Knox moved to Brander, and then they both looked at me, speaking in another tongue, one that I couldn’t understand. They moved into a group, and I shook my head. My eyes moved to Brander’s backside, noting the way he filled out the jeans he wore. His legs were muscular enough that you could see the power of his thighs through them. Every once in a while, one would turn and look at me before spinning back around to say something else.
Lifting the bottle to my lips, I felt my stomach churning and complaining about being empty. I needed some food to absorb the alcohol, but there was nothing here, at least not anything that had been offered.
“I’m going to bed,” I said begrudgingly, knowing that I wouldn’t be getting food before morning, and I couldn’t stomach any more tequila without it. Standing, I moved toward the door, only to be stopped in my tracks as Knox’s voice sounded, my name on his lips.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going, Aria?”
“I’m going to bed before I ruin your perfectly good couch by vomiting on it,” I explained before I hiccupped, and covered my mouth, staring at him.
“Are you drunk?” He glared at me as a look of annoyance covered his face.
My gaze slid to where Regina watched me with a smirk on her full red lips. Enjoying the show at my cost, bitch.
“Absolutely,” I said, flipping him a one-finger salute using my middle finger before opening the door and slipping out.
I didn’t make it three steps out the door before he was in front of me, pushing me back inside carefully. I fell back as I lost my balance, landing on my ass upon the floor. I glared up at him, and my chest rattled in warning.
“Don’t fucking touch me again.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sabine demanded, rushing over with the others to pick me up off the floor.
The alcohol had altered my balance and made it impossible for me to stand. I shoved my sisters away as I climbed to my feet and looked him dead in the eyes, growling. “Keep your fucking hands off of me, Knox.”
“Did you kill the alpha?” he hissed.
“What? I was with you, asshole.”
“Did you kill Jasper?” he asked, his tone turning cold and lethal.
“Jasper?” I whispered, and my heart thudded in my chest. Tears burned my eyes for the childhood friend who had played with me on the playground. My head shook as denial burned my tongue. “Jasper isn’t dead. I just talked to him, not even eight hours ago. He was fine when he left.” My throat tightened as my eyes pricked with unshed tears.
“He isn’t fine now. We found him sacrificed on your altar, and you’re the only Hecate witch that was home when it happened.”
It was as if he physically slapped me. I blinked and frowned, tilting my head as I replayed the day’s events.
“Jasper was alive when I saw him, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have killed him. He was a friend.”
“When you were a child, he was. He voted for Amara to be executed if I found her guilty.”
“I know that, and I agreed with him. You think I killed him?” I asked.
“I think you’re a self-serving little bitch who would do anything to be certain her sister isn’t executed. I don’t think you’d bat a pretty little eyelash at murdering someone, not after what you did tonight.”
“Well then, get out your sword and kill me, executioner. Let’s do this.”
“You have not been found guilty yet, Aria Primrose Hecate, but you’re under investigation as of now. You don’t leave this house. You don’t breathe without me knowing your every move. Understood?”
“Yes, master. I’m going to bed now. Did you wish to assign an escort? I may escape in my drunken state from the ‘oh, so powerful male’ who likes to throw me around lately.” I snorted loudly before heading toward the door again. “Can I go, or do you want to throw me around a little more?”
“Brander, walk the drunken little witch to her room, and tuck her in,” he called to the male who watched us silently. I turned, assuring my sisters I was fine and that I had not sacrificed an alpha this week before I started down the hall with my silent, broody guard beside me.
“You don’t strike me as an idiot,” Brander stated beside me as we entered the hallway. “So why the fuck are you goading him?”
“He’s a dick.”
“You’re not a fluffy fucking bunny either, witch.”
“Thanks,” I stated.
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“I know,” I chuckled as I tilted sideways and held on to the wall for a moment to catch my balance.
“Walk,” he ordered.
