Blake’s jaw clenched and I smirked as I watched the rage flare in his eyes again. Grief could wait. Misery, hopelessness, sorrow, all of them could take a running jump off the nearest fucking cliff. Blake was bleeding inside. The wound he’d gained when his mom was killed was bloody and raw. It didn’t need patching up with kind words and tearful moments. It didn’t need nursing with understanding and sympathy. No. He needed to stop that fucker from bleeding. He needed to cauterise it and cut the pain off with one all consuming flame. And nothing burned so hot as rage nor as sweetly as revenge.
“It’s a damn shame you didn’t get any video to go with that recording,” I said slowly, watching as his eyes flashed with the lie he’d told. I’d known he had more than audio, but I hadn’t pushed him to use it. “No girl wants a video of her being fucked shown to everyone she knows, even one who wears her sexuality like a shield.”
“You want me to post that video?” he asked, his lip curling in distaste. He knew I knew and I smiled darkly as we acknowledged each other’s bullshit.
“No,” I replied. “We can do better than that.” And I wasn’t going to admit the fact that a small part of my reasoning for that was selfish. Because Tatum Rivers might have been the spawn of that virus-toting assbiter Donovan Rivers. But she was also the most exquisite creature I’d laid my eyes on in a long damn time. And someone of her caliber wasn’t destined to have the bottom dwelling masses jerking off over her naked flesh. If her body was going to be on show for anyone, it would be us. And us alone.
“How?” Blake demanded, desperation lacing his tone.
“Is your head in the game?” I snarled, because I had a new plan. A real fucking diamond of a plan for our fallen angel, but I wasn’t sharing it with him until he was ready. Until he was in the right head space. Which meant I wanted his rage, his anger, his thirst for vengeance and nothing else.
Blake’s gaze slid to the fucking Rolex beneath my heel and I damn near growled with frustration.
I pushed myself to my feet, driving my heel down with all my strength and the sound of breaking glass cut through the air like a gunshot.
Blake roared at me as the demon in him finally rose its head again and he tackled me with the force of a charging bull.
I laughed as his knuckles slammed into my stomach, my ribs, my chest and the pain of the blows poured through me like rain.
I didn’t even try to fight back for once, letting him have this, letting him unleash a drop of the endless ocean of rage which writhed inside him now.
As his eighth punch landed, he was suddenly hoisted off of me and I barked a laugh as Coach Monroe wheeled Blake around and threw him back down in his chair.
“Do we have a problem here?!” Monroe bellowed and for half a second Blake looked like he was considering punching him in his frowning face.
“No, sir,” I said loudly, as I got to my feet and straightened my blazer. “I just fell down and Blake was trying to help me back up like a good friend.”
“Is that so, Bowman?” Monroe demanded.
He knew it wasn’t true, Miss Pontus knew it wasn’t true, every fucker in the room right down to the big ass fly buzzing around the light fittings knew it wasn’t true. But that didn’t matter. Everyone knew the only truth which ever really mattered was the one spoken by the most powerful person in the room. And ninety nine times out of a hundred, that asshole was Saint Memphis.
“Yeah. Saint’s a clumsy fucker,” Blake growled, folding his arms as he leaned back in his chair.
He had a petulant look on his face like a little bitch but the fire in his eyes was back, just like it had been last night. And I was ready to stoke that flame whenever he needed me to for as long as it took to burn that grief right out of him. Because fuck letting him drown in pain when I could help him bathe in vengeance.
Monroe gave us a long look which said he hated us and everything we stood for which was tough luck for him because the whole world stood for what we did. Money was power. And we were money. Cut me open and I’d bleed green…or gold…or fucking platinum.
He was obviously satisfied that our brawl had come to an end and he stalked away with a contemptuous snort, pausing at Miss Pontus’s desk to speak with her. No doubt he was checking she hadn’t just pissed in those big Bridget Jones panties of hers. She sure as shit hadn’t come wading in to try and stop us and I was willing to bet she’d been doing her Hail Marys with vigour, just praying for a miracle to come save her from having to deal with us. And there he was, her Viking warrior come clad in sweatpants to save the day.
The look our English teacher was giving Coach told me she’d be more than willing to drop the Bridget Jones’s for him, but it didn’t look like he was taking the bait.
Monroe gave her one of those bullshit smiles he reserved for the rest of the staff then turned and beckoned to someone outside the door.
Tatum Rivers stalked into the room with her jaw tight and her hair devilishly un-styled. She was wearing a clean uniform, but she hadn’t taken care over the way it sat and there wasn’t a scrap of makeup on her tanned skin. I normally hated seeing people like that, with less than zero effort put in to anything at all about their appearance. But something about her being dressed like that was captivating. She looked fierce in her disregard for the social requirements – not like she was trying to act like she didn’t give a shit, but like she genuinely gave no shits.
“Miss Rivers seemed to have forgotten what time class started, so I took it upon myself to help her find her way here,” Coach Monroe said in a firm voice which told me he’d gone banging on her door to drag her here. And the look of venom Tatum shot him as she lingered by the door said she didn’t appreciate that at all.
My little Barbie doll had dusted herself off and picked herself up and come back swinging. Hell, it had barely been an hour since we’d torn her apart in front of the entire school and here she was, that chin lifted in defiance and war flashing in her eyes.
I was going to enjoy breaking her so much more than I’d ever even imagined and my pulse spiked as I waited to see what the hell she’d do next.
Kyan swept into the room before I could find out, damn near bowling her over. Blazer missing, sleeves rolled back, tie loose. Fucking dickwad.
His gaze drank in the sight of our new girl and his lips twitched as he recognised the backbone in her too. He looked at her like I imagined a wolf would eye a juicy caribou and she ignored him as surely as if he wasn’t even there.
“I like her,” he said as he dropped into the seat on my left.
“Keep your dick in your pants, the only thing you need to desire from her is her destruction,” I snapped.
I was pissed at him for being late. And dressed like that. And…was that a pair of fucking biker boots? I swear my fucking eye twitched so hard it was in danger of popping out. Only Monroe’s presence saved Kyan from me ripping those disgusting things off of his fucking feet and launching them out of the nearest window. Coach was the only fucker on staff who would punish me for acting out and I didn’t need the drama of that today.
The barest hint of a smirk danced around Kyan’s lips and I wanted to know exactly what he was so fucking happy about. Probably the boots stunt. Fuck him. Sometimes these games he played made me seriously consider cutting him from the inner circle. But if there were only two of us left in the Night Keepers, we’d be playing pretty loosely with the term circle. In all honesty, we were more of a triangle as it currently stood anyway.