Ignited: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 4)

by Steffanie Holmes

  The god’s voice whispered at the edges of my mind, drawing me back to that dark place that had haunted my dreams.

  John Hyde-Jones clapped me on the shoulder and yelled something. My resolve snapped. I was back in that room, to the boys kicking me and holding me down. His words echoed in my mind. Spread her legs. I spun around and slammed my fist into his face.

  My knuckles smushed his nose with an angry CRACK. The pain arcing through my hand brought me back to the present.

  “Bitch.” John staggered back. “What was that for?”

  I shoved my way through the crowd, desperate to breathe. I caught the flash of Trey moving forward, his eyes locked on John as he descended to dish out his own justice. Tillie grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the circle. Two girls stepped toward me, but one look from Tillie sent them back.

  “I understand why you did that,” she whispered. “He’s hurt a lot of girls over the years.”

  A shudder ran through me as I fought to keep my shaking limbs under control. John had never succeeded in hurting me with more than his fists, but to think he’d done it to others… and I was going to reward him with his freedom.

  “I’m unleashing that monster on the world,” I whispered. Suddenly, everything I’d been working toward seemed stupid and dangerous. I’d been so focused on how the Kings had changed. They saw that they had done horrible things, and they’d already started on the path to redemption. But they were only three of the 245 students. These students had spent twenty years locked inside this hellhole, believing that they could do whatever they wanted to the scholarship students and the staff who served them. And until now, that had been true. They’d had no consequences for their cruelty. So why would they stop?

  “Trust me, when John Hyde-Jones gets out into the world, he’s going to be watched carefully,” Tillie hissed, and the venom in her voice sent a chill down my spine. “And not just by me. But wherever he goes, I’ll be there, and if he makes one false move I’ll report him to the police. Or cut off his nuts.”

  The venom in her voice stung the air. I believed her. “What about Derek? What about everyone who tortured scholarship students? I can’t watch all 245 students. There’s no way to…”

  “To make everyone obey the law? To turn us all into upstanding citizens and liberals? You’re right – there’s no way to do that. And you shouldn’t try. There are monsters among us; I’m not denying it. Hell, I was a monster once. But I think I’ve changed. Or at least, I want to change. And I’m not the only one. The wanting… you made us feel that, and maybe it will be enough, but that’s out of your hands. It’s not your responsibility to save our souls, Hazel. You’ve done more than enough by saving our lives, even though we don’t deserve it.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. “Um… you’re welcome.”

  Tillie laughed. She wiped her eye, and I noticed a tear forming in the corner. “When you first came to school, I hated you so much. Trey couldn’t stop talking about you. Hazel this, Dead Meat that. He put more effort into torturing you than any of the others. That’s how I knew he liked you, and I hated you for it. Isn’t that fucked up?”

  I nodded in agreement. “That is the most fucked up.”

  “The truth is, Trey and I were never a good match. We dragged each other down into our own misery – because that was the only thing that connected us. But seeing him with you… he’s a different guy. A better guy. It’s like his eyes have been opened, and he makes me want to open my eyes, too. But not as much as you. I’ve been a seventeen-year-old girl for twenty years, and I still don’t know who I am. Not like you, Hazel. You’ve always had such a… determination about you. A solidity. That’s why he loves you – because you’re the stone wall he can throw himself against, and you won’t break. The way he looks at you… maybe I’ll meet someone who loves me like that one day, but I have to figure out who I am first. And even though I was horrible to you, you’re giving me that chance. You’re all right, for a charity case.” Tillie held out her cup for me.

  “And you’re okay, for a stone-cold monarch bitch.” I grinned back. We clinked cups, splashing alcohol over each other.

  Quinn danced over. “Ladies, you need to be on the dance floor, grinding against me. That’s an order from your King.” He yanked us into a lopsided circle where students bumped and ground against each other to the eerie, tribal beat. A thick fog of sweetly scented smoke clung over the group.

  “What’s this stuff?” I waved my hands in the swirling mist.

