THEY KNOW
Tragicomedy (noun): a drama or situation blending tragic and comic elements.
DAY 30, HOUR 14
The closet door was ripped off its hinges.
Light blinded my corneas.
“Get out,” Malum said viciously.
I squinted up at the leader of the kings. Scorpius, Orion, and the twins surrounded him.
Malum blocked the doorway. “Now, Arabella. Your closet time is fucking over.”
“Really? You couldn’t just open it?” I asked. He placed the door, which he’d viciously ripped off the wall, on the floor.
Behind him, blood and gore was splashed across the medical barracks like a crime scene. Doctors paused stitching up soldiers to gawk at their mangled door, and soldiers paused their moaning to gape at their leaders.
The men glared down at me.
I sighed.
Malum made a harsh noise as Cobra hurried forward and pushed past him. The snake shifter fell to his knees beside me, and with surprising gentleness, he pulled a needle out of Sadie’s arm (apparently, she’d been playing with one in the dark?) and patted her arm like he was making sure she was okay.
I gaped at my best friend and pointedly looked at the discarded needle.
She winked.
“You’re a freak,” I mouthed at her as Cobra gingerly picked her up and cradled her against his chest.
She smiled over his shoulder and waved her long nails. “Takes one to know one. Let’s finish this talk later.” Her mates coalesced around her and whispered sweet nothings in her ear as they left the medical barracks.
No one kissed my head and gently offered to pick me up. No one whispered anything nice into my ear.
I got glared at.
In fact, both the kings and twins were frowning down at me with all their arms crossed, even John.
I squinted, unsure for a second if the haze had returned and I was hallucinating, because they all looked livid. From their expressions, you would think I’d have done something unforgivable, which was strange because they were literally okay with murdering people.
Last time I’d talked to the twins, they’d been concerned but not angry. The kings also hadn’t been mad.
In the past day and a half of battling ungodly, something had changed.
Did someone tell the kings that women had rights?
Scorpius muttered something scathing under his breath, and Malum nodded in agreement.
Scarlet flames crackled across Malum’s shoulders, and the medical barracks went dead silent. It felt like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for an explosion.
I remained seated and sucked on my enchanted pipe.
There were two steps to being that bitch: (1) protect your peace from men, and (2) never pay retail.
Horse settled onto my shoulder. His smoky head nuzzled against my cheek while I gently stroked his feathers.
I didn’t need men because I had something much smarter, cooler, and better looking: a bird.
For the first time since I’d met them, the twins seemed twisted. Evil. Wrathful. Their dark eyes radiated danger.
The kings looked similar.
Silver flames glowed in Malum’s eyes. The eye on Scorpius’s neck blinked open and glared at me accusingly. Orion frowned.
Malum lunged forward like he was going to instigate a fight.
He stopped inches away from me.
If he was trying to intimidate me, it wouldn’t work. I had a secret weapon. I possessed something they never would—class.
And the ability to put a cute outfit together.
“You can all go take a large, misshapen piece of wood—and shove it up your asses.” I made an obscene gesture. “Leave me alone and get control of yourselves. You’re frightening me.”
Malum bared his teeth. “Good. You should be afraid.”
How is this the same man that cuddled me?
Flames sizzled.
A body lunged. Quicker than I could follow, fingers wrapped around my throat.
“Go fuck yourself, Mal—”
Nails dug into my skin.
I froze.
Pale cheekbones, sharper than glass, hovered inches from my face. Unfocused milky eyes stared off into space, and wine-red lips were smashed into a thin line.
Bergamot and musk were spicy with fury.
I was drowned in Scorpius’s rage.
“What’s your problem?” I asked, unbothered by the pointer finger digging into my jugular.
Scorpius’s jaw clenched, and he didn’t speak. His tattooed eye was wide open, staring at me.
I blew smoke in his face.
Nails pinched as they dug deeper into the sensitive skin on my neck.
Behind Scorpius, the twins stepped forward. Darkness glistened around them.
I waited.
Neither of them made a move to pull Scorpius off me.
They flanked him.
I ignored Scorpius slowly asphyxiating me and stared at the twins.
“Traitors,” I gasped out, my voice raspy from lack of air.
John didn’t move, didn’t flinch. He did nothing to show that he’d heard me. His familiar dimples had transformed into harsh lines that highlighted the fury on his handsome face.
He was a stranger.
“Is it true, Aran?” he asked cryptically, voice hard and deep.
“What?” I asked. My heart hurt.
John took a step closer. “Tell me right now that it’s not fucking true.” Darkness glinted and twisted around him like living shadows.
I blinked.
John’s image changed.
A cape of darkness was draped across his shoulders and blew on a phantom breeze. A jagged crown sat atop his dark curls and his eyes were pools of darkness. His features were hard.
There was nothing boyish about him.
I blinked.
The crown and cape disappeared, but his rage remained.
Scorpius’s grip on my neck tightened, and I choked on air.
Betrayal mixed with asphyxiation, and suddenly it hit me—I’d had enough.
Kicking out and flexing with all my might, I ripped my neck out of Scorpius’s grip and climbed to my feet.
I stalked toward the man I thought I loved.
