Chapter 7 Brothers
SEVEN
brOTHERS
They don’t have me change for the royal dinner. The three men dine in nothing but their pants and boots covering their hard bodies. All I can think about is how one hot spill of tea will scar a nipple or two if they’re not careful.
Not that I mention it. They’re not my nipples to care about after all.
I suppose I just expected more glamour from the kingdom of hell. Instead, I’m surrounded by tattered shirts and blood splattered jeans everywhere I look.
And as for the notorious dark prince, he’s nowhere to be seen.
Literally I’m just luncheoning with a few hell fae whose glittering black horns reach high above the crowds, drawing my attention to their depthless onyx eyes and pointed ashen-stained ears.
Rows of sharp cutting teeth rip apart their food, and they cackle with laughter and half masticated meat still hanging from their lips as they chatter restlessly with one another.
They’re not like the fae my grandmother read to me about from far away Kingdoms. They’re not alluring and enchanting at all.
They’re fucking terrifying.
“Don’t stare,” Rome says on a growl of a whisper. He says it while lifting a black cup of ale to his lips and taking a big drink. He drinks for so long my attention lingers on the sharp lines of his jaw…his throat…his—
“I said don’t stare,” he growls again as he lowers the cup and digs into the meat on his plate.
A large ashen wolf pants where it lies on the floor near our table and I’m just supposed to ignore that sweet boy too I suppose.
I avert my eyes to my own plate of charred food.
I have no idea what the beyond burned meat is, and it makes me slightly uncomfortable to know that none of these people care if this is a beef steak or a human steak.
Both options seem feasible.
My shoulders remain squared, my spine hard as I sit like a small child between Zilo’s enormous body and Roman’s. Their elbows knock into my arms with every bite they take.
Everyone here is animalistic. Including the few half shifters whose tails sweep back and forth behind their chairs. A beautiful woman with big brown eyes and furry fox-like pointed ears sits diagonal from me, just next to Avian, but neither of them speak to one another.
She howls with laughter as the two women across from her snap off line after line about how they ran out to honor the full moon in their human form. Without a stitch of clothing.
I search discreetly from table to table, but I don’t spot the white-faced woman with the alarming black lips I met the second I stepped foot here.
I don’t know why I look for her, but I do.
The thousands of people in this room, they’re happy, but they don’t intermingle.
The men around me are High Hell. They should only associate with other High Hell, it seems.
And yet, they’re so fucking silent. The only words they pass to one another are grunts of approval about the meat they’re eating so quickly, I swear they’re more dog than man at this moment.
Disgusting.
“Good hellish evening, friends,” a voice booms over us, raining down on me so hard I feel those words vibrate through my chest in a sense of anxious adrenaline.
There’s a quiet that cuts through the darkly lit dining hall. All that manic laughter and scuttling talk ceases to exist, and every eye in the room is lifted to a spot high on the jagged cliff wall that I wasn’t even aware of.
Until now. There, cut into the hard stone of the wall, is a jutting balcony. And there, seated on the ground, with his legs hanging carelessly over the edge, is a crowned man who peers down on us.
The Prince of Hell.
“The Honor of the Moon festivities were salacious. A delicious night indeed,” the Prince says with a cutting smile slicing his lips.
“Soon we will celebrate our new queen, whoever she may be.” The heavy attention of the royal man falls hard on me, and I force myself to hold the rigid posture of my confidence in place.
“The High Hell have brought me a gift from the moon festivities, it seems,” he muses.
The tightness in my chest can only be explained as my body’s way of trying to stop my slamming heart from exiting my existence entirely. A chill washes over my skin in a cold douse of clammy anxiety.
Nonetheless, I lift my chin higher and look up at the eerie Prince without an ounce of that fear crawling over the face, blessed by the Goddess herself. This is why I’m here: I’m here to seduce the Prince of Hell.
And hope he dies because of my good efforts.
With a leap that disrupts the current of the air in the room, that man pounces down before me.
I bite my tongue hard to stop the gasp from leaving my lips as the plates and glasses rattle around him directly in front of me.
On the dark tabletop, he balances on the toes of his dirty boots as he hunches down, tanned arms slung over his knees, and he stares wide-eyed at me.
Amazed. He looks at me like someone’s bottled dragon’s fire and sunk it to the bottom of the sea of Death.
He looks at me the way everyone does.
And I hate it.
“You look enchanting,” he whispers, skimming my features with a dark, hungry gaze.
A bold idea flickers through my mind, and my hand drifts out between us before I can think better of it. My index finger brushes along his lower lip faintly, but I still feel the heat of his breath rush over my knuckles.
The space between us separates as I lean in to this daunting devilish man and whisper to him and him alone. “I taste even better.”
A chair scrapes so hard against the floor that the thing falls backward at my side. My attention isn’t on the chair though. I watch Roman storm away with lines cut along his back from both scars and tense muscle.
“Roman.” The Prince growls out his name with a dusting of sparkling black magic exhaling from his lungs.
The singing smell of magic dusts the air.
And the beautiful, strong man who’s warred with me since the moment I met him in the window pane of another realm entirely, he halts.
Freezes actually. Every stiff muscle in his hard body ceases.
And the Prince jumps down from the tabletop and is striding toward him in an instant.
