“What?” he pressed, his tone urgent.
“That someone was following me,” I breathed, fear stirring in my chest.
“Show me.” He held out his hand for the note and I moved over to him, dropping down at his side and passing it over.
His brows lowered as he read it and I studied his face from the side as his jaw tightened and a shadow entered his eyes that I’d never seen in him before, even at his most furious.
“Leave it with me,” he said dangerously. “Whoever it is just wrote their fate in blood.”
“You don’t need to protect me, Nash,” I said, glancing at him and his gaze locked with mine. There was a furious storm swirling in the depths of his eyes and I knew if he ever found who had left this poem, they would fall prey to the monster in him.
“You should go to bed,” he breathed and I tasted him on my lips.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I was locked in his eyes, a prisoner to him and the darkness rising to the surface of his skin.
“Go,” he snapped and I jumped in alarm, rising to my feet as I was released from the snare of his gaze.
I grabbed my bag and marched into his room, shoving the door closed and pressing my back to it. I shut my eyes as I fell to pieces internally, every broken shard aching for the man who’d sent me away. The one I could never have.
I ran down the path which circled the entire campus, looking at my watch to check I was still making good time and I upped my pace a little as I veered off of my usual route.
I’d already added in an extra loop to make up for the distance I’d miss without completing my normal circuit and as I turned off the main path and raced up to The Temple, I broke into a sprint.
An excited whoop came from the trees to the right of the path and I almost collided with Blake as he leapt at me.
A surprised laugh escaped me as I dodged him and ran on, leaving him behind as he righted himself, but as Kyan jumped out of the trees ahead of me, I couldn’t slow in time to avoid a collision.
His solid weight drove me into the wall of the church and I grunted in frustration as I tried to fight him off.
Blake leapt on both of us a moment later and I found myself in the middle of a scuffle as Kyan tried to get me in a headlock and Blake pulled a lipstick from his pocket.
I wrestled against them, throwing a few halfhearted punches before they managed to hold me still long enough to smear the lipstick over my mouth.
“Get off of me, you fuckwits,” I choked through a laugh and they let me shove them away while they roared with laughter.
I couldn’t help but laugh with them as we headed into The Temple where the low hum of classical music rang around the open space. In some ways, I didn’t hate being a Night Keeper. I liked being a part of a group and their jokes and games resonated with me in a way that I’d missed out on too much in my life.
Kyan wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we stepped inside and leaned close to my ear to speak in a low voice. “I dare you to give Saint a kiss and smear that pretty pink lipstick all over his face.”
“Seriously?”
“C’mon, man, fucking with Saint is like half of what makes being a Night Keeper fun. Don’t you wanna help me bait him?”
When he put it that way, I couldn’t really resist.
Saint was sitting in his wing backed chair by the roaring fire, reading a book and acting like he hadn’t noticed all of us arriving despite all the noise we were making.
I kicked my sneakers off and strode towards him quickly. Tatum perked up in her spot on the couch, looking at me with interest as I passed her by and headed straight for Saint.
He looked up as my shadow fell over him and I grinned widely as I looked into the dead eyes of the devil. “Hey, sweetheart,” I said. “Did you miss me?”
“What the fuck is on your-”
I swooped down and planted a kiss right on his mouth, smearing the lipstick over his face as much as I could before he shoved me off.
“Don’t tell me we’ve initiated another fucking Kyan,” he growled irritably as he swiped the lipstick off of his cheeks with the back of his hand and stood so suddenly that I found myself nose to nose with him.
The look of rage in his eyes brought another laugh to my lips and Kyan fell about himself laughing as Saint made a move to walk away.
“Wait,” Tatum said and I turned to look at her as she glanced between the two of us with mischief in her blue eyes. “Do that again. Sloooooowly. And let me record it.”
I scoffed at her dismissively but Saint actually paused.
“Did you like that, Barbie?” he purred in a deadly tone.
“Erm, yeah,” she said with a suggestive grin. “Who’d have thought Coach Monroe would go around kissing his students?”
My skin prickled with hot energy at her words and her eyes sparkled with amusement as Blake and Kyan laughed along.
“It was a joke,” I muttered, moving away from Saint in case he got any ideas about a repeat performance. Because the way he was watching her said he quite liked grabbing her attention like that and I wouldn’t put anything past him.
“Here you go, Cinders,” Blake called, tossing her the lipstick he’d used to defile me and the grin fell from her lips as she caught it.
She quickly pulled the lid off and looked at the pale pink colour inside before closing it again. “Is this the only one of my lipsticks you’ve stolen?” she asked suspiciously.
“Why? Do you think I’d look better in red?” he teased, dropping down beside her on the couch and throwing his arm around the back of it.
I didn’t like how casual the three of them were about being close to her. It rubbed me up the wrong way. Especially as she’d made her rules clear about hooking up with them. Not that she was complaining. In fact, she seemed perfectly comfortable sitting so close to him. Maybe even too comfortable.
“I just…lost another one, that’s all,” she said, glancing my way before shrugging it off.
