Justice Loses Her League Read online

  JUSTICE LOSES HER LEAGUE

  DEMIGODS TRILOGY BOOK 2

  TJ BELL

  JUSTICE LOSES HER LEAGUE

  Demigods Trilogy Book 2

  by TJ BELL

  * * *

  Cover Design: Jacqueline Sweet Design

  Editor: Julie Sturgeon

  Copyright: 2022 by Tami Lund

  * * *

  License Notes

  All rights reserved. This book is copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes without express, written permission from the author or publisher. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer.

  Thank you for your support.

  * * *

  All entities, locations, businesses, etc. in this book are strictly figments of the author’s overactive imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  * * *

  Questions, comments, or desires to seek permission to use any part of this book for your own purposes should be directed to [email protected].

  Created with Vellum

  CONTENTS

  Justice Loses Her League

  1. Justice

  2. Malcolm

  3. Justice

  4. Ajax

  5. Justice

  6. Malcolm

  7. Ajax

  8. Rafe

  9. Justice

  10. Rafe

  11. Justice

  12. Justice

  13. Justice

  Books by TJ Bell ~

  Paranormal Romance by Tami Lund

  Contemporary Romance by Tami Lund

  JUSTICE LOSES HER LEAGUE

  Demigods Trilogy Book 2

  My name is Justice. I’m a demigod, and my otherwise immortal life is hanging by a thread. Oh, I also have not one but three mates, although our status isn’t “official” yet. Something about rituals and ceremonies. Don’t ask me—I’m clueless about this new world I find myself in.

  * * *

  Yeah, in order to save my life, Ajax, the strong one, Rafe, the conniving one, and Malcolm, the easygoing one, have taken me to the Realm of Gods.

  * * *

  There’s no electricity, no cell phones, the bartenders are sirens, and togas are the current fashion statement.

  * * *

  Everybody’s suspicious of everyone else, with good reason. This place brings our magic close to the surface, but there’s so much else going on—none of it good—that it may make more sense to go back to the human world and forget all about mating and magic and the other stuff that goes along with it.

  * * *

  Except I’m grievously injured and I can’t travel until I’m healed, which means we’re going to have to figure out how to get along in this strange new world, at least for a little while…

  * * *

  Justice Loses her League is the second book in the Demigods Trilogy. It is intended for mature audiences: 18+ readers only! It contains adult language and sexual situations. This is a fast-burn reverse harem romance where the girl gets all the guys.

  * * *

  Why choose?

  * * *

  The Demigods Trilogy should be read in order. If you haven’t checked out Justice and Her League, I strongly suggest you read it before proceeding.

  * * *

  Demigods Trilogy

  Justice and Her League

  Justice Loses Her League

  In League with Justice

  Chapter One

  JUSTICE

  Besides my demigod immortal status, the only gift my father ever gave me was a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses.

  Let me back the truck up and explain.

  I’d been shot. It had been bad enough that I should have woken up in a hospital.

  But that’s not where I was. At least, this wasn’t like any hospital I’d ever visited. I admit, I tried to avoid places like that, but I still knew what I should have expected when I came to after the showdown in the barn outside of Houston.

  There were no beeping machines, the strong scent of antiseptic was distinctly lacking, as was the constant buzz of activity. And how come I didn’t have a needle stuck into my arm that was attached to a bag full of clear liquid hanging next to my bed?

  “She’s waking up.”

  “Finally.”

  I recognized those voices. Rafe and Malcolm, two of my three fated mates. Ajax, the quiet one, was no doubt here too. I willed my eyes open and then blinked rapidly against a blue-white light so bright I was tempted to ask for a pair of sunglasses.

  Squinting against the pain, I glanced up at…

  “Dad?”

  With my hand over my brow, shading my eyes, I swept my gaze around the room. I suppose the place had a vague resemblance to a hospital or doctor’s office if I ignored the gauzy curtains fluttering in the breeze from a row of open windows and the fact that the bed was at least queen-sized and seriously the softest mattress I’d ever laid on in my life.

  Okay, the only resemblance to a hospital was the fact that I was a wounded patient lying in a bed, surrounded by my three mates and my absentee father. Who, by the way, had a slight glow about him that again made me wish for a pair of sunglasses.

  That’s when he gave me the Ray-Bans. Just conjured them out of thin air and handed them over with an enigmatic smile lifting his lips.

  I snatched them up and placed them on my face and then studied the man who had impregnated my mother and disappeared, reappearing sporadically over the course of a decade again…until he didn’t.

  From a purely physical standpoint, I supposed I could see why Mom would have been attracted to him. He looked a little like Antonio Bandera in his heyday, and Mask of Zorro had made her a fan for life.

