Deviant King (Royal Elite 1)

Oh. God.

My hand rests between my legs and I’m… wet.

I jerk my hand free as if I was caught stealing.

I don’t even remember the dream, so what the hell is this reaction supposed to mean?

My surroundings come back into focus. The soft light from the lamp. The music I left on. The chorus from Grip by Bastille strikes deep inside me. Something about the devil having him by the arm and pulling him into the night.

The neon red numbers on the nightstand read seven pm.

I slide from the bed, willing my body temperature to go back to normal.

With a deep breath, I put on my pyjamas shorts and a T-shirt, gather my hair in a bun, and sit at my desk.

My first day at senior year started with a disaster, but nothing will take Cambridge away from me.

I retrieve my books and tasks organised in Eizinhower’s method and dive into it.

For thirty minutes, my mind is tuned to studying. Then, I start drifting.

The pen grazes my bottom lip as my thoughts spiral into directions they shouldn’t.

Even when I want to forget, my body has a memory of its own. My body still remembers how Aiden held me. How he was hard because I struggled.

My eyes still remember that dark, bottomless emptiness and disregard.

If I didn’t cry, what would he have done?

A shudder goes through me at the thought.

In old Chinese war books, it’s said that the best way to understand someone is to see things from their perspective. To think as they do.

There’s no way in hell I’m doing that with Aiden.

Depraved bullies don’t deserve to be understood.

After being singled out as an outcast, I thought that one day, karma would bite bastards like Aiden in the arse and he’d stop tormenting my existence in RES.

I was only fooling myself.

Aiden might be a psycho, but he’s a smart one. He knows when to push buttons and when to step back.

He took me by surprise today.

Ha, understatement of the freaking century there.

He rattled me.

He shook my world.

He made me doubt myself.

Since he kept his distance for two years, I never thought he’d get close. That close.

I’m still all too confused about what I felt. What I feel. And whatever dream – or nightmare – I just had.

I know for sure that he took something he had no right to take and