Page 68 of The Villain's Beast

“Are you decent?” Fletcher asked from a few yards away.

“Rarely,” Daren answered.

I looked down and tried to wipe the cum off my black hoodie, but my trembling fingers only made it worse. I was on the most dangerous kind of adrenaline high, and the crash was coming fast.

“Did anybody see you come up the road?” he asked me.

“No.”

“The two of you are getting careless.”

“It’s been four times,” Daren protested.

“How many times have I seen Gideon?” he snapped.

That was it.

I brushed past Daren and chased after the sound of Fletcher’s voice. He leaned against a tree and I picked up speed as I approached, shoving him hard enough back that he lost balance and stumbled over a broken log. I went down with him, fists balled tight in his t-shirt as I pushed him harder down into the dirt.

“This is all your doing,” I yelled at him, shrugging Daren off when he reached the place we’d gone down. “You’re the one who made the stupid plan.”

“I wanted to move now,” he hissed. “Your president was the one who wanted to wait it out.”

“And you agreed! I’m tired of waiting. I want my fucking life back.”

Fletcher glared up at me, bucking off the ground and flipping our weight around so quickly I was on my back before I even registered he’d lifted us up. He curled his hand around my throat, immediately tightening his fingers hard enough for the corners of my vision to go blurry.

“We may be allies, Mandeville, but you watch your fucking tone with me.”

“Fuck you.”

I would have spit in his face if I could.

“Fletcher.” That was Daren, from a place far away I couldn’t see. “Fletcher, let him up.”

“It’s not fair,” I rasped. “None of this is fucking fair.”

Above me, Fletcher grunted, and everything went black.

Chapter 48

Bellamy

The front door to the house crashed open like someone had been thrown through the thick wood. Loud voices and the door slamming closed, and it was Daren I heard first, screaming at Fletcher with a rage I’d never known from him before. Quickly, I closed the book I was reading and headed for the stairs, shocked to find Luca half-unconscious in Daren’s arms and Fletcher behind them, a mottling purple bruise around his eye and blood trickling from the corner of his lip. Daren had a matching black eye and sticks in his hair, his hat backward on his head and dirt on his knees.

“Bellamy, can you help?” Daren set Luca down on the couch, then he immediately rounded on Fletcher again. Fletcher grabbed him before Daren could land another hit, hauling him upstairs to Fletcher’s bedroom without another word.

I ran down the stairs, skidding to a stop on my knees in front of the couch. Luca was conscious, mumbling something under his breath I couldn’t quite make sense of. Gently, I pulled his glasses off his face and brushed his hair off his forehead. It didn’t appear he had any black eyes like the other two, but he had red and purple marks around his throat that looked a lot like a hand.

“Are you all right?” I whispered, tracing my fingertips over the bruises. He had dirt and leaves in his hair, and I wondered what I must have looked like after Fletcher had his way with me the first night.

“Bell,” he rasped, voice catching on the single syllable. “You’re an angel.”

“Daren doesn’t think so.”

Luca snorted, slowly blinking his eyes open. I gave him back his glasses and helped him prop up against the arm of the couch.

“What does Daren know?” he asked.