Chapter 17 Vaughn
VAUGHN
Once again, I find myself in the one place I shouldn’t have gone to.
It started with a simple text exchange with Jeremy earlier today.
He mentioned that Niko is stoked for a fight with the Serpents’ leader. Jeremy wasn’t thrilled, but he said it’s better to have Niko occupied with fighting someone on his level than running around wreaking havoc.
The next thing I knew, I was on the plane—after informing my parents so they wouldn’t worry like the last time.
While I soothed my conscious on that front, my brain needed a reason to justify this pressuring madness that keeps mounting and invading my life like a parasitic entity.
I came up with one.
The reason for this trip—one of many I’ve taken recently—is to make sure Yulian doesn’t mess with Niko. I don’t mean from a fighting perspective, since both of them are obviously into that business, but from the other perspective. The one where Yulian threatened to seduce Niko.
I wanted to protect my friend.
That’s all.
But I also didn’t want to alert the others to my presence, mostly because it’s completely out of character for me to be here for something other than initiations. The last thing I need is someone calling me out on the unusual behavior. I can barely explain it to myself, let alone to others.
For the whole fight, I stood motionless in the middle of the chanting chaos and the noisy crowd. I remained still even as some students bumped into me in their excited cheering.
With every punch and jab and easy laugh leaving Yulian’s lips, I was growing uncomfortable, feeling suffocated.
Nauseated.
A cursed emotion gripped my chest when he was coughing up blood, and it didn’t disappear even when he grinned and jumped back into the fight.
I’ve often wondered why he has so little respect for his life after what happened four years ago when he was fine with taking a bullet and possibly dying. It feels as if he has absolutely no regard for his life, and that irks me.
Even now, fleeing the crime scene, the irritated sensation clings to me—a brutal squeeze in my chest, so harsh and sickening, it steals my breath.
And yes, I had to flee because Yulian looked at me.
It was a fraction of a second, and I was so sure the cap would give me anonymity, but like always with Yulian, he looked at me as if he could see through my outer layers—whether they’re clothes or masks or anything in between.
The last thing I want is for him to find out I’m here. He’ll think it’s for him—not that that’s wrong—and I truly can’t give him any more ideas. He’s already too audacious for his own good as it is.
So I drive away from the underground ring’s arena in the rented sports car. I should leave and, preferably, never come back. It’s clear that Niko isn’t sexually or romantically interested in Yulian and probably never will be.
But other people are interested in Yulian. Such as the fair-skinned blond who left his changing room in the arena before Cyrus went in. I was able to sneak close, blending in with the arena’s staff, and could see the guy walking out, licking his lips.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white.
I couldn’t care less who that degenerate Yulian fucks as long as it’s not Niko.
And yet…I can’t get the image of that guy out of my head.
Then there’s Cyrus.
Always fucking Cyrus.
A light flashes in my rearview mirror and I squint, then my shoulders tense. Despite the darkness, I can make out the man on the bike who’s flashing his lights at me.
I’d recognize him anywhere, especially now that he’s half naked, his helmet on, and speeding to catch up to me.
Yulian.
So he did recognize me.
Fuck.
I hit the gas, speeding down the empty coastal road. The sea breeze rushes through the half-open window, filling my nostrils with the smell of salt.
The moment I think I’ve shaken him off, his headlights flare in my mirrors. He surges forward, and within seconds, he’s beside me, mirroring my every move.
Keeping one hand on the handlebar, he waves at me, then points ahead.
As if I’ll stop just because he asked me to.
The audacity.
Something Yulian has in excess.
I push the speed, but he matches me, gliding in parallel no matter how hard I go—still waving like a reckless bastard. Who the hell rides a motorcycle half naked, bandages in place of gloves, with no sense of safety whatsoever?
Someone with a death wish, obviously.
Headlights flash at Yulian from the opposite lane, but instead of dropping back, he floors it, shooting past me and flying up the hill.
Gripping the steering wheel tight, I hit the brakes so hard, the seat belt digs into my chest at the impact, and my whole body lunges forward.
The other car blares its horn, the sound ripping through the silence of the night, as Yulian cuts in front of me, speeds ahead, then swerves—stopping dead across from me.
I grab the steering wheel firmly as the car comes to a halt, and so does my heart, because what in the ever-loving fuck—
Both my hands are trembling slightly on the steering wheel as I look up.
