Page 19 of Reign

“I thought so, too, at first. This whole time, I thought my mother’s death was mutually exclusive from this academy—from me. Until Sabine forced me to figure out perspective. A person’s actions … they can be seen as choices or mistakes. So I’m asking you here, now, please, how am I supposed to interpret yours?”

Chase eats up the space between us, his hands clamping on my upper arms and yanking me against him. His hot breath sweeps over my cheeks, his sweet, minty smell nearly buckling me to the ground. I don’t—can’t—let the impact of his proximity show on my face.

“Listening to my father without question was a mistake,” he whispers harshly, his eyes burning against mine. “It’s ingrained in me, to emulate him. I nearly lost my sister because of it, and it was with her in mind that I targeted you. But you changed me, in the moment, at the end, fuck, with your first steps into this school. You were traumatized innocence, and I couldn’t make sense of you or of the reasons why my father wanted such a delicate, bruised, wide-eyed thing under his watch. But I listened—to you, to him, and I learned. And when you and I slept together, that wasn’t part of his plan—that was my choice. Opening myself up to the true origins of the Nobles and Virtues was my choice. Deciding to protect you instead of manipulate you was my choice.” He slides his hands to my shoulders. “Standing with you, in this room, in direct opposition to the shitstorm going on upstairs, is my choice. You, Callie, are what defines me these days, and that is why I decided to keep Headmaster Marron’s true identity from you.”

His face is blurred into a faded, bleak watercolor, and he uses his thumbs to wipe the teardrops from under my eyes. I start to say—

“I’m not finished,” he says, tilting his head as he searches my face. “I get to say my piece, too. Your accusations against your stepdad were a mistake. And you not being at the apartment to meet your mother for dinner when you were supposed to was a mistake. Your friend’s overdose came from the choice she made to shoot up and wasn’t the result of your decision to go to that party. Piper is not your fault. Ivy is not your fault. Your mom—no, Callie, look at me.”

I dove down in defense, my chin digging into my chest, my shirt dampening with my tears. Chase lifts my head up by curling a finger under my jaw, urging my gaze to his.

“Your mom,” he continues through my soft sobs, “isn’t dead because of anything you did. So, now I’m going to pose the same kind of question to you: Are you going to let other people’s choices and mistakes define you?”

“Stop,” I say, pushing against his chest. It’s too hot in his space. Too real. “You’re not—that’s not—”

“The point you were trying to make?” Chase offers a small smile. “Next time, don’t spar with me thinking you have an automatic win.”

“I’m damaged,” I croak. “These deaths, the destruction that comes in my wake, it’s because of my DNA, the blood in my veins—I’m mentally unstable, unreliable, a loser at making the right decisions. I can’t even write a detailed letter and email it to every possible person in Briarcliff existence without it being discredited or erased.”

“You are so much more than that.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why am I hiding out in the basement with a guy who thinks keeping me blind and isolated is the best way to protect me?”

Chase’s expression goes stiff, his fists clenching as they rest on my shoulders, his internal war made starkly apparent with the forced calm he’s etched into his face. He stares at me, looks away, then stares at me again.

“Chase, what—?”

He crushes his lips to mine.

7

Callie

Chase uses a distraction tactic as old as time—sex, feelings, touch—and I’m a slave to it, craving the euphoria of pleasure, the ease of forgetting, every time his tongue slides over mine.

“I need you.” Chase’s breathes into my lips, searing them with vicious, demanding fire no hearth could ever match. “I need you so bad right now.”

“Chase, we’re not … this isn’t the…”

His lips skim to my neck and while his fingers travel to the hem of my skirt.

I grab his waist in automatic reaction, but I’m not pushing him off.

And so, I give in.

My fingers claw. My nails dig into his skin. They work together to rip his shirt out from his pants. With his hot exhales coating my exposed cleavage and his trailing touch on my inner thighs, it’s hard to imagine a time I’d ever say no to him, unfathomable that I’d ever tell him to stop.

I try to pull away, to separate our mouths, but each time I do, my arms yank him closer, my body molded to his.

I wrench at his collar and his shirt rips open, buttons scattering to the floor. As soon as his gorgeous, firelit chest is exposed, I lick between his pecs.

Chase groans, his fingers tangling at the back of my head, ushering me down until my lips are at his belt, and I make quick work of removing that, too.

He kicks his pants off, and in those freeze-frame seconds, I realize my shirt and blazer have somehow been pulled off as well. A black lace bra, plaid skirt, and tights are all that remain between me and him, but I find I’m not cold.

I’m not chilled at all.

I grip his dick in my hands, familiar, hot silk sliding against my palm, and when his tip beads with pearlescent shine, my tongue darts out and catches it like a dewdrop.

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