5. Preston
PRESTON
So I didn’t mean to come here tonight.
Or at all, really.
Where the fuck is this place, even?
The Wolves’ arena, that’s where. The last place I should’ve driven my ass to after the beating from Lenin per my dear papa’s orders.
Every time I screw up in epic proportions, I have to learn the lesson.
Or, like, be punished properly.
Brought down a peg or two.
Usually, I’ll drive around recklessly, nearly crash my car, or try to join a hunt with members of Vencor.
As a senior member, I don’t really have to kill anymore, but that rule can go fuck itself right the fuck off. The only saving grace of Vencor is the killing.
Or, more accurately, the hunting.
But the more we’ve progressed up Vencor’s ladder, the less fun it’s become. It’s more supervision and less action at this stage.
After we graduate, Kane, Jude, and I will go through the final trial to become Founders. A position that’s only attainable by being born within one of the four founding families.
Yay me, I guess.
Does that mean we’ll turn into our fathers?
Gag. I just gave myself the biggest cringe with that thought.
Point is, I should’ve joined some members on a hunt or gone to annoy Jude and Kane.
But no, the me from roughly an hour ago considered that prospect ludicrous. Go to Kane and Jude, who’ll either question me about my clusterfuck of a performance or watch me closely as if I’m about to break?
No, thanks, said my genius brain as he led us right to the rat town that smells of piss, vomit, and drugs.
This shithole is a health hazard, I’m telling you.
But it’s also the location where my sweet revenge against Osborn will take place.
He’s the reason I screwed up tonight, got told off by Dad, and got beaten up by Lenin.
My chest rattles a bit when I breathe due to that brute’s hit, but the painkillers mixed with good ole Jack Daniels help.
Mostly because I’m finally numb.
Not numb enough to not go through with my revenge, though, because that’s exactly what I’ve done.
Say hello, Osborn’s broken sticks. They’re not even high-end, except for one, but they’re gone now, and the peasant has no lucky stick.
Oops.
That was so mean. I’d do it all over again.
But that decision brought me here, to this moment, with Osborn’s thick fingers in my hair and my body angled back in a less-than-ideal position.
“Good of you to join, Osborn.” I grin up at him, the words rolling off my tongue looser than they should. “I’m afraid the stick-breaking ritual is now adjourned.”
Osborn—or his twin. Seriously, he developed one overnight?—stares down at me, unaffected. Now that the helmet is gone, he looks even more inhuman.
Like a vampire. Eyes so creepily dark, almost as if the gray has snuffed out the blue. His hair is short on the sides and has volume at the top, a rebellious strand falling on his forehead.
It’s annoying me right now, that strand. Or maybe it’s his entire face.
I’m thinking it’d look much better with some bruises, a broken nose, and a black eye.
Something needs to be done to disrupt the whole rugged symmetry that’s pissing me off.
There’s a sort of tension that stretches between us, wrapping around my lungs like a chain.
Wait. There’s a chain.
Or a hint of one that’s peeking from the collar of his shirt.
I wonder what the rest of it looks like. Bet it’s ugly.
It better be ugly.
“Is this you coming to take me up on my offer, Armstrong, hmm?” He leans down, and I realize he’s close.
Too close, actually—and it’s not just his hand bunched in my hair. It’s the way he looms over me, right behind me, with almost no space between us at all, close enough that I can smell him. Alcohol. Cool oak. Leather.
He always smells like that—leather—even mid-game, drenched in sweat, buried under his gear.
Right now, it’s coming from the beat-up jacket he’s wearing, the scent thick and overwhelming. Like a spark of damnation brushing the back of my neck.
“The offer to knock your teeth out? Sure.” I lift the bottle of alcohol to my mouth, but I’m all tilted back, and my balance isn’t the best, so some of it sloshes and drips down my chin.
And that’s where Osborn’s attention is right now. On my chin. No, maybe a bit higher up?
His stare caresses my skin as if it’s his hands, all thick and big and destabilizing.
My lips tingle, and I get distracted for a second, because his eyes flash in something bright and shiny, and I want to gouge them out, study them for a bit, blind the fuck out of him while I’m at it.
But yeah, not in my current state, because I’m wobbly, my vision is hazy, and I’m barely standing. Some would say mixing alcohol and painkillers isn’t the brightest idea, but maybe that was the whole point.
“The offer was something different, wasn’t it?” His eyes slide to mine, his voice lowering the slightest. “Focus, Armstrong.”
“Hard to do that with you breathing down my neck, jeeper creeper.”
