Defiant Princess: A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance (Boys of Oak Park Prep Book 2)

by Callie Rose

  Then I hit the ground, and I… shattered.

  The air flew from my lungs as my arms and side bore the brunt of the impact. My head smacked into my bicep as my hands hit the concrete.

  My skirt had ridden up, and my backpack had fallen off, and I knew people were watching. Probably laughing.

  But I couldn’t hear it. My mind was still back at the bottom of the staircase in Sand Valley, still reeling from what my father had done. Pain shot through my legs, and I couldn’t tell if it was real or remembered.

  I needed to get up.

  I needed to show them they couldn’t win. That they hadn’t broken me.

  My lungs convulsed, demanding air but unable to draw any in. When I finally sucked in breath, it came with a painful wheezing sound. My arms shook when I tried to press up to my hands and knees, and I managed to crawl a few feet before they gave out again.

  The look on my father’s face kept flashing in my mind. I had watched him as I’d flown through all that empty air, the treacherous ground so very far away. I had seen the expression on his face.

  Surprise.

  The way someone might look if they’d knocked a lamp off a table, watching it fall and knowing it was too late to save it.

  He hadn’t meant to do it. He hadn’t meant to hurt me that badly.

  Not that time.

  But he had anyway.

  I curled up into a ball, ignoring everything else around me as memories consumed me.

  I couldn’t let them see me break.

  But I was breaking.

  All I could do was make myself as small as possible—keep one tiny part of myself protected.

  “What the fuck is going on here?”

  The voice was low and dangerous, and it penetrated the fog in my mind, briefly overtaking the sound of my father’s voice in my memory.

  “She fell! What the hell are you looking at me for?”

  There were more voices. Some raised in anger, one low and controlled. But I couldn’t hear what they were saying, couldn’t grasp onto the different sounds.

  Hands touched me, and I curled up tighter, desperate to protect the core of me—the one part of myself that wasn’t broken yet. If I lost that, there would be nothing left.

  “I’ve got you, Tal. I’ve got you.”

  The low murmur near my ear was a dream. It must’ve been.

  Because it sounded like Mason.

  My muscles ached.

  There was a dull pain in my left side, in the ribs right next to my heart.

  My eyelids were puffy and swollen, and it felt like my eyeballs scraped against the backs of my closed lids when I moved them.

  I felt a little nauseated, and a sick feeling permeated my entire body, like my blood had been tainted somehow.

  A low groan fell from my lips as I shifted under the covers, realizing as I did that I was in my bed.

  In my dorm.

  In Prentice Hall.

  Jumbled memories assaulted me, and for a second, I squeezed my eyes more tightly shut, shoving the worst of them away.

  My dad hadn’t pushed me down the stairs again. He was dead, gone for over a year now. Adena had been the one to push me, and I’d fallen down the front steps of Craydon Hall. The fall hadn’t broken anything, I didn’t think, unless I was on some amazing painkillers—but then why the fuck did my head hurt so bad, with the throbbing ache I usually got after crying?

  I groaned again and blinked my scratchy eyes open…

  Only to find myself staring into a pair of emerald green irises.

  Mason had pulled the chair away from my desk and was sitting two feet from the bed, his elbows braced on his knees and his unwavering stare fixed on me. Unlike the softness that had taught me to fear cruelty from him, his gaze at the moment was hard, angry.

  “Why the fuck are you doing this, Talia?” he demanded.

  I blinked, pressing against the mattress to sit up. I was still wearing my school uniform, although someone had taken off my shoes and dragged the covers over me.

  “I didn’t do anything.” My voice was scratchy too, and I wondered if I’d been crying. When the world had seemed to go silent, had I really been screaming? “Adena—”

  “I know what she did.” Mason’s voice was sharp as a razor, an edge to it that I’d never heard before.

  “Well, there you go then.” I swallowed. My mouth was dry, my lips chapped. “If you’re so fucking pissed about it, go talk to her.”