  Quinn took a drag from a long-stemmed pipe. He held it out to me. “Paul’s dad gave it to us a few years ago. It isn’t even on the streets yet. Want me to hook you up?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’ve seen enough horrors at this school without a head full of drugs.” My brain already felt fuzzy from the confrontations and various substances mixing in the air. I didn’t know if it would impact my ability to draw my fire.

  Hands clamped over my thighs. I stiffened. The familiar whiff of fresh herbs and springtime caressed my palate. “This party is awesome,” Trey yelled over the noise as he danced in close. I relaxed into him, his body raising heat where it grazed mine. “There’s only one problem – where’s this pillar of ours? I thought you were going to do it when you swung at John – you looked angry enough.”

  I smiled. Beneath my feet, the god rumbled in anticipation. “Nope. I have another plan for pillar-raising.”

  I took Trey’s hand, stroking my fingers over his knuckles. With my free hand, I picked up Quinn’s wrist, draping his hand across Trey’s. I looked up. Without me needing to do anything, Ayaz shoved his way through the crowd and stood before me, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile. He laid his hand on top. Three pairs of eyes met mine – one ice, one warm amber, one dark as night.

  I sucked in a breath. I deliberately hadn’t told them about this. I didn’t want to give them time to think it over, to back out, to come up with excuses. I didn’t want them to wonder why I’d been pushing them away, only to draw them to me tonight.

  I didn’t want to explain that I wanted one last, wonderful memory to carry me across the cosmos before I said goodbye to the Kings forever.

  My three bullies. My Kings. The three guys I loved more with every breath, who challenged me and infuriated me and made me giddy with the force of my passion.

  “Come with me,” I spoke my wish into the air.

  “Where are we going?” Quinn raised an eyebrow.

  “To the cabins.” I met their eyes, letting my desire pool. “I need all three of you. Tonight. With me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Quinn’s lips curled back into a smile. “You mean, slacks off, cocks out, Hazy’s body at our mercy? I thought you’d never ask.”

  Trey’s eyes narrowed. “You’re asking—”

  “For the three of you to come with me to that cabin. For us to spend the rest of the night together. I know you’ve… done it before.” I didn’t like to think of them with other girls, especially not Courtney or Tillie, but I knew from things they’d said that they’d shared girls before.

  “Those meant nothing.” Trey’s fingers tightened around mine. “Those girls were just a distraction.”

  “We wanted to see how far we could get,” Quinn grinned. “I never thought any of them would go for it. Immortality makes everyone horny as fuck.”

  Ms. West’s probably been lacing their food with aphrodisiacs.

  I tugged on their hands. “I don’t want to talk about your other conquests. I’m horny as fuck. Isn’t this a much better way of raising the pillar than me torching half the forest?”

  Trey and Ayaz exchanged a glance, holding one of those silent conversations between them. Trey shook his head. “This isn’t right. You shouldn’t do this for the sake of the god.”

  “You… you’re everything to us, Hazy,” Quinn blurted out. “We don’t want to you to feel like you have to be with us.”

  This is ridiculous. They’re all manwho
res. Why are they rejecting this?

  “Let me get this straight,” I said slowly, trying to hold my rising anger in check. “You’re saying you don’t want to have a foursome with me?”

  Quinn winced, his hand flying to his crotch.

  “The exact fucking opposite,” Ayaz growled.

  Trey leaned forward, his lips brushing my ear. “Do you know how many times the three of us have talked about this, about what we’d do to you when we finally had the indomitable Hazel under our spell?”

  “I…”

  Trey’s teeth scraped my earlobe, sending a flare of heat straight to my core. “I’m hard just thinking about it. Of course we want it. We want you. But for the right reasons. And raising that pillar is not the right reason. You have to want this.”

  “I do want it.” Mmmmm, yes I do.

  “You want to help us.” Ayaz trailed his fingers down my back, raising the hairs on my skin. “That’s not the same thing.”

