Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Including my own father.
“Devereaux,” Caspian interrupted, shouting into my bathroom suite.
“Fuck off,” I greeted, not bothering to get out.
Caspian Hawthorne was another founding family of the Graves Academy like mine. He was also one of the brothers I was closest to. We grew up together. We’d been thrown into the same life since we were old enough to walk, raised under the same rules, the same expectations, the same blood oath.
Our mothers were best friends and people assumed that made us closer. Maybe it did. That didn’t mean I trusted him. Trust wasn’t something I was ever capable of giving anyone, not after the way I’d been raised.
However, if one person had earned the closest thing to it, it was Caspian. We’d been through a lot together, including our initiation.
“Nice,” he hissed. “Aren’t you just a delightful bag of shit this evening?” He chuckled, sitting on the edge of the sink.
I heard his drink clank. He must have been at the party.
“The girl?” he asked, with no hesitation.
“You mean the pain in my fucking ass.”
He laughed again, singing out, “You’re playing with fire, you know she’s off limits.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t? Hmm… she’s sleeping right next door at her uncle’s house. She’s your new neighbor. I bet you could see her bedroom if you stand out on your balcony.”
“What’s your point?”
“I thought I was making it,” he sniped. “What the fuck? Maybe I should draw you a picture instead.”
“Get the fuck out,” I gritted, not wanting to hear the nonsense he was brewing.
“What are you going to do about the council?” he questioned, ignoring my demand. “You know they’re not happy. They want the girl. You know that as much as I do.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that?”
“What about the rainforest princess?”
“What about her?” I turned off the shower, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around my waist. “She’s not anyone’s concern, but mine.” Opening the curtain next, I stared at him. “Are we clear? No one is to lay a fucking finger on her without me approving it first.”
“Oh…” He cocked his head to the side. “That means she’s up for grabs?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do you?”
“Caspian.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. Annoyed was an understatement. “I’m done with this conversation.”
“I think you need to look up the definition. You haven’t answered any of my questions. You’re just barking orders like I have to listen to you, as any of us do, and you know that’s not how the game is played.”
“Then I’m changing the rules.”
“Hmm…” He placed his finger on his lips. “Who would that be for?”
“Careful, Caspian,” I warned, hanging on by a thread.
He raised his arms in the air. “Wrong target, Devereaux.”
He backed away, and as soon as he left, I grabbed my cell phone out of my jeans, hitting send as I walked out onto my balcony.
“Yes, Sir,” Jones picked up after one ring.
“We good?”
“Everything’s taken care of. The girl—” I hung up, cutting him off.
Right when I did, Caspian’s prediction came to fruition.
There in front of my eyes was Hennessey. Her bedroom suite really was near mine at my father’s estate, and I instantly wondered if they did that on purpose, knowing in the back of my mind they did.
All the curtains in her room were open, making it practically a fishbowl with how much I could see in. She stood in front of the floor-length mirror, staring at herself, studying the damage the night had done.
She was still wearing the dress, and it was the first time I realized how badly she’d ripped it up. Most of her body was exposed, her tan skin illuminated by the soft light spilling from the chandelier above her head. Her fingers hovered over the tear running from her hip to thigh. She was assessing it the same way I would a wound.
When she lifted her long, dark, wavy hair over her shoulder and reached for the zipper behind her dress, it didn’t move. She tried again but still nothing.
My pulse didn’t change. Neither did my expression as she reached up and drew the curtains shut as if she’d only noticed they were open. Her room disappeared, and I was left standing there.
She had no idea what awaited her. She didn’t belong in my world, and I was going to make sure she learned that the hard way. Tomorrow was a new day. This week we started classes, and this was only the beginning…
* * *
Of me destroying her.
Chapter
Seven
Hennessey: Welcome to the Graves Academy.
The days slipped by, and none of them brought me any peace. I hadn’t slept. I was going into the future completely blind, and that should’ve been the emotion keeping me awake, but it wasn’t. I hated that somehow, in less than a few days, Onyx Devereaux managed to occupy space in my mind that he didn’t deserve.