Awful Intentions: Friends-to-Lovers Romance (The Celestial Bodies Series Book 2)

by Elena Monroe

  It wasn’t.

  The way I got down on the floor and with time unaccounted for… it all came rushing back to me, and I snapped up in a panic. My face ached in a way that made me want to scream. My fingers gently glided over my features, and when I reached my eyebrows, tears poured down my face.

  Dorian’s fist had met my face.

  His temper boiled over because of a bad decision I made. He hit me without any remorse, because I cheated on him. He hit me, because no one had ever taught him how to lose as a man.

  So why did I feel like I deserved it?

  More tears leaked from my eyes, realizing how fucked up I truly was.

  Dorian was sound asleep in the bed, while I laid on the floor. Tip toeing past the bed, I reached the bathroom to assess my face. It was red and swollen like an allergic reaction.

  I could explain the other bruises away, blaming work, but this showed up overnight and wasn’t a simple bruise.

  Panic, fear, guilt… all made my stomach turn in like it was full of poison.

  I wasn't going to let this fall apart here or in front of my friends. I needed to think and heal, before anything happened.

  Nyx reacting to the bruise growing around my eye and my displaced nose in all the swollen skin was going to result in more bad decisions.

  This would hurt Nyx in a similar way I hurt Dorian. I wasn't supposed to be hurting anyone; it wasn't who I was. The stars fated me to care, not cause pain.

  Realizing we needed to leave before everyone, I quietly got dressed before I pressed my hands into Dorian to wake him up. I flinched when he woke up suddenly. “We have to go. No one can see.”

  I understood I was protecting him, and I also knew it wasn't the best decision I could have made. It was a smart decision. I needed to be the one to handle this, not everyone else. Look where that got me after the ritual.

  I didn't bring a hoodie or sunglasses.

  I didn't bring any “just in case” items.

  Dorian winced upon rubbing his eyes awake and seeing my face. The awkward silence not filled with any sorries was motivating me to leave even quicker.

  Clutching my phone in my hands, my eyes darted around every corner, listening so carefully I felt like I turned off all my other senses. I didn't want to run into anyone.

  Creeping through Hades’s place, and trying to get away with it, seemed stupid.

  It was then that Hades spoke my name: “Little Lamb?”

  Not turning around, I stiffened when Dorian slipped out into the elevator to presumably start the car and shake off the morning dew… or leave me here.

  “I gotta get home, but it was good seeing you...” I had to bite down tears and force my eyes to blink the tears back.

  “Turn around, Little Lamb.” His presence was close, clearly having moved across the room to be now standing behind me this close to the exit.

  Slowly turning around, I kept my gaze on the floor when his fingers forced my chin up. He winced too. “What the bloody stars happened to you?”

  My voice shook, lip trembling: “Please don't tell. Please. Nyx will do something vile… you know that.”

  Without wanting him to, Hades brought me to his chest carefully, and I sunk into him, hoping he'd let me live there forever, instead of facing reality. I heard footsteps and yanked myself out of his embrace. Quickly, I slipped out into the elevator before I saw anyone else.

  Dorian was shockingly parked next to the curb, waiting to take me home. I guess if you hit a girl and she's your girlfriend, you could get your way for a while.

  As soon as I sat down, I wanted to fall asleep and let the pain of my face overtake me. My eyelids were heavy; the ache pounded through me; and my emotional state was tanked.

  Not one word was spoken the whole drive.

  Not one.

  When he dropped me off in front of my building, I barely had enough strength to carry myself inside. I passed out with the bedroom door locked, hoping this wouldn't be the one time Arianna decided to stay in our place out of the countless nights she didn't.

  ??

  The rest of the weekend, I swear I didn't drag myself out of bed but to pee, and only when I finally couldn't hold it anymore.

  My face only got worse looking by the time Monday came around. My eye was purple and black, while my rose was dusted in the same colors.

