by Eve, Jaymin
Alex sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes wide in shock. Understandable, given how much birth rates had declined over the past three generations. None more so than within the monarchies, though. The idea that anyone would abort a royal baby was unheard of and doubtless something Alex was counting on to trap me.
"Why?" I pressed on, my own broken heart needing to hear it from his lips. I should have just ended it and kicked him out, but I needed closure. "Why do this? Why not just arrange another betrothal like every other fucking royal at this school? Why use the princess ballot?"
Give me some damn information, you bastard.
I was determined to understand it all since they’d decided to drag me into it.
Alex's jaw clenched again, and his eyes hardened, no longer the twinkling, ocean-blue gems I was so painfully familiar with. Now they were like chips of ice, and I shuddered at the stark contrast.
"Well, it sounds like you have it all nearly figured out, Violet." He snapped the words out, biting them off in anger. "So I'll give you this for free. The princess ballot is there for one purpose and one only. To provide perfect genetic pairings for royalty to ensure their lines continue. There is no charity. The monarchies don't give two craps about giving some poor orphan girl a better start in life. You, just like every so-called ballot winner before you, are nothing more than a broodmare." His face twisted into something ugly. Terrifying. Now, when he stepped closer to me, unease shot through my body and my fists clenched at my sides.
"That's disgusting," I spat back at him, but my voice quivered. I could take a beating from the best fighter in the world and never cry. But Alex had trampled all over my heart and the emotions were too raw. Too real.
His lip curled in a sneer, and he stopped just short of pinning me to the door. "That's life, Violet. We all do what we must to survive in this fucked-up world."
I shook my head, in denial. "Do it with someone else, Alex. I'm out."
He laughed then, a cruel, mocking laugh that cut through me like blades, leaving my soul in tatters. "You don't get a choice in this, you stupid girl. Here's what's going to happen." He paused, shaking his head like he could hardly believe he needed to explain this to me. "You're going to go into the bathroom and clean yourself up. You stink. Then, tomorrow morning, when you're fresh and beautiful, dressed in your uniform and ready to start the day, we will leave here together. We will walk together, hand in hand like the loved up couple we are. When we reach the dining room, you'll sit with me. You'll smile and laugh and speak sweetly. You'll fucking kiss me like you can barely wait to ride my cock the second classes finish for the day."
I was damn near speechless, my jaw hanging open in shock.
"And if I don't?" I spluttered, the horror of what he was suggesting creeping over me like a thick black fog.
"If you don't?" He shook his head again, trailing a light hand down the side of my throat. My mind couldn't help bringing up the image of him and Claudette in the hallway, how he’d choked her and she’d come. "If you don't, then you'll find yourself with a broken neck at the bottom of a set of stairs. Just like Jasmine. Or worse."
I knew what he meant by “worse.” Claudette’s casual comment about non-consensual IVF labs in Siberia still haunted my memories.
Bile rose in my throat, and I could feel the blood draining from my face. "You killed her," I whispered accusingly. "I believed you when you said it was an accident."
A flicker of something passed across his eyes. Pain? Disappointment? Maybe it was just plain old psychosis.
"I didn't kill her," he said gently, his thumb still stroking the soft skin of my throat. "But it was no accident. Don't be stupid, Violet. Don't make them kill you too."
Oh fuck. My ears rang, and I needed to blink several times to fight back the creeping blackness. I was going to pass out if I didn't sit down soon. This was a million miles above my pay grade, and that was why they chose people like me. To them—and the world—we were nothing. We had no power. No rights.
Nothing.
"Take a breath," Alex ordered me, his voice cracking with command. He'd never spoken to me like that before. I hadn't even known he had it in him. "You're panicking."
"No shit!" I shrieked. "You just threatened to kill me if I don't become your fucking puppet!"
Alex rolled his eyes, like I was being painfully dense. "No, I didn't. I told you you'd be killed."
"Semantics!"
He sighed. "Just go and get yourself cleaned up. I’ll be back in the morning."
Numb and in shock, I stumbled past him toward my bathroom. This... was so far removed from how I’d thought this conversation would go.
I paused in the ensuite doorway, turning my face just enough that I could see Alex still standing at my bedroom door.
"I fucked Rafe," I announced. What the hell I was hoping to achieve with that, I had no idea. Maybe I wanted to hurt Alex in some small way—hurt him just a fraction of how he'd hurt me. But the reaction I was looking for never came. When he turned around, his face was a cool, unaffected mask. Like stone.
"Good thing your IUD is still effective then. The last thing I need to deal with is another bastard pregnancy in my fiancée." His voice was pure frost.
I snarled. "I'm not your fiancée, Alex."
"Not yet," he replied with a shrug. "Go and shower. You've got a show to put on tomorrow at breakfast. Can't go letting that Swiss dickhead think he's won this round."
My stomach churned and dread rolled through me, but I’d been out-played. For now, I'd bide my time... but if Alex really thought I'd roll over and take a life of servitude as his walking womb? Oh yeah. He had another fucking think coming.
He had no idea who he was truly dealing with, but I intended to show him really soon.
