Page 10 of Reign

The crying. The fear. The part where she remembers she’s nine.

It never comes.

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and says, voice shaking only from breath, “If you do that again, I’ll bite harder.”

I stare at her.

Then I look down at the crescent of teeth already swelling on my hand.

Maybe my father was right. I hate that thought the second it forms.

Hate it.

But Adriana doesn’t look broken. She looks furious.

Alive.

Ready to come at me again.

I get to my feet.

She flinches, barely, then plants her palms in the grass like she’ll spring if I move too fast.

She learns fast.

“Stand up,” I tell her.

She narrows her eyes. “Why?”

I guess being dunked into a canal and wrestled into the dirt still hasn’t stopped her from asking why.

“Because if you’re going to swing at me, you’re going to learn how to do it right.”

Chapter 3

Elena

Idon’t want to go.

The thought sits heavy in my chest as the city blurs past the tinted window, all glittering lights and polished glass and people rushing toward places they actually want to be.

I twist the bracelet around my wrist once.

Then again.

Riot, my guard, notices.

Former Staff Sergeant Ryan “Riot” Ryatt, if anyone in my family wants to be insufferably formal about it.

To me, he’s just Riot, because the first time I met him, he walked into an Amato security briefing with a split knuckle, a calm face, and enough violence leashed behind his eyes to make even Luca pause.

“You’re going to break it if you keep doing that,” he says from the driver’s seat.

His voice is low. Rough-edged. Riot doesn’t do soft. He does steady. Watchful.

I stop twisting the bracelet and drop my hand into my lap.

My eyes cut to him.