The Initiation

by Nikki Sloane

  Or . . .

  Did he?

  Something thickened in his eyes, hot and heavy.

  “And this is more riveting than my party?” He placed his palm on his chest, covering his heart, feigning I’d wounded him. “I’m deeply offended.”

  “I’m sure,” I said dryly then refocused on the printed page. I scanned the words and absorbed none of them. It didn’t matter. Seconds later the book was yanked from my hands. I scrambled up out of the chair, chasing after it. “Hey.”

  Royce held the book out of my reach and wore an evil grin.

  “Oh, my God, are you five?” I said. “Give it back.”

  Instead, he clamped one of his large hands down on my shoulder, keeping me an arm’s length away as he skimmed the passage I was reading. My heart skipped as his fingers tensed against my skin, the heat of his palm soaking through the lace cap sleeve. I didn’t like the way his touch buzzed through my body. He’d probably touched a hundred women who’d melted from it. I wasn’t going to add my name to that list.

  “Is that why your hair looks like that?” he asked. He kept the book high and far away, and it was easy for him to hold me in place, no matter how I struggled. “I get it. Medusa was always my favorite too.”

  I choked on a breath and jerked to a stop. “What?”

  “I assume you’re a fan. With that green hair and those red lips, you sort of look like her.”

  My heart banged in my chest, a side effect of the anger bubbling in my bloodstream. Had he just called me ugly? “Actually,” I snapped, “in most versions of the story, Medusa was beautiful.”

  “I know that.” He looked at me strangely. “Do you . . . not think you’re beautiful?”

  Wait, what?

  He didn’t think I was ugly, but beautiful? The floor beneath my feet softened, and I struggled to stand on this newly uneven ground. I could handle Royce treating me a variety of ways. He could be indifferent, or annoying, or even cruel, but he’d never been nice before.

  It was unsettling.

  He’d sounded sincere, but I refused to believe it. He was working some angle, and I just hadn’t figured it out yet. I had to regroup.

  “What I meant,” I said, “is that in the original versions, she was gorgeous. But once she became a symbol for feminist rage, men retold the story and made her ugly. I assumed that was the version you’d know.”

  His hand slipped from my shoulder, and I was cold in the absence of his touch. His eyebrows tugged together. “Feminist rage?”

  I was vaguely aware this was a ridiculous conversation to be having, but my mouth ran away with itself. “Yeah. She was raped by Poseidon, and after that she could turn any man who looked at her into stone.” I reached for the book. “Not women,” I clarified. “She only used her power on men.”

  I tugged the book gently, but Royce wouldn’t release it. “Interesting.” He cocked his head to the side, and his icy eyes sharpened. “So, you are Medusa.” A smile tilted on his lips. “It was temporary, but you turned me to stone just now.”

  My mind went blank. “What?”

  “Do you have any idea how long I was standing there, watching you?”

  And with that, he let go of the book. The sudden lack of resistance, or perhaps it was the seriousness in his expression, left me stumbling backward. This version of Royce was lethal. He’d sold it well enough for me to believe him.

  But only for a single breath.

  The idea of my beauty turning this man into stone, the one who could have nearly any woman he wanted, fluttered in my belly. And then it soured and crashed to my toes. He wasn’t really a man, but an entitled brat, and it was just a line. I knew better. His favorite toys growing up were the ones that lived and breathed and had feelings that could be manipulated.

  I wasn’t going to be his plaything tonight.

  “Did you forget which Northcott sister you’re talking to?” I tightened my grip on the edges of my book. “Save your attempts at being charming for Emily.”

  It was like I’d unexpectedly punched the hollow laugh from him. “I’m not attempting to be charming. And, Jesus, what happened to you? I don’t remember you being so prickly before.”

  “Really? I’m amazed you remember anything at all about a nobody like me.”

  The half-smile on his lips froze and his shoulders stiffened. His reaction was probably as close to embarrassment as he got.

  “You remember saying that, I guess,” I said.

  He let out a long sigh.

