Reign Check

I tensed. Had he been talking about me? And saying what?

Instead of shock or horror at whatever they’d been discussing regarding yours truly, Melinda looked at me with confusion in her blue eyes.

“I thought you said you didn’t know Rhys,” she said.

Caught in a lie. Not good.

I cleared my throat. “I’d forgotten that we do kind of know each other already.”

“Kind of?”

Rhys smiled, but it looked forced. “It’s a family thing.”

“You two are related?” Brittany asked with interest, twisting a long piece of red hair around her manicured index finger. “That’s so cool!”

Rhys let out a genuine laugh at that, and his face shifted into something much more pleasant. It wasn’t hard to see why Melinda thought he was megahot. “Not even slightly related, trust me. No, our families … well, they’ve never really seen eye to eye on most things, have they, Nikki?”

I didn’t know much about faery-demon relations, but I imagined they weren’t particularly pleasant. After all, faeries wouldn’t need the Shadowlands’ barrier to protect them from the Underworld and Hell if everyone was good buddies with each other, would they?

But my father … well, he was a demon, but he also ruled the Shadowlands, which kept faeries and humans safe from the bad demons. And yet, Rhys wanted to lump him in with the others. Figures.

“You could say that,” I replied stiffly.

Rhys hadn’t taken his eyes off me for a moment since I’d approached the table. “No offense intended, of course, but I’d even go so far as to call Nikki’s family … demonic.”

He wasn’t pulling any punches today, was he?

Melinda’s eyebrows raised. “Wow, that’s harsh. I’ve met Nikki’s mom. She’s really nice.”

“Just my opinion, I guess.” Rhys shrugged.

Not sure why it hadn’t occurred to me yet, but I suddenly realized, crystal clear, that Rhys didn’t just dislike me, he completely hated my guts. Because I was half demon? Or just because I was me?

I cleared my throat, feeling the now-familiar irritation toward him bubbling up to replace my uncertainty. I wanted to hate him in return. It really was the least I could do.

He glowered at me, his irises swirling their strange mix of molten gold and chocolate brown. Was I the only one who could see that very inhuman trait of his? Melinda was looking right at him and wasn’t reacting as if anything was strange, so it had to be true. Maybe he didn’t currently have wings and pointy ears, but he was so not human that I could sense it from ten feet away.

Stress began to mix with frustration as we stared at each other and I clutched my sandwich a bit too tightly, my nails popping right through the plastic container. I looked down to see that my regularly short polished fingernails had turned long, red, and razor sharp. I dropped the sandwich in surprise and whipped my hands behind me to hide them.

Relax, Nikki, I told myself. Right now.

I really didn’t like the way Rhys was affecting me. I had everything totally under control until he arrived unannounced and messed up my concentration.

“Nikki …,” Melinda began, uneasily eyeing both me and Rhys in turn. Luckily, I didn’t think she noticed my unwelcome demon talons make their first high school appearance. “Why don’t you sit down and have some lunch with us?”

I cleared my throat. “I … I have to do something first. I’ll be right back.”

Sidestepping my fallen egg-salad sandwich, I retreated from the cafeteria to the hallway, cursing myself. I was the one who was supposed to scare him away, not the other way around. So much for me being all in charge of the situation. I couldn’t even stay in charge of myself for more than five minutes.

I touched the bracelet my father had given me. It was a simple gold chain with a clear crystal charm in the shape of a teardrop. He’d told me it was an actual dragon’s tear.

Yes, a fire-breathing dragon. They existed — and, apparently, were quite emotional.

It was supposed to help keep my so-called Darkling powers under control. Since it didn’t come with an instruction manual, I kept my hand on it and just tried to concentrate really hard.

Slowly, with a small twinge of pain, my fingernails receded to their short pink-polished versions. I let out a shaky sigh of relief.

“Hey, Nikki, everything okay with you?” A voice made me turn around. Larissa leaned against the wall by the cafeteria entrance, her long dark hair swept over her right shoulder.

I was surprised to see her. Out of the entire Royal Party, she’d be the last person I’d expect to check on my well-being.

“I’m fine,” I said.

She thrust her chin in the general direction of the lunch table past the closed doors. “I think I know what happened in there.”

That was unlikely. I hoped. “Oh yeah?”

“You and Rhys used to date, right? Maybe at your last school?”

The thought was almost humorous. “No, we didn’t. Me and Rhys, we were … uh, acquaintances only. And it was so long ago that I’d practically forgotten about him.”

Her eyebrows went up. “How could you forget a hot guy like him?”

I shrugged. “I guess his hotness faded substantially in my memory. I barely remember him, actually.”

She didn’t look convinced. She slowly approached me and, without speaking, scanned me from top to bottom.

“What?” I prompted after a moment, concerned that some other demon appendage had appeared without my knowledge.

“Nothing.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m just trying to figure it out, that’s all.”

“Figure what out?”

“Why you feel like you have to lie so much.”

This time my eyebrows went up in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“It’s the only way you could have wedged yourself into Melinda’s life so quickly and easily — by lying about everything. You think you can have whatever you want, whenever you want. But I’ve waited a long time for her and me to be best friends, and just when we were getting closer, boom, you show up and ruin everything.”

I thought I could have anything I wanted? She was so wrong.

“You and Melinda are friends,” I reasoned.

“It’s not the same as best friends.” She shook her head. “I can’t figure out why she even wants to be your friend. I mean, you’re a total nobody.”

“Luckily, I don’t care what you think.” Even though I said it, my throat felt thick and my eyes now stung with gathering tears. It was one thing to get a generic evil glare from Larissa, but another thing to hear exactly how she felt about me. Sharp words cut deep. I wasn’t invulnerable.

“Now Melinda’s always with you. Or she’s going to her stupid ballet lessons. She never has time to hang out with me.”

I wasn’t going to let her see she had any effect on me. “Sorry to hear you’re so needy, Larissa. But that doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“And now with this Rhys thing—”

“What Rhys thing?”

“Melinda really likes him. I’ve never seen her like any guy so fast. You told her that you didn’t know him, but you lied. You do know him. It’s obvious you want to steal him away.”

Oh, this was just getting better and better. But now I was more angry than hurt. “You don’t know how wrong you are. And frankly, I think Melinda could do a lot better.”

Yeah. Human would be good for starters. No faery kings need apply.

I wasn’t winning Larissa over. She thought I was a big liar who believed I could get whatever I wanted. Then