Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
The Preston Armstrong, who considers being unaffected an Olympic sport that he excels at better than hockey, can’t seem to control his expression around me.
The sight lights me up, spreading across my spine like a fiery explosion.
Looks like Preston truly fucked up this time.
Because I’m in the mood to test his limits and breach them.
A smile lifts my lips as sadistic tension coils in my stomach. “Well, this is one way to say you miss me, my prince.”
5
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.