by Katie May
As she tilts her face up, I have the irresistible desire to kiss her.
I’ve never kissed a girl before.
Sure, I’ve fucked them, but I always considered kissing an intimate act between two lovers, one that involves feelings and emotions. It was the one thing Narian never did to me. I thought I was broken, even more so than everyone suspected.
What type of man hasn’t kissed a female?
Her luscious lips are curved upwards in a radiant smile, and I wonder how soft they’ll feel against my own.
I step away, my body crying out as her warmth leaves me. She would never want to kiss a man like me.
I’m a monster.
Some people are monsters through circumstance only, but there are others who enjoy what they do. I fall firmly in the latter category. There’s nothing more satisfying than my knife entering flesh and watching as the life drains from my enemies’ eyes. Nothing more satisfying, that is, except for the temptress in front of me.
“Let’s go to my room.” I pull her down the corridor, my cold mask firmly back in place. If the mask was to ever break, I’m afraid the entire world would understand exactly how much she means to me.
We pass a group of Incubi who stare at Nina appreciatively. One glare from me has them cowering in the corner. Women and men alike eye us as we move down the hall of cells, curiosity, disbelief, lust, and anger in their gazes.
I mentally tally the number of people I have to kill. Hopefully, Blade can forgive me.
My room is at the very end of the hall, the only one without bars as a doorway. It used to be a guard’s station back before we scared them all off.
It’s my personal sanctuary, the one place I can go to escape the dissonant chaos of this world. Never before have I allowed someone to enter it, not even Blade.
Holding my breath, I push the metal door open.
I know she’s in my mind when a soft gasp escapes her. Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel invasive—I actually don’t notice she’s there.
I love that she can use me, use my eyes, to experience the world. It’s an empowering feeling, and it makes me feel even closer to her.
Despite wanting to turn toward her, I keep my gaze fixed on the room, allowing her to look her fill.
A single bed rests against the wall adorned in pristine white sheets, not a speck of color in sight. While the rest of the prison floor is variations of cement and stone, I have rich brown carpeting. Two dressers flank either side of my bed, and my acoustic guitar rests against the wall. It’s one of my prized possessions. It took me weeks of favors to procure. A door against the far wall of the room is opened to reveal a spacious and surprisingly modern bathroom.
“You live here?” Nina breathes in amazement. I don’t bother to confess the reasoning for my arrangements: that I beheaded the guard who once occupied it.
“Yes. It’s not much, but I made it my home.” Finally turning toward her, I see that her eyes are dilated and her lips are parted. I yearn to rub my thumb across the plush lower lip, but I restrain myself. “It can be your home too, if you’d like.” My voice is cold, expressionless, but even I can’t hide the hint of longing just beneath the surface.
To have her in my personal space...
It reminds me of the only thing I’ve ever wanted in this world—someone to trust, to love. Her. Forever.
“I’m actually kind of jealous,” she admits after a moment. She gesticulates wildly. “I don’t even get a cell to myself.”
I smirk, placing a hand on the small of her back to propel her toward my bed. She sprawls across the mattress, her thick obsidian hair cascading around her. Any other girl would be wary about being in a room alone with me or they would be scheming to get me in their beds, but not Nina.
Fuck, she’s too good for this world. For me.
“I didn’t know you play the violin,” she states after a moment of comfortable silence.
I stare at the girl oddly. “Violin?”
She gestures in the general direction of my guitar.
“Angel, did you mean to say a guitar?” I ask with a twitch to my lips. She sits up abruptly, cheeks crimson, before lowering herself back on the bed with a groan. As always, she’s wearing a short dress that reveals her ample curves and shapely legs. As she stretches, arms raising, the hem rides up past her thighs.
If anyone else were to see this, I would probably kill him or her on the spot.
My cock twitches in my pants, desperate to escape its confines and bury itself balls deep inside of her. Would she sheath my cock like a glove? Would she be warm? I imagine so, especially since she was made for me.
I have no doubt about that in my mind.
