Page 137 of Viper

“You don’t?”

“No.”

And if the looks on the faces of Jester, Dice, Darko, and Ghost were anything to go by, they didn’t find it relaxing either.

Sad head-shakes came from the group of six hellhorses who’d joined them. Like Teague, they didn’t belong to a lair and were instead part of his unofficial clan. She’d learned that there was an alliance between said clan and the Black Saints. She got the sense that these guys knew who Viper was, though they were likely unaware of what he’d become on falling.

He gave her a confused look. “What’s relaxing about watching hellhorses face a series of sadistic hurdles that can burn, bruise, and slice the competitors—as well as cause them to topple into nightmarish pits filled with shit like spikes, snakes, and boiling oil?”

Ella grazed her teeth over her lower lip. “It’s not obvious?”

Cleaning his glasses, the lean, brown-eyed clan member decked out in golfing gear turned to her. “It’s the celestial blood in him. He’ll never get it. He’ll never understand the rush.” Leo slipped his glasses back on. “You should pity him.”

“Or kill him,” Slade chipped in, idly scratching at his blond scruff. “I’d personally prefer death over such a poor quality of life. You’d be doing him a solid.”

Viper narrowed his eyes as he swept them over the group. “Doesn’t Teague have a VIP box for your clan to use?”

“We prefer being in the stands,” Gideon explained, batting away his wavy shoulder-length red hair before taking a swig of his beer—the guy very rarely didn’t have a drink in his hand, from what Ella had observed. “The atmosphere here is better.”

“And we can sic people on each other when we feel like it,” Leo added.

“How?” asked Darko, curious.

“Observe.” Leo tossed a coin at someone on a lower tier. That same someone swung around with a scowl, seemed to decidethat the person behind him was responsible, and dived at him. Honestly, demons were way too easy to provoke.

“I reckon the taller one will win,” said Leo.

Archer pulled a doubtful face. “My money’s on the ginger.”

No one could call hellhorses normal. Or stable. Or anything close to safe. And yet, they didn’t send her inner alarms going wild.

Due to her pregnancy, her protective instincts went electric whenever she was out in public, as did those of her demon. But hellhorses were just way too funny to make her nervous.

Right then, Archer pulled a mushroom out of his little paper bag and offered it to her.

She felt her nose wrinkle. “Uh, I’m good, thanks.”

Stood at his back, Saxon cuffed Archer over the head, knocking his short dark ponytail aside. “Stop handing them out to people like they’re chips.”

Archer didn’t even flinch at the hit, despite that his well-built clan member had put some strength behind it. “Why? Sharing is caring.”

“You don’t warn anyone that they’re psychedelics, that’s why,” Saxon complained before taking a bite of his hotdog. “I had to watch Khloë chase an imaginary pixie around our goddamn camp the other night.”

Indignancy flared in Archer’s blue eyes. “First of all, Teague warned her that these are magic mushrooms—she ate two anyway. Second of all, your negative opinion of them is unwarranted. They’re of the Earth.”

“So is poison hemlock. Would you eat that?”

“If I was hungry enough.”

Tucker blew out a breath and lifted a dark-skinned hand. “I think I speak for all of us when I say—”

“Don’t,” said Saxon, tossing him a quelling look. “Don’t speak for us. We’re good.”

Tucker raised his shoulders. “So no one else is thinking that Archer will be the first of us to die?”

Leo twisted his mouth. “Iwasn’tthinking it. But I am now.”

“Nah, Gideon will drink himself to deathwaybefore I pop my clogs.” Ignoring Gideon’s eye roll, Archer looked at Ella. “I tried to get him off the drink. But some people … they just don’t care what they put in their bodies, you know?”

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