Sancte Diaboli

Another swig of whiskey.

And I’m too selfish to allow her to have them.

Another.

Before I can stop myself, I’m making my way toward her.

She’s mine.

I stop in front of them both, just as Saint brings her eyes to mine. “Oh, you’re in one piece now?” She doesn’t stumble or stutter, and I grab the drink from her, lifting it to my nose.

I look to Bishop, who smirks. Fucker has been feeding her non-alcoholic Cosmos.

Snickering, I hand her drink back. “Yeah. Always.” She is fucked. Not only has she got me, but now she has Bishop. She will be the most feared woman to ever grace our world. Fucking good.

Bishop’s focus zones onto someone over my shoulder, and I turn to see what he’s looking at. Or rather, who he is looking at.

“Shit,” I mutter under my breath. “Tillie…” When I turn back to face Bishop, he has already disappeared. The sides of the tent have been rolled up now to offer a more ambient flow between inside and out. Tillie and Scarlet organized this shitfest. If it wasn’t for them, it would have just been a bonfire and the old generation complaining that we’re fucking shit up if we don’t spend at least five hundred large on it.

“Who is that?” Saint asks, breaking through my thoughts.

I wince when I shift my arm at an awkward angle. “That’s Tate. Madison’s ride or die, and Tillie’s ‘she should die’.” Saint rocks onto her other foot uncomfortably, her lips on her glass.

I snort. “You can’t fucking stand wearing those things. Take them off.”

Laughter and music spill out around us. Saint waves me off. “I’m fine.”

“When did you become so moody?” I tease, my mouth in a half-smile. Truth is, kind of like her like this. Finding the table behind me, I grab her waist and pull her into me, fucking finally, and she rests between my stretched legs. A big part of me wanted to see if she was going to fight it. Her tiny body relaxes against mine as she casually sips her drink.

I roll my eyes, taking the glass from her and putting it on the table I’m leaning on. “It has no alcohol in it.”

She reaches for it again, glaring at me over her slender shoulder. “I know.”

She turns back to face the crowd of people as Pop Smoke’s “Dior” plays loudly behind us. She mumbles, “Would it be so hard for people to believe that I actually don’t like alcohol?”

“You don’t?” My throat tightens, probably from the surge of shock. Every girl I know drinks, and if she doesn’t, it’s because she hasn’t tried it. “What about champagne?”

“Eh.” She shrugs. “I don’t mind it, but only enough to not get me drunk. I don’t like feeling out of control.”

“Control issues, huh?” I chuckle, wrapping my arm around her waist and squeezing her against me while bringing my lips behind her ear. “Wonder where you get that from…”

She relaxes even further into my grasp, and everything I told myself earlier flies out the fucking window. She turns in my grip and I loosen enough for her to do so.

Leaning her head back, she rests her hand on my chest. We shouldn’t be this close. Fuck, there’s a lot of shit we shouldn’t have done, but we did. I took the only thing she could offer anyone and ate it as a meal… in more ways than one. “Can you tell me what Lucan would do to you?”

I still. The grip around her body completely falls away and I zone in on her pupils. Completely disco

“I just…” She traces her hand down my chest and I’m out of her embrace instantly, squeezing her palm in my hand.

My teeth clench together, the veins in my temples pulsing with anger. “No, Saint.” I push her hands down and step away. All of the anger that I put on hold when she walked her pert little ass down those stairs begins to spillover the lines of patience that I drew.

She searches my eyes, ice against fire. Two complete opposites. “Brantley, I’m sorry…”

I bare my teeth, swiping the bottle of whiskey from the nearby table and bringing it to my lips. I don’t want to walk away and leave her here. I shouldn’t. But if I stay and if she pushes, I’ll snap at her. She’s never pushed the subject before. Not ever. She’s getting bold.

I find the heat of the bonfire relaxing. It meets the rage that burns inside of my soul. I tip the whiskey bottle to my lips, but it’s empty. I’m sure that it’s only been a few minutes since I was talking with Saint, but that was a whole bottle of whiskey and that bottle is not new now. My eyes sting, my vision blurring in and out. I drank too fucking much. I never fucking drink too much. I’d never lose control, especially with her here. Saint. I shoot to my feet and turn, rubbing my eyes to outweigh my vision, but my arms are fucking heavy. Too heavy.

“Bishop!” I roar, both palms pressed on my eyes, but he doesn’t answer. I knew Nate and Tillie had left the second Tate arrived, but Eli, Hunter, and Cash were still here.

I turn back around and find Eli on the ground, his knees drawn up to his chest and his head hanging between his elbows.

“Eli, fuck.” Slowly, he lifts his head up until his eyes are on mine. Glassy and out of focus.

“I can’t fucking—” His words break. And I know. I know right here and now that we aren’t drunk.

We were drugged.

My legs turn to jelly as I fall to the ground. Eli’s frozen in place, but his eyes remain on mine. It would take a large fucking dose of that shit to bleed into my bloodstream. There are people talking in the background, but I don’t care. I slowly reach for my phone in my pocket when a flurry of blonde hair appears. Tate is grabbing it for me instead.

“What’s your passcode?” she asks with urgency.

The music is still blaring in the background, people dancing obliviously. Too many fucking people.

“S-saint,” I force out, my eyes on hers. She’s not in dead, mainly because she’s not of EKC linage and can’t be in it, but also because I can’t imagine Tate wanting to wear it even if it was against our laws that you don’t unless you’re blood.

She grabs my palm and slides my phone unlocked, facing the screen in front of my face for the recognition. Spyder whistles out to one of his boys, who finds his way over to us. Spyder’s generation of Kings roll a little differently. They’re not necessarily Kings because they’re the cousin chapter, but they’re still dangerous.

“The girl with white hair and dressed in—”

“I know who you’re talking about,” Spyder’s man interrupts, and I sneer up at him from where I am on the ground, ru

He throws his hands up defensively. “Wow, no. It’s—well, yeah…”

“Shut up, Cooper!” Tate snaps. “Go and find Saint.” Her fingers flick through my phone before she presses it to her ear. “Bishop, get back here now. Brantley, Eli, and I’m assuming the rest of your pack have been drugged.”

My fingers tingle, right up my arms and across my chest, down my torso, and through my legs. So fucking weak. Anger snaps inside my head as I try to move my leg.

It remains still, sweat dripping down the side of my temple.

She hangs up with Bishop. “He’s on his way back.”

My phone rings in Tate’s hand and she doesn’t hesitate to answer, putting it on speaker.

“What?” she snaps, like she fucking owns it.

I never thought shit about shit when it came to Tate. She’s mundane and basic. Not my type, nor any of The Kings really, but that’s not because she isn’t pretty, or hot, because she is. But it takes a lot more than a pretty face to hold our attention. You need to be raw. She lacks the grit it takes to handle this world. Well, she used to.