“She means, some creep tried to freak her out then stole it and wrote Night Whore with it across the mirrors in the girls’ restroom the other week,” I said, folding my arms as I looked her right in the eye.
The Night Keepers all burst into speech at once and Tatum gave me a death glare just as Saint yelled for silence.
“Nice work, traitor,” she growled at me, cutting me a scowl half a second before Saint made it to her and caught her chin, forcing her to look up at him.
“Explain,” he demanded. Even with pink lipstick smeared across his face, he managed to look like a fucking psychopath.
Blake shifted closer to Tatum on the couch, his arm dropping to encircle her waist and Kyan prowled forward to stand behind her as they waited. This was why I’d told them. They may have been fuck ups who were holding her captive and revelled in antagonising her, but if there was one thing I’d learned about them the night we’d all murdered a man together, it was that all of us would kill for Tatum Rivers. We’d protect her to our dying breaths, whatever our individual motivations for that were.
“Someone just tried to freak me out,” she explained, playing it down. But the way she’d looked at me when she’d told me about the things that had been going on last night let me know exactly how worried she was about this. And maybe if I hadn’t been pushing her away so much during the last few weeks, I would have been able to help her sooner and she wouldn’t have hidden it for so long.
“By calling you a whore?” Kyan growled.
“And sending her weird ass letters,” I added.
“I know who not to trust with my secrets from now on,” she shot at me icily.
“You don’t have secrets,” Saint hissed. “Not from us. Not ever.”
“Sorry, but that wasn’t in the rules. I didn’t realise I had to trust you assholes with every little thing that bothers me.”
“Do you seriously think you can’t trust us?” Blake asked, looking wounded by her words. “After what we all did the night of the break in?”
> Tatum huffed irritably and rolled her eyes at him.
“Maybe I don’t want to trust you guys with everything,” she clarified. “I’ve been dealing with my own problems for a hell of a long time.”
“That’s not how this family works,” Saint replied darkly.
“Family?” I asked, but they all ignored me.
“Tell us everything,” Saint demanded and they all leaned close, dominating her space and giving her no choice but to answer.
She shot me another death glare as she began to explain all of the creepy shit that had been going on and I ducked away from her pissed off vibes as I headed down the short corridor towards Kyan and Blake’s rooms at the end of the hallway which led off the back of the church. I pushed open the heavy wooden door into Kyan’s room so that I could cross through to the bathroom and wash the lipstick from my face.
I moved straight to the sink and splashed water over my jaw, rubbing at it to remove the pink marks before looking up at myself in the mirror. There was a smile playing around my lips and it took me a moment to realise it shouldn’t be there. I shouldn’t be enjoying fooling around with the Night Keepers. I shouldn’t be enjoying spending time with Tatum Rivers.
Although as I thought that, I wondered if I was being too harsh on myself. I’d dedicated so much of my life to tearing down Troy Memphis and his family that I’d never really been able to enjoy anything much. At least not in the years that had passed since the car crash. So why shouldn’t I enjoy myself now? Why should I have to suffer through my revenge? Everything I was doing was working towards my end goal. So if some of my smiles weren’t faked then why the fuck should I care?
A knock sounded at the door and I looked around in surprise, calling out to whoever it was to come in.
As the door swung open and I found Tatum there, I frowned. The two of us being alone in a bathroom was not a good idea. We’d already thoroughly proven that point. And of course the moment I thought about that kiss, I couldn’t fucking stop. Of the way her full lips had moved against mine, how she’d pulled me closer, my body rubbing up against hers and making me feel-
“What do you want?” I asked more sharply than I’d intended.
“I thought we were past the grumpy asshole stage?” she teased. “And shouldn’t I be the one who’s mad after you dropped me in it with the three assketeers? They’re freaking out in there now, by the way. And plotting another murder too.”
“I’m sorry for that,” I said honestly as she lingered in the doorway. “But I did it for you, even if you can’t see it. I’m not around you all the time like they are. And if there’s someone after you, stalking you, thinking about hurting you, then you need people to watch your back. And despite anything else either of us might feel about them, the Night Keepers will protect you with their lives.”
She cocked her head, pouting slightly before sighing. “Fine, I forgive you. This time.”
“Was there something else?” I asked as she failed to leave and I refused to move so much as an inch closer to her in case cold tiles and running water really were our kryptonite and I ended up dry humping her over the toilet like a savage.
“Saint said to give you these,” she tossed me a clean pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt with the tags still on them. “He said he’s sick of you running over here and then hanging around all evening like an animal who doesn’t bathe after exercising.”
“I shower when I get home,” I protested.
“Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just telling you what he said.”
“That I stink?”
“Not that I’ve ever noticed,” she replied with a smirk. “But you keep so far away from me that maybe I just haven’t gotten close enough to get a whiff yet.”
She sniffed the air dramatically and I rolled my eyes at her as I tossed the new clothes down on the side of the sink.
“I don’t smell,” I muttered.
“Hmmm, hang on, I think I’m getting something.” She moved into the room, sniffing like a dog on the scent of a fox and I couldn’t help but laugh as she slinked towards me.
