Chapter 27
ACHILLES
“Well, well, well…”
Uncle Kratos shakes his head at the snoring girl reeking of vodka in my arms.
“She’ll be feeling this one in the morning,” he sighs, opening the front door of his and Aunt Bianca's brownstone wide.
I carry my cousin Eva inside and into the living room, where I lay her down gently on the couch.
“Anything I need to worry about?”
I shake my head as I turn back. “Nothing too bad. I saw some coke out on a table, but Eva’s a good kid. She wouldn’t fuck around with that shit.” I chuckle. “Plus, if she was on blow…”
Eva snores loudly, and we grin at each other.
“Yeah, she wouldn't be asleep right now,” he sighs.
I nod. “Oh, there was also some little fucker trying to take a video of her throwing up in the back yard. But Demi grabbed his phone and put her heel through it.”
Kratos laughs. “Sounds like Demi.” He cocks a brow. “She get home okay too?”
Demi, Lochlan and Ronan’s kid sister and an all-around ball-buster, was also at the party that I got summoned to tonight.
I nod. “Yeah. Just dropped her off. She was fine. Definitely had a couple, but…” I cough delicately and glance down at a snoring Eva. “Not that much.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
Aunt Bianca comes barreling down the stairs and into the living room. Her face caves in concern as she rushes past us to Eva.
“Wow.” She pulls back from the pure vodka breath emanating from her youngest daughter. “Looks like someone had a fun night,” she says, waving a hand in front of her nose.
“She’s okay.” I smile when Bianca turns to me. “She’ll be pretty banged up tomorrow, but I think she’ll learn her lesson.”
“She’d better,” Aunt Bianca fumes.
Kratos grins and pulls my aunt into his side, which is always a hilarious visual given that he’s like a foot and a half taller than her, at least.
“C’mon, babygirl,” he chuckles as he leans down to kiss the top of her head. “We were young once too.”
My aunt nods wryly.
“Thanks, Achilles,” she sighs, raising her gaze to me. “Seriously. We really appreciate you making the trip into the city from all the way up at school.”
I shrug. “Not a problem at all.”
“Really? Saturday night on the Knightsblood campus?” Kratos winks at me. “I feel this probably pulled you away from certain…uh…social obligations.”
Just the one.
I keep my mask perfectly in place. Behind it, my teeth grind.
The plans I had with Yelena tonight weren’t just the ones I texted her about, i.e., painting her pretty face and delectable tits with my cum before bouncing her on my cock like a good girl.
I mean, yes, all of that was firmly on the agenda too.
But something else was, too.
Like telling her some truths I’ve been debating telling her.
Like trying to put into words how the chaos in my head goes quiet when she’s near me. How my fascinations have turned into something I’ve never felt before now that they're focused on her.
But then I got the scared, slurred phone call from my little cousin, locked in the guest bathroom of some high school party she was at in the city.
She wanted to leave but was worried about everyone seeing her “like that”, aka, drunk as a fucking skunk, and was really worried about what her parents would say if she called them.
And since I was her very favorite older cousin…
flattery will get you everywhere…could I pretty please come get her?
The answer, obviously, was yes.
So I left campus, canceled my plans with Yelena, and drove into Manhattan to menace some high school boys into staying the fuck away from my drunk cousin.
Bianca rolls her eyes and elbows my uncle, making him chuckle deeply.
“What! The kid’s a rockstar on campus,” he grins, clapping a heavy, tattooed hand on my shoulder. “And he was lucky enough to get his uncle’s killer looks!” He winks at me. “I bet there’s a line out the door—”
“Kratos!”
He laughs and then glances down at Eva with a sigh. “All right, all right. I guess we should get Ozzy Osbourne upstairs.”
“Can you stick around for a while?” Aunt Bianca smiles and gives me a hug. “I feel I haven’t seen you in forever.”
I shrug. “Sure, I’d love to hang out.”
Kratos scoops a still-snoring Eva into his huge arms and turns to me. “Make yourself comfortable, man. We’ll get this one to bed and then come back down.”
I’m grabbing a beer out of their fridge when I hear the roar of a serious sports car engine outside. Then the front door swings open and bangs shut again.
“Is she here?!”
I walk into the front entryway and find Selene shrugging off a light jacket and looking anxiously around. When she spots me, her brows knit. “Achilles?”
