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I nod slowly. This is risky, but if we stop one group of jerks, another will pop up. Ever Knight is a prize in many ways, and if they think she has something they can take, something valuable, it will never stop. In a way, I’m kind of surprised it never happened before.
The shadowy corners of the campus that we keep a watchful eye over, no corner left in the dark, just got a hell of a lot more murky, and Ever’s would-be conquerors better watch their backs, because for Ever, we don’t play by the rules. We write them.
5
CHARLES
The moment I slam into the kitchen, it’s like walking onto a battlefield. The air’s thick with tension, an unspoken alarm screaming through the silence. With his body rigid, Damien is propped against the counter like he’s trying to hold up the world with his back. Alistair is looming like a dark god, his face of thunder telling me that shit is about to hit the fan.
“What’s going on?”
Alistair’s gaze pins mine, and I try not to flinch. I’m not scared of him, but he is slightly violent in the unpredictable sense. I’ll slice your throat without a second thought and walk away, but Alistair will stick around to mutilate your corpse and probably burn it for shits and giggles.
“It’s Ever,” he starts, and the way he says her name, like it’s something holy, something endangered, makes me straighten up.
“What about her?”
“A bet,” he growls, the word like a bullet. “Stanley and those other two idiots are planning to see which one of them will take her virginity.”
I feel it then, a red-hot surge of anger, a clawing protectiveness over something that belongs to us. “Are you fucking joking?”
“Does my face look like Jack Whitehall’s to you?” he snaps and runs his hand through his hair as he stands rigid, his back straight as a board, eyes blazing with that aristocratic fury only he can muster.
The sound of footsteps breaks the charged silence, and Benedict strolls in, all casual like he’s not stepping into a war zone. He leans against the doorframe, his gaze flicking over us, taking in every tense line of our bodies before settling on Alistair, who looks like he’s about to break someone’s face.
“We need to move faster.”
“We were just saying that when you came in,” Damien says, eyes on Ben.
I lean against the cold granite of the kitchen island, trying to keep my cool. My hands twitch with the urge to do something, anything.
“We need eyes on Ever. Everywhere she goes, every second.” My hands flatten on the marble countertop, the cool surface grounding me as I map out the strategy in my head.
Ben quickly catches on that the players have moved and not in the direction we were anticipating.
“Every corner of campus until we are in a position to play checkmate.”
Damien leans against the wall, his arms crossedover his chest, but I see it—the glint of approval in his steely gaze. He doesn’t have to say shit for me to know he’s got this covered. We all do.
“In the meantime, any prick who even looks her way answers to us.”
Benedict’s voice slices the silence, low and even. “Surveillance in shifts. No blind spots.”
“I’m taking this directly to the rot of this root,” Alistair declares, shoving up the sleeves of his designer shirt. “This isn’t something we sit and wait out.”
“The sect...” His furious gaze pins lasers onto mine like a deadly weapon.
“Iam the sect at this University.”
“Understood,” I murmur, dropping my gaze.
“Fuck watching,” Alistair snarls, making us all jump slightly. “We need to be proactive. Distract and divide.” His dangerous eyes gleam.
“Agreed,” I say and then glare at Alex. “You. She knows you and trusts you. Keep those assholes away.”
Alex meets my gaze with something hard in his eyes. My insides twist because I know he’s got a soft spot for Ever. Not that he would ever admit it out loud. I don’t know if Alistair knows and just doesn’t give a shit, but it’s there for me to see, if no one else.
He nods once, sharply. “I’ve got it.”
