Playboy Princes: Royals of Arbon Academy

by Eve, Jaymin

  Oh well, she’d saved me from having to do that in a second.

  When she straightened, reaching out for the long-assed needle that was perched in a metal tray, I swung into action, cracking her right on the temple hard enough to knock her to the ground and hopefully into unconsciousness for a few minutes.

  By the time she hit the floor, I’d already started working on my strapped ankle, and when she staggered back to her feet, I was on mine too, ass hanging out, hospital gown on, and the knowledge that she’d undressed me strong in my mind.

  “How fucking dare you,” I snarled. “You should be ashamed to call yourself a woman.”

  Stepping into her, I cracked her again, this time on her shoulder blade. She cried out, crashing backward and sending her tray of torture tools flying.

  “Women should never hurt each other; we have enough trouble protecting ourselves from the men in this world who want to dominate and control us,” I said, taking a step after her as she scrambled to her feet.

  “I’m just following orders,” she cried, trembling in front of me.

  It was a front though, a distraction as she reached for the needle that had fallen down.

  She underestimated me though. No way would I let her get the drop on me again.

  Moving faster than she expected, I got to the needle before her, lifting it and jamming it straight into her thigh. She cried out, but I didn’t plunge the liquid into her. Nope, I jerked the needle to the right and broke the tip off, leaving it embedded in her leg.

  The nurse screamed, clawing at the puncture wound, and I took the chance to smash my fist into her face again. And again. I did this over and over, burning rage fueling my blows, and it wasn’t until I saw the red on my hands that I registered exactly what I was doing.

  "Shit," I cursed, forcing myself to release Nurse Reller and gagging when her head hit the floor with a sickening thump. "Oh fuck. Fuck. No, no, no, this is bad. This is really freaking bad."

  I'd only ever lost control like that twice before. Once before I’d had any formal fight training, and once after I discovered Alex’s betrayal.

  Swallowing past my panic, I reached out and felt around for the nurse's pulse, sagging in relief when I found it.

  "Holy shit," I gasped, wiping my face on the sleeve of my robe. Sitting back on my feet, I reached for my palm reader and firmly pressed down the emergency button. Surely wherever Jordan—or Rafe—were at this time of night, they shouldn't be more than a few minutes away.

  The thought crossed my mind that if someone walked into the infirmary and found me crouched over the nurse's bloody, beaten form, it might not look so good. It might look like exactly what it was. I'd just beaten the school nurse half to death, and now I needed help from my two playboy princes to cover it up.

  As a precautionary measure, I got up and hauled a filing cabinet in front of the door. It seemed like an easier option than hauling Nurse Reller into a closet. She weighed a fuck load more than I'd have imagined, not to mention all the blood I had no hope of cleaning up.

  After the door was secured, I turned to pacing the floor. Fretting. It didn't even cross my mind to just call anyone, and maybe that spoke to the level of panic running through me. Not over the violence, because that was like second nature to me. But the implications of this... This? Beating the academy nurse unconscious? Pretty sure that fell under a whole other jurisdiction than a simple academic suspension.

  I didn't know how much time passed, but when the filing cabinet jerked as someone slammed into the door, I startled in fright.

  "Violet!" Rafe shouted through the tiny gap he'd created in the door.

  I didn't spare any time to question why it was him responding to my emergency beacon and not Jordan. It didn't matter. I just rushed over and pushed the heavy cabinet out of the way, letting him into the room.

  His sharp gaze scanned everything as I slammed the door closed again and leaned my whole weight against it. The disheveled medical bed, the restraints, the tray of medical implements, the bloody, unconscious nurse, and then me—in a damn hospital gown with nothing underneath and skin probably pale as a fucking ghost.

  My tongue darted out, licking my dry lips. "I need your help."

  "I see that," he replied, as calm as a summer’s breeze. "Maybe you should tell me what happened here, Vi."

  Vi. Huh. I couldn't even be sure which version of me he was addressing when he shortened my name like that. Was he speaking to Violet, the girl secretly dating his best friend and pushing his buttons every chance she could get? Or was he talking to Violence, the killer?