She moved close enough to sniff me and the moment she wrinkled her nose, I grabbed her and tried to wrestle her into my armpit.
“You need to get closer than that, princess,” I teased as she squirmed and laughed, trying to fight me off as I reeled her in.
My heart was pounding with the closeness of her and I knew I should have been letting go but I was lost in the game for a moment, trapping her between my body and the sink as I tried to force her to get up close and personal with the sweat from my run.
“Nash!” she cried, slamming her palms into my chest as I continued to wrestle her and I finally fell still, laughing at the grin on her face.
“What’s the verdict then?”
“I’m not repulsed,” she admitted and I forced myself to take a step back as I nodded.
“Good. I guess I’ll be taking that shower anyway though. Can’t let the evil lord down now, can I?” I’d already learned that with Saint it was all about picking your battles and it wasn’t going to be worth the headache involved in trying to argue against taking a damn shower.
“Heaven forbid. He might spank you if you do.” Her eyes danced with amusement at that idea and I arched an eyebrow at her.
“You’d better not be having BDSM fantasies about me and him,” I growled.
“Well, I am now,” she said, her smile darkening suggestively and I rolled my eyes at her as I backed up again.
“Best if you don’t have any kind of fantasies about me,” I warned and she sighed dramatically.
“Who, me? I’m a good girl, Nash. I’ve never had a dirty thought in my life.” She gave me that innocent look which would have gotten her out of a speeding ticket even if she’d been going a hundred miles an hour in a school zone and I fought the urge to tease her back. It was so fucking frustrating, biting my tongue and pretending I didn’t want her. Watching the other Night Keepers move in on her and knowing she’d been tempted by two of them already. It was pure torture.
I didn’t want to see her cosying up to them or turning those flirtatious looks their way. I wanted to see them on their knees, begging for her forgiveness for all the crap they’d put her through while she told them to go fuck themselves.
“We should screw with them tonight,” I suggested in a low voice, glancing at the open door in case any of them were close.
“How?” she breathed excitedly.
“I dunno. They’re gonna be drinking, I’ll try and get them to do some stupid stuff and maybe we can make another video. I’m sure that we can find a way to get at them if we’re both focused on the mission.”
“Sure thing, boss.” She tossed me a salute and headed out of the room so that I could shower.
I watched her go with an ache in my chest, my gaze hooking on the way her green dress swung around her golden thighs before I forced myself to close the door.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and set the shower running, dialling the water down to a touch above icy as I stepped beneath it, banishing all inappropriate thoughts from my mind and washing quickly. Once I was done, I dressed in the new clothes Saint had bought me like that wasn’t a weird fucking thing to do for another guy and then stole a bit of Blake’s hair product so that I could style my blonde hair back away from my face.
When I returned to the front room, I found them all tucking into pizza while Tatum hand fed Saint.
I dropped into my seat and arched an eyebrow at him across the table. “Is it really necessary to treat her like that?” I asked as I grabbed a slice for myself.
“Like what?” Saint asked.
“Making her feed you like a baby,” I said, refusing to back down to his arched eyebrow of doom.
“He didn’t tell her to do that shit,” Kyan said around a mouthful of food. “She chooses to do it because he’s more uptight than a duck’s asshole and eating food with his hands would give him the twitches.”
“Yeah,” Blake agreed.
“Like the full body, all over his face, I’m-gonna-stab-a-bitch twitches.”
“I just refuse to let him waste his food because he’s afraid to ruin his manicure,” Tatum joked and I relaxed a little as I realised she really didn’t mind her feeding duties.
“What if I dared you to pick it up and eat it yourself?” I asked Saint and his gaze slowly slid to me from the girl beside him.
“If you wanna play a game like that, you’d better know we don’t fuck around,” he replied, fixing me with a dark look.
“Do it,” I said just as darkly and Kyan laughed like me taunting the big bad dictator was the best thing that had happened to him all week.
With a look which suggested I’d just asked him to shove his arm down a toilet filled with festering shit, Saint reached out and selected the smallest slice of pizza he could find, pinching the crust between his thumb and forefinger with a shudder of unease.
We all paused eating our own food as he lifted it to his lips, his brow furrowing in disgust a moment before he took a large bite. The second it was in his mouth, he dropped the rest of it back onto the plate, chewing quickly and swallowing before getting to his feet, crossing the room and washing his hands in the sink.
“There,” he declared like he’d just won something.
We all laughed as he glowered at us, though I noticed Tatum had a small frown pulling at her brow as she watched him, like she wasn’t sure if that had been funny or not.
Saint headed to the fridge and snatched a bottle of premium vodka out of it before grabbing a glass and heading back to join us. He poured himself a more than healthy measure and sank the lot in one go.
“If I’m going to be subjected to this shit all night then I’m not going to be sober for it,” he muttered, pouring himself another drink as we continued to laugh at him.
“Why are you so uptight anyway?” I asked him as he drank another shot before letting Tatum feed him once more.
Blake released a long whistle and Kyan pushed his tongue into his cheek, his laughter fading away like I’d just put my foot right in it.
Kings of Lockdown: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 2) Page 38