Page 1 of Forbidden King (Magnolia Falls)

prologue

Kingston

TEN YEARS AGO

I couldn’t sleep. Thinking about River and Romeo being locked up in a juvenile detention center haunted me. Wondering how my brother and our best friend were surviving was something that I couldn’t shake. They’d both put on brave faces, and I’d done the same, but I knew they had to be scared as hell.

Add in the fact that Hayes and his sister, Saylor, had been taken from their home as well, and this shit show just kept getting better.

“Mom! No!” Saylor’s terrorized voice had me jumping to my feet and hurrying to the room across the hall. I pushed the door open, and she flailed around on the bed like she was fighting for her life.

Lately, it felt like we all were.

“Saylor. Saylor, hey.” I moved to sit on the edge of her bed and placed a hand on her forearm. “You’re okay. It’s King. I’m here.”

Her hands moved over her face to protect herself, and my chest squeezed.

She was fucking scared, and that shit pissed me off.

“Hey, hey. Look at me. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you again, okay?” I whispered as her wild eyes locked with mine. She blinked several times, her breathing frantic, and I could see a layer of sweat covering her forehead from the sliver of moonlight shining through the window in River’s bedroom.

“King?” She said my name as a question, and I heard the fear in her voice.

“Yeah. I’m here. You’re okay. You were having a nightmare.”

She used the back of her hand to swipe at the tear that broke free from her eyes, and she looked away. She’d always been a little shy—too sweet for her own good. She was my best friend Hayes’s little sister, so she was family.

End of story.

She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I woke you up. I’m fine.”

I reached for her chin and turned her face so that she was looking at me. “You don’t have to be fine. This is a lot to take. Do you want to tell me about it?”

Her blonde hair was in a long braid that hung over her shoulder, and her blue eyes locked with mine. “I just—I can’t believe all that’s happened over the last few weeks, you know? And now I’m here. I feel bad about your grandparents taking me in, and I’m worried about River and Romeo. I’m worried about my mom and brother.”

Her bottom lip trembled, and I stroked the loose strand of hair that had broken free away from her pretty face. “Everyone is going to be okay. I promise.” I gave her a reassuring smile. That was sort of my shtick. I could find something good in the shittiest of situations. It had always helped me when things went down, and I wanted to help her right now. “And my grandparents are devastated about River being sent to that hellhole. So having you here gives them a little bit of needed sunshine.”

She nodded, and her teeth sank into her bottom lip as tears started streaming down her cheeks, catching me off guard. I pulled her into my arms as sobs left her body. And I just held her there. I didn’t have a lot of experience with girls that were crying, because the girls I hung out with were usually trying to get in my pants, or vice versa. It was all laughter and flirtation, nothing deep.

That’s how I liked it.

What can I say? I’m a fifteen-year-old horny dude. Well, technically, I’ll be sixteen in a few months.

My hands stroked her back, and I breathed in all that goodness. Saylor Woodson was good to her core.

Smart and pretty and sweet.

And she was Hayes’s little sister. The most important person in my life.

We had a pact, the five of us. River, Romeo, Hayes, Nash, and me.

Ride or Die.

We were all brothers in our own way. So I’d promised Hayes I’d protect his sister while she stayed with us. My grandparents couldn’t afford to take both her and Hayes in. Nash lived alone with his dad, and his father wasn’t willing to take in a teenage girl, so they’d been split up temporarily.

We all had, in a way.

But this was better than the alternative, them being split up and living with strangers.

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