What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(94)

I snorted at his nerve.

“Monogamy won’t work here any longer, because we don’t have the numbers to sustain it. Think of what will happen if some of the Fae Marked girls see your relationship with Caelum and think they can have that too. One less pussy for the rest of us to fuck, and when men are locked up together with nothing to fuck, we fight. We will kill each other, Estrella. You’re being selfish by not doing your part to keep the peace.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled. “Do you harass all the women here this way? Or am I just lucky?”

He ignored my question, focusing on the vulgarity as he leaned closer. “I would love that, sweetheart. You’re the one playing hard to get. All you have to do is come and sit on my cock. I’ll make it good for you, too,” he murmured, lowering himself into my chair and patting his lap. He dropped his hand to the laces of his trousers, unknotting them slowly as if he actually thought I would behave like a dog and service him. “I don’t even mind that your pussy is probably still filled with his cum from when he made you scream this morning. It feels better that way.”

I resisted the urge to throw up all over him, holding completely still as I thought through my options. I didn’t know Jensen well enough to know if he would go far enough to force himself on me if I said no or tried to slip past him and get out.

What I did know was that the main tunnels and the commons were too far away for anyone else to help me if he did.

“I would sooner walk naked into a blizzard and welcome frostbite than allow your vile cock to touch me,” I growled, watching as all pretense of civility fell from his face.

He stood from the chair slowly, stretching to his full height as he approached me. My back hit the shelves, his hand coming to rest on the one next to my head as he leaned into me. “Don’t be such a prude, Estrella. It will be fun.”

“I said no,” I reiterated, wrapping my hand around the spine of a book. If he pushed the issue, I didn’t care that I would probably destroy the ancient text. All that would matter would be his broken nose.

“Your mouth said no, but should we find out what your body says?” he asked, touching a hand to my waist.

“I believe the word her mouth spoke is the end of it for you,” Caelum said, his deep voice echoing from where he stood in the doorway. He crossed over the threshold, the air in the room seeming to drop in temperature as soon as he was inside with us.

Jensen didn’t move from where he leaned into my space, turning his head to face Caelum but keeping his body close to mine. “Surely you understand the women here need to fulfill a certain purpose. Keeping just you entertained is hardly fair when there are so many of us who have needs too.”

“Why don’t you run and tell Melian that she isn’t serving her purpose because she isn’t fucking you? I’m sure that will go over well,” Caelum said, earning a sharp laugh from me. The older woman would knock Jensen on his ass if he ever proposed that she owed him sex.

“She at least fucks several of the men. At once, I’m told. I’m happy to let Caelum join the two of us if that is what you’d prefer?” Jensen asked stupidly. How he could miss the violence thrumming through Caelum’s body, the barely restrained rage that made him look more weapon than man.

“Unhand my woman. Now,” Caelum ordered, leaving little opportunity for argument. He stepped closer to Jensen, waiting for him to comply. He did, taking his hands away from me and stepping away.

“Not even fucking worth the trouble. Melian has me cleaning floors for a week because you ran to her the first time,” Jensen said, spitting on the floor at my feet. The rude gesture was the last straw for Caelum, growling a curse as he lunged for Jensen. The two men toppled to the ground, then Caelum straddled Jensen’s hips and punched him in the face.

Blood burst from the other man’s nose, staining the fabric of his tunic as I stepped forward and tried to pull Caelum off him. “She is worth more than you will ever understand, you vile piece of shit.”

“Caelum!” I warned, trying to get his attention as he struck Jensen again. “Stop.”

I didn’t know the Resistance’s position on fighting among members, but I couldn’t let a snake like Jensen be the reason Caelum and I were on our own in the woods again. We needed a safe place to stay. We needed the wards that protected us.

He stopped finally, standing and coming over to check on me. He took my hand, guiding me out of the library and into the tunnels. Instead of going back toward the commons, he turned to go up the back side of the hollows within the mountain.

“You can’t just go hitting people here,” I objected as he hurried me along the path. I didn’t know where he was taking me, but I suspected it would be somewhere that he could cool off before we had to face the consequences of his violence.

“He touched what’s mine,” he said, as if it was the answer for everything. The part of me that suspected I might have done the same found joy in that, but something stopped me from enjoying it entirely.

“Do you mean to tell me that none of the women here have touched you at all?” I asked, tearing my hand out of his grip.

“They respect the word no. Unlike him,” he said.

“But I haven’t hurt them is my point. By your standards, I should have broken the nose of every last woman in here at this point, but I trust you to handle it. You have to trust me to handle it too. I am not a piece of property, Caelum. I’m your partner. I just want to feel like you see me that way.” I said, shaking my head in exasperation.