Page 173 of Bliss & Her Idols

I drink the coffee down like I’m dying of thirst.

I sigh, wiping my hand over my mouth.

“A coffee fanatic after my own heart,” Devin praises, refilling my cup. “I order this brand in specially. The rest would be happy with instant coffee. Philistines.”

Despite myself, I smile, thinking of Piper.

Devin takes this as an invitation to edge his chair toward mine. “Has Tortor told you how close we were as kids? We played games with him all around this estate. But look at him, sitting there all serious. He won’t give us a simple smile. He was a boring kid as well. Everybody forgot that he existed most of the time. You would have done as well. He wasordinary, you know? He didn’t even enjoy pranks.”

Rory snorts.

“Something to say?” Aran asks, sharply.

Rory clenches his hands on the top of the table. “Pranks? Like the time that he was kindergarten aged, and you told him that there was a Reject Omega witch living in the forest on the estate who ate Alpha kids?”

Torin looks like he wishes the earth would swallow him.

Cricket whines in distress.

I set my coffee down with a crack.

Way to traumatize an Alpha at a formative age. No wonder Torin’s heart was frozen to begin with, when he met two Reject Omegas.

The twins, however, burst into laughter, as if it’s a hilarious, happy memory.

Rory looks away, uncomfortable.

“Oh, do you remember the time…?” Aran is laughing so hard that he can barely get out the words. “We carried our baby brother out into the middle of the woods, and he was so scared because we’d told him that the Reject Omega witch was waiting to eat him?”

Devin nods, holding his sides with laughter. “Yes, yes! Then we held Tortor above our heads and tossed him between us over this patch of nettles like he was this little ball or something, and he was all red-faced and wailing. It was a game, but he just kept…”

“…Screaming and begging to be put down. Then you dropped him. Shit, I’d never heard him yell so loud. He was such a cry-baby. Alphas shouldn’t act like that. So, we pranked him.”

I can hardly hear them. The blood is rushing so loudly in my ears.

My skin prickles with heat.

I drag at the throat of my dress, struggling to breathe.

They call thatplayingwith him? Terrorizing their baby brother and dropping him into nettles?

I’d known that Torin had been mistreated by his pack. But this is much crueler than I’d imagined.

How could brothers have done this to each other?

When we take down Mena, we’re taking down the twins.

I’m going to make sure of it.

Torin is unnaturally still. He’s retreating into himself, freezing a layer of ice over his expression. I’m desperate to pull him away from this meal to a place where he’ll never need to do that again.

“We left him alone in the forest,” Devin adds gleefully like the climax to a joke that we’re all in on. “He kept screaming for us not toleave himalone with the Reject Omega witchand that hedidn’t want to be eaten.”

“He kept promising that he’d be agood boy.” Aran chuckles. “As ifthatwould have made us take him home with us.”

“How did you find your way out of the woods, anyway? I never did bother to ask,” Devin says, flippantly.

Torin sits in stony silence.

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