Page 13 of The Queen's Knights

“Percy, give me the ice.”

Percy shakes his head. “I’ll take care of it. We can deal with the breach later. I’ll meet you back in your office.”

Despite solving the mystery of who breached security at the club, I’m not prepared to head back to my office alone just yet. “I’ll wait. I want to talk to him.”

Percy looks miffed, but shakes his head. “Fine, but this isn’t really the place to have the conversation I think you want to have right now.”

Lance is watching me rather than Percy when Percy squats beside him and presses the ice pack to his bruised side. He jerks at the shock, but doesn’t look away from my face. He looks like he’s holding his breath.

“Hand me the bandage. We need to wrap this,” Percy says. I grab the rolled up athletic bandage, but rather than hand it to him, I unclip the metal holder and kneel in front of Lance to start binding the ice pack to his side. He stares at me in disbelief.

“Why did this happen?” I ask.

When he finds his voice, he says, “They were rumor-spreading dicks. Said awful things about you. I just couldn’t let it slide.”

“What did they say?”

He frowns and looks at Percy for guidance.

Percy sighs and shakes his head. “Sounds like word somehow got out about what happened to you last October. I suppose we’re lucky it took as long as it did.”

I tense and my hands start to shake, but I will myself to keep them steady while I bind this poor boy’s ribcage.Boy? Can you really think of him that way after Saturday?

Percy watches me for a moment, then says, “I’m going to go grab him a clean shirt. Will you be okay for a few?”

“I’ll be fine,” I say.

Percy nods, then hands Lance a second icepack. “For your face.” Then he shoots Lance a warning look and leaves the lounge, closing the door behind him.

I’m hyperaware of how intently Lance watches me, but despite this odd turn of events, I don’t feel unsafe with him.

Taking a breath, I ask, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one. I hope I didn’t break any laws the other night.”

“Depends. Did you break and enter?”

“Nope, just walked through an unlocked back door.”

“Why were you even there? Who told you about the club?”

“No one. I found an invitation to a party in the lobby of my residence hall. Thought it sounded fun. I had no idea what to expect. No ideawhoI’d see. Is it true what they said?”

His abrupt question catches me off-guard, and it takes a second for me to figure out he’s not talking about the club, but about the rumor that instigated his fight.

I glance up from my task and meet his eyes. He has a deep furrow between his eyebrows, and I get the sense he wants me to tell him no. When I just drop my gaze again, he curses.

“I’m going to fucking kill them,” he mutters.

I jerk my gaze back up. “No, you will not. Those idiots had nothing to do with it. Just leave it alone.”

“Who did it?” he demands.

I fasten the bandage, but don’t have the strength to stand again. I reach for a chair and drag it over, then rise and sit, closing my eyes against the nausea that roils in my belly.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I never saw his face. He was fast, strong. He came up behind me in my office when I wasn’t looking, grabbed my hair, forced me to my knees, blindfolded me, then…” I take a shuddering breath, not quite believing I’m explaining all this, but unable to stop. “Then he forced me to open my mouth…”

The moment rushes back in an icy, terrifying flood. The shock of it, the paralyzing fear, then not being able to breathe because he’d shoved himself down my throat. The panic, then the surrender. I still hate myself for not fighting harder.

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