by Eden O'Neill
I sneered, waving the bat higher. Noticing Bow cowering, I jerked my chin at her. “Get out of here. Now.”
She didn’t. She ran at the fool, and if that little rabbit didn’t launch herself at his back.
“Fucking bitch!” he roared, grabbing at her hands on his back.
In a crazy-as-fuck turn of events, Bow jerked his head back, making him drop the knife. Deciding to double-team, I slammed the bat into the guy’s legs. He fell to the ground, fury in his yell as he took Bow on the ground with him.
Rushing, I grabbed for her, helping her up so we could run.
Suddenly, we weren’t alone.
Four dudes came into view, one of which was the guy who’d run off like a little bitch earlier.
Apparently, he was getting reinforcements.
He was the one to run up to the guy on the ground, who Bow had basically took out by herself. He tried to help his friend up, but the asshole was ungrateful and pushed his buddy off him.
“Don’t fucking help me. Get them!” the guy on the ground growled, directing his finger at Bow and me. The reinforcements his friend had brought were clearly drunk, stumbling over with beers in their hands. They also wore spirit paint on their faces, obviously spectators too from tonight’s came.
They were coming up on Bow and me.
“Bow, run,” I urged, but she shook her head. The little rabbit stood with me, backing up with me. I raised my bat to the boys. “Back off and leave us alone.”
“Last I checked, it’s five against two, bitch.” Boy with the knife had it out again, his blade gleaming under the parking lot lights. He grinned. “Now, maybe we should try this again?”
I tucked Bow behind me, hoping with maybe me in front, she’d get some sense. She’d run, but she didn’t move. She stayed with me.
We were screwed.
“Actually, it’s seven against five, bitch.”
Ares Mallick bounded over the hood of a car, tall enough to do that very feat. That put him right in the middle of the action, cutting those tools off from Bow and me.
He hadn’t come alone.
Dorian was right behind him, Thatcher and Wells too. My brother, Bru, brought up the rear and seeing her own brother, Bow immediately ran over to him.
Thatcher grabbed her. His eyes were fire, and the guys about to come at us looked like they were about to shit their pants.
Ares grinned. “Actually, there’s eight if you count Thatch’s big ass.”
“Fuck you,” Thatcher growled at him, but all that heat he kept reserved on the boys who’d messed with Bow and me. He hugged Bow close. “You messing with my sister?”
“Nah, man.” Guy with the knife put it away. He tucked it in his letterman jacket. “This was just a misunderstanding, and that bitch with the bat egged it on.” His chin jutted in my direction. “Ain’t that right, Legacy bitch?”
He thought he was being funny, clearly expecting laughter from the Legacy boys themselves.
They weren’t laughing.
And neither was Bru, who came over to me. He stood by me, Ares and the other guys in the center.
Dorian made the peak.
He was the tip of their arrow, the male power like he always was on the field. He braced his big arms, in his own letterman jacket. He bared teeth. “You got five seconds before we break your legs.”
They didn’t wait for five.
The assholes stumbled off in a pack, and something told me, it hadn’t mattered it was seven against five.
In fact, Dorian probably could have been standing there by himself.
That was how much power he exuded, Legacy exuded, and with the assholes gone, Thatcher grabbed Bow.
“Why didn’t you wait in the fucking car like I asked you to?” he ground out, but even as he did, he hugged her. It looked so funny since she was so much smaller than him. “You never fucking listen.”
“You guys were taking a long time,” she said, and good for her standing up to him. She laughed. “You’re choking me, jerk.”
“Good.” He let go. He messed with her hair, a grin on his face, and Bow groaned.
Beside me, Bru studied me. “You okay?” More than his eyes were on me, though.
In fact, everyone’s were.
My gaze flitted over them all, especially Dorian. He had this way of stealing way too much of my attention, and I didn’t like it.
I lowered the bat. “Fine,” I said, then directed a finger at Bow and crew. “Just get her out of here. There’s obviously creeps about.”