Chest to chest with John, I asked him, “What are you talking about?” He’d taken off his combat boots to stitch a foot wound, but I still had mine on.
We were eye to eye.
Up close, John’s darkness shimmered. Ice spread across the side of his face where I breathed on him. His expression was severe.
A stranger stood before me.
It wasn’t John who answered my question.
Scorpius’s voice was cruel behind me. “I heard what you said to Sadie.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“You shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations,” I replied, still facing John. “I don’t owe you any explanation for something you weren’t meant to hear.”
“Please,” Scorpius spat. “Save your excuses.”
John’s frown deepened.
Malum made a strangled noise.
Ice expanded out from me like an infection. Scarlet flames leaped higher in my peripheral vision.
A soldier whistled, and I jolted as I remembered where we were. Someone’s amputated arm was lying on a silver tray a couple feet away. Doctors and soldiers were staring at us with open mouths.
A tension headache throbbed in my left temple.
“I’m not doing this.” I stalked out of the medical barracks. The freezing wind slammed the door shut satisfyingly behind me.
I only made it a few steps into the blizzard before I was picked up and thrown over a flaming shoulder like a sack of grain.
My mind flatlined, and I hung limp.
Snow whipped around the realm in a frenzy.
I slammed frozen hands across Malum’s flaming back, cobalt blue streaming from my fingertips as trails of ice covered his coat.
The world was viciously cold and angry.
So was I.
Cobalt dissipated as the scarlet flames on Malum’s shoulders spread down his back. I hit him repeatedly, kicked my legs, and screamed into the howling wind as I froze him.
He thawed.
I covered him in streaks of cobalt.
Flames turned ice into water; ice chased away flames.
We were locked in battle.
Malum abruptly stopped walking, and he went impossibly still amongst the frozen white trees.
His hand settled on my ass; fingers splayed possessively. It was deliciously warm, and I hated myself for noticing.
“Hurt me as much as you want, my Revered.” Malum’s voice was gravelly. “I prefer it.” His voice dropped an octave, and the hand against my ass started to burn like it had caught fire. “But you have a lot of explaining to do.”
He resumed walking down the path.
“I’m not yours,” I said as he hoisted me into our barracks.
I waited, but he didn’t put me down on my bunk like I expected—he stalked into the bathroom, turned on the hot water, and tried to throw me into the tub.
I punched and kicked with all my might, but he used his freakish size to overpower me.
He pushed me under the spray.
Why was everyone obsessed with the shower lately?
Men discovered personal hygiene one day and suddenly it was talk to me in the shower, meet me in the shower, get in the shower, Aran.
The water sputtered.
Hot drops turned into snowflakes; ice hissed as it trailed across the ancient porcelain tub; the spray slowed as the showerhead turned cobalt blue.
The temperature plummeted below freezing.
Malum sighed, and his breath puffed out in a cloud of condensation. “Calm down.” He turned the nozzle up as hot as it would go.
Flames jumped off his arms and crawled along the walls. Once again, ice turned to water. Pipes groaned, then hot water filled the space with steam.
He manhandled me so I stood under the heat, then he caged me against the wall so I couldn’t escape.
We were sopping wet.
“Great, now you’re waterboarding me.” I sputtered. “And you wonder why I don’t want to be your mate? Grow up.”
I slammed my fist at his throat. He dodged at the last minute, and the blow glanced off harmlessly.
“You don’t want to do that.” Silver eyes glinted with pure aggression.
I bared my teeth and let him see his death in mine as I lunged forward to strangle him. John and Luka stepped under the spray and restrained my arms.
“All this because I don’t have a soul?” I laughed harshly. “I knew you kings would turn on me as soon as anything got difficult.”
Flames trailed out of Malum’s nose as he breathed.
I tried to wrench my hands free, but the twins were unrelenting.
They held me immobile.
Turning my head, I stared at John. “I trusted you.” My voice was raw.
He didn’t release me.
My heart crumpled.
It hurt.
I looked away, unable to handle the sight of the people I’d thought I’d spend my life with turning on me.
They were ripping out my heart and stomping on the already broken pieces.
There was nothing left inside.
The fight left me.
Insides melting, I slumped forward. The twins’ grip kept me from face-planting onto the edge of the tub, smashing my face open, and bleeding out.
Another missed opportunity.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Scorpius snarled like a broken record as he pulled the shower curtain wide so all the men could lean over me. Cage me inside the shower.
Tears welled.
My eyes burned.
I tilted my head forward and let my hair obstruct my face because there was no way I would cry in front of these men. They didn’t deserve it.
“WHY would you keep this secret?” John’s voice cracked as he asked, his harsh grip softened, and he shifted so he was half hugging, half holding me up. “How could you not tell us?”
He sounded dejected.
I stayed limp.
It wasn’t their problem that I didn’t have a soul. It was their problem that I hated them and would never talk to any of them ever again.
Callused fingers wrapped around my chin, and Luka tipped my head up, so I was staring at him.
His face contorted with pain as he asked, “Aran, how could you not tell us that you feel pain every time you were aroused?”
My thoughts blanked.
“Oh,” I breathed out as my lips parted. So that was what this all was about? Exhaustion, confusion, and relief washed over me.
Then, like his words had detonated a bomb, the men exploded.
