Vengeance (The Prince's Games Book 1) Rebecca Grey (first e reader txt) 📖

"I know what I said," I say under my breath. "I know."

"Was that not true?" His voice softens, his full lips falling to a soft pout.

"Was what you said true?" I counter.

"Yes." Marcello grabs my arm, pulling me to a stop just before the table laid with food.

We’d gathered plenty of attention walking through the large room, even though we've kept our voices low. Mavi and Jefferson sit at their camp, sipping a steaming liquid from their cups and watching us with teasing smiles on their faces. I try my best to ignore them.

"I meant every word. I'm not playing you, Nilsa. I like you."

"Stop." I hold up my hand. "You don't like me. You hardly know me. I'm just some box to check off a fucking list so you can say you've slept with a Human or some other fucked-up shit. Can’t you call it that?"

"No, you stop. Stop deflecting your insecurities onto me. Stop putting words in my mouth that I never said. And I do know you, you asshole. I know that you don't like to get close to anyone, so you push everyone away. I did that for a long time too. I know that your tongue is sharper than any blade. I know you like attention, even if it's bad. And I know... I know you would have saved that girl from the spider if you could have. I know you wouldn't be killing Hybrids if life hadn't handed you the shitty end of the stick. I know that's not who you really are."

"Oh Saints." I look up to the ceiling. "Do you hear yourself? Do you hear how ridiculous you sound?" Tightly fisted, his hands fall to his sides. "You're so soft." I continue. "Everything you do is easy and life hasn't calloused you in the way that it has me."

"That's not true. Life is as cruel to me as it is you, just in different ways. But I've chosen to be better than what those wounds try to turn me into. I fight it daily. You... you wallow in it."

"I don't wallow. I revel."

"Gah!" Marcello growls. "I can't keep having this conversation with you. You make me feel insane. I'm not the nutty one though. Saints above, you are." His hands, those large hands that I can't stop imagining running over my body, touching me everywhere, intertwine into his hair as he tugs it in exasperation.

"I didn't ask you to chase me down. We don't have to be talking about this right now. Not ever. You and I... we're off the table." I can't tell if the bright fluorescent lights above are warming my skin or if it's purely the fact that I know I'm lying. I don't want Marcello and I off the table, not really. So why did I say that? Why can't I stop saying all these terrible things?

If anything I want Marcello's dick balls deep in my throat and his hands in my hair. I want every perfectly euphoric sound that comes from him to be caused by me.

The leather of his vest groans as he lifts his hand, slowly, allowing time to step away. His touch hovers near my cheek, not close enough to touch the skin, but near enough I want to lean in. I force myself to stay still. Not in an angry way but in the ‘if we are to touch I might just have an entire mental breakdown right now' way. There isn't time for a mental breakdown during The Oasis Games, damn it.

"You make me mad. Utterly crazy. Somehow, even now I want to kiss you," Marcello whispers.

I take a begrudging step back.

"I won't kiss you. I won't touch you. Not until you ask. Not until you say please." He partially snarls at me. "I'll wait until you can admit it. I'm a patient man."

He's something. But he's not wrong.

That asshole.

"Go get something to eat and prepare yourself for tonight’s event," Marcello clips out.

But thanks to him, thanks to my own stubbornness, I'm not hungry anymore. I'm not anything anymore except fearful. Marcello is right on all accounts. I hate that. I hate him. I hate me.

Most of all, I hate the way I want more of him. I hate the way that I don't really hate him. I hate the way that I almost, most certainly, think that I like him too.

***

The alarm echoes off the walls, a siren calling us forward, pulling Hedda and I out of our tent. Smoke rises from the last of the kindling in the fire pit at the center of our three tents. Large vents at the side of the room work overtime to pull out the haze of smog that gathers overhead.

A bitter taste sits on my tongue, but it has nothing to do with the smoke or with the start of the next event. It has everything to do with my clenched-tight stomach. The ache in my heart is worse than my healing rib cage and there's a fire in my veins.

I don't need another Hybrid in my life to overshadow me. Marcello tries to treat like I need saving, but I'm not helpless at his side. That's why he picked me. That's why I got the ticket into The Oasis to begin with.

Sloane and Finnegan rise from their seats around the fire, looking past us to where Juilliard limps out of his tent. His shoulders are hunched forward, his hands swallowed inside his deep pockets. He scans our small team.

I sigh, the first to move toward the calling bells. "Let's just get this over with."

Hedda's heavy steps follow at my side. The tents and their many colors come and go next to us as we make our way through the campsite. A chorus of