Fighting Darius

PENNY

“What are you doing? Are you trying to kill me by scaring me to death?” I place both hands on my chest.

My heart is hammering against my ribcage.

It doesn’t help that he looks hot as hell. In the dim light, he’s all smooth skin and sharply contoured angles. His fair hair is in disarray, as if he has run his hand through it many, many times.

His cotton pajama bottoms are resting low over his hips. His white T-shirt fits snugly like a second skin to his amazing, sculpted body. My heart squeezes in my chest almost painfully.

Stupid lycan. Stupid, sexy lycan.

“Persephone,” he breathes, ignoring my theatrics. “I think we should talk.”

I don’t miss how his eyes are staring at my face, then raking my figure with longing and hunger. They linger on my bare legs before they go up again.

My skin tingles. It almost feels like a physical caress. Damn him!

“No, I don’t think we do,” I reply quickly, pushing the shivers of pleasure down. “Where’s your mate?”

I could’ve kicked myself. Why did I ask him that? No way he missed the jealousy in my voice. Stupid Penny. “Never mind. That’s none of my business.”

He looks at me strangely. “It’s not?”

His eyes are suddenly intense on my face, studying me—looking for something.

“Of course it’s not. Not my concern. You can do whatever you want. You can mate with whoever you want. It has nothing to do with me.”

“It has nothing to do with you.” He repeats my words. He looks angry for some reason.

Already, the air between us is crackling with awareness and tension. Me and him alone in the dark is not a good idea.

He studies me quietly for a few more seconds before he takes a deep breath as if trying to calm himself.

He runs his hand through his glossy, pale-blond hair, making it even more tousled than before. That only makes him look even hotter. It’s not fair.

I want to run my hand through that hair. I want to feel its silkiness between my fingers. My heart can’t take any more of this.

“I’m going to bed. You need to get out of here.”

“Persephone, wait! That night, we didn’t… I didn’t…”

“I don’t care!” I do, but I don’t want to talk about it. The image of their writhing bodies is still fresh in my mind.

He moves forward, and I move back, and suddenly he takes in a sharp breath. I know he catches a strong smell of me in the still air.

His nostrils flare. Pain and jealousy flash in his eyes before they darken into two black orbs.

I don’t even see him move. He just appears. He was fifteen feet away, then suddenly he’s in my personal space, staring down at me.

“Are you doing this to torture me now?” he asks through gritted teeth.

I know he can smell other males on me, especially Mr. Yummy Lip Ring, the slobbery, awful pickup-line guy, and some other guys who grinded on me on the dance floor earlier.

“Doing what? It’s not always about you, you know,” I snap instead, turning on my heel to leave.

“By being with other men tonight. How close did you let them get to you? How far did you let them get with you?”

“You’re not sleeping with some random guys just to get back at me.”

How dare he! For a second, I consider hitting him. He brings out this violent side of me. He’s also a lycan. So much stronger than I am.

I face him with a challenging look. His eyes are now back to pale blue, but I know he’s still angry. It’s there in his eyes and in the stiffness of his jaw and body.

Oh, I am so going to lose my V-card before the week is over. A steely look comes across his face as if he knows what I’m thinking.

We stand there locked in a staring contest. My eyes are full of challenge and rebellion, while his are filled with jealousy and steely determination.

His wonderful scent fills my lungs. My senses are filled with him. This is why I should stay away from him. My heart is racing faster in my chest. I feel more alive now than I have for months.

“You’re not going to do it,” he growls out, moving closer.

I just keep glaring up at him. My eyes are defying him, but I can’t deny the strong, magnetic pull anchoring us together. Powerfully drawing us into each other.

My heart aches at how beautiful he is. His beautifully sculptured lips that were once on mine. Why am I staring at his lips?

I lift my eyes and notice that his glacier-pale-blue eyes are staring intently at my lips.

“I swear you’re not going to do it,” he says it like a vow. His breath is tantalizingly warm on my lips. He’s leaning in as if he can’t help himself.

