Page 2 of Seducing Jenny
“This isn’t about sides,” Surge said, stepping in. “It’s about staying alive. If we do anything rash, we put ourselves in Justice’s crosshairs and risk getting killed.”
I turned back to Tiger, our boyfriend, our warrior. His whole body hummed with fury, his furry tail stiff behind him. His skin shimmered pearl-gray with purple undertones in the sunslight, but his face had flushed darker with rage. Even his honey-gold eyes were rimmed in black.
Mal looked nothing like Tiger. Mal had deep obsidian skin, indigo eyes, and long gray hair that always threatened to fall in his face. But when I thought of him now, something in my chest cracked. My eyes stung.
The two alien men were complete opposites, but they had a way of anchoring me in the middle of chaos. And now Mal was gone. I felt as though someone had chipped away half of my heart.
As much as I hated to admit it, and as much as I resented the situation, both Longshot and Discord were right.
Tiger stared at me. “Are you coming?”
The words that came next tasted like treachery. “They’re right.”
His entire body stiffened. “Not you, too.”
I swallowed hard because I understood his need to storm into the palace to save Mal. “I’m not giving up,” I told him. “But we do have to be smart and we do need a plan. We are so far out of our depth when it comes to Justice and what he’s capable of.”
He blew out a breath, running both hands through his black hair until it flopped over his eyes. “Fine. There’s some logic in having a plan. But how exactly do we make a plan when we don’t know what we’re up against?”
Discord and Surge looked at each other, and neither had an answer.
“Right,” he muttered, turning toward the mansion.
“Tiger.”
He stopped and turned back around. “What?”
“Please don’t leave me,” I said, my voice cracking. “I can’t lose you, too.”
He crossed the distance to me in three steps. I tipped my head back, meeting his gaze. It wasn’t easy. Standing at over seven feet tall, he towered over me as most Ladrian’s did, but he still found a way to meet me eye to eye. He always did.
Then, he wrapped me in his strong arms and I melted against his chest. “I won’t leave you, Jenny. Not now. Not ever.”
A tidal wave of emotions overwhelmed me, and before I could stop myself, tears fell. I had been through too much too fast, and I couldn’t hold it back any longer.
The day before, I had barely survived a mountainous course called Illiapol that had lasted for days, and during those days, I was hunted like an animal. Had I lost, my body would have been eaten as part of a grotesque holiday celebration at court. It was a highly anticipated annual tradition, like Christmas but with cannibalism.
I hadn’t processed any of the trauma I’d been through. That would have required time. Every shred of emotional bandwidth I had was frayed, and I’d been running on adrenaline and denial. But even if I had been fine, the thought of losing Tiger would have destroyed me anyway.
He was important to me, just as Mal was. In a shockingly short time, they had both become my anchors. My protectors. I trusted them completely and felt safe with them. They’d become so much more to me, actually, but I hadn’t had the chance to define exactly what that was. All I knew was that I couldn’t imagine my life without both of them in it.
When Tiger kissed the top of my head, there was a sweetness in it that calmed me. I finally lifted my head from his chest and looked up at him. “Thank you for that,” I whispered.
He smiled softly. “Anytime.”
We returned to the brunch table, where Discord and Surge waited, and took our seats.
“Okay,” I said, looking at each of them. “What do we do now?”
Discord answered first. “For now, we wait for Longshot to return. I know waiting sucks, but Malice Ripper is no pushover. Whatever Justice Bateen wants, Mal won’t give it to him.”
“Which is good and bad,” Surge added. “A frustrated ruler is a spiky ruler. And with Justice, that can be literal.”
Surge’s black skin gleamed under the suns. His eyes were nearly the same shade of his skin. Of all the Ladrians I had met, he was the most physically unique. Since the others were over seven feet tall, his four feet of height would have been enough to make him special. But his sheen was bright fire engine red when the light hit him just right. More than that, he was built like a bald body-building elf.
“Spikes?” I asked, feeling queasy. “You think he’s torturing him already?”
“Not likely,” Surge murmured, but even his low voice carried tension. “But Justice is not known for his patience. Whatever we do, we have to do it fast.”