  “Believe me, I will.” If anything, his voice grew darker, and I had a fleeting thought that I’d just found one more reason to be glad I wasn’t Adena.

  “Good.”

  I could feel the panic attack I’d had hovering at the edge of my consciousness, the memories and flashbacks lying in wait like rabbit holes hidden in a dark forest. I couldn’t let myself fall into them again, so I forced myself to throw the covers off and crawled toward the foot of the bed.

  Mason rose as I reached the end of the mattress, coming to stand near me as I stepped onto the floor on unsteady legs. The entire left side of my body was sore, but the fact that I could take a full breath told me no ribs were broken.

  “No, it’s not ‘good’, Talia. Nothing about any of this is ‘good’.”

  He was standing close to me, like he might help me if I started to fall, but he didn’t touch me as I found my balance.

  “Fine,” I muttered. “Whatever you say.”

  My head still throbbed, and even though this gruff, irritable version of Mason was easier to deal with than the one who had murmured so tenderly in my ear just before I blacked out, that didn’t mean I wanted to deal with any version of him at all.

  I kept one hand on the wall as I walked slowly toward the bathroom, and he followed me the whole way, his agitated presence hovering behind me like a swarm of angry bees. I ignored him, flipping the light switch and splashing cold water on my face before swishing some of it around in my mouth. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I winced. I looked like a wreck. My skin was blotchy, my hair a tangled mess, and my eyes were swollen and red.

  How much had I cried?

  How long had Mason been here?

  “I’m not kidding, Talia.” He leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest, watching me with narrowed eyes. “Why did you come back? Why did you want to?”

  To ruin you. The way you ruined me.

  I didn’t say that though. I didn’t say anything. The days of Mason demanding and getting things from me were over, and those things included answers.

  “Damn it!” He pounded his fist against the door frame angrily, and when I winced at the sound, he actually looked a little guilty for a second. Then he shook his head, his agitation returning. “You shouldn’t have come back. We would’ve left you alone.”

  That pulled a disbelieving laugh from me, and I turned to face him, keeping a hand on the sink as my legs wobbled again. “You would’ve left me alone? In foster care in a shitty-ass town, getting eye-fucked by old men while I served them burgers? Struggling to get by and watching my hope of a better future get smaller and smaller every day? You would’ve left me alone to that? God, thank you, Mason. I don’t know why I never thought to call you up and thank you for the kindness you showed me. If I’d known you would’ve left me alone, I would’ve stayed there till I fucking died.”

  The corners of his lips pulled together, and he blinked. “You went into foster care?”

  I looked away, hating that he could see pain on my face again. Hating that he’d just seen me at my worst, in the throes of a panic attack, totally incapacitated by fear. “Of course, you fucking genius. What’d you think was going to happen?”

  His bright green eyes churned with emotion, and he straightened in the door frame, bracing his hands against each side. “I don’t… What about your inheritance?”

  “From my grandma?” I shook my head. “There isn’t one. You took care of that. The money I have now is from my mom.”

  His face went oddl
y blank, and when his hands fell away from the door frame, I took advantage of the opening and pushed past him.

  “You still didn’t answer my question,” he called after me as I shuffled toward the living room. I didn’t want to lead him to my bedroom again—I hated that he’d been in there at all. “Why did you come back?”

  “Because you don’t get to run my life,” I shot over my shoulder. “You don’t get to ruin it.”

  I made it to the living room and sank onto the couch. I’d been moving around to avoid facing the green-eyed boy, but my body was still wrecked—weak, bruised, and strung out.

  Mason followed me to the bland living room and stopped in front of the couch, staring down at me as I tucked my knees up under myself and pulled a blanket off the back cushion.

  “It’s gone far enough, Tal. This is enough. You need to fucking back down.”

  His voice had an almost desperate note to it, and he dropped into a crouch, shaking his head like I was missing the whole point of all of this.

