Savage Royals

by Callie Rose

  I sighed. “Good call. The last thing you want is to be in Adena’s crosshairs. She seems to seriously have it out for me.”

  “Yeah, just like all the Royals. I don’t know what you did, but God, girl. Stop it.”

  I laughed. “We both know I’m innocent.”

  Although after my conversation with Jacqueline, I’d started to wonder if their grudge against me was less about something I’d done and more about who I was. A Hildebrand. Did they resent that I’d come from nothing and was now poised to inherit an empire that rivaled theirs in wealth and power? I hadn’t grown up in this world, but I was Charlotte Hildebrand’s daughter, and my name still bore the weight of my family’s legacy.

  “Honestly, you have to remember that Adena is here for one reason,” Leah said, flipping her book open again. “She wants to snag a husband.”

  That caught my attention.

  My head whipped up, and I stared at her before I burst out laughing. “What? We’re in high school. Who the hell thinks about a husband at our age?”

  “The Royals,” she shrugged, not laughing with me. “They take it really seriously.”

  “So, what? The thousands of dollars in tuition is considered a matchmaking fee? The actual education part isn’t important?” I scoffed.

  “It is, just not as important as meeting someone and securing a good connection. These rich families don’t wait until college to start matchmaking. Honestly? A marriage tie could be worth billions and the families don’t mess around making sure the best fit for their family name is found.”

  “Holy shit.” I blinked, staring at my notes but not really seeing them. “That’s insane.”

  “No argument there.” She swatted at my arm, grinning. “Now leave me alone. I’m trying to study.”

  Chapter 11

  I passed the English Lit test.

  Barely.

  It was short answer format, which was my least favorite, and everything I’d shoved into my brain the night before felt like a jumbled mess as I tried to spew it out in somewhat coherent sentences.

  Mason finished early and leaned back in his desk, legs spread wide in a casual stance, long fingers playing over the silk of his tie as he watched me struggle. He looked thoughtful more than malicious, but I’d learned not to trust his expressions. Usually when his face was the softest, that was when he was about unleash the most cruelty.

  But I passed. I didn’t let him or Adena win.

  All my classes ramped up after that. The teachers had apparently been taking it easy on us for the first month and a half, and they kicked things into high gear before Halloween rolled around.

  On Halloween, I went to a party with Leah. I didn’t want to, but she talked me into it—mostly because I’d accidentally let slip that I was a sucker for dressing up. I loved costumes, although I hadn’t actually gotten to celebrate Halloween in years.

  The party was off-campus, at a luxurious mansion in the hills outside of Roseland. An enormous infinity pool was set into the hillside overlooking the town in the distance, and the giant house was full of girls dressed as slutty versions of various characters and guys drinking from red Solo cups.

  Adena and Mason got into another fight, and even though I tried to stay out of it, she didn’t need much of an excuse to turn her anger on me. After Mason stormed off, she tripped me by the pool and shoved me into the water. The kids who were already swimming laughed at me and played keep-away with my phone, which I’d hoped I might be able to salvage if I got it out of the water quick enough.

  No such fucking luck.

  Leah—who’d been my ride—offered to ditch the party early and drive me home. I think she felt bad for making me go in the first place, but I couldn’t really be mad at her. She’d made a good argument when she was trying to talk me into it—that if I never showed my face at these things, if I holed up in my room forever, the Princes and everyone else would think they’d won.

  And they hadn’t.

  I was still fucking here.

  As we ducked out of the party, my fairy wings torn and bedraggled and my wet shoes leaving little puddles in their wake, I noticed Finn slouched on a couch in the huge living room. Ashley Hernandez was draped over his body like a human blanket, rubbing against him like she was trying to start a fucking fire. Elijah and Cole were sprawled nearby, each with a girl of their own.

  Finn’s hands casually palmed Ashley’s ass, which was hanging out of her booty shorts, but he was engrossed in a conversation with the other two Princes even as he rocked her against his body and she dropped sloppy kisses along his neck.

