Chapter 21

“Did you know I used to play waif?” West slid his finger free and rolled Nix onto his back, shifting on to his knees between the other man’s spread thighs. When he caught Nix peering down the length of his body at him tensely, he clucked his tongue. “Babe, when have I ever lied to you?”

Nix’s brow furrowed. “As far as I’m aware? Never.”

“I promised we wouldn’t get sexual, and I meant it.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“You’re chaffed here,” he lightly stroked against Nix’s inner thighs, the sensitive area close to his center. “And there are bruises all over. I’m going to apply sun cream everywhere I see something. Just focus on my story instead of where I’m touching.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “You think I’m going to get hard.”

“I do have a tendency to turn you on.” West winked. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t know you used to play.”

“Lake and I were on the same team all through middle and high school,” he carefully smeared cream over the irritated red patches of skin as he spoke. “One game against our top rival, I scored the most points—which wasn’t unusual, by the way. He’s really, really good, but back then, I was just a little bit better.”

Nix scoffed.

“Don’t believe me? Ask him about it later. He’ll tell you. Anyway,” West moved onto some of the bruises, the black and blue prints of Yejun’s thumbs making him want to rage, “my dad congratulated Lake when we got home. Had the cook make his favorite dishes for dinner, and even gifted him a new car. I was barely given a glance. It was like I didn’t exist in my own home. Later that night, I was out by the pool trying to calm down when Lake found me. I took my anger out on him because I couldn’t hurt my dad.”

“What did you do?”

“I hit him,” West said. “Hard enough he stumbled back and fell. He ended up hitting his head on the lip of the pool on his way down. There was a lot of blood. We had to call an ambulance even. Fortunately, there was no serious damage, and while he was getting stitched up in a private room on the top floor of Ever Hospital, my dad was beating me half to death in the underground parking lot.”

“What?” Nix tried to sit up, but he planted a palm on his lower stomach and made him lay back down.

“It’s fine. He only broke like three bones that time.”

“That time?!”

West chuckled. “I’m guessing your parents have never laid hands on you.”

“Of course not!”

“Lucky. I was used to it though, so don’t feel bad for me. That’s not why I’m telling this story anyway. I ended up in the same hospital, a few floors down, and had to stay for three days. I quit the waif team after that. Lake signed me up for boxing lessons. He didn’t get mad or tell me off for hurting him. He simple emailed me the confirmation I’d been added to the class, told me I needed an outlet to help regulate my emotions, and that was that.”

“Okay…That was nice of him, and clearly a good idea since it seems like it worked, but…What about your dad?” Nix obviously didn’t think Lake or Yejun would have let him get away with something like that.

He wasn’t wrong.

“Apparently, while I was in the hospital, they were planning on setting the house on fire while my father was ‘asleep’. But the old bastard came down with something severe before they could. His in-house doctor sent over several nurses and quarantined the entire north wing for almost an entire month. By the time he was given the all clear, I was obsessed with boxing and couldn’t care less about revenge. Told them to ditch the plan.”

Nix was quiet for a moment and then, “Did you tell me this lengthy, convoluted story in an attempt to convince me not to hold a grudge against them? Lake forgave you for splitting his skull, so I should forgive Yejun for—”

“Splitting your asshole?” West laughed when Nix scowled at him. “Sorry, bad joke. You can do what you want.”

“Ah, so you’re just trying to convince me Yejun will forgive me.”

“He cares about you.”

“He’s been fucking other people this whole time,” Nix stated dryly. “We’ve gotten along, sure, but that doesn’t mean anything. Look how quickly he tossed me aside? He threatened to break all my fingers.”

“Pretty sure he hasn’t slept with anyone else since Lake bit you,” West corrected. “As for the rest…” He shrugged. “I told him yesterday morning I would bust his kneecap.”

“Okay, but you didn’t mean it.”

“In the moment I sort of did.”

“You all have serious problems.” Nix dropped his head on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “ I have serious problems for liking any of you even a little bit.”

“Should I tell you why Yejun is so upset now?” West finished up with the cream and replaced the cap before dropping the almost empty tube back into the first aid kit box on the ground. Then he stood and motioned for Nix to get up.

“Why?”

“It’s chilly,” he said. He pulled the comforter down and then instructed Nix to get back in. He slid onto the mattress after him, pulling Nix against his chest. “You’re freezing. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Am I?” Nix settled more comfortably in his hold. “I didn’t realize.”

That was right, Nix had strong survival instincts, which meant an uncanny ability to block things out. He was probably in shock. No matter how much of what happened downstairs he believed was consensual, his subconscious knew better.

