I wanted to punch Elijah in the fucking dick. For all his whispered warnings and worried glances, he was still backing the other three on this.
He was still on their side.
I stiffened, drawing myself up and bracing to face whatever unknown threat was about to be unleashed on me. “What do you want?”
“Did you come here with Oliver Hedelston?” Cole asked.
Before I could answer, Oliver returned. He had a red Solo cup full of something, and he cast the Princes a suspicious look as he stepped up beside me, slipping an arm around my waist this time.
“What the hell are you doing, Hedelston?” This time it was Mason who spoke, and his green eyes flashed as he cocked his head. “Are you fucking with what doesn’t belong to you?”
Anger flared, bolstered by a pain so deep it might as well have cut to the bone. I didn’t belong to anybody, and Mason had given up any claim he might ever have had on me the night he told me he considered breaking my heart a “side benefit” of wrecking my life.
I wanted to grab the cup out of Oliver’s hands and throw the drink at Mason. I wanted to crumple the plastic into a little ball and shove it down the stuck-up Prince’s throat.
But instead, I turned my body toward Oliver’s so that his arm around my waist brought us into each other’s embrace, chest to chest. Then I wrapped my arms around his neck, rose up on tiptoes, and kissed him. He only hesitated for a second before his lips moved against mine, his grip on me tightening slightly.
He wore a little too much cologne, and the smell overwhelmed me with our faces this close together. There wasn’t a lot of chemistry in the kiss, but my lips moved against his with a fierce intensity anyway. I kissed him to prove a point—to myself, to the four boys watching us, to the whole damn world.
The Princes didn’t own me.
Nobody did.
And nobody got to tell me what to do.
When my lips were swollen and I was about to pass out from the strength of Oliver’s cologne, I finally pulled away from him. He blinked down at me before a pleased, satisfied smile spread across his face.
But he was the only one smiling. My heart was beating too hard, the anger in my veins burning too hot, for me to smile about anything.
And the Princes? They all stood in stony silence, gazes shifting back and forth between me and the curly-haired boy.
I had noticed before that although they often functioned almost like a single entity, there were moments when they seemed to break apart, becoming separate individuals, no longer bolstered by the group.
This was one of those times. They stared at me as I stared right back at them, and each of their expressions was distinctly different.
But none of them looked happy.
Chapter 6
We didn’t stay long at the party after that. I claimed I had a headache, and Oliver agreed to drive me back to campus. He walked me to my door and tried to kiss me again, but I ducked my head, avoiding his lips.
Honestly, I never would’ve kissed him at the party in the first place if it hadn’t been to prove a point. I liked him, but I was wary about trusting anyone, and I although he was a good looking guy and seemed nice enough, I had a hard time mustering the same attraction for him that I’d felt for all the Princes.
Still felt, even though it burned a hole in my soul to admit it.
Oliver seemed disappointed, but he rallied and asked me to go out again the next weekend.
“Sure. That would be nice.” I smiled, trying to force myself to feel something for him, to be attracted to someone who might be good for me for once.
The headache I had made up to escape the after-party was rapidly becoming real, so I made my excuses and slipped inside. As I padded up the stairs to my second-floor room, I rubbed hard at my temples, trying to banish Mason’s words from my mind.
The Princes had acted like they still had some claim to me, like I was some thing they could use, toy with, or break whenever they wanted.
I’d kissed Oliver to piss them off, to prove them wrong. But I couldn’t help but think that despite my little demonstration, there was some truth to Mason’s words.
For the two and a half months I’d been in Sand Valley before Erin Bennett showed up, not a day had gone by when I didn’t think about the Princes. I’d spent every free moment in the library researching their lives, trying to dig up dirt on them. I had a little black book with a section for each of them, and a flash drive to store incriminating evidence.
Obsession with those four boys, with the vengeance I was determined to wreak on them, had taken over my life, blotting out all other dreams and goals.