God of Malice (Legacy of Gods #1) by Rina Kent

Tapping my back pocket, I fish out my phone and start to text him when the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get that,” Cecily heads to open it.

“Not yet.” Ava runs back to her room, probably to remove her mask. She refuses to look anything less than perfect in front of outsiders.

Glyndon: Are you okay?

Bran: You can ask me that in person, little princess.

I turn around at the sound of a commotion, and sure enough, Remi is pushing in a poker-faced Creigh, who’s holding a case of beer while he carries a food container.

Brandon follows behind them with a sketchpad in hand.

“Ladies, your favorite lord has bestowed you with his god-level presence. No need to push, I have enough attention to divide equally between you all. Never mind these two, they begged to come along.”

“You made us come,” Creigh says point-blank.

“Now, hush, Cray Cray. Just because you beat up that lowlife doesn’t mean you’re up with me on the god level.”

Cecily crosses her arms and taps her foot on the floor. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Remi stares down at himself. “I’m looking as great as deities during their sacrificing days and just as dashing. I don’t think I forgot anything?”

“The fact that we have classes tomorrow, genius. Some of us actually take uni seriously.”

“Don’t be a bore, Ces. I swear to fucking fuck, you’re going to die in the middle of one your books one day. Don’t come asking for a spot in my joy corner in the afterlife.” He pushes past her, dumps the food container on the coffee table, and throws his weight on the sofa, making himself at home.

Creigh nods in our direction, a red bruise covering his jaw. I swallow at the reminder of who put it there and can’t help pointing at it. “Are you okay?”

My cousin doesn’t even touch it. “I’ve survived worse.”

“Do you have to keep fighting, Creigh? Aunt Elsa would be so worried.”

“She won’t be worried about something she doesn’t know.” His words are spoken casually, but I can hear the warning behind them. “Also, why was he looking at you?”

“W-who?”

“The younger Carson. He was looking at you during the fight.”

“You must have been imagining it.”

He gives me a knowing look but thankfully doesn’t push it.

“Come here, spawn. Use your brute strength to move this shit up,” Remi calls from the other side of the room, kicking a heavy antique chair.

“Stop changing our decor, Remi!” Cecily runs in an attempt to stop him, but Creigh is already beside him.

“Not my fault your decor is as boring as your books, nerd.”

“Screw you, manwhore.”

“Not interested. It’d be boring, too.”

“Ugh, I’ll strangle you one day.”

“Not into that either. Jesus, you’re scary, woman. No wonder they say the quiet ones are the kinkiest.” He physically grabs Creighton and uses him as a shield. “Protect my lordship from her venomous claws, spawn. This cougar will kill me in my prime.”

Creigh doesn’t move, but he tilts his head back. “And that’s a bad idea because…”

“What the fuck? What the actual fucking fuck? You’d sell me out for Cecily? Jesus, my lordship is having an existential crisis. Listen up, spawn. If you don’t have me, no one will be able to translate your weird shit.”

“Oh,” Creigh says.

“That’s right. You need my lordship’s presence.”

“He has a point,” Creigh tells Cecily and starts to move the chair.

“What’s with all the noise?” Ava emerges from her room, sans mask and with her hair loose.

She immediately figures out the situation and goes to Cecily’s rescue. But Creigh is already moving the chair and Remi’s laughing like a dark overlord.

I let the commotion slip to the background and step toward Bran, then touch his arm. “Are you okay?”

He’s smiling at the whole scene, and I love seeing Bran smile, probably because he finds it hard to. At least, not genuinely.

So I’m ready to put up with all the noise if it’s to see him happy.

“I am now,” he tells me.

“I heard about the fight club. Why did you even go there, Bran? You don’t like those scenes.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” He retrieves his phone, scrolls through it, then shows me the last bit of the conversation he had with Lan.

He has him saved as ‘Spare Parts.’ It started when they were in their teens. Back then, Bran had Lan saved as ‘Other Half,’ but Landon made fun of him and said he was saving him as ‘Spare Parts,’ so out of pure spite, Bran saved him as ‘Spare Parts,’ too.

Something that Mum chose to think of as a joke while Dad was super pissed.

In the conversation, Lan sent Bran a picture of me in the crowd. It’s zoomed in to show me clenching my hands and my expression alarmed.

That was in the middle of Creigh and Killian’s match.

Spare Parts: Our little princess is in trouble. Care for some saving?

I briefly close my eyes, then sigh. “I’m sorry, Bran.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. Besides, I did watch him get knocked down by the other fighter, so it’s not a complete disaster.” He watches me closely. “Are you really okay, though? It looks bad in the picture.”