  Back when I’d been a sophomore in high school, I’d begged Emily to let me tag along to some crappy dive bar on the outskirts of town. It had been a school night in the middle of the week. The bar agreed not to serve liquor until after ten to allow the group of kids from Cape Hill Prep, who had formed a shitty band, to perform for an underage crowd. Emily had been dating the drummer—who had zero fucking rhythm—and we’d stood in the crowd sipping sodas as her friends fumbled their way through a pathetic set of five songs.

  I still remembered standing on the sticky floor in the dark, in a place I wasn’t usually allowed to go. The too-loud guitars and muddled music vibrated in my chest as the band covered songs and butchered them, and I thought up to that point it was the coolest moment of my life. All the popular kids were there, swaying to the haphazard beat, and I’d been included. For the first time, I felt like part of something.

  Later that night, we’d wound up at an all-night diner.

  Royce hadn’t seen Emily and me come in. He’d been drinking coffee at a table on one side and his back was turned, and we’d arrived just in time for him to recap his night. He’d announced he thought the evening was cool . . . up until the moment he’d “seen a nobody like Marist Northcott was there.” My presence, according to him, had made the whole experience lame.

  Sophia Alby was sitting across the table from him and lifted her surprised gaze to me, and it was enough to grab his attention. He turned over his shoulder, just enough to give me a view of his side profile. I saw him, and he saw me, and he had to know his comment had registered, given my shocked expression. He didn’t care how his words had landed or stripped me down. He just shrugged, turned back around, and rolled right on into his conversation.

  I was worthless. He was the prince of Cape Hill, and he had declared me a nobody, which meant it was now law.

  His offhanded comment decided my whole fate at Cape Hill Prep and the social circles I would never be allowed into. He’d labeled me a leper. It wasn’t like I couldn’t survive, but he’d made the last five years so much harder. Not to mention lonely.

  I didn’t like how he’d had that kind of power over me. If there was a specific moment in my life when I’d decided I didn’t give a fuck what other people thought, I’d point a finger to that moment.

  It gave me satisfaction to know if things went well between Royce and Emily as his family wanted, this nobody would become his sister-in-law. Royce’s blue eyes clouded over, but the tension in my body firmed up as the memory drifted through my brain. I wouldn’t show any emotion. I wasn’t going to let him know his offhanded comment had affected me or shaped me in any way.

  “That was a long time ago.” His voice was hollow.

  “Hmm.” Funny. The lingering sting was still sharp enough it felt brand new.

  When his gaze slid down the length of my body, his voice went as smooth as buttery leather. “I was wrong, though. You’re not a nobody.”

  Unwanted heat sparked inside me. It was impossible to look at him and not think about sex. His cheekbones were cut high and elegant, and his mouth could twist into a devastating smirk. Life had cast Royce as a playboy, and he looked every bit the part.

  “Again, save it for Emily.” I’d strived for an annoyed tone but faltered, and it came out breathy. Like I was begging, rather than chiding.

  He took my reaction as a small victory, and it flashed in his eyes. “But I’m not interested in your sister.”

  His meaning was perfectly clear when he drew i
n a deep breath, his broad chest expanding and filling the space between us. The library was suddenly cramped and tiny. The shelves closed in, the curtains strangled, and there was no escape.

  An insidious voice whispered inside me, telling me I didn’t want to escape, anyway.

  A war waged between my body and my mind. Physically, I wanted him. I was starved for attention when it came to boys, and on the surface, there wasn’t one more appealing than Royce Hale. But he was also the very reason I had such a hard time finding someone to date during my cloistered life. The crop of eligible men in Cape Hill was small, and I was awkward, and Royce’s comment had been the nail in the coffin.

  He was fucking with me. There couldn’t be any other explanation. What was his end goal? Did he want me flustered and falling all over him like the other girls did? Was he going to pretend to seduce me and then spur me off, humiliating me at the last second? Run to my sister and tell her how pathetic I was?

  “Oh, yeah?” I blinked innocently. “What exactly are you interested in?”