Chapter 5
Anxiety clawed at my belly the whole way down to the dining room for breakfast. My palms were sweating, and I had to keep wiping them off on my uniform skirt. Not that I gave two shits what Alex thought of my clammy hands, but the idea of facing my friends...
"If you could look a little less like you're about to vomit, that would be amazing," Alex snarled at me under his breath, all the while smiling like he didn't have a care in the world. It was terrifying.
"I am about to vomit," I hissed back. "Just being near you makes me want to throw up everywhere."
While that wasn't totally untrue, my anxiety was mostly fueled by another source. Another two sources. Rafe... and Jordan.
Fuck.
I knew I should have dealt with that situation when it happened on Friday night, but I hadn't. I'd fucking panicked.
"You're joking." I said to Nolan and Jordan, the shower splashing as Rafe washed the evidence of our hate fuck off his hard, inked-up body.
Nolan laughed. "Okay fine, I'm joking. You're like a second sister to me, and I don't get down on the twincest thing. Also, I'm likely to try and turn Rafe on to dick and then get punched in the nuts for it." He shivered dramatically. "No thanks. I just came to tell you the coast is clear, then caught the end of that convo and couldn't help myself."
My attention then drifted to Jordan, but he didn't look amused. He looked... hurt.
"I wasn't joking," he said. "I like you, Violet..." Shooting an unreadable glance to the bathroom where his best friend showered, he frowned.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, double fuck.
I couldn't do this. Not when my heart was still a bleeding, shredded mess from Alex's betrayal.
I yanked Rafe’s shirt on and ran.
My back slamming into the wall jerked me out of that unpleasantly guilty memory, and I gasped.
"If you have any desire to see another sunrise, I suggest you improve your acting skills," Alex growled with menace, his face just inches from mine. "Fast."
That was the only warning I had before his lips crashed into mine. The shock of it made me gasp, and Alex pushed his advantage, slipping his tongue into my mouth and stroking along mine.
This... this wasn't Alex. Not the Alex I knew a
nd had been kissing for months. This person was harsh and demanding. Dominant. If I wasn't already a hollow, heartbroken mess, the way he kissed me now would have almost convinced me he actually cared. That somehow he regretted deceiving me.
But I knew better.
This was about power and control. He was showing me who held both.
"Kiss me back, or kiss your life and freedom goodbye." He'd released my mouth just long enough to whisper that threat, and his blue eyes were close enough that I imagined he was peering into my soul. Weighing my desire to live, I found the scales tipped in his favor.
He was right, too.
Swallowing back my pride, my hurt, my guilt, I closed my eyes, draped my arms around his neck and acted my fucking ass off. If anyone had walked past us then, they'd have seen exactly what they needed to see, the shining, golden, crown prince of Australasia and his princess-ballot girlfriend. In love.
Inside, I was screaming. Sobbing. Dying a little. But nothing could have prepared me for the overwhelming desperation that washed over me when our kiss ended and I opened my eyes.
Rafe's furious, sapphire gaze locked with mine from across the hall, and the expression on his face was nothing short of murderous.
Now, normally I’d react, shoot back something as pissed off as Rafe was sending my way. But I couldn’t.
Alex had taken something from me. I was that stupid fucking little girl again, trapped, locked away and sitting in my own piss. Helpless.
No!
Fuck.
Alex’s lips twisted as he stared down at me. “You’re gonna have to do better than that, princess,” he said softly, pressing his lips to mine one more time before he took off down the hall. “One last chance, Violet,” he called over his shoulder. There was no one but Rafe nearby now, and he clearly wasn’t worried about being overheard by the Swiss prince.
I slammed myself back against the wall, pressing my palms especially hard against the brick, trying to find my balance. I was better than this. I’d spent too many years learning how to destroy the weakness inside of me, and all it had taken was some smooth words from a prince to break everything down.
Sharp, painful sensations ran down my spine and across my arms until they tingled in my fingertips. I didn’t realize until blood followed that feeling that I’d slammed my back and shoulders so hard into the rough stone walls that I’d actually cut myself.
The blood was warm, ruining another uniform as it traced across my skin. That warmth was chased by another scent moving closer, one that smelled darkly enticing, turning my thoughts immediately erotic. Rafe had fucked me the same way he did everything else. Hard, intense, and on the edge of cruelty. My body responded to his scent now almost on instinct.
“Come with me,” he said. No, commanded. Everything that fucker did was a command, and fuck if my body wasn’t ready and willing.
I didn’t know where he was leading me, but I needed to clear my head, so I was following.
For now.
Rafe led me away from the dining room and main part of Arbon, taking me on a twisting path that was almost as hard to follow as the secret passages that led to the fights. Part of me wanted to ask where we were going, but another, larger part, really didn’t care.
Trapped. I was fucking trapped again.
How had this happened? How could this happen?
“Stop thinking,” Rafe said harshly. “Let it go for five minutes.”
I wanted to. I wanted to let everything go, including this fucking school, but I was afraid it was way too late for that. According to Alex, I was in a life and death situation, and if I didn’t choose him, I chose death.
Rafe snarled again, and his lips slammed into mine. My cut-up back crashed into the nearby wall. I didn’t care. I welcomed the pain because for the first time since I’d found out—outside of the last time Rafe had touched me—I was finally in blissful mental silence.