My breath catches, and my heart flutters like the wings of a bird trapped in a cage.

“Do what?” I challenge him. “How are you going to stop me?”

My voice sounds breathy and cracks at the end.

“I know you more than you know yourself, Persephone.” His voice sounds low and husky.

His lips hover just a breath away from mine. I can feel the warmth of his body and smell his wonderfully addictive scent.

Our chests are almost touching. Delicious chills run down my spine. I want his lips on mine. I want the taste of him on my tongue. So badly.

I look back up into his eyes. He’s fighting an inner battle. I can see it—and it hurts.

The thought of Polina invades my mind. He took her to bed so easily, yet he doesn’t want me. He had her in his bed, yet he keeps pushing me away. Even now he’s fighting it.

He might even be mated to her right now for all I know. The hurt and the anger come back in full force, and I stagger a few steps back.

His hands instinctively come up to grab my arm to keep me from falling, but I push them away.

“Then you know I want you to stay the hell away from me,” I yell. I don’t care if I wake everybody up or if everybody can hear me now.

“Pretend we don’t know each other! Pretend I don’t exist! Pretend whatever the fuck you want to pretend. Just leave me alone!

“You had no problem doing that for the last three years. Why the hell stop now? Just leave me alone!”

Faintly, I hear him say as he walks out, “Sorry, I can’t do that, Malyshka.”

He looks back at me one last time. Soon he will be all the way in the guest house, far away from me.

He points to the door next to mine “My room is right here.”

***

It’s Saturday morning.

The sun is shining brightly when I open my eyes reluctantly. The sea breeze is soothing. The bed is comfy. This is a good place to hide from the real world…or more specifically, from Darius.

I spent hours lying in bed, fuming, before I finally fell asleep after my “talk” with Darius last night.

Okay, so I kept imagining the “almost-kiss” moment that we had too…then curse myself right after I did that. The shame. The want. The anger. The want.

You want a fucking fairy godmother, Penny! You want a unicorn that poops jellybeans. You want a pet dragon that breathes fire on Darius’s stupid, sexy ass.

That doesn’t mean you can have any of those things.

Stupid Penny!

I’m still fuming now. I’m mad at him, and I’m mad at myself. Last night was the most we’ve talked in the three years since we first met.

Then that almost-kiss. Nope, I don’t feel like facing him today. Nope, I can happily hide in my room for the rest of the day.

Pretty soon, though, my stomach starts growling. It sounds like a family of monsters is living in there. Baby monster, mommy monster, daddy monster, grandpa monster… Oh no, I need food!

Only the terrifying thought of death caused by starvation motivates me enough to get out of bed finally.

It’s beyond pathetic to die of hunger while lying in bed on a Saturday morning. It’s beyond cruel to have to get up so early on a Saturday morning, though. I grab my phone from the bedside table.

Well, okay, so maybe it’s not that early. It’s already close to eleven.

I brush my teeth and pull my hair up into a messy ponytail. I stretch and yawn and glance briefly down at my sleepwear.

I always go down for breakfast in my pajamas on weekends, why should today be any different?

I’m better covered than I was last night anyway, I think. It’s a white tank top with pink, cotton boy shorts that have pictures of smiling pineapples all over them. I put this on uncaringly last night.

Sometimes I sleep in shirts that I stole from Caspian. He has the most comfortable shirts to sleep in, I swear!

Everybody is already at the breakfast table when I get down there. Everybody is already showered and dressed except for Genesis, Caspian, and me. The three of us are not the morning people in this house.

Genesis is in a bathrobe that I know belongs to Constantine, just by the size and the smell of it.

Caspian is topless. His cotton pajama bottoms seem to be in danger of slipping off his hips when he yawns and stretches his hands above his head. His golden hair is sticking out everywhere.

“Good morning,” I mumble, dropping onto the only chair available between Caspian and Genesis. I try not to look at Darius, who’s sitting right across from me. I know he’s all dressed up.