His long fingers taunt over Roman’s shoulders as he rounds him and then faces him head-on. “You like the pale woman? Blondes are your type? Sexy blue-eyed vixens are the key to your weak little soul?” The cutting smile on his lips makes me sick.
Or maybe the twisting of my stomach is because of the belittling way he’s talking to Roman…
“You think you’re deserving of such a luxury as a woman? You know that’s not allowed.” The Prince is so focused on Roman that his inky black eyes shine with excitement and danger.
I hate him.
I hate this man, and I know nothing about him.
“Come here.” He points at the spot just near his side. Everyone in the room passes a look.
To me.
He’s talking to me.
Even if he never so much as glances my way.
I’m standing without a second’s hesitation, and despite the seriousness slicing into this moment, I just know Avian is beaming with pride all because I followed a simple order.
Stop smiling, asshole.
It wasn’t some great accomplishment.
I do listen…ish.
The impassive look on my face is held tightly in place with a carelessness I’m summoning deep from within my hard pounding heart.
It feels like every step is leaden. Time passes like I’m looking back on a decade of tragedy instead of ten seconds of casual walking.
And then I’m locking eyes with the cruelest gaze filled with so much manic destruction.
“Tell me, my sweet, is Roman appealing?” the Prince of Hell asks.
The use of that nickname he just gifted me slides over me like cold vomit hitting my face.
I smile the most charmed smile.
“Women do not love the weak,” I answer without hesitancy, and it hurts. It hurts so fucking much to say what I know he wants to hear.
Yesterday I held this man in my arms, and today I tell him he’s weak. Worthless.
If I wasn’t already in hell, I’d have just reserved my seat with that single comment alone.
It works perfectly though. The corner of the Prince’s mouth angles up in a hard, pleased smirk.
“Beauty and brains. No wonder my brother likes you.”
Brother?
That word circles over and over and over again, and I grow sicker and sicker with each and every round it makes. Roman is the Prince of Hell’s own flesh and blood.
And judging by last night’s whippings, I’d say he’s punished frequently simply because of that blood.
I don’t dare look at him. As tight as my throat is and as painful as my heart feels, I won’t dare risk a look at him.
It’ll only make things worse for him and I know it.
So why does it feel so wrong?
“Kiss him,” the Prince says suddenly, his words ringing out among the watchful crowd, and I nearly stumble in my desire to glance to Zilo for guidance.
I don’t. I hold that charmed dazed smile in place and try to blaze through all the possible outcomes of this test.
Is it a test? For me? Or for Roman?
I should refuse. I should appear appalled.
But to be uncertain is to fail.
And I don’t fail.
I turn on my heels and look at him for the first time in what feels like an eternity.
I hold his pretty, tormented gaze. I have to lean into his frozen frame, my toes stretching to accommodate his impossible height.
Ever so lightly, my lips press to the softest waiting mouth.
I expect no reaction from the magically bound man held in place.
To my surprise, his warm tongue slides over my lips. And I open to him in a gasp of surprise. My lashes flutter. Strong fingers shove through my long hair, and he pulls me to him harder, kissing me so deeply he steals the air in my lungs.
Along with every logical thought that was previously occupying my dense little brain.
A growling groan turns to agony so fierce I can taste it against his flicking tongue. Every part of his body tenses as some kind of pain takes over. But still, he kisses me like I’m the only thing keeping him from dying.
It’s the strangest thing to feel like someone needs you. It isn’t like being wanted at all.
Desire. Longing. Lust.
They’re nothing compared to love.
That’s oddly what this demanding, passionate kiss feels like.
And that’s why I jerk away from him, shoving my hands between us to accommodate even more space between me and that consuming sensation of being cherished.
The moment I do, he falls to his knees. Both hands hit the ground hard.
His head lowers, and he trembles in torment, curling up on his side as unseen violence rains down on him.
A controlled scream attempts to rip from his tightly clenched teeth but he doesn’t let it out.
Price Ravar lowers down, squatting at his brother’s side with the most demented smile kissing his thin lips.
“She tasted good, did she? The things you can’t have always taste the best.” The Prince’s smile is still in place, and his eyes burn with shining magic as he glares down on the man lying at his feet.
“Fucking delicious,” Roman taunts, his own smile curling his lips through the pain that covers his face. “I bet when you finally taste her, she’ll taste like … mine,” he spits just before a hard tremble overtakes him and he swallows back a scream stuck in his throat.
It’s that comment that finally shatters the amusement in the Prince’s eyes.
With a deadly scowl, his boot collides with Roman’s ribs, and then he turns abruptly away before the gasping pain even leaves his brother’s mouth.
Prince Ravar storms through the aisle without looking back.
“Punishment, Zilo! Punishment!” he beckons over his shoulder before shoving open the heavy double doors and exiting the regal room entirely.
I stand there looking at one man while worrying over another. I don’t help Rome. I can’t.
Instead, I walk right back to my seat with that sickness clawing at my stomach. With all eyes on me, I cling to that unimpressed look hiding my messy emotions behind empty eyes.
Then I pick up that disgusting fucking meat.
And I eat it.
I eat it like I belong here.
I eat it like I love it here.
I eat it like I’m the most devout little follower of the Prince of Hell.
And later, when I’m finally alone, I’ll vomit all of the disturbing things I’ve taken in tonight right back up.