Savage Royals (Boys of Oak Park Prep 1)

“Why?” I whispered, my throat working. “Why?”

“I told you, Idaho.” Mason’s expression looked harshly triumphant in the dim light. “I warned you that as long as you were at Oak Park, it would always be like this.”

“But what about…?”

Everything.

What about the protection they’d offered me from other bullies? What about Mason’s concession that my family legacy was just as good as theirs? What about the moments we’d shared—the looks, the little touches, the secret truths? Had all of that been bullshit? How was the possible?

He shrugged, a cruel smile tilting his lips. “Don’t you remember, Hildebrand? I also told you life in our world isn’t all sunshine and roses. But you chose to step into it. You said you could handle it. It’s not my fault you were wrong.”

Nausea turned my stomach as my world flipped abruptly on its axis for the second time this year.

“You made me trust you…” I whispered. “You made me… care about you.”

“We didn’t make you do anything,” he snapped, his voice going hard. He curled his lip, something almost manic gleaming in his green eyes. “You did it. You chose to believe what you wanted to believe. And it’s not surprising, considering who your mother was, that you were so easy to ruin. All we did was let you show your true fucking colors.”

Tears burned my eyes, making my vision blur as I stared at the four of them. Cole stood next to Mason with his arms crossed, feet spread wide and a completely blank expression on his face. Finn looked more serious than I’d ever seen him, and Elijah’s jaw was clenched tight, his hands fisted at his sides as his nostrils flared.

They looked like I’d seen them that first day—like a powerful, impenetrable wall, an unstoppable force.

“But why this?” I whispered. What they’d done was so elaborate. Convoluted and cruel on so many levels. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. “Why did you make me think… why were you ever nice to me?”

I knew they could be assholes. I’d known that all along. But the other sides to them that I’d seen—those couldn’t all have been a lie, could they?

Mason shrugged. “Because shit isn’t simple in our world. Wrongs don’t get forgiven, and the past doesn’t get swept under a rug. You wanted to play with us? Well, we were playing the long game. Sometimes it takes patience and strategy.”

A game.

Strategy.

That’s what I’d been to them. That’s what those moments of kindness and seeming openness had been. They had played me, played their game perfectly, breaking through the barriers my upbringing had taught me to keep around my heart.

And once they’d made it inside the walls, they had robbed me, taken everything they could and left me empty and hollow.

My mouth opened again, but I couldn’t force out any other words. My mind was numb, and my skin ached, like it was stretched too tight over my bones.

Mason stepped forward, and the other three moved with him as if they were a single, multi-headed monster. They stopped just a few feet away from me, so close we could’ve touched each other.

“You’re stubborn, Idaho.” His voice was back to its dangerous softness, his clear green eyes warming as he spoke. “And you’re a fighter. I knew you’d never just give up and leave. So we took away your choice. I’ll admit, fucking with your heart was just a side benefit.”

My body moved before my mind even processed it.

My hand connected with Mason’s face, and a shock of pain radiated up my arm. It hadn’t been a slap. It’d been a closed-fist punch, and the force of my knuckles connecting with his skull had hurt like a fucking bitch.

That didn’t mean I didn’t want to do it again and again though.

His head snapped back and to the side, and when he looked back at me, a bright red mark marred the skin below his eye.

“I’ll give you that one, Idaho,” he murmured, raising a hand to his cheek. His gaze moved over my shoulder, and a vicious smile tilted his lips. “Call it a parting gift.”

Before I could answer that, footsteps sounded behind me. Without a word, the Princes turned and walked away, disappearing like ghosts into the darkness.

“Talia.” Jacqueline’s voice cracked like a whip. “Come with me. Now.”

Chapter 27

The town car was painfully silent as we drove back to my grandparents’ house.