Chapter 10 BUTTERFLIES.
SLOANE'S POINT OF VIEW.
They all look up as soon as we approach, interest flickering from their phones to us as they all stare at me with their signature smirks on their lips.
“She’s with me,” Lucien says, loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear. I guessed his declaration was because they all looked at me with a mix of shock and condescension, as though they thought this was not my place among them.
They were, after all, the few people Lucien allowed in his sacred spot in school.
I open my mouth to object, but he pulls me down onto his thighs before I can blink, making me freeze in his hold, as he wraps his arms around my waist, his other hand draped across my thigh.
Suddenly, my lower belly flutters at the contact of his skin on mine. I feel everyone's eyes on me as the horsemen inspect me like an insect under a microscope.
For a while, no one says anything until one of them speaks up.
Theo smirks. “Recruit?”
“She’s not a recruit,” Lucien says, voice low and edged. “She’s the reason this school’s going to learn how to shut the hell up.”
They buzz with curiosity. To his response, but I can barely focus on them. Not when I am literally on the thighs of the most powerful guy in school, and he has his arms on me. It feels weird, but at the same time, oddly satisfying as I try my best not to wiggle under him.
Especially because I can feel his....member under me hardening with each second.
I swallow internally as I try to appear unfazed, but I don't think it's working, because Kai looks at Lucien as though he knows what's going on.
I feel the heat of Lucien’s palm against my thigh under the table, hidden from everyone else's sight. It felt unusual, and completely far from innocent, as he caressed the exposed skin of my thigh above my knees.
I stab a piece of fruit with my fork to distract myself from the need to wiggle, or crawl under a hole, and hide.
Lucien plucks it off my fork and eats it like it’s his. I watch as his tongue darts out and sucks on the piece of mango, before he chews on it, and eventually swallows.
'Don't you wish it were you in his mouth?' My subconscious whispered to me, and I immediately shook it off.
Instead of staring at him like a dog in heat, I glare instead with feigned anger. My glare could set the room on fire, but instead, he smiles at me as I amuse him.
“So,” Kai drawls, leaning forward. Like he's about to tell me a secret, “You selling yourself for tuition, scholarship girl?”
My fork freezes halfway to my mouth as I pause in shock at his question.
Lucien’s voice is cold as ice as he says, “Say that again.” His dare makes me feel uncomfortable, as I lean forward slightly in an attempt to hide myself from the people in this place.
Kai grins like he enjoys the danger and the reaction he elicits from Lucien. “Relax, Ravenscroft. I’m just asking the question the rest of the room’s dying to.”
Before I can snap back, I feel Lucien’s fingers lace through mine on top of the table. “She doesn’t sell herself,” he says, looking directly at the nearest table of gossip-hungry girls leaning in slightly in a bid to listen in on our conversation. “She’s mine. And I don’t share.”
At Lucien's words, they begin to whisper amongst themselves like hungry wolves with the latest news. It is in that moment that I hear a flash go off from someone's phone as the camera shutter clicks.
Someone just took my photo again.
Ever since I became Lucien's fake, my pictures have been taken so many times, you would think I was a celebrity, and not the charity case of Ravenscroft High.
My cheeks burn, partially in anger, partly something else I refuse to name. Instead, I stifle my opinion and munch on my fruit. The taste of the once sweet fruit turns bitter in my mouth all of a sudden, and the need to go home and hide fills me.
Across the room, I catch Roxanne watching, her smile brittle as Matt hovers beside her like a shadow.
"I thought the only people allowed up here had to be invited in," I asked Lucien, and he shrugged with a smirk on his face.
"I had them allow me in by my guard, just for a few minutes, so they could see you on the very floor Roxanne was never allowed on, not even when she was with me."
I looked back at him in shock at that bit of information, "You never allowed her in?"
I always thought she was allowed privileges as his girlfriend, so she would naturally be everywhere he controlled access to.
He nodded as he smirked at me. My gaze darts towards her and Matt, both of them look from outside as they stare through the transparent glass at us.
Lucien follows my gaze, and the temperature in the cafe drops. “Smile for her,” he murmurs.
“What?”
He turns my face toward him and kisses me, slow, deep, passionate, and deliberate. My nails dig into his shoulders at the force of the kiss, and I’m certain half the room just stopped breathing.
When he finally pulls back, he doesn’t look at me. He looks at Roxanne, and it’s not a smile—it’s a warning.
“Welcome to the dark side, scholarship girl,” he says under his breath. “We don’t do mercy here.”
Theo tips his head back and whistles slowly, the sound both haunting and disturbing. “That’s… new. Didn’t think you had it in you, Ravenscroft.” He said, his eyes directed at Lucien; the latter simply ignores him, because I can feel his stare on me.
Lucien's thumb brushed on the inside of my wrist like he was checking my pulse, or memorizing the beat of my pulse. I couldn't tell.
Caspian snorts, flipping a knife in his hand from god-knows-where. “Careful, princess. Around here, sitting at this table makes you fair game.”
“Guess I’ll have to learn to shoot,” I say, shoving a grape in my mouth just to keep from saying something stupider as I try not to cringe at my response.
Kai leans back, his grin widening. “Oh, I like her.”
Lucien’s gaze slides to him, razor-sharp. “Don’t.”
The air between them hums with the kind of tension that makes the rest of the table go quiet.
The air between them hums with the kind of tension that makes the rest of the table go quiet, but the horsemen don't stop smirking though as though this was a regular occurrence between them.
I know, in that moment, two things:
Whatever game Lucien’s playing, I’m his weapon.
And, Weapons don’t get to choose their targets.