  It looked broken before I realigned it in one of my trips to pee over the weekend. I screamed into a face cloth, feeling all the pain and pressure mount again. This was the worst physical pain I had ever been in. It was a constant ache rippling through me and draining every magnitude of energy.

  Monday rolled around, and I didn't bother calling out “sick” from work. Dorian should know best why I wasn’t going to show up today.

  Instead, I slept off more of the pain, hoping it would heal soon. None of us ever got hurt and when we did, we would heal in half the time mortals would. This must be the one in a millionth chance.

  Just my luck.

  While I was heating up soup, there was a knock on the door. “Luna? It's Austin. Are you home? Dorian said you were sick.”

  Laughable excuse.

  We don't get sick. He had no idea how many red flags he sent up.

  Talking through the door, I tried to put some effort into my voice: “I'm okay, Austin. Thanks for coming by. I just don't wanna see anyone right now.”

  I heard whispering, like someone else was with him, just before he spoke again: “I brought cupcakes. Come on, Luna… just open the door.”

  My silence didn't go over well, and then I heard Kate’s aggressive and demanding voice shout: “Bitch, open the damn door! I'm not asking. You've got ‘til the count of five before I make Austin break it down.”

  I rolled my eyes at her counting. Why couldn't they just leave me alone? Why couldn't I drown in my own bad decisions? Maybe my drowning would produce a rebirth.

  She counted down from five loudly, and it didn't elicit a single emotional response when I took my soup to the couch for a change of scenery from the blank walls in the bedroom.

  Once she hit five, I heard a key turn in the lock, and she busted through the door without me realizing she had a spare key. Hurrying to shield my injuries for them, she stormed in my direction, as a full-blown tornado, named Kate, wrecking everything in her path.

  She stopped short, halfway across the room, and her hand clamped down on her mouth with shock at seeing my black, blue, and purple bruised face. Slowly sitting on the coffee table in front of me, her fingers gently pushed my chin up so she could get a better look.

  “Luna…” she whispered, “What happened to your face?”

  Then louder, she growled, “Who did this!” She wasn't asking, she was demanding. I couldn't force the words out of my open mouth. I couldn't even force it closed, as I felt her breath hit my wounds while examining me.

  “I don't… wanna talk about it.”

  Her popped eyebrows were making other demands. “I. Don't. Care. Who did this, Luna? Do we know them?”

  I nodded my head, not knowing I was protecting him, but saving his punishments for myself.

  “Don't make me tell Nyx, Luna. Spill it.” Her fingers finally let go of my chin, and she ended up staring at me the same way everyone did after the ritual—like I was broken and there was no fixing me. Only this time, it was more literal.

  “He didn't mean to. It was an accident. I… messed up.”

  She looked more confused, waiting for me to explain my words. She was threatening to tell the one person I was desperate to keep this from. I had no choice but to tell her.

  “I slept with Nyx last night at the party... for the second time. I cheated on Dorian.”

  “So… you think you deserved this as punishment?” she spat out at me, and I swore I felt the force of her words.

  Standing up with the little bit of energy I had was hard enough, and my eyes started to water. Seeing Austin sitting at the counter, listening, made this all too real.

  “Yes, Kate!
I deserve worse! I killed Cheyanne. I fucked Nyx, when I knew how he felt for me, just to go back to Dorian. I deserve worse than Sisyphus!”

  My face hurt from my mouth moving and my features trying to tense while swollen and tight. Sisyphus was the man who owed Death, never paid up, and was sentenced to push the same rock up a hill every day, just to find the rock back at the bottom with each new day.

  Torture.

  Punishment.

  Well-deserved.

  Kate shot up, pulling me into her arms and shushing me gently, knowing I was being torn into pieces. She whispered into my hair, “You need to tell Nyx before he finds out on his own.”

  I shook violently in her arms, and my lips trembled against the heavy air. My eyes were stained with tears. “No, he'll kill him. Me. You can't tell.”

  I heard her say that I needed to be the one to tell him, not her. But I couldn’t. No one could. The world wouldn't be safe with Nyx on a tear.

