Savage Royals: A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance(46)

A thick cloud of tension hung in the air as they waited, and it occurred to me suddenly that this was a test.

They’d declared me one of them. They’d called off the school and protected me from those who still wanted to make my life miserable. And now they wanted to see if I really was one of them. If I was ready to claim my legacy, or whatever over-dramatic, medieval sounding way they’d phrase it.

My stomach pitched sideways.

If I said no, if I blew them off, I was certain that would be it. The switch that’d somehow been flipped at Petra’s party would flip back, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to undo it this time. If I got on their bad side again, I’d stay there forever.

But I couldn’t just let them win. I couldn’t force myself to go along with them—couldn’t choose them over my friend.

I opened my mouth to say that, but before I could speak, Leah interjected.

“You know what, go.”

What?

My gaze shot to her, and she shrugged. “It’s fine. My mom wanted me to come home and visit this weekend anyway, so I’ll just go see her. She’ll take me shopping. It’s cool.”

“See? It’s cool.” Cole raised his black brows. “Now come on. We don’t have all day.”

The four of them turned and began striding back toward campus, and I glanced at her, embarrassment and guilt making my face flush. “Leah, I—”

She shrugged again, though her voice was a little colder this time. “It’s cool, Tal. I get it. If you don’t play along, they’ll go back to making your life miserable. It’s probably smart to just do your Royal thing.” She pasted on a smile. “We’ll rain check.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, my gut twisting. “Yeah, okay.”

I turned to follow the guys, but as I walked away, I shot a look back toward Leah. She was watching me, her lips pressed tight, and I could see the disappointment in her eyes. The judgment.

She thought the Princes owned me.

And maybe she wasn’t wrong.

I had to jog to catch up to the four of them since they hadn’t slowed down, and by the time I joined them, we’d almost reached Clarendon Hall, the dorm they all lived in.

Elijah led us up to his room, which was surprisingly messy for a guy who always looked so put together. Posters of rock bands hung on the walls, and a few pieces of clothing were piled on one arm of the couch.

The four of them arrayed themselves around the living room, pulling out their phones as they sprawled languidly over the furniture.

I stood blinking at them, my hands on my hips.

“What? This? This is the thing that was so pressing I had to break my plans with Leah? You’re not doing anything!”

“Chill, Legs.” Finn patted the couch cushion next to him, and I sank down onto it reluctantly, smoothing my skirt and trying to ignore the feel of his muscled leg pressed up against mine. “This is important. And we are doing something. We need to find as much dirt as we can on Evan Baxter and his whole family.”

My nose wrinkled. “Evan Baxter? The senior who drives that loud as fuck Mustang? Why?”

“Because,” Elijah said evenly, not looking up from his phone, “his dad is trying to steal a client from my dad. So we need to find something on either Evan or his family that we can use against them.”

“What, like blackmail?”

“If it comes to that.” Mason met my eyes over the black rectangle of his phone. “But we won’t know how we’ll use it until we find it—whatever it is. So hop to, little Princess.”

I gaped. “You want me to help you find shit on a teenage boy and/or his parents so you can bring them down and protect some business deal Elijah’s dad is doing? Why don’t you just leave it up to the adults?”

“Because what they do affects us. Every win or loss affects what our legacy becomes.” Mason’s emerald eyes glittered darkly. “I told you it’s not all roses and puppies on this side of the fence, Legs. You sure you still want to play this game?”

No. I wasn’t.

At all.





Chapter 18





We spent the rest of the evening in Elijah’s room, tapping away at our phones.

I didn’t actually find much—partly because I didn’t know where to look and partly because I didn’t want to find anything—but I was shocked at the amount of info the guys were able to dig up.

And what they found…

Well, it made me feel a lot less bad about their plans to sabotage Samuel Baxter. The man was a fucking creep.

But none of that made me feel better about the whole situation. Was this the world I was living in now? Where the “good guys” were only good because they were slightly less awful than the “bad guys”? Where everything existed in shades of gray, and blackmail could actually be a good thing somehow?

Finn went to pick up food at seven, and after they were satisfied with the information they’d gathered on Evan Baxter’s dad, we turned on a movie and chilled. It was strange, doing something so ordinary with them—something I’d done with people I considered my real friends plenty of times.

But it felt too… normal to be doing it with the Princes.

We watched a scary movie, which made me think of Leah with a twinge of guilt and shame.