Page 104 of Creatures of Chaos

“You’re right, I don’t. But I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it for him.”

His eyebrows rise in question, but I refuse to tell him anything else.

“Are you going to help me or not?” I ask.

“I should say no.”

I really didn’t think this was going to be that hard of a sell. “I don’t understand why you’re not jumping at the idea. You always seemed to find great pleasure in sticking it to Becks or rubbing things in his face.”

“This is different.”

“How so?”

Talon takes a step forward, crowding me. My breath catches when his eyes roam over my face, and he raises a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. The pad of his finger rings the shell of my ear before he drops his hand, sending a shiver down my spine.

“Fine. I’ll do it,” he says rather than answer my question.

“Good,” I say, swallowing to wet my throat and taking a step away from him. “We’ll do it at lunch.”

“Do it?” he says with a smirk, and I roll my eyes.

“I mean make it clear we’re like athingnow, or whatever.”

He leans a shoulder up against the wall, looking way too relaxed for the situation. “And how do you want us to do that?”

“We can meet up beforehand and walk into the courtyard holding hands or something.”

He chuckles. “And you think that will convince your princeling you’ve moved on?”

I cross my arms over my chest, annoyed at his mocking tone. “Well, then, what do you suggest?”

He smirks. “The hand holding is a good start, but if you want this to work, if you want him tobelieveit, we have to go further than some innocent hand holding.”

I swallow. “You want us to kiss in front of him?”

He shrugs. “It will certainly make a statement.”

My stomach flips, and I’m not sure if it’s because I know what it will do to Becks to see me kiss someone else or from the thought of kissing Talon.

No, I tell myself,it’s just because I know what seeing Becks kiss someone else would do to me and I don’t want to hurt Becks like that.

Kissing Talon is going to shred Becks’ heart—along with mine—but as much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. It’s what needs to be done.

I straighten my resolve and my spine and look Talon dead in the eye. “Fine. We’ll kiss.”

Surprise flashes in his eyes. He didn’t expect me to agree to that. But he recovers quickly. “With tongue?”

“Don’t push it,” I growl, and he chuckles.

“Okay, Freckles, you have yourself a deal.” He holds his hand out for me to shake, and when he wraps his fingers around mine, a little zing of awareness shoots up my arm. “I’ll see you at lunch,” he says, and then takes off to class.

Numbness starts to set in, and I watch his retreating form with one thought in mind. What have I gotten myself into?

Talonand I never discussed exactly where we would meet, so I’m stuck hiding in the science room, looking through the narrow rectangular window to avoid Becks while I search forTalon. I haven’t spotted either of them, but my biggest concern is running into Becks too soon.

Finally,finally, Talon swaggers past. I spring out of the room, almost barreling into him, but rather than looking off guard he just stares down at me.

“Change your mind yet?”

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