  My stomach twisted, a barrage of images I’d been trying to forget assaulting my mind.

  Finn’s hand on the wall.

  The look of ecstasy on his face.

  The corded muscles of his neck.

  The tension in his forearm.

  …the look on his face when he opened his eyes and saw me.

  “Hey, Tal?” Leah grabbed my dripping elbow. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I shook my head, trying to dispel the sick feeling in my gut. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  As I turned away, Finn’s gaze flicked toward me. His brows drew together as he noticed the state I was in, and he sat up a little straighter, pushing Ashley off him. But before I could see anything else, Leah and I were through the door, heading out into the warm night to find her car.

  She threw a couple towels she had in her trunk over the seat, and on the drive back to Oak Park, I leaned back against the headrest, inhaling the floral, ocean-scented air. Lights glittered in the distance as we worked our way down into the valley, and beyond them stretched the dark vastness of the ocean.

  It looked so beautiful.

  So peaceful.

  “You know,” I murmured, my eyelids growing heavy, “this place would be paradise if it weren’t for all the fucking people.”

  Leah laughed softly.

  “Aw. Sad, tipsy Talia is the saddest Talia there is.” Then she reached over and squeezed my knee, the fake nails she’d worn for her sexy devil costume glinting in the moonlight. “Sorry, girl.”

  “It’s okay.” I focused on the ocean in the distance, trying to find some of its strength and calm in myself. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  I stretched on the barre and extended my leg as high as it would go. When I’d pushed just a fraction of an inch beyond my previous limit, I held it there, breathing slow and steady, letting my body adjust to this new benchmark. A twinge of pain radiated out from my knee, and I grunted softly, backing off a bit.

  I’d been getting impatient lately, but that was only because I’d been making such good progress. The last thing I needed was to get overeager and push too far, too fast. I didn’t want to undo all the solid work I’d done over the past two months.

  Finn lounged against the opposite wall like always. He’d been coming every day since the afternoon I’d walked in on him and Ashley, and most of the time, he never said a word. All he did was watch me and tap away on his phone.

  He hadn’t mentioned what happened at the Halloween party the previous weekend, and neither had I. There was nothing to say anyway. Getting shoved into a pool by Adena was just one incident in a long string of bullying and pranks I’d endured—it hardly stood out as the worst.

  Leah and I had gone into Roseland the next day to buy me a new phone, and my glass-half-full friend had insisted I get the fanciest one in the store, since my old phone had been an ancient piece of shit.

  “Does it hurt?”

  Finn’s voice startled me so much that I nearly let go of the barre and fell on my face. My hand gripped it tighter, and I glanced at him in surprise. He peered at me, his head cocked to one side and his phone held lightly in his hands, the screen black. I thought maybe he was screwing with me, but the look on his face was full of curiosity, not malice for once.

  I shrugged lightly. “Sometimes.”

  “For everyone or just you?”

  “Probably for me more than other
s. I mean, all dancers starting out have to go through pushing their bodies to the limit and training themselves to deal with pain. I just haven’t had that kind of practice in a while, and I have an… an old injury. So now that I’m pushing harder, my body is revolting.”

  He nodded. I watched him drag his backpack over before he dug inside of it. When he found what he was looking for, he stood up and walked over to me. My heart hammered in my chest, distrust warring with my own rising curiosity. What is he doing?

  As he stepped close—too close—the scent of citrus invaded my nostrils. He smelled warm and fresh, and I found myself taking a deep breath and holding it, as if trying to absorb the aroma. It should be completely illegal for someone to look and smell so good and be a complete asshole.

  “Here. This’ll help.”

  He opened the round container and pushed a finger against the contents, then rubbed it on my knee. I jolted at the feeling of his skin against mine, but he was calm and cool about it, as if he touched me like this all the time.

  As if I were his to touch.