I’d seen more than one tonight, whatever was going on with Principal Mayberry included. For all I knew, she could have just been buying weed or something. That was her right, but still.
It was weird.
Maywood Heights was proving to be more trouble than I wanted to handle. If I had wanted this much action, I could have stayed in Chicago.
Bru started to say something, but I said I had to go. He let me, but everyone’s eyes were on me as I left.
I felt Dorian’s the most.
Chapter Twenty
Sloane
I was surprised when Thatcher Reed dropped his linebacker self at my lunch table the very next school day.
In fact, I looked around.
Needless to say, my table had been barren since I’d established war with Windsor Preparatory Academy’s elite.
And Thatcher was royalty. He caught several eyes upon making it to my basically abandoned table, looking extra pretty with his dangling earrings and hair in a messy tousle. He was beyond attractive, and that may have been something I noticed from the jump…
Had he not basically assaulted me in a swimming pool.
I hadn’t forgotten that day, stiffening when he placed his big self on the other side of the table. He may be a junior, younger than me, but he was still bigger than me. I eyed him. “What do you want?”
He studied me, my straw between my lips. I’d stopped sipping the milk from my carton, basically stuck. His strong chin jutted in my direction. “I heard what you did.” He looked around, his royal-blue eyes narrowed to slits when they returned. “For my sister? Bow told me how you stood up for her at the game.”
Did she now? Removing the straw from between my lips, I set my carton on the table. I laughed. “Well, did she tell you what she did?” I stated, thinking about that night. I tilted my head. “She basically tackled that motherfucker like a little monkey before you and your boys showed up.”
She’d been completely badass. She obviously had a little fire cat in that tank. The little rabbit surprised me. I’d come to save her, and she’d ended up getting me out of a scrape.
Thatcher smirked. “I taught her well,” he said, but as he said the words, his gaze circulated. It landed on a couple of guys coming into the cafeteria.
One had his arm in a sling.
A fresh cast was on the tool’s arm from the football game, and seeing Thatcher at my reject table, the guy’s eyes basically bugged out of their sockets.
Tool-burger shielded his eyes before skirting past my table. The guy behind him I recognized as well. I recognized him as his friend from that evening, but he didn’t have a broken arm.
“We promised him we wouldn’t break his legs if he left,” Thatcher said, and I blinked. He took one of my fries out of my basket, dipping it in my ketchup before chewing it. He smirked again. “We didn’t say we wouldn’t break his arm.”
Holy fucking shit.
That guy definitely had a cast as he cruised into the lunch line.
I supposed Legacy wasn’t playing.
These Legacy boys weren’t just all bark, sheer power, which made me really look at the guy sitting with me. I saw none of his friends around.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t nearby.
That didn’t mean Dorian Prinze wasn’t somewhere, the dark ruler himself. I still was at war with these guys, obviously thugs at this school.
“Why did you do it?” he asked, eyeing me again. He frowned. “Stand up for
my sister. I mean, we know you used her. To get to D?”
I had used her and was well aware of it. I’d messed up, done her dirty, and I was woman enough to admit that. I shook my head. “I didn’t mean to use her,” I said, opening my hands. “I fucked up, and she didn’t deserve that.”
The words tasted sour coming out of my mouth, but not because I didn’t feel that way. I had messed up. I didn’t mean to do such a thing to Bow. She’d always been nice to me. A little all over the place, but always nice.
It was saying all this shit in front of the enemy I didn’t like. That I was bowing down to the force that ran this place.
“So you felt guilty?” Thatcher cocked his head at me, really trying to figure me out. I shook my head, and his eyes twitched wide.
I shrugged. “I may have fucked up when it came to your sister, but I’m not an asshole.” My eyes narrowed. “I stepped in because it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t guilt. It was just the right thing. She was in trouble, and I wanted to help her out.”
Thatcher leaned back, his beefy arm on his chair. “Surely, you knew you couldn’t have done much with those guys.” He leaned in. “Even with that little bat of yours.”
