Page 63 of Merciless Prince
Leah’s face was pale, and one of her arms was around Faye, whose eyes were red and puffy. “Can we come in?” Leah asked.
“Of course. Are you okay?” I said, stepping aside to let them enter my dorm.
Faye sniffed and sat down on the end of the bed. “I have to tell you something.”
“What?”
“I… I…” She stopped and burst into tears.
Leah sighed and looked at me. “She went on a date with some guy down in Cold Spring, and on their way back up here, they saw an accident.”
My heart began to thud painfully in my chest. “What sort of accident?”
Faye wiped her face. “We didn’t actually see it happen. We just saw all the police cars and tape blocking off the area. We had to slow down to pass it, because half the road was closed, and I saw…” She trailed off and took a big, heaving breath. “I saw someone getting loaded into an ambulance.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “Was it Cori?”
She nodded. “As soon as I realized it was her, I made Tom stop so we could talk to the police and see if they’d tell us what happened. There were all these skid marks on the road, and the car she was in was totaled. It was upside down and all smashed up.”
Horror filled my veins with ice water. “Is she okay?” I asked, voice quavering.
“I don’t know. She didn’t look conscious when we saw her getting loaded into the ambulance,” Faye replied, looking utterly stricken. “The police wouldn’t tell us much, but we overheard one of them saying something. Because of all the different skid marks on the road and the pattern they ran in, they think it could’ve been a hit and run.”
My blood ran cold. “What?”
“It wasn’t an accident.” Faye wiped her cheek again and took another deep breath. “Someone ran Cori right off the road.”
20
Killian
My eyes trackedShay from the shadows as she made her way around the courtyard.
The spacious area was filled with flickering candles, wreaths, and photos of Cori Cartwright, Shay’s best friend. Some girl from the English department had organized the vigil when she heard about the crash, and over a hundred students had turned up to chant Cori’s name, sing, and swap stories about her.
It was fucking ridiculous. She wasn’t even dead. She was in a coma.
The girl who organized the vigil would undoubtedly score herself some social brownie points for being so ‘kind’ and ‘supportive’ to Cori’s friends and family. It was typical of the average student at Bellingham—they’d do literallyanythingto raise their profile in academics or the social scene in the hope of bettering their future opportunities, even if it meant stomping all over others or being the kind of obnoxious asshole who’d organize a vigil for a girl they’d never met.
It wasn’t a surprise, though. As one of the top colleges in the country, Bellingham was always bound to be a cutthroat place filled with uptight, overachieving assholes. Even the vast majority of the film and performing arts students—who were renowned for being friendly and chilled out at other colleges—were like that at Bellingham. Fake, entitled pricks.
Not Shay, though. She stood out in this courtyard crowd like a sore thumb.
It wasn’t just because she was strikingly beautiful, with those sable-brown eyes and curves for days. It was because she wasreal.Her grief for her friend was genuine, and so were the tears glistening on her cheeks.
Clearly, I was a sick fuck, because those tears didn’t do anything to invoke my sympathy. Instead they made my cock twitch with arousal.
I briefly closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. My imagination was already running wild, picturing Shay bound by the wrists and ankles in black ropes, tearstained face tilting upward to look at me as I palmed my cock in front of her.
The image of her trembling flesh and stricken, panicked expression gave me a giddy rush; sent it speeding through my veins like a drug. It was just like the other night in the woods, when she was down on her knees in front of me, slowly realizing the huge mistake she’d made. Those sad doe eyes had never left my face as blackened tears cascaded down her cheeks, and my cock had never been harder.
It wasn’t because crying women turned me on. No, it was the heady rush of power I felt from seeing how easily I could make a beautiful girl fear me. From making her feel utterly helpless and powerless against me. The angrier that girl made me before I took her, the better, because it would make the already-potent high that much stronger when I forced her to accept her new place as an object; something to be used and abused.
Something to be owned.
Jesus, you really are fucking sick,I thought, lips twisting into a smirk.
I opened my eyes and sought out Shay again.