Through the windshield, I see Yulian’s sitting on his bike, one foot on the ground, one hand on the handlebars as he waves at me one finger at a time.
This motherfucker—
I release my seat belt and swing the door open, then stride toward him. My hand instantly wraps around his throat, choking him in a fraction of a second.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, asshole? You have a death wish?”
“Nah, my wish is something less than that, actually,” he strains, tapping my arm. “A kiss, if you must know. From you, of course.”
This damn—
I shake him a few times with my grip on his throat, feeling the tendons tense beneath my fingers. “We could’ve died.”
“But we didn’t, because you stopped.” I can’t see his eyes beneath the helmet, but I can hear the grin in his voice. “You’ll always stop for me, won’t you?”
I tighten my grip on the bastard, then shove him away. He loses balance and nearly falls ass-first on the street.
But I know I can’t have a conversation with the asshole, not when he always seems to be in the perfect mood to piss me off.
“Why did you stop? I was starting to get into the kinky stuff.” He removes his helmet and shakes out his damp hair.
I stop cold.
My eyes lock on him in ways that scare the hell out of me.
Despite my attempts to deny it, Yulian looks like the living embodiment of attractiveness and ruin even with his bloody lips and bruised cheek.
If anything, they add to his unearthly, primitive beauty.
Bathed in moonlight that slips in and out of the clouds, he doesn’t look human.
He looks supernatural. A monster born to haunt the night.
An anomaly.
Strands cling to his forehead until he shoves them back with one hand, his bicep flexing, veins stark even in the dim streetlight. I catch the veins running thick across his arm, down his abs, and disappearing under the waistband of his shorts—
“I’m up here, Mishka.”
My eyes snap to his face as he hangs the helmet on the handlebar, the blue and brown colors of his irises glinting like an animal on the hunt.
His bandaged hand slides down, across the muscles of his chest, pausing on the tattoo, then continuing to his abs. He fingers the waistband of his shorts. “But I can also be down here if you prefer.”
“Very on brand,” I say in a seemingly bored voice, even as I struggle to keep my attention on his face. “You always think with your dick?”
“If you’re around, hell yeah.”
My lips part, but I purse them. He probably says that to a hundred others on a daily basis.
Like that blond guy from earlier.
Yulian seems to be the type who flirts for sport.
He only opens his mouth to flirt or yap nonstop, it seems.
“Besides.” He leans over so that his face is close to mine. “You came here for me, so I can’t let you leave without blessing you with my attention.”
I look down my nose at him, my hand flexing at my side, because I refuse to step back. That would mean he has the upper hand, and that will never happen.
Yulian is only ever meant to be fucking beneath me.
“You’re delusional,” I speak in the same bored tone.
“And you’re in denial, Mishka.” He sniffs me like a feral dog, inhaling audibly. “Admit it, you couldn’t stop thinking about me after I gave you a handjob. How would you rate it out of ten? Actually, no need for a rating, just tell me who does it better, me or Danika?”
“Of course it’s Danika,” I say without emotion, lying through my teeth, mostly because I can feel his breath on my skin. His lips are so close, my mouth’s watering, my heart hammers, and obscene images rush into my head.
Images I’ve tried and failed to eradicate from my consciousness.
His hand clamps the back of my neck, dragging me forward until our foreheads crash, his voice dropping low. “If you only said that to piss me off, it’s working.”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want honest answers to.” I plant a hand on his chest and try to shove him away, but he pulls me even closer, his breath lacing with mine.
I’m breathing him with every inhale, and it’s making me lightheaded.
A drug.
He’s a goddamn drug I can’t wait to inject into my starving veins.
“You’re anything but honest, Mishka. We both know I can make you experience things you would never dream of. Not with Danika, not with anyone else. I’m your best option.”
“More like the worst.”
“But you haven’t seen what’s up my sleeve. I’ll take you to the moon and back.”
“Just like you took a thousand others, I presume.”
He bites the corner of his lip. “Hey, is that jealousy?”
This time, I shove myself away so hard, I stumble and nearly lose my footing. “I couldn’t care less what you do with others.”
“You know what I think?” He swings his leg off the bike and stalks toward me, and I move to the edge of the road. “I think you clearly do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have flown here twice now just because you think I’ll seduce Nikolai.”
“I’m here for my friends.”