Project Alaric: Book One ✔️

Chapter Six

Alaric Benson

All of us froze the moment Axton grabbed Emery's head, and planted the world's wettest kiss on his cheek. "Delicious." He snatched the remote he was after from where Emery dropped it in his lap. "Thank you."

Emery slowly turned his head to look at Axton. "Oh, what the fuck was that for? You did not just do that!"

Axton shouted out a cry for help when Emery tackled him onto his back, and Apollo and I watched with widened eyes as the two battled it out for the fucking TV remote. It was the next evening. And after everything that transpired last night, Emery had been hell-bent on avoiding my existence. So, to see this playful side from not only Emery but Axton? It was a change I wasn't prepared to watch.

"Feral dog!" Axton growled when Emery gripped his wrists in a tight hold. "Come on! Oh Jesus, looking at you, I never thought you could be this strong! Oh, your thighs have some strength behind them. Hey! Your knee is digging into my ribcage!"

Emery dragged Axton's arm toward him and extracted his fingers from around the remote. "Five years of soccer will do that to you." Once he retrieved the remote, he climbed off a very out-of-breath Axton. "Thank you."

"I do hope you'll humble yourself by jumping in front of a fucking train!"

"Your threats do so little to me now that we've had our wonderful late-night pillow talk session. You have a soft center, Axton. You don't scare me anymore. You might as well keep me around now. I know all your secrets." He thought about his words before he clarified. "I know enough, anyway. Though, I don't think you had to go into how you got every measly scar on your body. More than that, I didn't need a visual."

Axton scoffed with no real heat behind it. "How are you supposed to feel the stories if you don't see the scar? Hm? Exactly. Shut your whore mouth."

Emery rolled his eyes. "Yes, flying over the handlebars of your bike needed the visual of the scar on your shoulder."

"We shall never be ashamed of our bodies nor our scars in this house!"

"We're in a hotel!" Emery swatted Axton in the stomach with the remote. "Oh, maybe I can add a new scar to your collection."

"If you don't want to die, I'd keep your sweet little hands to yourself."

"But I have wandering hands." Emery stuck his hand into Axton's side, making him flinch into the assault. "Oh, you're ticklish. What great information to have."

"Get hit by a bus."

"Fall off a bridge."

"Go skydiving without a parachute."

"Get eaten by an alligator."

"Eat the poisonous apple meant for Sleeping Beauty."

"I'm allergic to apples."

Axton lifted a brow. "Curious. Now I have one whole way to kill you and make it look like an accident."

Emery snorted. "I don't go into anaphylactic shock. I just break out into hives. It's very inconvenient."

Allergic to apples, check. It was just another thing to add to my reserve. I already knew he played soccer. That wasn't a secret. Emery played against Declan on more than one occasion during high school, and that was the extent of his friendship connections that I knew outside of Aurora. Which, if I was being honest, was a twist of fate inside of itself.