“I need a moment,” I stated, pressing my hand against my mouth. My eyes closed, and the world began to spin around me. I opened them and started again, only to sway on my feet. “I drank way too much.”
He opened the door after we’d finally made it to my room, and I entered it. Everything had been removed but the bed. No couch sat beside it, no vanity with the large oval mirror, just the large bed with one blanket and a single pillow. Great, I was in jail.
Chapter 23
Sitting on the bed, I frowned while gazing around the empty room. All of my personal things had been removed from the room, which meant I had nothing to change into. I turned, staring at the male who watched me with pretty blue eyes. He leaned against the door, frowning as he took in the room. Huffing, I lifted a brow.
“He took my clothes, really?” I stood up, kicking off my shoes while struggling to keep my balance. “What am I supposed to wear to bed?”
“Sleep naked, I don’t mind.” Brander chuckled darkly, watching me as I struggled to remove my shoes.
“Are you to be my jailer?”
“No, your room now only locks from the outside.”
“Peachy,” I snorted, pulling my shirt over my head, which took several times of trying before I was able to remove it. His gaze dipped to the white bra I’d changed into when we had been sent back here for Knox to investigate the murder.
Had I known I would be accused, I may have escaped and hid food and liquor in my room. If I was going to be in jail or locked up in Knox’s house, it would take a lot of both to survive it. I undid the jeans I wore, pushing them down and stepping out of them.
“Are you planning to watch me get naked?” I asked, noting the smolder in his eyes while he did just that. “Want to help me get naked?” I didn’t want to die a virgin, and I’d felt him, which made him one of two men I could enjoy sleeping with.
“You want me to?” he countered, and then turned, staring down the hall. “Hold that thought, my replacement is coming. He can assist you.”
Knox entered the doorway, and I scoffed. “Pass,” I muttered, turning around to unclasp my bra. Once the girls were free, I climbed onto the bed and pulled the shitty blanket over my head, listening as they spoke in that strange, hypnotic language.
The door closed, and still, I refused to remove the blanket, my eyes growing heavy with the need to sleep. I had almost succumbed to sleep when something sat on the bed, ripping the blanket from my head and body. I started to sit up, but the world spun around me, so I lay there, staring up at Knox, who watched me through mere slits.
“Just plan to fuck anyone willing now?”
“Well, anyone but you,” I snorted, dropping my eyes from the look of disgust I read in his. “Don’t take it personally, Knox, you’re just a dick.”
I turned onto my side, ignoring him or the fact that I could feel his heated stare as he took in the ravens that moved up my spine and around the side of my waist to slip beneath my breastbone. He didn’t speak, at least not until I was almost asleep again.
“Did you kill Jasper?” he asked, and when I didn’t answer him fast enough, he asked again, the place where his name was began burning.
“You know I didn’t,” I hissed angrily.
“Answer the question.”
“No,” I whispered sleepily.
“Did you help Amara murder Jasper?”
“No.”<
br />
“Have you seen her since you’ve been back to Haven Falls?”
“No,” I replied impatiently.
“Do you want to fuck Brander?” His eyes smiled with the question, burning in them as he awaited my answering reply.
Dick.
“No.” I turned to stare at him through sleep-filled eyes. “Dick move, jerk.”
“Do you want to fuck me?”
“No,” I stated, turning to stare at the wall as burning started in my thigh until I screamed from the pain of lying. “I hate you!”
“You hate me enough to fuck me, though,” he chuckled darkly, turning me back over until he was staring down at me. “Are you still drunk?”
“Yes, very much so, Knox. Can you go now?”
“I’m debating on that now.”
“Let me make this easy for you, get out. I don’t like you sober, and getting drunk didn’t help either. So run back to Regen, or whatever her name is, and get fucked.” I turned away again, giving him my back.
“Regina is a generous lover,” he divulged, and I frowned, hating him more.
“Cool story, bro. Go get it then,” I muttered hoarsely.