The asshole leans down farther so that his mouth is a few inches from mine. His lips tip up an inch, as if he finds this entire tedious exchange amusing. “Do I distract you?”
“You annoy me.”
“I’m honored.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I beg to differ.” His breath dances along my jaw, over the wetness of the alcohol, buzzing in my head more than the Jack Daniels. “How about I remind you of the offer?”
“No, thanks, not interested. Speaking of interesting, RIP to your sticks, Osborn. Heard you guys struggle with funding, so who’s going to replace these for you?
So sad. I can help if you get on your knees and beg me real nicely.
You have to be convincing, though. No amateur acting will be tolerated.
If I like the performance, I might even get you premium sticks to replace your mid ones. ”
I’m talking in run-on sentences because he’s breathing down my face in a deep, controlled rhythm. His smooth exhales rush along my skin like the latest fucked-up drug on the market.
Though those little fuckers don’t do shit to me. I’ve tried them before, and they only managed to tickle my demons’ feelings.
This, however, sets me on edge.
My stomach tightens, and the rush of adrenaline shoots out from where he’s touching me, spreading all the way to my already-restricted chest.
It’s back—that loathsome, uncontrollable feeling I had during the game. The same one that made me decide Osborn looked better splattered against the boards and earned me a penalty.
There’s no game now, no crowd, no noise. And somehow, the effect is the same. Worse, actually. With only the oppressive silence and the hum of the fluorescent lights, it hits harder, like it’s trying to claw its way out of me.
As static floods my brain, I shake my head.
No.
I swore to never allow Osborn to have this type of power over me again. He will not make me lose control.
So even though I want to chop his hand off for touching me, I’m not going to pull away suddenly or fight him or betray the discomfort he’s causing me.
Bite your tongue and put up with it, little fucker. Everything ends. This will, too, eventually.
Thanks for the pep talk, demon. What a charmer.
“If you wanted to buy me premium sticks, all you had to do was bring them along,” he says in rough words that seem to be spoken into my mouth instead of against it. “But you chose to throw this tantrum to get my attention. Well, you have it, fairy prince. What comes next?”
“Wrong.” I lift the bottle to my mouth, figuring he’ll remove his face from mine—he doesn’t. “I had no plans to buy you premium sticks, and I won’t. I’m just saying, I might if you get on your knees and beg me.”
“Is that where you want me?” His smirk spreads slowly, his gaze dragging over my mouth once more. “On my knees?”
My lips part because the neck of the bottle is basically wedged between us now, and I can’t lift my hand any higher—not when his breath skims my damp lips like a curse.
My skin crawls. Or pretends to. I’m disgusted. Totally. Absolutely. So disgusted I could throw up.
Any second now.
Any second…
But I don’t, and nothing further comes.
Not the nausea or the static. Just nothing.
Actually, there is something.
His lips.
They’re lowering farther, getting closer as tension coils between us, charging the air with the force of a fiery explosion.
My breath gets caught at the back of my throat, as if I’m going to choke to death with zero pressure against it.
His mouth is about to touch mine.
Do something.
Stop it—
Osborn changes direction at the last second and wraps his lips around the bottle, his other hand sliding over mine, forcing me to tip it higher so he can drink.
His Adam’s apple bobs once, twice, and I track the movement without meaning to. I swallow hard, my throat tightening, my whole body going rigid like I’ve been stun-gunned.
The static floods my head with that noise again.
It’s as if my mind’s an old-fashioned TV stuck between channels. The sound hisses, the world flickers, and I’m trapped somewhere between too loud and too quiet.
I can’t speak—all I can do is watch as Osborn lets some of the alcohol drip from his mouth into mine, slipping past my parted lips and burning its way across my tongue.
And he’s watching it, too. His usual smirk is wiped clean, and his eyes light up in a shade so bright, it knocks the air right out of my lungs.
It’s almost…dazzling.
Blinding, even.
“Mm. Might consider being on my knees very seriously.” He darts out his tongue and runs it along his lower lip, and my eyes follow the motion, my brain short-circuiting for a fraction of a second.
Then the long, grating static disappears, and the outside world comes crashing back in again.
Like a sound bomb, everything filters in at once.
I shove myself away from Osborn’s orbit, practically sending myself flying across the ice, tripping on a few broken sticks and almost falling before I catch myself.
He doesn’t move, just watches me closely with a slight tilt of his head and a curve in his annoying lips.
Yo, stop staring at his lips, says my brain.
Just a second, replies my eyes, or the other half of my brain, or whichever fucking incompetent son of a bitch is running the show right now.