Raven screams, her tiara falling to the ground and getting trampled in the chaos. My gaze catches Molly’s, and she looks like how I know I must look, wide-eyed as worry steals the color from her cheeks.
Barley stumbles backward with the impact, his arms waving wildly as he tips back on his heels.
Someone starts a chant, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Barley rights himself, a bruise already burgeoning at his jaw, before launching himself at Ian like he’s a bull and Ian’s the matador. Ian’s too drunk to move out of the way, and although he avoids the blow to his stomach, Barley’s fist connects with the underside of his chin. Ian’s head is thrown back with the hit, and blood rains from the sky, splattering onto partygoers.
A girl screams among the chant.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Ian staggers backward, and the blue bloods flank him now. Everett smiles—but he doesn’t look happy, just annoyed—while Chase’s hands are clenched at his sides. Archie looks bored but pissed like this was an inconvenience to his plans.
Archie throws me a slow smile that tells me he’s halfway to wasted and a wink I feel all the way to my bones. “Can I be your sexorcism when Ian totally fucks it up?”
“S…sexorcism?” I stutter.
Someone finally shuts off the music. The chant of the crowd grows louder.
“You know, Harlow,” Archie says, with a flick of his tongue over his top lip, “where you fuck someone to get over your ex.” He throws me another wink. “I promise I won’t throw in the towel until you totally forget about his dumbass.”
I snort, but I am distracted by the growing chant and the guilt that’s gnawing away at my insides like a rat at a block of cheese. Why does it feel wrong to flirt with him? He’s the human equivalent of Adonis.
“I’ll take a raincheck,” I mumble, my gaze finding Molly’s.
She stares at me like I need to do something—like I need to save her—and my heart bursts open and bleeds. This is all my fault. Ian is falling apart because of me. I’m tearing him apart bullet by bullet, and I cannot let Molly get caught in the cross-hairs.
I will myself forward, squeezing between Archie and Chase. They don’t offer to move, assholes, so I end up flattening my boobs and ass between them both. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I have to do something.
This is wrong.
It’s all so fucking wrong.
I can’t take any more violence.
Ian rights himself, shaking his head as if he can shake away his probable concussion. He sends droplets of blood everywhere like a dog shaking water off after a bath.
“Hey.” I stand on my tiptoes and bring my hands up to his cheeks. I hold his face in my hands, my fingers grazing his short sideburns.
“Hey.” I pat the sides of his face quickly, trying to wake him from this trance. “Look at me, Ian. Look at me.” I choke on my words, tears drowning me from the inside out. “Please, Ian. Please, just look at me.”
He doesn’t glance at me. He just continues to glare at Barley, his whole body shaking with fury. His shoulders bunch tight as his chest heaves with each breath. His gray gaze turns to black under the stars.
I’m not getting through to him. He’s going to get hurt. Why should I care?
He’s going to get hurt! Why do I care?!
HE’S GOING TO...
“I accept!” I half-shout at him, the words ripped from my tongue.
He blinks once before he sheers his gaze from Barley and looks down at me. My glass heart splinters and shatters.
Dark lashes frame his steely gaze above impossibly high cheekbones. Blood coats the bottom half of his face, painting his pout vermilion. It pours from his busted lip, wets my hands, and trails in a single rivulet down his chin. He is a beautiful, wicked sight.
“I accept,” I say as the blackness slithers in across my chest and constricts.
I close my eyes and take in a shaky breath. When I open them, Ian stares down at me. The chant has died down, and they all watch us, waiting.
“I accept.” My voice is clear, but my words are soft, spoken just for him.
An emotion I don’t recognize flits across his gaze. What is it? And why does it feel like one part relief and one part guilt?
I open my mouth. I don’t know what I’m about to say, but I have to say something, anything.
But he steals the words from me as his lips crash into mine.
26
Harlow
I taste the iron of his blood and the bite of hard liquor. His kiss strikes me like steel on flint, sending sparks cascading down into my belly.
I am momentarily frozen in place, but like the flicker of a flame to ice, I melt into his embrace. He tugs me until we are flush together, and there’s no mistaking the hardness in his dark jeans that presses against me. Warmth spreads like a hot shower over my skin. He feels…good—too good—and I breathe him in, cardamom and mossy earth.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” The chant continues, but it already fades.
Part of my brain wonders what I am doing. Whatever happened to the dream I once had of a knight in shining armor coming to my rescue? I suppose that dream is dead because princesses locked in stone towers don’t normally come with special sanity pills or the ghost of their brother by their side.
It’s official. I have too much baggage for Prince Charming.
Not to mention, I don’t want to be the only damaged one. That’s got to be a lot of pressure, to be the one who’s not perfect. No, I want my knight with dents in his gauntlets and blood splatter on his boots.
Whether or not the students of Voclain Academy see