Everybody returns my greeting. From the way everybody is looking at us, I think they heard our “talk” last night.

It’s hard to hide anything when you live with a bunch of nosy lycans with crazy superhearing.

Anya places my favorite mug with the face of a cow on it in front of me, and I nod my thanks as she pours me steaming hot, black coffee.

“I trust you slept well last night, Persephone?” says Darius, casually sipping his coffee.

I almost choke and spit my coffee out.

“Yes, awesome!” I snap out with a scowl. “I slept awesome!”

He must’ve known that I spent hours tossing and turning, knowing that we shared a wall, wishing I could kick him in the nuts. Angry at him and wanting him. He should burn in hell.

He looks great this morning. No sign of late-night tossing and turning.

His white shirt stretches delightfully tight across his impressive chest.

The sunlight streaming in through the big window behind him catches his shiny, light-blond hair. The light that surrounds him makes him seem unreal. Shiny and perfect and too beautiful to be real.

His pale-blue eyes shine brightly as he stares at me from across the table. I have a sudden urge to kick him in the shin underneath the table.

Lazarus coughs and clears his throat loudly, and I almost jump. I suddenly realize that we’ve been locked in our staring match for a while.

I look away with a scowl and notice Caspian’s smirking face and everybody else’s amused expressions. That woman, Eva, is looking back and forth between Darius and me with curiosity.

I look back up at him and give him the meanest glare. His mouth curls up into a sexy, lopsided smile. How can a lopsided smile look so sexy and hot? Urghhh…he is so infuriating.

The conversation flows around us, but I’m not paying attention.

I scowl harder as he raises his coffee mug to his lips with his eyes still on me. I watch him warily before I drag my eyes away and stab a stack of pancakes in front of me furiously with my fork.

Stupid, sexy lycan! Who likes a hot, sexy, jerky lycan? Nope! Not me. Gosh! I hate him! I hate him so freaking much that I…I…I wanna poke his sexy eyes with this fork!

After breakfast, Darius and Eva go out. I don’t even ask the others where they went off to. I don’t care. I’m not jealous at all. Nope. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

All the men have business to attend to as well, so Genesis, Serena, and I decide to lounge around the swimming pool in our bikinis.

Serena and I are developing nice tans. Genesis remains pale with a nice, pink glow to her skin. I don’t know how she manages that.

I’m painting Serena’s toenails bright red. Genesis is painting her fingernails. We’re taking turns painting each other’s nails.

I don’t have Genesis’s careful precision. I keep messing it up and having to wipe the edges.

“I think we should go to the spa one day. A day of relaxation at the spa with my sisters.” Serena sighs.

I love how she refers to us as her sisters now. I love how the lycans make me feel included and like I belong.

“So…,” says Genesis. “You and Darius…uh…patch things up finally, huh?”

I miss Serena’s toenail by a mile and smear the bright-red color onto her skin. I curse under my breath as I wipe it off her skin quickly.

That’s Genesis’s idea of being nosy and subtle at the same time. I can’t blame her. I’d do the same thing, only I wouldn’t be subtle. I would demand to know what happened.

“Nope, if you were listening harder last night, you would have known that he should stay far, far, far away from me,” I answer. “Like, on a different continent wouldn’t be far enough away.”

“Why?” She stops painting her nails. “Darius must’ve told you that he didn’t mark that other woman, right?”

He didn’t? I remember he was trying to tell me something like that last night, and I wouldn’t listen. Well, it doesn’t matter because I still saw him in bed with that woman.

Serena and Genesis now look excited. They are looking at me as if all my problems are now solved.

Which reminds me that I never told Genesis or Serena about what I saw that night. It is too embarrassing for me.

Their erasthais moved heaven and earth to be with them. Mine refused me for years and took another woman to bed to show me how much I’m not wanted.

It is all my own fault.

I shouldn’t have spent those years waiting for him and going after him.

Well, that Penny who had been pining after him is gone. This Penny isn’t waiting for anyone.

I’m going to show him just how much I’m not pining after him.