HIDDEN BRANDS
COBRA CHUCKLED. “You’ve been punished for a reason, Kitten. Don’t test me with your bullshit tears. Jax went fucking easy on you. I wanted to do much worse.”
Instead of looking remorseful, the gorgeous, sparkly bastard continued to stroke his jeweled cock as he stared at me.
My hackles rose, and the feminine urge to beat his ass overwhelmed me.
I stopped pretending to cry and tugged at my handcuffs. “Release me,” I alpha-barked.
Cobra smirked. “No.”
He pulled a silver key from his pocket as his other hand continued to stroke his jeweled erection.
He dangled the key off his finger as his perfect lips smirked at me.
If he wanted to trigger me, he succeeded.
I was so angry my voice came out in a rough growl. “Why the hell would you guys do this to me? If you think I want to be around a bunch of psycho-ass unwell men, then you got anoth—”
Cobra cut me off by pressing a finger to my lips like a condescending asshole.
I bit his finger. Hard.
Instead of reacting like a rational, functioning adult, Cobra smiled as blood dripped down his finger, and he smeared the red substance across my lips.
I really needed to stop biting him. I kept forgetting how much he liked it.
My mouth tingled where he smeared it, and I fought the irrational urge to lick my lips.
Apparently, being a freak was contagious.
I opened my mouth to continue yelling, but Cobra clamped his palm over my lips. Hard.
It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t a tiny bit turned on by how he grabbed me. It didn’t help that my small breasts were exposed.
Cobra leaned forward, the front of his suit jacket grazing against my overly stimulated nipples.
He whispered in my ear, “You think you can go to a fucking sex clinic and offer yourself up to a fucking random fae man without consequences?” When he said “random fae man,” his emerald eyes flickered to snake eyes and back.
I nodded. “Hard yes.”
I was an alpha that shifted into a saber-toothed tiger, and the figurehead of the highly controversial movement to include women in the Fae Games. I could do anything I wanted.
If I wanted to have an orgy with strangers, I could. If I wanted to fuck no one ever, I could.
That was the beauty of being a twenty-year-old woman. Cobra, like usual, completely missed the point. “Kitten,
you will never touch another man outside this group. If you do, they will die, and you will be punished. Tonight was your warning. We let you off easy.”
Cobra pulled his hand away from my mouth.
I looked away from his burning emerald gaze and focused on Jax, the seven-foot-tall, sparkly man.
Arguing with Cobra was pointless. “How could you?” I asked Jax.
Jax’s face was still crestfallen from when I’d started crying, but his gray eyes hardened like chips as he spoke. “There are consequences to your actions, and I’m the leader of this group. You don’t fuck other men, little alpha. That’s a rule.”
He gripped the magical sucking vibrator thing as he spoke, like he was reliving bringing me to the edge repeatedly.
His muscles expanded like he was ready to beat up some imaginary fae assailant.
Actually, as I looked around, I realized all the men had bloody knuckles and blood was splattered across their white shirts.
Had they beaten up the fae guy I was supposed to be hooking up with?
“What rules?” I asked Jax, genuinely confused. “As far as I’m concerned, I hooked up with Cobra once. I’ve only seen Ascher almost fuck the twins, and we were stopped during our hookup. Then you came up with a pact not to touch me. What about that means I can’t touch other men?”
Ascher asked, “You saw what?”
A growl ripped through Jax’s throat and shook through the room. “You’re fucking ours. The Fae Games is extenuating circumstances! But you are still our little alpha. I thought you understood that?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but shut it.
Jax was in badass, aggressive mode, and I knew better than to mess with an angry bear.
Instead, I tilted my head back and prayed to the sun god that he would deliver me from ornery alpha men who couldn’t express their emotions if their lives depended on it.
How was I supposed to know that they viewed me as theirs? They’d literally never said anything.
Communication was a two-way street, and right now, I had a better chance of talking about my feelings with a
rock.
I tilted my head in confusion. “How did you guys know where I was?”
No one said anything.
In fact, the men looked around at each other like they weren’t sure themselves.
One alpha just smirked.
“Kitten, I know where you are at all times.” Cobra laughed.
Crickets.
My brain exploded, and I wasn’t the only one. All three men turned to gape at Cobra.
“How?” I was afraid to know the answer.
Cobra chuckled like this was all good fun and not creepy as hell. “I’ve branded you with my shadow snake. It’s in the center of your lower back.”
“Um, I think I would know if something was on my body.” He’d officially lost what was left of his sanity.
There was a long pause as everyone in the room looked back and forth between me and Cobra.