  But looks weren’t everything, of course, and it pissed me off that he strung her along for so long for no good reason. Yeah, I resented her for letting him do that to her, but she was dead and he was here, so now he got the full extent of my wrath.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I practically snarled.

  I heard a low whistle. Probably Malcolm.

  “And where the fuck is here, anyway?” I added with another sweeping gaze around the not-uncomfortable-except-for-all-the-light room. With the help of the Ray-Bans, I could see that all three of my mates were sporting stylish sunglasses as well.

  Huh.

  “You’re in a recovery room in the Ivory Tower,” Dad said, waving his arm in an arc. “Oh, and now that you are awake, I suppose I can dim the light.”

  "Ivory Tower? What does that even mean?”

  “The Ivory Tower is where gods go when they need significant healing. The light…” He pointed to a point above the bed, which seemed to be the source of the brightness, but it was akin to looking directly at the sun, and even with sunglasses on my face, I couldn’t focus long enough to tell what it was. “It speeds healing. The fact that you are awake already means it worked. So now…”

  He cupped his hand and slowly lowered it, the overly bright light going with it, until there was nothing left but natural sunlight, which meant I could safely take off the shades.

  Which also meant I handed them back to him, because I wanted no gifts from the man whose sole purpose in my life was to, well, give me life. And he’d done that, twenty-seven years ago, so I had no more use for him or any gifts he suddenly wished to give me.

  Somebody coughed, one of those fake coughs meant to pull one’s attention. I glanced to the other side of the bed to see Malcolm lifting his sunglasses onto his head and holding his hand over his mouth.

  I arched my brows, and he said, “Um, your father saved your life.”

  Ah, damn it.
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  “You’re too kind,” my father said, waving at Malcolm, and was that a blush staining his cheeks? “Although had you already mated, there wouldn’t have been need. On the other hand, I strongly recommend not doing it.”

  What the hell was he talking about? Before I could ask, he lifted a finger to shush Rafe.

  “You, especially, need to look deep down into yourself and make some undoubtedly uncomfortable decisions,” my father said to him.

  The rest of us all stared at Rafe, who whipped off his sunglasses to glare at my father.

  Dad patted my leg. “I’m glad you’re on the road to recovery. A few more days and you ought to be as good as new, and then you can get out of this place, hopefully before any of my godly friends realize you’re here. Speaking of, I’m going to slip away so as not to lure any of them here. Good day to you all.”

  With a courtly bow, he swept from the room while we all stared after him.

  “What just happened?” I asked.

  “No clue,” Malcolm said, looking around at our surroundings. “I’ve never been here before. I didn’t even know we could come here.”

  “Where is here, exactly?” I asked, although I had a bad feeling I knew the answer.

  “Realm of Gods,” Ajax supplied, confirming my suspicion.

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “And why are we here?”

  I was certain Rafe was the one with all the answers, but he was staying suspiciously silent, so Malcolm spoke up again.

  “When you were shot—”

  “Wait. What about Ignacio? Ginger? Those women?”

  Malcolm grinned. “That part was actually pretty cool, despite the fact that you were bleeding out and we were all freaking.”

  “Okay, so maybe tell me?”

  “You know Annie, that woman who said her dad had taught her to hunt and she wanted a gun?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, after he shot you, Ignacio tried to run, and she stepped into the doorway of the barn and pointed that shotgun at him. She released the safety, walked up until it was pressing into his abdomen, and she held it there until the police arrived.” He paused and added, “I wonder if she saw the portal?”

  Portal?

  “The only way to travel from the human realm to this one is via portals,” Ajax explained for my benefit.

  “I don’t remember,” I said.

  “You were unconscious,” Malcolm supplied. “Scared the shit out of all three of us.”

  Not something I meant to do, of course, which I would have told them, except I was too busy trying not to let my disappointment drift through the mental link I had with these guys. I had wanted Ignacio dead even before he strung Ginger up by her wrists and shot me, and the feeling certainly hadn’t backed off any.

  “He will rot in prison for the rest of his life,” Rafe said quietly. “You will have to accept that as the best outcome for this situation.”

  I snorted. Yeah, I had to accept it, but it certainly wasn’t the best outcome. But whatever. So long as everyone else was fine, I supposed.

  “They are, aren’t they?” I asked, as if they could read my thoughts. Hell, they mostly could. Not literally, but due to being fated mates we had this sort of mental link that allowed us to sense what the others were thinking and feeling.

  “Everyone else is fine,” Malcolm said. “Including Ginger.”

  “And the animals,” Ajax added.

  “So now that I’m all caught up with that portion of events, will somebody explain how we ended up here instead of in a hospital?”

