Page 9 of Exposing Adonis

Islappedhimacrossthe face. His head turned to the side and a red, angry mark formed on his cheek. The muscle in his jaw pulsed and ticked, and his lips pulled into a snarl. He straightened and looked at me. There was a fire in his eyes, but it wasn’t from anger. It was sheer, unbridled lust.

I recoiled in surprise. His lips parted, one corner of his mouth lifting in a predatory smile. He was practically licking his lips like a big, bad wolf.

We stood, toe-to-toe. Him eyeing me like a steak. Me, paralyzed, confused and, embarrassingly, reciprocating that desire.

“Not at all!” Hugo’s voice cut through our standoff. “It was me! I hit him. He passed the test with flying colors.”

Without thinking, I marched over to Hugo, pulled back my fist and slammed it right into the center of his face.

Hugo fell backwards, still with a grin on his mouth as the blood gushed out from his prominent nose.

“I asked you for help!” I swung back around to Callum who crossed his arms and raised a brow. “And you hit my brother?” I spat on the ground at Callum’s feet. “How fucking dare you?”

I grabbed Leo by the elbow and tugged him toward the door.

“Fuck these guys.” I groused as I tried to get my twin out of there.

Leo resisted. He dug his heels in. I turned and watched as my brother’s cheek swelled and darken.These fuckers!

“Come on, Lea.” His voice was soothing and deliberate. As if I was the one that was out of line, notthem.“They were obviously just testing me.”

“They didn’t need to hit you.” I snarled, leaning into him, and sparing one angry glance at Hugo. He was still on the floor, but looking at me with a curious expression. He crossed his arms in front of his body armor. His biceps and shoulders bulged through the black shirt.

I couldn’t bear to look at Callum. He was so far up my shit list, only stabbing him again could cool my temper. And I was half tempted to do it, the butterfly knife in my pocket sending a heat up my skin.

“We had to know what he was made of, love.” Callum’s voice was smooth, and low. Like he was lulling a feral dog. Or a madwoman. But that was the wrong thing to say to me in that instance.

I dropped Leo’s elbow and marched up to him, pressing a fist into the center of his body armor, my soft knuckles slamming into hard Kevlar. My fist bled as skin lost to metal. He staggered backwards, but I refused to show weakness. The pain burned up my hand, into my wrist, and it felt good. Even ifhecouldn’t feel it, the agony soothingly fueled my rage.

It was better to be angry. Better to feel fury, instead of betrayal. Anger is productive. Hurt is just pain.

“I said he could do it!” I doubled down, punching at his body armor again and again. Anger prevented the pain in my knuckles from showing on my face. Wrath beats pain, every time. “You should have taken my word for it. How’s that for trust?”

I went to punch again. His hand flew up, redirecting my punch mid-flight so it landed on his arm, right where the body armor ended near his shoulder. I threw a cross punch with my other hand. He grabbed my wrist mid-flight, glancing the blow towards his face. He grunted at the impact when my reddened knuckles hit his beard-roughened jaw.

“That’s enough!” His voice boomed and echoed in the hollow room. “Hitme! Hit my skin. Not the armor. You’re not going punish your hands because you’re angry with me.”

But I didn’t want to hit him. Somewhere deep in my rage-filled mind, I knew that my meaty hits on his armor wouldn’t hurt him. It would hurt me. If I had wanted to hurt him, I would have reached for the knife in my back pocket. But to cause him pain was vile to me, and I hated that weakness inside myself.

He called me Atalanta. But to me, he was Adonis. The sun was rising and setting with him, and I hated it. I hated how it dragged my heart. I had been so baffled by his light that I turned to him in a moment of need, and trusted him. And he had hurt my family.

His large palms encircled my wrists, pulling them up so my elbows had to give way, bending downward. I stepped forward to accommodate his hold. He waved my knuckles under my face and I saw the blood, the torn skin, and the swollen cartilage.

“Stop this.” His eyes were unblinking as he issued his command.

“You don’t get to hurt my family and live.” I spat again, this time at Callum’s face. It landed on his cheek, glistening in the harsh lamp light. Then in a low, hateful voice, I growled, “Fuck you.”

I pulled out of his grasp, and he let me go with a grunt, his stubborn jaw rising as he wiped my spit from his cheek.

Leo’s cheekbone began to swell, and I wanted to die.This was all my fault. Again.

How many times would my twin have to pay for my mistakes? How many more times? And there was the guilt that I had to banish from my mind, before it made me fall to my knees.

“Come on,” I whispered to Leo, pursing my lips to point towards the open door. “Let’s go. We’ll get in without them.”

“Lea.” My brother usedthattone, the one that told me I was about to do something I’d regret. “Bunso, it’s not that big of a deal.“ There he went, using the Tagalog word for little sibling.

“They hit you,Kuya.“ I said under my breath, saying the word for big brother.

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