  I laughed weakly. I still felt a little strange, almost high, like I was outside my own body. “Now it’s gone far enough? What about before? What about last year? When you destroyed my life? When you made me fall—”

  The emerald of his eyes flared brightly, and I broke off, realizing what I’d been about to say. At one point last semester, I’d felt myself falling for each of the Princes, and that alone—feeling something for four boys at the same time—had been confusing enough. But the fact that it had all been a lie, a manipulation to get close to me, made it all so much worse.

  I clenched my jaw, leaning forward a little. He was on his knees on the floor in front of me, bringing us almost to eye level. “You don’t get to decide when it’s over this time, Mason. I told you. Everything that happens to me, I’ll do to one of you. So you might want to warn the others to watch out around stairs.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” He scrubbed both hands down his face, leaving them in front of his mouth for a moment. “Look at yourself. This isn’t a fucking joke! The way you looked when I found you? You were—”

  Shaking his head angrily, he glanced away from me, toward the large windows along one wall. The world outside was a dusky gold, which meant I must’ve been out for at least a few hours after my panic attack.

  “Talia.” Turning back abruptly, Mason reached for me, cupping my chin in his hand. “You. Need. To. Stop.”

  I shook my head, shoving his hand away. “No. Not until you make me.” He opened his mouth to speak again, but I overrode him, my scratchy voice gaining a bit of strength. “You keep telling me to stop, but what about you, Mason? You have the power to end this just as much as I do. You act like someone is making you do this, like you don’t have a choice in the matter. But you decided to fuck with me last year, just like you decided to fuck with me now. You want this to stop? You want it to be over? Then you stop it. The whole school jumps at your command, so it shouldn’t be that fucking hard.” My limbs were starting to shake again with a combination of anger and fear, but I kept my spine straight. “Because I won’t quit, and I won’t back down. If you want me to leave Oak Park, you’re gonna have to carry me out.”

  It was an open taunt. Practically a plea for him to escalate this to a level I might not be able to survive. I didn’t think he or the other Princes would physically harm me, but I honestly wasn’t sure at this point. They’d crossed so many lines already, I felt like I needed to push, needed to know where the real line was.

  Mason stared at me for several long beats. His hands were resting on the couch cushions on either side of me, and for a moment, I saw a little of the exhaustion I felt in his face. Then he nodded, the gesture seeming like an answer to some private thought he’d had.

  “You’re a fighter, Talia. I always knew that.”

  “Yeah. Well.” I shrugged, not feeling particularly brave or heroic at the moment. “I’ve had to be.”

  Mason’s eyes narrowed as he watched the movement, and he leaned toward me, studying my face like it might give away some secret I’d been keeping all this time.

  For an insane, wild moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. My body tensed, my hand curling into a fist even as the stupid animal part of my brain—the part that didn’t know what kind of emotional manipulation this boy was capable of—almost wished he would.

  That part of my brain still couldn’t understand how this guy, who’d made me feel things only a few other people in the world ever had, who had once made me feel so safe and beautiful and wanted, was the same one who had held my world upside down and shook it until the pieces flew apart.

  But Mason didn’t kiss me.

  He stopped abruptly only a few inches away, freezing in place, his breath tickling my lips.

  “Do you know how long I’ve hated the Hildebrands?” he murmured. Our faces were so close together that his words flowed into my mouth as if I’d been the one to speak them.

  He meant it.

  I could hear it in his voice.

  Whatever had convinced him to carry around this hate, it was so deeply ingrained in him by now that it’d become an intrinsic part of his identity. I had a sudden image of a Mason who didn’t hate me dissolving, unraveling into nothingness, as if his hatred of my family—of me—was the only thing tethering him to this plane of existence.

  “Why?” I whispered.

  I’d never understood it. Not before the Princes pretended to take me into their fold, and not after they’d revealed their months-long lie. Why? I had never done anything to him. Nothing.

