Cayde
I’m so fucking pissed I can barely see straight.
I’m angry at myself for getting hurt, for allowing myself to be distracted long enough to take an elbow to the fucking nose, like some stupid kid fresh out on the field. I’m furious with Athena for being there at all, for showing up like she gives a fuck about any of us and what we do, for seeing me injured and vulnerable.
Every single part of this entire fucking thing makes me angry. Everything is coming off the rails, from my plans for Athena to Dean “winning” the game to me making a stand this morning when I’d meant to do the exact opposite. This isn’t how any of this shit was supposed to go. We were supposed to have a nice, pliable girl to torment and tease until one of us finally broke her enough to fuck her. Then the rest of us would go off and enjoy getting laid for the remainder of our time here until graduation.
But no, my father had to figure out that I was hung up on Athena and make her the sacrifice as a way to push me into trying harder than I might have otherwise to win. And now Athena and my fucking obsession with her is bleeding into every part of my life.
Rugby is my escape, the thing that I excel at, the thing that I chose to do. It’s the one thing that makes me feel that I have control in a life where I have anything but. And I lost control today.
Because of her.
And now she wants to follow me in here and act like she gives a shit about me, try to look at my nose and pretend that she cares? I’m pretty sure she’s trying to manipulate me, as well as the other guys in the house. While part of me is strangely proud of her, the rest is just fucking pissed and tired and done with all this bullshit.
I don’t like being lied to. I don’t like being used. And if Athena is trying that shit with me, she’s going to wish she hadn’t.
Her eyes go round when I throw her back against the lockers. Something about the feeling of my bloody fingers on her skin sends a rush through me, my cock half-hard as I shove her up against them and glare down at her with a sneer curling my upper lip despite the pain radiating from my still-bleeding nose.
“You’re going to regret ever toying with me, little Saint,” I snarl, my eyes narrowing. “This is all your fault!” I rub my hands over her upper arms and see her shiver, and that sends another throbbing pulse of lust through me as I lean into her, letting her feel the weight of my erection grinding into her as I rub my blood and sweat against her skin. “You like that, little Saint?” I hiss, leaning almost close enough to her to kiss. “You like my blood on you, my sweat, just like you like my cum all over you? What else do you like?” I grin, and I know it must look horrific, my face smeared with dirt and blood, and my lips twisted up in an angry smile. “Maybe you’d like it if I spit on your pussy before I fucked you. Right on that little pulsing clit of yours and rubbed it in with the tip of my dick. You want that?”
“No,” Athena whispers, but I can see the flush of red on her cheekbones, feel her squirming under me despite herself.
“It’s your fault my fucking nose is broken. You shouldn’t have even been there. You fucking distracted me, and now I’m paying the price!” I snarl at her, fresh rage bubbling up in me. “This is fucking bullshit!”
Athena rears back, her chin going up defiantly as she glares up at me, fire sparking in her eyes. “I didn’t fucking ask for this!” she yells back, startling me. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask to be a sacrifice for your little game, I didn’t ask for your father to drug me and drag me down to his very fancy basement to have wine splashed in my face, and I’m tired of taking all of your shit—all three of you—lying down, quite literally!”
I laugh bitterly. “You don’t get a choice in any of this, Athena.” For once, I use her name, looking down at her pale, pretty face, with the spots of angry red flaring high on her cheeks. “None of us do.”
“If you want me, just take me,” Athena hisses. “To hell with your family’s stupid arcane rules and rituals. Just do what you fucking want, for once in your life, Cayde St. Vincent.”
“Oh?” I grimace down at her, grinding my hips into her hard so she can feel just how erect I am, my thick cock filling out the front of my workout shorts. “Is this what you want, then? You want to fuck me all bloody and dirty in the men’s locker room. I knew you were a whore, little Saint, but that’s going pretty far.”
“I don’t want you,” Athena snaps. “But I don’t want Dean, either. And if it comes down to the two of you—”
“Nope.” I chuckle, shaking my head. “That’s not how this is going to work, Athena. If Dean can’t win by being the default choice, then neither can I. You have to ask for it if you want me to fuck you. Beg for it. Tell me how much you need it. Because until you do that, I’m just playing, and Dean is the clear front-runner. Seeing as how he’s already fucked you.”
Athena laughs bitterly. “You really can’t think for yourself, can you?” She’s breathing harder now, and god, if I don’t want to yank her jeans down and take her right here, up against the lockers, her legs wrapped around my waist as I pound into her over and over again. It would feel so fucking good—but when I take her, I’m not going to let there be any doubt that she wants me. I’m going to be the clear winner because she’s going to fucking beg.
I’ve been waiting too long to settle for anything less.
“This is how it’s been done for centuries,” I tell her flatly, still holding her warm, soft, squirming body up against the locker. “Our fathers, our grandfathers, and the ones who came before them. So you think I’m going to be the one to change it, to do things differently? Not likely.” I shake my head, my lip curling as I step away from her with a jerk, letting her drop down as I reach for the hem of my t-shirt and drag it over my head, turning away from her as I press it against my nose to mop up the blood.
“Oh my god, Cayde.”
Athena’s soft gasp from behind me startles and confuses me. Then I realize with a twisting, sinking feeling in my gut what she’s seeing.
Something I never intended for her to get a good look at. I was never going to be that vulnerable with her.
I was never going to let her see those scars on my back.
I can envision in my head what she’s seeing; I’ve looked at them often enough. Thin, ridged lines of scar tissue winding across my back, where my father hit me so many times with the belt that my back split open and bled, the welts swelling until the skin couldn’t stretch any further. Spots with thicker scars, where he’d beaten me on top of the old unhealed ones, for some infraction that I can’t even remember now. A B on a test, failing the last few of my pushups, staying out too late, just not being my dead brother, who I could never have measured up to no matter how hard I tried.
No, I don’t want Athena to see any of that. If she understands what she’s looking at, all the pain and hurt that I went through, all the ways I was broken down before I built myself back up, she’d start to see me just as a man. A human. Someone to be pitied.
I’d rather she just see me as a monster.
“Cayde, what happened—”
“Get the fuck out!” I scream, the words muffled through my shirt pressed against my nose, not turning around. I don’t want her to see the look in my eyes or the crazed expression on my face. I just want her out, gone, so I can stop thinking about her for one goddamned second. “Fucking get out, Athena!”
Her hurried footsteps and the slam of the door behind her tell me that she’s obeyed without question, for once in her life. It’s unusual for our little pet, but it shows that she’s learning, at least.
It should make me happy that she obeyed.
So why do I suddenly feel so fucking lonely?