by Rachel Angel
“Kaz…” I couldn’t believe this beautiful man, who will one day be king, and who first started out hating me has confessed to loving me with all his heart.
“But the way you looked so hurt when you tried to stop me from being with Veronica…I couldn’t in my own conscience even think about touching her…the idea was so repulsive.”
“Kaz, you don’t realize how much I wanted to hear that from you.”
Kaz brought up my hand that was entwined in his and kissed each knuckle of mine. “I will make it up to you, Tempest, I swear.”
We had reached his house, and Hunter was already trying to open the lock on the door of Kaz’s house. “Hey, it’s not working. Changed the lock?”
“Yes,” Kaz said, handing a new key to Hunter and me. “Had to. Veronica got a copy of the old one.”
“I’m back!” Ori said, “Did I miss anything?”
Kaz handed him a new key. “I changed the locks.”
Ori nodded. “Figures. I would too, after wicked bitch Veronica’s visit.”
*****
Kaz went through the entire house, showing us where he had made changes and added cameras, even booby traps.
“Damn that bitch must’ve had something really bad planned, for you to go through so much trouble to upgrade the security system,” Ori said. “What was it?”
Kaz shook his head, “I don’t want to think or talk about it. Especially since it was meant for Tempest.” He looked hard at Ori to forget it.
Ori got his look. “I could just imagine.”
“So…” Kaz said, sitting down at our breakfast table, although it was near midnight. He had a spread of midnight snacks on the large solid oak table. “Here’s the situation.”
“Veronica is temporarily away from Kingsbury Prep, due to some royal gala she had to attend back in her country.”
“Thank God she’s gone,” I said.
“She is away, but she has set up her underlings Holly, Russell, and Sabrina in her place to carry out her Black Envelope plans.”
“Figures it won’t be that easy,” Ori said.
Hunter had already pulled up their profiles on his laptop.
“Holly DeVille and Russell DeVille are the children of the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy. They are fifth and sixth in line to the throne. Holly is an accomplished horsewoman, and Russell is a champion boxer.”
“Sounds like they could’ve been decent human beings,” I said.
“Until Veronica rounded them up to be in her looney bin collection,” Hunter said.
“They probably didn’t have a choice,” Kaz said. “They are Veronica’s younger cousins.”
“Who enrolled just a semester ago,” Hunter said, looking up the school records he had access to as the Student rep in the committee member and Officer of the Student Body, “a little before you got here, Tempest.”
“And Sabrina…” I said. “She’s been Veronica’s sidekick for a while. She may be with Veronica, but it is clear she has hostile feelings towards her. Given the chance, Sabrina could turn against her.”
“Let’s work on Sabrina, then,” Kaz said. “She’s Veronica’s right hand person, has been at Kingsbury Prep for a while, and will be the one the DeVille siblings turn to for leadership.”
“Ha! Like that airhead is a leader,” Hunter laughed.
I laughed too and said, “I’ll work on her.”
The guys grinned.
Hunter gave me a thumbs up and said, “Take Charge Tempest…that nickname sounds pretty sexy to me.”
Kaz reached down below the breakfast table to rub his thumb on my nub, causing me to moan in pleasure. “Everything about our Tempest is sexy.”
Ori kissed my neck, and his hand went under my shirt before pushing aside my bra to flick my nipples until they were hard peaks. “I’ve been thinking about you all day, Temp. Worried about you and wanting to protect you at all costs,” Ori said. “But I knew you were with Hunter, so my mind was put to ease.” He continued kissing my neck.
Kaz kissed my collarbone and said, “Let’s clear the table. It’s time for K3 to have Tempest for a treat.”
Chapter 7
.
Taking charge, as my boys said, I made an official announcement as Head of the Kingsbury Birthday Ball, that parents and guardians were welcome to stay but the Ball officially ended last night due to unforeseen circumstances. The next day, after the Birthday Ball’s first day celebration, classes resumed as usual.
Hunter’s bandmates stayed at Hunter’s house while Hunter, Kaz, Ori, and I stayed at Kaz’s. Like Hunter had planned, the guys from Tenacious worked their way into the student body and was able to provide Hunter and me a list of students who identified themselves on Veronica’s side, on K3’s side, and none.
Having the Black Envelope decree set on Kaz, Ori, Hunter, and me; we still took precautions by never being completely alone. One of us was either with each other or with someone we trusted like Ricky or the Tenacious guys.
Except for me in the girl’s locker room when I had gym. Ori still escorted me to gym and was in gym class with me, but I was completely alone in the girl’s locker room. Lina, whom I thought would be a friend, but became Veronica and Sabrina’s pet in Q2 went back to her palace to be tutored rather than stay at Kingsbury as a pet to Veronica and Sabrina.
I would too, if I had to be the third wheel to their 2-person Queendom.
Sabrina was by herself in the girl’s locker room since Lina was gone, and Veronica was off doing her royal duties in her country. She actually looked happier.
While changing into her gym clothes, she accidentally dropped something that rolled over to my feet. Automatically, I picked it up and was handing it to her when I noticed it was a small silver hairbrush. “You dropped this,” I said, handing the hairbrush to her.
