Chapter 14 #2
“Sorry! I’m here,” Briar says as she finally runs out, meeting me at the bench.
“Have fun, you two,” one of the other girls says before they head back inside.
“You know they’re jealous of me, right?” Briar tells me once they’re out of earshot. “They think you’re fucking me, and they really wish it was them, instead.”
“Let ‘em be jealous.”
Briar hasn’t come out as a lesbian to the rest of Luros yet. We talked about it a little bit the other day in Colossus Dining Hall.
Briar isn’t out to her family, either. Her parents still live in Hong Kong, far away from here, and apparently they’re not close, either.
Maybe that’s why she’s willing to be my actual friend.
The inferno of rage inside me only starts to dampen as we cut across the campus.
Briar talks about her day, telling me about the butterflies she’s raising.
It’s simple.
It’s not distracting enough, but at the very least, it’s saving me from turning back to the Onyx house and putting my hands around Rayne’s neck.
A friend is someone who makes you believe that maybe today isn’t the day to burn the world to the ground, I suppose.
That’s how it feels to me.
By the time we get to the fencing gym, my fingers are itching to grip the handle of a foil sword.
Briar and I get changed and head out onto the mat to spar.
Metal is hitting metal a few seconds later, because like me, Briar doesn’t seem to enjoy wasting time.
She’s good. She shoves ripostes at me like lightning after each parry, our swords clinking against one another, echoing across the gym room.
We continue on for thirty minutes, only taking a few short breaks.
I’m just as alert today. Faster than I was last time we sparred.
“Fuck, Hunter,” she says as she pulls her mask up afterward, breathing heavy. “You almost have me beat today.”
“So humble.”
“You’re on fire.”
I pull in a long breath, my heart pounding after the long period of intense focus. “Today fucking pissed me off. I needed this.”
“Is it your brother?”
I shake my head. “No. One of his friends.”
It already feels strange to mention anything about emotions to another person.
Long ago, I trained myself to stop doing that.
Nobody got access to me.
Nobody could be trusted with that.
“Do you need me to kick somebody’s ass for you?” Briar asks, giving me a wicked grin.
That’s why we became fast friends.
“Trust me, I’ll happily do the ass-kicking myself. I just need something to distract me.”
“How about your search for a no-strings hookup? Any prospects?”
“I never should have mentioned that to you,” I tell her, and she laughs. “I’ve found a person for that. But it’s… problematic.”
“The problematic ones are the hottest ones.”
“Always.”
“Is he cute?”
I glance up at her. “How’d you know it was a guy?”
She has a guilty look on her face. “I caught a vibe. And… I may have also seen one particular guy staring right at you the other night, the entire time we were in Colossus.”
“Fuck.”
“Hunter, when were you going to mention you were hooking up with Rayne Colson?” Briar asks. “Do you have any idea how many people at Crimson wish they were you right now?”
“We aren’t exactly open about it, so keep it quiet for me, okay?”
She waves a hand through the air. “No shit. I keep to myself most of the time anyway. Your brother doesn’t know?”
“Weston doesn’t have a fucking clue. He already hates me. He’d literally never speak to me again if he knew I was hooking up with Rayne.”
“He’s going to find out eventually.”
“I’m surprised some snitch hasn’t told him already,” I tell her, raking my hand through my hair. “Rayne walked up and kissed me in the middle of the Stone and Flame party. I just don’t think anybody close to Weston happened to see it.”
“I’m sure your brother doesn’t hate you,” Briar says. “Maybe you need to be the one to bridge the gap first. You were off in London for two years. Maybe he missed you.”
I puff out a bitter laugh. “Trust me, he didn’t miss me.”
Her eyes seem sad suddenly. “My brother was the only friend I had for a long time. Our parents shipped us across the planet to go to school here in the States when we were 11. Him first, then me a few years later. Kai was the only family I had on this side of the globe.”
“Where is your brother now?”
“He graduated a couple of years ago. Has a penthouse in the city. Kai Zhang is New York’s hottest young Wall Street broker, now. And I really fucking miss when neither of us were so busy all the time.”
I nod. “Sounds like you and Kai were a lot closer than me and Wes have ever been.”
She frowns as she looks at the swords along the wall. “We just have to make the time we spend together count, these days.”
Briar and I break off into separate locker rooms to shower off.
As the hot spray of the shower hits my skin, I’m lost in thought.
Briar doesn’t realize that there’s no way for me to make my time with Wes count when he’s hated me forever, though.
If only she knew how different my childhood was.
How my father ruined any chance of Weston ever trusting me.
How isolating it was to have a brother who wouldn’t even look my way.
We should have been close like that, too.
But you had Rayne for that, didn’t you?
I’ve only been away from Rayne for less than an hour, but leaving him alone these days is starting to feel like a bad move.
What if he has another dart in his neck?
What if he’s currently being chased down by someone who’s even worse than me?
If I’m not around to watch him, he’s going to do something that gets him in trouble. Like going for one of his goddamn runs alone. Like ending up isolated in a place where he shouldn’t.
I need Rayne near me.
All the time.
I want to hurt him, of course. I know he craves it. I want to put him in his place and watch the look in his eyes when I show him how I like to treat a king.
But I don’t want any other soul on Earth to ever touch him. That’s my job.
And mine only.
And fuck, now I’m doing it again.
Tunneling.
Going to a dark place because that’s the only place my mind is at home.
And Rayne’s worked his way into being the biggest piece of my mind, every hour of every goddamn day.
Clawed his way in.
Dug his way in, with his pretty brown eyes and a tongue he can’t fucking keep out of my mouth.
I need to stay in control. Fencing had worked to clear my head, but now I want something stronger. I scrub my skin clean, put on fresh clothes, and head out into the gym where Briar’s waiting on a bench.
“I need whiskey,” I tell Briar.
Her eyes light up. “Easy. Come back with me to Luros. We have way too much alcohol in the house and we’re going to need to get through it somehow.”
“I’m assuming that alcohol is for the party later?”
Briar shrugs. “Well, we can have a party all to ourselves upstairs. Even if it’s just one drink.”
Drinking won’t distract me enough either.
But it’s better than going home.
Someone is being friendly to you, Hunter Knox.
Just go have some normal, college fun.
You can figure out if you want to strangle Colson or fuck him senseless at a later time.
“Maybe I’ll take more than just one drink.”