  His fingers glided down my leg, rubbing gently as he massaged the balm into my skin. It smelled earthy and minty, and its warmth seemed to seep down into my muscles even as another, more powerful heat gathered in my low belly. I couldn’t tear my eyes from him until he pulled away, leaving my breath caught in my throat.

  “How does that feel?”

  I blinked and lifted my leg. Slowly, I pushed forward and back, bending and extending it. The pain I’d felt before had been a roar, but it’d dulled to a growl that wasn’t nearly as bad. I blinked up at him.

  “Good. Thank you. That’s… better than it’s felt in a long time,” I admitted.

  “Put your other one up here and I’ll do that too.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m sure I can do it myself,” I said quickly, reaching for the jar in his hand.

  Finn scoffed, pulling it away as a hint of the usual derision returned to his face. “You think I’m letting you shove your fingers in this? Do you know how much this shit costs? A lot. Put your other leg up if you want me to put it on you.”

  I reluctantly gave in, switching my weight to my left foot and putting my right heel up on the barre to give him access to my leg.

  This time I knew what was coming, but that didn’t make me any more prepared. I sucked in an audible breath as his large palms moved over my calf, then bit my lip quickly to muffle the sound.

  Finn’s warm amber gaze lifted to my face for a second, and his hands tightened briefly, enclosing my leg completely. All the blood in my brain seemed to rush straight to my lower body, and I licked my lips helplessly.

  His lips were pursed as he concentrated, but I watched the pulse in his neck jump as he ran his hand up my thigh and held it there a second. Finally, he pulled his palm away and capped the container before he nodded.

  “There. Now you should stop making those ridiculous hissing noises every time you try to move.”

  I stared at him as I set down my right foot. “You heard that?”

  “You’re not exactly quiet.” He laughed.

  It was the first time I’d seen him laugh when it wasn’t directed at some misfortune I was experiencing. It brightened up his face and made him look almost angelic. The dimples on either side of his full lips were perfect mirrors of each other, and I had the sudden strange impulse to touch them, to caress his beautiful, tan skin. To absorb the sunshine he seemed to radiate in this moment.

  I clenched my hands into fists just to make sure I wouldn’t be stupid enough to actually do it. Just like touching a butterfly’s wings, if I touched him now, it would kill the sunshine—turn it back to ash.

  Resetting my position at the barre, I shook my head quickly and went back to practicing as he walked over and put away the container.

  “How did you know to use that stuff?” I asked, peeking at him in the reflection of the mirror.

  “I use it before and after every football practice. I’ve been playing since I was like ten, so by now my body is pretty shit.” He laughed again, running a hand through his hair. “You can only get hit so many times and not break a bone or dislocate things.”

  “How many times have you gotten hurt like that?”

  Finn counted quietly. “At least three or four times.”

  I stared. “You’re kidding! What the fuck? I broke both my legs and that was all the pain I ever want to experience. How do you deal with it? Why does it keep happening?”

  He waved a hand. “My dad can afford the best doctors, so they fix me right up. Then I get some really strong pain meds and spend a few weeks high out of my mind. You can’t be in pain if you take pills every five minutes and sleep all day. It hurts worst in the few weeks after I start practicing and playing football again, but I always try to get back as quick as I can after an injury. And it keeps happening because I’m the Oak Park quarterback. Every time I step onto the field someone’s dying to knock my legs out from under me.”

  Damn, that’s intense.

  I couldn’t imagine how hard that had to be, although I definitely knew what it felt like to constantly be the target of someone’s hatred. I wanted to point that out to him, but I decided not to push my luck. For once, he was talking to me like we weren’t mortal enemies, and I didn’t want the temporary peace to end yet.

  “Shit. That sounds awful.”

  He just shrugged, making a what are you gonna do face.