“Oh, there it is…” Sabrina said. “I was looking for it.”
“The Titanium Miracle Brush,” I said. “Only a few hundred exists since it was released as a special incubator project.”
“How do you know about the Titanium Miracle Brush?” Sabrina asked.
“My parents company manufactured it,” I said. I remembered it was one of their last products before they died mysteriously.
“Wait?” Sabrina asked. “You have parents? I thought you were an orphan.”
“Yes, I had parents. And yes, I am also technically an orphan.”
I pointed at the hairbrush. “It’s dented.”
“Oh no!” Sabrina cried. “My only one. The store I got this from said there’s no more. This is the only one I have, and I need it.”
“I think I can get another one…if I can get back to my company. I used to help run my parent’s business, and I worked on the brush myself.”
“So you know all about what it could do…” Sabrina asked. “Don’t tell anyone I’m losing my hair and thinning…or else.”
“Are you threatening me?” I asked. “Because if you are, that dented hairbrush would be the last one you’ll ever have. I was thinking I might be able to find one for you, but now…forget it. You can kiss your full head of red hair good-bye.”
Sabrina looked torn. “I’ve tried everything but my hair still keeps falling out in clumps. Until I started using the Miracle Brush, I was afraid of losing it all. The Miracle Brush was truly a miracle. My hair stopped falling out and the brush actually massaged my scalp to help promote hair growth. It really worked, and if I don’t have that brush, I’d go bald.”
“I’ll get you a brush then, Sabrina.”
Her face lit up. “You could find one?”
“I can make one…I helped with the product development, design, and soft launch.”
“You’re that much of a genius?” Sabrina asked.
“Yeah. I’m smart like that,” I said.
“Smarter than Veronica then,” Sabrina said. “She thinks she’s so smart, but then she does really stupid things.”
“Smart people can do dumb things sometimes. But they learn from it and
change their ways. So what stupid things did Veronica do?”
“Oh lots of things. Maybe I shouldn’t tell. She’d kill me. Literally kill me, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. She pretty much runs a lot of things, and everyone has to jump when she tells you to, although you’re both princesses.”
“True,” Sabrina said. “You know what?”
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t really like Veronica. I think she’s mean, not so pretty, and she even farts a lot.”
“Oh…I didn’t know that,” I said.
“I only put up with her as her sidekick because if I don’t she threatened to bomb my parent’s palace.”
“What? That’s horrible,” I said. “She threatened lots of students here at Kingsbury with the same thing.”
“Really? I didn’t know that,” Sabrina said. “So are they her sidekicks too, then?”
“No, you’re the only one who she’s conned into thinking they need to be doing her dirty work or she’ll bomb your country. No one else believes her.”
Sabrina’s face was in shock at first and then rage.
“You mean all this time I was kissing and wiping her butt, she really has no power? She can’t really bomb my parent’s palace?”
“Do you really think her parents, the King and Queen of Normandy, would waste their bombs on a country they have no dispute with and start a war that would kill hundreds of thousands of people in their country and yours because of their spoiled brat daughter wanting to get you to be her sidekick?”
“Maybe they would,” Sabrina said.
“If they did, then their people will revolt and topple their regime,” I said.
Sabrina looked like she wanted to cry. “I put up with her crap for so long…no one wants to be the part 2 of Q2 and be the sidekick. It’s humiliating.”
She started crying. I reached over to hug her.
“It’s so lonely here at Kingsbury,” she cried. “So I thought Veronica was my friend, but she ended up just using me and making me do bad things to other kids here. I’m always the one to blame, and she treats me so horribly.”
“You can make other friends,” I said. “Not everyone here is like Veronica. There are nice people. But first, you have to decide for yourself if you want to continue being used by Veronica or to be your own person. You know…the parents who send their children here to Kingsbury, usually expect their children to become their own person, to become leaders, not someone’s sidekick.”
“True,” Sabrina said. “My parents expect me to rule a province one day.”
“Then I guess maybe you should stop being Veronica’s sidekick.”
“You know, Tempest. You’re right. Veronica’s not here to tell me what to do anyways.”
“I knew you were smarter than Veronica wanted you to seem,” I said.
“She wanted me to look dumber because she wasn’t so smart herself. You know, I came up with some of the plans she wanted to do to you because of the Black Envelope decree.”
“You did? Care to tell me how brilliant they are?”
“Yeah, one was where we trick you into thinking Veronica’s kidnapped your sister and was going to kill her unless you give up Kaz and leave Kingsbury.”
My entire body filled with rage then, but I just nodded.
“Another was a plot where we kidnap you and sell you into prostitution in some black market somewhere you could never be found.”
“Those are really criminal,” I said, wanting to tear her head off.
“But since I’m not going to listen to what Veronica wants, I’m not going to carry those plots out. I’ll do the opposite just to make her mad. I’ll hold off on doing any Black Envelope bullying while she’s gone.”
“Smart,” I said. “Don’t do her bidding. Let her do things herself if she wanted it so much.”
“I’m through with being her sidekick.”
“So if you agree to not carry out any plans you and Veronica had for me and K3 because of Black Envelope, I’ll get you another Miracle Brush. Deal?” I stuck out my hand for her to shake it.