That didn’t matter. It was the right thing to do. Call me stupid, but I stood up for the little guy. Maybe because I knew what it was like to be the little guy. I hugged my arms. “I don’t like bullies.”
Thatcher’s eyes returned into slits, this boy seriously serpent-like. He was as lethal as he was pretty, deadly. Wetting his lips, he kicked his chair from underneath him, rising to the sky. He waved a hand. “Come on. You’re coming with me.”
I shot up. “Uh, no.” How about a hell no?
He shook his head, then pointed at my food. “Your food is garbage, and I’m not going to be an asshole and let you eat it.” He popped a big shoulder. “Come. I’m going to get you a decent burger and fries. It’s the least I can do for you helping Bow.”
I tilted my head. “Like… off campus?” I said, but he was already leaving. We weren’t allowed to leave school for lunch, one of the academy’s rules. I read that in the handbook the first week. I sat up. “Like we’re leaving?”
He turned around, his arms open. “You coming or not, Pretty, Pretty Princess? Where I come from, we take care of those who take care of us. I owe you a burger. Let me do that for you.”
He put a hand to his chest, and though he appeared genuine, I wasn’t so sure. I stood. “I didn’t help your sister for a favor or anything.”
He was backing away. “I know,” he said, then paused to flash a cheeky grin. “That’s exactly why you’re about to get one.”
*
How I ended up in Thatcher’s Audi was beyond me, and I’d gotten more than a few looks before we drove off school property. Ironically enough, attention we hadn’t gotten had been that of the school security.
“They don’t care what the fuck we do,” Thatcher said, his thick arm hanging out the window. “Our parents own this school. This town.”
Apparently, they really did. He went on to say how much their parents donated to the school and the influence all their parents had on the school board because of it. Actually, once Thatcher got talking, he couldn’t stop, and I was surprised he relayed this much information about his family. Well, Legacy’s families. I supposedly was the enemy.
I guessed I wasn’t today.
This “favor” Thatcher seemed obligated to fulfill, and he chatted my ear off all the way to the closest Jax’s Burger franchise. As it seemed, the Legacy boys owned this too.
“Wells’s dad is Jax,” he stated, his tongue out in a gleeful fashion as he unstrapped himself. “We basically get all the free shit we want. Come on.”
Eh, big spender, huh?
I rolled my eyes, unstrapping myself. I wasn’t surprised to see more than one academy jacket donning both guys and girls in the lot. This must have been a hot place to sneak off to during lunch, and it was close, so I’d give them all that.
Still, this was awkward as fuck flanking behind Windsor Prep elite. Thatcher threw out his large wing span to anyone who gave him attention, the life of the party and vain as complete fuck. The amount of kisses he demanded on his cheek on the way inside alone told me what he thought of himself. And some of the chicks he passed were with guys.
This guy really was something else, but he made me laugh surprisingly enough. His arrogance alone I found laughable.
I wasn’t laughing when we got inside.
One booth specifically held all his friends, Dorian and Ares eating from their Jax’s haul. Wells sat on their opposite side. Dorian and Ares specifically had Bow tucked between them, and she was the one to spot me.
“Sloane!” She waved in my direction like the spirited little rabbit I’d come to miss. This action completely got the attention of her “brothers,” and each one of them whirled their heads in my direction. Wells arched his neck, Dorian sat up, and Ares…
“The fuck she doing here?” Ares sneered and even did one better to put a protective hold around the little rabbit. Like I’d eat her or something if I got too close.
Bow picked up on this action and shoved him off her. In fact, she shoved him so much she eventually got him to get out of the booth and let her out.
“Come sit with us,” she chanted, definitely in a different place than the last time I’d seen her. Last couple times. I wouldn’t mind sitting with her, but the rest of the guys not so much.
Ares was currently looking at me like he wanted to strangle me when Thatcher brought me to the table. Wells appeared to be indifferent, and Dorian, well, I had a hard time reading him. He sat there observant to it all but gave no input. He had his big honking fists together as he analyzed the situation.
