"WHAT?! I'm just doing Wren a favor by offering to bite her instead of you lots!" Arlo threw his hands in the air, trying to hide his embarrassment.
"Right," Radek sneered. "Because biting a scared little thing who's shaking in her socks is just professional courtesy now."
Wren, to her credit, stayed mostly silent during the back and forth. Lulu had drilled it into her: play the fool. The helpless, confused human. Let them bicker. Let them underestimate her.
But her knees really were shaking, and not all of it was acting.
Her heart thundered in her chest, and she tried to figure out which was worse: being bitten by a sadist, a soft-spoken psycho, a brainiac with commitment issues, or a guy who thought she wasn't worth dirt under his shoe.
They were arguing about her like she was a piece of livestock. Who gets the prize cow? Who gets to brand it?
She tried to speak again, voice thinner now. "Can I—can I ask a question?"
They all looked at her.
"Why do you want to bite me? You've been speaking of turning me, to what?"
Arlo rolled his eyes. "You'll see after it's done."
"Is it… is it going to hurt?" She swallowed.
There was a long pause. Dimitri's grin was lazy and terrifying when he broke the silence. "Oh, absolutely."
"Shut up," Jace snapped.
He turned to Wren and offered a small nod. "It'll hurt. But it's not pain you've ever felt before. It's deeper. Wilder. You might pass out. You might scream. Your body will die and remake itself. That's the turning."
Wren swallowed hard. Her hands trembled, and she didn't bother hiding it.
"Can I bite my pillow while you're at it?" She tried weakly.
She hadn't meant to sound dumb, but she was seriously scared out of her wits.
Radek groaned. "This is ridiculous. Let's vote and pick someone before she wets herself."
"I'm still in the room," she hissed, always feeling the urge to fire back at Radek whenever he made his jabs regardless of how flustered she was.
But they didn't care. They were already discussing bloodlines and compatibility like she wasn't there.
They weren't talking about a kiss or a date. They were voting on who got to sink their teeth into her and drag her into a new life she hadn't asked for.
And they were doing it like they were picking out dinner.
She had never met worse jerks.
They were already discussing bloodlines and compatibility like she wasn't there.
"Her lineage's unknown," Jace was saying, rubbing the back of his neck. "We don't even know if she'll survive this. So, I think it'll make sense for her to get a little of each of us. A balance. It will help us close this argument and if anything goes wrong, we can all collectively take responsibility."
Dimitri gave a lazy smirk. "You mean, a cocktail?"
Radek grunted. "This is a terrible idea."
"Yet here you are, still standing," Arlo shot back. "You've got better ideas? No? Good. Then we do it together. We were all planning on playing with her together on the first cursed day when we met her anyway."
His words seemed to get to the rest. By the mention of that day, Wren's cheeks crimsoned with embarrassment. It made her feel more of what Radek regarded her as; a whore.
Then, slowly, as if an unspoken agreement had passed between the guys, all four of them turned to Wren.
Her stomach dropped.
"What… what does that mean?" she asked, taking unsure steps back.
She wasn't supposed to run away from this. She was supposed to act scared—which frankly, she was, but not run away. If they fail to turn her, Lulu might get pissed and then leave her to die.
Not to mention she wasn't going to get her revenge on these motherfuckers for murdering her.
Jace made the first move, approaching her like a slow tide. "It means you're getting a piece of all of us."
Her legs trembled. "Is this… safe?"
"No," Dimitri said flatly. "But it's better than being a corpse."
They circled her. The tiny apartment hadn't felt smaller all day. The peeling wallpaper, the dusty blinds, the faint whir of the ceiling fan—all of it faded as heat built in her core. She couldn't explain it. Her nerves were shredded, her heart a tripwire of panic and… desire.
It was like something hungry had taken root deep down.
Arlo stepped forward, tilting her chin up with two fingers. "You'll feel it the second we bite you. The shift. Everything will change."
Wren nodded, though she wasn't sure she meant to. Her mouth parted to speak, but no sound came.
Jace's hand slid around her waist from behind, pulling her back against the solid heat of his chest. "Ready?"
"No," she whispered.
"Too late."
Four mouths, four sets of hands came upon her. She hardly had time to process who moved first. Arlo's lips brushed her collarbone, and his warm breath hit her skin before his teeth grazed her. She gasped. The shock of it sparked through her limbs, but the bite hadn't come yet—it was only teasing.
Dimitri was less patient when he got down to business. He gripped her arm, yanked it up, and sank his teeth into the soft muscle between her shoulder and neck.
She cried out. Her knees wobbled. The pain was sharp, but she did not only feel pain. Pure biting pleasure unfurled inside her like fire.
Her fingers clutched at Jace's arms behind her as Radek leaned in from her other side. "This is stupid," he growled… but he bit anyway.
The pain bloomed again, on the opposite side, her body lit up like a switchboard. Jace was last. She knew it because he was trembling, trying to hold back.
"Do it," Wren panted and almost jumped in surprise at herself.
D-did she just say that? Or was that… Lulu?
Jace's bite was the deepest anyway.
She arched against him with a strangled sound. It was both a sob and a half moan. The pain was a pulse now, seeping deep into her bones. Her skin burned, and something under it that she guessed was her soul stretched until she thought it might rip apart.
Then the fire gave way.
She felt herself fall, not in body but in being. Her blood roared. Her mind splintered and reformed, causing her to slam her eyes shut.