My hand lashed out, pushing on Jupiter’s slim shoulder until she kneeled beside Neptune. Both goddesses trembled, but they never looked away from me.
Good.
I had their full attention.
With explicit lewdness, I grabbed between my legs. I fisted the bulge that I’d caught them staring at, I activated pain from sleeping with Eleanor. I waited for their eyes to skate down to my grip before inching nervously back to my gaze.
With their full concentration burning holes in my flesh, I growled, “This is what you want? This cock that you think has the power to grant your happiness?”
Their shoulders rolled and shame dotted their cheeks. “We just want you to love us.”
“There’s that nasty word again.” My arm shook as I squeezed myself harder. My gaze fell to Eleanor, and a supercharged, thousand-wattage electrical bolt stopped my heart when her grey eyes opened. Her eyebrows furrowed as she slowly returned from death, blinking away lethargy and strangled smog.
While she still danced on the border of awake and dormancy, I locked eyes with the two murdering goddesses. I jerked my arm, my cock still throbbing in my grip. “This belongs to her. It was always hers. You didn’t stand a goddamn chance before she arrived, and now that I’ve found her, you’ve lost forever.”
Neptune bowed her head. Jupiter stopped crying, her despair quaking until her teeth rattled.
Releasing my cock, I fisted the shirt over my heart, and confessed to them, even if I would never have the balls to confess to Eleanor. “And this…this also belongs to her. No one else, do you understand? It happened against my will. It happened despite your tricks. It’s done, and no matter your schemes, it can’t be undone, which means you’ve just signed your death warrants because how can I let you live after you tried to kill the owner of my goddamn heart?”
It was Neptune’s turn to cry.
Big droplets spilled from her eyes, dipping into the curve of her mouth. “We’re sorry, Sullivan. We made a mistake.”
“You did. A huge fucking mistake.” I nodded and dropped to my knees in front of them. Calico remained in the dirt that’d become her coffin, but there were two other goddesses to end.
“Don’t. We promise we—”
I cut off Jupiter’s plea with a hand around her throat. Two hands curled around two necks.
If I had another weapon, I would’ve used a different method of extermination. I was tired of such gentle homicide. A blade would be sharp and deliver a quick message. A gun would be brutal, sending them to the afterlife with a squeeze of a trigger.
Strangulation was personal.
Far too intimate with the way my skin glued to theirs, their pulse hammering against my fingers, their feeble attempts at freedom leaving marks upon my body.
They both thrashed, both scratched, both tried to run, but my arms were strong from scaling waterfalls and miles of swimming. My fingers ruthless in power.
I kept squeezing until their attempts at breathing grew weaker.
Footsteps crashed through the jungle, trading the pristine path for unkempt undergrowth. “Sir…stop.”
Sir.
Cal’s insider joke.
He liked to call me sir when he believed I needed reminding of my place as ruler. Either as a mockery because of how high and mighty I’d acted, or a slap to make me human after slipping into hell.
I’d never liked him calling me sir. It unbalanced our friendship. But in that moment, it did exactly what he’d intended.
It woke me up.
It brought me back.
I ripped my hands from the two girls just as they toppled into silence.
Ah, shit.
He jogged to my side as I stood up, rubbing sweaty palms on my trousers. The heat of their terror still soaked into my palms, twisting my guts.
I’d killed women before.
But only those who’d proved too far gone to be redeemed. Jupiter and Neptune…they weren’t evil. Just two girls who had the unfortunate fate of being sold to me.
Cal slammed to his knees, laying both on their backs and performing CPR, going between the two. I grabbed my phone and called Dr Campbell.
He answered on the first ring, as if he’d sensed I’d done something monstrous. “Bring four stretchers and staff. You have a few patients to attend to. We’re off the path by the main beach.”
I hung up before he could ask questions.
He’d give me grief about this. He might even quit, but as my eyes once again landed on Eleanor, I didn’t give a fuck.
They deserved their lesson even if I wasn’t owed their life.
I honoured the value of Goddess Jinx, the girl who could never know the power she held over me.
Going to her side, I helped her into a sitting position. “You okay?”
She groaned and rubbed her throat, swallowing a few times before croaking, “Yes, I think so.” Looking past me, she blanched. “Oh, God…Sully. What did you do?”
I didn’t look over my shoulder at the three bodies. “They hurt you. They were punished.”