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January 15 - January 17, 2025
His inky hair fell into eyes that were the colour of jade and his boyish smile looked like it needed to feed regularly on innocent girl’s heart’s to keep it intact.
“I’m Blake Bowman, quarterback of the football team.”
“You won’t ever be able to predict my next move, Tatum Rivers. I promise you that.”
Maybe I’d read him wrong, maybe he wasn’t Everlake’s golden boy. Because right then he looked dangerous, like a hunter who hadn’t eaten for days.
“I don’t suck dick for favours. Besides, if I got thrown to the Night People, I reckon I’d come back leading them so I guess I’ll take my chances.”
Sure, he was a dickwad with a superiority complex. But those types were the best in the sack.
The Night Keepers were four ruthless warriors, called upon to protect the Night People from the men who sought to claim this land. The myth says that they had hearts of stone and skin of iron. They built an army of nameless followers they called the Unspeakables.”
If you’re on his shit list, he’s got a heart more vicious than a butcher’s. Though the fresh meat he likes the taste of isn’t cow, it’s human.”
“Is she hot?” “Fucking volcanic, dude. Like magma hot. And I’m planning on getting burned real good,”
Point was, that girl belonged to me. She just didn’t know it yet.
In another life, they would have been princes and lords. But here, they were just rich boys with big heads and bigger balls. And that, I could handle.
I recognised the Viking asshole who’d fallen over my suitcase as he stared down his perfectly straight nose at me, his sharp blue eyes feeling like they were cutting into my flesh. His dark blonde hair was long enough to tuck behind his ears and his jaw was lined with stubble. The enticing scent of pine sailed from him and almost tempted me to lean closer.
“It was a joke about what it might be like to have you on your knees with your tongue between my thighs. But on second thought, that was a terrible joke. Everyone knows that arrogant assholes like you don’t know a G-spot from their elbow and you wouldn’t be able to find my clit with a map and GPS.”
“I imagine the only one you deem special enough to fuck you is yourself. So give your right hand my regards. She’s a very lucky girl.”
Though the idea of it was weirdly alluring and I had to wonder what it would be like to share a girl with one of my friends.
It did seem strange to me that he’d taken this job at all when he clearly hated the way we abused the money we’d all been born to, but whenever I’d questioned him on it he’d just brushed me off.
This was her father’s fault. Which meant it might as well be her fault.
Tatum Rivers was the breath of fresh air I’d been craving, the challenge I’d been needing and the bet I was going to win with myself.
I had to face my enemy with as much cunning as they showed me. Had to hunt for weaknesses and exploit them to my advantage. I had to be patient, mindful. I could never give them the reaction they wanted, because if they saw me breaking, they’d start picking at those cracks.
Which meant I wouldn’t let bad things happen to her. At least not bad things like dying. And she could rest safe knowing that no fucker in this school would so much as look at her, let alone hurt her unless it was one of us.
Then use my position to get closer to the prick whose father destroyed my life, cosy on up to him, destroy his life in kind.
“Not the Night Keepers. I want Saint Memphis,” I replied. “His family destroyed mine and I intend to return the favour.”
The look she’d given me as she admitted what they were doing to her had cut right into my soul. I’d seen that look in the mirror a few too many times. So Tatum Rivers had just earned herself a knight in shining armour.
It felt good to fight a real man. A man who gave me a fighting chance. Who didn’t manipulate and threaten his way into controlling me. He was an equal opponent and I thrived on every punch and kick he threw.
“Yeah, he is the top dog after all.” I nodded in agreement. “You couldn’t go making any decisions on your own, I suppose.”
“You bring her back soon,” Saint growled.
“She’s ours. Not yours,”
Six years might not have been much in any other circumstance, but in this particular one it might as well have been fifty.
“With the way Blake‘s been with her recently, I don’t think we should let him be around Tatum unless we’re both there too. Just until we can be sure he’s not going to lose it entirely. I’m all for fucking her up as much as he needs to, but if he kills her that’s a whole other level of shit landing on our doorstep.”
Kyan’s soul mirrored mine in ways that called to me on a primal level.
“She’s not going back in that bathroom,” Kyan said instantly. “I’m all for fucking with her, but that shit is just spiteful. If something belongs to me, I look after it. Which means she needs a bed.”
“If someone followed her down there to hurt her, I’ll rip their organs out and force feed them to them,” Saint hissed behind me, but I didn’t respond.
Tatum Rivers belonged to me and I had no intention of that ever changing. She’d wormed her way beneath my skin and I’d given my word to protect her as my own.
We might own her, but she owned us too.
This strange and beautiful creature who’d cast a spell on all of us. She might just be my undoing. Or even my salvation. The only thing I knew for sure was that she was my obsession and I wouldn’t be relinquishing my claim on her for any man or beast.