  Trouble was, I'd never actually killed anyone before—not for lack of wanting to, but for lack of resources to clean up the crime. Somehow, I doubted this was the right time or place to change that track record.

  "Uh," I started, licking my lips again. Why were they so fucking dry? Was it a side effect of whatever drug that crazy bitch had stuck me with? "I... she... Um..." My thoughts were so scrambled, and it was hard to grab hold of just one. To just explain the line of events as they’d happened. Logically, I knew that also had to be a lingering effect of the drug, but it didn't make things easier to deal with in the heat of the moment.

  A sharp knock on the door saw me damn near jumping out of my skin, but when Jordan entered the room and wrapped me in a tight hug, well, everything seemed calm again.

  "Violet," he breathed, stroking my hair while I clung to him like a life raft. "Baby, what happened here? We need to know before we can do anything."

  I nodded into his chest, understanding what he was saying but not wanting to leave the warm comfort of his embrace. I allowed myself just a few more moments, then took a deep breath to reactivate my tough-girl exterior and stepped away from him.

  "Okay," I said softly. "This is... this is all I know."

  I told the two of them everything I could remember, from getting jabbed in the neck with a needle, to waking up strapped to the medical bed, to Alex walking away and washing his hands of whatever Nurse Reller wanted to do to me... and finally, to how I'd freed myself.

  "It's okay," Jordan assured me, closing me into another warm hug and melting my hardened walls once more. "Sweetheart, it's okay. We'll take care of this, I promise you."

  While Jordan whispered sweet nothings in my ear, my eyelids flicked open just in time to see Rafe pull an eight-inch dagger from his belt and slice it across Nurse Reller's throat.

  I didn't react. I didn't even flinch. Blood sprayed out in an arc, coating the sterile whiteness of the infirmary. Just like that, the resident rape-y nurse died with barely a gurgle and I just relaxed further into Jordan's embrace.

  What the fuck did that say about me now?

  Chapter 26

  Blood mixed with water and stained the tiles of my shower red. It pooled and swirled, disappearing down the drain. It seemed so easy to wash away the blood. Just a bit of water and it was gone. Like tonight had never happened.

  "I should have finished her myself," I finally said, tearing my eyes away from the blood running down my drain. It wasn't my blood—for once—but that simple fact seemed to be tripping me up more than normal. Nurse Reller wouldn't have stood a fucking chance against me in a fair fight, but then, it hadn’t been a fair fight, had it? She’d drugged me, strapped me to a table, planned to violate me against my will...

  "Too bad," Rafe replied, his tone holding no sympathy. "If you wanted to kill her, you should have done it before you called me."

  Anger crackled through me, and I pumped soap a bit too aggressively into my hand, almost knocking the bottle off the shelf. "I didn't call you," I snarled. "And I didn't want to kill her."

  Rafe snorted a laugh, meeting my gaze over the frosted shower glass. "Sure you didn't, Vi."

  I swallowed a growl of anger as I spread the soap all over me and scrubbed with a rough loofah. Like scrubbing four layers of my skin off would help to remove the feeling of being violated.

  "Look," Jordan said, ever the peacemaker. "The fact remains
that she couldn't be left alive. It was too risky. Not only could she have reported Violet for physical violence, she could have tried the same bullshit again. Who knows what might have happened if that sedative had lasted longer."

  I huffed, dousing my hair in water. The fact that they were both lurking in the bathroom hadn't escaped my notice, no matter how shaken up I was about what had happened with the creepy nurse. The glass door of my shower was frosted enough from knee to neck that they couldn't actually see anything... but still.

  "What happens now?" I asked, when my hair was wet enough to shampoo. I wasn't taking any chances on finding a stray droplet of blood later. Every freaking inch of me needed to be spotless. "It wasn't exactly the cleanest of deaths."

  Yeah, I was throwing stones inside my glass house. I'd already splattered the infirmary with blood before the guys had even shown up. But Rafe slitting her throat like that sure as fuck hadn't helped matters.