“You chose battle ravens, why?”
I ignored him until he repeated it and forced me to answer. “Because they’ve been wounded, but they still fly fearlessly.”
“Did you know they say the gods used them to be their eyes and ears in this realm at one time?”
“Greek or Norse, because both are believed to have used them to carry messages or warnings with their presence?” I questioned.
“It’s said the Tower of London will fall if the ravens leave.”
“So they clipped their wings to keep them from flying, guaranteeing it never fell. They cheated, ensuring the raven couldn’t fly was mean. Apollo considered them bad luck, and Odin used them for his eyes and ears. Apollo also used them to spy on his lover because he was an insecure prat. Why are you still in my room?”
He chuckled, turning me over and moving so smoothly that my brain didn’t register he’d trapped me to the bed. He stared at me, watching me carefully before I glared up at him with a loathing I couldn’t fake.
“You kissed me today,” he announced.
“Yeah, but it didn’t work.”
“You’ve never been properly kissed before, have you?”
“Does it matter? And so what, I wasn’t trying to make out with you. I was trying to keep you from looking under the bed.”
He leaned down, and my mouth opened and closed while he lowered his head, brushing his mouth against mine. I held my mouth shut, watching him until the room began spinning, and I closed them to keep from being swallowed up by the ocean swimming within his gaze. His tongue prodded my mouth to open, and I did, letting him taste the alcohol I’d drank earlier.
His hand slid beneath my head, and before I could argue, he had me sitting up without ever breaking the kiss. Knox deepened the kiss the moment my tongue slipped against his, it began pulling at something within me.
Knox didn’t just kiss me.
He sent electricity rushing through me, opening something untapped within me. It was all-consuming, earthshattering, and I felt him everywhere all at once. As if by kissing me, this man had slipped into my soul and was leaving his name written in permanent ink. Knox took the air from my lungs, slowly giving it back to me with his kiss. I inhaled every inch of him into my lungs hungrily.
He deepened the kiss, making it primal as something snapped within me, and I couldn’t get close enough to him. I couldn’t get enough of him. His hand slipped to the back of my neck, holding me as if he feared I would escape his hungry kiss, but thought wasn’t something I could achieve with his mouth against mine. His other hand lifted, tilting my chin to gain further depth, which I wasn’t sure I should allow. He wasn’t asking; he took, and I gave. The heat that shot through me wasn’t pleasant, it was fucking delicious, and I craved burning to ashes from the intensity of it.
Knox pulled away slowly with his forehead still resting against mine, breathing hard as he glared at me as if I’d been the one to kiss him instead of it being the other way around. There were storm clouds in his eyes, shadows of the sweetest darkness I’d ever witnessed danced within them, and I craved to taste it on my flesh. We fought to gain control of our breathing, and the moment before I had mine under control, he stood, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him, jolting me back to reality with the cool aloofness of who I’d just kissed, and what I’d allowed to happen.
“What the fuck just happened?” I whispered, touching my swollen lips.
The man kissed like he was going to war, and my mouth was an enemy he wanted to destroy. It was brutal and yet beautiful. I wanted to feel it again, to see if it happened again. I’d had boys touch my lips, but never anyone as terrifying or like Knox.
The man didn’t just kiss; he fucking dominated you, and you went with it or got destroyed in the wake. My lips tingled, rejoicing with having been given my first taste of real passion, and yet it was Knox who had given it to me. No, Knox hadn’t given it, he’d demanded it, and then he’d glared at me as if I was the one who had started it.
Had it scared him as much as it had terrified me? No, he was Knox, and I was just some wishy-washy witch to him. But damn, it had been like making out with a power line, the electrical sizzle that still rushed through me was everything I’d ever wanted, and yet I hated that it was him. The one prick who treated me like I was nothing, and now I’d remember him for the rest of my life and compare everyone else to him and his stupid, superb, really fucking sexy mouth.
