Vengeance (The Prince's Games Book 1) by Rebecca Grey (electric book reader TXT) 📕

"No." She shakes her head, sending her white hair dancing around her chin. Those large gray eyes widen, taking up more of her face. She inclines her head. "What happened to your cheek?"

"What do you mean?" I touch my face.

"There's a shadow of a bruise there."

Whatever words I plan on saying next get caught in my throat. What do I say? Well, certainly I'm not going to tell her that I let Jefferson fuck me and he shoved my face into the concrete. No, I won't say that.

"I must have gotten it sometime during the fall yesterday. I think I remember Marcello's shoulder banging against my face during the impact." I nod along with my lies, waving it off and heading out of the tent.

The second my toes hit the bright light and I straighten, the voices stop. Juilliard's hands are on either side of Marcello's biceps, holding him in place. Between them, Marcello cups a clear bottle with a brown colored liquid. A tag is tied around the top hanging from the beaker, like the drink is meant as a gift.

Juilliard's dark gaze lands on me. With a long exhale he drops his hands from Marcello. I watch him as he pinches the bridge of his nose and walks away, shaking his head. Marcello turns on me. Liquid sloshes under the cork as he thrust his arm forward and presents it to me.

"This came for you." His voice is hoarse. Quickly, he pulls back his shoulders and clears his throat.

I hold his heavy stare, wrapping my fingers around the chilled glass. The tag presses into the skin of my palm. Marcello lets go, but his hand grazes mine. And there it is. The same sharp static that tingles up my arm and into my heart.

Some form of a thank-you is still lodged inside my throat, caught behind the lie I just told Hedda. So I don't say anything at all. Instead, I sidestep and walk around Marcello and the dastardly look on his face.

"What's wrong with you?" Marcello's voice calls.

I walk faster, heading for breakfast before the next event. Rumor has it that the event won't take place until evening, so I have most of the day to... to do what? Avoid Marcello? Hide? The Elf doesn't give me a choice as he chases after me.

"Why did you do it, Nilsa? To mess with me? Are you trying to get back at me or something? Last I checked you were the one acting cruel. Not me."

Every muscle inside of my body locks up as I come to a halt. Marcello skids to a stop next to me. His dark brows are pulled together. He searches my face for something, an answer that I can't offer him. What does he know? What does he think that he knows?

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"The tonic." His voice lowers as other teams look up from their breakfasts.

One by one, I open my fingers and cup the bottle in my hand. The small tan card attached parts open, a neatly written sentence is scrolled across the paper. I scan the card and sigh, holding it out toward Marcello.

"I can't read it."

"Wha—" he starts, but doesn't finish. His eyes bounce from the card to my face and back down to the card. "It says, 'Thanks for the ride. A tonic for unwanted pregnancy. From Jefferson.'" He pushes my hand away from him, looking around the room, avoiding my gaze all together.

Shit. Fucking Saints above. He knows. Oh, I'll kill that fucking Elf Jefferson. I'll kill him. No one needed to know. Least of all Marcello.

"He's been bragging about it all morning." Marcello’s cheeks heat. "Nils. Jefferson is my brother."

Jefferson is Marcello's brother. 

"Y-You two don't look anything alike. You've hardly talked to him since we got here. He threw a knife at you! What do you mean you're brothers?" The words spill out of me in a rush as I try to find a way to make what he just said feel less dirty. I feel dirty.

"He's my adoptive brother. We don't have the same parents. And I fucking hate his guts. Jefferson is literally the worst. And of all the Hybrids you could hate, he should probably be number one. He's never had anything good to say about Humans. He hates them. He hates you."

He'd said as much last night. I wanted to be hated then. I felt like I deserved it.

The room spins, my body feeling impossibly light. I sway on my feet. And the seed of that man is still inside of me. The cork pops loudly as I yank it from the top of the vial. I chug down the liquid and close my eyes, trying to steady myself. I fucked up. Oh, Saints, I fucked up. Again.

Snapping my eyes open, I shake my head at Marcello. "Why does it matter so much to you? You certainly had your fun last night. Didn't you?"

I turn away from him, walking with a false confidence as I feel other participants look in my direction. They don't know that I'd done it to fulfill my own desires. They don't know that I wasn't just trying to snake information out of Jefferson in hopes that he could be the prince. No one knows that except for me.

"I thought you'd missed that," Marcello says breathlessly as he catches back up.

"So you can have your secrets but I can't have mine? Marcello, I had to listen to some floozy suck you off last night. I had to listen to every noise you made leading to and then completing your... your... your fucking orgasm." I gasp, suddenly not sure what I should be doing with my hands. The now empty bottle feels impossibly heavy.

"You said you didn't