“I can play for you, if you like.” The offer escapes my lips before I can reconsider. As soon as it’s out there, I can’t take it back.
Her white eyes gleam as a slow, salacious smile pulls up her thick lips. It’s hard to believe that something as simple as this could cause such genuine amusement. But, then again, Nina has never been a normal girl.
“Yes! Please!”
Chuckling at her enthusiastic response, I grab the blond guitar off a hook on the wall and adjust the strap. Quickly, I strum each string to make sure it’s still in tune.
The last person I played for had been my mother when we lived on the streets, before Narian took me in. Her pimp had given it to her as a gift, and she had given it to me. I remember awkwardly plucking at the strings as a god-awful screech emitted from the instrument. It took dozens of trips to the library and over fifty hours of YouTube videos before I taught myself how to play.
Nina sits up completely, eyes trained on me, and I lose myself in her hypnotic stare. Those blind, sightless eyes see me with an unnerving intensity. I’m stripped bare before this gorgeous female, all of my sins on display. However, I don’t feel as if I’m being judged.
She sees me, the good and the bad, and accepts every facet.
Continuing to stare at her, I begin to play. It’s an easy piece, something I could even teach her, but one that holds a special meaning.
It’s the first song I ever wrote.
Weeks ago, after she fed me in the throne room. This tiny slip of a girl had gone up to a grown man capable of evoking fear in the strongest of prisoners and fed him. They saw my ice; she saw my warmth.
Tears well in her eyes, and a soft smile breaks open her face. She looks so fucking beautiful at that moment. Angelic. With the light from my lamp haloing her head, I can almost believe she was sent straight from heaven itself to redeem me. Save me.
When I finish, those tears have dried, but the smile remains.
“Damien...” She trails off, slack-jawed. “That was beautiful.”
“That was for you,” I admit.
She moves to her feet, smoothing down her white dress and then wringing her hands in front of her waist. Indecision flashes across her face before it turns into resolve. With sure strides, she steps forward until she’s directly in front of me.
“I want to try something,” she whispers. I can scarcely breathe, scarcely think.
Before, my heart was racing. Now, it stops momentarily before stuttering to life again. It thunders in my ears.
Her smell wraps around me, like oranges and ginger. I wonder whose body wash she used this time.
Before I can focus on that further, she leans forward and presses her lips to mine. I freeze beneath her tender assault, body going rigid, before I force myself to relax.
My first kiss.
I timidly move my lips over hers, familiarizing myself with what she likes and dislikes. She tastes even better than I imagined. Her hands rest on my shoulders, pulling me closer, and I let her.
She’s my anchor keeping me tethered to the here and now.
Her fingers deftly undo the first few buttons of my shirt as our tongues swirl in a languid tango.
I want her.
I need her.
A knock on the door interrupts our moment.
I snarl, lips pu
lling back from my teeth, as Nina separates from me. My body immediately misses her soft curves pressed against my hard ones.
Fucking shit.
Who knew a kiss could feel so amazing?
And that kiss would’ve definitely led to other avenues if the cumstain hadn’t interrupted us.
Removing my dagger, I stalk toward the door, preparing to slaughter whoever dared to knock.
I’m surprised to see Blade standing at the door. His face is taut with strain and tension, dark shadows beneath his eyes. His haggard appearance isn’t all that uncommon, but when his eyes flicker around me, toward Nina, I feel my own unease ratchet up a notch.
“Nina,” he breathes in relief.
“What happened?” I ask, donning my ice mask again.
Blade’s eyes flicker to me once before settling on Nina as if he can’t look away.
“Someone challenged Nina to a duel. She has to fight in the arena.”
Chapter 41
Nina
“What do you mean?” I ask, stumbling forward. My face still burns from Damien’s heated, passionate kiss. He may claim to be cold, but when he touched me like that, he was an inferno.
I slide into Kai’s head while wrapping my hands around Damien’s arm.