  My legs still tingled slightly from the balm, and I shook them out before moving to the floor to work on a staggered bridge. I lay on my back and braced my hands next to my head, then pushed up from the floor, lifting and arching my spine as I extended one leg above me. This move didn’t hurt at all, but it challenged my strength and stretched my joints in a pleasant way.

  Finn watched me, even craned his neck to get a better view. I bit my lip to hide a laugh as he checked me out. He almost seemed impressed.

  “Jesus. Your body does some weird-ass shit.”

  “It’s called flexibility.” I grinned, pointing and flexing my foot before lifting it a little higher. “And you need it to be a dancer.”

  He whistled softly. “Damn, Legs. You’ve got me beat.”

  I froze for a second in the process of switching feet, my heart lurching in my chest.

  Finn and the other Princes usually called me Idaho, with the trash heavily implied. But when he called me Legs, it didn’t sound like an insult.

  It sounded almost like a compliment.

  I pulled my gaze away from him, going through a few more stretches in silence while I tried to get my pulse under control. It shouldn’t matter whether Finn was impressed or not; I shouldn’t care what he thought. And besides, this room was some kind of weird neutral territory outside the battleground of the school—like Switzerland. Anything he said in here didn’t count.

  He was still watching me though, his eyes still full of that same warm curiosity and a dash of humor. It was unnerving me, disarming me, so I blurted the first thing I could think of to make him stop staring at me in silence.

  “So, why do you do it then? Why do you keep playing football if you know you’re going to get hurt?”

  Finn smiled, gazing past me. He seemed almost wistful, and that look made him even softer, more pure and real than I’d ever seen before. He shook his head.

  “’Cause I love it. Why do anything, you know? Yeah, I might get hurt, but it’s so worth it. The minute I get out there on that field, the world is mine. I’m pumped and ready to go. I don’t know, there’s just something incredible about it. It’s like pure fucking freedom. I first picked up a ball when I was four, and every year after that I wanted to play. I joined the junior leagues, but I was too eager for them.”

  “What, you?”

  He laughed, seeming surprised by my joke. “What can I say? I don’t do things half-assed. I always ended up plowing through the other kids. When I was ten, I finally started to really play, and I never looked back.” He balanced his phone between
the tips of his broad fingers, glancing at me. “Is that weird? Doing something you know will get you hurt but loving it anyway?”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m pretty sure that’s why people do dance. It hurts your entire body. It ages your bones and makes you feel like you’re dying sometimes. But then there’s that moment when you’re on stage.” I sighed happily, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. “The world around you disappears and there’s just you, the music, the movement, the emotion. The crowd doesn’t exist, the pain doesn’t exist. There’s just a story to tell, and your body is the way to tell it.”

  There was a moment of quiet, and then Finn huffed a breath. “Shit, Legs. That’s… yeah, that’s it.”

  I blinked as I came back to reality, realizing I’d said way too much. I hadn’t meant to give anything that vulnerable away.

  “Yep.” I cleared my throat, untwisting my messy bun so I could redo it. “It’s freedom. And having that at our age is usually nowhere near possible.”

  “You get it,” he murmured.

  Finn looked slightly impressed, but he also seemed genuine. He didn’t look plastic and hollow, the way I’d started to think of all of them. All of the Princes seemed almost inhuman sometimes—too gorgeous, too powerful, too much.

  Godlike. Cruel. Untouchable.

  But for the first time, one of them seemed tangible and real.

  Maybe he doesn’t hate me like I thought he did.

  I was painfully aware of the fact that I should hate him. He’d tortured me right along with the others, and he hadn’t gone easy. At that moment, however, I was having a hard time remembering any of that. Not with his honey-brown gaze warming my skin, his dimples flashing as he smiled at me like he’d found someone he could truly relate to.

  We stayed chatting like that the whole time we were in the studio. For the first time since coming to Oak Park, I felt at ease and… happy. I hadn’t realized how hard it had been to be ignored and targeted until the weight lifted for an hour, and I was just a girl talking to a boy about our favorite things in the world.