  Rafe had been watching me with an intensity that was warming my loins. This had to be connected to us being mates, because, despite the fact that I had a hole in my side, I was feeling randy. Like I needed to connect with my guys physically to assure myself we were all okay, even though I could see with my eyes that we were.

  But as soon as I asked my question, his gaze shifted to the side, and it was like a door slammed shut on the emotions radiating from his head. What the fuck? I didn’t even know we could do that. I wanted to ask, but I was growing seriously pissed with the man who was obviously hiding something from me.

  “Rafe said not to,” Malcolm finally supplied.

  “We did not want to draw attention to ourselves,” Ajax, who was normally the listener, not the speaker, added.

  “But we knew you needed medical attention, pronto,” Malcolm said. “So Rafe suggested we come here.” He waved at the room.

  “This is a big leap from avoiding a hospital setting,” I pointed out, watching Rafe with narrowed eyes.

  “You were dying,” Malcolm said, his voice laced with desperation.

  Call me overly suspicious, but I wasn’t convinced Rafe didn’t have an ulterior motive in bringing us all here. My dad’s cryptic suggestions weren’t helping that belief. I needed to get Rafe alone so I could get the truth out of him. I doubted very much he’d come clean in front of his two best friends, who basically saw him as their leader.

  “Okay,” I said, “what do we do now?”

  Chapter Two

  MALCOLM

  Justice was okay. Justice was okay. Justice was okay.

  If I repeated that mantra enough times, I might finally believe it. Even staring at her, awake and sitting up in bed wearing a toga—which was a much sexier version of a hospital gown, by the way—I still couldn’t shake the image of her lying on the ground in the barn, skin waxy and gray, eyes closed, breathing shallow, a giant pool of blood next to her hip.

  My gaze drifted down to her waist, where the wound was hidden behind her gown and the snowy white sheet. There had been so much blood.

  But she was okay, clearly, if she was snarling at her father and finally reacting to that insane light Lodon—that was her dad’s name—swore was necessary to ensure she healed as quickly as possible.

  I had this nearly overwhelming need to bang her brains out to truly, fully believe she was alive and well, but taking that out of the picture, I was mostly able to calm my overwrought nerves and think rationally again, now that she was awake.

  Which meant I could think about my mother. My birth mother. The one who had gifted me with demigod status. I had so many questions, but honestly, if I could have only one thing, it would be to meet her in person.

  Of course, I’d probably immediately start blurting out all my questions, but first things first. I had to figure out how to find her.

  According to Lodon, Justice needed to rest here for a few more days to ensure she fully healed before we could take her back home. Considering the process to teleport here was like tripping on some really, really bad acid, I was, frankly, okay with taking a little time before doing it again.

  Which meant I had time to find my mother.

  The tension in this room was building to a crescendo, and I wasn’t a big fan of intensity like this unless it was during sex, so I caught Ajax’s eye and nodded at the door, trying to hint that we should leave these two alone to work out their very obvious issues.

  Rafe was more open with Ajax than with me, which I knew was because he didn’t respect me like he did Ajax. It used to bother me, but I wasn’t one to hold grudges and honestly, I knew he had some respect for me, just not as much as he did for Ajax, so I’d let it go.

  Now, though, when it was so obvious that Justice was frustrated with him, those old feelings were getting stirred up.

  Justice was right in her insinuation: there was a reason coming here to save her had been Rafe’s first choice. And maybe if Ajax and I stepped away, she could get that reason out of Rafe, they could make up, and we could go back to being one big happy family.

  Luckily, Ajax got my drift and started to move toward the door. “We’re, ah, gonna go find something to eat,” I called out as I backed away from Justice’s bed.

  The room was shaped like an octagon, with tall, narrow windows making up all but two of the eight walls. Justice’s bed rested against the seventh, and the door was the eighth.

&nbs
p; The door didn’t have a knob or a handle, which I hadn’t noticed when we’d rushed in here the day before, too busy fearing for Justice’s life. I placed my palm on the smooth surface, gave it a small push, and it opened as if pulled by a string. Huh.

  Lodon had called this place the Ivory Tower, and it was an apt name. Everything in this tall, narrow building was white or some version of the shade. There weren’t elevators in this place, so Ajax and I got a workout as we made our way down a spiraling staircase set in the center of the building.

  “Any idea what’s going on with those two?” I asked, trying to sound casual as we clomped down the steps.

  “Rafe has some demons he needs to conquer,” Ajax supplied. “He’s been carrying them around the entire time we’ve known him. I suspect Justice is not going to allow him to do so for much longer.”

  Sounded good to me. I bet when they were done hashing it out, we’d all be happier. “Why do you think Lodon doesn’t want us to mate?”