  "I've called some of my people in," Rafe said, drumming his fingertips on the marble vanity top beside him. He was sitting beside my en-suite sink, his dark head against the mirror but his gaze locked on me. No matter how much he tried to pretend it wasn’t.

  I bit my lip, not replying as I carefully massaged shampoo through my hair, rinsed it out, then squirted conditioner into my palm.

  "You guys don't have to babysit me," I finally said, smearing the cream between my palms, then rubbing it through my hair, starting at the ends, then working my way to the midsections. "I'm fine."

  "No one said you weren't," Jordan replied. He was sitting on my closed toilet seat, flipping through screens on his palm reader at an impressive speed. Every now and then, though, I could feel his eyes on me. Worried. Caring. Hungry.

  "Can we speed things up on the virus?" Rafe asked his friend. "I'd feel better if he was in a holding cell before the Spring Ball." By "he" he clearly meant Alex. When I'd told them about his part in Nurse Reller's plans, they'd both looked worse than murderous.

  "Agreed," Jordan murmured, still typing and scrolling at a rapid pace. "I'll see what I can do. In the meantime... Zach is going to be a bigger problem than we had prepared for."

  Rafe let out a long sigh, closing his eyes. I paused in rinsing my conditioner out because I was pretty sure that was the first time I'd ever seen him show any sign of weakness. For the briefest of moments, he looked exhausted.

  Sometimes I forgot who I was friends with. Jordan was the crown prince of New America, destined to rule the second most influential kingdom in the world. Rafe? Rafe quite seriously held the weight of the universe on his shoulders. When his father either abdicated or died, he would be our planet's most powerful monarch. It was no fucking wonder he was such a prickly bitch at the best of times. I wouldn't trade places with him for all the money on Earth.

  "He’s not going to easily convince me to be a Society member," I said into the dead air, addressing Jordan's earlier comment. “And why would they even want that, me being an orphan and all…?” I was assuming that’s what he meant by Zach being an issue. Or maybe I was way off.

  Jordan gave a small laugh, looking over at me from his palm reader display. "Babe, you were practically fucking born to be in the Society, no matter how much we'd rather you stay out of it."

  Rafe scoffed a laugh of his own. "He's right. You even have an ancient royal surname, like a big old fuck you to the monarchies. The upper level members of the Society are probably frothing harder than they did the day Jordy and I joined."

  That reminded me. "I was wondering how that worked," I admitted. I'd officially finished washing every damn inch of myself and hesitated a moment before tossing my modesty and insecurity out the metaphorical window. "Pass me a towel?" I shut the water off and cracked the shower door just enough to poke my hand out.

  Jordan was engrossed in whatever he was doing on his palm reader, so Rafe slid off my vanity and approached with a towel in his hands. The look on his face, though? Pure evil.

  "Rafe," I snapped when he stopped with it just out of my reach. "Pass me the damn towel."

  The corners of his mouth tilted up, and his eyes flashed with challenge. "Come and get it, Cinderella."

  Muttering curses at him, I shoved the shower door open and reached for the towel. But he pulled it out of my reach at the last second, forcing me to chase it. Naked.

  "What are you doing?" I asked him in a quiet voice, grabbing at the towel and ending up pressed to his chest.

  Rafe just smirked, releasing my towel and bringing his hands to my waist. His head dipped, and I gasped, my eyes darting to Jordan a split second before Rafe's mouth met mine. He kissed me long and hard, his hands sliding over my wet skin to grab my ass and I squeaked in surprise.

  "Rafe," I breathed, pushing back an inch—as far as he'd let me go. "What are you doing?" I looked over to Jordan again and found him staring at us, his palm reader forgotten for the moment. His face was carefully neutral, but when his eyes took in Rafe's hand on my naked ass, his jaw clenched.

  "What does it look like I'm doing?" Rafe whispered back, grabbing my earlobe between his teeth and sending shivers of pure, undiluted desire coursing through me. "I'm staking a claim." His lips caressed my neck, sucking the flesh and dragging a small, involuntary moan from me.

  Dammit.

  Jordan stood up abruptly, closing the display on his palm reader, then stalking out of the bathroom. The door slammed after him, and I shoved Rafe away from me.