“I owe her at least a burger, don’t you think?” Thatcher stated, taking one of Ares’s fries out of his basket. The whole table was filled with empty baskets, and I wondered how much food these guys had already consumed before we’d gotten there. Dorian had a couple of stacks with different colored wrappers, and I noticed the basket in front of him held some kind of wrap instead of a burger. Maybe he had different tastes than his friends. I didn’t know.
Nor did I care.
I was too busy trying not to watch him while Thatcher pleaded his case for me, the big guy shoving himself into the booth on Wells’s side. The table jutted forward, and Wells smirked.
Thatcher shoved Wells’s head before throwing an arm behind the booth. “She saved Bow. I’m buying her a meal.”
Ares’s expression darkened. “None of us pay for this shit, you asshole.”
“Yeah, my dad’s footing the bill.” Wells chuckled. He put his hands together. “Anyway, Thatcher is right.” Wells eyed me. “So you’re pretty good with a bat, then, huh?”
I didn’t know about all that, both Wells and Thatcher jostling each other like they had some kind of joke going on between them. This made Ares roll his eyes, but Dorian didn’t appear so amused. He was chillingly calm while he sat there next to Ares, silent.
Dorian shifted his broad body left. “Wolf, make room.”
Ares’s jaw dropped. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Dorian shot him a look, definitely not kidding. Anyway, after the command, the dark prince faced forward, shoving his wrap into his mouth. He stared outside the window, and one would have thought someone had shoved a scoop of pure lard in his mouth with the way he sneered around his lunch.
Dorian may have invited me to sit, but he hadn’t wanted to. In any case, Bow seemed ecstatic to have me there today. She sat across from me while I occupied the little space Thatcher left for me.
“You’re going to love the food,” she said, ringing the buzzer. Apparently, this was a sit-down place once inside. A guy came up and took my order, and despite being a meat eater, I decided to try the vegan chik’n wrap. Since that was the only wrap on the menu I assumed that was what Dorian was eating, and I wondered if he was a vegan.
I didn’t know why I order
ed it, for something different I supposed, and Ares had something to say about it the moment it arrived.
“You would eat that shit too,” he grumbled, getting a wrapper thrown at him from Wells. It seemed Wells took pride in all the food that was on the menu, seeing as how this was his dad’s burger franchise. Wells even mentioned his dad put the vegan option on the menu because Dorian asked him if he could. I was right in guessing Dorian was vegan. Ares tossed a hand. “I’m just saying. This girl just can’t help but be fucking different.” He showed his wolfish grin. “A little fucking noisemaker.”
“Aww, isn’t it cute how the two of them always fight?” Wells crooned, and Thatcher busted out laughing.
Thatcher tipped his chin at Ares. “Like an old fucking married couple. Right, Wolf?”
Ares’s sneer deepened. “Fuck you,” he gritted, but then growled at me. “And I’m not into chicks who look like they could be my goddamn twin,” he said, surprising me. He threw a balled-up wrapper at Thatcher. “I’m not as vain as you and wouldn’t date myself.”
I wouldn’t date his ass either, the sentiment shared, and I so did not look like him. I mean, we were both tall, I’d give him that. We had dark hair and similar skin complexions too, but in his case, his attitude alone made him unattractive to me.
“Your thoughts are shared,” I said, making him bare his teeth. This guy really didn’t fucking like me, but since I’d called him a bitch on that first day we met (and maybe a time or two since), I’d also give him that. He didn’t have to like me, and I didn’t have to like him.
And Dorian was staring at me again.
His chocolate-brown irises didn’t lift from my direction, watching the exchange between his buddy and me with interest. Maybe he was noting what his boy said about us looking alike, and he was deciding that was just another reason to tuck me farther into the back spaces of his mind. I mean, who’d want to pick up something with someone who looked like his fucking friend.
And why are you thinking about that?
Dorian Prinze was a fucking asshole too, and I wouldn’t entertain anything with him either. He was a bully, point blank.