School was just about bearable. I put on my fiercest resting bitch face, sucked up the Night Keepers’ bullshit and even got to partner with Mila in English for an assignment. Not that I told her what they’d done to me. I gave her a false smile and said nothing could hurt me. I had a heart of iron. And by the time I was back in The Temple, cooking dinner for the assholes who owned me, I wished I did.
I’d made many wishes in my life; wishes on stars, wishes on birthday candles, wishes in wells. And I’d wasted them all. Because if I could exchange just one of them to replace my heart with a lump of cold, hard metal then fighting back against them would have been easy.
Every time I saw them laughing and smirking together, I thought of those letters. I thought of all of those private words being poured secretly into those pages only to be burned out of existence. And my heart felt it all.
When I’d finished washing the dishes at seven thirty, Saint called me upstairs. There had been few words shared between any of us today. I’d answered their requests with as little syllables as possible and done all of it with a mask of indifference on my face.
My stomach knotted as I headed across the room, feeling Kyan and Blake’s eyes on me from the couch. We had detention with Monroe at eight and I wished he’d done me the favour of only giving it to the Night Keepers. A couple of hours here alone would have been a dream come true. Even if they’d locked me in the bathroom.
I made it to the top of the staircase, finding Saint lying on the bed and gazing up at the vaulted ceiling. He’d somehow managed not to wrinkle the sheets around him and was dressed for a workout like Monroe had requested. His grey T-shirt clung to his muscular frame and his feet hung over the end of the bed despite the fact that his designer sneakers didn’t have a speck of dirt on them.
He patted the space beside him. “Lie down,” he commanded and I clenched my jaw as I approached, sighing as I dropped down, making sure not a single hair on my head touched him. I gazed up at the high ceiling above, the wooden rafters curving overhead in a beautiful display of craftsmanship.
“Your silence is boring me,” he drawled and I felt him turn to look at me, though I didn’t repay the favour.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked innocently, knowing he’d hate that. As much as he wanted my compliance, he wanted me to fight back even more. They’d all made that clear. And today, I was not going to rise to it.
“You could start by apologising,” he said in a growl, a note of amusement in his tone.
I bit down on my tongue, my heart screaming in my chest.
“Well?” he pressed in a cold voice, a threat living between the letters.
“I’m sorry,” I forced out on a breath. “Sorry that your mother is the only woman in the world who will ever love you. I’m sorry that your life has been so empty that you have to fill it with pointless, expensive things. And I’m sorry you have to break those things when they don’t bring you the happiness you so deeply fucking crave, Saint.”
My words hung in the air for a full minute before I turned my head to look at him, waiting for the wolf to bite back. His gaze was on the ceiling and his jaw was ticking with an unreadable kind of anger. One that didn’t seem to be directed at me for once.
“You got one thing wrong.” He turned his head to face me and I took in the darkening bruise across the bridge of his nose with the sweetest kind of satisfaction. “My mother loves her other sons, but not me.”
“I thought you were an only child?” I frowned.
“I am, but not if you count Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and even George Washington on those little dollar bills. I guess my complexion didn’t come out green enough for her to love.” He sneered like those words didn’t touch his heart and they probably didn’t. I reckoned if I slammed a knife into Saint’s chest, he’d keep on living like the walking dead. So if it came to it, I really had to remember to aim for the head.
I said nothing. Because nothing was everything sometimes. If he wanted pity from me, he was going to be sorely disappointed. But I didn’t imagine Saint would ever want that from anyone. So I wasn’t really sure what he was angling for.
I moved to sit up, but he planted his arm over my shoulders to make me stay. My skin prickled where he touched me and I fought the shudder he wanted to draw from my flesh.
“And what about your mother?” he asked, though it wasn’t out of politeness or even curiosity. I suspected now that Saint had fired the most powerful ammo he had at me, he was hunting for another magazine to load in his gun.
“Your mother and mine have something in common, Saint. She took half my dad’s money and left when I was three. So feel free to bad mouth her all you like. I’ll even join in.”
He extracted his arm from me then rolled over to prop himself up on his elbows, his gaze travelling over my face, pausing on my lips before slipping to my neck. My breathing came faster as this predator assessed me, then he slowly reached out and laid his hand over my neck like he was about to throttle me. His fingers grazed my pulse and it elevated at his icy touch. My face might not have betrayed my fear, but my heart wasn’t capable of lying.
“Where’s your necklace?” he hissed and my throat closed up.
I acted fast, rearranging my features into confused worry as I lifted a hand to feel the absence of it too. “Shit, I must have lost it.”
His gaze narrowed as he hunted for a lie. My fingers grazed his and his hand twitched at the touch, like for half of half a second he’d considered taking my hand.
“I’ll make sure it’s found,” he said darkly before rising to his feet and straightening down his T-shirt. “Get up and get dressed. We leave in five minutes.” He strode away down the stairs and I sat up, my hand still at my throat. Nothing gets past the devil unnoticed.
I spotted the clothes he’d left for me piled neatly on his nightstand and moved to grab the navy sports bra, matching fitted yoga pants and black Nike sneakers. I was soon dressed and I left my clothes strewn beside the laundry basket to piss Saint off later and headed downstairs.
The guys were all ready to go and I followed them out the door into the cool night air. I didn’t miss the appreciative glances the push-up sports bra served me from Kyan. But despite the night of fun we’d had together, I was now firmly pissed at him. He let Saint get away with whatever he wanted. And any small ounce of humanity I thought I’d seen in him had clearly been a total lie.
“Looking good, baby,” he purred as he waited for me to walk past him on the path so he could check out my ass. I flipped him the finger over my shoulder and his chuckle reached me.
Blake was having trouble keeping his eyes off of me too and I scowled as he offered me a smirk. “There was never any mention of Cinderella’s huge rack in the original story. I like this version better.”
I rolled my eyes at him, quickening my pace so I didn’t have to listen to any more of their shit.
We headed down the track to the right, making our way to the path that led up to the faculty quarters, Maple Lodge. Monroe was waiting for us there on a bench, sitting on the back of it and resting his feet on the seat. He glowered as we approached, looking like a crossroad’s demon ready to bargain for some souls. I’d rather he owned mine than the current possessors though.