  "Why did you do that?" I demanded, scowling at him as I wrapped the towel around my naked body. I needed some form of armor, even if it was just a bath sheet.

  He gave a one-shouldered shrug, swiping his thumb over his lower lip, like he was still savoring the taste of my mouth. "Knowing something in theory and seeing it with your own eyes can sometimes elicit very different responses. It was about damn time he faced reality."

  I scoffed, grabbing another towel out of the vanity and rough-drying my hair. My glare fixed on him in the mirror, but he didn't look even the slightest bit remorseful.

  "Oh yeah?" I pushed. "And what reality is that, exactly? That his best friend is an insensitive asshole?" Yes, I was shoving all the blame onto Rafe, despite the fact that I'd kissed him back.

  Rafe chuckled, a dark, self-deprecating sound. "Oh, beautiful girl, he already knew that." He stepped closer, crowding me against the vanity and laying his hands possessively on my waist once more. "But the reality is that I want you, and I'm no longer satisfied with quick hate fucks in dark corners." His gaze met mine in the mirror, and I shuddered at the dark desire reflected back at me. "And Jordan needed to know... that you want me, too."

  He dropped a light kiss to the bend of my neck, then left the bathroom.

  I stood there a long time, staring at myself in the mirror and wondering how in the gods damned hell Rafe thought now was a good time to push the issue of our love triangle. Now. After the three of us had just killed the academy nurse in the middle of the night.

  Not that it was an actual love triangle. That implied there was love involved, and I wasn't stupid enough to go putting my heart on the line again so soon. Not with the two biggest playboy princes in the whole academy. No way.

  Chapter 27

  When I'd finally emerged from the bathroom, the tension between the boys was gone and things seemed almost back to normal. Almost.

  A part of me wondered if maybe Rafe had been right to push the issue. I didn’t want to be deceiving Jordan in any way—all cards on the table so to speak—and it wasn’t like he hadn’t been aware there was a thing with Rafe. Hell, we’d even talked about it briefly. But this was undeniable proof that the “thing” was still happening. Jordan was now very much aware that he wasn’t the only prince currently in my life.

  No hurt feelings was my new motto.

  The next morning both guys showed up on my doorstep dressed in their soccer uniforms and escorted me over to Mattie's room. Rafe made sure she knew I wasn't to wander off alone at any point. Like I was a toddler or some bullsh
it.

  "What happened last night?" Mattie asked me when my guard dogs had left us to warm up for their game. "They're next level protective today."

  I sighed, flopping down on her bed and covering my face with a pillow. There was no reason I shouldn't tell her about the whole thing, unless it somehow implicated her in the murder.

  I trusted Rafe to cover it up, the same way I trusted Jordan to send that virus out undetected, but they were both human, and sometimes mistakes were made.

  Mattie suffering for my mistake was not cool with me.

  “Vi,” she said softly, and I lifted my head to meet her gaze. “You’ve been distant lately, and I’ve been giving you space with everything that’s happening, but… is it me? Did I do something to upset you?”

  Fuck. “No!” I said immediately, shifting closer to her. “Fuck no, Mattie. You’re the best friend a chick could hope for in this royal-infested world. From day one you’ve had my back, and I couldn’t be more grateful that I met you.”

  My chest hurt, and when she threw her arms around me, everything inside of me went all gooey.

  The decision was made for me then. I couldn’t keep her in the dark about everything.

  “Okay, you’re gonna wanna sit for this,” I said as we pulled apart.

  She looked down at the obvious fact that we were already sitting on her bed, and a burst of laughter left us both. “Whatever it is,” she said, her humor fading, “you know I will still have your back.”

  “I know,” I said, nodding. “And I’ve been trying to protect you a little from the drama of my life, from any repercussions of my actions, but I hate not talking to you about everything. I promise to stop hiding shit.”

  Taking a deep breath, I proceeded to tell her everything that had been happening lately. The fight, Alex and his threats, Alex’s parents, the virus we had set into motion, her fiancé’s offer regarding the resistance, and finally, the fucking creepy, rapey, cuntey nurse.