Defiant Princess (Boys of Oak Park Prep 2)

There was a part of me that still didn’t consider Mason a mortal, that thought of him more like some escaped god of the underworld, someone incapable of the same fears and weaknesses as the rest of us.

But right now, his eyes were open and vulnerable—not in the falsely warm way they appeared when he was about to unleash some new cruelty, but in a way that let me see more of what was behind them than I ever had before.

Then his sleepy gaze registered who was standing outside his door, and I watched the bright green of his irises harden as if they were real gemstones.

“What are you doing here, little dancer?”

“Is it true?”

He shook his head, annoyance and confusion making his brow wrinkle. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“About your mom. Is it true?”

His expression changed as soon as the words left my mouth, his features smoothing over as a mask of anger fell across his face. He stepped back, moving to close the door, but I couldn’t let him.

Without thinking, I threw my arm out, grabbing the edge of the door. Mason let out a muffled curse, pulling back on the handle at the last second. Instead of crushing my hand against the frame, the door hit with lighter force, bruising bones instead of breaking them. I hissed in pain, and Mason cursed again, opening the door wider and reaching out to haul me inside.

He slammed it shut behind us and pulled me into the kitchen, turning on the tap to the coldest setting and sticking my hand under the flowing water.

Then he left me standing there while he turned and yanked open the freezer. “What the fuck were you thinking? You trying to get your hand broken?”

“No. I…”

The water was so cold it made my bruised skin ache, and my heart drummed hard in my chest. It’d been pure animal instinct that’d made me do that, a desperate impulse not to let Mason escape. I needed answers, and I wasn’t going to let him threaten or evade this time.

“I could’ve hurt you, Talia,” he said harshly, finally digging an ice pack out of the freezer and turning to face me. The fading bruises on his cheek and jaw stood out in the dim light.

I didn’t bother pointing out that he already had. It was a truth we both knew unequivocally, just like the fact that the sky was blue or grass was green.

He flicked off the tap with an angry gesture, but when he took my hand in both of his, bending my fingers a little and running his thumbs over my bruised palm, his touch was surprisingly gentle.

I kept my gaze on his face as he focused on my hand. “Finn told me.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he didn’t look at me. “So?”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

What had I expected him to say?

No?

That this was all some new elaborate lie, some hoax to set me up? I’d known he wouldn’t do that. He believed with every fiber of his being that Charlotte Hildebrand had been responsible for his mother’s death.

“What happened?” When he refused to answer, his fingers still manipulating my hand gently, I tugged on it, almost pulling it from his grip. “Mason. Everything you did to me, you did because of this. You owe me.”

His emerald gaze flashed up to meet mine suddenly, and he looked like he was about to tell me where I could shove whatever he owed me. But instead, he remained frozen for a long moment, staring into my eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

He ducked his head, and I watched him draw in several deep breaths before he finally said, “I remember you.”

“What?”

“From when we were little.” He reached for the ice pack on the counter and wrapped it around my hand, keeping his focus on his task. “More an idea of you than actual memories. You wore yellow all the time, I remember that. A little girl dressed in sunshine.”