The Deadly Game (The Hollow Kings #3)

Chapter 1 Jinx

Chapter One: Jinx

I wake up to the smell of coffee and the immediate urge to kill someone.

Not the satisfying kind of murder where you plan it out and savor the build. The irritating kind. The kind where some asshole has invaded your territory and you want to rip out his throat with your teeth.

Asher fucking Madden is in my kitchen.

His kitchen, technically. The farmhouse belongs to his aunt, which means it belongs to him, which means I've been squatting in enemy territory for three weeks without knowing it.

Jagger failed to mention that detail when he set up our safehouse.

Probably on purpose. My brother loves watching me suffer.

I drag myself out of bed and catch my reflection in the cracked mirror.

Six foot five of pissed-off Harrison, black hair tangled past my shoulders, tattoos snaking up my arms and across my chest. The ink tells stories I don't talk about.

The scars tell worse ones. My eyes are bloodshot from a shit sleep full of dreams I won't remember, and there's a bruise blooming on my jaw from yesterday's incident with a tree.

The tree started it.

I pull on pants and nothing else. If Asher doesn't like looking at my scarred-up torso, he can go fuck himself. The stairs groan under my weight, announcing my arrival like I'm some kind of goddamn royalty descending to greet the peasants.

He doesn't turn around when I enter.

He's standing at the counter, broad shoulders straining against a black t-shirt that's been washed too many times. His head is shaved clean, and there’s ink crawling up the back of his neck.

Prison tattoos. Same as the faded designs covering his hands and forearms. He's not as tall as me, few people are, but he's built like someone carved him out of concrete and bad intentions.

Even with his back turned, I can see the way he holds himself.

Balanced. Ready. Like he's waiting for someone to throw the first punch.

The coffee maker gurgles. He pours two cups.

"You look like death warmed over." His voice is rough, a mix between a rasp and a growl.

"You look like an unwanted houseguest."

"It's my house."

"Semantics."

He turns, and I get the full force of those flat dark eyes.

His nose is crooked from being broken too many times.

I know because I broke it twice myself, back in the pits, back when I was supposed to beat him to death and didn't. There's a scar through his left eyebrow that I didn't put there.

Someone else marked him. The thought makes my jaw tight.

He holds out a cup. "Coffee?"

"I don't want anything from you."

"Then don't take it." He sets the cup on the counter and sips his own. "But it's good coffee. Be a shame to waste it."

I want to throw the mug at his skull. I want to flip the table and drive him through the window and finish what I started six years ago in a blood-soaked pit while rich men watched and bet on our deaths.

I take the coffee.

It is good. I hate that.

"Where is everyone?"

"Town. Supplies." He leans against the counter, arms crossed, like we're two normal people having a normal conversation. Like he didn't show up yesterday and detonate a bomb in the middle of my carefully constructed denial. "They'll be back in a few hours."

"And they left us alone."

"Jagger's idea."

"Jagger's a manipulative prick."

"Runs in the family."

I set down the mug before I shatter it in my fist. "What do you want, Asher? You show up out of nowhere, act like you belong with us, offer to help with the mission. What's your angle?"

"No angle."

"Bullshit. Everyone has an angle."

"Fine." He pushes off the counter and walks toward me. I hold my ground. Barely. "I spent six years wondering why you didn't kill me. Figured I'd ask you in person."

The pit. Always the fucking pit.

I was nineteen. They'd dragged me out of the upper Foundry as punishment for some infraction I don't even remember, threw me into the underground fighting rings where The Silent’s entertainment happened in blood and broken bones.

Asher was fresh meat from juvie, a kid with nothing to lose and fists like hammers.

He was supposed to be easy. A warm-up. A body to step over on my way to the next fight.

He got back up three times.

The first knockdown, he spit blood and grinned at me. The second, he laughed. By the third, I'd cracked his ribs and broken his nose, and he was lying in a pool of his own blood, barely conscious, and the crowd was screaming for me to end it.

I looked at him, and he looked back, not begging, not pleading, just waiting. Accepting. Ready to die without making a sound. Then his mouth turned up in a small smirk.

Something in my chest cracked.

I walked away. Took three days in isolation and a beating that left me pissing blood for a week. Worth it, I told myself. Better than becoming exactly what they wanted me to be.