  “What if we hurt you?” Trey murmured, resting his hands on my hips, letting the heat of his skin draw out my flame. “Did you think about that? What if—”

  I burst out laughing. “Hurt me? This from the guys who burned Dante’s journal, who tarred my hair and held me over the side of a cliff to make me believe I was about to die? I’d like to see you fucking try to hurt me, Trey Bloomberg.”

  Trey’s lips curled back into that cruel smirk that had always sent a shiver down my spine and heat coursing through my veins. Before I could react, he’d wrapped hot fingers around my neck, twisted my head toward him, and covered my mouth in his.

  Holy fucking Great Old God.

  I’d been pushing the guys away ever since I learned what I had to do. I knew it was the right thing for our shattered hearts. I needed the Kings to forget me so they could move on when I was gone. I wanted them to have all the good things – the true riches that had been denied them: love, peace, hope. They couldn’t have that with me, and the sooner I stopped pretending, the happier we’d all be.

  But…

  Trey’s lips seared mine, hot and possessive and savage. Here was the baddest King of the bullies laid bare. Violence bubbled beneath Trey’s skin – the predator within him who’d once decided I was his prey and now… and now I was his lioness. And he tasted my growl.

  But… I was nothing if not a sucker for heartache. I ran headlong into trouble instead of fleeing the other way.

  What was the harm in one last goodbye? One last beautiful memory to carry with me in a spaceship made of black stone and broken memories?

  A hand snaked around my shoulders, fingers walking across my naked flesh, raising goosebumps in their wake that had nothing to do with being cold. I could just make out Quinn’s cheeky smile behind Trey’s ear.

  “Let’s get to that cabin.” Quinn’s voice strained with lust.

  I turned to lead the way, but Quinn picked me up, tossing me over his shoulder so my ass pointed to the sky. He slapped it playfully. “You’re ours tonight, Hazy.”

  Fuck yes.

  Trey and Ayaz took off into the trees, their steps long and urgent. Quinn raced after them, bouncing me over his shoulder. His hand slid along my inner thigh, slipping beneath my short velvet skirt. Nails scraped skin, teasing me as he dragged me away to his cave.

  The forest canopy obscured the moon and stars. Quinn didn’t seem to need light to see where he was going. I guess they’d been down to the cabins enough times to know the way by heart.

  Don’t think about it. Not tonight. It doesn’t matter how many times they’ve been here before, and with whom. Tonight they’re yours and you’re theirs, and that’s all that matters.

  The line of pods came into view, their fiberglass shells shimmering under the waning moon. Quinn slid me off his shoulder, setting my feet on the ground and kissing me with desperate urgency. My lips exploded with his touch – Quinn Delacorte knew how to fucking kiss. When I was in his arms, I felt like the only woman on earth, like he’d been lost in the desert for years and I was the first sip of water on a parched throat. He kissed like he needed me to breathe.

  “You’re not afraid of me anymore.” I struggled to catch my breath between kisses.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking.” Quinn’s eyes glinted with something that might’ve been regret. “You’re the only person who has ever fought for me, who has ever believed I’m worth fighting for. You aren’t a monster, Hazy – you’re a gift.”

  I staggered back, stunned by the depth of his words. Quinn looked like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself either. He ran a hand through his sandy hair. “I’m not good at being all deep and poetic and shit. That’s more Ataturk’s territory. But yeah… I’m not sure I was afraid of you so much as I was afraid of how I felt about you. All my life the people I’ve loved have hurt me, so I try to keep them at arm’s length. I make jokes because it gives me distance – it’s like pulling a little box over my heart where I can hide. But you came along and fucking kicked in the box with those vicious Docs of yours. I’m out here all exposed, and it’s scary. But exciting, too. Especially…” Quinn leaned in to kiss me again, his fingers stroking my cheek with unusual tenderness. “Especially now that we stand a chance of getting out of here. Now that I can imagine a future with you in it.”

  I knew that wasn’t true, and I hated keeping that secret from him, but his lips devoured mine and his fingers laced in my hair and I lost myself in his fruity scent and sweetness and I wanted so badly to fall into his delusion that we’d have a life together.

