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“So that’s it?” she asks, tucking her hands into her pockets like nothing happened.
“I have a girlfriend.”
“I have a boyfriend.”
“I’m not like you,” I say, hopping down off the box. “And don’t think about me when you get home and finish what I started.”
I walk away, back to where Duke is still lying on the edge of the roof. Gloria doesn’t follow, and I tell myself I don’t care. I sit down next to Duke and slide my finger into my mouth, closing my eyes and letting the taste of Gloria Walton’s cunt spread over my tongue. I draw a slow breath, smelling her on my fingers, tasting her, almost feeling the flutter on the tip of my tongue when she cums.
I pull myself back from the sensation and glance around, the moment of transcendence gone. Duke is staring glassy-eyed up at the stars. Gloria is still on the other side of the roof, licking her wounds and doing whatever demon queens do when injured—probably planning to push me off the scaffolding when we climb down.
I don’t care. I played her game, just like she played mine. I know her world because it used to be mine, before her demon kings stole it, as Duke so succinctly put it. I know how the female half of her world works because it’s how Dixie’s works. Pics or it didn’t happen. Gossip is air. Validation is water. It’s meaningless if no one weighs in on it. How else do they know who to love, who to hate, who’s in and who’s out?
If I didn’t talk about it, brag I fucked the queen, that means she’s not worth talking about. And her life depends on being the most worthy of gossip, the most relevant, staying in the spotlight and on everyone’s news feed on every social media app. If I don’t fight her hellfire with fire, is she even worth fighting? If someone’s not petty enough to try to take her down when he has ammunition, is she no longer a worthy opponent?
Her entire life, her value, is based on how others perceive her. If no one wants gold anymore, it’s worthless. If she’s not the most feared, hated, and envied; if the boys don’t covet the kings for having her as their queen, her value is gone. Telling everyone that their queen crawled and begged for the leper to fuck her would ruin her in their eyes.
Telling no one would ruin her in her own eyes.
nineteen
Rumor Has It… Despite their cozy public appearance, the Queen and her boy toy have been notably separate during a few key recent events. Could there be trouble brewing between the Queen and her consort once again?
Gloria Walton
I hate him.
I stand on my side of the roof, resting the heel of my hands on the edge of the metal box, trying to get my breathing under control.
Put yourself together.
You look more like a whore than a queen.
Damn him. I can’t even give myself my usual pep talk without his words echoing in my head.
He thinks I’m a whore.
Stinging tears force their way through my lashes, and my throat hurts so badly I think something must be broken inside there, like it is inside every part of me.
God fucking damn him to hell.
I take shaky breath, dropping my head and letting the tears drip from my lashes straight onto the ground so they won’t leave tracks on my face.
After everything the Dolces have done, they didn’t destroy me. They couldn’t.
Why am I so fucking weak when Colt Darling touches me?
He’s my kryptonite.
And now…
Now he knows it.
A gust of icy wind whistles over the roof and I shudder, my shoulders shaking as the tears drip faster.
Does he know everything else?
He pretends he forgot it all, but what if he’s lying? What if it was all part of his plan to break me all along, to shatter me once and for all? He could do it in an instant, telling the school what we did. But what if he’s more like Baron than I ever knew, and he’s biding his time, studying me?