  Nyx

  I was sitting up in bed and had to guess it was around 10 p.m., when I decided I needed a Cotton Candy fix.

  No matter how many times I fucked Luna, she wasn’t breaking up with Dorian.

  No matter how much I gave her, she still wasn't seeing my feelings for their true value: love.

  Cotton Candy was the remedy for my particular state. I finished rolling two perfectly plump joints and closed the open notebook I was doing it on—above my words, above my handwritten words, like some modern day Henry Jon, trying to evict the demons with a pen and paper.

  It was a sticky kind of heat, forcing me to not bring a jacket. Just my black t-shirt and same old jeans with my same old boots.

  Unwavering.

  The only thing unique was my hair sticking to my sticky skin, and my essence was something only Hades could have forged. Darkness lived in me comfortably, especially now that Luna wasn't mine anymore.

  Swinging my bedroom door open, I saw Kate’s blonde hair, bubble gum pink sweater, and something unexpected: joggers, tight and perfectly molding to her curves.

  Walking past her without any regard, she pushed a hand against my chest. “We have a problem.”

  Great, add it to my list. I'll be right with you when I decide to give a fuck.

  I looked down at her palm against my hard chest. I actually put an effort into removing her hand.

  “Dorian isn't a good guy.”

  My eyes slanted, looking at her with a quizzical look, waiting for more to her statement. I waved my hand forward, promoting her to continue.

  Leaning against the wall, she sported another thing I had never seen on Kate: clear worry. Normally she hid it in a bitch attitude and under her queen bee status.

  “He hit her, Nyx. It's bad.”

  Everything in the world felt like it had stopped. I felt myself go rigid under her confession, trying to shuffle through my memories to find the clues I clearly missed.

  Walking away, I ignored her. I didn't need to hear any more; that was all I needed to justify fucking him up.

  “Where are you going?” She followed closely on my heels as I fiddled with my keys.

  “Hunting.” I placed a joint between my lips and didn't bother using my lighter. I was a human fucking torch; it ran in the family. Pops could control fire with his hands. I only ever toyed with sparking a flame between my fingers, never paying it much mind. I never tried to accelerate my gifts, not any of them, except for my strength.

  Right now, strength was shit to me. I wanted to burn Dorian alive, until his screams sounded like music, and then feed his seared flesh to Pop's dogs.

  “I'm coming with you.”

  Stopping and turning around to face her, I said, “No, you aren't. Go home to Austin.”

  She popped her hip, and her head tilted in a way that made it seem like she wasn’t understanding my words.

  She confidently said, “You aren’t going alone. Oh, and I don’t do blood, so I’ll drive.” Snatching my keys off my fingers, she proceeded to walk to my car like she had some sort of stake in this.

  I had no choice but to follow her if I wanted my keys back. “When did it happen?”

  Don’t say last night.

  Don’t taint me coming apart for her.

  Don’t tell me she was in my space when he decided to hurt her when I wasn’t looking.

  Just don’t.

  She shrugged, “Does that matter? It’s that it happened, Nyx. This shouldn’t be happening.”

  Yes, it did matter. Last night she broke me, and then he broke her.

  “A lot of things shouldn’t happen. The ritual didn’t happen; you convinced Austin to love you back; Bolton suddenly became a decent fucking person the minute Arianna decided to grace us with her presence again... Luna isn’t mine. A lot shouldn’t have happened, Kate.”

  My breath was knocked out of me during my own realizations.

  Dorian hurt what was mine.

  Dorian hurt something as precious as Luna.

  Dorian was doling out punishments he had no right to hand out. I was the motherfucking Prince of the Underworld, and I decided punishments—not some mortal who wanted to prove he was better than me by breaking what I held closest.

  Kate stopped before the man handling the vintage metal door handle of my Firebird, just to look at me with her eyebrows caved in—sympathetic at my sudden emotions.

  Always there, taunting me.

  Only Luna was allowed to see them, and I was bursting at the seams with damn emotions, not knowing if she was okay to help me cope another day.