  He matched my harmless attitude, threading his tie through two fingers and slid them down the length. “Avoiding people and staying here in the library with you.”

  It was a rare misstep for him. He’d overcompensated, and this was a bluff. I was excited to have the power to call him on it. I swallowed in a preparing breath, shifted the book into my left hand, and set the palm of my right on the center of his tie, my fingertips resting on his dress shirt. The silk was cool and soft, contrasting against the warmth seeping through the fabric covering his hard chest.

  I wasn’t practiced at seduction, but I threw everything I had at it. “What should we do?”

  His eyes widened. Oh, my God. There wasn’t anything more exciting than seeing the prince caught off guard. It lasted only long enough for me to recognize it before his large hand came down on mine, trapping my fingers in his and pressing my palm flatter against his chest.

  “I have some ideas,” he said.

  With my hand pressed to him, Royce’s heartbeat was a slow, steady drum. If the roles had been reversed, he would have felt mine hammering in my chest. His thumb moved, brushing slowly over the back of my hand, and tension coiled in my body. I thought he’d back down, but instead he’d returned the challenge, upping the ante. How far was he willing to take this? And . . . how far was I willing to let it escalate?

  Each tiny stroke of the pad of his thumb made me want to push further. Every quiet breath we took with our stares locked on each other gave me the courage to keep playing the game.

  “Was the girl down the hall not enough for you?” I asked.

  “Girl down the—” Confusion darted through him, only to be replaced with a slow smile. “Vance was fucking some blonde when I walked by the guest bedroom. You thought that was me?” When I didn’t answer, his voice dipped lower. “My brother probably left the door open because he wanted an audience. Did you watch them?”

  “Maybe.” I dropped my book, and it thudded onto the leather of the ottoman. I graduated from pressing my hand to him to my whole body. The crinoline beneath the skirt of my dress crushed softly between our thighs. Pleasure washed through his expression and simmered into something else.

  Something darker and hotter.

  His hand was gone, only so he could slip it behind me and lock me in place to him. My white dress was demure in the front but backless, and a shiver glanced down my spine as his fingertips settled on my bare skin. I tilted my chin up, wanting to look strong as his unwavering eyes threatened to undo me completely.

  “I like this dress,” he said, trailing his fingers up my back, dragging them along each ridge of my vertebrae like he was counting stacks of money. “But would Medusa wear white? She wasn’t a virgin, after all.”

  There was so much sex laced in his voice, I was going to combust and spoke without thinking. “Well, I’m not Medusa.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted like it was on a hook. “Is that so?”

  Was I supposed to feel shame I hadn’t fucked anyone when I was twenty years old? Like there was something wrong with me? Or was I supposed to feel pride I was a good girl and had kept myself pure?

  Because I felt neither. “So what if I’m a virgin? Who fucking cares?”

  Royce did, and I disliked the way he looked at me now, like I was a prize. I hated how society, even today, placed so much value on something entirely worthless. Yes, I hadn’t done it yet, but I was sure sleeping with someone wasn’t going to change me.

  “How is that possible?” His hand continued to stroke lazily up and down my back, perhaps hoping to elicit another shiver. “No boyfriend while you were off at Etonsons?” A smile dripped off his lips. “Oh, that’s right. It’s an all-girls college.”

  It was a strange feeling how my body liked being in his arms and yet the rest of me detested it.

  Etonsons was one of the most prestigious schools in the country. They only accepted four percent of the women who applied there, and the private tuition was outrageous. Emily and I both attended, although her acceptance had been more on the strength of our mother’s legacy, whereas mine was my grades.

  “What’s the reason you haven’t fucked anyone?” He studied me critically, searching for the answer.

  “Economics keeps me busy,” I said casually. “I just haven’t found the time.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Maybe I’m not into guys.”

  He leaned down so his face was a scant inch from mine. “Try again. Your pupils are dilated. You’re out of breath, and I can see your pulse pounding in your neck. I’m sure if I put my hand up your skirt right now, my fingers would come away wet.”

