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Dean
This is a side of Jaxon I haven’t seen in years.
The cold rage on his face is frightening even to me. The last time I saw him like this, furious and hungry for someone’s blood, was the night Natalie turned up dead. The night we all found out why and who did it.
And now Athena is gone.
Jaxon might pretend like he doesn’t care about the game, like he doesn’t have a dog in this fight, but he cares about Athena. He cares about her in a way that Cayde and I haven’t been able to muster because we’ve been so focused on the game. But all this time, all Jaxon has cared about is her. I know he sees Natalie in her, in a way, that his desire for her is mixed up with a sick need to touch his long-lost love again, to be with her in some tangible way. He’s never been able to let her go.
But of course, he can’t have Athena without breaking all the rules he’s set for himself.
None of those rules include not fucking up someone who hurts her, though.
What confuses me, though, is why the fuck the Devil’s Sons would have her at all.
And the thought that they might enrages me, just as much as Cayde or Jaxon.
The Sons are our gang, or rather, our families’. They’re the enforcers. The ones who do the work too dirty for any of us. Our pet is as off limits to them as anyone else, no matter who her father was or what he did to them years ago. They have no right to lay so much as a finger on her, and if they did, then I’m going to be right next to Jaxon, breaking every single one of them.
No one gets to punish Athena, hurt Athena, do any fucking thing to Athena except for me. Or us, after tonight, but that’s a problem I’m going to have to solve later. Cayde and I were in the middle of fighting about it when Jaxon walked in, but that’s going to have to be re-addressed at a later time. After all, Athena has to be safe and sound for us to fight over her at all.
If they’ve hurt her—
Something dark and deadly stirs inside of me. I’ve never been as prone to enjoying blood and violence as Cayde. Jaxon doesn’t like it at all. That’s why this bloodlust in his eyes is so terrifying to see. That’s why he fights in those underground bouts that he thinks we don’t know about, as a way to burn off the anger that he doesn’t want to take out on anyone else. I prefer things clean, elegant, the dirty work done out of sight where I don’t have to look at it. Cayde is the one who likes the idea of violence.
I still remember that first test, when we all had to shoot those men in the warehouse. I remember how Cayde did it without issue, how Jaxon turned green and puked outside. I hadn’t wanted to kill a man, but it had been a necessary evil. I’d done it without pleasure or emotions about the act and put it behind me. A part of life that I couldn’t avoid.
The kind of pain and punishment I enjoy comes in the bedroom. That’s why I’ve enjoyed Athena so much. She has desires that none of us anticipated, and I’ve enjoyed dragging them all out of her, finding the depraved threads and unwinding them until she comes apart at the seams.
She’s mine.
No one touches what’s mine.
“Come on,” I say, jerking my head towards the door. “I’ll drive us to the clubhouse.”
* * *
Beingthe stubborn dick that he so often is, Jaxon insists on taking his motorcycle instead of riding with Cayde and me I. Part of me understands that—after all, I can’t imagine he’s all that eager to spend more time with us after everything that’s happened tonight. I don’t bother fighting with him, because all I can think about is getting there, getting the answers that Jaxon seems to think we’ll find.
I can’t help but wonder what we’ll leave in our wake, though.
This is out of our league, getting beyond what we should be doing at this point. We’ve each killed a man, yes, proved ourselves to be men to the only men who matter, participated in the ritual, broken the sacrifice that was given to us—or so we thought.
Tonight proved that Athena is anything but broken.
But that’s not the point. The point is that all of those things were ordered, things we were told to do, and now we’re going rogue. There’s going to be fallout from this no matter what. I know the appropriate course of action would be to go to my father or Cayde’s and tell them that Athena is missing. Let them sort it out, follow the breadcrumbs to wherever she is and whoever has taken her, and hope they can find her while she’s still alive and mostly in one piece.
I know Jaxon isn’t going to consider that for even a second, though, and I’m not sure Cayde would either.
I’m not even sure that I can.
The thought of Athena being hurt or killed feels as if it’s driving all of the good sense out of me. She’s done that other times, too, like when we left the country club and I fucked her out in the woods.
That wasn’t a game. It wasn’t punishment. It was just us wanting each other. Like normal fucking people. And while it was happening, I wanted more of it.
The problem is, I don’t know how to be normal.
But I’m not sure she does either. And that’s what I’m convinced neither Cayde nor Jaxon understands about her. Athena was born to be my pet, to submit to me, to endure my punishments, and plead for the pleasure that I give her.