Neither of the guys answer me, engaged in a silent stand-off. Damien’s cold blue eyes are locked on Kai’s dark ones. The air around them seems to cackle with electrical currents, a storm brewing.
“Cancel it.” Damien’s voice could turn water into ice. It chills me to the very core.
“I can’t,” Kai replies through gritted teeth. “She publicly made a declaration in front of at least one hundred of our men. If I refuse, we’ll have an uprising on our hands. This system works because supernaturals can take their aggression out in the ring. It weeds out the weak and makes the strong feel powerful. You know the rules: refuse to fight and it’s open fucking season.”
Damien’s jaw is clenched so tightly I’m afraid it’ll break. His marble-like face could be carved from stone.
“We’ll protect her,” he hisses at last. He wraps a protective, possessive arm around my waist, tugging me closer to him.
My mind struggles to understand this conversation.
Ring?
Fight?
Me?
Random words filter in one ear and out the other. Try as I might, I can’t catch enough to form a complete, coherent sentence.
“We’ll lose our entire fucking gang, our army.” Kai suddenly sounds tired. Older, almost, as if he had aged centuries in minutes. I pull myself out of Kai’s eyes and into Damien’s, warily eyeing my volatile dragon shifter.
Kai agitatedly runs his fingers through his hair making it appear even more disheveled. When he drops his hand, I realize it’s shaking.
“Then we leave the gang. Join the fucking shifters. I don’t care. She’s not getting in that damn ring,” Damien argues. His gaze dips to the knife now in his hand. I didn’t even realize he grabbed it.
“We can’t!” Kai roars, the feeble hold on his rage exploding. To my horror, glistening red scales sprout on his arms and cheeks. Reptilian eyes, narrowed into slits, focus on Damien with unnerving intensity. At that moment, he looks positively lethal. Deadly. This is the man who has risen up the ranks of a gang to become their leader.
Kai isn’t just my best friend and lover. He’s a dangerous, murderous predator currently out for the kill.
“We can’t,” Kai repeats through clenched teeth. He takes a deep breath, chest rising and falling, before spinning on his heel and pacing the small expanse of hallway. “Rion is already having trouble keeping control of his shifters due to this fucking alliance. They don’t want us, and we sure as fuck don’t want them. If we join, Rion can’t guarantee our safety. Her safety. I’m not fucking risking her life.”
“Then we kill the bitch who challenged Nina,” Damien settles on at last, and I blanch at the word “kill.” I’m not completely oblivious to Damien’s recreational activities, but hearing it said so bluntly causes a shiver of unease to skate down my back.
“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” I break in at last. Detangling myself from Damien, I move to stand between the two fuming alphas. “Kai. Damien.”
I feel Damien’s hands on my waist, but through his vision, I’m only able to see Kai’s piercing eyes. An inner conflict plays out in their depths before he releases a heavy sigh, nodding once.
“You’re right. You deserve to know.” His shoulders slump as if a heavy weight is resting on them. I ache to comfort him, but I don’t know how that will be received. “We have a system down here in the Labyrinth, at least on our side. Fights.”
“Fights?” It sounds so simple, but I know that with these men, nothing ever is.
“It’s a way for the prisoners to take out their aggression. And it’s a way for us to keep order,” Kai explains, another sigh wracking his body. “Someone can challenge another person to a duel, and that person has to fight. If they refuse or they try to run, we no longer offer them protection. They’re cowards in our eyes, undeserving of our help.” His words are matter-of-fact, but his eyes are anguished. “They’re usually hunted down and killed in days.”
“And someone challenged me to a fight?” I say numbly, my mind unable to wrap around the sudden surge of information. Why would someone want to fight me? I mostly stayed to myself and the guys. I never did anything to harm someone, at least not intentionally.
“There has to be something we can do,” Damien argues in a cold, dark voice.
“The others are in the throne room. We’ll talk there,” Kai says briskly. Despite the urgency of the situation, he waits for me to place my hand in his. Unlike some of the others, Kai will never man-handle me. With him, everything is my choice.
