“I don’t know who rammed the elitist stick up your ass, Elaine, but you donotget to talk to me like that.”
“Quinn, don’t!”
“No! I’m sick of this!” I launched myself at her, ready to pull out her hair, but before I could do it, a stupid, huge arm wrapped around my midsection. Hauling me away from Elaine, Max ignored my cries of protest.
He carried me, kicking and screaming at him, past both groups and into one of the cabin bedrooms. The whole time I glared as Elaine shouted about how I’d attacked her.
HowI’djust attackedher.
This whole place was insane. The things they got away with—none of it was fair. None of it was right. I couldn’t take it anymore, hearing her put me down like I wasn’t good enough because of where I came from. As if Camelot Court was the epitome of standards and anyone different was beneath them.
Like it wasn’t a cesspool of abuse, greed, and corruption.
I wanted to scream.
But I shouted at my captor instead as he slammed the bedroom doors shut and carried me to the bathroom. “Max, this is bullshit!”
“I know it is, Princess, but you were two seconds from starting a fight. And shoving her? She fucking deserved it, I know, but”—he set me on the ground in front of him andgripped my face—“she’ll use any chance she has to get you eliminated, baby. You can’t give her that.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to hear that over and over again, Max! It’s exhausting.” I tore my hands through my hair because he was right. I knew he was right. Butfuck, I wanted one day. One day to enjoy the moment of peace we’d found in the insanity, and beauty in all the goddamn pain. “Having to constantly ignore them, having to pretend I don’t hear it, that those thoughts don’t get in my head and I don’t wonder?—”
“Yes, I do get it. What’s the first thing you heard about me?”
My mouth popped open, but nothing came out.
“Everyone here runs their mouths like they know what’s going on, but they don’t. I get it. But she’s not fucking worth it, alright? Not during The Quest, at least. After it? I’ll set up the fighting ring for you myself.”
I growled, but his logic and his hold on my face were too strong to ignore. “Promise?”
“I swear it. Just don’t for a second let her project her insecurities onto you. Don’t forget hechose you. We all did.”
He crashed his mouth down on mine, sweeping his tongue in and clearing the rest of my rage.
I grabbed his shirt, wanting more, wanting to express how much his words—not just about him, but about Kingston—meant to me. How much I’d needed the reminder from him that he saw through to my heart.
And I was two seconds from doing it.
But Max had the wherewithal to pull away. Though, he grabbed the back of my neck and tilted my head up to look at him. “I got you, Princess. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” I choked out, swallowing past the emotion in my throat. “I got you, too.”
“Good girl. Now, I hate to do this, baby, but you’re in lockdown for twenty minutes.” He pecked my lips with a quickkiss and released me. Spinning me around, he nudged me toward the bathtub. Swatting my ass when I didn’t budge.
I yelped. “Hey! Are you for real? I have to go in there?”
“Yup. Now, go on, or I’ll do it again.”
Covering my ass with my hands, I scurried into the bathtub.
“Big brute,” I muttered.
Even though we both knew I liked it.
Max smiled for the first time that day, so I released a breath and shook off what happened. Shook off Elaine’s bullshit and reminded myself who I was.
Reminded myself her words meant nothing compared to the feeling pounding inside my chest.
And I held onto that for twenty minutes in the dark.
