to kill him, right?”
“Fuck no,” Corvus said. “We’ll send a message to the rest of the school. He’ll live. But he’ll wish he hadn’t.”
Orion whispered, “They’ll know…”
“…what happens when you mess with Arabella,” I finished his sentence.
Everyone knew that death was justice. It was a blessing. We’d killed the two men because we were merciful and the punishment fit the crime.
The music switched to a slower song.
I walked over and pulled my mates against me.
And we danced.
A few feet away, a bloody carcass moaned in agony as feet jumped around him in rhythm with the song.
He would suffer.
He would wish he were dead.
But he would live.
That was his punishment, and it fit his crime. He’d learned just what it meant when people whispered that we weren’t normal men.
We were devils of the House of Malum.
We hoarded and protected what was ours.
Violently.
No exceptions.
