I don't know at what point I leave Alex behind, but in seconds, I'm standing before Mia, ready to apologize once again for what happened on Friday night.
It wasn't until I lay thinking about her Saturday afternoon that I realized how she might have felt with me rejecting her as I did. I need her to know that it wasn't her, that she didn't do anything wrong. It was all me and my fucked-up head and life that forced me to walk away.
The second she looks up, her breath catches as recognition dawns on her face before her eyes widen and her chin drops in shock.
“Mia, I—”
My words are cut off when a pair of tattooed hands wrap around her body, and when I look over her shoulder, I find she’s been pulled back into Cade Kingsley’s body.
His angry eyes lock onto mine, narrowing slighting as our stare continues. “This douchebag giving you grief, babe?” He smirks.
“What the fuck?” I glower as realization slaps me in the face. “You’re with this asshole?”
4
Mia
I widen my eyes at Bexley, silently telling him to back down. Anger swirls in his baby blues, but I see the flash of hurt there.
Crap.
This is not how I wanted him to find out, but after the other night at the party, I’d assumed he didn’t want anything to do with me.
I knew I shouldn’t have done what I did—throwing myself at him like that, begging him to take me—but I wanted to be in control of when and how I lost my virginity. And deep down, I wanted to punish Cade for agreeing to this whole charade.
He’s an Electi.
The Electi.
He won’t go against their most sacred ceremony. It’s how couplings have been decided since the beginning, back in the 1800s when Gravestone was founded.
Male heirs of Quinctus pair with a prosapia. According to my father, nobody knows exactly how Quinctus arrive at their decision or who places the name in the calix, but the decision is always final.
“Danforth, right?” Cade says with an air of arrogance, as if Bexley is beneath him. I guess in Gravestone’s strange hierarchy, he is.
“Something you want to tell me, babe?” He practically smirks the words, but I feel the slight pinch in the way his fingers dig into my waist. Cade isn’t pleased about Bexley singling me out, and what he says in the next two minutes could determine his entire life here at Gravestone U.
“I… uh,” I stutter over the words. Cade stares at me with his soulless black eyes, and a shiver runs down my spine.
“Relax, man,” Bexley says, breaking Cade’s hold over me. “We’re in the same econ class. I just wanted to ask Mia if she had the notes from last week.”
“You’re in class with this fucker?” Cade asks, and I nod.
“Look, Kingston—”
“Kingsley,” Cade growls.
“That’s what I meant.” Bexley holds up his hands. “No hard feelings, yeah? I just wanted to ask Mia if she had the notes, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t have any. Do you?”
People have stopped to watch now, the air charged with tension. It isn’t every day someone stands up to Cade Kingsley and lives to tell the tale, but Bexley doesn’t seem in the least bit intimidated by him.
“I—” The words die on my tongue as Bexley steps toe to toe with Cade, his lip curving into a smirk all of its own. “It’ll only take a second, man. I’ll just borrow her and then bring her right back.”
Oh God.
My heart lurches into my throat right as my stomach flutters wildly. I can’t believe he just said that.
Cade’s eyes slide to mine in question. It’s our first day together. I’m his now. His girl… his property… his captive.
“I-I don’t have any notes, sorry.” I force myself to meet Bexley’s furious gaze.
“You don’t, huh?” Bexley says, but I can barely hear him over the roar of blood in my ears. “That’s a shame.”
Another beat passes, thick and heavy with silence. Then a tremor goes through the hall and they appear. Cade’s inner circle: Ashton, Tim, Channing, Brandon, and Brandon’s twin sister, Sasha. They move like a unit, slicing through the morning crowd like a sharp blade.
“What’s this?” Ashton asks the second they reach us.
“Danforth was just being a conscientious student. He needs Mia’s notes.” Cade drawls the word, making it sound dirty.
“Notes, huh?” Ashton slings his arm around Bexley’s shoulder and pulls him close. “I heard Mia takes the best notes, if you know what I mean.”
I swallow the bile rushing up my throat.
“Ash, don’t be a dick,” Sasha scolds, shooting me a reassuring smile. It does nothing to ease the knot in my stomach.
I almost didn’t make it in this morning. I was a bag of nerves, wondering how today would play out. I wasn’t a particularly rebellious child. I worked hard at school and tried to make my parents happy, even if I couldn’t readily accept Gravestone and all its secrets. But ever since hearing my name called at the Eligere, the need to rebel burns through my veins like acid, as if my soul knows it’s wrong.
Cade’s fingers slip under my AC/DC t-shirt—the least feminine thing I could find in my closet this morning—and begins caressing the skin there. My eyes flutter closed as I inhale a sharp breath. Most girls would pay to be in my position, having the King of Gravestone U feeling them up in the hall, but nothing feels right about his touch.
Not a damn thing.
“Get the fuck off me.” Bexley shirks out of Ash’s hold and runs a