“Deal,” Sabrina said, shaking my hand.
“Good. If you go back on it,” I said, “K3 would go after you with a vengeance.”
Sabrina shivered. “That sounds scary but also so sexy.”
“Nah, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of their wrath. Nothing sexy about dying.”
I walked away then.
As much as I was glad she and I reached an understanding…her plots to kill me and my sister was too disturbing. I wasn’t sure if I’d saved her from the wrath of Veronica only to have created a monster in Sabrina.
Chapter 8
Happy with the turnaround with Sabrina, I finished dressing into my gym clothes and was heading out to gym class where Sabrina had already gone, and Ori was waiting for me, when two hands grabbed me.
One punched me in the face.
Two more pair of hands pulled my arms behind me while someone kicked me in the stomach.
“That’s for being a commoner lying whoring bitch who snuck into our school,” a female voice said.
Someone slapped me, “That’s for stealing our King and the Crown Princes Hunter and Orion, turning them into useless puppets of yours.”
They were about to pummel me when I kicked the person who slapped me, away from me. She flew back, hitting two other students who had bats in their hands.
I twisted and used my head to head butt one girl who was holding me in place. Then I head butt the other until I was free to use my arms.
“You should know not to mess with Tempest Storm, you fucking bitches!” I roared, my rage to the point I would twist and break their necks when I get to them.
I grabbed the nearest girl who had punched me before and pulled her hair so hard it ripped off her hair and tore off the scalp. “You’ve been scalped, Bitch!”
She cried out in pain, and I kicked her out of my way so hard, she flew to the lockers and landed with a thud.
The girl who kicked me was next, and I pulled off her ponytail from the back of her head along with the scalp and shoved it into the mouth of another girl, kicking her so she swallowed it. “You’ll be shitting scalp out tomorrow bitch!”
I turned to them all, rage burning through my veins.
“Fuck you ugly fucking bitches! I’m going to make you all shit out your own scalps!” I roared.
I made my way punching, kicking and tearing out all their scalps until they were bald and bleeding. Crying like the stupid little fucking bitches that they were.
The two girls carrying bats froze when I reached them, their eyes wide open with fright. I pried their hands from their bats and slammed the bats into their crotch so hard, bones broke. They collapsed onto the ground. “Don’t carry a weapon that you don’t know how to use or it will be used against you, broken bone bitches,” I screamed into their unconscious pale faces.
I looked around me to see who else was still around. If they were lucky to have fled, they were gone, but for the ones still around…
The last one standing was Veronica’s cousin, Holly Deville.
She looked angry and not at all impressed.
“Is that all you’ve got?” she asked.
“Is that all you’ve got,” I asked back.
“Go fuck yourself!” she snarled.
“No. You. Go. Fuck. Yourself!” I rushed towards her in a flying kick and knocked her so hard against the lockers, she left a dent the size of a crater before she slid down.
She got up and start running towards me with a flying kick, but I ducked.
“You’re not the only girl who knows how to fight,” she cried out, wiping the blood that fell from her mouth.
“No, that’s good girls know how to fight, too,” I said. “I’m all for empowering girls. But you…” I was about to jump kick her, but she beat me to it…flying in the air with her kick.
I twisted and duck far down to the ground but reached up to grab her crotch,
which wasn’t what I expected. It was a dick.
I twisted and crushed it as hard as I could, breaking her/his sack of balls. “Busted!”
Holly screamed out in an unearthly horrible scream before falling to the ground convulsing in pain.
I pulled down her pants and confirmed Holly was a He-lly. Taking out my phone, I snapped a photo of the crushed sack of balls with the caption, “Holly DeVille is a He-lly GoneVille”.
I called Ms. Turlington and told her what happened.
“I’ll be right there,” she said.
By the time she arrived, gym class was over, and Ori was waiting outside the girl’s locker room.
“Why weren’t you in gym class, Tempest? I wanted to check on you in the girl’s locker room, but I couldn’t.” He pulled me aside and searched my face, seeing the bruise that had formed on my cheek where I was slapped.
“My poor Tempest,” he gingerly touched my cheeks. “I wished I was there to have protected you. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, Ori, I let Tempest Storm out, and she pretty much beat the crap out of all of them.”
Ori couldn’t help grinning as he watched girl after girl being carried out in stretchers.
Ms. Turlington came out with the last one who was carried out, Holly DeVille, and said, “I got one who confessed to a plan to beat you senseless to a pulp. Seems like it didn’t go their way. I want you to know, Tempest, they are all expelled. I’m just relieved and glad you know how to fight or it could’ve been you being carried out in a stretcher.”
“Thanks, Ms. Turlington,” I said.
“I nearly died when I saw that video revealing you were an underground fighting champ. But now I’m glad you are.”
“I’m relieved you’re taking it so positively,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Thank you, Tempest, for sticking it out. I’m so sorry for what happened. Anyone else would probably have fled by now.”
“Yeah, I’m a lot tougher than anyone thinks,” I said.
Ori said, “I’ll vouch for that, Ms. Turlington. I’m the guy in the video she defeated.”