  But I could fall into him – into all of them – instead. In some way, maybe what the four of us had would endure beyond the stars, living on in our memories even when we were ashes and dust.

  Ayaz and Trey waited on the porch of the largest cabin, the one the Kings always reserved for themselves. I shoved my hand in my pocket to dig for the key, but Ayaz drew back his arm and thrust his fist through the tiny window. Glass smashed. Ayaz reached inside and unlocked the door.

  “I had the key,” I told him.

  “Fuck the key. I’m not waiting another moment.” Ayaz swept me into his arms and crushed my lips with his. His hands trailed over my body, wrapping me in that rich scent of his that takes me out of my body to some exotic, faraway place where things are different and fairy tales really do come true. When Ayaz touched me… it was tinged with bittersweet longing and vicious desperation. The intensity of it sloughed off all my edges, leaving me a mess of feelings and nerve endings and hot, urgent need.

  We staggered across the room, shoving and tugging in urgency. My shins hit the edge of the bed and I sank back, falling into the sheets. Ayaz crawled on top of me, his hardness grazing my thigh. He claimed my lips again, driving me into the bed with the force of his need.

  This was a different side of Ayaz to the sweet guy who I lost my virginity to in my creaking single bed. Ayaz cupped my face in his, and he teased out the darkness that cloaked my heart, igniting the flame inside me that burned for him. He was wild, impassioned, the artist finally free of the shackles of his servitude.

  I loved it.

  The bed creaked as Trey and Quinn climbed up, one on either side of me. Ayaz tore his lips from mine and sat back, and I stared up at my three Kings. It was hard to believe that only a few short months ago they were the source of all my misery, and now the thought of being without them made my chest tight.

  The look in their eyes made my chest burn with heat. But behind the hunger, there was something else. Something deeper than words, more powerful than the rage that had kept us all prisoner. Something that might endure across eons and beyond stars.

  “Hands up,” Trey commanded. I lifted my arms above my head. Trey gripped my wrists while he and Quinn worked the velvet dress over my body. The fabric caressed my skin as they yanked it over my shoulders. Quinn flung the fabric against the wall.

  “Don’t come back!” he yelled at the offending clothing.

  I wanted to laugh, but hot lips on mine stifled that idea.
Trey held my wrists above my head, pressing me into the bed, willing me to submit to them. I sucked in a breath at the sudden loss of my power. His weight against my hips, his hands circling my wrists… if I wanted to escape, I’d never be able to throw him off.

  Good thing I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  I’d never been one to like to give up control, especially not to an arrogant bastard like Trey Bloomberg. But in that moment, I fucking dug it. I arched my back, begging them for more.

  Bring it the fuck on, bully boys.

  I’m about to be with three guys at once. I should have been afraid. Back at my old school, girls whispered horror stories about this exact situation.

  Trey was asking me to trust him, to trust them.

  Heat crawled through my body. I tipped my head back, exposing my neck and parting my lips, offering myself.

  For tonight, for one night only, they would be mine, and I theirs. I dragged away the broken glass surrounding my heart. I let them inside me, even though each kiss tore jagged cuts across my soul. Because I knew it would be my last.

  The guys exchanged a silent conversation while my skin flushed with anticipation. Trey’s words nagged in my mind. Do you know long we’ve thought about this?

  What did they want to do to me? What did I want them to do to me? Everything. I had to live off this night for eternity. I wanted to savor every exquisite moment and every depraved action.

  Ayaz was the first to bend toward me, his lips finding mine. While we kissed with frenzied urgency, Quinn’s lips circled my nipple. His teeth scraped the sensitive skin, the slight pain of it only driving the fire higher. Heat circled my palms as I lay them across Quinn’s back. He shuddered for a moment, then surrendered to trust.

  Trey let go of my wrists to strip off his shirt, folding it neatly and dropping it down beside the bed. He slid off his slacks and crawled up beside me, his lips laying a trail across my cheek and along my jaw. He fought for my wrists again, trapping them over my head. Like fuck I was going to stop him, not with Quinn’s lips wrapped around my nipple and Ayaz attacking my mouth with his.