The snake bastard arched an eyebrow at me, and my chest squeezed with doubt.
I would know if I was branded—right?
Instead of saying “just kidding,” Cobra sauntered forward and unhooked my hands from the handcuffs.
My arms fell forward, and I rubbed my tingling wrists to bring circulation back while trying to cover my exposed chest with my forearm.
I launched out of the chair and tried to kick Cobra in the balls. He grabbed me around my neck, spun me around, and pulled down my already falling-off dress.
Jax gasped.
I twisted my neck but couldn’t see anything with Cobra’s hand around my throat. The pressure tightened as Cobra dragged me across the dimly lit room.
He stopped in front of the mirror.
Cobra’s fingers squeezed my jaw and forced me to look over my shoulder at my exposed back.
My mouth dropped open.
On my lower back, between my two butt dimples, emeralds were embedded in my skin.
They formed a heart about the size of my palm.
Immediately, I was enraptured by the way the jewels sparkled against my golden skin.
The sparkly juice made them extra shimmery.
“See, Kitten?” Cobra whispered against my ear. His hot breath made me shiver. “I told you. I own you.”
For a moment, I melted into his frosty embrace.
Cobra’s large body pressed against me. I wanted to acquiesce and let the gorgeous man take care of me. Own me.
Sanity returned.
I slammed my high heel down on his instep and dug my thumbnail into the fleshy part of his hand.
The bastard laughed at the pain but released me.
On shaky legs, I stumbled back to the chair and sat down before my legs could give out beneath me, my hands tight across my chest.
“How?” I asked with confusion. My raspy voice was too loud in the quiet room.
The beginning of a tension headache throbbed through my skull.
The other men stepped closer, Jax staring at Cobra with burning gray eyes, and Ascher and Xerxes staring at him with distrust.
The jeweled bastard sauntered over to where I was sitting and grinned like he hadn’t branded me without my permission.
Cobra chuckled. “Because I gave you one of my shadow snakes to watch over you.”
If I weren’t sitting, I would have fallen over in shock. “You knew about the little snake?”
I’d gotten the snake after Cobra had touched me in the first battle where I’d transformed. I’d thought the snake transfer had been an accident because it had happened when he’d barely tolerated me.
Cobra rolled his eyes like I was being ridiculous. “I control all my snakes, always. I am my shadow snakes.”
This time, I fell over.
Xerxes lunged and grabbed me before I hit the floor.
My breath was shaky, and it felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room.
My mouth flapped open and closed as I struggled to enunciate anything rational, but weird, breathless, gasping noises were all I could manage.
“Every time you were sad, or lonely, I tried to comfort you,” Cobra said quietly.
For the last month, he’d been my emotional support animal.
Memories came back to me.
Every time I’d cried under the covers, the snake had comforted me. Every time I’d worried, it had sent me happy thoughts. Every time I’d wanted to die while running, it had given me sparks of encouragement. Every time I’d fought with Cobra…
That whole time…
Cobra had been comforting me.
Jax ran his hands through his braids roughly. “How is the snake related to the jewels in her skin?”
He clenched his jaw and balled his fists. Cobra had kept secrets from him.
Cobra, who didn’t seem concerned by Jax’s anger, just shrugged. “Not sure, but I gave it some of my life force when you were falling, so maybe it became like mine?”
Cobra gestured to the hundreds of jewels embedded throughout his body.
We all gaped at him.
Was he saying his jewels were actually his snakes?
Cobra ran his fingertips over the crystals that dusted his cheekbones. “These are my snakes. They’re sleeping.”
Yes, that was exactly what he was saying.
Jax stumbled like his legs were also giving out, Ascher’s mouth dropped open, Xerxes backed away, and I considered the merits of breaking off a leg of the chair and stabbing myself through my cranium.
There was only so much a saber-toothed, shifting, virgin, alpha girl could take.
“What?” Jax asked.
I realized with a start that I’d sworn it seemed his jewels were moving across his skin.
Holy sun god.
I had thought Cobra’s jewels were moving because they
were.
He was covered in snake diamonds. Now I had some snake diamonds too.
Thoughts boomeranged around my head, and I struggled to put the pieces together.
It was in moments like this that I felt like I understood nothing about the universe.
Everyone had their secrets.
I shook my head. “But you weren’t shifted when the shadow snake was on my skin?”
The little snake had zinged across my skin when Cobra wasn’t shifted, and we could only control our animals when we were in our alpha forms.
I’d thought the snake had somehow escaped his control. No part of me had ever thought Cobra could still be in charge of the snake.
