Page 45 of Malevolent King

“Now, this is a party.” She grinned at me before delving into the crowd.

Luca kept his arm around my shoulders and pushed into the room. The suite was packed with partygoers, and the lights were low. Music blared, and violet slices of neon light flashed over the crowd now and again. Angelo was right at my back; I could feel his tension. We pushed through the crowd, and Luca stopped every few seconds to greet someone he knew from school.

“Whose party is this?” I asked Luca.

He looked at me blankly, unable to hear over the music.

“I said, whose party is this?” I shouted in his ear.

He shrugged, clearly clueless and unconcerned.Turning toward the long bar at one side of the suite, he pulled me with him. I was getting more and more annoyed by his heavy arm. I tried to shrug it off, and luckily managed this time. Finally free of the burden, I trailed behind him, looking for Chiara. She was at the bar, already downing shots. I turned to Angelo, feeling his judgement.

“I guess itisprom,” I offered him, and a frown crossed the bodyguard’s face.

I felt bad for putting him in a position where it was hard to protect me, but I could hardly just head home on prom night at eleven p.m., not after I’d risked so much to come. I couldn’t be the broken girl who had only felt excitement about life when I was stalked through the gym and pinned to the floor by a self-professed killer.

Aren’t you already?

I rejected that voice. I’d been ignoring it all week. The truth was, what had happened with Nikolai was the most excitement I’d ever had. He had touched me, chased me, kissed me. He’d broken my father’s rules without a second thought. It was addictive, the thrill of really living. In my deepest of hearts, I worried that I’d never feel that again.

Angelo sighed and found a nearby wall to loom from, and I tried my best to pay attention to Chiara’s rambling conversation. She spied plenty of people she knew from school, and I dutifully followed her around the crowded suite as she ran this way and that to talk to people. She’d always been more social than me and had the kind of freedom I’d only ever been able to dream about. The result of being guarded constantly, a valuable chess piece on my father’s board, was that I wasn’t exactly sure how to hang out with people my age. I felt awkward and pained as I smiled and tried to join in conversations.

After about an hour, I gave up and went to find a bathroom. Inside, I stared at myself in the glass. Was there something wrong with me? Why wasn’t I having fun? Why did I always feel like the odd one out?

Was it just my upbringing that set me apart, or was I destined to never really feel like I belonged anywhere? Not having an answer to the questions that had plagued me my entire life, I washed my hands and left the bathroom, slamming into a body outside the room.

My anxiety spiked as I pushed away from a broad figure, looking up to glimpse Luca’s face.Oh, it was only him.

“Hey, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Luca said, pulling me into his body.

“Just partying,” I ground out, and hated the way his hands felt hot and sweaty against the silk of my thin dress.

“Let’s party together. I got rid of Angelo, he’s distracted.” Luca hiccupped and grinned.

I craned my neck to look over his shoulder at the packed sitting room but couldn’t make out much at all.

“Let’s see what’s along here.”

Slinging an arm over my shoulders again, like the world’s most irritating scarf, he pushed me along the corridor toward a turn at the end.

“Is this still the same suite? It’s huge,” I muttered, looking around as we passed an indoor hot tub and a few bedrooms. The music grew slightly quieter, allowing the headache that was pressing at my temples to lessen a little. “How do you know all this is here?”

There weren’t any other partygoers at this end of the suite. The sudden emptiness of the hall was unsettling.

“Some guy told me.” Luca raised a finger to his lips. “It’s a secret, though, only for the initiated.” He laughed.

I stopped our forward momentum with effort. “What guy?”

“The guy who’s throwing this awesome party.”

“Does he go to school with you?” I asked, nerves gathering in me.

Luca laughed and shook his head. “Fuck, no. Anyway, why do you care about him? Hurry, before someone else comes along here,” he complained and pulled me harder.

My heels slipped, and I nearly fell, only just catching my balance. The words to warn Luca or demand that we go back to the party fell from my lips as he tugged me into a dark room and shut the door behind us. The sound of the lock clicking was like a gunshot in the silence.

It was a dimly lit bedroom, and shadows lay in every corner.

I stared around, awareness prickling across my skin.

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