West may have never hurt Nix badly before, but he’d harmed lovers in the past and had been open about that fact. Was the man currently stiff in his arms afraid of him?

“We aren’t good people, Nixie,” West said quietly, breath fanning against the top of Nix’s blond head. “We’re spoiled and selfish with quick trigger fingers and bad attitudes. Everyone around us is an enemy, a pawn, or both. That’s just how it’s always been.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming on.”

“But,” West emphasized, “we aren’t the only monsters on planet. Whoever dragged your cousin into this isn’t any better than we are. You both just have bad luck, you and…Branwen.”

The sound of Nix’s breathing was momentarily drowned out by the sudden pattering of rain against the window pane, a storm starting up in a blink. Then, he snuggled back into West’s embrace and pulled the comforter tighter around himself. “Is this the part where you tell me you’re not going to let me go?”

Since that much was obvious—and he actually felt somewhat guilty over it—West didn’t bother to acknowledge it. Instead, he changed the subject.

“You wanted to hear the full story,” he reminded. “What happened with Branwen?”

“You can…call her Iris when you’re talking about this.” Nix closed his eyes.

“Iris and Yejun became friends in an art class,” West began. “Yejun doesn’t connect with many people, but she seemed really interested in his style of art, and immediately complimented the differences in his works and his parents. That’s a soft spot for, June. His parents put a lot of pressure on him. He’s never talented enough for their liking and they make it known, albeit privately.”

“What’s up with you three and having shit parents?” Nix drawled.

“Actually, Lake’s parents were amazing.”

“Oh.”

“They had similar tastes,” West continued with the story. “Like the same weird foods, found the same art films overrated. Yejun felt like he’d found someone outside of us he could vent to without fear of it getting out to the public or the Order.”

West recalled being happy for him in the beginning, believing that she was harmless. How could she not be? She was from a different part of the planet, wasn’t a strong presence on campus, and had no connections to Club Essential. There hadn’t been a reason they could see for her to be spying on them or manipulating them.

That was their biggest mistake.

Forgetting that people didn’t need a reason to become a monster.

“Toward the end of last semester, I started to get sick.” It’d been the worst illness he’d ever come down with too. Aches all over his body, high fevers that came and went, accompanied by the chilled sweats. “I thought it was the flu or something. Nothing serious. Then we got word that the Emperor and her Consort were also experiencing similar symptoms and that only made us believe I’d caught something more.”

He hadn’t even been worried about it. He’d felt like shit and could barely move out of bed some days, but it wasn’t a big deal in his mind. It wasn’t even for very long.

“By the third day of feeling like shit, I was in bad shape. I got up to find Yejun to ask him to take me to the hospital since the doctor visits weren’t working. That’s when I stumbled on Iris standing over his body. It was obvious she’d slipped him something because he was lying on the kitchen floor—not exactly a great place for a nap.”

“That’s how you learned she’d been knocking him out to get to his paintings?” Nix asked, but it was clear from the shaky note in his tone he’d picked up on where West was really going with this.

“They’d been in the kitchen brewing tea for me. I found the bottles on her person with the poison. There was also the substance she’d been slipping into his drinks.”

“Is that why you’re always the one making tea?” Nix swiveled his head and frowned at him.

“Sort of.” Yes. One hundred percent, but he wasn’t about to admit the ordeal had gotten to him that deeply. “Anyway, even sick I was still enough to overpower her. We sent the poisons off for testing and held her in the cell in the basement—”

“There’s a cell in the basement?”

“Yeah, this building is a few couple years old. It’s nothing fancy. Just a single corner of the stone basement blocked off with bars. She stayed there while we investigated—well, while June investigated, at least.”

“What happened to you?”

“I slipped into a coma.”

“What?” Nix sat up, ignoring West’s protests.

“Relax, I’m fine, aren’t I?”

“You…” Nix looked like he was finally about to panic—like he should have been doing this entire time—but for all the wrong reasons. “You’re saying my cousin almost killed you?”

“It had nothing to do with you, Nixie.”

“She’s my cousin!”

“So?” He tipped his head. “You think that means Yejun had a right to do whatever he pleased? These bruises,” he motioned down to his body, half of him still covered by the blankets, “were deserved? If that’s the case, then someone should have slit my throat several times over. If they had, it still wouldn’t be enough to make up for all the atrocities my father has committed.”

“You don’t exactly have a squeaky clean ledger yourself,” Nix drawled, then sighed and hung his head. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner that you almost died? Why doesn’t anyone talk about it?”

“Because no one knows.” West bumped his knuckles lightly against Nix’s chin until the other man looked up at him once more. “And no one is going to, understood?”