As we walk, my mind wanders to Kai’s confession.
They host...fights? And from what I understand, fighting is mandatory. To forfeit the fight is to forfeit your life.
Pain grips my heart in an iron claw and refuses to release. I’ve always known the guys weren’t made of sunshine and rainbows, but I never suspected them capable of being this cruel. Would they really kick someone out of their gang because he or she refused to fight?
I have no doubt that with no alliance, you’ll die pretty quickly in the Labyrinth. If not by your fellow inmates, then by the maze itself. I’ve only just begun to see what the Labyrinth has to offer. What else lurks behind every door, in every corner?
I don’t even realize I’ve slipped out of Kai’s head until we reach the throne room. Angry voices reach me, penetrating the fog in my mind.
“You’re not fighting,” Bronson announces immediately, voice a growl, when I enter.
“You would find yourself in the ring already, Trouble,” Cain quips. Despite his sarcastic tone, I can sense a hint of worry. If even Cain is nervous...
“Who challenged me?” I ask, allowing Kai to guide me to the throne. I don’t bother protesting as I sit daintily on the edge, the other men gathering around me.
There’s a long, potent pause before Rion answers, voice heady with self-loathing.
“Tessa.”
“Tessa?” I gasp, sure I heard him wrong. I consider Tessa a friend, one of my closest. What could I have possibly done...?
My mind snaps back to the day in the cafeteria when Rion came to get me. The rage in her eyes before it transformed into hurt. The frigid aura emitting from her. The unusual bend to her lips that gave her a cold, haughty look.
Oh, Tessa, what did you do? My heart drops like a stone into my stomach.
“Rion,” Abel growls, my sunshine twin lost to his darkness.
When Rion doesn’t answer, Braelyn cuts in with a resigned sigh. I didn’t even realize she was in the room with us. “Tessa was one of the girls Rion used to have sex with,” she says without preamble. Ripping the metaphorical bandage off.
“You couldn’t have been a little more fucking tactful?” Rion snaps. His voice suddenly comes from
directly in front of me. His rough hands, the same hands that brought me to orgasm only a few days ago, touch my shoulders. Only this time, I can’t control the sudden flinch at his proximity. Pain and jealousy spears me at the thought of him with Tessa. “Buttercup—”
“Don’t call me that.” I shrug out from underneath him, stepping closer to the nearest guy. Abel, if the hard, lean body is any indication.
“I’m not a saint, and I never claimed to be one. Before you, I admit, I was with a lot of fucking women and men. I liked sex. A lot. It was just a way to pass time.”
“Is that all I am to you?” I whisper as hurt cascades through me. The arms around me tighten, and I rest my head on the twin’s shoulder. “A way to pass time?”
“No!” Rion shouts adamantly. “Fuck. No!” Working to moderate his volume, he adds, “The time with you... it was everything. Nina, since I met you, I haven’t been with anyone else, and I don’t want to be with anyone else. You’re it for me, even if I have to share you with these idiots.” He releases a sharp, humorless laugh.
“None of us are saints,” adds Bronson quietly. “We all have pasts we’d rather not talk about.”
I take a deep breath, knowing that’s true. What happened in the past has to stay in the past. I can’t allow the sins and transgressions of long ago to bury this relationship. Heaven only knows the ones I committed. I lashed out at Rion because I was jealous and hurt, but I know my reaction was irrational. He never intended to hurt me, and whatever relationship he had with Tessa was before he met me. He hadn’t even looked at her in the cafeteria, his eyes on me like no one in the world could compare.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes. “I just got...”
“Jealous?” Rion supplies. At my nod, he pulls me into his arms, uncaring that Abel still has me in his. “I would rip the balls off any man you slept with before us. You’re jealous because you’re my mate. Hell, it could even be because you have feelings for an asshole like me. Either way, jealousy is completely natural.”
“I don’t know why we don’t feel it toward each other,” Kai muses, and Bronson grunts in agreement. “Maybe because this is fate: all of us together.”