  “They wouldn’t,” I lied.

  It was like he knew. “I bet you’re soaked.”

  “Fine. Go ahead and do it,” I challenged, “and let’s see who’s right.”

  I was glad I’d been gutsy enough to say it, and a thrill ghosted down my legs. He couldn’t accept my challenge. He’d have to cede ground. Everyone knew which Northcott sister he was supposed to end up with, and I wasn’t her. If he put his hand up my skirt, there’d be hell to pay.

  But rather than act disappointed, satisfaction flooded the handsome face looming over me. “Oh, don’t you worry. I plan to.”

  Breath stuttered and broke down in my lungs, sapping my confidence. He was older and had been playing this game a lot longer. What if I was in over my head? It had seemed like a bluff at first, but now I was less convinced. I lifted my arms and set my hands on his shoulders, drawing us toward the edge of danger.

  He brushed the long sweep of my seaweed colored hair back over my shoulder, making room for his warm breath to fill the space and remind me just how close his lips were to my skin.

  “You’re doing it again,” he said.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Turning me into stone.”

  My knees trembled but I locked them in place. “I don’t have that ability. And if I did, it wouldn’t matter. You’d have to actually see me for it to work.”

  “I see you.”

  “Come on,” I said with irritation. “No, you don’t. I’m a faceless girl to you, Royce. A nobody.”

  Fire scorched his eyes. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I fucking see you, Marist.”

  And as if it would prove his point, he slammed his lips down on mine, crushing everything I believed into a million pieces.

  THREE

  ROYCE’S KISS WASN’T A three-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne you could sip, it was a shot of the cheapest whiskey you could get your hands on and had to take as quickly as possible. He invaded my senses. His taste stormed past my lips, seared against my tongue, and burned all the way down my throat.

  Was he the prince of fire?

  His kiss ravaged and consumed.

  I cried out against it, a mournful sound escaping my chest as my eyes slammed shut. The idea this wasn’t real sliced deep and left me gasping from hurt. This thing between us, it coul
dn’t be pretend. It was too powerful, too desperate to be a lie.

  His lips moved against mine, demanding I meet his level and match his urgency. His hand on the small of my back drove me deeper against him while his other grabbed a fistful of my hair, tangling my strands in his rough fingers.

  Kissing me was forbidden, and I wondered if it was gasoline on the flame between us.

  Not to be outdone, I curled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled. He made me mad. Not angry—but crazy. Out of my mind. Reality sifted through my grasp. I could claim surprise at first, but letting him continue to kiss me was a bad idea, and there were major consequences for actively participating in it.

  In some versions, Medusa didn’t start as a gorgon. She’d been a beautiful mortal who worshipped Athena and had the terrible misfortune to catch Poseidon’s eye. He followed her into a temple and raped her. Outraged at the desecration of her temple, Athena engaged in the ultimate victim-blaming—she cursed Medusa to become a gorgon with snake hair and banished her to live out her days on a secluded island. There were different versions of the myth, but the ending was always the same. Perseus came along, cut her head off, and was hailed a hero.

  Would it be the same for me? Macalister decreed Royce and Emily should be together, and I’d seen what he did to people who created obstacles when he wanted something. Nothing as nefarious as death, but just as bad, really. A single negative word from him meant the offender would be shunned. Their status would evaporate overnight, and soon after, their money. It was what Royce had done to me in high school, but on a much grander scale, and one that involved the whole family.

  It was a different kind of murder.

  And Macalister wouldn’t blame his golden son for anything. No, the blame for this dangerous and potentially destructive kiss would fall solely on my head, regardless of who had started it or whether I wanted it or not.

  You do want it. You want more.

  Heat sizzled across my skin, a mixture of desire and anger. I was upset Royce had put me in this position and pissed at how good it felt as his tongue slicked over mine. I didn’t like him, but my body didn’t care. I tugged harder on his hair, not to pull him off me or break the kiss, but to create a manifestation of the discomfort he’d caused.