Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I could easily turn this into more, if I wanted to; I could fuck her, and maybe fuck both of them, if they were into that sort of thing. But right now, my dick doesn’t have any interest in them, even though they clearly want me.
I can feel them eye-fucking me as I stand up from the bench.
“Busy tonight, unfortunately,” I tell them.
There’s only one person from Luros that I want to see, and I know she isn’t going to be at the party tonight.
Briar is the closest thing I’ve had to a real friend in years.
A friend who actually just wants to talk to me.
Not a friend who is using me for something.
Not a friend in a crime family who sees me as a means to an end.
I clench my jaw and my skin prickles at what Rayne said to me, just ten minutes ago. Somehow, he found out that I’d known people from the Thornwick crime family in London, although there was no shot in hell he knew what that involved.
No one else could know.
Certainly not Weston.
I know Rayne won’t say shit to Weston yet. But I need to find out how to make sure Rayne doesn’t ever tell a soul.
I lean back on the bench and look down at my phone and there’s two messages.
Rayne: We’re talking when you get back.
I ignore that one, looking at the other, instead.
Briar: Sorry!! Just give me two more minutes, I’ll be outside soon.
I glance up and see that the brunette is still looking down at me. Probably still wondering if she can rope me into something tonight.
“Nice day,” I say, but I can’t fake a smile.
“Oh my God, I love fall,” she says. “Always makes me feel… invigorated.”
“Slut,” her friend chirps from beside her. “She’s trying to say it makes her horny.”
“No I am not,” she protests. “Maybe it makes me feel a little sexy, but what’s wrong with that?”
She bites her lip as she smiles at me.
I used to use this kind of attention like a currency.
But right now I just wish I knew how to turn these girls down without sounding like a prick.
Sorry, ladies, but for some reason my cock only wants the one person it shouldn’t want, lately, and that’s my younger brother’s bestie.
I still fucking wanted to kiss him, even when I wanted to strangle him, back at the house.
Rayne had that effect on me.
“Sorry! I’m here,” Briar says as she finally runs out, meeting me at the bench.
“Have fun, you two,” one of the other girls says before they head back inside.
“You know they’re jealous of me, right?” Briar tells me once they’re out of earshot. “They think you’re fucking me, and they really wish it was them, instead.”
“Let ‘em be jealous.”
Briar hasn’t come out as a lesbian to the rest of Luros yet. We talked about it a little bit the other day in Colossus Dining Hall.
Briar isn’t out to her family, either. Her parents still live in Hong Kong, far away from here, and apparently they’re not close, either.
Maybe that’s why she’s willing to be my actual friend.
The inferno of rage inside me only starts to dampen as we cut across the campus.
Briar talks about her day, telling me about the butterflies she’s raising.
It’s simple.
It’s not distracting enough, but at the very least, it’s saving me from turning back to the Onyx house and putting my hands around Rayne’s neck.
A friend is someone who makes you believe that maybe today isn’t the day to burn the world to the ground, I suppose.
That’s how it feels to me.
By the time we get to the fencing gym, my fingers are itching to grip the handle of a foil sword.
Briar and I get changed and head out onto the mat to spar.
Metal is hitting metal a few seconds later, because like me, Briar doesn’t seem to enjoy wasting time.
She’s good. She shoves ripostes at me like lightning after each parry, our swords clinking against one another, echoing across the gym room.
We continue on for thirty minutes, only taking a few short breaks.
I’m just as alert today. Faster than I was last time we sparred.
“Fuck, Hunter,” she says as she pulls her mask up afterward, breathing heavy. “You almost have me beat today.”
“So humble.”
“You’re on fire.”
I pull in a long breath, my heart pounding after the long period of intense focus. “Today fucking pissed me off. I needed this.”
“Is it your brother?”
I shake my head. “No. One of his friends.”
It already feels strange to mention anything about emotions to another person.
Long ago, I trained myself to stop doing that.
Nobody got access to me.
Nobody could be trusted with that.
“Do you need me to kick somebody’s ass for you?” Briar asks, giving me a wicked grin.
That’s why we became fast friends.
“Trust me, I’ll happily do the ass-kicking myself. I just need something to distract me.”