Chapter 9
Cobra
Iwas asking for trouble, and I damn well knew it. I shouldn’t have left the door to my tech room cracked. Shouldn’t have done it for the past three fucking weeks, either.
I tried to concentrate on what Dad was saying about his five-a-side football match last weekend and how the team were tragically short a substitute, and if only someone had a son who was good in defence, they might have stopped that goal.
But the hinges squeaked on the door behind me and I sat up ramrod straight, my fingers tightening around the phone.
It could have been Devil, Tybalt, or even Prodigy come to check on the progress I’d made tracking our latest target, which was none.
But the hairs rose on the back of my neck, and the steps that crossed the room weren’t heavy or loud, but they were familiar.
Quiet, nimble, careful. The tread of a predator.
“At the risk of earning myself a world’s worst son mug for Christmas, can I call you back later?” I asked Dad, my ears mostly honed on the woman stalking towards me, fixed on her every movement, her breathing, the soft swish of the clothes she wore.
“What’s more important than hearing the trials and tribulations of the man who dedicated his whole life to raising you—”
I snorted, my mouth curving into a smile.
“—wiped your gross, green-shitty ass when you were in nappies,” he continued, really laying it on thick. “I bought you My Little Pony plasters when you skinned your knee and screamed the place down when I tried to use a plain plaster—”
“Hey, we agreed we would never speak of that again,” I growled.
“You agreed. I did not,” he replied, unrepentant. “Do I need to remind you of that one time—”
“No,” I interrupted, eyeing Lynn as she lowered herself into the spare seat that just happened to be in front of my monitor set-up.
Dad’s laugh was like a cackle—loud and devilish. “Aw, but it’s my favourite thing to reminisce about. You and Em looked so cute dressed up as Powerpuff Girls.”
I scowled, my jaw clenching, refusing to laugh. “I should have been Blossom,” I muttered.
“But you were such a cute Bubbles,” Dad said with that cackle again, his voice loud enough to wake the dead. “Your pigtails are the stuff of legend. I will never forget them.”
And he’d pinned the photographic evidence to the fridge for my entire life. And had copies made, so my attempts to destroy them failed each time.
“Dick,” I grumbled, casting a sideways glance at Lynn and finding her watching me through long, dark lashes. She was less angry than three nights ago when she caught Leah leaving my room. “I’ve really gotta go.”
“Oh, fine,” he relented. “Be careful.”
He said the same thing each time we hung up. So did I. “I’m not an idiot.”
“And yet your behaviour says otherwise.”
I rolled my eyes and ended the call. He immediately texted:
**DAD
How dare you hang up on your giver of life.
I will hold this against you for all time.
CObrA:
I’ll live.**
“So,” I said, putting my phone away and glancing at Lynn. “Decided to return, did you?”
“Don’t make a big deal of it,” she muttered, peering at my main screen with interest. “I’d rather thrash you at Mario Kart than sit in my room bored as fuck, that’s all.”
“Understandable,” I agreed. “But I should warn you, you made a terrible mistake by waiting so long to come back.” I gave her a little smirk. “I’ve been practising, and I intend to win. Every. Single. Time.”
“Delusion,” she drawled, meeting my stare.
Her brown eyes were dull, not the bright sparkling crystal from when she won game after game last time.
Not even the fiery rage of the other night.
The semi I’d gotten at her dark, sarcastic voice wilted, my dick turned all the way off at the haunted emptiness in her eyes.
“I’m going to destroy you, Cobra. By the time we finish playing, you’ll be so desperate to know how I’m beating you that you’ll beg me to give up my secret. But the truth is there’s no secret.” She leaned closer, a dull canine bared by her grin, a little cruel, a lot smug. “I’m just better.”
And my erection was back, in full force this time. “Big words for a woman whose hands don’t work properly.”
“Oh, fuck you,” she spat, but her eyes turned crystal, glittering with dark humour. “And for your information, my fingers are healing. Behold.” She easily gave me the middle finger with both hands.
“Impressive,” I remarked, strangely at ease around her as I settled into the gaming chair. “I’m in awe, truly. Are there no limits to your wondrous dexterity? What other feats of remarkable human strength can those fingers perform?”
“I’ll shove one of these fingers up your ass if you don’t shut up,” she snarled.
I grinned. “Kinky.”
“Fucking truculent,” she muttered under her breath, crossing her arms over the tight black vest she wore. I pinned my attention to her face, even if her tits were calling my name.
“Did you just call me a succulent?” I laughed, baffled. “That’s a new one.”
