I roll my eyes. “Do I really look like someone who’d do something as petty as that?”
“Yes,” Lila says, without missing a beat.
“Anyway,” I scoff. “I could do plenty of things to make her next, and final year of the academy as miserable as possible, but that’s not how I want to do this.”
“Tell us already,” Grace mutters. “Stop stalling.”
“Fine, fine,” I chuckle. “Okay, so she’s always been the quiet and reserved type. Nothing much about her is mentioned in any news reports about her family. But then she goes and sends that picture of her and Sawyer to Sinners and Saints, gaining a lot of attention. Why?”
“Because she’s an attention-seeking whore, and she only now showed it?” Lila offers.
“Exactly, so if she likes attention so much nowadays, why not give it to her?”
“What?” Avalon frowns.
“I mean, we’ll break into her dorm, and instead of going the petty route and sending everything to Sinners and Saints, where she could easily delete it, we send it to the press.”
“My God,” Avalon gasps. “You want her reputation completely ruined?”
“What if there’s nothing in her dorm, though?” Grace asks.
“Luckily, I can come up with a lie. Ridiculous enough to be spread like wildfire, but not too insane to be seen as a lie.”
“You’ll take Soren down with that, too. He is still her brother.”
That makes me pause. Then, with a deep breath, I ignore the sudden ache in my chest at the thought of hurting Soren, and swallow down any emotions that threaten to slip.
“So be it.”
???
The economics amphitheater is big enough for me to be able to take a seat at the back, yet still be visible to the professor. There are another twenty-ish students in the class with me, and for some reason, it’s like everyone’s still using every opportunity to give me dirty looks. The gossip is yet to die down, though now, everyone’s talking about Damien’s state, too. No one is pointing fingers at me for this one, thankfully. His face is almost healed entirely, but I had to do something to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I met up with him at the café close by, and I’m praying to every single deity that Soren doesn’t get the wind of it, because if he does, I don’t even want to think about how he’ll react. No doubt, it’ll be as severe and as dramatic as always.
My thoughts drift off when Soren enters the amphitheater, and my heart skips a beat. I know, deep down, that I shouldn’t feel like this, not after the complicated history between us, not after everything we’ve done to spite each other. It wasn’t mild teasing or even some silly pranks. No, it’s been a full-fledged war between us. He tried drowning me, and I broke his knee with a sledgehammer. He broke my nose, too, and more recently, we had the sex tape ordeal, him using my biggest fear of snakes to fuck me while I’m terrified, and of course, the tattoo on his chest.
If anything, I should stay away from him, especially since he beat the crap out of one of my closest friends simply because he could. It’s scary, it’s almost downright terrifying how insane he can get, and I know that all of this is very wrong. Yet, when he slides into the seat next to me, without so much as paying attention to the professor who starts the lesson, I can’t help the way my heart races at the proximity. I can’t help the feelings that are slowly bursting to the surface, despite my best attempts to keepthem hidden.
“Sloane,” Soren greets, his voice low. His eyes trail over me, the way the uniform hugs my curves perfectly, the way the shirt rises up to my mid-thighs when I cross my legs, the appreciative gaze in his eyes making me clench my legs together.
“Ford,” I respond, keeping my voice equally as low. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugs. “We share the class, Princess.”
“The amphitheater is nearly empty. Go sit elsewhere.”
“And interrupt the lesson? No, thank you. Besides,” he pauses, glancing to the front of the room, making sure the professor’s busy teaching to pay us any attention. “I have better things to do right now.”
“Such as?”
A gasp slips my lips when his big hand palms my inner thigh, squeezing the soft flesh. My eyes widen, and I glance between the front of the room and Soren, watching as his brow lifts, a wicked smirk tugging on the corners of his lips.
“To teach you a lesson, Princess,” he inches closer to me, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper. My breath catches in my throat when Soren forces my legs apart, his fingers drumming against the inside of my thigh, going up the skirt. “You saw Damien again. What did I tell you about that?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I whisper, but the protest falls flat, his fingers digging into my skin.
“Oh, I assure you, I do not care,” he murmurs, and I close my eyes when his fingers graze against my pussy over the underwear, my body trembling slightly. The reaction to his touch is immediate, the cotton fabric getting soaked within minutes. “But you’ll learn not to disobey me, Sophia. You’ll learn that my word is the fucking law foryou.”