Now he's standing in front of me, close enough to touch, alive because I let him live, and I don't know what the fuck to do with that.

"Ancient history," I say.

"Is it?" He's close enough that I can count the scars on his face. "Because you've been looking at me like you want to finish the job since I walked through that door."

"Maybe I do."

"Then do it." He spreads his arms. "No witnesses. No consequences. I won't even fight back."

My hands curl into fists. "You think I won't?"

"I think you had your chance six years ago and you choked. I think you've been running from whatever made you walk away ever since. And I think seeing me again is fucking with your head because you still don't understand why you did it."

"I had my reasons."

"Name one."

I can't. That's the problem. I've replayed that moment a thousand times, looking for logic, for strategy, for anything that explains why I let an opponent live when killing was all I knew.

I've got nothing. Just a memory of his eyes, dark and steady, and the sudden certainty that ending him would end something in me too.

"That's what I thought." He steps closer. "You don't have a reason. You just have a feeling you've been trying to bury for six years. How's that working out for you?"

"Fuck off."

"Make me."

The words hang between us. My blood pounds in my ears. Every instinct screams at me to hit him, hurt him, prove that I'm still an unfeeling bastard. But there's another instinct underneath, older and more dangerous, and it wants something else entirely.

"We're done here." I turn toward the door.

His hand catches my arm. "We're not even close to done."

I spin, grab his throat, and slam him against the refrigerator hard enough to dent the metal. His head cracks against the surface. He doesn't fight back. Doesn't even flinch. Just looks at me with those steady dark eyes while my fingers dig into his neck.

"You want to die that badly?" My voice comes out rough, barely recognizable. "Keep pushing."

"I want answers." He's not struggling. Not gasping. Like my hand on his throat is nothing. Like he's been choked by worse. "I've wanted them for six years. You owe me that much."

"I don't owe you shit."

"You owe me a death or an answer." His hands come up, not to push me away, but to grip my wrist. Holding me in place. "You took it from me in that pit. Made me live when I was ready to stop. So yeah, you owe me something. If not an explanation, then at least admit you felt it too."

"Felt what?"

"Whatever made you stop."

My grip tightens. His pulse beats steady under my palm. Calm. Controlled. Nothing like my own heart, which is trying to break through my ribs.

"You want to know what I felt?" I lean in until our faces are inches apart. "I felt sick. Sick of the pit, sick of the blood, sick of being their attack dog. You weren't special. You were just the one who made me realize how far gone I was."

"So I saved you."

"You didn't save shit. You were a convenient excuse."

"And yet." His thumb strokes across the tendons in my wrist. My stomach does a little flip. "Here you are. Hand on my throat. Heart racing. Pupils blown. Tell me again how you feel nothing."

I release him like he's on fire.

He doesn't move. Just stays there against the dented refrigerator, watching me with understanding I didn't ask for and don't want.

"Stay the fuck away from me." I back toward the door. "Stay out of my way, out of my head, out of my fucking sight."

"No."

"That wasn't a request."

"And that wasn't an answer." He pushes off the refrigerator, rolling his shoulders.

The imprint of my fingers is already darkening on his throat.

He doesn't seem to notice. "You want me gone, make me gone.

Otherwise, I'm staying. I'm helping with your mission.

And I'm getting my answers, one way or another. "

"I could kill you right now."

"You could." He smiles, and it transforms his face, makes him almost handsome, almost human. "But you won't. Same reason you didn't kill me in the pit. Whatever that reason is."

I leave before I prove him wrong.

Or prove him right.

The barn is the only place in this godforsaken farmhouse where I can think.

I've turned the back half into a training space. Heavy bags hanging from the rafters, mats on the floor, a rack of equipment I salvaged from various sources. The familiar smell of leather and sweat loosens the knot in my chest. Violence I understand. Violence makes sense.

That fucking asshole does not make sense.

I wrap my hands and start hitting the bag. Left jab, right cross, left hook. The impact travels up my arms, rattles my teeth, drowns out the noise in my head. Again. Harder. Until my knuckles ache and my shoulders burn and I can almost forget the feeling of his pulse under my fingers.

The barn door opens.

I don't turn around. Don't have to. I know those footsteps.

"Following me now?"