I smile. “You got a drunk bathroom call, too?”
She scowls. “You got a call? I just got a sloppy-ass text I could barely decipher except that she was at some St. Thomas party.” She whirls, scanning the empty living room. “We went to find her, but someone said she left—”
“She’s fine,” I growl, handing her my beer because she looks like she could use one. “I picked her and Demi up and brought them home. Your mom and dad are putting her to bed upstairs.”
Selene’s shoulders unclench, and she exhales slowly.
“Fuck,” she shakes her head. “I was really freaked out, you know?” She takes a heavy swig of the beer. “She’s okay, though?”
“I mean, she’s shitfaced,” I chuckle. “And reeks like a vodka distillery. She’s going to wish for death tomorrow morning.” I shrug. “But she’ll be fine after a cheeseburger and fries.”
Selene smiles wryly. “Thank you for coming to get her,” she says quietly. “Should I go up there?”
I shake my head. “She’s passed out, and I think your parents have it handled.”
She nods and follows me back into the kitchen. I grab another beer from the fridge and crack it open, taking a sip as I eye her.
“What?”
“When did she text you?”
Selene shrugs. “Maybe nine-thirty, why?”
Eva called me at nine, and I’ve got a heavy gas foot.
My brow furrows. “Just… How’d you get here so fast?”
My cousin frowns. “Huh?”
“How’d you get from campus to Manhattan so quickly? Your sister called me to come get her half an hour before she texted you, and you still only got here ten minutes after I did.” My brow arches. “Not to mention, you don’t drive.”
Selene’s eyes tighten for a second before she takes a sip of beer and shrugs. “A friend drove me.”
“Which friend?”
She rolls her eyes. “Just a friend, Achilles. Relax.”
“Fast fucking friend,” I growl.
“Yeah, well, Lamborghinis are fast,” she says dryly, pulling out her phone.
My gaze lands on her neck, just above the collar of her shirt, and I tense.
“Which friend of yours drives a lambo?”
Selene sighs heavily and puts her phone down. “Dude, what is your deal?”
“Just answer the question.”
She rolls her eyes. “What does it matter?”
“It matters if that friend gave you that,” I growl, nodding my chin at the bite mark on her neck.
Selene turns scarlet, the corners of her mouth drooping a little before she swallows and shakes it off.
“His name is Nunaya,” she mutters, adjusting her collar.
I frown. “What?”
“He’s a new foreign exchange student at Knightsblood,” she says sweetly. “His full name is Nunaya Fucking Business.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m already compiling a list of anyone I might know at school who drives a fucking Lamborghini.
“Well, is Nunaya giving you a ride back to school, or do you want a lift?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. I might just stay here tonight. I mean it’s late, I’m here…”
Just then, her phone dings. Selene frowns. “Who the hell is tagging me on—”
Her mouth purses, and a lethal look flickers over her face.
“What’s up?”
She shakes her head and puts her phone down. “Nothing,” she growls. Then she picks up the phone again and unlocks it, tapping on and zooming in on a photo. Her eyes turn dark as her jaw grinds.
“Oh, yeah, that definitely looks like nothing to me,” I sigh as I walk around the kitchen island to peek over her shoulder. “What the fuck is—”
I go stone silent.
Vengeful violence roars inside me, tightening and clawing to a lethal point as I glare at the phone in my cousin’s hand.
…Open to Instagram, and a post on Kirill Tsarenko’s page.
The post is captioned, “RUMBLE IN THE RUBBLE. GARRISON PARTY IN FULL SWING MOTHERFUCKERS.”
Normally I wouldn’t give a fuck about that.
Except the post is a photo of Kirill sitting shirtless on the rubble throne at The Garrison while a demented crowd of Knightsblood students parties around a roaring bonfire, his head raised as he bellows into the night sky and a girl sitting on his knee, a glazed, glassy look in her eyes and her arm around his neck.
It’s fucking Yelena.
My jaw grinds lethally as I glare death at the photo. Suddenly, I’m keenly aware that I’m not the only one looking like they want to commit murder.
But I don’t have time to wonder why Selene’s looking so pissed.
“Actually, Achilles,” she says tightly, her voice icy as her knuckles turn white around the phone. “I’ll take that ride.” She turns to me. “Now, please.”
She doesn’t need to ask me twice.