I hated him! I loathed him more than I ever had hated another human being, and yet I craved him. I desired the connection I felt from him, which was all wrong and twisted.
Lying back, I stared at the ceiling, unable to take my fingers away from my swollen lips. I should have stopped him. I should have slapped the conceited, condescending asshole who liked to toss me about like I was something he could break and be completely okay with breaking. I was stupid to think the kiss meant anything, but then why kiss me at all? To be my first? Probably.
He’d known I’d never tasted the kiss of another, and wouldn’t he be a smug prick out telling his men he’d just claimed it? He sucked. I needed to act cool tomorrow when I saw him, ignore him, and pretend he hadn’t just delivered the perfect first kiss.
I could do that, right? Right.
Fuck him.
Chapter 24
I woke up with someone’s hand touching my leg. Turning over, I stared into the amber eyes of the male I’d punched in the throat the first time I came to Knox’s house, carrying a bottle of whiskey. He grabbed the blankets and pulled them back, moving onto the bed as I winced at the pain in my head. He watched me before reaching up to push his platinum-colored hair behind his pointed ear, which I strained to see through bloodshot eyes. I couldn’t have awoken any faster had the ceiling been caving in on my head.
“You wear his name on you well, don’t you sweetie,” he chuckled huskily, tilting his head while studying me. “That explains his decree.”
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded, turning to face him, uncaring that it exposed my back to the open door, but then I was wearing a thong, and it covered more than most swimsuits did this year. Soon, they were just going to be putting up stickers for your asshole and charging out the ying-yang just to cover them. “I asked you a question.”
“Calm your pretty tits, girl. I’m here to wake you up and deliver you to the dining room. Clothes are in the bathroom. I suggest you start by washing that unsated flesh before you start a fucking riot.” He lay back, dismissing me while folding his arms behind his head. “Go, because if there’s no food, you will be my breakfast, witch, and I’m fucking ravenous right now.”
I pulled the blanket around me and rushed into the bathroom, glaring at the lack of a lock or a way to bar the door from the entrance. Inside the room lay a pile of clothes, but they weren’t mine. A white dress
created in lace unfolded the moment I touched it, and beneath it was a garter, along with nylons and high heels that looked more like fuck-me heels than anything else.
They had brought in my makeup bag as I’d slept, along with my shampoo and conditioner. I sniffed the dress, noting that it hadn’t been laundered in our laundry soap but smelled clean, and not like anyone else.
It took me less than thirty minutes to dress, and when all that remained on the counter were the nylons and garter, I slipped into the stiff shoes and realized it wasn’t something I could forget. Swallowing down frustration, I grabbed the items, staring at them and the small straps that appeared to connect to the thigh-high nylons.
“Need help?” he called from the other room.
“No.”
The dress itself was a white maxi spaghetti-strap dress, which meant no bra could be worn with it—which, whatever, not a problem. It would expose the thigh-highs when walking or sitting by the single slit that stopped just below the top of my thigh.
That part didn’t impress me, which I wasn’t so sure was an oversight by whoever had picked out the dress. Once I slipped the nylons and garter on, and looked at my reflection, I smiled. My lips were cherry red, and my eyes looked larger, more striking with the thin line of eyeliner and mascara.
Exiting the bathroom, I stared at the male who opened his mouth and then clamped it shut. He stood up, staring at where the slit in the dress rose higher than it should, and his smile twisted into something sinister.
“After you, beautiful,” he stated, holding his hand out toward the door.
I moved toward the door, ignoring him as best as I could even though he made a strangled noise behind me. I barely contained a snort when Brander exited a room beside mine, watching me as his gaze dropped to the deep V-neck of the bodice, allowing him to see the raven that flew toward my heart in the middle of my breasts.
“Morning,” he uttered, wiping his hand over his mouth as I passed by him.
“Good morning, Brander,” I said dismissively, feeling like a doll who’d been dressed up to show off.
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