“Truculent,” she bit out, her scowl darkening. “It means you’re quick to argue, aggressive for no good reason, and a pain in my fucking ass.”
“Again: kinky.”
She rolled her eyes so hard, I pictured them rolling in pleasure, pictured her chest heaving, her body trembling as it overcame her.
Jesus fuck, I was messed up. I blamed it on the way she looked at me the other night. And that fucking vest she wore.
“Start the damn game, Cobra,” she muttered, reaching forward to grab my spare controller and eyeing my screens. “What is this shit anyway? Stalking someone like the creep you are?”
“Like the professional creep I am,” I corrected, minimising programs and browsers and booting up the Switch. “I get paid for this.”
She made an inquisitive sound.
“Some of it’s for the Knights, scouring for listings placed advertising omegas, trawling threads and forums for pieces of shit bragging about hurting people. You’d be surprised how many idiots leave a trail of evidence through their own stupidity. The rest of the shit I do is freelance work.”
“Freelance work,” she repeated dubiously.
I glanced at her sideways. “Are you doubting my ability, asshole?”
“Yes. Completely. I never expected the words freelance work to leave your vile mouth. Or Blossom while we’re at it.”
Of course she heard that. I leaned across the gap between our chairs and smirked, letting the smile bloom slowly, a threat that unsettled even some of my brothers in the Knights. “Then stop looking at my mouth,” I said in a whisper-soft voice.
“Stop putting it close to me,” she countered, pushing me away with her palm flat on my head, making me snort. “Next time you get that close, I’m stabbing something.”
“Jokes on you, I’m into that.”
“Of course you are,” she sighed. “Start the fucking game, nightmare.”
My grin grew. “I like that name a lot more than succulent.”
“I did not—” She pinched the bridge of her nose. Honestly, it was so impressive to see her do that when her hands were bandaged and splinted when she first got there, that I started the game without another taunt.
We were four races in—I’d won two and I was so fucking smug about the draw—when she flicked a glance at me, shifting in the chair, and began, “About that night.”
“Nope,” I immediately countered. I’d been waiting for her to bring it up.
I saw that spark in her eye, and I needed to avoid it like the plague, like I needed to avoid the sight of those magnificent fucking tits in her shirt.
I wasn’t the sort of man anyone with vulnerabilities should climb into bed with, let alone what Lynn had been through.
I was a bastard and a prick, but I had limits.
Lines I wouldn’t cross. “I don’t fuck rescues,” I insisted.
On screen, she hit me with a red shell, and I swore as she shot ahead of me. “Name one time when I expressed even a modicum of interest in jumping on your diseased dick.”
The word modicum unfortunately contained the word cum, so my dick swelled. God fucking dammit. “We’re not talking about this.”
“Come on,” she sighed like I was being ridiculous. “I’m just interested. We’re friend-adjacent, aren’t we?”
The wording made me snort. “Yeah, we’re friend-adjacent.” She was a pain in the ass and I’d yet to get rid of her, so yeah, we were something like friends. “But this isn’t something I want to talk about with a rape victim. It’ll just send you right back to that place in your head.”
Lynn flinched. Hard.
I sighed, my shoulders drooping. “Lynn.”
“Prefer you calling me asshole,” she spat. I knew that reaction, the instinct to bare your teeth and threaten, to cover up all the demons in your head.
“Lynn,” I said again, trying to catch her eye. “If you never say it out loud, it will kill you. Trust me.”
Her stare slid to mine, defensive, fury on the surface but fear underneath.
“It’ll chip bits off of you, day by day, until the only thing left is a feral animal.” I held eye contact, let her threaten me with her glare. “If you don’t face it, even just to give those memories the middle finger, you’ll lose the parts of you that survived that shitshow.”
“I didn’t ask for advice,” she muttered, flinching at the roar of noise from the finished game. I didn’t look to see who’d won. It didn’t matter.
“Tough shit,” I replied, trying to soften the edges of my harsh voice. “You need to say it out loud. You need to let some of it out. I’m not volunteering to be your therapist, god knows I’d do a piss poor job of it. But you need to say the word, at least.”
“You don’t know the first thing about me and what I need. You can take your sanctimonious bullshit and shove it up your ass.” She began to rise, vibrating with tension.
“I’ve been there, too,” I spat out. “Not in the barn, or on a farm. I was in a shitty block of flats, but you get the idea.”
Lynn sat back down. Fixed her mouth into a flat line, skin pulled tight over her face. “Is that why you…” She waved a hand around, the nails painted the dark red of dried blood, I noticed. Sharpened to points.