“Why not? What else aren’t you telling me?”

Yejun was going to be furious once he found out what West was doing, but they’d left him no choice. He was the only one here who could do damage control before they lost Nix for good. And they were close.

Despite his assurance that he’d been willing, West wasn’t convinced. They’d backed Nix into so many corners in such a short period of time, there was a good chance he’d simply forgotten the definition of consent and what it truly meant. I.E. not choosing the lesser of two evils out of survival.

He wasn’t sure exactly when it’d started, but West clearly viewed Nix Monroe as one of them. Whether that was due to Lake’s claiming mark or not, it was what it was. He wouldn’t mistreat Lake or Yejun, which meant he could no longer mistreat Nix.

“The poison used on me was the same as the one that killed the Emperor and the Royal Consort,” West divulged, voice dropping low despite the fact they were safely locked away in his room.

Nix’s mouth gaped, and for a moment, all he did was stare in shock. “You’re saying…The Emperor was murdered, and my cousin was in possession of the murder weapon?”

“I slipped into a coma,” West continued, knowing that he needed to divulge everything for it all to make sense, “and while I was unconscious, Yejun dealt with Iris. He interrogated her—”

“Did he…” Nix squeezed his eyes shut. “What a stupid question. Of course he hurt her.”

“I won’t lie and say he didn’t.”

“Was it…bad?”

“According to him and the doctor who looked her over before she was released, there were no broken bones or major internal injuries. He didn’t hit her. He mostly starved her and kept her awake with loud music for three days straight.”

“Did he…?”

“He was never sexual with her,” West said, knowing that’s where he was going with it. “He’s only ever used sex as a weapon against you, as far as I know. I’ve never seen him fuck his feelings.”

“I’m pretty sure the expression is eat your feelings,” his tone was flat and he appeared close to tears once more but held them at bay. “Keep going.”

West grabbed Nix’s hand and linked their fingers. Apparently, it was a day of firsts. Yejun had never used his cock as a weapon before, and West had never used skinship to comfort someone. Whether they liked it or not, Nix wasn’t the only one being changed by their proximity.

“Iris confessed that she’d been drugging me little by little every time she was invited over to the Roost. I was working hard for an upcoming boxing match and on a pretty strict diet. The tea I was drinking was separate from the others. She was putting the poison in there. Sometimes, she’d knock Yejun out first and do it, other times she managed to behind his back.”

“What about the devices she planted on the paintings?” Nix asked. “Lake said that’s how you discovered she was a spy in the first place. She was trying to bug his uncle—” Realization dawned on him and he stopped himself.

West gave him a minute, not bothering to deny what was clearly obvious.

“Lake lied to me,” Nix whispered.

“We had to protect the secret. Iris told Yejun everything she knew, and it turned out not to be very much. It became clear at the end that she’d been used by the hacker—”

“Except, he isn’t even a hacker, is he?”

West blew out a breath. “We don’t know, but probably not.”

“My cousin didn’t plant bugs on Yejun’s paintings.”

“No, that was me.”

“You were trying to spy on Lake’s uncle?”

“Let me go in order.” West moved back to rest against the headboard. “I’m going to keep calling this unknown assailant hacker, mostly out of habit, but also because we need to to keep up the ruse. Anyway, according to Iris, she was slipping me something that would make me sick but wasn’t life-threatening. She’d been told her hacker friend needed me out of the way so he could get his hands on the Enigma database.”

“Wouldn’t he have to break in here to do that?”

“Yes, which is why it’s a pretty bullshit excuse. But she believed him. Who knows, maybe there was some truth in it. Maybe he intended to make me sick, knock out Yejun, and sneak in after all. Unlikely, but possible. She was in love with the hacker and claimed not to know his true identity. She said she spoke to him exclusively through the app.”

Nix’s eyes narrowed. “Which means you already knew all about Serendipity.”

“Sorry.”

“I feel like an idiot.”

“Don’t. It may seem like we were manipulating you for fun, but that’s not the case at all. At first, lying to you was to protect us. Shortly after, however, it became about keeping you safe as well. We threw you out as bait, the less you knew the better.”

Whoever had approached Iris, they’d managed to convince her to join their side and do all of these things. She’d somehow believed in the nonsense and risked her life to complete these tasks. This person they were after was clever and, no doubt, charismatic. If they’d revealed the truth to Nix, there was a high chance he’d be swayed to the hacker's side as well. So long as he didn’t know anything, he couldn’t spill their secret.

West just hoped Nix saw it that way and he didn’t end up making things worse by trying to be honest.