Chapter 33 Orion
ORION
“What the fuck are you doing here?” someone asks from beside me, but I can’t recognize their voice.
Everything sounds far away, the scene blurs and focuses, like my brain itself can’t understand what’s happening and is struggling to reframe the impossible.
My sanity peels away and slips into the ether.
“Please leave,” a panicked voice says.
“Well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
I’m surprised you’re not happier to see me, Soren.
” That’s Arabella. Her voice sounds practically demonic compared to everyone else’s.
How could Soren let all of this happen to Sable over her.
I watch them all move in slow motion. Sable’s touch on me is the only thing tethering me to this spot.
“I’d think you’d get the hint, given he’s blocked you ten times over.
” That last one was Hadrian, and I wonder how the fuck he knows what my brother is doing.
Are the two of them buddies again? Wouldn’t surprise me, given Hadrian is also a snake.
But also, if my brother blocked the bitch and didn’t even want her, then why would he risk Sable over her?
Why would she be here right now if it weren’t for my goddamn brother?
She was already at Bellthorn. She didn’t need a scholarship. He did this.
“If you knew him like I did, you’d know he’s just playing hard to get.”
The spell breaks.
Her voice ignites anger I tried to ignore, and hot fury uncoils from the pit of my stomach.
Sable will be safe for the moment with the others, and I leave her side with my eyes on my target.
Resentment, hatred, and a kind of rage I didn’t think I was capable of fuel me as I advance on him.
My hand balls into a fist and cocks as I approach him.
I swing, stepping forward as I make impact with his jaw to put my body weight behind the punch.
I’ve had this punch brewing in me for an entire month, and the force takes him straight off his feet.
Pain ripples up my knuckles, and I’m sure at least one is cracked, but it’s worth it. I’d like to hit him again. I step forward, planning to do just that.
“Fuck,” Soren says, spitting blood. There’s something so unhinged about watching a cursed version of myself bleed.
“Oof, that had to hurt,” Parker says.
A need for revenge I’ve never felt before surges through me, and I want more of that blood.
Soren is the one person in the world I thought I could trust above all else.
He may have treated me like an annoyance, pushed me away at every turn, and rejected me like a stray dog begging for scraps, but I thought sharing identical DNA with the man meant something.
I was so wrong about that, and knowing that, after everything he could do, he could do this?
I wish neither one of us ever existed, that we’d never been allowed into Sable’s life to hurt her in the first place.
“You brought her here? You thought we wanted to share your whore with you?” I spit on the floor beside him, preparing to fucking kill him right now with my bare hands.
He was there to rescue Sable when I wasn’t, and he did this?
If Sable could kill her uncle with an old shoe, surely I can take care of this stain on my name. I’m going to kill him.
Before I get the chance, a series of hands grip me. All of them are on me, pulling me back as hard as they can like they can see my plans.
“You can’t kill him,” one of them says, and I realize then I must have said that out loud.
“You drove her away, and now this? How dare you?” I scream, my rage impotent now that they all have me.
I don’t have a chance of fighting off all three of them.
Soren says nothing, eyes hard as he stands and dusts himself off.
I beg for an explanation, but the silence only stretches, and he gives me nothing in return for the blood spilled.
As if he’s not fucking with everyone’s head, Soren leaves, closing the door of my room in my face.
“Well, this is awfully dramatic.” Arabella laughs. “Is it always like this?” She shoots Sable a conspiratorial look, like the two of them are friends, and she’s in on this. I could kill her too.
“It wasn’t him, Orion.” Lex’s words fall on deaf ears, and I shake in their hold. Fuck them all if they think I’m going to sit and think this through. I turn to Arabella instead, ready to deal with the problem the only way I know how.
“Get out!” I shout at her. If I can’t kill her, I can at least chase her out like a snarling, rabid dog. “You’re as disgusting as he is!”
Arabella throws her head back laughing, like my outburst is the funniest thing she’s ever heard.
I want to ruin her life, watch her run away, never to come back.
I didn’t care when she was just some dumb girl obsessed with my brother, but how many times did she try to hurt Sable just because?
How dare she show her face here after all of that?
My eyes search for weak points, anything I can possibly do to scare this bitch away.
Her perfume is some high-end shit my mom would choose. The thick scent of it chokes me.
“What are you doing here?” Hadrian asks her as he lets go of one of my arms and edges between us. Someone else immediately takes his place as I struggle to get to her. She should have left with my fucking brother.
“I’m the new Offering. I’m moving in.” The answer is simple, and she smiles at each one of us with a little glimmer in her eyes like she thinks she’s going to have a grand old time fucking the five of us, but I’d rather we all die right now than touch her.
That might seem a little extreme, but I’m fairly certain we would all wind up together in the afterlife anyway.
I’m once again on the verge of an attack.
Fucking bring my brother back, I’m not done with him.
“Are you?” Sable talks for the first time. “Since when?”
“Oh, just a few days, but I only officially signed the paperwork today,” she answers Sable happily, like they’re friends talking about some good news for her. It cuts me that she’s here to see this, that she has to play these catty games.
“Are you planning to move your things in today?”
“Mmm,” she says, pulling out her phone and sending someone a text.
“She’s nothing,” I say to Sable. I wish the guys would let me go at this point, not so I could kill Arabella, but so I could touch Sable and let her skin calm some of this torture. “Soren may have brought her here, but she’s not shit.”
“There’s no need to be rude, Orion,” Arabella says, her taunt landing like a punch.
“Who brought you here? Who gave you access to this room?” Parker asks.
“We are always notified when an Offering is coming.” I arch my eyebrows at Arabella, happy we all agree she’s a fucking liar. “We pick them up by the fucking gate.”
“I sat down with Julien Hollow and signed the paperwork like everyone else does. You want to know who brought me to the room? Why don’t you ask him? It’s not like I know the name of every peon who goes here.”
“You need to leave, now,” Hadrian finally says.
Instead of Arabella arguing, Sable asks, “Why? If she’s the Offering, this is her room.
” She shrugs, and given the fact that she was crying in our arms just a few minutes ago, she’s way too calm for my liking.
“Hell, I never even wanted to come back to Bellthorn. If being your whore does it for her, she can go right ahead.”
“She’s not the Offering,” all of us speak in unison.
Arabella smiles. “I am. But I’m also extremely nice, so I’ll give you a moment to take your trash and move out of my room.”
She turns and heads to the door, grabbing her purse like she’s already comfortable here and this is her space. “And don’t worry, boys, I’ll be patient with all of you too.” She blows a kiss to the room before slamming the door.
“Fucking bitch!” I shout at the top of my lungs, but she’s already gone.