He did something to my body. He shut my senses down. And he erased Alex.
When he pulled back, he shook his head at me. “Keep the fuck up.”
He turned, moving fast, and I was blinking, not sure what the hell had just happened. Rafe was going to be the death of me.
If Alex didn’t get there first.
Eventually, when we must have been miles from the main part of the school, Rafe opened a door. It was partially hidden, completely nondescript, and I wouldn’t have noticed it at all before Rafe opened it and stepped through. I followed him to a single set of rickety stairs made of wood, ancient-looking wood that I was afraid would cave in under his mammoth weight. But they didn’t, apparently sturdier than they looked.
My gaze was all but glued to his ass as he ascended ahead of me, and I had to swallow a few times to keep the moisture in my mouth. I mean, I’d always been attracted to the prickly fuck, but now it was an almost tangible thing I could taste in the air.
And feel in my vag. That bitch knew him intimately now and she wanted more.
“You taking me up here to throw me off?” I half-joked when the stairs went on and on. I hadn’t been to a second floor anywhere here yet, so this was clearly one of the towers I’d seen when I’d first been driven up to the school.
“Don’t tempt me,” he muttered.
I shut up after that, enjoying the burn of my thighs as we continued to climb. I’d been neglecting my training way too much since coming here, and my fitness was suffering. I needed to get back into it—at least start jogging again.
The stairs leveled out and we stepped into a room. Though a single room, it was large and sparse. There were two couches, a small fridge, a stylish, eggshell colored rug, an unlit fireplace, and the most incredible view I had ever seen. In my life.
Windows spanned one entire side, and it faced out onto what looked like a picturesque Swiss postcard with snow-capped mountains, trees, and nature as far as I could see.
“This is my spot. If you come here without me, I’ll kick your ass,” Rafe said, crossing his arms. “But you looked like you needed a minute.”
I hated that he’d seen that vulnerable moment with Alex.
“Yeah, something like that,” I murmured, pressing my hands to the glass.
Rafe remained silent at my back, and for some reason, I didn’t mind him being there. The pain in my shoulders had died down, the blood no longer spilling, and for a second I forgot what had caused my injury in the first place.
It wasn’t often that Rafe and I were alone with no distractions and an almost calming quiet around us. In the time I’d known him over the past months, we’d fought a lot, but I’d also noticed the way he could just exist with his own thoughts. No need to fill the silence.
That’s where we were at this moment. Existing. Who would have fucking thought this would ever happen?
“Tell me your story,” he said, and I felt almost offended that he’d broken our silence.
I wasn’t surprised by the question though. I felt the same way about him. Fallen Angel fascinated me, and no one could fight like that without a lot of training. I wanted to know his story too, but as always, Rafe wanted me to be the one to give first.
This time I would—he’d caught me in a vulnerable position.
“It was my third foster home,” I said softly, not staring at him because I wouldn’t get through the story if I did. “I was eight, I think… or maybe a little older. It wasn’t like any of my birthdays were celebrated. I have more or less guessed my age for most of my life.” Derisive laughter left me, but it really didn’t hurt any more. I’d been given a new birthdate the day I was taken into care, one which placed me over eighteen now. That was good enough.
“When I first saw them, I thought they were the prettiest people in the world. All-American, my social worker called them. A true couple of God.” Another forced laugh. “You know the type, both blond, tanned, with smiling blue eyes and lips. In hindsight, if I’d met them after this weekend, I’d have known they were evil incarnate from the first glance... Fuckers looked just like Alex.
”
A rumble sounded from the huge mountain of a dude beside me, and I finally turned to see him. Rafe was studying his hands, long tanned fingers clenched slightly. Most people wouldn’t have even known he was upset, but I’d studied him enough to notice when he was working through some emotion.
“What happened?” he pushed his voice into a husky drawl. That caught my attention more than anything because he was never relaxed in his words. He snapped them out, one by one, and sometimes they physically hurt as they landed.
This was the calm before the storm.
“The mother, her name was Gayle, she wanted a perfect blonde doll to dress up and parade about the town. She called me sweetheart and hugged one arm around me when people approached, and then we’d stand there for what felt like hours while everyone gushed over how amazing they were. They talked about me like I wasn’t even there, but I didn’t care. No one had ever called me sweetheart, and I loved it.”
I had no idea why I was giving him the slow buildup, but I desperately needed one person to know everything that had happened, everything that almost broke me. To understand why I was back in that fucking room again, even now.
“The first month passed in a blur of happiness, and I was so stupidly naïve that I missed the darkness brewing in the wings.” I took a moment and forced the next words out. “I broke her lamp.”
The silence felt both tense and confused, but Rafe didn’t push again. He let me find the words myself.
“It was this ugly-as-fuck lamp that she had in the front room, a room I wasn’t allowed in because it was only for when they entertained important family. But I’d heard a noise, and because I was a kid and didn’t always think things through, I decided to explore. The noise ended up being the neighbor's cat, but that didn’t mean anything after I broke the lamp.”
Rafe could have been a statue—there was no emotion on his face at all.