Cracked Kingdom (The Royals #5)(78)

“This is taken,” she says.

“By who?” he challenges. “The seat’s been empty for the last five minutes. Besides, you said I could join you.”

“You must be kidding,” she says in a loud voice dripping with disdain. “You’re a sneed. We don’t with sit with sneeds.”

“Sneed?” I whisper to East.

“Needs-based student,” he murmurs in my ear. “He must have a scholarship or something.”

“That’s a ridiculous sounding insult. Like she stole that from Dr. Seuss or something,” I hiss back.

He shrugs. “She’s got money. She doesn’t need to be smart or clever.”

Over by Felicity, Kyle is turning deep red. My secondhand embarrassment meter is at an all-time high. I hate the dude for feeding me a bunch of lies, but this kind of school humiliation is awful.

“That’s not what you said before.”

“You must be joking. I would never invite a casual like you to eat lunch with my girls. Doesn’t your father fix cars for a living? What if there’s grease on your hands? Do you know how much Skylar’s mom paid for that blazer? It’s not the cheap synthetic that you’re wearing. Skylar’s is made out of virgin wool from a village in Spain. You’d have to fix like a million cars to be able to even have the right to breathe on that wool, so just”—she makes a shooing gesture—“go.”

It’s so rude that I gasp. I tense and start to rise to my feet. Easton grabs my right hand and Ella grabs my left. Together they hold me in my seat.

“This isn’t your fight,” East warns. “Those two have issues to work out and none of them have anything to do with you.”

“He’s right. There’s a time to fight and this isn’t one of them.”

Any other day, I might have listened to their warnings. But as Kyle stomps out of the dining hall, something about the satisfied smirk that curls Felicity’s lips triggers my temper. I shrug Easton and Ella’s hands off and shoot to my feet.

“No,” I tell them. “She can’t keep getting away with this shit.”

Before they can offer more objections, I march up to Felicity’s table. She’s about to take a sip from some fancy soda bottle with a label written entirely in French. Of course she drinks imported soda. Of course she does.

Gritting my teeth, I snatch the bottle out of her hand. She screeches in outrage, and her eyes blaze when she realizes I’m the culprit.

“What the hell! Give that back!” Her arm thrusts out angrily.

I hold the soda out of her reach. “What gives you the right to treat people like that?” I growl.

She blinks in confusion. Seriously? Has she actually forgotten what she just did to Kyle?

“Kyle?” I prompt. “How dare you treat him like he’s a piece of garbage under your shoe?”

Understanding dawns on her face. Then she bursts out in gales of high-pitched laughter. “Are you serious right now, Wright? What do you care how I treat that loser? Do you realize how easy it was to get him to agree to mess with your poor broken head?” She laughs again. “Cost me less than I pay my drycleaner to take care of my uniform.” She gestures to her white shirt and pristine blazer.

“You mean this uniform?” With a big smile, I tip the bottle and pour it all over Felicity.

There’s one long beat of silence.

Then I hear Easton’s familiar chuckle.

And Felicity’s horrified shriek slices through the lunchroom. Another scream quickly follows, this one from her friend Skylar, who ends up being collateral damage. Some of the fizzy red liquid has splashed her magical virgin-wool-from-Spain blazer, and she claws at the lapels, tears filling her eyes.

“My blazer!” Skylar wails.

“You fucking bitch!” Clothing stained red and soaking wet, Felicity jumps to her feet, her hand flying out in an attempt to slap me. But it doesn’t reach my face, because there’s soda all over the floor now, and her designer pumps slip on the puddle.

She goes toppling forward and lands face-first on the shiny floor.

Laughter breaks out in the cavernous room as everyone watches her try to get up, but to no avail. She’s slipping all over the place, getting up and flopping back down, like some ridiculous comedy act.

I give the gathering crowd a murderous glare and hold up my hand to silence the laughter. My intention wasn’t to embarrass Felicity or make everyone laugh at her. That would be no better than what she did to Kyle, who I don’t even like! But a point needed to be made.

“You are not better than us, any of us,” I snap at her. “Just because your family can buy and sell mine a hundred times over, just because you and your stupid friends aren’t here on scholarships and have seven-figure trust funds, doesn’t make you better than anyone. And it doesn’t give you the right to humiliate people, or use them, or ‘mess with their heads.’” Anger bubbles in my throat. “I swear to God, Felicity—if I ever see you pulling that cruel, superiority shit on anyone ever again, I’ll do a lot more than spill a drink on you.” I give her a menacing glower. “I’ll kick your fucking ass.”

There’s a familiar snicker. Dammit, Easton, I’m in the middle of my tough girl act here.

He must sense my irritation, because he steps forward and says, “Remember when Ella dragged Jordan Carrington by hair through the school?” He beams at Felicity. “Well, Hart will do twice that damage.”