  Hitting the hood of my car, I watched my fist cave the metal inward like crumpled paper, balled up and discarded, making Kate jump before slipping behind the wheel.

  Taking long drags off my joint, I slumped down against the leather, letting her drive when no one drove my car. I mumbled to myself, “He’s going to die.”

  If the world viewed Zeus as God, and Hades as the Devil, what did that make me? Your worst nightmare.

  My mind was flooded with ways to hurt Dorian. What to cut off, what to make his punishment, what to light on fire, just to watch parts of himself melt just like my heart was.

  Kate had a lead foot and an addiction to not stopping for any kind of signs. Another place and time, this would be funny, but I was making her so uncomfortable, clenching my anger between my teeth, that it made her senseless.

  “She’s gonna be okay…” Her eyes didn’t dare look at me in the passenger’s seat.

  “Now she will, yes…” I wasn’t letting anything else happen to her—mine or not.

  There was only one other time I felt this kind of anger—the kind that was unleashed and untamed, even for me. _

  It was when we were stuck at Arcadia, and I was new, still wondering how all that happened realistically. One minute I was a nomad, and the next, every sign pointed to Seattle, like a magnet bringing me there.

  Jasper already had his eyes and heart set to one dial tone: Luna.

  I wasn't looking for a girlfriend or even an easy lay, paying no mind to anything but surviving.

  It wasn't until she nearly fell, and my hands reached out to catch her when I touched her… That single touch made a thousand memories scream inside my head.

  Familiar comfort.

  Her and Jasper were already close, too close for me to be okay seeing them together every day. It chewed me up and spat me out repeatedly, until I had enough of the silently polite bullshit.

  I could see the look on her face was letting him flirt, letting his hand land on her arm randomly, and allowing all the niceties that weren't real.

  She was being polite too—too polite. It matched her sweaters, but not the gold flecks in her eyes begging for someone to violate her.

  I waited until class was already over. Both of us were waiting for very different reasons. I was about to be scolded for being late for the fifth time that week, while she was probably waiting to ask for more homework.

  Too good for her own good.

  Once I was scolded with a s
trongly suggested, “Make it to class on time tomorrow or detention every day next week.”

  That wasn't exactly motivating.

  Outside, I waited along the hallways for Luna, who was still in the classroom. From what I could hear, it wasn’t an affair or anything less than upstanding.

  Once she came out of the classroom, I snatched her wrist and yanked her close to me so unexpectedly her palms pressed against my chest along with the rest of her body. Staring at her longer than socially acceptable. I finally choked out, “You're way too good to be true.”

  I didn't know if she had the same memories living in her head, and I didn't want to sound crazy too soon. I was crazy, just not upon inspection; my crazy was under a few layers, concealed.

  “Excuse me? You don't even know me.”

  Even upset or off guard, she was fucking polite.

  “If you wanna do bad things, come find me, Little Lamb,” I whispered all my words into the space below her ear, where I knew women were sensitive, and I felt her body shake with the goosebumps I had given her.

  After that, Luna took an instant liking to me, and I allowed the seduction of all the bad things I could help her do, just like our memories in my head.

  We kept every way we affected each other to ourselves, sneaking around, behind our friends’ backs. It was ours and only ours.

  It wasn't long before we started fooling around, doing everything but what I wanted. I wanted to conquer her in a way no one else would be able to—to be her first. She couldn't actually be with someone like me—bad. I wasn't the knight or the gentleman that was going to enhance her perfect life. No, I was the guy who was gonna fuck it up, paint it black, and make sure she never lost the rush of what love should be.

  The butterflies.

  The nerves.

  The shit I ignored because my feelings lived in a cage inside my chest, never unlocked or seen…

  …or so I thought. Luna was the key to that cage—a cage that never had its lock picked until Jasper took his romantic gestures to the next level.

  One day at lunch, he made a scene, all to win Luna’s affection, before it ended with a very public kiss. And not an innocent one either. No, this included his tongue pushing into her mouth.