Chapter 16
The celebration afterwards was incredible.The audience was legit crazy, crazier for Kingston than I’d seen them with anybody else so far.
When his win was announced, I ran around the cage to the entrance and joined him inside. Swollen and tender, he still picked me up and kissed me. I could taste the ferric tang of fresh blood on his tongue, and somehow it aroused me even more than normal.
It felt like it connected us, his vitality and life-force painting our mouths red with victory colors.
When we broke apart, he looked down at me and pressed his thumb against my lips, wiping the remains of his fight blood off them.
“I wanted them red,” I said. “You should have left my lips covered in it.”
“You should never be bloodied, Evie,” he said with a frown. “You’re too precious to even hint at damage. Especially your face.”
“And especially because you owe us each a cock sucking, and if your lips are hurt then we all suffer,” Archer said, coming up behind me.
I laughed and playfully pushed him away. “Come on, I wasn’t being serious about that.”
“You weren’t?” he said and stopped short, his face falling into an immediate pout.
I grabbed his hand, pulled him to me and said, “Of course I was, I’m just fucking with ya. I’ll do it soon, I promise.”
And I got the wide smile in response that I’d been wanting to see.
Archer was too pretty himself to wear a pout. I loved it when he laughed and smiled.
“You’re sexy with blood on you,” Valen said, putting his arms around me from behind. “Like a warrior queen after a battle. I could see the appeal.”
He pushed my hair out of the way and kissed my neck.
And then I realized we were being watched. Half the fraternity was standing below the platform with stunned looks on their faces. I scanned them all, their mouths hanging open in disbelief and envy as I kissed multiple men right in front of them.
And I had to laugh again. They’d never understand something as complex as my relationships with my Kings.
I didn’t even understand it sometimes, especially now that Ryker was hanging around. It was one of those one in a million occurrences, the perfect blend of personalities and circumstance.
Sometimes I wondered how it happened myself. How we had all managed to find each other despite the strange and dark events surrounding our bonds.
Kingston held his hand up to his face and looked pretty sore, so I said, “We’d better get you cleaned up.”
I moved to his side, took his hand, and led him towards the house. The other three guys followed us faithfully, laughing and talking like they were already a tight knit group.
I pushed through the crowds of kids drinking, laughing, and trying to talk to Kingston. I got really good and turning them away or cutting them off before they pressed in too close for our comfort.
“You’re a super star,” I said and Kingston, still holding his hand to his face, rolled his eyes.
“I fucking hate it,” he said. “I liked it better when I was in school in New York. Nobody knew me and nobody gave a shit who I was.”
“I know how you feel,” I said. “I hate being Tribute because of that. I used to fly under the radar when I was a loser.”
“You aren’t a loser,” Valen said from next to me. “If anybody was a loser, I was the biggest one. I was such a shitty player for the last three years, but somehow things perked up once Kingston showed up at school.”
“Kingston fucking Taylor,” I laughed. “He has that effect on everyone, it seems.”
“Not me,” Ryker said. “I’m about as good as I’m ever gonna get.”
“Cocky fucker,” Archer laughed. “Spend some time with the King and you’ll find out how much better you could be.”
“I doubt that,” Ryker said. “But it doesn’t matter, we’ll find out at Dirty Kingdom.”