Page 17 of Beg the Night

“Why did you have to go and scare her? We were perfectly fine minding our own business!”

“Are you kidding?” I raised a brow. “She shows up here and you wander off to play house with a complete stranger. How’s that cold dungeon floor treating you, by the way?”

Her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me since we got here. I’m lonely and I’m tired, and Athena is actually nice to me, unlike any of you. You didn’t have to freak her out, now she’s never going to take a shower again!”

I glanced over Mags’s shoulder to where New Girl stood, arms crossed, watching us. “She needed to learn how things work around here.”

My sister huffed, throwing her arms out. “How things work? You mean howyouwork, going around here and bullying everyone until you get what you want?”

Lips pressed together to tamp down on a smile, I hummed. “Pretty much. Yes.”

“She’s my friend,” Mags huffed. “I haven’t had a friend in a long time. Not since?—”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to.

My chest did the strange tightening thing that it did only for her. With a long breath in, then back out to break up thetension, I nodded. “Fine. I’ll leave her alone. But the two of you are sleeping on your cot. I’m sick of fighting off the other guys. They’re like damn vultures when it comes to the beds, you know.”

Her eyes immediately lit up. “Thanks, Elijah.”

Annoyance flared in my chest. “Don’t call me that.”

But she was already walking back toward New Girl and her dripping wet hair. “Yeah, yeah,” she called over her shoulder, “you have a big, scary new name now.I know!”

I clenched my fists to keep my shit together rather than following after her.

“Come on,” Mags whispered, pulling her new friend toward the bed they’d now share. “This is usually where I sleep, anyway. It’ll be much more comfortable this way.”

Damn fucking right it would be. And now that they’d be three feet from me, I could actually sleep at night knowing they were safe.

“He might be your brother and a tier three, but none of that gives him any right to boss me around.”

My head snapped back in her direction. New Girl did have some backbone after all, huh? I supposed that was better than most of the newcomers. Typically, the people thrown in here were too afraid to stand up for themselves, too afraid to speak to me, too afraid to even look in my direction.

But New Girl? I caught her staring at me nearly every time I looked at her. Which made it even more clear to me that she was, in fact, hiding something.

And I was going to find out what that was.

I closed the distance between us, only stopping when New Girl’s chest brushed mine with every inhale. “Let’s get one thing straight here.” I balled my hands into fists at my sides. “Idoget to boss you around. You will do anything and everything I ask you to do, New Girl, but it has nothing to do with my tier. I couldbe a fucking one, and you would still obey me. Hell, I could be an earthly, and you’d get on your knees before me if I asked you to. Understand?”

My sister grasped her friend’s arm and tugged, trying desperately to pull her away from me, but New Girl wasn’t the type to back down from a challenge.

Jaw set firmly, she zeroed in on me. She was small. Too small. She’d do the fucking Ministry no good in battle. Not without power, anyway.

Hell, part of mehopedshe was hiding something. That she was secretly a tier two or three and not some useless earthly the Ministry would use as dog meat the first fucking chance they had.

As irritating as she was, things got boring around here month after month. And I was finally starting to have some fun.

New Girl remained silent, but a fight simmered right behind her eyes. Her fists clenched around her worn, battered boots and dirty clothes.

I locked my own jaw and glared back.

I used to possess that kind of fight. I used to care about winning, about arguing.

But now? Now there was no fight left in me. No resistance. That had all been stripped from me months ago. Hell, it disappeared long before Mags and I were ever brought here.

It was refreshing, honestly, to come face to face with someone who wasn’t done fighting.

Even if she was fighting the wrong damn person.

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