  His expression shifted, and the two hands resting on either side of the couch cushions brushed against the sides of my legs as he pushed to his feet. His gaze never left mine, and I had to crane my neck as he towered over me.

  “It doesn’t matter.” His voice was hard. “It’s over.”

  Then he turned and headed for the door, closing it behind him without a look back.

  Chapter 8

  I hadn’t had a panic attack like that in years, and although I knew exactly what event had triggered it, that knowledge didn’t entirely stop the fear that I’d slip into another one at any moment. I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to that place, so I did everything I could to keep myself grounded and calm after Mason’s abrupt departure.

  The first thing I did was go through the apartment opening windows. He didn’t wear anywhere near as much cologne as Oliver did, but somehow, Mason’s subtle cedar and spice scent had managed to invade every inch of my dorm.

  Then I tried to eat a little something, pulling a box of cookies down from the cabinet and forcing myself to chew and swallow. They were Oreos, my favorite, but each bite tasted like cardboard and went down like a lump of sand.

  I was tired but not ready for sleep, and the quiet of my little dorm was starting to make me antsy, so I kept the blanket draped around my shoulders and headed downstairs to the common room.

  Maggie was slouched on the couch with the TV on, her feet propped up on the little coffee table. When she saw me, she scrambled to sit up, turning to me as I ambled over to the couch and sat down.

  “Oh my God, Talia! Are you okay?”

  I’d barely spoken to her since I’d gotten back to Oak Park, partly because she was usually with Leah, who was still ignoring me, and partly because I’d been too distracted by my war against the Princes. But I had missed having friends around this place, and the sight of her earnest, concerned expression made a lump rise in my throat. Her white-blonde hair was longer than it’d been last year, pulled back from her face in a ponytail.

  “Yeah.” I brought my knees up under me again, rearranging the blanket so it draped over my whole body.

  “Are you sure?” Her eyes were wide. “I didn’t see what happened, but I… I heard about it.”

  Fuck.

  “What did you hear?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know the answer.

  “I heard Adena pushed you down the steps in front of Craydon,” she whispered, turning t
o face me more fully. “And that you had some kind of… flashback. It sounded awful. Apparently, the Princes were super fucking pissed at Adena. Finn was in her face, yelling at her. And Mason carried you back to Prentice Hall. He wouldn’t let anyone else touch you.”

  I steeled my heart against the emotions that wanted to rise up inside me. Mason had carried me back? So the fuck what. He’d probably just wanted to make sure none of the school admins saw me and realized what’d happened. And they might be mad at Adena for not carrying out their marching orders the way they’d intended, but that didn’t change the fact that they’d given all the students at Oak Park the go-ahead to bully me.

  This was how they’d fooled me last time. With actions that seemed like they could only be interpreted as kindness, as caring.

  But there was always another side to that coin.

  At least this time, I knew to expect it.

  “You’re really okay?” Maggie tucked a wisp of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “You don’t look good.”

  “Yeah.” I chuckled humorlessly. “So I’ve heard.” I wasn’t okay, but I didn’t want to lie, and I didn’t really want to talk about it anymore, so I nodded and settled deeper into the couch cushions, turning to face the TV. “What are you watching?”

  “Beverly Hills Cop. It’s actually pretty funny. It just started.”

  We watched the rest of the movie, and when another started to play right after, we sat and watched that too. Maggie laughed out loud often, and even though I didn’t much feel like laughing, hearing her giggle made me feel better.

  I didn’t do much studying that weekend. I didn’t do much of anything, really. I replayed my standoff with Mason over in my head several times, trying to figure out where the next attack might come from, what he and the other Princes would do in response to my refusal to back down.

  On Monday, I headed over to the school buildings early and forced myself to walk up the steps of Craydon Hall—to remind myself that I could still do it, that I wasn’t broken. That I was stronger than my old fears. The left side of my body still ached, but the bruises would fade.