That didn’t make any sense.
The room became deathly silent as we all held our breath and waited for Cobra’s answer.
Cobra shrugged, his perfect face glinting with mirth and other emotions.
“I don’t have a shifted form. My snakes are always on my skin. I’m always a beast. I’ve just learned to disguise them from others.”
The silence was deafening.
He doesn’t have a shifted form?
Cobra tugged at the crystal collar he had to wear, the collar that was also around Aran’s neck.
It hit me.
The fae queen had put it on him to control his powers because the anti-shifting enchantment wouldn’t work on him.
Cobra didn’t shift.
He was the snake monster all the time.
I thought about how Cobra acted, constantly flipping on a dime, raging, and generally acting psychotic.
Suddenly, things made a lot more sense. Cobra was a snake beast…always.
He didn’t shift into a beast of lore like the rest of us; he
was a beast of lore.
“Are you still an alpha or something else?” Jax stared at Cobra with burning gray eyes.
Cobra rolled his eyes and licked his bloody finger. “The sacred lake said I was. I honestly don’t know anything else. Just that the queen freaked out and released me from the realm the first time I revealed I didn’t have a shifted form.”
We all tried to process whatever in the sun god’s hell was going on.
Personally, I was still horny after being tortured for an hour and was pissed that the men were not at my feet, groveling for my forgiveness.
Cobra had stolen my thunder.
Jax was the first to speak, his muscles expanding with anger and a low growl ripping through the room as he glared at Cobra. “Anyone else have any massive secrets they want to share?”
I pursed my lips.
Since everyone was spilling their deep, dark secrets, it seemed like as good a time as any.
“I have a homicidal voice in my head that takes over, and I become a killing machine without emotions. But it needs time to recharge, so that’s why sometimes I’m super badass in battle and other times I suck.”
Jax suffered an aneurysm. Ascher’s mouth dropped open.
Xerxes sighed and mumbled under his breath about how he’d known something was up when he’d seen me run.
Cobra tilted his head and smiled at me like he was even more obsessed with me.
My gut twisted at the intensity of Cobra’s gaze, and I couldn’t decide if I liked it or was worried about the fact that he was literally a gorgeous snake beast twenty-four seven.
A predator was smiling at me.
“That seems like something you should have shared.” Jax’s eyes were blizzards, and his scent spiked.
He smelled like chestnuts on fire.
“It never came up,” I said honestly as I gave a small shrug and tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal.
I stood up and took control of the situation.
“Give me the vibrator,” I alpha-barked at Jax.
The big man glared down at me, muscles tensed like he was going to attack.
After a long moment, he put the vibrator into my outstretched hand.
It was covered in my arousal, and I made a grossed-out expression as I grabbed it.
“We are going to talk about this later,” Jax growled.
With one hand clutched across my bare chest and the other hand gripping my vibrator, I didn’t answer him, just turned and stomped out of the clinic on shaky heels.
The receptionist was at the front desk as I marched past with four pissed-off men following behind me.
Well, three men and one snake beast thing.
“Have a nice night. Come back soon.” The receptionist popped her gum and clacked on her crystal keyboard.
“Fuck you.” I flipped her off with two fingers. As I held up my hands, my dress fell to punctuate my statement.
A thought struck me, and I whirled around, boobs flying. “Did you also let strange men into Aran’s room?”
She tapped away at her screen and rolled her eyes. “The half warriors physically removed the princess from the room. They claimed they were following the queen’s orders.”
I lunged forward, ready to claw at her face.
Jax grabbed my arms, pulling me back. “Calm down, little alpha. I’m sure Aran can handle herself.”
Before I could react to Jax stopping me, Cobra reached out and slapped the receptionist across the face.
We all stared in shock as he grinned and casually walked away from the stunned woman.
Her face wasn’t bloodied, and she remained conscious; he hadn’t hit her too hard.
“Cobra,” Jax growled, his tone a warning.
The snake man turned to me. “She let us into your room without a fuss. She deserved it.”
My mouth fell open in disbelief.
Jax grabbed Cobra and me by the backs of our necks and shoved us out of the room, with Ascher and Xerxes trailing behind.
Shifters, ABOs, beast men—whatever you called them—were definitely psychotic.
The problem was that Jax’s growl, as he dragged us back to the room, stirred something in me.
I also noticed Xerxes still holding the hood and Ascher glancing at my exposed breasts.
Jax pressed us tightly against him.
Cobra winked at me, his jewels shimmering on his face.
I shivered with arousal.
The shifter men were clearly unhinged. The real issue was that I seemed to be, too.
